How Can We Engage Parents/Guardians in Education?

Copyright Bhaskar Peddhapati

I cannot recall all of the conversation, but I recall freezing and not knowing what to say. In my first phone call home as a teacher, I was attempting to find out why Dylan was having trouble in class. I knew that Dylan had ADHD and was significantly behind in reading and writing (his IEP told me that, but unfortunately, not much else). He was struggling with everything: from academics to classroom behaviour to social interaction, nothing was going right in my grade 8 English class for Dylan. And I was stumped. I thought that calling home to talk to his parents would help - after all, I reasoned, they must know what works to help him calm down, focus, and get something done.  I called, explained Dylan's latest blow-up in class, and well, it turned ugly pretty quickly when mom asked, "What did you do to set him off?" 

I made some pretty big assumptions and errors in that phone call. Firstly, I really didn't have a plan; I assumed that all parents would offer some form of support for my travails and challenges as a teacher, completely neglecting the idea that a) they might not be supportive of me; b) they possibly wouldn't have strategies for helping me - after all, school and home are very different environments; and c) maybe I did "set him off". 

15 years later, I still reflect on that first experience as I continue to dislike phone calls home. Let's face it: most aren't for positive feedback. But, I did manage to work out a few key ideas for communicating with parents and guardians, whether it's in a phone call or a face-to-face conference.

What are the 5 most important criteria for communicating with parents/ guardians?

Kindness - start with something positive, or better yet, call home with good news. Be sure to offer some concrete examples of something that is going well in class. Clearly establish that you are trying to help Dylan or Susie succeed in your class. Avoid judgement statements while stating the problem: focus on the behaviour or the issue (which can be corrected).

Honesty - be honest about what's happening. The purpose of the phone call or conference is to ensure that everyone knows that Susie or Dylan is struggling and why. Don't speak in edu-babble, but outline what the problem is clearly and succinctly. Use specific, curriculum based examples if it's an academic issue. If it's a behavioural concern, reference the learning skills, and again, use specific examples. Ensure you know the student's IEP or history as outlined in the OSR.

Ask questions - if you are unsure of why a student might be struggling, try to determine what might be contributing to that issue. But, of course, there could be things happening at home that a parent or guardian simply may not want you to know. Hopefully, a kind approach and a focus on solutions will help create a positive relationship so that you might get more information. But, we can only go so far in our questioning. 

Offer solutions - explain what you intend to do, what you thing might be done by the student, and what supports the parents/guardians could offer for the student's success. Be sure to have specific next steps. Solicit their feedback to ensure that everyone understands what needs to happen in order for the student to be successful. Provide resources if possible.

Listen - most importantly, be sure to listen carefully to what is being said (and what isn't!). Be responsive to what the parents/guardians are expressing. Rephrase what you are hearing in order to clarify and summarize so that there is no misunderstanding. 

Have other suggestions? What would make your list of success criteria for effective communication with parents/ guardians? 

What Are the Elements of Good Professional Learning?

What characterizes a great learning experience for adult learners? It's not that different than what is great for students. Aside from the obvious - you cannot please everyone, all the time - there are a few key things that can be done to create an environment in which adults will want to learn. Luckily, educators and researchers like Michael Fullan, Thomas R. Guskey, John Hattie, and even the Ministry of Education (among many others!) have written extensively on engaging educators in their professional learning.

1. Provide Choice: allow educators to "choose their own adventure". No one likes being told they have to do something, so forcing someone to participate in a new initiative isn't likely to yield results. Differentiate professional learning opportunities to appeal to your audience. Sessions need to range from ballroom delivery models with "experts" to job-embedded collaborative inquiry.
2. Create a Professional, Respectful Environment: treat educators as the professionals they are. Have high expectations of staff, but honour their experience and knowledge. Build on it to help develop new knowledge and understanding. Invite teachers to reflect on their practice in a non-judgmental forum. Assume positive intentions.
3. Foster a Growth Mindset: Use a strength-based approach (sometimes referred to as appreciative inquiry) to help educators identify what they do well and build from that strength. Foster positive mindsets in staff, especially if significant change is happening. See Carol Dweck's work on growth mindsets in students. The same assumption - that people have the ability to grow and learn - is true of our educators.
4. Facilitate Discussions: Provide ample time for teachers to talk about what new learning they are experiencing. Let them learn from each other. Use protocols (such as those explained by the National School Reform Faculty) to structure these conversations and ensure that all voices are heard.
5. Model Effective Practice: Demonstrate and model new strategies for teachers. Encourage them to engage in the activities and effective practices we would like to see replicated in our schools.
6. Purpose/Audience: Make the purpose of the learning relevant, meaningful and authentic for the intended audience. Plan and communicate clear intended outcomes. Share the outcomes with participants. Everyone should know why they are participating in professional learning. Big ballroom sessions rarely lead to transformative change, but they can introduce new ideas to people. It's important to follow up with next steps. Guskey points out the importance of planning for intended outcomes:

"...the first thing people need to do when they plan professional development is to specify what impact they want to have on student learning. They begin planning by asking, “What improvements in student learning do we want to attain and what evidence best reflects those improvements?” Then they step back and ask, “If that's the impact we want, what new policies or practices must be implemented to gain that impact?” Next, they consider what types of organizational support or change are needed to facilitate that implementation, and so forth. This planning process compels educators to plan not in terms of what they are going to do but in terms of what they want to accomplish with their students. All other decisions are then based on that fundamental premise.

"Know thy impact" 

John Hattie, through his comprehensive meta-analysis, tells us that there are many effective and ineffective teaching and learning practices. Hattie's research tells us that we "need to retain learning at the forefront and to consider teaching primarily in terms of its impact on student learning." (2011, 1). All educators (including those who deliver PD) need to recognize that their practices have impact on learning; further, all educators need to constantly question whether or not they are having positive impacts on learning.

“The teacher’s role is to change students from what they are to what we want them to be, what we want them to know and understand – and this of course highlights the moral purpose of education” (Hattie, 2012).

Fullan references "the moral purpose of raising the bar and closing the gap for all students" (2013, 3). Appealing to educators' motivation for teaching makes sense. Fullan also discusses how new technologies, new pedagogies, and what he calls "change knowledge" will help motivate staff to further their own learning:

"Change will become more enjoyable when it proffers experiences that are engaging, precise, and specific; high yield (good benefit relative to effort); higher order (stretching humans in creativity, problem solving and innovation); and collaborative for individual and collective benefit." (Fullan, 2013, 3).

And finally, while it might not seem important to everyone, good food and coffee help. If we are going to pull teachers from their classrooms to engage in their own learning, the least we can do is feed them!  

References:

Fullan, M. (2013) Stratosphere: Integrating Technology, Pedagogy, and Change Knowledge. Toronto: Pearson.

Hattie, J. (2011). Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning. New York: Routledge.

Kreider, H. and S. Bouffard (Winter 2005/2006). "A Conversation with Thomas R. Guskey," The Evaluation Exchange: A Periodical on Emerging Strategies in Evaluation. Volume XI, Number 4. Harvard Family Research Project.

No Technology Without Good Pedagogy!

"Emergent technology use is different. It requires time spent deeply considering the instructional value added by new tools and time spent crafting instruction that puts content and instructional goals ahead of teaching the technology." (Kadjer, 2007, 216).

I often wonder how to best help teachers focus on effective pedagogy with technology.  Sara Kadjer writes about how to incorporate technology into the English classroom in meaningful, authentic ways through the use of blogs, wikis, podcasts, websites , and social media through the creation of artifacts like book trailers. Other authors (and a whole host of Tweeting educators!) concur. Catherine Imperatore points to research which confirms that "students feel a greater sense of ownership and pay greater attention to detail when they know that their work will be published online" (2009). 

New media tools - including social media - offer students opportunities to learn these new formats (which will be necessary for their futures, I believe), but they breathe new life into great pedagogy. There's a reason why book reports have been used for so long: it's a great way to summarize a book and provide one's opinion. But really, by the time adolescents hit high school, is the book report still necessary? Kadjer would suggest we use new tech tools and substitute the book trailer or have kids podcast their reports. 

"Teaching with technology in the English classroom is about always looking, whether it's seeing kids and the range of talents and literacies that they bring into our classrooms or it's seeing the possibilities in a new tool that allows me to amplify curricula for the better" (Kadjer 2007, 229).

Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Webtools for Classrooms, is an indispensable tool for educators wanting to marry good pedagogy and technology in the classroom. There are umpteen edu-bloggers writing about the successful integration of technology and pedagogy.

Of course, there is also the need to teach the technology. Many teachers want to simply put the technology in the hands of kids and let them demonstrate their learning. I agree that some kids have the capacity to figure out the technology and use it to demonstrate their learning. But not all will be able to do this. Our students need direct instruction in how to use tech tools if they are going to demonstrate successfully their learning. I think that exploration of tech tools is a great thing and that students should be given opportunities to try different tools, even if the teacher doesn’t always know how to use that tool themselves. This is learning. However, I worry that teachers we sometimes ask students to demonstrate learning using a medium they don't know and we give an unfair advantage to some over others. Consider a situation where we ask students to demonstrate their learning in a video and then evaluate that video as evidence of learning. This can be problematic: did the teacher instruct about how to create a good video? What are the evaluation criteria? I worry that the slickest video will get high marks, even if it’s not based a deeper understanding. This isn’t necessarily a new problem — many students have learned how to create good looking posters or presentations, but the content was cut and pasted from the internet. 

I have been learning how to help teachers use technology to effectively assess and evaluate student work, promoting a deeper understanding of material. We need to ensure that teachers are giving students opportunities to demonstrate their learning in creative ways, using technology, but with guidance and feedback. I think it’s important to ensure that teachers understand things like the TPACK model in order to use tech mindfully. 

"As the literacies that kids bring into our classroom change (alongside the literacies that they need in order to be productive and competitive in the world outside of school), there is a very real pressure to make sure that what we teach is relevant and helps to push them to develop the skills to be self-directed, ubiquitous learners" (Kadjer, 2007, 229).

Today's students are pretty tech savvy; is your classroom tech savvy, too? Is your tech use pedagogically sound? 

References:

Imperatore, C. (2009). "Wikis and Blogs: Your Keys to Student Collaboration and Engagement." www.acteonline.org.

Kajder, Sarah. B. (2007). "Unleashing Potential with Emerging Technologies." Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. pp. 214-229.

Richardson, Will (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Webtools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

What Does it Mean to Understand?

Photo courtesy of Saad Faruque

Ellin Oliver Keene brings students to life in her writing: a seven year old, Jamika, prompted her book when she queried:

“All my life, there’s just one thing I don’t ever understand.  Y’all always say that – does this book make sense?  …  Ms. McKin, she say, ‘Jamika, does that book make sense to you, you feel like y’all are understanding that book, because you know the most important thing about books is they got to make sense to you.’ … But, none a y’all ever say what make sense mean.” (Keene, To Understand 2-3)

Ellin Oliver Keene's book, To Understand: New Horizons in Reading Comprehension, and  the chapter in Adolescent Literacy endeavour to explain the notion of "understanding" - or what it means to make sense - and the role this plays in education.  Keene offers a short, “graduate school” answer: “Jamika, comprehension occurs when the reader constructs meaning in a way that combines his or her schemata with the author’s intended message, deriving a unique interpretation” (To Understand 3). But, she also presents a more structured theory which she calls the "Dimensions of Understanding" that goes beyond simple interpretations of comprehension (that is, retelling, answering questions, learning new vocabulary, scoring well on a test, or completing a project).

The Dimensions of Understanding:

"When we understand we...
...concentrate intensively.
...dwell in ideas.
...struggle for insight.
...manipulate our own thoughts to understand more completely.
...explore as renaissance learners.
...discuss, engaging in rigorous discourse about ideas.
...create models to help us remember.
...feel because our experience is enriched when we have emotional connections." ("The Essence of Understanding", 35). 

Keene also highlights the role of metacognition in this process of understanding and stresses the importance of helping students find their inner voice to help them think as they work to understand ideas. The inclusion of student voices throughout her writing (much as Kylene Beers and Janet Allen consistently do), helps bring the texts to life, providing examples of the theory in practice. She also makes the important connection between student engagement and understanding, as she began her chapter in Adolescent Literacy with an anecdote where teachers were observing highly engaged students. Keene asks, "In our classrooms, do we create the kind of conditions (topics we explore, physical environment, assignments, materials, discussions) that promote these dimensions? ("The Essence of Understanding", 34).

Fundamental to Keene's thinking is the idea that all kids have immense intellectual potential.  Keene challenges educators to shift their “thinking about the depth and breadth of children’s thinking” and “understand how children’s capacity for thinking is nearly limitless if we create the learning conditions to support it, if we provide a language to define and describe thinking” (To Understand 245).  The argument seems fairly simple:  be clear about learning goals, have high expectations, and feed children’s innate curiosity to encourage deep, reflective, valued, engaged learning that is intrinsically motivated and therefore rewarding. It’s the epitome of “lifelong learning”, which many of us strive to engage in our learners. Of course, answering this challenge is the difficult part.  Keene’s texts provides detailed ways to achieve these goals, using the words of learners and educators alike.

To Understand builds on previous works (such as the dimensions presented in the chapter in Adolescent Literacy) and seeks to provide models for professionals to build a program for developing understanding. In the end, four main ideas stand out, all of which are supported by the Ontario Curriculum and Growing Success:

1. Focus on what’s important (What matters most?).
2. Use research-based teaching and learning strategies.
3. Teach essential concepts over a long period of time.
4. Give students numerous opportunities to apply these concepts.

I strongly recommend Keene's book to further explore the idea of understanding, especially as it develops the dimensions further and places them in a context of high expectations and life-long learning.

“This is a book about what it means to understand.  It is about how we use books and language to discover, alongside children, the power of the human intellect.  It is about focusing on what matters most in literacy teaching rather than teaching a little of this, a little of that, until we’ve squandered every opportunity for children to explore ideas in depth.  It is about learning from intellectual mentors whose lives provide insight and direction for a nation of young scholars.  This book is about capturing the essence of understanding and bringing it to life in our own and our children’s hearts and minds.  This book is about what it means to understand.” (To Understand 19)

References:

Keene, Ellin Oliver (2008). To Understand:  New Horizons in Reading Comprehension.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Keene, Ellin Oliver (2007). "The Essence of Understanding." Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Diagnostic Assessments in Literacy

I have been working with a great group of teachers lately - our Section 23 teachers, who are responsible for programs which operate in non-traditional settings to service kids who are in group homes, expelled/suspended students, students in a residential rehab centre, etc.  Often, the students in these settings are with the staff for a short period of time and as such, the teachers need to quickly determine strengths, needs and next steps.

"...teachers in the school communicate with one another and with the administration to ensure, first, that literacy data gathering is both consistent across the school and/or board
and appropriate for the students’ literacy needs, and second, that assessment results are used on a school-wide and/or board-wide basis to help students achieve success in meeting the goals of the ... literacy program." (Ministry of Education, 2006).

We came together with the goal of creating common "intake" assessments in literacy, math, social-emotional health.  In literacy, we settled on a portfolio approach to a student's time in a given program: a student would complete a diagnostic assessment, complete some targeted work to either gain credits (perhaps ILC work, or school work sent from their "home" school) or to improve their literacy skills, and then the student would complete an exit assessment (which essentially is a repeat of the diagnostic to determine what changes had occurred). The portfolio of work would accompany the student as part of their transition to their next school.

The Ministry document, A Guide to Effective Literacy Instruction, Grades 4 to 6, Volume 2: Assessment outlines the key purpose of assessment in literacy:

"Assessment supports and furthers the broad goals of literacy instruction, which are to enable each student:
• to become a strategic reader, writer, and oral communicator;
• to expand thinking skills (including metacognitive and critical-literacy skills), developing the necessary habits of mind;
• to deepen the motivation to learn;
• to develop independence as a learner."

One of the key challenges for these teachers is determining the appropriate grade level of work to assign students - where to start! In order to provide appropriate academic supports, the teachers recognized the need to identify not only their academic strengths and weaknesses, but also their social-emotional well-being, likes and dislikes. For the literacy assessment, we decided to focus on a mix of formats (online, written, oral), the reading skills of fluency and comprehension, and a written paragraph response.

The Literacy Diagnostic Assessment/ In-take:

Step 1: Self-Administered Questionnaire

Google Form (pen and paper OR can be done on computer)

• Rationale: to determine students' likes and dislikes in reading and writing; to determine what kind of computer skills a student possesses (students would need to log in to the UG Cloud to complete the task, although paper copies will also be available).

Step 2: Oral / One-on-One Conference

a) San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability : test of fluency/ vocabulary out of context to quickly determine a suggested reading grade level. Plus, since it's a one-on-one conference,

b) Miscue Analysis - readings provided in Ontario Comprehension Assessment (OCA) Student Success, Grades 9 & 10 kits

• The Student Success kit provides both an explanation and readings to help beginning teachers complete a miscue analysis. Starting with the grade level indicated by the SDQAR, teachers determine which grade level reading (between grades 4-10) to conduct the miscue analysis. Essentially, teachers are able to use a system of symbols to codify a reading as the student reads out loud. For more information, check out the video below (ignore the crazy dog pictures!):

Step 3: Independent Tasks

a) Reading Comprehension - OCA kits, Student Success (gr 4 to 8), gr. 9 & 10

• Reading level Selections (Laminated, included in kit) assess pre-reading , during reading and after reading strategies. The skills assessed include making predictions, identifying main ideas/ supporting details, inference/ drawing conclusions, supporting an opinion, and metacognition.
• The success criteria and rubrics are embedded in the test to help guide students. Exemplars provided by the publisher, Pearson, and moderated marking of practice tests is part of the training of teachers. 

Pearson's Explanation of the Kits: 

"This resource links assessment to explicit reading strategy and skills instruction. Fully aligned with Ontario's key literacy documents, this resource:

• Provides feedback on student use of comprehension strategies identified in Think Literacy: Cross Curricular Approaches 7-12
• Aligns with the Achievement Chart categories and Language Arts/ English curriculum
• Aligns with the OSSLT by assessing literal thinking, inferential thinking and making connections
• Links assessment with "next steps" instruction, including specific links to Literacy in Action 7 & 8
• Helps teachers link assessment to explicit reading strategy and skills instruction"

b) Writing Tasks 

• short prompts / questions (provide choice) for paragraph
• holistic rubric (main idea, supporting details, use of conventions)

Exit Assessment

a) Re-administer Google Cloud questionnaire

b) Re-administer San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability

c) Complete second OCA reading comprehension assessment

d) Write another paragraph

Next Steps:

The tools we opted to use are mostly Canadian and link particularly well to Think Literacy so that teachers have tools to address the needs of students. It is extremely important to include moderated marking of the OCA in the training of staff:

“When teachers work together to consider the work students have produced, or listen to their presentations or analyse their electronic projects and so on, they bring the collective wisdom of all the people in the group to the exercise. More eyes (and consequently more brains) result in more reliable determinations of what students understand.” (Earl in Teacher Moderation)

The rich conversations about what constitutes success at each level is extremely important for staff understanding of reading comprehension. Once our educators have had some time to work with the assessments, we will revise the process as necessary before sharing with other groups such as Essential level teachers.

References:

Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat (2007). Teacher Moderation: Collaborative Assessment of Student Work. Capacity Building Series Monograph 2. 

Ontario Ministry of Education (2006). A Guide to Effective Literacy Instruction, Grades 4 to 6, Volume 2: Assessment. Toronto: Queen's Printer.

Ontario Ministry of Education (2006). A Guide to Effective Literacy Instruction, Grades 4 to 6, Volume 3: Planning and Classroom Management. Toronto: Queen's Printer.

Tovani, Chris (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Content Comprehension Grades 6-12. Markham: Pembroke. pp 89-116.

Upper Grand DSB. (2003). Blueprint for Literacy: A Handbook of Effective Teaching Practices.