3/22/09

I feel the Muncie community does a good job at partnering with schools. It has a website that parents can check frequently. This website contains numerous links to help the school system communicate with the parents. Some of these links include the lunch menu, school events calender, news releases about the school, and several parent resources with such links like what to do after the arrival of a new family member. It also has links to all the administrators and staff with their phone numbers, pictures, and addresses. I believe this is the best part of the website because this gives the parents a way to speak to someone when they feel there is a problem. I think that the school system does a great job of communicating with parents but it could do better at including the entire community. I think a bake sale or a rummage sale could help with this problem. It would get the parents, students, and community together to socialize and get to know each other.

Mock Parent/Teacher Conference 3/02/09

I thought the mock parent/teacher conference went really well. My preparation for this activity helped it go smoothly. I felt like I said "um" a few too many times. This is because that is the way I talk in everyday life. I think I need to practice speaking like a teacher more often. I thought that Kim did a good job of acting like a real parent. This helped this activity feel as real as possible. I think I need to work on my transitions from one part of the conference to another. I remember saying "here are her strengths" and "here are her weaknesses". This made it feel a bit choppy in some sections. I thought the difficult part of the conference went well. I thought I took the situation well and explained my side of the problem well. Overall, I think this was a good experience even though I obviously can make it better in the future.