Activity 2- Apply a reflective model to discuss something that has happened during your Inquiry so far and how it impacts on taking action



Activity 2- Apply a reflective model to discuss something that has happened during your Inquiry so far and how it impacts on taking action

Word Count- 576

What are the facts? What do you feel about them?
●       Parent Engagement surveys
●       Student Interviews
●       Parent Interviews
I thought that when we received the Parent Engagement surveys back that they would reinforce my hunch, that parents were intimated by teachers hence why they had little or no contact with their child’s teacher and showed little interest of engaging. My role during the parent engagement surveys was to ensure each eldest and only student received a survey and analyse the results. The issues around parent engagement were addressed in the surveys as our Inquiry was based around this. After the parent engagement surveys were analysed, there was a clear picture that showed me that parents/caregivers were wanting to engage with what their child/children are doing at school but simply do not have the time. This helped me to evaluate that the issue wasn’t around teacher intimidation rather parent time. I had to ask myself what online forum could be used to incorporate parent engagement as time is the barrier from stopping engagement and what online forum wouldn’t be too tiresome for teachers. This was discovered in week 25 when we were acting on the plan as outlined in Research 2 Assignment.

Why did it happen this way? How does this relate to your past experiences?
The parent engagement surveys, student and parent interviews showed us that parents are busy but would like to be more involved if it means there child will benefit from the support. A parent said in a survey “just moved schools and study full time. Can schedule time in, if given early notice”.

For me these are the significant issues that arose from the parent engagement surveys, student and parent interviews
❏      Parents/Caregivers are too busy (work, study or raising other children) and would prefer an online platform to communicate with teachers and see what their child/children are doing in regards to their learning
❏      Parents/Caregivers need ample notice about events in order to arrange time off from work so they can attend
❏      Students would like their parents/caregivers more engaged with what they are learning at school (3/5)

Using the Reflective Writing model I am able to reflect about my initial thoughts and how I thought lack of parent engagement stemmed from teacher intimidation but actual fact it came down to availability of time for parents.

What have I learned? How can you apply this in the future?
Using Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988) the process has helped me to re-evaluate our inquiry and change our action plan to “how can we use digital hangarau to improve parent engagement in order to have a positive impact on student success for Year 7 and 8 students at Clendon Park School”. From here I plan to search for online forums that can help engage parents without the barrier of time. What I would do differently in the future, would be to interview parents first and based on the analysis of the interviews I would then create a survey to send out to parents to get a broader picture. I think it would have been helpful to know and understand the reasons behind some questions before sending the parent engagement surveys, I could have changed some questions in the survey to delve deeper into implementing better parent engagement.


Reference:
Gibbs, G (1988). Learning by doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford: Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic.

Otago Polytechnic. (n.d.). Reflective Writing. Retrieved from https://www.op.ac.nz/assets/LearningAdvice/Reflective-writing.pdf



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 30 - Reflect on your Evidence

Image
Activity 6: Describe the data you have collected so far and how you are analyzing it. Step 1: Describe the data you have collected The data that I collected throughout my inquiry were surveys (quantitative) and interviews of students and parents (qualitative). I thought it was best to send home surveys to eldest and only students as I was unsure whether all parents would have access to the internet if I was to use a programme such as Surveymonkey. The main issues that arose from parents through the surveys and interviews was that parents did want to be involved but did not have time and they wanted to help their child succeed but didn’t know what they could do to help. Step 2: Explain how you are analysing your data Gray (2012) expresses that data can be very powerful, if used in the right way. The data collection occurred during the learn phase (weeks 20-24). There were 108 surveys that were returned out of 385 that were issued to eldest and only stud...
Read more

Week 29- Consider Your Audiences

Activity 5: Discuss how you addressing the context of different audiences (local, national and/or international) and their perspectives while you were taking action. Step 1: Defining my Audience The audience that I am addressing are the students and their whanau, with consideration towards fellow colleagues, Senior Management and the Board of Trustees. My primary focus for my inquiry is enhancing parent engagement in order to improve student learning. When I first started my inquiry I had the idea of improving student achievement through the use of the new Digital Technologies Curriculum. I wondered whether parents learning about the curriculum and activities they could do at home, would have an impact on student success in this area as it would be a collaborative learning experience for both parent/s and student. Along the way my inquiry and my thinking changed to ‘how could I use digital technology to enhance parent engagement’ as this was truly evident ...
Read more

Activity 4- Discuss how issues of ethics, society, culture and professional environments (including law, regulations and policy) are being addressed while you are taking action

Image
Activity 4- Discuss how issues of ethics, society, culture and professional environments (including law, regulations and policy) are being addressed while you are taking action Word Count- 530 What are the facts? What do you feel about them? When we received the parent engagement surveys back there were some parents that mentioned negative comments about their child’s teacher, clearly identifying who they were in the survey and something they did not like about them. We did not expect this to happen and it forced us to think critically about what we needed to do. Why did it happen this way? How does this relate to your past experiences? We used the Ehrich et al. (2011) model as shown below. We needed to maintain professional ethics so the teachers who were mentioned in the parent engagement surveys were not identified, this was to ensure their mana and wairua stayed intact and that they did not feel targeted. There needed to be a decision about wh...
Read more