HELPING PARENTS BECOME CO-TEACHERS

With the onset of the pandemic and the abrupt switch to remote learning, schools instinctively continued to view parents as “parents” and teachers as “teachers,” which on the spur of the moment may have seemed like the logical thing to do and may have worked as a band-aid solution; however, should part-time or full-time learning from home continue to take place next year, redefining and renaming the roles must be considered for it to work long term. And why is that? If the roles aren’t redefined, then the danger is that the work being sent home will continue to be viewed as “homework,” which in a traditional sense functions on the premise that students have been taught the concepts they need to know in order to complete the assignment prior to bringing it home and therefore parents need only offer a little support here and there. With our new reality, this is no longer the case and so simply sending home links to websites and a package of worksheets isn’t going to cut it. Parents can no longer be viewed simply as parents; instead, they now need to be viewed as “co-teachers” and as such will need to be supported accordingly, which means providing them the planning tools to be able to teach lessons from home because for the average parent this isn’t a skill set they necessarily possess. That said, this begs the question of how to design a parent-friendly template that would allow one to take control of their daily schedule and guide them with methods for teaching their child vs. simply providing busy work, and the answer is by following the 4 simple steps below!

Step 1: Communicate Changes and Brainstorm Ideas

First things first, it’s one thing for you as an administrator to accept a change in the traditional role of parents, but this needs to be communicated with your staff as they also need to start viewing parents as “co-teachers,” and begin treating them accordingly. In addition to discussing the role switch, it may also be a good idea to discuss which information should be included on your school’s parent planner. For the purposes of this article, supposing that the following elements have been deemed important by staff and therefore areas will need to be allocated on the template to include:
 

• the Zoom call schedule for the week
• the duration of each lesson
• the objectives of each lesson
• where to find each activity – link, homework package, etc.
• prompts for beginning a lesson – perhaps questions, or a link to a short video
• an explanation of the activity to parents alongside a few pointers to help them in guiding their child
• questions for reflection

 
In addition to this, the staff has also decided that it would be easiest to work off of one collaborative template per class, meaning that teams of teachers could add lessons on a single template thus eliminating multiple planners going home on a weekly basis.

Step 2: Design Your Parent Planner

With the information collected by the staff, the next step would be for you to design your template, and based on our imaginary scenario, the parent planner below was developed.

The template begins with the Zoom schedule on top, and then moves onto dividing lessons by days. In keeping things generic, any subject area teacher could complete their section by noting an approximate duration for the lesson, lesson objectives, where the materials can be found (homework package, links, etc.), and guiding parents through the beginning, middle, and end of a lesson. And with this information, imagine how empowered any parent would feel!

Step 3: Brief Staff on the Implementation of the Planner

Once your parent template is complete, it is worth reviewing it with staff and running through a mock-up so that they are clear on expectations for filling it in. In addition to clarifying expectations, guidelines should also be set about weekly due dates for having them completed. For example, they may need to be handed in on Thursday, thereby giving you time to review them on Friday morning so they can be sent out before end of day on Friday.

Step 4: Brief Parents on the Purpose of the Planner

It goes without saying that before introducing anything new to parents, they should be briefed on the planner that will be sent home for them to use as a guide when teaching their children. One could even take things one step further and offer a video as a tutorial with tips for using the planner it! It is also worth keeping in mind that it may take a few weeks for parents to feel comfortable following the plans, but once they get in the rhythm of things, there’s no telling where their newfound knowledge of how to structure a lesson may take them!

No one could have predicted the upheaval that we have recently been faced with, however we can prepare accordingly for next year, and if we are able to get staff and parents working together within the roles of teacher and co-teacher, imagine the impact that could be made!

Further Reading

Creating a Collaborative Planning Template
How to Overcome Resistance to Change at Your School
How to Use Planners as a Tool for Mentoring Teachers
How to Use Planners as a Learning Tool for Students
8 Steps to Setting Up a Classroom