What can teachers do to facilitate parental involvement?
Good academic performance of students results from the combined effort of both teacher and parents. The common perception of people is that only the teacher is responsible for the progress and performance of the child. But, in reality, along with the teacher’s effort, the involvement of parents is very necessary. There is a very visible and major difference in the result and progress of students whose parents show interest and involvement with their children in their studies. But you cannot force parents to do so. So here are some smart ways through which teachers can improve parents involvement and engagement.
Make constant contact with the parents:
To facilitate the involvement of the parents, the key factor is to always keep in touch and contact with the parents. Make sure that you update the parents about every student’s progress, win, and failure to their parents. Parents will only take an interest and be involved when they are made or pinned to do this. When the teacher is in contact with the parents, they either happily or undesirably start involved. This constant connection with parents ensures students that their parents are getting all their reports, so they try to perform more efficiently in the classroom. Along with that, now parents cannot make excuses that they did not involve because they were not informed.
Set expectations:
Set your expectation with the parents of students at the beginning of the academic year. Because teachers and parents are on the same page and have the same identified expectation, it impacts students positively and saves students from dual pressure, and they know on which track they have to go. You have to talk to the parents at the beginning of the session, share your plans and strategies with them, and hear their expectations and plans. After talking to them, decided with mutual understanding. Because sometimes, parents do not show involvement because they are unclear and confused about the pattern of teaching or learning. When they are completely unaware of things, they did not involve in the studies of their kid.
Create a website for your class:
Everyone plays smartly in this technological world, and modern problems also need smart solutions. Now students are also getting smarter, so create a website for your classroom instead of burdening yourself with lots of work. This will save you time from emailing all the parents individually. You can share all the dates for the exams, the due date of the assignments, the result of the students and all the important notices there. By setting up the website, it would become easy for parents to get access to the information all the time as many times as they want. It is not easy to go through or find the same email repeatedly. This will also encourage students to perform well in studies and complete assignments on time, rather than help from the Law dissertation writing at the last moment.
Host events for the teachers:
It is not necessary that parents can only meet with the teacher in the parents-teacher meeting. Find new ways to meet parents and increase their engagement. In this regard, one of the best ways is to host different events for the parents that are different from those parent-teacher meetings that happen yearly or after every exam. Bring a change by arranging different workshops and events for parents. These events will facilitate parental involvement because when they meet with the teacher of their child in an informal event, it will break ice and parents will slowly and gradually start involved in their kid’s learning and school activities. Even you can also invite parents to different events in the school. When they see their child achieving something or performing, they will automatically start involved in the studies of their child.
Be flexible:
It is not necessary to always have in-person or face to face meetings with the parents. Usually, the time of meeting and the office hours is the same. So it is not always possible for parents to leave their office or work and go to the school and attend meetings, so you have to be flexible in such a situation. Be gentle to the parents. Understand their problem, and you can have a virtual meeting with the parents who cannot attend meetings in the school. Make it easy for the parents to engage with the teacher and studies of their child. When things are easy and flexible for the parents, it will encourage them to involve and take an interest.
Provide resources to the parents:
Provide a resource to the parents where they can easily and frequently asked questions and their quarries with the teacher. Either on your classroom website or any other portal, but provide a space and platform where a parent can easily get in touch with the teachers. And your task is not to only provide them with a resource to question, but also to teach them and make them understand how to use it and how they can utilize its benefits. Explain to them its importance and also how important parental involvement is. Even to encourage parental involvement at the end of every session, you can announce or give prizes to the parents who show the right involvement. This will encourage them and motivate other parents to get involved.
Shorter and frequent communication:
Make it a rule for “shorter and frequent communication.” It is unnecessary to spend hours and hours with parents and take their time. Long meetings and conversations make the parents bored, and it also discourages parental involvement. To facilitate parental involvement, it is necessary to make it easy, not complex. Arrange frequent meetings and conversations with the parents but do it for a shorter time. Make it as short and interesting as it can so that parents can easily talk to you again without being insisted.
Communicate well:
One of the most influential tools to facilitate parental involvement is the communication skill of the teacher. If they have good communication skills, they can easily communicate the importance of parental involvement to the parents.
