Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.

How I met standard 4 in practicum 490:

I ensured all of my lessons respected student diversity. There was a student in my class who did not celebrate any holidays, so I always made sure to remove all mention of holidays from my lessons/activities.

There was a student in my class who required extra scaffolding. I would always have an extra activity that was related to what we were doing, ready for them! This allowed them to stay on the same topic but have extra ways to demonstrate their understanding.

During my first week, there was parents conferences. I stayed 4 hours late on these 2 nights, so I could listen in on the parent conferences. This was something I did because I wanted experience involving parents in student learning. It was incredible to get that insight into some of my students. My coaching teacher would ask me how I would respond or approach certain topics and “test” me. This allowed me to grow and consider the role of the parent/guardians in my students education.

During my second week we had a non instructional day. I advised my coaching teacher I was interested in learning more about assessment and how to report assessment to parents. My coaching teacher and I spent the day exploring CSL’s. Since I am teaching several long units (4 week unit in Math for example), I developed my own CSL expectations. I kept an assessment binder of all student work, so I could develop my CSL and communicate with parents. During my last week, I spent a day creating rubrics and assessing the students work in my unit plans. This allowed me to create my own report cards base don the unit plans I taught! This was powerful learning and allowed me to connect my assessment to the parents and family of my students.

Letters to High School Students:

 

In an attempt to help connect the local community during these difficult times., Cedar Sherman and I came up with an idea! I had my students write letters to her students, asking any questions they wanted answers to! This combined inquiry, writing ,spelling, and collaboration into one fantastic project! The students felt supported and connected by asking older students questions! Cedar Sherman and I collaborated on this project and then tweeted about it. We generated quite a bit of buzz and a few other teacher candidates reached out and asked us for advice on doing something similar! This was one way I help connect my students to a larger community!

How I met standard 4 in practicum 491:

The first thing I did during my soft start for 491, was send an email blub to parents. In this email I provided my name, some background information about myself, and my contact information. I did this so to build relationships with the families and to also be seen as an educator. Throughout my practicum I communicated a lot with parents and built relationships with them. I even sent some photos of students with the quails at the end of the practicum, which the parents loved! I included their families in the learning experience!

I attended all school staff meetings to get involved in the school community as well. I collaborated with other teachers and got to know students in all grades! I shadowed and observed in multiple classrooms to learn from other educators and to become a larger member of the school. I also asked my coaching teacher about getting more involved in school-based team meetings.

I had to have a few difficult conversations with parents via phone and email (small behavioural concerns and absences). I discussed how to approach these situations with my coaching teacher and then took the lead. This allowed me to begin to build relationships with parents and involve them in my planning.

All of my lessons were culturally appropriate. Discussed religion in LA novel study (knowing a student was very religious) talked about how the characters in the novel have different religious beliefs but still support each other.  I also brought in another student’s religion/culture to my social studies unit when I talked about exploring Muslim countries (shared my own experiences but allowed the student to share about her knowledge and culture too). I also invited a student’s grandmother into the classroom to teach us weaving. The student’s grandmother was a local elder, who brought in her culture. The student was very happy to see her culture and family in the classroom and every student benefited form it!