This year I was granted funds by the California Teachers Association - Institute for Teaching, referred to as the IFT.
The CTA Institute for Teaching attempts to bring a new approach to school
change. Based on its work in California schools, with Foundations and from
discussions with hundreds of practitioners and students, the IFT has determined
that school change must include two key factors: (1) It needs to be
teacher-driven and (2) It should be based on what is working and successful in
our schools and classrooms. By focusing on what works in our schools, the
IFT believes strength-based models for school change add a new dimension to
school improvement.
I decided to use those
funds to create the Parent-Teacher Connection at Montebello Unified School
District. The Parent-Teacher Connection provides delivery of high-quality
parent education workshops where parents learn about California Standards and
how parents can support classroom learning from outside the classroom. By
bridging a connection between the home and school, parents will be guided by
classroom teachers through several key Common Core trainings that will
ultimately provide a clearer understanding on how the California Standards
(CCSS) look school-based, district-wide, and beyond. Classroom teacher leaders
that collaborate, research strategies, and resources, which focus on improving
the academic achievement of students and preparing them for post-secondary
education, plan the parent sessions. The practitioner-led workshops guide
parents through highly effective strategies and resources that they can use at
home to support the classroom learning.
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| This is a session we had at Montebello Gardens Elementary. I am teaching the parents strategies for Common Core Math |
My district was not only
supportive of the grant, but went above and beyond. Montebello Unified
committed to doubling the amount of the award, demonstrating their commitment
to the community and their support of teachers bridging partnerships with
parents. The Parent Support Services department, lead by Jose Franco, has been
essential to the success of this project. His staff has helped my team of
teachers put together the event by promoting the sessions, organizing catering,
translations services, and we have an interpreter at every session. The parents
are given headphones that allow them to hear our session in their native
language. This component has been key to allowing our community’s parents to deeply
understand the content.
This is one of the flyers
that we gave out throughout the district:
Last night’s session was on:
Engaging
Ways to Help Your Child Learn the Common Core Standards
This workshop was geared for intermediate parents,
but the information can be applied to all grade levels, especially the resources shared. We focused our session on two major content areas, language arts and mathematics. We shared the importance of reading everyday and how crucial it is for parents to support the love of reading at home. The parents participated on math hands on activities similar to ones that our students experience in the classroom. Some of the statistics we shared were:
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| Pictures from our session |
These currently are some of our favorite educational websites we recommend to parents:
Power
My Learning is a website that brings together free, curated educational content
and activities from all over the Web. Parents can find academic games, videos,
and interactive content aligned to the Common Core State Standards across a
range of subjects, from language arts, math, science, and social studies to
technology and other subjects. Activities are tagged by subject, grade, Common
Core State Standards, and type (video, interactive, etc.).
Use
these concept-based, adaptive fraction tutorials and practice sets to support
meaningful, differentiated instruction. Students encounter and learn about
fractions at a conceptual level; they'll get practice using pie pieces, number
lines, and more. Grade
3-8
Over
60 design challenges get kids planning, building, testing, and iterating their
own engineering projects. Kids can engage in a true design process and utilize
an amazing network of supportive experts, all while making real-world
connections.
Grades:
2–12
mathway.com
A
good for all those students who want to know about solving any kind of problem
related to mathematics. This blog totally offers the best and different tools
along with the tutorials to help internet users for easily learning of
mathematics. Best thing is that most of the students face problems with
Calculus and Trigonometry etc and the other topics that are covered in this
blog are Statistics, Precalculus, Algebra, Pre-Algebra and Basic Math etc. I
must say this is the best site and highly recommended for mathematical
students.
Hooda
Math is a free online math game site that includes over 700 free math games.
Founded by a middle school math teacher, Hooda Math has math games for all
ages, K
through high school.
Penzu
is an online journaling site. The site includes tools such as email reminders
to write, the ability to send tweets about your journal entries and a variety
of style customizations (such as font).
GoComics is,
essentially, a portal of many of the most popular comic strips out there, as
well some great up-and-coming artists. There's plenty of space for political
cartoons, too, sensibly categorized according to their political leanings.
