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Supporting Families in Varying Learning Environments - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Offer opportunities for bi-directional shared dialogue: Gather information from parents and provide them with your insights to create aligned goals and better understand the needs of your students. Families should work in partnership with educators to provide support for students. In order to do this, open, two-way streams of communication are needed.
        
        Offer opportunities for parents to provide feedback around remote learning. Consider using online survey tools in addition to other communication methods to collect feedback from parents, It is a great way to find out what parents have to say about your remote teaching practices so that you can be more informed and can make changes that improve the distant learning experience.
        
        Hold a virtual home visit to check in with families on a personal levelThe goal of this conversation is to build and strengthen relationships, so save the academics for a more formal conference. Use this time to assess family needs on a social-emotional level and check in on their physical needs, such as food, utilities, or other urgent challenges that might be met with support from your school district.
        
        Check out Rocketship School’s CareCorps guide for information on how to conduct a virtual wellness check. https://www.rocketshipschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/How-to-Launch-a-School-CareCorps.pdf
        
        Hold parent-teacher conferences by video or phone.
        
        Just as with in-person conferences, this is an incredibly helpful tool to both share and gain information about your students on academic and social-emotional levels. This can also serve as a time for you to solicit feedback from parents about your remote learning
        
        Schedule Q&A times. Parents will likely have a lot of questions for teachers during this time. It’s a good idea to set expectations for how and when to best reach out to you and to proactively create communication channels for parents to ask more in-depth questions. Set the time and a tool you would like to be reached out. Creating a consisteny open door policy can help parent-teacher relationships and improve distant learning experience.
        
        Provide families with a way to contact you when needed.
        
        Phone, e-mail, social messaging apps - all of these can be great tools to allow the parents to reach you.
        
        Encourage parents to use your school's approved online tools that allow you to directly communicate with families. This can provide an easy way for parents to ask questions about assignments or touch base about their child’s work and goals.
        
        If you would like to maintain privacy, use Google Voice to create a second phone number that goes straight to your phone. The app allows you to screen calls so you know who you’re speaking to before you answer. You can set the app to direct calls to voicemail at certain times of the day to help avoid interruptions when you’re not available.
        
        Tip: let the parents know about your work hours in order to create healthy boundaries. Also, ask the parents when they would prefer to be reached out - morings, lunch hour, afternoons, etc.
      - Create systems to share important information: Decide how families will receive important updates.
        
        (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47ojI2HjgZo)
        
        Leverage your school’s social media platforms to push out important messages to families, such as reminders about school calendars, community resources, virtual events such as spirit week, or “in-person” events like drive-by parades.
        
        Keep parents up-to-date with weekly email blasts. When you reach out to parents, let them know what assignments students should be working on this week, when things are due, and when you’ll be available for office hours or to communicate with them. You can also embed helpful resources for families to access all of the information in one place and reduce email clutter.
        
        There are many apps (e.g., EdModo and Seesaw) that offer real-time updates for parents that allow them to see student scores and assignments. These apps also offer families a way to directly message teachers.
        
        You can use Google Classroom, share weekly guardian summaries of student work. These emails are automated by Google Classroom and can include updates on class activities, upcoming work, and whether students are missing assignments.
        
        Communicate in multiple formats. Just as you offer information for students in multiple formats, do the same for families. Send texts, make calls, record videos, and use your LMS to communicate with parents.
        
        Enabling access for all: Calls and videos, in particular, can be helpful ways to get in touch with parents who may have difficulty with literacy, while written forms of communication can be easier to translate for parents who may not be English speakers.
        
        Use Translation apps to translate written materials for parents who are not English speakers.
      - Provide targeted resources to help support continued learning at home: Share helpful resources with parents to provide guidance around learning at home.
        
        Send families a schedule that includes home activities. Try providing parents with possible schedules that will allow their children set healthy routines and be engaged throughout the day.
        
        Provide a simple checklist of tasks to complete. Knowing exactly what needs to be done and being able to cross the. off the list can ease anxiety and stress, plus allows to set clear daily goals.
        
        Just as educators are feeling overwhelmed with the number of resources out there, it’s likely that parents are feeling the same. If you know of vetted, relevant resources that you believe will be helpful to your parents and the children they support, share what you have to create deeper alignment between home and school.
        
        For parents of students with different learning needs, share the National Center for Learning Disabilities’ COVID-19 Parent Resources. https://www.ncld.org/covid-19-parent-resources
        
        Explore Wide Open School to find a variety of activities and guidance categorized by age group. https://wideopenschool.org
        
        Share EdNavigator's One Great Thing. This daily resource is geared towards parents and shares one tip, read, e-learning resource, dinnertime question, and activity to help support children learning at home.https://www.ednavigator.org/resources/one-great-thing-for-tomorrow
        
        Share Child Mind Institute’s strategies for supporting learning at home. https://childmind.org/guide/family-resources-for-remote-learning/
- - - - Educators can provide to parents available times parents can do walk ins to discussion issues, concerns and quarries as this would send a message to parents to feel comfortable enough to reach out and in addition give parents adequate options.
    - - Bringing together different parents, children and teachers aids in promoting social connectivity, inclusivity and makes parents feel like they can contribute their ideas and time to either school activities or events.
    - - Individually meeting parents to discuss their child's behavior, progress and concerns once every two weeks allows the parent to be up to date with affairs relating to the child's learning experience as well as create a one on one relationship with the educator.
    - - Opening up opportunities for parents to come as a form of support on school field trips allows the parents to feel connected to the school as well as have an insight on what teachers do on a daily basis.
- - - - Sending an email at the beginning of the week establishing what the class will be doing for the week as well as establishing the homework and classwork expectations for the whole class. This can alternate with a more detailed letter about specific children if necessary.
    - - A monthly survey can be sent home with questions about how the children and families are adapting to the hybrid classes. It can be used to gauge whether strategies need to be put in place to help struggling children.
    - - Have an open day or time during the month where parents are able to schedule a meeting in-person or via zoom so that they can discuss more in depth questions that pop up.
    - - Provide parents with monthly reports on the students progress in the class. Make sure to include emotional and social growth in the report as well to ensure that the parents are informed on the students overall mental health.
  - - - At least once a semester a parent teacher conference should be held so that the parents and the teachers are on the same page in regard to the child's education needs, progress, and goals.
    - - When the children are dropped off or picked up from their in person classes the teachers can quickly touch base with their guardian to make sure there is no new information that needs to be used to adjust the education schedule (such as family illness or death)
    - - Post a physical calendar inside of the classroom and in the outer hallway to note important days, so that children and passing parents can see and remember significant dates.
    - - Start the year off with a meeting of all the parents to establish the lines of communication that each parent prefers. This could also be a great time to set up a parent board or comity to help organize the lines of communication amongst the guardians.
  - - - Stoneware, et al. “Distance Learning & Home School: Improving Parent-Teacher Communication.” Lanschool.com, lanschool.com/blog/distance-and-hybrid-learning/how-to-facilitate-parent-teacher-communication-during-distance-learning/. Accessed 17 Mar. 2022.
      - Zimmerman, Dawn. “Communicating with Families for Hybrid Learning.” MREA | Minnesota Rural Education Association, 22 June 2020, www.mreavoice.org/hybrid-learning-communicating-with-families/. Accessed 17 Mar. 2022.