Big Ideas

• Parents and guardians are important allies at home in supporting their children’s academic success and achievement, especially in praising effort, focusing on teacher descriptive feedback, and in nurturing a “growth mindset.”
• Having access to relevant, high quality information about their students’ interests, strengths and needs helps teachers provide promising, broadly-applicable strategies or home-appropriate and student-personalized strategies that support academic achievement.
• Creating common, shared, high expectations for student achievement and supporting these over time increases a sense of efficacy for both parents and teachers.
• Transparency in program, instruction, assessment and reporting with parents and guardians helps to leverage their support at home and alleviate their concerns.

Questions

• What is within the sphere of influence, in terms of students’ achievement, for teachers and educators? Parents/guardians? Students? Where might these spheres intersect?
• How do we gain authentic insights from parents and guardians about students’ interests, strengths and needs to help support them at home with student-appropriate and student-personalized strategies?
• How can we, as teachers and educators, help to create shared expectations for student achievement?
• How can we provide clear, timely information to parents and guardians about the tier of interventions and supports available at the school – and necessary at home – to support those students who experience difficulties in learning?