Yesterday was my first Parent-Teacher Conference on the other side of the table, and it was an incredibly rewarding and informative experience! I was so pleasantly surprised that someone from each of my 20 students' families came to pick up the child's report card and have a brief meeting with me and my MT. This goes to show that just because one is teaching in an urban school does not mean that the parents are not involved, attentive, or present. While not all of the parents are on top of their child's homework and signing the agenda on a daily basis, the fact that they took time out of their schedules to come and meet with us is definitely a positive sign that they value their child's education.
Overall, a trend I observed is that the majority of parents were very eager to ask my MT about what they should be doing at home to help their child with math and reading. MT offered similar suggestions to many of these families. Since these parents are so willing to work with their children at home, instead of waiting until conferences to inform parents about strategies and simple tasks they can be doing, I feel that a weekly, or even bi-weekly newsletter would be a vital tool for increasing communication with parents. When I notice that many of my students could benefit from the same type of assistance, I can include suggestions for parents to begin using right away. I look forward to applying some of the strategies and conversation techniques that my MT employed yesterday during my own solo conferences (hopefully) next year!
This also speaks to Section 6 of the unit plan - specifically, although it is great to write a letter to the parents introducing yourself, it may be even more helpful to provide them specific problems / activities that they can do with their child (in both math and reading) that can help their child to think about the mathematical big ideas. Again, the purpose is not to teach the child outside of class, but to provide the student with opportunities to think about the ideas.
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