At UTVA, we work on a semester schedule. We're almost to midterms, which means it's almost time for our parent teacher conferences. These conferences are a little different, as you may imagine, since we don't have a physical classroom that parents can visit. The teachers of UTVA are not all lined up in the gym for a few hours, as is often the case in a traditional brick and mortar school. Instead, we arrange appointments with parents and their students to visit us in our online classroom. Once there, we visit about progress, go over missing work, sing praises of improvements, and make some goals for the remainder of the semester. It is a refreshing opportunity to discuss students individually and really help them make the most of their time in school.
Of course, there are frustrations. Not all parents are aware of their student's progress, even though they have access to grades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition, at our school, students are 'going to school' at home, so parents have the opportunity (and I dare say, obligation) to check in with their student each day. Since students are not coming to a physical site for school, we at UTVA rely on parents to act as learning coaches for their students. Learning coaches are to mentor their student, act as a liaison for their student as needed, and act as a daily check point to make sure their student is progressing as expected. I'm really excited that this year we are doing more to support our learning coaches. Hopefully this effort will pay off in helping students achieve academic growth. It is from frustrations that new ideas are generated, and that ultimately leads to improvement.
Conferencing with your students has got to be really a hard job. I think about my students and how the parents make excuses for not attending SEP's. I can only imagine what excuses you hear about how hard it is to log on and talk with the teacher. I think it would be challenging to teach online but am sure it is rewarding as well. Good luck with the conferencing.
ReplyDeleteEven in a regular school where parents have access 24/7 to their kids' grades online, many parents are completely out of touch when it comes to grades. When students are not doing very well, those students make up tall tales to their parents about why they are not failing. In attempt to shift more accountability to the parents and students, I try to provide as much online materials and information as possible. That way they do not have an excuse of "I didn't know." In end, parents need to bare some of the responsibility.
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