Parent-teacher conference communication: a guide to integrating family engagement through simulated conversations about student academic progress

Abstract

Teachers regularly communicate with families, yet few candidates are well-prepared for this professional activity. This gap can hinder family–school partnership and pupils’ success. Given that candidates’ opportunities to learn about family engagement (FE) depends on the decisions and values of individual teacher educators, we illustrate how FE can be integrated into an existing educator preparation programme. Specifically, we describe how to design and use simulated parent–teacher conferences (PTCs) to: foster candidates’ conference communication skills; assess their understanding of content knowledge and their ability to plan instruction. Specifically, we designed two simulation tasks that required candidates’ to analyse and respond to a given student assessment profile and then share their interpretation of the information in ways that developed parent–teacher partnership. Modelled after simulation-based medical education, we describe three steps teacher educators can take to integrate simulated PTCs into their existing curriculum. To illustrate how and why simulations impact professional readiness, we also describe the advantages, sequence and psychological processes of simulation training. A sample of candidate profiles across the two tasks are shared to illustrate what candidates take away from their experiences and the kinds of findings faculty may encounter when integrating simulation pedagogy.     

THE LOST PROFESSION

In the United Kingdom, the higher education community is being deprived of components of its professionalism just when it is clarifying to itself the nature of that professionalism. Historically, academics were not required to define their obligations to society. Now, they must function in an age of accountability in which public services are being asked to demonstrate their wider value. Behind this shift stands a changing relationship between higher education and the state in which the state has moved to assess the quality of what was on offer and is now playing a direct part in influencing the shape of graduate formation. Currently, academic life is becoming so subject to external control that the autonomy required as a necessary component of professionalism is being lost. In Halsey's terminology, academics are changing from being a status group to being a proletariat but without ever having properly been a profession.     

Teaching technological applications in the physics classroom

Conclusions A teaching unit, designed to improve links between physics concepts and students' existing know ledge, has been developed and evaluated. Based on key propositions of the generative learning model, attention gaining activities were introduced to facilitate new ideas being linked to relevant frameworks already held by the learner. Evaluation suggests that introducing an appropriate technological focus, combining activities and using a suitable teaching sequence generally enhance the learning of senior secondary school physics. Student perceptions of the teaching unit were probably enhanced in part because the approach used was new and different. However, when a second teaching unit, based on the Doppler effect, was introduced to the class about four weeks later, very similar results were obtained with the same classes and other classes. The capacitance unit was also used in other schools with similar positive results from both teachers and students.     

Video Production Technology in Australian Higher Education

The paper describes the present state of the art of video programme production in Australian tertiary education, discusses the identity of the decision‐makers in the production sequence, and assesses the importance of video aesthetics. Against the background of some Australian media departments' production and hardware philosophy, the author describes four series of programmes produced at the ACUE.     

Cultural sensitivity: How important is it for effective home visits?

The implementation of home visits as a technique for involving parents has recently resurfaced. This educational trend has received additional emphasis as the nation attempts to meet the national education goals — particularly the first goal, which states, By the year 2000, all children will enter school ready to learn.Sally A. LaPoint is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort. She also administers the At Risk Early Childhood Family Initiative, located at the historic Penn Center on St. Helena Island, South Carolina. Gloria S. Boutte is an Assistant Professor, Kevin J. Swick is a Professor, and Mac H. Brown is an Associate Professor, Early Childhood Education, at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.     

A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment

Authenticity is an important element of new modes of assessment. The problem is that what authentic assessment really is, is unspecified. In this article, we first review the literature on authenticity of assessments, along with a five-dimensional framework for designing authentic assessments with professional practice as the starting point. Then, we present the results of a qualitative study to determine if the framework is complete, and what the relative importance of the five dimensions is in the perceptions of students and teachers of a vocational college for nursing. We discuss implications for the framework, along with important issues that need to be considered when designing authentic assessments.     

Contextual factors that sustain innovative pedagogical practice using technology: an international study

Pedagogical innovation—whether involving technology or not—is shaped by a complex interaction of the innovation with contextual factors such as school and school district policy, leadership, cultural norms and values, teacher attitudes and skills, and student characteristics. This study examined school and classroom contexts in which pedagogical innovations employing technology were successfully sustained. Data were obtained from 59 cases drawn from the Second Information Technology in Education Study—Module 2, a project that examined 174 cases of innovative pedagogical practice in schools in 28 countries. An explanatory model of sustainability was derived from a qualitative analysis of the cases using grounded theory techniques. Essential conditions for the sustainability of classroom innovation were teacher and student support of the innovation, teacher perceived value of the innovation, teacher professional development, and principal approval. Contributing factors for sustainability were supportive plans and policies, funding, innovation champions, and internal and external recognition and support. An interactive website that allows for searching of SITES-M2 case reports on various attributes such as sustainability, transferability, level of school, and evidence of supportive policies and plans is available at http://sitesm2.org.     

Prenatal screening for risk of major parenting problems: further results from the Queen Mary Maternity Hospital Child Care Unit

This research revealed in Stage I the ability to identify during the prenatal period women at risk for possible child abuse and in Stage II an intervention program which when introduced resulted in fewer high-risk mothers relinquishing the care of their infants. The research had two main aims: to use the data from Stages I and II to reassess the criteria for identifying "at risk" mothers, and to develop a brief, easily administered screening questionnaire which could be standardized for widespread prenatal use; and to collect data on a random sample of prenatal patients, to use these data for confirming the validity and stability of the screening procedures, and to estimate the incidence of potentially high-risk mothers in an urban population.     

Influence Processes in Supervision

Supervision is conceptualized in terms of social influence processes that result in attitude and behavior change in the trainee. This article emphasizes attitude change, which both accompanies and mediates behavior change. The implications of the social influence perspective for understanding supervision and for conducting research on supervision are explored.