Lesson 12: Family Engagement Presentation
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able
- Engage families through connections to the community.
- Engage families through resources.
- Engage families through home-school connections.
- Discuss how family engagement can be unpredictable.
- Discuss the successes of family engagement.
Teaching
This family engagement project should have been developed and implemented over time to optimize the experience in creating partnerships with the families. A specific need was identified and tied into current events in the classroom to make it more purposeful and real.
Family engagement can be tough. Every family has different needs, resources and ideas. When working with infants and toddlers, it can be somewhat easy because most of the families are struggling with the emotional battles they face as parents to young children. Things like transitions, routines, challenging behaviors, growth and development are often hot topics to cover. However, every child within those topics is at a developmentally different stage so there are a lot of resources to cover for different developmental stages within. As you get into the older ages it can be a bit more difficult for other reasons. Children tend to slow down in brain development and work on refining tasks. They are better at the daily schedule, routines and transitions. However, parent groups get larger because of the size of the classrooms and there is less time to meet with all of them.
Strategizing family engagement is important. You have to know your audience on top of what it is that they need. My hope is that through this experience you gained a better understanding of why family engagement is important and how to partner with families in the interest of optimizing their children’s growth and development.
Assessment
Lesson 12 Assignment
Break out the outline that you wrote in lesson 7 and put it with all of your artifacts from completing the work. Look through it and organize your thoughts and materials to present your information.
To display your family engagement project, you will create a Power Point presentation to submit. Your presentation should include pictures and artifacts from your project to support your work. The language in your power point should include:
- What was the need you identified and how did this tie into what was happening already?
- What is your family engagement product outcome and why did you decide on these methods?
- In what way did this
- Connect to the community?
- Provide resources?
- Promote home-school connections?
- In what way did this increase family engagement?
| IDENTIFIED NEED | 0 Points Did not provide information |
2 Points Information was brief and the connection was unclear |
5 Points Provided detailed information about the identified need and how it related to current classroom events |
| PRODUCT OUTCOME | 0 Points Did not provide information |
2 Points Family engagement methods were unclear |
5 Points Provided the methods of family engagement outreach and explanation of why |
| COMMUNITY CONNECTION | 0 Points Did not provide information |
10 Points Examples were not complete and/or unclear and/or did not directly related to the community |
20 Points Provided detailed examples with pictures and artifacts of how the project connected to the community |
| RESOURCES PROVIDED | 0 Points Did not provide information |
10 Points Resources were not complete and/or unclear and/or did not relate to the identified need |
20 Points Provided detailed examples with pictures and artifacts of the resources provided |
| HOME-SCHOOL CONNECTIONS | 0 Points Did not provide information |
10 Points Examples were not complete and/or unclear and/or did not directly relate to home-school connections |
20 Points Provided detailed examples with pictures and artifacts of how home-school connections were promoted |
| INCREASED FAMILY ENGAGEMENT | 0 Points Did not provide information |
7 Points Information was brief and unclear |
15 Points Provided clear, specific examples of how the project increase family engagement |
| ORGANIZATION OF POWER POINT | 0 Points Did not provide information |
5 Points Information was scattered, missing key pieces and hard to follow |
10 Points Information was well, organized, in-order and easy to follow |
MECHANICS |
0 Points Paper is written with unacceptable spelling, grammar, and/or syntax errors |
2 Points Errors in mechanics are minor, but are somewhat distracting from the message |
5 Points No substantial errors in spelling, grammar, and/or syntax, or APA Citations |
Lesson 12 Discussion A
Did this project go as you had planned it? Explain why or why not. What were the surprises if any?
Lesson 12 Discussion B
Did you reach the level of family engagement you were hoping to? How do you know?
Lesson 12 Discussion C
Share one of your family engagement methods that was a success!