Monday, September 2, 2013
Educational Leadership, so far...
Here is the tagxedo of everything that I've written in my blog so far. It sure seems that research is a bit important thus far! Oh well, have a great Labor Day folks.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
EDLD 5326 School-Community Relations Week 2
So I'm into class #3 in my Educational Leadership course of study, which is EDLD 5326 School-Community Relations. This week, the second for the course, focuses on the following:
Mrs. Noland, a popular special education teacher, credits her students' high success rate on the state assessment to consistent parent involvement. Mrs. Cherry, a third-grade teacher, is confused because in spite of an 80% parent participation rate, her student success rate pales in comparison to that of Mrs. Noland's students.
This
is multi-facted question with a myriad of answer, or at least
suggestions, to the question of "why?". There is no exact answer as to
why Mrs. Noland's students score higher than Mrs. Cherry's...you can do a
multi-year study and make some incredible hypothesis, but they will
remain educated guesses not answers. The extreme bottom line here is
that we as educators are educating human beings. Life would be so much
more easy for us if we were like dogs, or cats, or giraffes, or ants;
but alas, we are humans with a complicated cornucopia of emotions,
feelings, and desires. My point is that animals and insects go about
their lives reacting as all of their kind react, while each human has a
specific set of response factors that make each person different. When
we do a study on how students score on standardized tests it can be a
study in futility as there are as many answers to the questions as there
are students taking the test.
This is the perfect time for Mrs. Cherry to approach Mrs. Noland and talk to her about her best practices and see if there may be parallels that she can implement in her classroom. It is apparent that the parent participation in Mrs. Noland's class is effective. One thing that I believe Mrs. Cherry needs to look into is something that isn't as quantitative: are Mrs. Noland's parents more involved/more focused due to the fact that their children are special education students? This is a qualitative question that can't be delineated or disaggregated, which is what we focus on so much these days, but is extremely real. All of the parents in Mrs. Noland's room have been through ARD meetings, know that their children have special needs, and know that the school will go to almost any length to help their student succeed. Mrs. Cherry has a classroom that undoubtedly includes SPED students, but that sub-group will only be a fraction of the overall class population. Most of the parents in Mrs. Cherry's class will not have been through the ARD meetings, and likely won't be as protective of their child's educational needs and shortcomings as Mrs. Noland's.
Another tactic that could help Mrs. Cherry out is partnering together parents of higher achieving students with parents of lower performing students. She could put the parents of groups of four or five, mixing the different performance levels together to try and get a higher level of idea synergy between the parents. Keeping an eye on culture, ethnicity, and language would help barriers that might go unnoticed otherwise. The parent groups could then be paired with student groups—Mrs. Cherry would need to decide if parents should be with their own child(ren) or not.
One last area of focus that I might suggest to Mrs. Cherry would be to take a bit of time to focus to focus on the 20% that choose to not participate in her classroom. The question suggests that there is an 80% buy-in, but maybe it's the 20% that is the "boat anchor" to the test scores. Are the parents of the children that don't perform well the children of the 20% of non-participators? What factors keep the 20% parents from buying into the classroom participation? What forms of parent communiciation has Mrs. Cherry implemented? Are there any opportunities for the 20% to assist outside of the times that the 80% are in class? Can Mrs. Cherry finds opportunities to take her classroom outside the school walls where the 20% might feel more comfortable? Are there any digital/online/video-conferencing type methods that could better serve the 20%?
- Identify both the visible and invisible elements of school culture.
- Explain the characteristics of an effective family engagement program.
- Discuss factors that may influence family involvement.
Mrs. Noland, a popular special education teacher, credits her students' high success rate on the state assessment to consistent parent involvement. Mrs. Cherry, a third-grade teacher, is confused because in spite of an 80% parent participation rate, her student success rate pales in comparison to that of Mrs. Noland's students.
What suggestions can you give Mrs. Cherry?
This is the perfect time for Mrs. Cherry to approach Mrs. Noland and talk to her about her best practices and see if there may be parallels that she can implement in her classroom. It is apparent that the parent participation in Mrs. Noland's class is effective. One thing that I believe Mrs. Cherry needs to look into is something that isn't as quantitative: are Mrs. Noland's parents more involved/more focused due to the fact that their children are special education students? This is a qualitative question that can't be delineated or disaggregated, which is what we focus on so much these days, but is extremely real. All of the parents in Mrs. Noland's room have been through ARD meetings, know that their children have special needs, and know that the school will go to almost any length to help their student succeed. Mrs. Cherry has a classroom that undoubtedly includes SPED students, but that sub-group will only be a fraction of the overall class population. Most of the parents in Mrs. Cherry's class will not have been through the ARD meetings, and likely won't be as protective of their child's educational needs and shortcomings as Mrs. Noland's.
Another tactic that could help Mrs. Cherry out is partnering together parents of higher achieving students with parents of lower performing students. She could put the parents of groups of four or five, mixing the different performance levels together to try and get a higher level of idea synergy between the parents. Keeping an eye on culture, ethnicity, and language would help barriers that might go unnoticed otherwise. The parent groups could then be paired with student groups—Mrs. Cherry would need to decide if parents should be with their own child(ren) or not.
One last area of focus that I might suggest to Mrs. Cherry would be to take a bit of time to focus to focus on the 20% that choose to not participate in her classroom. The question suggests that there is an 80% buy-in, but maybe it's the 20% that is the "boat anchor" to the test scores. Are the parents of the children that don't perform well the children of the 20% of non-participators? What factors keep the 20% parents from buying into the classroom participation? What forms of parent communiciation has Mrs. Cherry implemented? Are there any opportunities for the 20% to assist outside of the times that the 80% are in class? Can Mrs. Cherry finds opportunities to take her classroom outside the school walls where the 20% might feel more comfortable? Are there any digital/online/video-conferencing type methods that could better serve the 20%?
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