School, Community, and Family Partnership

School, Community, and Family Partnership

Epstein describes six types of parental involvement:

1. Parenting: families develop home environments which supports student growth.
2. Communicating: developing effective home to school communication about programs and student progress.
3. Volunteering: Providing opportunities for parents to volunteer in their own student's learning.
4. Learning at home: involving families to support student growth by being involved in their learning.
5. Decision making: include parents in school discussion.
6. Collaborating with the Community: coordinating and providing services to the community.

With that in mind, I believe there are many effective ways to work with parents and the community:

• Parents should be in the loop when it comes to their children's progress. There are different applications that can help with keeping teachers and parents connected. For example ClassDojo, Remind, Google Classroom and there is also Email. 
• Coordinating meetings in which parents are invited. These meeting should explain the different programs offered to the students.
• Inviting parents to come into the classroom and read to the students, this is a great way to have parents involved in their child's learning. 
• Inviting parents to see their child in a play or an exhibit to show all the students work. 

These are just some ways in getting parents involved in their child's progress. Parent involvement is important to student success. These examples do not have to stop at elementary school, they can be used in middle school as well. 

Literacy Coaches Working with Individual Teachers

The importance of a Literacy Coach is to provide professional development for teachers in a way that is deemed approachable.

When starting, a Literacy Coach is either new to the school or new to the position but both need to establish themselves in the role. Some ideas presented to gain a sense of trust between teachers and themselves are:

1. Be accessible- A new coach should be seen around the building. Teachers should fell like he/she are always around to help
2. Initiate activities and seek responsibilities- Alway be willing to help if the teacher has not asked yet. 
3. Develop a sense of trust- Spend time with teachers in the teachers room or eat lunch with them. Informal conversations can help to develop relationships and show them you care about them as individuals. 
4. Start with willing- Literacy coaches must work with all teacher but start with those who volunteer and ask for help. When working with one teacher a coach in hone in their own skills in a supportive environment.

When working with individual teachers there are different approaches a Literacy Coach can take

1. Demonstrating and Modeling- The literacy coach can model the strategy she wants the teachers to know. By modeling, teachers get a better understanding of implementing the strategy and if they feel that their students will benefit from it. Modeling needs to be planned if conducting it with a teacher and they can also have some role if planned correctly. 
2. Coplanning- Some teachers may welcome the coach to help plan a lesson. They develop a strategy to teach students and implement a planned lesson in which the teacher and the coach co-teach. 
3. Problem Solving- Problem solving can be a fulfilling activity which benefits the students as well as the teachers and coaches. Coaches will build their sense of trust with the teachers while they think of how to solve an issue the teacher might have. 
4. Observing- An effective coaching approach to professional development is to observe work of teachers and provide feedback. Observing can give the coach an understanding of what kind of teaching occurs in which he or she can either provide reassurance or suggest a different approach. All in all this is a great way to work with the teacher. Feedback should be seen as a suggestive help and be agreed by both the teacher and the coach. 

Jigsaw #2

Jigsaw #2 - Expert Group

LTED 667

Caitlin Coll, Jacqueline Dasilva, Rasmir Muslah, Nicole Sexton

All of the articles read dealt with the relationship between the coach and the teachers. Each

article portrayed particular ways the coach can elevate the performance of the teachers

and best benefit the students and the school community. We utilized the information

from the articles to create a sample scenario between a coach and a teacher.

Scenario:
Ms. Ramos is a novice teacher in the first grade at Kennedy School. Upon observation, the reading

specialist noticed that the students in the room were struggling to comprehend the text being used; however, the teacher was not implementing different strategies to help the students direct their understanding. After the lesson, the reading specialist requested a meeting with the teacher at the teacher’s convenience to discuss her views on teaching comprehension strategies and to co-plan a lesson together. Before the meeting, the reading specialist brainstormed ideas that the teacher could use to assist the students in developing the skills needed to comprehend texts. In order to best prepare, the reading specialist implemented the idea of an outcome map to get a clear idea of what needed to occur for the students to be successful in the area of comprehension in Ms. Ramos’s class. When it came time to finally meet, the reading specialist was prepared to have an open discussion with the teacher on how to best implement strategies to support comprehension.

Meeting Interview:

RS: Reading Specialist

MR: Ms. Ramos

RS: How would you describe the lesson I observed? What do you think went well, and what do you think did not?

MR: I would say I was able to keep the students focused and on task. However, I struggle with finding differentiated strategies to direct my students’ needs.  

RS: What are your views on teaching comprehension?

MR: It’s a hard concept to teach because there’s so many parts to it. There are many different comprehension skills that are needed in order to make meaning of a text.

RS: What would you describe as the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson I observed?

MR: I think the strength in my lesson was having my students engaged in the activity and discussion. However, I feel my weaknesses were with assessing my students background knowledge of the topic beforehand in order to guarantee comprehension.

RS: How would you feel about us co-planning and teaching a lesson together?

MR: That would be great! My students are struggling with comprehension, maybe I need a different approach.

After the meeting, the coach created a list of further ways to help Ms. Ramos in the area of teaching reading comprehension to her students. The list included:

1. The coach suggested different books and article to Ms. Ramos that can be used as a reference in regards to teaching different comprehension strategies to readers.

2. The coach suggested to Ms. Ramos attending a professional development workshop on reading comprehension.

3. Another suggestion made to Ms. Ramos was observing other novice teachers in the building. This will allow for Ms. Ramos to observe and see how other teachers and teaching their students to create meaning of a text.

Coaching: Improving Classroom and School Literacy Instruction.

Great coaches are able to inspire and motivate their coaches. Literacy coaches provide guidance and feedback in order to enable teachers to be more efficient (Bean, 2015). For teachers to be comfortable with implementing new strategies, coaches need to be there for support and give feedback for teachers to use the new teaching strategies. With that being said one scenario set a better example of a coach. 

In Brown Middle School, the principal changed around schedules in order to meet the teachers concerns. They met with their reading specialist who they are familiar with. The reading specialist worked with both teachers and students.

In Green Elementary School, the principal brought someone from out of district. The reading specialist was their to "improve their teaching of reading". That statement already goes against the principals of a good leader. A good leader supports their teaching methods and does not force teaching methods. Another issue was the reading specialist was not familiar with the districts reading series. It was frustrating for the teachers as well as the reading specialist herself.

In both scenarios the reading specialist's goal was to help the teachers. The first scenario focused on both the teachers and the students. The second scenario focused more on teacher concerns rather than what was needed for the students.

Share the Wealth: Kahoot!

Kahoot!

Kahoot is a great website to get students engaged in learning. Kahoot is a game-based learning tool that quizzes student knowledge on a topic. Students are gathered around a shared screen such a smart board, projector or a computer monitor. Individual students will have a device that will have the answer choices in the form of colored shapes. Teachers can award points for answers or use it as a study tool. If awarded points, they will come up on the screen after each question.You can set the amount of points, amount of time students have per question and whether or not you want points to be given.  

Teachers can create their own quiz or search from the thousands of quizzes available. They have a ton of different categories based on grade and subject. Students are highly engaged through out and its a great way to assess students after a lesson. 

Kahoot can be used as a studying tool, informal or formal assessment, exit ticket or just a quick fun review.  Teachers would need to create an account and once you have your quiz set all you need to do is have students put in the game code (which is different for each quiz) and they get to choose their nicknames or put in their actual names. After all the students are in you may begin. 

Here is the link to get started....

www.kahoot.com

Students should go on this link to enter game pin...

www.kahoot.it 

PD Workshop: Two Column Notes

Click this link for a PD Workshop :)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IMdIxIxPMfCrye6WUnl6JaHfp0XYyDmR

Chapter 4: Leadership of the Reading Specialist

Serving As A Resource To Teachers

As a Reading Specialist my main purpose would be to get information to teachers as simple as possible. Keeping each point in mind, I will focus on the putting the teachers at ease not bombarding them with more materials which can be overwhelming.

• Inform teacher of new ideas and materials- Administrators tend to communicate with others through email. As a teacher, getting over ten emails a day can be quite overwhelming. To better rely messages about new ideas and materials are better expressed in person. Monthly PLC meetings, with the grade level teachers choice of date, would help pass important information around. Administrators will always be kept in the loop with meetings, new materials and new ideas. 

• Spread the word about effective teaching and teachers- Being that I am a visual learner, in order for me to decide if a strategy will work I would need to see it be done. With that be said, I find that observing other teachers to be very effective. 

• Focus on the student- Helping teachers identify effective strategies that can help students. Going through data to identify weakness within students and working with the teacher to discuss strategies that can help. 

• Be available and follow through on your commitments- Having a Reading Specialist in a school can be very helpful to teachers. A leader needs to be seen in order for teachers to feel a connection and ask for help. If I was working in one building I would make frequent classroom visits in order for teachers to feel comfortable with me and with teaching. Giving positive feedback can give teachers the confidence they need. Some teachers, especially novice teachers are worried they might not be teaching a strategy of skill correctly. Having the specialist on "stand-by" will show a sense of togetherness.   

• Be a willing helper- Being friendly with teachers will help develop a good relationship. A good relationship can open the doors to a better collaboration between the Reading Specialist and teachers. Teachers will more than likely feel comfortable with me if they don't see me as an Administrator, rather than a resource for them.