- What was the purpose of the call?
- How did you get the number?
- How did you introduce yourself?
- With whom did you speak, mother? Uncle?
- How did it go?
- What results, if any, did you witness?
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Reflection Assignment Week of April 12: Parent Phone Call
Summarize and analyze a parent phone call you've made. If you haven't made a call yet, make one during the next couple days you teach.
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I have not had the opportunity to make a parent phone call yet. This might be a bit difficult as my school is very concerned about parent relations and may not be too keen on a student teacher getting involved with parents. I will see what may be possible this upcoming week.
ReplyDeleteI have not done any phone calls to parents but in the three weeks of teaching I have been in two PPT meetings.
ReplyDeleteIn the first meeting, participants were all the major teachers, the parents, a special Education teacher and a councilor. The student’s academics were not consistent. One day he would do the work in no time and the next day he would do absolutely nothing! Many times I would pass by him and asked him discreetly if he needed help with the problems (which I knew he did not), and he would tell me: “ I don’t need help, I am working on” but actually he would not do anything. Most of the teachers agreed that he had the capacity to do better but it was his behavior, which at times would become disruptive, that was the real problem. The parents were very apologetic about it and they were seeking any guidance for improvement. It was decided to modify a “behavior plan” and working plan for trying to catch up with the missed assignments.
In the 2nd meeting, only one parent was present. The parent wanted to make sure that the student’s agenda was checked and signed every day. Again assigned projects were either plagiarized from the internet or they were not done on time. I have noticed this particular student not being able to focus or pay attention and not being able to do work independently. However, the student worked relatively well when I had her to work a problem on the board. She seemed to perform much better when she got the individual attention. At the end of the meeting the parent agreed to keep a very close eye to make sure that the assignments were completed properly and on time.
This week is a spring break so there will be no chance for phone calls.
I certainly understand the reluctance to make the calls because you feel like you are stepping over some boundary. What is being left out of the calculus is the fact that by taking over a class, you ARE their teacher for that time period. The education these students receive is dependent on YOU! As a parent, wouldn't you want to know if your child is having trouble in class regardless if it is a student teacher or the cooperating teacher who was letting you know?!
ReplyDeleteI have not made a phone call yet. But my Cooperating Teacher made some last week, and she suggested that I make some before my time is up so that I get the experience. We are on vacation this week, so I wont be able to make a call until next week.
ReplyDeleteMy cooperating teacher suggested making some positive calls first. Call parents and tell them that their son or daughter is doing well and has improved, based on last test or quiz score or participation in class or completing homework assignments. After one or two positive calls, then make the more "difficult calls" then follow up with a couple more positive so that you end up on a good note.
She said it is easier to send emails as progress reports, but it is better to call, there is less confusion. She has done both after school when I was there.
On a similar note, we have had a parents conference night two weeks ago. Most parents who came were parents of students that were doing well, they wanted to make sure that their child was continuing to do their work and keep up their grades.
ReplyDeleteOne parent of a student in my lower level algebra class, made a comment that her son's grades seemed to have gone down in the last 3 weeks. (She was trying to insinuate that the lower grades were due to the student teacher). My cooperating teacher say this before it was really implied or said. She cut it off at the pass and said that her son had missed a few classes and we were covering one of the harder topics, factoring and quadratic formula. That he needed to make up work to keep up with the material that he missed. She explained that both she and I would be available after school almost every afternoon to help any student that needed additional help or guidance. That nipped it in the bud and it was positive after that.
One of my biggest fears of attending the parent/teacher conference was the implication or outright acusation that the student teacher wasnt teaching their child, but it overall was fine. Most parents were there to find out what to do tot help their child and the understood that we were there to do that as well.
I was a bit hesitant to make the call to a parent because more often than not, when such calls are made, they are mostly due to negative behaviors of the students in question. This particular student had no classroom management issues at all so I was wondering how the call might be perceived by the parents. Upon reading Randy’s comment again, I decided to go ahead with it. My cooperating teacher understood the reason so we were both in agreement. She provided the phone number of the parent. I must say that initial politeness to a parent and frankness with him/her would determine the success or failure of such a call. I began by introducing myself to the mother and stated my reason for calling (which was a positive one) else, she would have become nervous of the call. I assured her that all was well and my reason for calling was for us to see how best we could help her daughter overcome math anxiety and stay focused on her work to maximize her potential. She did not do very well in the recent quiz as compared to prior ones and I feel that a little more focus on classroom activity will be needed to maintain her grades in a good standing. In my introduction to the parent, I said I was her daughter’s student teacher. I told her I was with the ARC program and I am privileged to be her daughter’s math teacher for four weeks. I talked a little bit about what the student teaching was all about and the fact that for these four weeks, although I have teamed up with her daughter’s regular teacher, I will be handling the class – teaching the curriculum, setting quizzes, tests, and homework. From the tone of her voice, I could tell that she was calm and friendly so I mentioned some of the strengths I have noticed in her daughter. In general, the call went as expected. The student was glad the call was not prompted because of a bad behavior. I believe her mother must have spoken to her because she is more focused now in class and has shown some increase in confidence. I will be checking to see how she performs in subsequent quizzes. I am glad I made the call because the mother was thankful I did, and assured me that she will be working with the daughter at home so I should not hesitate to inform her about her child’s progress.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t make a phone call yet, but I did have to respond to a parent in a note.
ReplyDeleteAs luck would have it, I was having trouble with one of the “repeat offenders” the afternoon before I got the note. My fourth period class meets for 9 minutes, then breaks for lunch and comes back for the 35 minutes of class after lunch. During the first 9 minutes, 2 students were just aggravating the rest of the class and I had already given them warnings, the next step I would need to take was to send them out of the class which I hadn’t done before. During lunch, I mentioned to my cooperating teacher that I was anticipating a problem with these two students and I wanted to send them out of the class to send a message to the rest of the class. So she said that sounded like a plan and to send them to the Team room across the hall where she would be.
So the class came back after lunch, sure enough I had my plan ready. And when trouble began, I sent them both to the Team room. Wow. I had done it! I was happy about that and moved on. Unfortunately, 2 minutes later I see a bobbin’ head and look out into the hall to see the two of them running back and forth. No cooperating teacher in the Team room. I had no choice but to pull them back into the classroom. Wow, of course I was defeated now and yep the rest of the class went horribily.
I lived through the next period, ended the day and started thinking about the next day and how to fix things.
Well, I wasn’t expecting to get a note from a parent in Homeroom the next morning from one of the other students in that same class. The parent said the student couldn’t do the homework because he didn’t understand the assignment and said the class was too noisy. She said she couldn’t help him because she didn’t understand what he had to do for homework. Now the student was no angel himself that day, and he had repeated turned around to talk so he didn’t help himself out any. But, this was still my problem.
So I thought about it for a few minutes, then I wrote an answer. I explained that we were doing a “Discovery Lesson” where the students get to try different strategies to estimate an answer to finding the area of a parallelogram and that the students discussed their strategies with each other during class so it might have been a little noisy. But I said that we also put some examples of strategies up on the SMART Board. I also said that we would be introducing the “traditional” area formula today and that I know from our work with Triangles that her son already knew how to find base and heights. I also said that I spend extra time with the student this morning during the Flex period.
It’s frustrating that I was working on Classroom Management issues with some students with IEPs and yet there at least another ½ dozen other students in that same class with IEPs and 504 plans too.
After I gave the note back to the child, I told my cooperating teacher about it. I could see that she was a little uncomfortable because everything reflects on her, I told her exactly what I had said so she would know. All she said was well you know XXX has a 504 plan. Which I had just looked up before I sent the note back so of course I knew.
In our school, there is a lot of emails from the parents to the teachers. There is only one phone line that all five teachers have to share and our cell-phones don’t work in the school so it is very difficult to make calls or get calls and follow-up with parents that way I think is difficult.
On conference day, one nite my co-operating teacher couldn’t make it because her son was receiving an award. She got 30 parents that wanted a call. Last week was three weeks later and she hadn’t been able to return all the calls and connect with the parents.
I have not had the need to call a parent as an intervention. I certainly have plenty of positive things I could call home to talk about. If the need presents itself to call home as an intervention, I will do so. I would hope that a call home would not be our first and maybe not even our second line of defense! I would first address any concerns with the student directly and I have done this with a few students and the problems were corrected. There is one student that has become increasingly chatty, or actually "singy" and "dancy" if those are words, and I plan to address these issues with the student on Monday. If they aren't corrected, I will call home on that one.
ReplyDeleteA parent call is not a nuclear bomb only to be used as a last resort but a means of intervention. If a student begins to exhibit a pattern of behavior we wish to alter, we can call home and share our concern. Most parents will be appreciative for the information as they are often kept out of the loop.
ReplyDeleteI must say that I am surprised at what I perceive as hesitancy to call parents. Sadly, many teachers do not make these calls yet we owe it to parents to keep them in the loop.
Parents:
ReplyDeleteCertainly, I feel every teacher is responsible to answer or communicate with the parents and keep them informed. I did not grab the opportunity of calling parents but I was lucky enough to attend report card conferences with parents and students held on 2 days this week. I met a dozen parents along with my cooperating teacher. Unfortunately, since ours being the low level schools, we see very few parents attending the conferences. My cooperating teacher was having 3 rd marking period results and I opened up 4th marking period grades till date. It was very interesting to learn how to interact with parents. Some of them did not understand English, their kids translated to them.
Some of the students came in crying for failing, my teacher showed them exactly where they were slacking – eg: absentees or no participation, too much talking, no homework, low test grades in cumulative tests. She gave me a chance to spend few minutes with every parent, showing 4th quarter – for past 3 weeks how they have been doing in my class. I encouraged some by showing that they are doing better. I cautioned some by showing their least participation grades. It was quite surprising to know, the different parent psychologies and their expectations from teachers. Most parents were thanking me for the project assignment where the students can make up grades. They were happy to see their kids’ project on the display boards.
I had few concerns with some students which I revealed to their parents. Some told me to call them, if it repeats. Some shouted at their kids on spot. Some parents did not come to the conference. I guess I will have to make 2 phone calls. General problem with phone calls in the class is – students are not directly related to guardians, phone numbers will be out of service – prepaid card, goes to voice message and the students erase message before parents get home etc.
One important thing which surprised my teacher during my 3 weeks, which she says it never happened before was, she received emails from a parent asking for homework assignments for her kid, who was absent. She also received few emails from seniors directly. She forwarded mails to me and asked me to reply as I am the teacher now. At once, the ARC computer class –email privacy came into my mind. I managed to send parent and students files and gave them the due date. I had to exchange couple of emails with seniors explaining the project. Interestingly, the parent remembered my name during parent conference and told me ,her son worked very hard to finish the hw on time.
Here , one important thing to note is that the student is the one with most behavior issues , who failed in 3rd marking period but he ended up doing very well in the assignment in this quarter and was happy that his grade made his mom happy at the end of the conference.
I made a parent call today, and plan to make one more (I tried to make the second one, but it turned out that the number we have for the student is incorrect, so I may have to resort to e-mail or another means of communication). Anyway, I first warned the students in question that I would do this. They are in the same class, and have been acting very disruptive (talking, trying to take advantage of the student teacher situation, disrespectful). Yesterday I warned that if the behavior continued today that I would call the parents. There was actually one other student that I warned, but today when I reminded him of this, he did shape up. The other students did not, so I told at the end of class that I would be calling home, which I did right at the end of the day (which was really my first chance). Now, unfortunately, I had to leave a message. I just explained, in a nonconfrontational manner as we have been taught, that I was the student teacher for Seth Fry and wanted to talk about some disruptive behavior on the part of the student that I was concerned about because I wanted the student to have a good learning experience, which was not happening because of what was going on. The father did call me back, and then unfortunately I was on the phone so he left me a message...and when I called him back, I again got voicemail. This time I left more details (only because I didn't want him to spend the weekend wondering about the details)...and explained that his son had just acting up in class, talking, clowning around a bit, etc. I acknowledged that probably a little bit of trying to take advantage of the student teacher situation was going on. Oh, I did of course start out my initial phone call saying that I was enjoying having the student in class, and that I wanted him to be able to learn as much as he could, and for the rest of the class to be able to do so as well. I asked the parent if he would simply remind Avery that it was important to behave well in class and stay focused on his work. I also said that I would follow up next week. Finally, I did also try to make a positive phone call about a student who is just such a joy to have in class--she doesn't get good grades on her tests, unfortunately, but she is puts such effort into her work and is enthusiastic about learning and trying. The parents were not home when I called, though...I will try again next week. (I got all of the student phone numbers from my cooperating teacher)
ReplyDeleteI participated in a phone call but it was with my cooperating teacher. The parent was not shy about expressing that her child was having difficulty and she thought it was due to his having a student teacher. I hate to say I somewhat agree with her but I am at least slightly vindicated in that not all my students are having difficulty. While many are and I wish I was a better teacher for them some are not having trouble. My co-operating teacher assured the parent that I was not teaching the material any different then she would, I was new and difficult material, and her child was not spending the time required. That was true since the child was away 3 days on a band trip and busy every day after school with baseball practice. We agreed to give him extra help during study halls and the parent agreed to make sure he co-operated. While he didn't do great on the day of the test he didn't fail. We haven't heard from the parent since and her son seems to be OK.
ReplyDeleteDuring the second week of my student teaching, my cooperating teacher called a parent of one of his Algebra students since the student didn't do well on a test and was not completing all his homework. The bottom line of the conversation is that a shouting match ensued and the parents came to the school very angry, they waited until Monday, but wanted to do it right away. The principal believes in positive school relations and nice-nice, no waves. As a result, there was an issue with making calls to parents of his students. Therefore, I did not make any parent calls.
ReplyDeleteI made my parent phone call on Tuesday, April 27th.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of the phone call was to inform Luke’s mom that he was failing. Luke is a senior and needs to pass to graduate.
I got the number from the cooperating teacher. The records for parents and guardians are kept in a secure file on the school’s computer system. I used the cell phone so that I could leave a brief message if there was no answer.
When I first called the mom’s cell phone, I got her voicemail. I left a message with my name and the cooperating teacher’s name and my cell number. The cooperating teacher and I were both on the phone (there are two phones in the classroom).
She called me back on Thursday during my last period class, but I didn’t know because I had my phone on silence. Coincidentally, we were scheduled to call her again right after that class. We made the call and reached her this time. I introduced myself again as Luke’s student teacher in Statistics. My intention was to introduce my cooperating teacher as well, but nerves kicked in so my cooperating teacher introduced herself. I then continued to explain the purpose of the call – that we were nearing the midpoint of the trimester and Luke was failing the class. Based on my having left the message from Tuesday, she had spoken to Luke Thursday morning to see if there is anything she should be aware of. Luke said everything was fine, even though the cooperating teacher informed him he was failing.
So the conversation continued from there. We assured her that Luke was failing and had been informed of such. She was very cooperative on the phone (not defensive) and asked what Luke could be doing to improve his grade. I assured her there was still time to improve his grade. Throughout the conversation, we discussed the following about Luke: 1) absences (she acknowledged Luke had been sick quite a bit lately); 2) he could do a better job catching up on notes when he’s out; 3) he could put more effort into doing his homework (she thought he was keeping up with homework); 4) he could do a better job being attentive and taking notes when he is in class as he sometimes puts his head down on the desk (we informed her that all quizzes and tests are open notes); and 5) he could come for extra help as we have made ourselves available before 1st period, several times throughout the day and after school.
She was very receptive to all my suggestions and said she would follow-up with Luke. She was very appreciative of the phone call. (I explained up front that Friday was my last day of student teaching, but that the cooperating teacher was available for any follow-up.)
I witnessed a parent who was concerned about the progress of her son and wanted to be cooperative with his teacher(s) in determining how he might improve and what she could do to help in the process.
Finally I was able to make not just a phone call but two. The first one was very unusual call. It was caused because of an event that I found extraordinary. I don’t know how but somehow I lost my money somewhere in the school hallway. I just had gone to the bank the day before and it was an appreciable amount of money. In my despair, a teacher comes to me and asks me if I lost anything. I said “I lost all my money and a blank check with it”. He said “here it is”. “One of my students found it and returned it.” I met the student (he was not in my classes) and first I congratulated him and then I gave him a good percent of the amount. I then recommended to his teacher to nominate him “the student of the month” for honesty and integrity. After that you can imagine how much difficult time I had to make the phone call (that’s a joke). I called the mother, and I congratulated her for raising her son with such strong ethics. She told me that when her son returned home he felt extremely proud of himself. Well deserved!
ReplyDeleteThe second call was a more difficult one. This particular student had some problems with consistency in his academics. He would get decent grades and then he would fail couple of quizzes or tests. I called home and talked to the student’s mother. I described the situation and she agreed that his study as she saw it had ups and downs. I recommended to her that the student can come and see me any time after school or during study hall for extra help. She said she would talk to him so he could take advantage of the offer. The mother really appreciated the call. And I appreciated her response.
Last year I called a student's mom because the student, who is very bright, had such an attitude of "I do whatever I want" that I had to seek help from home. In speaking with her mom, who also is very intelligent, she made it very clear to me that the daughter came by her superiority complex and holier than thou attitude genetically from mom and it wouldn't change or go away.
ReplyDeleteMany phone calls ahve proven to me that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.