DC Teachers: what advice/requests do you have for FT DL parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent here: On communication, I tend to err on the side of only communicating when necessary. I do not want to bother teachers or cause them more concerns when I know there are so many other kids who probably need attention more. Anyway, I would never communicate when my kid didn't sleep well or was just in an ornery mood. On the other hand, I did communicate when a grandparents passed away. Generally reluctant to learn- not going to communicate. Trouble understanding concepts I cannot explain- communicating.

Would teachers expect or want more parent communication with DL? I am assuming you don't want to be bombarded with texts/emails on a daily basis for all your students. So what is a normal DL level of communication...

I think this is teacher specific. I teach children with special needs and their parents do tell me if they didn’t sleep well, I keep that in mind and make a few tweaks to the lesson to help them stay engaged and not well grumpy!

Some teachers might find that annoying, really depends on the teacher.

As for things that have to do with personality and confidence level, yes please! Please tell me that, especially if your kiddo is new to my class. I’ll be having all my new parents fill out a questionnaire about their child as well as having a meeting with them.
I think it’s crucial to know bits about a child’s personality, likes and dislikes, learning style (if you know, if not we’ll find out together) in order to really teach them and differentiate their learning.

I think it may also depend a little bit on how many students the teacher works with. If it is a small self-contained class, definitely share a lot! If your child is one of 200 students the teacher will see that day, likely only share the really important things.

What teacher has 200 students lmao. A specials teacher? I imagine they won't be sharing that with them anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for your answers so far!
- For Zoom meetings, which should we pick if we have to choose a quiet unsupervised space (their own desk in their bedroom) and a supervised but more likely to have distractions (the open floor dining room table)?
- If a parent has time, do you mind if we go over our kid's homework with them and make them fix grammar, spelling, and oversights before they submit it, or does it get in the way of your assessment?

First grade teacher here. No please do not fix your kids assignments. We want to see where they really are. This spring so many of my first graders magically turned into great spellers with perfect penmanship..... not helpful.

But then how do they learn to do better? Are you able to use Zoom sessions to give feedback to students on their specific mistakes wrt handwriting and spelling? Because in the classroom, you could do quick pull asides with neediest cases.

With DL, it seems like parents might need to step in to perform that teaching role.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for your answers so far!
- For Zoom meetings, which should we pick if we have to choose a quiet unsupervised space (their own desk in their bedroom) and a supervised but more likely to have distractions (the open floor dining room table)?
- If a parent has time, do you mind if we go over our kid's homework with them and make them fix grammar, spelling, and oversights before they submit it, or does it get in the way of your assessment?

First grade teacher here. No please do not fix your kids assignments. We want to see where they really are. This spring so many of my first graders magically turned into great spellers with perfect penmanship..... not helpful.

But then how do they learn to do better? Are you able to use Zoom sessions to give feedback to students on their specific mistakes wrt handwriting and spelling? Because in the classroom, you could do quick pull asides with neediest cases.

With DL, it seems like parents might need to step in to perform that teaching role.

And by “neediest cases”, I mean children who find writing challenging. That would have been my child in first grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for your answers so far!
- For Zoom meetings, which should we pick if we have to choose a quiet unsupervised space (their own desk in their bedroom) and a supervised but more likely to have distractions (the open floor dining room table)?
- If a parent has time, do you mind if we go over our kid's homework with them and make them fix grammar, spelling, and oversights before they submit it, or does it get in the way of your assessment?

First grade teacher here. No please do not fix your kids assignments. We want to see where they really are. This spring so many of my first graders magically turned into great spellers with perfect penmanship..... not helpful.

But then how do they learn to do better? Are you able to use Zoom sessions to give feedback to students on their specific mistakes wrt handwriting and spelling? Because in the classroom, you could do quick pull asides with neediest cases.

With DL, it seems like parents might need to step in to perform that teaching role.

Not pp teacher but a different one. We'd look at what was incorrect and then work on it in the next lesson. You wouldn't always pull a child aside in the classroom at that very moment either. Getting things incorrect is a part of learning and shows what skill deficits the child has for us to help fill those but also group students appropriately.

Unless the teacher explicitly says, please fix your child's errors, please don't fix them. Believe me they are not being fixed right away in class,, that is data. And data is useless if it's always contrived.