Connecting with Families

Nothing is more critical than good relations between a child’s family and the teacher/school community for optimal growth and achievement of the child. Learning about creating a supportive partnership with families is essential to teacher development. For this reason,
1. Location, name of school or program, age of the children in the teacher’s class
2. Date and beginning and ending time(s) of interaction(s)/observation(s)
3. time of interaction(s)/observation(s)
4. Describe the environment where the interaction took place and the climate that existed.
5. Summarize the activity/activities that took place, include language that you heard from the teacher and the families involved and body language of the participants.
6. Were there any language issues or difficulties? If yes, how were they handled?
7. If children were present, what were they doing/how were they behaving during this interaction?
8. What exemplary strategies or interactions did you notice on the part of the teacher? Why do you think they were exemplary?
9. Did you notice anything that connected to our class discussion or our class reading about relating to and creating a partnership with families?
10. Is there anything you observed that you would do differently if you had been the teacher? Why?
11. What did you learn from observing this interaction that will be valuable to you as a teacher creating partnerships with families?