Alexander Charles Morton-Wright
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Home, School, and Community Relationships
The Power of Parent Partnerships in Early Childhood Classrooms
Early Childhood Education is taught both in person or online now. It is essential to build partnerships with parents in ECE to support your students better. To be reflective teachers, we must consider how parent partnerships can better assist us in person and online to provide our young ones with a premium education.
Below, I have annotated one in person and one online video highlighting how the teacher addresses all learners' needs in the classroom. Giving suggestions for additional ways the teacher can meet all learners' needs and examining how parent partnerships can assist the teacher in the classroom (in-person and online).
00:33
The teacher uses a story to introduce the concept of a pet and a wild animal. This story is funny with an elephant squashing a car and will get the children engaged and develop their schema related to pets. An improvement could be having pictures of the animals introduced in the story and letting a student come up and stick the animal on the Venn diagram. This would help with engagement and as a way to concept check some students.
04:27
The teacher encourages children to further develop their schema for pets and wild animals. Trying to think of the differences and similarities between the two categories. Some prepared small labelled pictures could have been used to demonstrate the similarities and differences. Sticking them in their individual sides and in the middle. This could then be repeated by taking them all down and asking students one-by-one to come up and stick one in the correct place.
05:58
Parent partnerships This video could be sent home before and/or after the class to encourage parents to talk about what they have learnt. Children could preview before the class so they are ready for the discussion in class or review after class. This will give parents a better understanding of what is being learnt especially if they do not speak the language of instruction.
11:19
The teacher has split the children into small group teaching groups to reinforce what they had just learnt and check their understanding with an activity of sorting animal toys. In this exercise, the teacher provides adult scaffolding to keep the group on task. Children will also receive guidance from other students as they cooperate together in the activity.
13:44
Parent partnerships There was no homework assignment set in the video but my suggestion would be to ask the children to make a video with their parents talking about a pet and a wild animal. This could be a pet they have or the reasons why they can't have a pet. Then talk about a wild animal and why this cannot be a pet. For camera-shy children, we could make this a drawing assignment instead. This will help get the parents more involved in the child learning as they make a video together.
02:12
Parent partnership A child is playing with a little dinosaur toy trying to distract some of the other children. The parent can help by making sure the learning environment for the child has no distractions in it.
07:54
The teacher tries to get all students attention by performing some actions for them to copy. This routine reminds students now is a time to listen to the teacher.
07:56
It could be good if instead of putting only one apple into the basket you could put all seven that she picked and then put the two on the floor. This should be a better visual representation for the ELL learners in the class that are struggling.
10:09
Parent partnership Some children are in environments that are not ideal for learning as there will be distractions. One is in a kitchen where someone is occasionally doing something behind her, another is on her bed, one is getting her hair braided. A message could be sent out to parents to remind them that at home the conditions for learning should be similar to a classroom. The children should be able to focus on the teacher in a quiet environment.
13:27
Before getting the students to try again. You could do the problem from class together talking them through it as you do it on the board. Completing each step visually in front of them. That way if there is a misunderstanding due to gaps in their knowledge the visual representation should be able to guide them in what is being asked for. ' This video could also be shown to the parents as an example along with two or three simple word problems for them to try before the next class.
My Reflections of Teaching ECE Online and the Impact of Parental Partnerships in Early Childhood Education
The Impact of School Shutdowns on Early Childhood Education
The world has been faced with massive school shutdowns because of weather issues, political unrest, pandemics, and other factors. School shutdowns have a profound impact upon all children, including those in Early Childhood Education. One way that we can best meet the needs of our students is by learning what impact the shutdowns have had on them and preparing a plan to help them move forward in their education. Here I examine the effects that school shutdowns have had on ECE students and explore possible solutions to the problems the shutdowns have caused.
A Powtoon I created to show my findings
Interesting Articles on the Impact of School Shutdowns on ECE
Four Ways Schools Can Support the Whole Child
I put this one here because it demonstrates how normal-functioning schools can assist students from different backgrounds in learning and building up various skills to be well-rounded children. To better understand what students will lose and pay for school shutdowns, we must first understand what a normal-functioning school can provide children in an irreplaceable way.
The Long-Term Effects of School Closures
This article provides data and examples on how school closure can negatively affect students. More importantly, evidence shows how it could affect the family's monetary and time investment and what outcomes it could lead to (especially for disadvantaged families).
How will school closures affect children in the long run? Wars, disease and natural disasters offer clues
This article provides some feedback and true feelings from people who personally have suffered from school shutdowns. Some of these are from decades ago, due to various reasons (wars, diseases, etc.). It shows a more realistic picture of how profound and irreparable the negative impact is on children experiencing school shutdowns.