Articles and Videos Discovered this summerStrategies Schools Can Use To Become More Trauma-Informed from EdutopiaStrategies Schools Can Use To Become More Trauma-Informed (Link and parts of the article are below) from Edutopia www.kqed.org/mindshift/53092/strategies-schools-can-use-to-become-more-trauma-informed While dealing with all the issues kids bring to school can be overwhelming for teachers, the upside is that they are well positioned to make a big impact on students' lives. Positive relationships with caring adults can help buffer students from the effects of trauma and chronic stress, making trauma-informed schools "healing places." "If you're fearful, if you're anxious, if you're distracted about something that's happened to you, you literally can't learn. Your brain shuts down," said Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute. "So it's essential to give kids social and emotional tools that allow students to recover from the challenges that they have experienced. Take actual classroom time to work on the building blocks of how to perceive your emotions, how to talk about them, how to get along with other people, how to take a moment and become calm when you need to, how to express your needs so that others can meet them." Strategies: 1. One strategy to intentionally support students who need a little extra in these areas is one-on-one time with a staff mentor. Providing a regular, relaxed environment for the student to check in with the same adult helps them build trust and opens the door for more learning. 2. Another strategy schools use to make sure students aren't falling through the cracks is to meet in teams to discuss students. These meetings offer a picture of students across learning environments and allow teachers to share where a student is struggling as well as where she shines. It's also a chance to recognize positive behavior and growth in students so they are pushed and recognized as well. Concrete Ways To Help Students Self-Regulate And Prioritize Work from Mind ShiftThere are a lot of skills necessary to succeed in school that aren't directly about mastering content, including the ability to recognize, name and control ones emotions. The school day often comes with lots of emotion, everything from elation to frustration, which makes it the perfect place to practice self-regulation. "One of the most authentic ways for me to help them expand their own vocabulary is to use my personal experience with my own emotions in the classroom," said Lindsey Minder, a second grade teacher. She regularly models describing how she's feeling and why throughout the school day, as well as demonstrating simple practices like taking a deep breath to calm down. "One of the critical features of learning is modeling," said Linda Darling-Hammond, president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute in an Edutopia series on the science of learning. "We learn by watching others. In this classroom, we see the teacher modeling her recognition of her emotions and also modeling how she deals with them in productive ways. And that is the first step in helping children learn to manage their own emotions." This type of modeling also helps students recognize that their teachers are people too, and that like students, they get frustrated when no one listens or follows directions. It builds empathy to know that all humans experience a range of emotions across a day and each person is doing their best to manage them productively. Students must also learn and practice how to prioritize and tackle tasks for academic and life success. Executive function often develops in middle school when the skills become even more important as students juggle work from multiple classes with many deadlines. Learning how to prioritize work not only makes it feel more manageable, it also helps students use work time efficiently. "Mark Twain said if you wake up every morning and eat a frog, everything else will taste great," said eighth grade teacher Catherine Paul. "So, I taught them to take their frog from the list, which is the thing they want to do the least, and get it out of the way, because everything else will seem easy." Paul guides her students through the process of creating a priority list together so they have a tool to do it on their own later. "Then you can know what to do first and categorize it and get it done efficiently," said Arius, an eighth grader. 5 Strategies for a Successful Parent-Teacher Conference from EdutopiaFor many teachers, parent conferences are often accompanied by a sense of dread. There are the parents who push back on any critique, the ones who don’t understand how to help, and the ones who never show. The meetings aren’t that much easier for parents, who rush to squeeze them in on a workday or feel the teacher isn’t understanding their child. But parent-teacher meetings can be productive. We’ve gathered five common concerns—from both teachers’ and parents’ perspectives—and identified strategies to improve attendance, communication, and student outcomes. Problem: It’s difficult to get parents to show up. Solution: There’s possibly nothing more frustrating than parents who don’t come to a conference or meeting at all. According to a 2008 study from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics, more than one in five parents reported that they didn’t regularly attend parent-teacher conferences. In many cases, both parents work and it’s challenging to schedule times that work for them, as most conferences are held in the afternoon, says Charles Saylors, former president of the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), as reported by NPR. Saylors encourages scheduling morning and evening conferences when parents are out of work—or even visiting students’ homes, if possible. Guidance from George Hall Elementary in Mobile, Alabama, may help. Experiencing low attendance at larger family events, the school started looking more closely at families’ needs and restrictions. Since many George Hall families work shifts, the school began hosting events near the start or end of shift times. The school held events from 4 to 6 p.m., so there was still enough light out for families to walk home afterward. But sometimes parents simply forget. A range of education tech tools, like Remind and ClassDojo, now enable teachers to keep parents abreast of school and classroom happenings, which can provide the nudge parents need to remember. Many schools have found that quick text messages work just as well, and a number of services will translate texts into different languages. Problem: Discussions of a student’s performance leave a parent confused. Solution: Quickly handing over a report card or assessments in a conference can leave parents uncertain of their child’s performance—or how to help. A practice used by Maureen Holt, a reading specialist at Humboldt Elementary School in Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona, may alleviate this issue. Holt has found it helpful to share student data with parents regularly, not just at a conference or meeting. Every three weeks, she sends home data folders containing printouts about specific skills students are tested on, graphs showing how each student performed, and descriptions explaining the assessment data and any confusing terminology used to explain it. Holt also hosts a data night at the beginning of the year at which she explains the folders to parents, and she schedules one-on-one parent meetings as needed or when requested throughout the year. Problem: Parents have a hard time hearing negative feedback about their child. Solution: The joke that parents think their kids are perfect does have some truth.\ To handle tricky situations when you have to give negative feedback at conferences, an approach suggested by Joe Hirsch, a leadership coach and former curriculum developer, might help. Hirsch recommends avoiding the “feedback sandwich” and instead following a framework of context, observations, emotions, value, and input. First, name the context—the time and place—where the problem occurs, like during small-group interactions. Next, share specific and objective observations about what happened. Then describe how the student’s actions impact others emotionally and why that matters. Lastly, ask parents for input on how the issue can be resolved productively, so you approach the problem as partners. Terri Eichholz, an elementary teacher of over 25 years, also suggests being proactive and getting ahead of the feedback. “Don’t wait for problems to arise. Make it a point to communicate frequently and positively so that you have already developed a relationship before you hit bumps in the road,” she says. When parents are not native English speakers, there’s a greater chance that feedback given during a conference may be misinterpreted or misunderstood. The video tool Spotlight, which translates report cards from English into other languages, helped Oakland Unified School District in California break down this barrier. Each video uses a parent’s home language to explain report card terminology, highlight areas in which a student needs to improve and grow, and provide recommendations for how parents can help their child at home. Problem: Students aren’t getting the feedback on how they can improve. Solution: There’s no a guarantee that parents are actually sharing what they learn at a conference with their child. To help students take ownership of their learning and keep lines of communication open between school and home, Wildwood IB World Magnet School, a K–8 public school in Chicago, has student-led conferences twice a year. Students present a portfolio of work to their parents and teacher, and respond to reflection prompts like, “I have been successful at...” and “I still need help with....” The week before the conference, students spend 10 to 15 minutes a day learning about what makes a good student-led conference and practicing their presentations. And in student-led conferences at the middle school at University Park Campus School, a 7–12 public school in Worcester, Massachusetts, students share their strengths and weaknesses, set academic and behavior goals, and ask for support where needed. They use guided templates for creating the agenda, reflectingon how the meeting went, and making any needed changes by the follow-up meeting a few weeks later. In 11th grade, the student-led meetings are college and career focused. Students discuss their career interests and hopes for college, then create an action plan so they’re ready to apply. "School is not here to happen to students,” says Dan St. Louis, University Park’s principal. “They are an active participant.” Problem: Parents don’t know how to help their kids improve. Solution: Helping parents support their kids can be as simple as giving parents a handout—or it can mean an overhaul of the traditional parent-teacher conference. While working as the director of community education in Creighton Elementary School District in Phoenix, Maria Paredes developed Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT), a new take on parent-teacher conferences that is now used by schools all over the country. In this model, all parents are brought together in a large group setting three times a year to discuss the entire class’s academic data with the teacher. The goal is to get parents out of isolation and connect them to other parents who might be able to provide advice or the support they need to help their child. Parents also meet individually with the teacher to look over their child’s performance, and then help create a 60-day academic plan for their child with specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART) goals for the student. The plan and the results are reviewed by parents, students, and the teacher during the year, with modifications made as necessary. But sometimes a conference is just not enough time.
At Design 39 Campus, a K–8 public school in San Diego, conferences and quick exchanges with teachers proved insufficient for parents to feel confident to support their children’s academic growth at home. In response, the school established parent workshops in which teachers invite parents into the classroom during the school day. Students share their work with their parents for the first half hour, and then teachers give a 30-minute presentation just for parents that builds on the work students are doing in school. Afterward, teachers provide related resources—games, websites, readings—that families can take home to use with their children.
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