Small Group Research into Parent Education
This is an area for our small group, which was formed in November, to share the materials they are accumulating. A compiled report of this information will be shared in January.
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NCTM has a book for "fostering a child's success" I should check around to see if anyone has a copy. The link to it is:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nctm.org/Catalog/product.aspx?id=12931
Before thanksgiving I did an ERIC search on parental involvement in kids' education and found some interesting articles. I also ordered the book "Involving families in mathematics education" which has some other information based on some of these same research articles, mainly ideas about what has worked in various places.
ReplyDeleteI also ordered the NCTM book "A family's guide: fostering your child's success in school mathematics". is this the book you are referring to? I plan to look at this over Christmas vacation.
I think we also need to consider the many different directions that parent education could take: i.e. awareness of new strategies, math content, having math literate conversations, helping properly with homework, where to find help when parents need it, so on. I don't know how, but somehow we need to find out where the greatest need is found.
ReplyDeleteI agree and both of the books I ordered from NCTM emphasize that. In addition, there are some handouts from NCTM for parents (they may be the cardboard inserts at the back of the book that I am sending you) that we could distribute to parents and discuss with them at different events. they look really helpful in our efforts.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest issue for me is the logistical issues - how to get to parents, how to involve them, how and where to intersect with them. Certainly family math nights would be a good venue, but we need to be creative in thinking about what other places, times, and events we can connect with parents.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely, logistics will be tricky. When I think about the times that a child's progress is most evident to a parent, it would be during parent teacher conference time and report card time. Maybe there is a possibility that some quality information could be available during conferences, or that went home with the report card. At conferences, there could be presentations occurring. In the report card envelope, could be information that parents could find helpful or more information on access to programs. At least then, we have their attention. Also, some community organizations are interested because they see such a need to be more proactive when working with parents who call for other support services. Maybe we can tap into some of their venues.
ReplyDeleteGarnet,
ReplyDeleteI liked the book from NCTM. It had a lot of good resources and it would be a good resource to give to a parent who wants to be more informed. I also found this link to a document that outlines what has been found to be in place for successful parent groups in schools around the nation.
http://www.ed.gov/admins/comm/parents/parentinvolve/engagingparents.pdf
I think it gives a nice framework for interested groups to get started working in this area.
Kristi,
ReplyDeleteI printed off the report from the www.ed.gov web site and will take it with me this weekend and look at it. I really like the suggestions in the NCTM book "Involving families in mathematics education" and plan to base most of my work on that, but i will read this other report and see if it has some other things we might think about doing.
I think the distinction between the two documents is that the NCTM book provides good information to give to a parent to get started thinking about the support they need to be giving. The ed.gov document, while large, provides structures for how other communities have been successful in engaging parents, so I think it would be best to blend the two. Maybe a option from the five given in the ed.gov document could be the option(s) we give to the math summit attendees, and we augment it with the information available through NCTM.
ReplyDelete