Part 4
Overview
A family interview is one way to determine the values a parent and family live by and start the dialogue with families about their cultural beliefs and expectations of the program they are enrolling their child in. This is an opportunity to set the stage for relationship-based care and open the door to continued discussions about what is essential to the parent and families for their child. Consider what you want to know and why you want to know it. Not only is the family interview document essential, but how the interview that takes place matters. Being able to role-play and practice how the discussion might go will help you decide what you want to ask and consider how you want to ask it.
Instructions
Examine the sample parent interview questionsfound here:
Home Language Survey
Conducting a Parent Interview
You will be developing your own but can use the examples as a guide. Think about what you want to know, why you want to know it, and how much you need to know. After you develop your interview document, you will conduct an interview. You will not be documenting the discussion for the class, so the name does not matter; the questions found will not need any words for this assignment. You will just need any parent or caregiver of a child to participate with you. If you work in a program and select a parent of a child in your schedule, you need to let them know that this is an opportunity for you to practice your interviewing style, not anything about their child; you will not be documenting that at all.
Review sample interview documents or suggestions for interviews.
Write out things you would want to know about a child and family enrolling in your program.
Develop a family interview form with between 12-15 meaningful questions.
Interview a parent or caregiver of a child. The goal is to practice asking the questions, not necessarily the information that is being shared. You can select a family friend or a family of a child you work with. You must explain that what will not submit the family interview, just the blank interview form you developed and some reflection questions of how you conducted the interview. Who will use no names, so do not document answers from the discussion?
You will upload your BLANK interview form and then answer the following questions:
What was most important to you to include in your interview form?
Were there questions or things you wanted to know that we’re missing from your interview form?
Were there questions or something you did not need to know that was included in your interview form?
How did you feel when asking the questions; were there any questions that you were uncomfortable asking or hearing the answer to?
Is there anything you would do the same and or different during the interview?
Part 5
Overview
We must be intentional when it comes to reflecting on our relationships with families. For some families, we might say we have strong relationships with them, and for some families, we might say we do not have a relationship with them. But we need to stop and think about why we do not have relationships with all families. What do we need to do differently to support positive relationships with all families who have children in our care? We need to take on the responsibility of establishing close relationships with all of our families. We need to consider how we can do better at this. This is how we will support children, but having positive relationships with their families.
Instructions
For this assignment, you will brainstorm ways you support or help close relationships with families. Once you brainstorm everything you do, think about what else you need to do. Generate a list of 10 ways you will support close relationships with families. This list needs to have specifics of keeping these close relationships and what resources you will need to do this. Use this Word document template to develop your ten reasons.
Part 6
Overview
A SWOT analysis is a valuable framework for analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. It helps you focus on your strengths, minimizes threats, and take the most significant possible advantage of opportunities available to you. When you take the time to do a SWOT analysis, you’ll be armed with a solid strategy for prioritizing the work you need to do to grow your skills as an educator. This SWOT analysis will focus on your work with parent and family engagement.
This assignment involves a collection of internal and external information that will support the development of your action plan. That is the second part of this assignment.
Instructions
Part 1: SWOT Analysis
Review the reflections you have done throughout the course. You can use the reflective inventory that you did in the meditative practice exploration in this module. You identified some areas you scored higher in and areas you scored lower in.
1. Review the strengths and weaknesses you have identified throughout the course in a word document make a table like below.
Strengths (factors that positive family involvement and engagement that you have)
Weaknesses(elements that are harmful to your family involvement and engagement)
Opportunities(favorable situations or resources you have access to that support positive family involvement and engagement)
Threats (unfavorable conditions or barriers you might have that will interfere with positive family involvement and engagement)
2. Brainstorm ideas for each section. You will use this to develop your final project, your action plan.
Part 2: Developing an action plan.
Draw from your SWOT analysis. Look specifically at your weaknesses and opportunities. Anything in particular that stands at for you that you want to make a goal? You will need to start with one overarching goal for your action. Make it a SMART plan.
S=Simple
M=Measurable
A=Attainable
R=Realistic
T=Time Bound
The goal will drive your action steps and timeline, so make sure it is a SMART goal.
Use the following format when developing your action plan. An example is provided below, and you are free to use this template or one of your own. In your project, give no less than three action items for your overarching goal, up to five for total points. Review the rubric for grading.
Goal (SMART): Increase Parent Family Engagement in my Classroom during the second quarter as reported by Families During Final Parent Family Teacher conferences.
Action Items
Action Steps
Timeline
Have parents/families help develop one developmental goal
At the beginning of the second quarter, I will meet with families to see what purpose they would like their child working
Start of the 2nd quarter, develop a goal with parent/family and report out on it during a final parent-teacher conference
Have parents/families provide 2 to 3 observations from home about how the child is meeting or working towards the developmental goal
At the beginning of the second quarter, ask parents to share comments with you about how their child is doing on purpose. Check-in periodically through text/email, giving an example of how the child is working on it in school and see if parents have anything to share
Document the observation when shared. Have the statement available during a final parent-teacher conference
Have parents/families share outcomes of a home to school activity they tried
Share activities weekly that support the goal children are working on in the classroom so parents can try it at home. Check-in with families to see if they tried anything or something of their own maybe.
Document results or information families share about activities they tried and use in the documentation for the final parent-teacher conference.