APST 7 refers to a graduate teacher’s ability to engage with colleagues, parents, carers and the community in ethical, legal and professionally responsible ways.
I have endeavoured to reach out to parents throughout my studies. During the instance described in APST 1, I sent a letter home with the student seeking her parents’ express written permission to create a video with their daughter, on the condition that the video would not go online and all recordings would be deleted after our project finished (7.1, 7.2, 7.3). One attempt to engage with parents on a larger scale was during my foundation year placement. The students were completing a unit on numberlines and the concept of counting on. The class was making that first leap in understanding – learning that numbers can count on from any point, and not necessarily 0. Many in the class were struggling with this; they still treated the act of counting as something like a song or story – something to be recited from beginning to ‘end’. I asked my mentor If I may try creating a game that could help add some context to the concept being learned. I donned an eyepatch and a silly voice and presented the number line as a pirate’s treasure trail, and the addition or subtraction as instructions to help find the treasure. Students were asked to start at a number, before being given a series of instructions or ‘clues’, described as ‘big pirate steps’ forward or backwards. When the student believed they’d found the ‘treasure’ they’d mark it with an X. After confirming the student had the right number, they would move onto the ‘treasure chest lock’ part of the sheet, where they’d have to represent the number in four different ways, such as with a word, MAB blocks, expanded format, or using pictures. For their hard work they’d receive the treasure, a shiny gold sticker placed in the centre of their page. When the task was received very well by the class, I elected to create a follow-up task the students could complete with their parents called number hide-and-seek (7.3). The students would take turns with their parents finding numbers on a number line based on a series of clues. Having parents involved in their childrens’ learning has proven benefits to their education and helps broaden the contexts they associate with learning (7.3) (Fasina, 2011), (Kreider, 2002).
Roughly a third of students reported back that their parents played the game with them. I was quite pleased with this result, as these students demonstrated more confidence and proficiency in the follow-up exercise. Many parents want to engage with their children and their learning but might not know how (Baker, et al., 2016). This simple idea can help facilitate this connection while also making sure the child’s learning doesn’t end when they leave school each day.
