As I review the topics presented this quarter in
class, I have questions about parent involvement and how we can improve it,
Collaboration with colleagues and how to arrange ample time for this during the
school day, and different approaches to language and literacy development
during the early years. All areas are
extremely important to me and I want to find ways to improve them all. Parent Involvement can be very stressful when
parents don’t seem to care what is happening at school. The parents who don’t care are usually the
ones whose children are struggling in all areas of academics, social
interaction, behavior, etc. How can we
change this? By creating positive social change, I can become a change agent
for parent involvement by offering rewards to parents and being specific with
their individual needs. Yes, this would
be costly, but I could reach out and possibly get donations from community
stakeholders. Another area that raises
interest is collaboration among grade level colleagues. This is difficult to accomplish during the school
day because of classroom coverage. How can
we make it happen and be effective? Collaboration is another area that comes to
mind. Collaboration among teachers paves
the way for the spread of effective teaching practices, improved outcomes for
the students they teach, and the retention of the most accomplished teachers in
high-needs schools (Berry, Daughtery, Wiedner, 2009). Other than have a 25
minute common planning time daily, how else could we collaborate for a longer
period of time? Could we utilize parent volunteers? I would love to develop a plan to see this
take place at least once a month for teachers in a grade level. This would help teachers gain new insight and
ideas and would also help older teachers who are not willing to change their
thinking. Hopefully, this would be a
positive social change in the way teachers plan for instruction.
Strengths-based Learning is an area that I want to
explore further. A strength-based
approach emphasizes the strengths and capabilities of the whole child. When teachers use this approach, they recognize
the child’s strengths and see how they cope and deal with adversity. This takes
focus off of just the problems the child is having. I want to also be a positive social change
agent and change the way I have done things for so many years by focusing on
the weaknesses instead of the strengths.
I want to pull out the positive in all of my children and their
families. Attachment is another area that I want to learn more about. I have been looking into my students’ history
and can see which ones did not have attachment with a caregiver at birth. I want to help improve this in the community
by offering classes to young mothers.
Recommended resources from colleagues would be
literacy development techniques and what is best for young children. Teaching language and literacy beginning
before birth is important. Children need
a rich literate environment and need to be talked to in language they can
understand beginning early on. A
resource that I found helpful is the website: Raising Children.net http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/activities_to_promote_literacy.html This website has activities and ideas to
develop literacy at all ages.
Information that I found to share with colleagues
about parent collaboration would be Project Appleseed. This organization has numerous ways to form a
parent involvement group or PTA within the school. Information can be found at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmpkmgWXEAAXNwW.jpg:large
Effect of Positive Social Change
Child development is critical in the early years so
that students will learn and grow and be able to compete in a global society. As
an agent of positive social change, I have a strong vision of providing all of
my students a strengths-based approach to learning and help them be resilient
to any form of adversity. By studying
and understanding all areas of child development, I will be able to provide
this for all students who enter my classroom.
I also want to share this information with other colleagues in my
school, who also work with pre-kindergarten and kindergarten aged
students. Being a change agent in
education is a passion of mine and I will do what it takes to accomplish this
goal.
Reference:
Berry, B., Daughtery, A., Wiedner, A. (December,
2009). Collaboration: Closing the Effective Teaching Gap. CTQ Center for
Teaching Quality, p. 1-10. Retrieved from: http://www.teachingquality.org/sites/default/files/Collaboration-%20Closing%20the%20Effective%20Teaching%20Gap%20(February%202010)_0.pdf
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