Connecting with Families
For this reason, you will observe and analyze the staff interactions with parents Greeting/communicating with parents at the beginning and end of the school day.
Select a school/early childhood program where you would like to visit. In advance of the event, ask permission of the teacher or director to attend or be present for the interaction you would like to observe.
Think about how the interactions feel and the climate that is set. Are there any language issues or differences between the home language of the families and that of the teacher? If so, how is this handled?
Write-up:
1. Location, name of school or program, age of the children in the teacher’s class
2. Date and beginning and ending time(s) of interaction(s)/observation(s)
3. time of interaction(s)/observation(s)
4. Describe the environment where the interaction took place and the climate that existed.
5. Summarize the activity/activities that took place, include language that you heard from the teacher and the families involved and body language of the participants.
6. Were there any language issues or difficulties? If yes, how were they handled?
7. If children were present, what were they doing/how were they behaving during this interaction?
8. What exemplary strategies or interactions did you notice on the part of the teacher? Why do you think they were exemplary?
9. Did you notice anything that connected to our class discussion or our class reading about relating to and creating a partnership with families?
10. Is there anything you observed that you would do differently if you had been the teacher? Why?
11. What did you learn (positive or negative) from observing this interaction that will be valuable to you as a teacher creating partnerships with families?
