Chapter 15: Parents as Partners in Twenty-First-Century Learning

This chapter was about keeping parents included in their child’s education in the transition from elementary to middle school. The main part of the chapter described how teachers can use the internet to stay super connected to parents. The book lists several websites that teachers can post assignments, study guides, and notes on so the students and parents can access them from any computer. Also parents can keep in contact with the teacher through email. The book also makes the point that some students in your class will not have access to computers. The book says to make allowances for that. Also teachers can not forget how important face to face conferences are, even with the technology, an in person meeting or conference is valuable as well.

At Mount Blue High School where I did my practicum, they have a computer program called power school. This is a program that all the teachers, parents, and students can access. It’s like an online grade book. Any time the teacher grades assignments or tests students and parents can check how a student is doing in a particular class. I noticed that this has some drawbacks. Students complain if the teacher takes more than a night to put up their grade. Sometimes if a student has missing work it will skew the grade and so an unnecessary flurry of emails can ensue. However parents can never say they had no idea their child was failing a certain subject and for that reason it is helpful.