Week Seven

I can't believe we are already in the middle of week seven... Where has the time gone? It amazes me each week how much closer I am to student teaching. It's a scary to think about but such a huge accomplishment all at the same time.

This week during my clinical experience I had my first observation with a small group. I felt like overall the observation went pretty good. I have areas to improve on but the first one is out of the way and I don't have to stress about it anymore. Also, this week I was able to do my first bus duty on my own. The way bus duty works is one first grade teacher will take all bus riders for the first grade(which was me) and will walk them down to the bus area and make sure they get on their bus. Then, each teacher is assigned to a specific bus and will have to help monitor the bus and the students getting on and off until all students are where they need to go. This was a very interesting experience and I'm glad I was able to do it on my own so I will already have an idea of how it works for student teaching.

I have been thinking a lot about my time when I begin student teaching and how I am going to handle communication with parents. My CE has given me tips on how to contact parents and when, but I am nervous about the transition from her to me. So, I have looked up so ways that could help with parent communication when I become the teacher and how I could make it easier. I found a article that gives 3 Tech Tips for Parent Newsletters. These Newsletters are a way to communicate with parents to inform them about upcoming events, what is going on in the classroom and suggestions on how families can support their children's academic growth at home.

1. Choose the right tool!
Make sure that the Technology tool that you are using is friendly for all parents who may or may not use technology. Some of the suggested sites to use are from Monica Burns.

1. Spark Page: This free app for Adobe lets teachers create a webpage on their browser or iPad. It's a beautiful design tool that's also delightfully easy to use. Teachers can add photos from their device, search for stock images to illustrate an idea, and add plenty of text to their page. Spark Page lets you embed YouTube videos and links to other pages so that you can share school stories and online resources with parents. When you finish designing the page, you'll have a link that can be shared with families.
2. Wordpress: As a classroom teacher, I used Wordpress to share updates with families, and it's the tool that I still use for my ClassTechTips blog. Wordpress lets users set up a free website that they can update as frequently as they like. This is a good choice for teachers who are looking to post weekly updates instead of a monthly newsletter. Wordpress is web and mobile friendly, so you can even use your cell phone to post information for families.
3. Pages: Pages is a fantastic document creation tool that's available on Mac and iOS devices. It includes newsletter templates so that teachers can design their newsletters simply by dragging and dropping images and adding information. Pages is a great tool if you want your newsletter to reach a diverse set of families. You can save your final creation as a PDF file and share it as an email, or you can print it out to send home on paper.

2. Continuously Capture Media

Capture moments in and out of the classroom from student success by pictures. It can be on field trips, extra curricular activities, academic success, a normal day in the classroom, visitors etc. Allow students to participate in the newsletter by writing their own stories and bringing in their own pictures they want to include.

3. Make a Plan to Share

You want to make sure the Newsletter gets to the Parents so they are able to access it. Remind allows you to send the links to the newsletters or attach them as documents for parents to access. Also, Remind is a great way to communicate with the parents. You are able to send messages back and forth about any questions or concerns. You can also use a QR code for parents to san to access the Newsletter. All of these would work.

I would relate this to standard two, Teachers Establish a Respectful Environment for a Diverse Population of Students. It is 2E, teachers work collaboratively with the families and significant adults in their lives of their students. This standard insures that teachers improve communication between the school and home communities.