As a teacher of any classroom you must keep an open line of communication with parents. When beginning a new school year with a new group of students preparing to join your inclusive classroom, it can be a world of "unknowns".
To be sure your learning environment is most beneficial for all you must first get to know your new group of students. You can gets parents involved by asking them to work with their child to create hopes and dreams that the parent and child have for the school year. You can use their responses to create goals for your classroom. Create ways that their hopes and dreams can be achieved, and present these ideas to parents during open house or conferences.
Demonstrate to parents how you will promote the most positive and effective learning environment for all students in the classroom, whether they are students who have learning disabilities or not. "Many also pointed out the positive aspects of the arrangement, including being able to help their peers academically, receiving more help themselves and learning to socialize with others different from themselves." This study shows proof that all students benefit from an inclusive classroom regardless of ability.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of having the parents work together to create a list of their hopes and dreams. It`s such a great way to show parents that you care while also creating an opportunity for parents and students to talk about school while they are at home. This idea reminded me of something we talked about in another one of my classes. We discussed that during parent- teacher meetings, teachers should start off by asking parents to talk about what they have noticed about their child both academically and socially over the past marking period. The parent has the opportunity to talk about their concerns or what they believe their child’s strengths are. This strategy puts the parent as the expert and often makes them more comfortable and relaxed when talking to the teacher. The teacher also benefits because they get more insight on the child.