Communication

 

 

Communication is necessary is many areas of teaching; communication between teachers and students, teachers and teachers, teachers and administration and teachers and parents.  Open communication between all of these parties allows students, the most important party involved, to be best served.

As teachers we are often encourage to reach out to parents of students who are not performing well in a number or areas. This could be for a number of reasons. This could be for attendance problems, homework issues, testing struggles or behavioral issues. These phone or in person conferences can be incredibly helpful. Sometimes the parent is unaware of the issue and when brought to light can aid in the remediation of the problem by working in tandem with the teacher. Other times the conference is not as productive such as when the parent is unable to believe the problems are occurring.

 

One area that I would like to implement is contacting parents of students who are doing well. I feel we, as teachers, concentrate on students who are performing poorly and do not spend enough time and energy building up our students who are excelling. These can be for the same reasons as the students who are not performing well. For example, it could be extremely encouraging for a student to have a parent hear that his or her child has made it to school on time every day for weeks on end or has turned in every homework assignment or is doing great on exams or is a pleasure to have in class.

 

I believe it is just as important for us as teachers to remember to continue to build up our students who are doing well so they can continue to feel encouraged to continue to do well.  My plan is to choose 5 students a month to call home and make a point to let their parents know they are doing well. I am anxious to see how students react to this plan.

 

 

Professional Development

 

Attending professional development days has been very beneficial for me as a student teacher. One of the things that most surprised and encouraged me was the realization that the all of the teachers seemed to have knowledge of the same students. They were able to “compare notes” about students in a way that showed how much they cared and were invested in the success of each student. They were also able to coordinate key interventions such as parent conferences and after school help to best help get some students back on track.

 

Professional development days were also great opportunities to discuss larger issues. For example there is a significant discussion occurring at my school about the senior project. This mandatory project involves a lengthy paper as well as a presentation. The English department handles the lion’s share of this project including all of the steps needed for writing the paper such as detailing an outline, writing a draft and constructing the final paper. They are also responsible for helping the students create their PowerPoint presentations. The English teachers lamented how much time this takes away from the teaching of their actual course material. A large brainstorming session followed and it was determined that various departments over various years would pick up some of the material. For example, the chemistry department will be responsible in 11th grade for teaching and giving the students an opportunity to create and present PowerPoint presentations. It was incredibly gratifying to see the teachers immediately step up to help the English teachers and solve this problem.

 

The amount of work that was accomplished in the professional development days that I attended was astounding. I look forward to participating in these events and learning even more from these teachers and administrators.