1.
1. Reflect how expectations come into play in classroom management, in your teaching personality, and your relationship to parents. If you have a student who you identify as having low expectations, do you think you can make a difference in your year with that student – why or why not?
1. Reflect how expectations come into play in classroom management, in your teaching personality, and your relationship to parents. If you have a student who you identify as having low expectations, do you think you can make a difference in your year with that student – why or why not?
2.
Interview your teacher, another teacher in your
building, or your principal about how to get parents involved with the class
and school.
1, I think that expectations play a huge role in teaching, classroom management and relationships. I am a firm believer that children can reach high expectations and that we should not set low expectations and squash their abilities. As long as our expectations are realistic, children can reach them. However, this does not mean that all you have to do is set high expectations...some children will need more support in reaching expectations. It may take them longer or they made need to take a different path. I think that even a child with low expectations can change to high expectations with support and modeling. The important thing is to provide a safe, community where children feel they can take risks and achieve.
ReplyDeleteThese same expectations on children can be placed on the parents. If you support them, they can achieve greatness...in this case, greatness is in the forms of volunteering, communication and the at home connection. If you set the expectation of what you want/need then parents will have an understanding of what they should do.
2. My teacher stated that the best way they have found with getting parents involved is to first get them to the parents night, There you can have sign up sheets for parent volunteers, mystery readers, and field trip helpers. Another way to keep parents involved is through letters, folders, and keeping them up to date with what is happening within the room.
Most important point you made is that it takes time to change a person's expectations of themselves. Even if you don't see much change the year you work with the child, mention it to his/her next teacher so your good work is continued.
DeleteNancy
For Mary
ReplyDeletePart 1:
The teacher in our classroom has high expectations for each of the students. I myself feel that I too have high expectations for our students. We have seen so far what they each are capable of and the expectations we have for work, classroom behavior and school behavior. We enforce (strong word I know) these expectations in order to be consistent and expect these expectations from each of the students. We make the students accountable for these expectations through their voices and choices. These expectations come into play for the classroom, teachers and parents. The expectations are set and are expected to be met inside the classroom and encouraged and corrected by the teacher. The parents come into play when the expectations of the classroom in regards to both behavior and completion of work need to be addressed or reinforced at the home. Having specific expectations and making sure everyone is aware of them makes the parents, teachers and students a team, making possible showing and implementing the expected behaviors and expectations.
There are some students who we have lower expectations for. However, low is not really low. Those expectations may in fact be high for them they just not may not be as high as the rest of the class. Each student has a different plan for success and thus each student should have a tailored set of expectations for them, goals in a way that we as the teacher would like them to meet. If we remember that important bit of information that expectations for each may be different, we will be able to tailor our learning and our thinking to help provide the scaffolding the students need in order to meet these expectations and thus succeed.
Part 2:
When thinking about how to get parents involved in the classroom I didn’t need to specifically sit down and ask my classroom teacher. This is something that we talk about during planning and have mentioned off and on since the start of the school year. Here are just a few ways my school gets the parents involved. One way to get parents involved is by having a mystery reader. The parents are encouraged to sign up for a day, bring in their favorite picture book and read it to the class. Parents are also encouraged to come to the students Community Meetings that occur once a month. There, parents are given an opportunity to see and hear what the students are working on. Some students in grades K-2 are given speaking parts (which rotate for each meeting) and share in front of the rest of the students and parents so the parents are able to see their children speak in front of a group. Parents are also encouraged to volunteer for our field trips so they can spend time with the students interacting with them during a content focused trip. Parents are also encouraged to participate in lessons throughout the year where students may go home and have to have their parents provide them with information about their backgrounds or help with specific projects etc. The school itself has parent’s breakfasts where parents can come and speak with our principal and vice principal and discuss the happenings of the school and the classroom.
I think that expectations play a big role in your relationship with your students, parents, school personnel and classroom management. If a teacher does not expect anything from a student they have no reason to try to succeed. The teacher I am working under has high expectations for all of her students, but her expectations are not the same for each student. She takes each student from where they are and sets individual goals based on where they are and where she thinks they can go. She also consistently lets them know what her expectations are. There isn't a student in our classroom that doesn't know what is expected of them academically, socially, emotionally. She is constantly telling them, usually building on a previous expectation and reminding them of what her expectations are. I have also found in some of my previous experience that children love to have high, achievable expectations set. Trying to reach for that brass ring.
ReplyDeleteShe also communicates with her parents weekly in a class letter and individually on an as needed basis.
Her expectations for herself are just as high, and I think the students see that, so they feel like she is not asking anything of them that she wouldn't ask of herself.
Part 2:
I didn't have to speak to my teacher about ways to get parents involved. It has come up multiple times. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, there are times that she has so many parents sign up that she has to pick and choose. For instance, chaperoning field trips. The second grade has also already let parents know of a curriculum project that is going to need the help of parents in January.
I myself am a parent and have seen it from the other side. The weekly notes always help. And the direct invitations in to the classroom are always wonderful!
As a preK teacher I used to ask parents to come in and talk about their culture or make a craft or just read a story. I did have a request though. I asked that parents not come in on their child's birthday as not everyone's parent could and the young ones got very upset.
Parent involvement is very important. A parent likes to feel as if they are part of their child's education.
Julie White
DeleteOctober 24, 2012
Blog Post
1. In our class, we have a student who I will call Kevin, who has an IEP, and a number of different challenges that lower the expectations for his learning. Kevin is on the autism spectrum, tires easily from work, and has low muscle tone, so physical challenges, such as writing, are difficult for him to accomplish. Kevin also has extreme difficulty focusing for longer than 20-30 seconds, unless the subject is of his choosing, and to his liking. Kevin sits in the front row of the class, but never can stay with the group during any sort of lesson. Most of the time Kevin dazes off into space, or seems to nap on his desk. He is pulled from the room for OT and special services so often, that focusing truly is a struggle, as he never knows where we are in the lesson.
During snack a few days ago, Kevin came to me with his snack (a pouch of applesauce and bottled water) and told me that he needed help – translation: he wanted me to open his snacks for him. I told him to hold tight, while I twisted each cap. I showed him how you pull each side to the opposite direction, and to his surprise, he could open and close his snacks. Often times, because expectations are lowered for him, I end up excusing a great deal of behaviors and do for him things he should be learning to do. His parents insist that there is too much work, and so we let a lot of assignments slide, which I understand, but am torn about. When so many things are excusable, when is it ok to make a child accountable to have responsibility? Sometimes I fear that other students are unfocused and slacking off from their work because it is ok for Kevin to do so. I hope that by teaching Kevin small pieces of independence, I can help make a difference for him and his development this year.
2. Due to budget cuts, we no longer have a librarian at our school. Notices have gone home to parents during the first week of school, asking for volunteers to help run the library so that children are still able to have this specialist as part of their academic experience. Our principal has stressed the importance of not losing one of our great resources, and created a strong community outreach program with students and their parents who want to keep the library alive. Participating in a parent and family run library creates a collaborative school learning experience for students and their families. Students feel great pride knowing their families are active in our school community, and parents are happy to be involved in their child’s learning.
Julie, I love what you wrote about Kevin! I think that you said it perfectly. It's so hard to find the balance with kiddos that have different needs, but when you have small moments like this it can really make you think about the big picture and hopefully every little milestone will help him become more independent!!
Delete1. I believe that we need to set the bar high for all students... but not the same bar. I feel that different students need different things- what is fair is not always the same for all. It is a hard concept for some students to grasp (if they notice others having to do less etc...), however if we continue to teach this way and hold students accountable for what they do or need to do, we are giving them what they need. I think that it is very possible to make a difference in every child's year if we set the bar high for him or her. If we set it low assuming that he or she can not reach it, they will slip through the cracks and he will not progress as people and learners.
ReplyDelete2. A 2nd grade teacher in my school said that she likes to begin the year with a survey. She invites parents to come in the day before school for a drop in. She also asks for parent volunteers for field trips.
She said an important part of parent teacher involvement is letting them know that she is always there for them- whether it be to email or stop by and set up a meeting. In our school we have parent volunteers in library, so that is a nice thing to add to the classroom community. She also told me that home and back folders are a good way to communicate through notes or letters.
1. My cooperating teacher and I noticed something that has been quite valuable regarding our lowest performing student (let's call him "A"). Although, he repeated the 1st grade he still not on grade level for 2nd grade, and I as I mentioned above he is in fact our lowest performing student so far. Since day one he never really gave any assignment a good try before asking either myself of my cooperating teacher for help. When we noticed that he wasn't even attempting to begin assignments independently we started to encourage him to try it on his own first and to our delight he was able to many more things independently than he gave himself credit for. We now know that a little encouragement with this kids can go a long way. Data still shows that he is underperforming, but unfortunately that is the down side to all that testing we have to put kids through...many of them are able to do so much more than what a single test score gives them credit for.
ReplyDelete2. Parent involvement in my school is very low. One of the 1st grade teachers told me that one time she had a student for two years and the parents never showed up for "Meet the Teacher Night" or parent-teacher conferences. She pointed out that for various reasons it is usually the kids who have the most difficulty in school whose parents never can make it in to talk one-on-one with the teacher. Her goal this year is to make the extra effort to really reach out and connect with the parents who are no-shows for conferences.
1. I believe that having expectations is very important, both for students and for parents. It is important for the students to know what we expect from them academically, socially and in their behavior. Expectations can be general and give to the whole class, but then broken down for individual students. For example we have two students on checklists for their behavior, one has so much potential academically, he understands the material and complete the work but calls out in class, distracts his peers around him/chats and even gets out of his seat to talk to someone at times, because of these things he would not finish work, other students would not finish work, and the class was very often disrupted including me and my co-teacher which we were doing whole class instruction. Once we started this checklist that goes home each night to his parents to see he has turned things around, he still calls out or chats with his friends but the number of times it happens in a single lesson or a single day has gone down. Academically, we have a couple students who have challenges beginning assignments so the goal for them is to start their assignment with out being ask multiple times, other students who are very low have academic goals to finish 2 math questions out of 4 in the time given. Each student varies a bit, the students are constantly reminded of the expectations, when a student misbehaves or calls out, I often say "oh _________, I would love to call on you if just raised your hand", another phrase that comes up a lot is, "that is very unexpected behavior". We have one student who is low academically, and is unmotivated, he constantly wants the teachers approval and help. Being positive and encouraging has helped him to build some confidence that he can do it and that it is okay to get something wrong, if he gives it his best shot, it has helped a lot and many times he does do it correctly and well. One things that I really like that my teacher does is when we do something such as a math worksheet and a student needs support with it she will write on it "done with teacher support" so when it is sent home the parent knows so their is no surprise, or when a student does not get something finished or they need constant re-directing she write a note on it so the parent knows that the expectation was to finish it and it wasn't done or that the student had a difficult time staying focused and completing their work.
ReplyDelete2. Parents are very involved in our students' education. From signing homework notebooks so we know they looked to see what they had that night or got the notices to volunteering to help in the classroom, we have an abundance of help and communication. First off, we have a class website that we update with schedule changes, news/happenings in the class, needs, etc. We also have a 3rd grade team letter and individual class letters sent home weekly or at the start of the unit so parents know what is going on. We have field trip next week and we had more than enough parents volunteer to be chaperones, we had to turn down 5 parents. We have a big project coming up and will need help from parents to help the kids during class time to create the group murals, we had a number of parents volunteer for 45mins-1 hour blocks. We also have parent photocopies that help with the photocopying that we needs. We do not have any workbooks, the teachers had to create them themselves so we had had to have a lot of copying done in addition to the homework packets. They are very supportive and helpful to not only the 3rd grade team of teachers but to the students as well. I believe that the more the parents can be a part of their education the better off the students will be.