Inspire Family Engagement with Positive Communication

In partnership with Model Teaching, an industry leader in supporting educators, this course will help you explore how to build a strong home-to-school connection using both social-emotional and academic strategies to connect with your students' families. Model Teaching's Mission is to improve student performance by directly supporting teachers with quality content and resources. You will learn how to clearly, frequently, and positively communicate with families and navigate potential challenges.

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3 Months / 12 Course Hrs
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Offered in partnership with your preferred school

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Inspire Family Engagement with Positive Communication

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Course code: T14714

Foster family involvement in education with this teacher professional development course that teaches you how to support your students academically and their social-emotional wellbeing by building strong home-to-school connections. You will learn specific strategies for building connections with students' families and keeping your students and their parents engaged in their child's learning path. The course will focus on providing you with explicit examples of support strategies that you can implement to strengthen the classroom community and your relationship with each child's family. The course will help you build a plan for student engagement that is ready to be implemented in the classroom by providing you with action plans, strategy guides, and other resources ready for use.

What you will learn

  • Understand the value of building a strong home–to–school connections
  • Evaluate strategies for engaging families in their child's education and strategies for positive communication
  • Analyze challenges in family engagement and methods for addressing those challenges
  • Build a plan for implementing a robust family engagement plan into your classroom

How you will benefit

  • Your relationship between your students and their families will be improved
  • Your classroom culture and dynamic will become a more positive place for students to flourish socially and academically
  • With the increased engagement from families, your students will be able to engage with your lessons and improve academically

How the course is taught

  • Self-Guided, online course
  • 3 Months access
  • 12 course hours
  1. The Importance of Family Engagement
    1. The definitions of family engagement and communication
    2. About the positive relationship between student achievement and family engagement
    3. Several different strategies you can implement to encourage family engagement
  2. Clear Communication
    1. Strategies for maintaining clear lines of communication
    2. How to phrase both positive and constructive feedback about a student's behavioral and academic progress
    3. That communication is two-way and that families are a valuable source of information
  3. Family Education
    1. About the value of family education
    2. That family education can cover child/teen development, safety issues, and targeted education about a child's learning process and progress
    3. Strategies to teach families how they can be an active partner in their child's education at home
  4. Special Events
    1. Several ideas for fun events that can be easily planned to encourage family engagement
    2. Several ideas for volunteer opportunities that will allow families to share their special gifts with the students
  5. School Governance
    1. The importance of involving families in issues of school governance, decision-making, and policy change
    2. Specific strategies to implement to encourage that type of involvement
  6. Overcoming Barriers
    1. About potential barriers to parent engagement such as cultural differences, language barriers, and economic status that may impact a family's level of engagement
    2. Ways to address those issues so they do not impede genuine family engagement
  7. Putting it All Together
    1. Using the sample provided, build your own family engagement plan for your classroom.
  8. Applying What you Have Learned
    1. Get ideas on how to implement the concepts into your classroom, find a list of online resources that feature family engagement strategies, and read the research behind engagement that supports this evidence- based professional development
Self-Study

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

  • This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

  • PC: Windows 10 or later.
  • Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
  • Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox is preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
  • Microsoft Word Online
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader
  • Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

  • Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.
  • Editing of a Microsoft Word document is required in this course. You may use a free version of Microsoft Word Online, or Google Docs if you do not have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. Model Teaching can provide support for this.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Your course begins immediately after you enroll.​

You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

A Guide to Blooms Taxonomy and Cognitive ThinkingFundamentalsBuilding Reading and Writing FluencyFundamentalsChecking for Understanding in Elementary MathFundamentalsClaim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) in the Science ClassroomFundamentalsCollaborative Learning in the ClassroomFundamentalsUniversal Design for Learning (UDL) PrinciplesFundamentals
Fundamentals
A Guide to Blooms Taxonomy and Cognitive Thinking
Fundamentals
Building Reading and Writing Fluency
Fundamentals
Checking for Understanding in Elementary Math
Fundamentals
Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) in the Science Classroom
Fundamentals
Collaborative Learning in the Classroom
Fundamentals
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Principles