New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers
in Family Involvement
A new report looks
at promising methods in preparing teachers to understand the family's
role in a child's education and to effectively involve the family.
Parent participation in children's schooling is so important that it
was established in 1994 as a National Education Goal. Yet "Teacher preparation
in family involvement lags far behind school efforts to promote family
involvement," according to a report released November 5 by Vice President
Gore and Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley at the "Partners for
Learning: Preparing Teachers to Involve Families" teleconference.
The 65-page report, New
Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement (1997,
Harvard Family Research Project), examines reasons for -- and the status
of -- teacher preparation in family involvement. It also provides a framework
that illustrates various kinds of teacher training for family involvement.
Unlike other family involvement typologies, this framework focuses not
on actual family involvement activities carried out in schools, but on
the attitudes, skills and knowledge teachers need to work effectively
with parents.
Below are the framework and an excerpt from Chapter 4 ("Promising Methods
for Teacher Preparation") of the report.
FAMILY INVOLVEMENT FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHER TRAINING GOALS
Teachers need to have general knowledge about family contributions to
child development and school achievement. The following should be among
the goals of any teacher preparation program:
General Family Involvement. Provide general information on
the goals of, benefits of, and barriers to family involvement. Promote
knowledge of, skills in, and positive attitudes toward involving parents.
General Family Knowledge. Promote knowledge of different families'
cultural beliefs, childrearing practices, structures, and living environments.
Promote an awareness of and respect for different backgrounds and lifestyles.
Home-School Communication. Provide various techniques and strategies
to improve two-way communication between home and school (and/or parent
and teacher).
Family Involvement in Learning Activities. Provide information
on how to involve parents in their children's learning outside of the
classroom.
Families Supporting Schools. Provide information on ways to
involve parents in helping the school, both within and outside the classroom.
Schools Supporting Families. Examine how schools can support
families' social, educational, and social service needs through parent
education programs, parent centers, and referrals to other community
or social services.
Families as Change Agents. Introduce ways to support and involve
parents and families in decision making, action research, child advocacy,
parent and teacher training, and development of policy, programs, and
curriculum.
PROMISING METHODS FOR TEACHER PREPARATION
The nine programs featured in this report shared common innovative practices.
These practices focused on developing prospective teachers' problem-solving
skills by exposing them to challenging situations that required them to
negotiate sensitive issues. The programs also provided them with opportunities
to work in schools and communities -- often under the guidance of experienced
professionals -- where they were able to gain valuable communication and
interpersonal skills, especially when dealing with families with very
different backgrounds from their own.
These community experiences also gave prospective teachers the opportunity
to develop collaborative skills with professionals from other disciplines.
In addition, the programs emphasized the application of research skills
to develop a better understanding of families and communities. They encouraged
the use of information about families to develop family involvement activities
and to create supplemental materials for classroom use.
These programs utilized guest speakers, role play, the case method,
community experiences, research with families and communities, self-reflection,
and interprofessional education.
GUEST SPEAKERS
Attending guest lectures and discussions led by parents, practicing
teachers, experts from other disciplines, or co-instructors in teacher
education courses provides prospective teachers opportunities to learn
from and interact with key players in children's education. Program faculty
and researchers alike attested to the benefits of drawing upon the expertise
of parents, school personnel, and faculty in other disciplines to enrich
teacher preparation.
Examples of guest speakers include:
Program graduates, who researched family involvement during their
own teacher preparation programs, talked about what they had learned
from their projects and how they had applied that knowledge to their
first weeks of teaching.
A parent-school coordinator, parents with special needs children,
social work faculty, and special educators described how Individual
Family Service Plans are developed with families. A home-school coordinator
spoke to prospective teachers about her work and discussed ways in which
teachers could promote family involvement.
A human development counseling specialist presented a parent effectiveness
training model and discussed skills to use in parent-teacher conferences.
ROLE PLAY
Role play requires students to act out situations that they might face
when working with parents. Role play gives prospective teachers simulated
experience in communicating, handling difficult or threatening situations,
and resolving conflict. By dramatizing situations, prospective teachers
become emotionally engaged and learn in a "hands-on" manner about the
situations that they will face in their classrooms.
Because role play usually takes place in the university classroom, teacher
educators can analyze their students' reactions and responses, and peers
can give feedback. By alternately playing the roles of teacher and parent,
prospective teachers can gain a better understanding of each perspective.
Examples of role play scenarios include:
Negotiating differences of opinion with a parent.
Communicating with a parent about his or her child's poor performance
or behavior.
Conducting a parent-teacher conference.
Discussing a student portfolio with a parent.
Explaining a new curriculum to a parent.
Talking with a parent who is angry or upset.
CASE METHOD
In the case method, prospective teachers read about dilemmas or ambiguous
situations that could arise in working with parents. After reading the
cases, these students analyze and discuss them, referring to their own
relevant experiences and to the theories and principles covered in class.
Because the case method approach encourages prospective teachers to
examine many possible responses to a particular situation, and to evaluate
the merits and drawbacks of each of these responses, they are able to
understand the complexities of home-school relationships. Students' analyses
of these situations help them develop crucial problem-solving skills.
The case method also offers students the opportunity to integrate their
beliefs with known theories as they respond to complex and problematic,
real-life situations (Hochberg, 1993).
Examples of the case method include:
One program used a case study example in which a young girl in a program
for migrant workers had difficulty being understood because she always
held her hand over her mouth when she spoke. A month into the program,
the girl's teacher met the mother and discovered that she also spoke
with her hand in front of her mouth, to hide the fact that she had no
teeth. This case demonstrated that the child's communication problems
were the result of her modeling her mother's behavior. The class looked
at this case from multiple perspectives. The goal was for students to
avoid jumping to conclusions or making assumptions about children or
families.
Another program presented a case in which a parent and teacher had
different agendas for a parent-teacher conference. To analyze the case,
students wrote a 15-page response to the parent, drawing from one of
the developmental frameworks presented in class. Responses were read
aloud to classmates acting in the role of the parent, who then gave
feedback from that perspective.
CULTURAL IMMERSION
One way to learn about children from diverse ethnic backgrounds is to
live as they do. Cultural immersion is especially helpful when the teaching
force and student body come from different cultural and/or economic backgrounds.
Examples of cultural immersion include:
In a former program at Clark Atlanta University, prospective teachers,
along with social work students, had the option of living in housing
projects with the children and families whom they would one day serve.
At Northern Arizona University, prospective teachers in special education
can live and student teach on a Navajo reservation.
COMMUNITY EXPERIENCES
During placement in community settings, such as human service agencies,
children's homes, and community centers, prospective teachers can learn
about services in the community and form relationships with family and
community members in a nonschool context.
In programs that prepare teachers to work in urban schools or in communities
with linguistic and cultural diversity, community experiences tend to
be emphasized. These experiences allow prospective teachers to see children
in a variety of settings, become more visible in the community, and understand
children's sociocultural contexts.
Examples of community experience include:
At the University of Texas (El Paso), the community experience component
was designed by parents who were asked what they thought teachers should
know about their children's community. The experience began with a tour
of major service agencies in the community, including libraries, urban
leagues, and community centers with educational components.
Community experiences can also include helping families and communities.
Working in a neighborhood center, teaching ESL to parents, and providing
weekend respite care for a family with a disabled child are some of
the numerous ways in which prospective teachers are able to assist families
and communities.
The "Parent Buddy Project" arranges for prospective teachers to visit
a family's home several times a semester. Sometimes "buddies" will offer
to babysit so that parents can go to PTA meetings. In this way, the
project not only helps prospective teachers learn about family life,
it also helps parents become more involved with their children's education.
RESEARCH WITH FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES
Research with families and communities can range from parent surveys
to in-depth ethnographic interviews with families. This method offers
teachers the opportunity to understand issues from the perspective of
families and communities and to utilize their expertise and insight. Teachers
can learn from and interact with families of different cultural and economic
backgrounds as they conduct their research.
According to one program respondent, this method sends the message:
"I want to get to know you," rather than "I'm here to teach you something."
Examples of research projects with families and communities include
cases where prospective teachers have:
Developed a parent questionnaire or entrance inventory after working
with at least five parents of children with special needs and written
a summary of findings.
Interviewed their own parents about their respective childhood experiences.
Interviewed families who had a child with special needs.
The prospective teachers then reflected on what they had learned from
the family and on the implications for working with children. They
conducted ethnographic interviews in children's homes to gather and
document household knowledge. The information collected was then used
to develop lesson plans.
"shadowed" a child to gather information about the child's health,
physical education, and social development and asked parents and family
and community members for information.
produced a book of research abstracts based on the prospective teachers'
research with parents.
SELF-REFLECTION
Self-reflection techniques include journal writing and other assignments
that ask teachers to think about their own family backgrounds, their assumptions
about other families, and their attitudes toward working with families.
The goal is for prospective teachers to consider how their own perspectives
will influence their work with families, especially those very different
from their own.
Self-reflection can be combined with other methods used to teach family
involvement. It helps teachers process what they are learning and make
the experiences personally meaningful. Self-reflection is also useful
for addressing cultural differences.
Finally, this method helps prospective teachers uncover any negative
feelings and assumptions that they might have which may inhibit them from
building positive relationships between home and school.
Assignments for self-reflection include:
When discussing social development, prospective teachers in one program
reflect on their own social development and on the ways in which their
teachers influenced them. This introspection helps prospective teachers
examine their own beliefs and learn how these beliefs might influence
their future work with families.
One faculty member teaches about issues of power in society (gender
and minority status, for example) by asking students to analyze their
own cultural perspectives (such as their cultural history, language,
and literacy).
In one program, prospective teachers are asked to look at their own
cultural experiences and history, think about the match between their
family community culture and their school culture, and then discuss
ways in which some children's home and school cultures differ.
INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
Interprofessional education is a new trend in preparing human service
professionals. Schools of nursing, social work, and other disciplines
join with schools of education to prepare teachers and other professionals
working with children and families. The purpose of this strategy is to
train a range of human service professionals to work more closely with
one another, to work in an increasingly collaborative environment, and
to deliver services more effectively to families by placing them at the
center of the human service system.
Examples of interprofessional education include:
One program unites a school of education and an anthropology department
to find new ways of working with families.
Another program brings teachers, administrators, and counselors together
in an intensive family involvement training experience.
Comprehensive interprofessional training programs have the potential
to prepare teachers and other human service professionals to work effectively
with families. For example, teachers involved in such training programs
will be better prepared to identify children's and families' nonacademic
support needs and refer them to appropriate outside agencies and personnel.
Promising models are currently being developed at Ohio State University,
the University of Washington in Seattle, and Miami University in Ohio.
Source: U.S. Department of Education. The views expressed
in this report, developed with contractual support from the U.S. Department
of Education, do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the
Department, and no official endorsement by the Department should be inferred.
A new report looks
at promising methods in preparing teachers to understand the family's
role in a child's education and to effectively involve the family.