Anna Matykowski

Carleton College Educational Studies Philosophy of Education Resume Subject Matter Competence Service Learning Component Working with Parents Integrating Technology Experiential Learning in Classrooms American Indian Education Case Study of a Student Model Lesson Plan/ Performance Packages Self-Reflection Pieces/ Professional Summary Student Teaching Observation Record

WORKING WITH PARENTS I believe that all good teachers must communicate with parents and guardians about their students’ academic endeavors and scholarly progress. During my student teaching experience, I facilitated this important communication with letters and conferences. I have included an example of a letter that I sent home to parents and guardians. I wrote this letter to ask parents for permission to send their students’ writing to Coffee House Press, a non-profit literary publisher in Minneapolis. In addition to gaining parent permission, this letter allowed me to meet several other goals. First of all, the letter informed parents about one of the main academic projects of the quarter. The letter also communicated one of my main objectives: to teach students about the publishing process and the rewards of sharing their voices and ideas. Most importantly, this letter also allowed me to send out a friendly reminder about parent-teacher conferences. After speaking with the social worker at New Spirit, I learned that many parents and guardians feel anxious about attending conferences due to language barriers. I hoped that an introductory letter might encourage reluctant parents to attend the conferences. Letter to Parents and Guardians (English Version) Letter to Parents and Guardians (Hmong Version) Letter to Parents and Guardians (Spanish Version) I also conducted all of the fall conferences with my students’ parents and guardians. In preparation for these conferences, I wrote a summary about each student’s performance in language arts class. During the conferences, I was in charge of giving the parents an overview of their student’s progress in his or her four core classes. Most of the parents were very pleasant and supportive of their children. Translators were present in about ninety percent of the conferences.