Parent Survey of Communication with Classroom Teachers

Parent Survey of Communication with Classroom Teachers

Purpose

This assignment is designed to build awareness of parent perceptions regarding their communications with educators. Teacher candidates will interview parents of secondary students to identify parent views of effective communication with teachers, parent perceptions of ways they can support teachers in the classroom, and obstacles they see to their participation in the school education of their children.

Procedure:

Teacher candidates in this course will work in groups to interview parents and share interview data within the group and to the whole class. Each group participant will interview at least one parent—from a different cultural or linguistic group than the teacher candidate (individuals may choose to add someone with whom they are familiar as an interview participant, but only in addition to someone different than your personal experience)—identifying the school their child attends and general demographic characteristics (male/female, race/ethnicity, number of children in school, and level of education received—this information is optional with the parent’s permission).

Interview Questions:

The interviews can be conducted according to individual preference, but all should have the same following questions:

1. Can you think of a teacher who was particularly good at communicating with you about your child’s educational progress? Please describe what you liked about the way this teacher communicated with you?
2. Please describe some difficulties you have had in communicating with teachers?
3. Teachers and others working in schools often seek parent involvement in school activities either in the classroom or in school events. Can you tell about some of the ways you believe you can support your child in school?
4. Can you speak about some of the difficulties that might prevent you from being involved in your child’s school education?

Materials

Each group will be responsible for developing the interview protocol (must at least include the 4 questions above and the demographic information requested. In addition, each individual in the group will need to complete a “Cooperation and Participation Sheet” found on my website at http://faculty.metrostate.edu/barrerma . This sheet will be submitted with the student’s Individual report described below.

Reporting

Reporting will take place at two levels, the individual’s interview notes and group report synthesizing information from the individual interviews.

Individual reports

Each individual will write the interview notes in a word processing document (MS Word or other compatible file format). These notes should have the following:

1. School where parents child attends (must be in the urban setting)
2. Demographic characteristics: Male/female, race/ethnicity, number of children in school
3. Optional characteristics (depending on parent willingness): level of school education, single parent or two-parent home (or other)
4. Notes from interview questions
5. Student reflection on the interview
6. A completed Cooperation and Participation sheet about your work in the group.

Group reports

Each group will prepare a report to share with the class. This report can be in written form or as a presentation. The report should include the following:

1. Combined demographics of parents interviewed (described above)
2. Key findings of combined interviews
3. The group’s interpretation of the findings to include the following:
4. What do the parent responses say about the kind of communication that they believe is best in working with them?
5. What ways do parents seem to believe they can undertake to support their children’s school education?
6. What obstacles do parents see as preventing from their involvement in their child’s school education?
7. How do these results help in determining what teachers should do in promoting effective parent participation in the education of their children?
8. What additional work do you (the group) believe is needed in promoting effective parent involvement at the secondary level?
9. A completed Cooperation and Participation Sheet for each individual in the group and a group reflection on their group process within the group report.

Scoring

Each student will receive a percentage of 100 points based on the work of the individual and of his or her group. This project will be scored as follows:

Individual report = 50 pts based on review of the individual report. Scoring will be based the report including all appropriate parts requested, the organization, and clarity of information presented.

Group report = 50 pts based on review of the group presentation of findings, completed and submitted written report (or presentation) and review of individual Cooperation and Participation sheets (there should be a form completed by each individual in the group).