Communication Plan

Regarding parents: 

Written communication is probably the most effective and effective way. There can be several ways to communicate with parents. Newsletters are commonly used to share information about what will be happening in the classroom. These letters can be weekly or monthly depending on your preference. As an educator you should incorporate the same color, quality, and paper size for all newsletters, use everyday language (about fifth grade level reading), and ensure grammar, spell checks, and proofing the information. 

Schools to home notebooks are a great way to keep communication open between parents and teachers.  The notebook stays in the student’s backpack each day as they come in the teacher will check to see if the parents left a note or vice versa when the students go home the parents can check to see if the teacher wrote something in the notebook (it can be as simple as a reminder of an upcoming event). To maximize efficiency, alternate day or twice weekly notes may be adequate, as long as the communication is frequent enough to engage parents and to monitor student success.

Phone call home can be a teacher calling home to celebrate a child's successful school experience. However, the contact is to share a concern about the child. Teachers should strive to make these interactions as productive as possible. The teacher can call parents monthly to report any good or bad situations that might be taking part at school.  The teacher can also answer any questions that the parents might have.

Parent-teacher conference is another way that teachers can communicate with parents.  This usually happens twice a year but if need the teacher can ask to have more conferences with the parents. Teachers can review student’s files to make sure that they have all the information needed for the meeting. 

At the very beginning of the school the teacher should send home a handbook for parents and students.  This can have all the essential information about how the classroom works.  From grades and behavior to birthdays and attendance.  It is all there.  Parents sign and return the bottom slip.  This way no parent cab say they did not know!!!!

At the very beginning of school I send home a handbook for parents and students.  This has all the essential information about how our classroom works, from grades and behavior to birthdays and attendance.  It is all there.  Parents sign and return the bottom slip.  This way no parent can say they did not know!!!  

Finally in today's world; technology. Teachers can email parents about any concern that they have about the students or they can email a parents just saying how well the student had done that day, Emails are a great way to keep parents aware of any situations that might be taking part at school.  One new thing that teachers are using now a day is the Classroom DOJO.  This is teachers communicating with parents live. Teachers can give point for good behavior, bad behavior and even share pictures of what the class is working on at the exact moment. Parents are able to reply right way about anything that the teacher posted. 

For the above teacher depending on the area they are teaching in can get everything that is written to be translated to the language that they are dealing with.  Today everything we do can be translated. When teachers have things translated they will form a trust with the parents and the parents will feel comfortable coming to the teacher for whatever the situation is.

Teachers can use anyone if the communication tips throughout the school year. Ask the parents from day one which form of communication works best for them and use it for the whole year.  

Regarding Paraprofessionals:

Communication is the key to a successful and coordinated classroom. 

·                     The teacher needs to communicate with the paraprofessionals in a clear, receptive, and responsive manner. 

·                     Provide clear daily direction in coordinating plans, schedules, and tasks.

·                     Inform and update paraprofessionals regarding student information.

·                     Create an atmosphere of trust, cooperation, respect, and loyalty.

·                     Share common vocabulary and nonverbal cues.

Teacher and paraprofessional must understand what the role of the paraprofessional is. A paraprofessional’s job consists of the following:

·         Utilizes multiple modes of communication with students for the purpose of enhancing students’ accurate comprehension.

·         Assists students who are deaf/hard of hearing through the use of alternate modes of communication (e.g., oral interpreting strategies) to provide equal communication access.  

·         Assists students with prompts as required for the purpose of facilitating their comprehension of a task, maximizing their independence, and assimilation within the school environment. 

·         Assists students’ comprehension by routinely checking adaptive equipment.

·         Communicates with teachers and other members of the instructional team regarding assigned students’ daily progress for the purpose of participating in needs assessments and/or assisting in evaluating progress.

·         Performs a variety of clerical duties (e.g., note taking, accessing scripts of videos, requesting closed captioning, etc.) for the purpose of supporting instructional program and specific classroom requirements.

·         Assists students for the purpose of providing supervision of students and ensuring their safety.

The responsibilities of a paraprofessional are working under direct supervision using standardized procedures; leading, guiding, and/or coordinating others; and operating within a defined budget. Utilization of some resources from other work units may be required to perform the job's functions. There is a continual opportunity to have some impact on the Organization’s services. 

You have a one hour time frame on institute day (the day before school) to meet with the paraprofessionals that will be in your classroom.  School starts tomorrow; what information would you include in the first meeting? Introductions, the paraprofessional’s roles and responsibilities (one-on-one, assist with personal care, support social skills instruction, and supporting general education instruction). Teacher should let the paraprofessionals know that he/she need to be open to ideas, flexible, confident, understanding and responsive, motivated and dedicated. 

The teacher should reassure the paraprofessionals even though they are the lead teacher, they will not treat the paraprofessionals less, or kind of like degrade them, or be negative to them because they are assistants.  Let them know you are a team and you are there for the sake of helping the students.  

Teachers should also let the paraprofessionals know who they will be working with and give the information that is needs in order for them to better serve the students better.  

Letter to Parents:

Dear Parents, 

I am your child's 3rd grade teacher, and I delighted to have your child in my class this year.  I am looking forward to a very successful year and I know you are too.  I have high expectations for your child and I will do all that I can to help your child achieve those expectations. 

You can help. I will be expecting all work assigned in class to be completed.  Of course, all children do not work at the same pace.  Some children will get their work done in class and some will not.  Whether or not your child gets his or her work done in class has no effect on their grade.  If your child does not complete as assignment in class, he or she will be required to complete it at home.  The way you can help is to ask your child every school day if schoolwork needs to be done, and if so, make sure your child completes the assignment, also if you can please check the assignment notebook and sign after your child has completed all his or her assignments would be appreciated. 

In addition, I will be assigning projects in various subjects throughout the school year.  Projects are to be completed at home.  Your help and support will not only make your child more successful in school this year but will instill good study habits that will last a lifetime.

If you have expertise is a specific field, an unusual hobby, or has a different culture that you would like to share, please let me know.  I would be happy to visit with about about possibility of you sharing with our class.

Finally, I want you to know that one of my most important goals this year to keep the lines of communication open with you.  I am available every day to talk with you between 7:45 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. and between 3:15 p.n. and 4:30 p.m. Please do not hesitate to contact me at 708-636-2002 ext.312 or tjaber@crsd1275.org if you have any questions or concerns during the year.  I will be sending home the information needed to sign up for the DOJO system that will allow you to see your child engaging in school activities.  It will also allow you to see if your child is having a good or bad day.  You will be able to send me messages and I will be able to respond right away. One final thing, we would love to have you in our classroom. You are always welcome to visit the classroom, you may come to do a craft with the child or just read a book let me know at least two days in advance.

I consider it a great privilege and responsibility to be your child’s teacher this year, and look forward to meeting each of you.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Jaber

Letter to Paraprofessionals:

Dear Paraprofessional name,

Welcome to our classroom I’m glad that you are joining our team and I look forward to working with you the school year.

I am excited to have you become a valued member of our class for this year. The classroom can be a very fun, exciting, and overwhelming place.  I am glad that student name will have your support to navigate the classroom and assignments.

My goal is to have him/her be as independent as possible. When working on a project with student name, please keep the following tips and resources in mind: 1.Projects are about the process as much as the product. 2. Ask probing questions, give choices, but don’t make decisions for the student. 3. Do not intervene with fine motor skills; allow the work to be 100% the students within reason. If we, as a team, find the project is not developmentally appropriate, let me know so I can make accommodations first. 4. I welcome suggestions from you on any additional techniques or tools I can use to help student name grow and learn to his/her greatest potential.

I may have the education background, but you REALLY know your student and we will have to work together to make things work best for him/her. I have designated a special blue tub for materials and extras for your use in class. This will be kept on the counter behind my desk. I have cleared the top of the materials shelf on the North wall for you to use as a desk/note taking area and to keep any extra supplies you need.

The routine of the class will be as consistent as possible (Example schedule: students arrive, do morning DOL, take out homework (to be checked in), I provide some instruction and discussion time, the students work on the material given (depending on subject being taught) , closing discussion time, clean up, and head off home). If there will be any major changes to the schedule, or lesson plan for the day, I will provide the information about the change to you with as much notice as I can, so you will be able to give  student name some advance preparation for the change.

Our working together will be most effective for student name with open lines of communication. Please feel free to reach out to me any time either through email, phone or schedule a time to sit down together. My Email: tjaber@crsd1275.org My Phone #: 708-262-1922 I thank you in advance for all your hard work!

As you know, one of the keys of a successful classroom is communication.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! Let’s have a great year!!

Sincerely,

Mrs Jaber

Module 5 Chapters 12, 14, 15

Chapter 12  Needs on (pgs. 434-437) 
Maslow's believed that people carry a set of motivation systems unrelated to rewards or any type of unconscious needs. He believed people were motived to achieve needs. As educaotors we tend to get frustrated with our students, wondering what more we can do to motivate them and try harder in school. Maslow said people have four lower needs and three higher level needs. The lower are survival, safety, belonging and self-esteem. While the high level are intellectual achievement, aesthetic, appreciation and self actualization. When they are met than our motiviation will increase and we find other things to fulfill them. Self determination distinguishes between two different types of motivation. This is like what I had spoken about in an earlier blog. If we give our students a reason to want to learn than they will do better. When we find ways to keep our students interested in school they will succeed but when the child finds the lesson boring or not to his or her liking than they will not do as well. trying to find ways to accomodate to all students will be hard for any educator but we must try to help all succeed.

Chapter 14 Differentiated Instruction (pgs. 531-537)
As educators we need to know how to differentiate instruction to students in the classroom because we have some students that tend to slack off or be lazy and need some motivation while we have some students that do better when given free rein, some do better by concentrating and others need some kind of threat before they do the work. Sometimes educators say lets do groups where they put half smart kids and half kids that are struggle in some way.. Who benefits here other than the smarter kids because the lower kids might get intimidated by the questions the higher group ask or they just might feel like they dont matter next to the smart ones and stop trying. Educators have been differentiating instructioin for a very long time. They are able to do this bu being sensitive to the needs of their students and finding ways to help out the different students in their classrooms. Today we have many sources that can help us to create different techniques to help out the students which can help out many students that need help. When we differentiate teaching it is not a program or worksheets, it is a way that teachers know their students and try to help them. When we differentiate instrucation is when we educators observes and understnads the differences and the similiarities of the students in the class and we use that to help us as we plan our lessons.
Chapter 15 Classroom Assessment Testing (554-558)
Classroom assessment can be one of the most difficult aspects of teaching. The way we judge the students can take a toll on the educator. As much as it may make a teacher crazy in the end it is a good way for teachers to better know their students and beable to help them get better in areas where they may be struggling. Assessments are made to serve some kind of purpose. It can help out in many ways as to diagnose a learning disability  and it can determine if a school district has met the achievment goals are just a couple. We must also rememeber that the assessments that are done in a classroom do not determine everything.
Objective testing has a right or wrong answer, These kinds of test are popular becuase they are easy for teachers to make and students to take.
Mulitple choice tests are a formative way that can be used to measure skills, values, abilities, thinking skills and etc. It is easy to write a mulitiple choice test but if you really want to challenge a student with that try asking for muliple answers or word the answers close to each other that makes a child really think about the answer.
After reading all three chapters I learned a liitle more than I had known. We always tend to live our lives in a routine type setting and we don't stop and think to often but having read these chapters took me back to my job and how we act around our students. We do many things to motivate our students so that they can do better on the school work.  We also have different levels of students in our classrooms and we try to the best of our knowledge to modify work for certain students in order to help them better understand the work. And last but not least when we assess our students we do it to see how much they have grown. Our first test is in the beginning of the year than we test them in the middle of the year and finally at the end and many time we are shocked at how much our children have grown through out the year. Everything we do we do for our students so that one day they can be successful. We need to remember that our students are our future and if we don't show them the way than who will.

Module 4

I watched the first video Constructivist Social Studies, I really do think that letting kids work in groups and giving eachother criticism helps them more than we may think. At the same time this may not work in all classrooms. I noticed that the class didnt have many diverse students in there and the students seemed like they may be more upperclass which means they already have good resources and are understanding the information more than most diverse students would.

Watching video Scaffolding Reading, reminded me of the 3rd grade reading group that I help out a teacher with. She pulles eight students and we work with them almost in the exact way. We read out loud to the students and have them read the last word in the sentence out loud so that we know they are paying attention. We than talk about what we read and do a diagram together so that they understand each chapter of the book. We also have them popcorn read, partner read and coraile read than we have them talk about what they read and see if they understood it or if they need help. So for us it works with our EL students. Having students organize thier thoughts about what they had readhelps them to become better readers when they know and understand what they were reading.

The Collaboratve Classroom I agree with all she had said in her video but the problem here is you need all staff members to be on track with the ideas. Unfortunately we have many teachers who wouldn't want to do this. Some teachers can't wait to get rid of certain students let alone keep the same students for two years. This seems like it would be awesome to at least try.

Reading Deep Understanding Comes from Collaborative Methods I agree with the "tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand"
because this is how I learn best. I love the part about its not about the right answer but how the will inquire the answers. I had a professor once say something like this. It is not about u memorizing the information but what you do with that information that counts. So yes having the students be involved will help them more in the long run than us just lecturing and having them memorize information that they will later lose after taking a test on it. So this reading had any great ideas that I will try at work next year since this year just about over.

Class Management

Class management videos:
#1 wrong way to deal with students:
://goanimate.com/videos/0gxolfZ_zBzw?utm_source=linkshare&utm_medium=linkshare&utm_campaign=usercontent

#2 correct way to handle situation:http://goanimate.com/videos/0L2Cb48dj0lg?utm_source=linkshare&utm_medium=linkshare&utm_campaign=usercontent

For my videos I made the scenario of a classroom teacher trying to get her children in their seats so that she can start the day. She wantes to start her day by first collecting the homework, then start teaching her lessons. The students do not want to turn in the homework they want to talk about the field trip that they are going on the following week. The students beg the teacher and promise her that if she allows them talk about the trip that they will turn in the homework and start the day after they are done talking. The teacher falls for her what the students want and they talk about the trip.
My second video was how as the educator can take control of the class after the students try to get out of doing what is asked of them. The students wanted to do one thing while the teacher wanted to start her day. The teacher stayed clam and took control over her class without getting upset or upsetting any of her students.

Making the videos can show the difference of what good teaching is compared to a teacher wanted to be accepted by her students. The first video shows how the teacher wanted to start her day but the students were not ready becasue they wanted to talk about a field trip that they were going to go on the following week. Well they begged the teacher and made promises that they will do what she wants but after they are able to talk about the fieldtrip. Unfortunately the teacher gave in and allowed the students to talk about the trip instead of starting the day as she had wanted.
The second video shows us how an educator should deal with the students when they make  demands of not doing what she had asked them to do and they wont unless she allows them to do what they want first. The teacher knew exactly how to deal with the students. The teacher explained to the children that if they do all that is asked of them and they finish in a timely fashion than maybe she will allow them to talk about the trip but they will not beable to do that unless they do what is asked of them first. That video happens to fall into the positive and negative reinforcement that I read in chapter 7.
When reading chapter 7 the parts that helped me with my videos were pgs. 256-260. 

Module 3

I am going to start with the video I watched about Classical Conditioning.  I don't really know if agree with it. I can't see if we rang a bell to a person and show them food that after a while every time they hear a bell they will think it is time to eat. I mean I know it might work sometimes but its because how we are living our lives. Alarm rings we know its time to get up for work. We work in order to survive but I don't think it works for eveything. I can see that with some commercials they have some kind of whatever that can get us to buy something that we don't really need. So for me I guess it depends on what the situation is. 

I read and took the Positive Reinforcement Exercise boy i felt it was kind of hard I must confess I didnt do as well as I hoped I would. After I seen how I had done I repeated the whole process and of course did better. Just like the IQ test. You might not do to well the first time but when taken again you do alot better because now you know the questions and you feel more confident in your  answers second time around. I really learned how positive reinforcment works. This was an exercise that I enjoyed doing and would not mind doing more of this kind of work. 

After reading chapter seven the part that stuck on my mind was  pages 259-261. Reading about Negative reinforcements was interesting to read because I too something think of it as punishment. I use negative reinforement everyday and didn't realize that is what I was doing. For example, I have recess duty with one 3rd grade and one 2nd grade, after the bell rings if it is outdoor or indoor recess, I stand in front of the students and wait for them to stop talking before i start recess with them. The beginning of the year I explained to the students that they must stop talking in order for me to explain the rules for recess. At our school we rotate weekly. If they are really loud they will not be able to hear the rules for that week, so I stand without saying a word and they know, but I also reward them when they are extra good. Now the students know as soon as they see me stand in front of them they stop talking and we are able to start recess right away.
I can see why we can sometimes mistake it for a punishment. I myself sometimes feel like a neagative reinforement is a punishment.

Module 2

While reading chapter 4 what seemed to stick with me the most was the 504 protections on page 135. The 504 plan is a plan developed to ensure that a child who has a disability identified under the law and is attending school the child can receive accommodations that will ensure their academic success and access to the learning environment. The reason I know about this plan is because I have been in several IEP and 504 plan meetings at work. I work with the majority of the students that have some kind of issue even if it were just speech I am invited to all the meeting because when asked how the child is developing I can give my opinion on how well they are progressing academically. This plan allows children to stop a test and take a break if they need it. The children are also able to get many accommodations that might be made specifically for that student and their disability. You still might have some teacher who feel like the children should not get certain accommodations but because of the law can not stop the children from getting them.

While reading chapter 5 page 184 caught my eye about teaching immigrant students and English language learners. I can relate to that because this is what I do. I work as a paraprofessional in the EL's department. I have been working with EL's for 8 years now and I love it. It is because of them that I am back in school to be an educator. Working with English Learners is amazing because seeing their little faces as they learn the simplest things that we take for granted s just priceless. Even though I can not read or write Arabic I can speak it fluently and that helps me to translate most of the work that we are working on in school.  can honestly say that there have been a few types of animals or few other words that I didn't know how to translate so I pull a picture of it on the computer or iPad and the children know exactly what I am taking about. We as educators need to be patient with these students because it never is easy to learn a new language especially with all the silent letters that we have in the English language and it throws the children off, for example in Arabic they write the word just like it sounds no extra letters and we don't have upper or lower case and that also confuses the children at first. If we don't have patience with the children we might discourage them from learning or putting all their effort in learning. I know that from experience.

In chapter 8 the thing that caught my eye was the memory pages 284-294. What is memory? Memory s the process that is used to acquire, store retain and later retrieve information. There are three stages of memory: sensory, short-term and long-term memory.
Sensory memory is the earliest stage of memory. during this stage sensory info form the environment is stored and sent to the next stage.
Short-term memory paying attention to sensory memories generate the information in the short-term memory. Most of the short-term memories are quickly forgotten but when we concentrate on something that is when it is past to the next stage.
Long-term memory refers to the continuing storage. We don't really understand just how the memories are arranged in groups but we just go with it. Some of our information is easy to remember and some we just can't remember when we need to. Memory has a funny way of working and we tend to categorize how we remember like for example color, fruit and shapes are just a few.
 I have been working with a student for the past three years, he is in  fifth grade right now but reads like he is in preschool to beginning kindergarten, I love this boy like if he were my own. We had him tested about 3 months ago and found out  has a problems with his long and short term memory and that is what has been holding him from learning and processing the information right. We learned that he is just like a kindergartner. When we understand how our memory works this can give us an idea sometimes of how some children might be struggle with learning we just might be able to help them learn with sometimes minor exercises. Sometimes certain things, sounds, pictures and etc can trigger us to remember a specific task or information.

Module 1

What is psychology? Psychology is the study of behavior in living things. The people that study this are called psychologists. Here in the readings I have learned that everyone develops in their own way. We do have stages that we pass through as we get older but still people might develop either slower of faster than others.

In first chapter (pgs. 8 and 9) one of the concepts I liked reading about what is good teaching? Having read about the different teachers and the different ways they had dealt with students in order to make the learning process easier for the students inspires me. When students are struggling in school they don’t want to go. They might start to act up, become class clowns, or even bullies so that people would look at them in that light instead of looking at them as not understanding  the work they are being taught or given as homework. Having a teacher that comes to you and works with you to see if they can find out what the reason is that you are not learning the lesson and then finds the best solution for you and helps you learn makes you want to learn. Like when I was in 1^st grade and my teacher started to punish me for mispronouncing words made me hate her and hate school. I cried every morning to my mother and begged her to keep me at home because I did not want to go and see my 1^st grade teacher. She made me feel I was worthless so reading in the text how teachers did their all to help the students in need made me want to become an educator even more. Also, recognizing the students that are exceeding in class is something we need to do because if all we do is notice the students that struggle and forget about the ones that are understanding the material can harm them too. Smart children always need to be challenged as well (p.10).

In the second chapter, the concept that I enjoyed reading was on (pgs.38-39). The Brain and learning to read was interesting to me because we really forget how it was or how hard t was learning to read. For some it comes naturally where other struggle and that is when it can get tricky. Some students slip through the cracks for many different reasons but they find ways to hide the fact that they are unable to read. Looking at what look like just lines on a page can be a scary thing for children. Our brain can usually recognize words. Sounds, and symbols that we had come across before but for some people the brain does not always do that and it makes it harder for students to learn to read. As an educator we must learn to recognize who is struggling and who is not early because then and only then can we help them before the get discouraged and shut down and not want to learn.

In the third chapter the concept that I enjoyed reading most was about Erikson’s of psychosocial development (pg.87-92). Erikson’s theory of development considers the impact of parents and society on personality development from childhood to adulthood. Erikson believed that every person had to pass through a series of eight stages over the time of their life. If we didn’t accomplish each stage Erikson believed that we may lack the positive characteristics in that stage. I agree and disagree with some of his findings because some just need a little longer than others to fully develop. The fourth stage takes place during the ages of 6-12. This stage is very crucial because children learning to read and write can have a big impact on them. Here children have the knowledge to help them learn, create and achieve multiple skills. During this stage children learn to experience a social life with their peers. The parents are not as important to some children because they found a friend that they can confide in. Children can develop low self-esteem here too if they are unable to find themselves fitting in with their peers. It is here that the children feel like they have to prove themselves by doing things to show the other children that they know how to do specific tasks, but if parents or teachers don’t approve and try to stop the children it might affect them and their abilities. We all need a little failure in our lives because at the same time it teaches us to keep trying and not accept failure.

I feel like I am able to handle most situations more after reading and with the experiences that I have working in a school district where we have many English Learners. This gives me the chance to learn to be extra patient and not judge them if they make mistakes. I have also learned that many children just need a little bit more time than others before they pick up on things. Sometimes educators rush to say the child has some kind of disability when in reality they are taking longer in the silent stage. Two years ago we had a 3^rd grade teacher say a child was not learning and something had to be wrong with him. It took him a year and half before he opened up and started speaking and when he did he was learning and understanding much of the work given to him now he is in sixth grade and tested out of ESL/ELL services and is in regular classes. The 3^rd grade teacher felt he was unteachable and she was dead wrong. Educators must be patient before jumping to conclusions. Imagine yourself moving to a new country where no one spoke your language, how would you feel? What would you do? Would learning the new language be easy for you?

This chapter had a lot of great information on how children are developing. I have a better understanding of how I can deal with them or a situation I might be in. I hope to be a role model to my students and they feel comfortable coming to me with any questions or problem that might be bothering them.