Parents play an essential role in shaping their child’s character. They can help in the kid’s educational journey by getting involved in school activities. This is where the parent-teacher interaction aspect comes into the picture.
Importance of communication in education
A student can achieve a high level of academic excellence if he or she gets support from school as well as family. Teacher to student and teacher to parent interaction are paramount for the child’s success. Parents can help children if they understand what he or she lacks. Unfortunately, most of the studies point out that the factors like the language barrier, lack of time and resources act as hurdles in communication.
Importance of effective communication between teachers and students
Maintaining a positive environment during the learning session can be possible only when the student and professor do not feel uncomfortable to interact with one another. Lessons need to be engaging to ensure students feel enthusiastic while learning.
Both, teacher and students in the classroom need to set their expectations for the day before the beginning of the session. The tutor must ensure the lectures are appropriately structured. He or she should always show a positive approach and never look at any of the students as someone who wastes time. Such an approach can make the child feel guilty and limit communication even further.
Usually, kids who do not ask many questions may have issues to address and require more attention. Factors like the language barrier, problems with girlfriend or boyfriend, unstructured lectures, examinations, problems in comprehending, and failure in setting expectations can cause stress to the student. The tutor should try to connect with children on a one-to-one basis to understand if the kid suffers from speech or language related difficulties.
Such positive environment could ensure kids feel free to discuss their most problematic aspects with their tutor.
The relationship between teacher and parents
A positive working relationship between the tutor and parent can indeed help in improving the student’s academic performance.
A teacher expects the guardian to ensure that the kid completes the allotted homework. They also expect the mother or father to sit with their kid and perform a revision for lessons that were covered during various lectures at the school. On the other hand, parents expect the tutor to share details like academic performance, attendance and child’s behavior in the school promptly. The student’s learning outcome, grades can show immediate positive effects if both communicate their expectations clearly and decide responsibilities accordingly to support the child.
What would be your reaction if your child’s educator emails you about how great your kid is doing in his class? You would feel pleasantly surprised.
Research has already proved how personalized positive messages can improve communication between a parent and tutor. Thus, the interaction between the two should also focus on the child’s positive aspects. The guardian would appreciate unsolicited positive comments about the kid from the tutor.
Communication between teacher and parents
No matter if the child is in pre-school, high-school, or beyond that, the family’s engagement in school affairs is essential. Regular two-way communication can help the educator and parent to understand the kid’s challenges and strengths. It also improves mutual respect and trust between the two.
During the 90s, every parent used to get 15 minutes to discuss their child’s needs hurriedly. On the other hand, teachers had to struggle equally to explain their observations regarding the concerned student during the monthly meetings. As per the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Researcher Heather Weiss, the traditional model happens to be insufficient to improve the engagement with both parties. Thankfully, technology has changed the scenario.
Ways to communicate with parents using technology
Until the last decade, parent-teacher meetings, phone calls, open houses, and parent newsletters were preferred options for interaction. These days, society has changed, and parents prefer to look into these issues as per their convenience in their busy work schedule. The most preferred modes of communications are emails, online chat support, discussion forums, and app messages.
Forums have gained popularity as guardians get the opportunity to discuss problems with teachers as well as other parents as per their convenience.
Parent Teacher Communication App
Smartphone apps can play a crucial role in improving parent-teacher interaction. School administration can use mobile phone applications to send details about the child’s examination performance, assignment completion, list of holidays, absenteeism, and even provide real-time GPS location details for the kid’s school bus.
Now the most asked question, can such simple and short messages prove to be helpful?
Researcher Matthew A. Kraft’s study published in the Science Direct Research Journal (2015) points out how personalized messages sent to the guardians can help in shaping parent-child conversations at home. It can help busy parents to understand what their child is best at and the areas of improvement even while on the go. Messages have the potential to improve parent-teacher communication even further. Educational institutes who use personalized messaging have reported a minimum seven percent reduction in the overall number of students who failed in various courses as per the Kraft’s study.
When it comes to the most significant barriers that schools around the world face, attendance remains the top priority. The involvement of guardians can help in controlling student absences. A study conducted by Harvard University Researchers Monica G. Lee and Carly D. Robinson pointed out that the child’s attendance issue can be sorted out with the help of messages. They observed that the low-cost strategy could reduce absenteeism by as much as 15 percent.
Text messages had limitations, but apps have made things easy. School administration and teachers can send essential data in the form of app messages, notifications to the concerned parent within minutes.
Dealing with parents as a teacher
At times, teachers may need to initiate the communication in the form of an email, or a phone call to guardians for the initial introduction and setting expectations.
No matter if it is about homework, school assignment or kid’s classroom behavior, parents appreciate frequent feedback about their child. To avoid frustration, teachers are often advised to contact the child’s guardian without waiting much longer in case if the issue is too severe.
The tutor should also keep a proper follow up on every student’s problems and keep parents informed about the same. Lastly, communication needs to be in the language that both, teacher and parents can understand.
If your educational institution wishes to develop an app for effective communication, you should discuss your requirement with MyEdu.
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