Lesson Plan

Caree Edson
Getting Involved in Your Child's Education

Topic:  Get involved and help your child improve performance in school.

Student Characteristics and Level:  This lesson focuses on lower level ESL (SPL 3-4) students who meet regularly 2 times a week in evening classes for two hours each. 

A.  Instructional Goals:  I want my students to be able to:

1. Communicate with their children’s teachers.
2. Understand progress reports and be able to identify whether or not the student is struggling in specified areas.
3. Locate resources for improving student performance- tutors, learning sources, and library services.

Academic Skills Integrated into the Lesson: speaking, listening, reading, writing, math, using technology

      B.  Competency/Objectives:  Students will:

a.       Demonstrate their ability to read and comprehend progress reports     by answering questions about meaning of sample progress reports. 

b.      Calculate one student’s GPA using these samples as well. 

c.       Write a letter or email to the child’s teachers

d.      Practice conversations with partners setting up conferences and discussing academic issues.

e.       Discuss 6 ideas with a group for solving academic issues with their children.

f.       Locate and share resources for tutors or other services that may help with academic achievement with their classmates

C.  Rationale:

Most of my students are highly focused on making the lives of their children better than their own. In fact, I’d say at least 90% of them have this listed as their main goal or mission in life, not just a goal of their English classes.  However, all but one of my students is afraid of communication issues and most have never attended a parent-teacher conference and are not very involved in their children’s schoolwork as their level of English prevents them from feeling confidence in this area.  This is a big issue and a source of negative feelings, so I want to give my students resources and confidence as well as empower them to get more involved with their children’s academics.  Any subject involving helping children to have more success or lead a better life engages the students’ emotions and motivation.

D.  Content and Materials, Sites, Games, Activity: 

Sample progress reports and questions, role-play conversation, questionnaires, websites.

See attached.

E.  Instructional Procedures:

• Teacher will facilitate a class discussion about student involvement in their children’s education.  What do students currently do to be involved with their child’s education?  What would they like to do to be more involved?  Why is it important to be involved?
• Students will complete a questionnaire asking their children’s ages and grade levels.  What level involvement do they currently have?  Can they set up appointments to discuss progress with their children’s teachers?  Do they know what resources are available to help them?
• Students will look at sample progress reports and read comprehension questions as a class.  The class will read the first few questions together and the teacher will model where to look for the answers until most of the class seems to understand the procedure and can demonstrate their ability to locate the answers within the progress report.  Students will work in pairs to search for answers while the teacher circulates to help and encourage students.  As a class, discuss and review the answers and where they were located in the progress report.  Teacher will demonstrate how to find GPA and students will do this on their own for their own reports. 
• Students will be given sample letters and emails to teachers to review.  The teacher will demonstrate how to follow the letter’s format to compose a new letter.  A skeleton sample will be provided on the board while students compose their own letters requesting a meeting to discuss their child’s progress.  Again, the teacher will circulate and help students to write this letter.
• Students will be given role-plays of conversations with teachers.  One student will act as the teacher and the other will act as a concerned parent.  Students will take turns asking and answering questions about their child.  Advanced students may be asked to take notes on the teacher’s response.
• Students will utilize the library internet resource to locate resources for private tutoring, Head Start, and other resources for struggling students.  They will be asked to make a list of these resources names, websites, addresses, phone numbers, etc and bring this information to share with classmates.
• Teacher will facilitate a group discussion on what the students have found and share their own resources with the group.  If possible, the teacher can make copies of the groups’ resources and hand them out. 
• Students will be placed into groups and given a hand-out with 4 different scenarios.  They will work together to identify the student’s area of weakness and brainstorm different possible solutions or resources that the parent might be able to use.  They will be asked to present one of these scenarios to the class.

6. Learning Assessment: 

Of course, my ideal assessment would be to check in with the students after this lesson and see if any of them had actually set up appointments or met with their children’s teachers.  To actually witness their involvement with their children’s education and their knowledge of where to turn to if they need help would be fantastic.  Short of this, I would like to assess progress as the students proceed throughout the lesson.  Completion of the assignments, questions regarding the progress report, demonstration of ability to compose a letter or email, listening to conversations would all prove good assessments of progress. 

Students will be assessed by their group efforts and identification of sample students’ weaknesses, suggestions and involvement in locating resources would be an area they would receive a grade in.

The greatest assessment, I feel, would be to have the students revisit their own questionnaires that they completed at the start of the lesson and review what they knew at the beginning of the course.  I would ask students to complete a new questionnaire assessing their own learning and what they feel they need more work on in this subject.  I would love to have a discussion on this.

7. Group activities:

The students would be asked to work in a group to complete the final project which would be when they are given 4 different scenarios and asked to identify possible struggles and solutions for different students and present the idea.  One student would lead the discussion by reading the scenarios.  Another could be a reporter and asked to write or draw the group’s ideas on a poster for the presentation.   Another could be the presenter for the group. 

8. Plan B:

For students who are struggling with the lesson, I would give them pictures of a teacher and a parent and ask what they think the people in the picture might be talking about, and possibly elicit conversation ideas from them.  I would have some sort of audio tape available to demonstrate a conversation for the students to hear.  I would have them practice this conversation with partners.  I would also model everything that I am asking my students to do.  Modify letters and emails and have these students be the reporter in group discussions.  Place them with higher level students and if possible, allow the students to offer an explanation in their own language.

9. Considerations Regarding Student’s Culture:

I will also include answer cards marked yes or no that students may hold up while reviewing the reading of the progress reports, this way- students will not have to worry about being embarrassed if they get an answer wrong.  The social motivation will remain in tact.  I also will be sure to foster safety and do my best to make sure that students feel comfortable with each other and myself sharing in a classroom.  I won’t push anyone to talk about issues that their children may be having in school.  Always point out what the students are doing right to build confidence and point out areas that students may have in common to foster respect and relationship-building between classmates. 

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SUPPORT MATERIALS

Websites

http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/how.involved.html

This website has great ideas for how to get involved in your child’s education.  It has tips for helping with homework and what to do if your child is struggling or dislikes school.

http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content/betterschool.html

This is an off-shoot of the same website above and provides helpful tips on what families can do together to make education seem more important to the children.

http://www.teamup.co.nz/primary-int/about/How+do+they+progress.htm

This is also a very helpful website that I would like my students to look into.  With information on learning disabilities and more information on getting involved with education.

These websites have information on identifying learning disabilities and how to help your child at home.  They also provide information in Spanish- which would be very helpful to my students. 

• http://www.ldonline.org/

• http://www.ldonline.org/parents

• http://www.ncld.org/

• http://www.ldaamerica.org/

• http://www.schwablearning.org/

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 Westminster High School

To Parent/Guardian of:

Reporting Period End Date:  02-JUN-05

Student ID 20455                   Student Name:  Richard Smith          

Grade 09   Birth Date:  27-AUG-90     School Year:  2004

Semester 1 GPA:  3.0

Semester 2 GPA:  3.2

Course Code/ Course Name	Teacher	1st Sem	Abs	Credit	2nd Sem	Abs	Credit	Comments
LA 101 LARTS 9  1	Hill, Janet	B		5
LA 102 LARTS 9  2	Hill, Janet				A	1	5
BASIC COMP	Bythe, Thomas	C	2	5	C	5	5
MA 116 PRE ALG 1  1	Davis, Brian	B		5
MA 117 PRE ALG 1  2	Davis, Brian				B	2	5
SC171 ERTH SC 1  1	Eaten, Kelly	B		5
SC172 ERTH SC 1  2	Eaten, Kelly				B	2	5
SS112 9TH WLDGEO	Scott, James	A	1	5
SS113 9TH WLDHIS	Scott, James				A	1	5

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Questions to ask in a parent-teacher conference:

1. How is my child doing in your class

2. Is he/she struggling with anything?

3. How can I help my child to do better in school?

4. Are there any resources you can suggest I look into?

5. Is my child getting along with their classmates?

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Questionnaire for Parent Involvement in Children’s Education

1. What are children’s ages and grade levels in school?

2. What are your children’s teachers’ names?

3. In what ways are you involved in your children’s education?

4. Have you been to a parent-teacher conference?

5. Have you spoken with your child’s teacher about their progress in school?

6. Do you know how your child is doing in school?

7. Do you know what your child’s grades are?

8. Do you know how to read a progress report?Do you know what resources are available to help you if your child is struggling in school?

10. How would you like to be involved in your children’s education?

11. Why is it important to be involved in your children’s education?