Parent-teacher Conferences Research Articles

Dr. Lucinda Lee Katz, Kinney Lau’s first teacher: Reflections on Lau v. Nichols (1974): Bilingual education, advocacy, and parent engagement

ABSTRACT Dr. Lucinda Lee Katz was born and raised in North Beach, San Francisco, CA adjacent to Chinatown proper, where she spent her K-12 years attending San Francisco’s public schools. Throughout her K-12 education, her peers were primarily Chinese, but she never had a Chinese teacher. She attended Chinese school every day after school and on Saturdays through her senior year in high school, yielding a higher level of Cantonese proficiency. As a member of the National Teacher Corps (1965–1968), she earned a Master’s degree in teaching while also serving as a teaching intern at a public elementary school. Stationed at Jean Parker Elementary in San Francisco’s Chinatown for her first teaching assignment, she was thrust into running parent-teacher conferences that semester as her master teacher was ill. She met Mrs. Lau, the mother of Kinney Kimmon Lau, who was the main plaintiff in Lau v. Nichols (1974). At the time, the language of instruction at the school was English only. Throughout this interview, Lucinda illuminates how the advocacy of Mrs. Lau led her to be transformed by the justice orientation of a bilingual education model.

Lived experiences of teachers on the full implementation of in-person classes

This phenomenological study explored teachers’ experiences during the full implementation of in-person classes at Ibajay Central School in the Academic Year 2022-2023. Seven teachers shared their challenges and coping strategies through face-to-face interviews. Key findings revealed that physical and psychological readiness were essential for overcoming challenges and maintaining teaching effectiveness. Teachers were eager to return but also felt anxious about the virus, highlighting the need for robust psychological support. The study emphasized the importance of infrastructural preparedness and identified strict health protocols and increased workloads as significant obstacles. To address these issues, differentiated learning and regular parent-teacher conferences were recommended to better support student progress and teacher well-being.

Can High Involvement of Roma Parents Combat the Impact of Poverty? Resilience and Parental Involvement in the Success of Roma Students at School from the Students’ Perspective

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: A recurring question in Romani studies is why it is difficult to achieve breakthrough successes in inclusion programs. These programs focus mainly on school subjects, although the role of parents is crucial to solving the problem. This study, therefore, concerns parents and their roles in school success. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The purpose of this study is 1) to reveal how Roma and non‑Roma pupils perceive their parents’ involvement (PI) and 2) to come closer to explaining how PI affects students’ school success under the control of other variables. The analysis sheds light on the views of children of Roma and non‑Roma parents in Hungary. Cross‑tabulation analysis and linear regression analysis were applied. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The database called Discovery of Hidden Value of Mentoring (DHVM) was analysed, which includes data from 13–14‑year‑old students (N = 206; 31.1% Roma, 68.9% non‑Roma). RESEARCH RESULTS: For all school‑based and home‑based PI indicators apart from one (parent–teacher conferences), Roma and non‑Roma parents showed the same results. A student’s disadvantaged financial situation most strongly determined their level of school success, overriding the compensatory effect of PI. The variance explained by the regression model was 30.4%, and the model was significant (F(7) 5.18, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND APPLICABLE VALUE OF RESEARCH: Although financial disadvantage overrides the compensatory effect of PI on school careers and political entities need much action to improve people’s financial situation, schools and families cannot look only to the outside for solutions. The most significant finding of the research is that there is a hidden resource to improve the school success of Roma pupils, namely PI. Based on the results, the schools are recommended to conduct the partner cooperation with parents, because together they can increase the children’s future opportunities and resilience.

PERAN ORANG TUA MILENIAL DALAM MENINGKATKAN MOTIVASI BELAJAR SISWA SEKOLAH DASAR DI ERA DIGITAL

ABSTRACT : Parents' involvement in their children's education is vital to their general well-being and academic achievement. Parents who play an active role in their children's education can nurture a love of learning, encourage effective learning techniques, and provide the support and tools their children need to succeed. Besides, healthy parent-child interactions can enhance communication and strengthen the sense of support and encouragement that exists in the home. This study explores the influence of the participation of millennial parents in children's education. Using literature-based qualitative research methods, the study analyzes various sources to understand how parental involvement can affect children's educational outcomes. The findings suggest that the active involvement of millennial parents, such as attending parent-teacher conferences, helping with homework, and regulating the use oftechnology, has a positive impact on children's digital literacy and academic achievement. Engaged parents can boost their child's learning motivation, confidence, and critical thinking skills. However, excessive involvement can create stress and anxiety. The study emphasizes the importance of collaboration between parents and teachers to create a supportive and productive educational environment, as well as recommendations to increase parents' involvement in children's education.

AI IN HIGHER EDUCATION

A lot of industries are changing quickly due to artificial intelligence (AI), and education is no exception. In recent years, AI has made significant inroads into Higher Education, offering a wide range of advantages that improve students' educational experiences and simplify administrative duties for educators. Education is the cornerstone of human progress, shaping societies and individuals alike. In an era defined by rapid technological advancement, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into Higher Education has emerged as a transformative force. AI holds the potential to revolutionize how students learn, teachers instruct, and educational institutions operate. This essay explores the multifaceted introduction of AI in Higher Education, delving into its promises and challenges, its impact on learners and educators, and its potential to reshape the landscape of education for the future. Virtual reality is one new educational innovation that is being used for anything from teaching history to assisting pupils with their math skills. Virtual Reality is a three-dimensional an interactive, computer-generated environment that users can explore. By inventing fresh approaches to incorporate experiential learning into the classroom, VR educators are genuinely influencing the experience of being a student. VR is a fantastic tool for fostering a sense of community among students. Using the same virtual reality program in various classrooms allows them to safely communicate despite their physical separation. Students can investigate topics using virtual reality that they might not otherwise have the chance to observe or learn about. Teachers are in the same boat. There are far more interesting ways for teachers to instruct their students. Anybody who has tried Virtual Reality will know that it feels much more immersive compared to staring at a screen or being in an environment created by a computer. Just two advantages for both teachers and students are deeper comprehension and increased involvement. One type of AI educational software that students may soon use is chatbots. These are being used more and more in schools as students utilize computers or iPads to communicate with bots designed to help them understand specific topics such as math or reading comprehension. It’s possible chatbot tutors could do more than just help students learn new concepts; they may even come whenever the analysis is needed. Chatbots are the future of all technical roots. It shortens the teachers' duty rotation cycle. Chatbots used in classrooms could also replace email communication between parents and teachers during parent-teacher conferences.

Children’s involvement in interpreter-mediated parent–teacher conferences

ABSTRACT This paper examines a corpus of audio-recorded, interpreter-mediated, Parent–Teacher Conferences (PTCs) with migrant families and children in primary schools in the provinces of Modena and Reggio-Emilia, Italy. The aim is to investigate how verbal communication develops when children are present during these meetings, namely whether and how children are involved and/or invited to speak, and how the other parties orient themselves to children’s participation. The analysis will focus on (a) the interactional moves that enable and trigger children’s participation, (b) children’s reactions after being involved in the interaction, and (c) the adults’ reactions to children’s participation. The results will show that children’s verbal participation during PTCs is very limited and is not actively promoted by the other participants. On the few occasions when children do take the floor, it is because they are invited to speak by the mediators. However, on these few occasions, the interactional strategies used by the mediators to trigger children’s participation are not effective enough to promote the full exercise of children’s agency.

The Right to Be a Subject of Your Own Life—A Study of Parent-Teacher Conferences in Danish Lower Secondary Education

Many recent legislative reforms concerning children have emphasized the importance of involving children and adolescents in accordance with the principles of Article 12 in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This article deals with the rights of youths to express their opinions, feelings, and views in parent-teacher conferences in lower secondary education in Denmark. Both international and Danish research on parent-teacher conferences has shown that students are often objectified and are not provided with real opportunities to participate with their own voices and perspectives. Based on the sociology of Hartmut Rosa, the article explores students’ experiences of parent-teacher conferences as zones of alienation or spaces of resonance. In addition, we draw on Gert Biesta’s concept of subjectification to analyze how the current organization of the conferences largely displaces students’ opportunities to bring themselves into play as subjects of their own lives. The analysis is based on observations and interviews carried out in 2021 and 2022.

The Impact of Parental Involvement on Students' Academic Achievement in Nigeria: A Case Study of Parents in Asaba, Delta State

Researchers have found that when parents take an active role in their child's education, it tends to lead to better academic performance and greater likelihood of stimulating as well as sustaining students’ interests in school and are more likely to achieve academic success. As such, parental involvement is an important factor that plays a crucial role in shaping a child's academic achievement. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of parental involvement on the academic achievement of students in Delta State, Nigeria. The study utilized a quantitative research design; and a research questionnaire was developed for this study. 152 parents participated in the study, and the outcome of the survey was analysed using descriptive statistics. The result revealed that parental involvement has an impact in students’ academic achievement. The study also revealed parental involvement such as behavioural, cognitive and affective involvement of parents in the academic of their students play a positive role in the outcome of their children’s academic performance. Recommendations based on the outcome of the study stressed that schools can encourage parental involvement by offering opportunities for parents to communicate with teachers, attend parent-teacher conferences, and participate in school events, amongst others.

An exploratory mixed methods study about teacher candidates’ descriptions of children’s confusion, productive struggle, and mistakes in an elementary mathematics methods course

Recognizing and describing children's mathematical thinking in humanizing ways, especially when students engage in confusion, productive struggle, and mistakes, is a complex and challenging process. This paper describes an exploratory, mixed-methods study about how elementary teacher candidates (TCs) describe children's thinking as a right to exercise and to value their humanity when learning mathematics. The study analyzed transcripts from 64 TCs' summative assessments, which consisted of mock parent-teacher conferences (MPTC). Findings suggest that TCs described children's confusion, productive struggle, and mistakes (RotL 1 and 2) as: a teacher's observation, an opportunity for students to correct or clarify their thinking, an opportunity for teachers to adjust instruction or provide support, and as a normal part of the learning process. More importantly, some TCs reassured children that learners have fundamental rights when learning mathematics, especially when feeling confused and claiming a mistake. Implications for research and teacher education are discussed. Keywords: Elementary, teacher education, mathematics, mixed methods, rehumanizing, Torres’ rights of the learner

Understanding student teachers’ strengths and areas of need in a simulated consultation evening

ABSTRACT Consultation evenings, also known as parent-teacher conferences, are important opportunities for teachers to strengthen their relationships with caregivers. Many teachers, however, are unprepared, having had few opportunities to build skills and participate in real consultations during teacher training. To provide student teachers with more practice opportunities, some teacher educators have begun supplementing students teachers’ real-world consultations with simulations. Our goal in this study was to use findings on students’ strengths and challenges in a simulated consultation to inform the design of future practice opportunities. Using factor analysis and descriptive statistics, we analysed 206 transcripts from 106 student teachers’ simulations to uncover patterns in their consultations. We found that students were consistently good at sharing positive information about the pupil. Student teachers had more challenges finding the balance between facilitating a productive meeting and a collaborative one. Students also varied in how well they created and maintained a welcoming meeting environment when challenged by the caregiver or presented with a personal disclosure. Based on these findings, we propose designing targeted approximations of practice for consultations, in addition to more holistic ones, so that students can build skills in areas such as finding the balance between productivity and collaboration in a meeting.

Privacy in Early Childhood Education and Care: The Management of Family Information in Parent–Teacher Conferences

Families have a right to privacy, but we know little about how the public–private boundary is negotiated at the micro level in educational settings. Adopting ethnomethodology, the paper examines how talk about the home situation was occasioned and managed in ten parent–teacher conferences in early childhood education and care (ECEC), with a special focus on the ECEC teacher’s strategies for eliciting family information. The paper demonstrates a continuum of interactional practices which, in various degrees, make parents accountable for providing family information. The analysis shows that parents both volunteer and provide the pursued information, thus actively orienting to the norm of visibility in child rearing. However, although both parties orient to questioning and fishing as business as usual, the parents’ accounts sometimes had an excusing quality or they adopted a reserved communication style, suggesting a certain ambivalence as well. The paper outlines different ways of understanding the present partnership ideal in parent–teacher teacher cooperation with implications for the negotiation of privacy. The paper also addresses training, which can contribute to staff and student reflections on the management of the public–private boundary.

Close Communication Between Home and School is Beneficial to Student Learning

This paper provides an analysis of the strategies adopted to explore whether schools and families in China should enhance home-school communication and gives an analysis of the strategies adopted to enhance home-school communication in Chinese schools. Home-school communication is now an important issue in education due to the increasingly visible involvement of parents in education. Given that schools and families have different educational philosophies, there will inevitably be communication problems between parents and schools. This paper uses Behaviourism and Constructivism to analyse the ways in which families and schools in China should improve communication between home and school and can set up forms such as parent-teacher conferences.

Depersonalizing troubles in institutional interaction

This article advances our understanding of institutional interaction by showing when and how it can be advantageous for professionals to treat addressed recipients as non-unique. Examining how teachers talk about children-as-students during parent–teacher conferences, this investigation illuminates several specific interactional methods that teachers use to depersonalize the focal student’s trouble, delineating as among these the novel practice of ‘routinizing’ – citing first-hand experience with other similar cases. Analysis demonstrates how teachers use routinizing to enact their expertise, both responsively as a vehicle for attenuating and credentialing their advice-giving to parents/caregivers, and proactively to pre-empt parent/caregiver resistance to their student assessments/evaluations. This research thus reveals how routinizing licenses teachers’ authority vis-à-vis the focal student’s trouble by making salient the epistemic basis for their claims.

Home Learning Environment and Parent-Teacher Ecology towards Academic Performance and Positive Social Behavior

The present study was focused on determining and analyzing the extent of home learning environment and parentteacher ecology towards the academic performance and positive social behavior of Grade 6 pupils in the S.Y. 2022-2023. The target respondents of the study included Grade 6 students. The study utilized the descriptive quantitative research design in gathering data and information for the completion of this research endeavor. The survey questionnaire was utilized as the main tool for the data gathering process of the research. The researcher concluded that that based on the students’ experience in their home learning environment, this is more related to the way that they are being influenced by the kind of environment they have at home; that the established good relations between parent and teacher can be concluded to have a significant role in terms of helping children or learners learn better and integrate or incorporate important values and attitudes into their lives as part of their daily learning experience at school; and that academic success among the learners can be concluded to be attainable with the help of parents and teachers and the willingness of the pupils themselves. On the other hand, the researcher recommended that conduct parent-teacher conferences and meetings help the parents develop better attitudes and approaches to guide their children in doing assignments or projects; that in order to enrich the parent-teacher ecology aspect, parent-teacher conferences are again recommended in order to effectively address any emergence of problems and misunderstandings between parents and teachers.

Interval colorings of graphs—Coordinated and unstable no‐wait schedules

AbstractA proper edge‐coloring of a graph is an interval coloring if the labels on the edges incident to any vertex form an interval, that is, form a set of consecutive integers. The interval coloring thickness of a graph is the smallest number of interval colorable graphs edge‐decomposing . We prove that for any graph on vertices. This improves the previously known bound of , see Asratian, Casselgren, and Petrosyan. While we do not have a single example of a graph with an interval coloring thickness strictly greater than 2, we construct bipartite graphs whose interval coloring spectrum has arbitrarily many arbitrarily large gaps. Here, an interval coloring spectrum of a graph is the set of all integers such that the graph has an interval coloring using colors. Interval colorings of bipartite graphs naturally correspond to no‐wait schedules, say for parent–teacher conferences, where a conversation between any teacher and any parent lasts the same amount of time. Our results imply that any such conference with participants can be coordinated in no‐wait periods. In addition, we show that for any integers and , , there is a set of pairs of parents and teachers wanting to talk to each other, such that any no‐wait schedules are unstable—they could last hours and could last hours, but there is no possible no‐wait schedule lasting hours if .

Coping Mechanism of Kindergarten Parents in a Modular Learning Education for the School Year 2021-2022

Parents, teachers, and students were equally affected by the widespread prevalence of COVID-19. Parental involvement in the education of students begins at home, providing a safe and healthy environment, appropriate learning experiences, support, and a positive attitude about school (Durisic & Bunijevac 2017). A descriptive qualitative study was planned to explore the experiences of parents coping mechanisms. The purposive sampling technique was used for data collection. Data were collected from 35 kindergarten parents; through an open-ended question. Three major themes emerged after the data analysis: the teaching experience of a kindergarten parent, the coping mechanism, and the most suitable approach used. It was analyzed that their parent-children's relationships positively influenced the coping-up mechanism. The child's behavior, what interests them most, and not overworking them with the modules were also considered. It is recommended that in-depth orientation about the learning mechanism be included during Parent-Teacher Conference (PTC).

Instruction, Assessment, and Intervention Practices in DMDL: A Multiple Case Study

The study aimed to determine the teaching practices of senior high school faculty in an integrated school in Calamba City, Laguna Philippines, offering a digital modular distance learning modality. Specifically, it sought to determine how teachers facilitate instruction, assess learning, and remediate least learned competencies.
 This paper utilized a multiple case study design. The researcher utilized Google Forms in gathering data and probed further by means of Facebook messenger, text messages, and face-to-face interviews. Results revealed that instruction began with the careful crafting of weekly home learning plans (WHLP). Teachers designed video lessons, put up feedback mechanisms, and designed learning activity sheets. In terms of assessment, they combined paper-and-pencil tests with task-based and web-based assessments. Lastly, interventions are done using paper-and-pencil tests, web-based assessments, teacher-made videos, and task-based assessments. Other interventions included home visitations and parent-teacher conferences.
 In conclusion, instruction in the DMDL required careful planning of the WHLP which involved the selection of materials to supplement the teaching-learning process. Assessment in this modality was a combination of traditional and web-based assessments. Interventions, on the other hand, could be academic and non-academic. For academic, further assessments and activities were provided to students whereas home visitations were conducted for those students with other concerns. The researcher recommended for future research the utilization of other research designs to verify the findings of the research in other contexts. Future researchers could consider having larger samples. The researcher also recommended to explore the possibility of DMDL in a post-pandemic scenario.

Quiet in class? Exploring discourses on verbal participation

ABSTRACT Background Verbal participation in the classroom is generally considered to contribute to positive student engagement and learning outcomes. Students are often required to demonstrate their learning in class by, for example, raising their hands and answering questions. However, there are students who remain quiet in the classroom, and are not responsive to invitations to participate. As quietness and low levels of verbal participation in class are often perceived and positioned as problematic in many educational systems and settings, more needs to be understood about the notion of students’ verbal participation and the implications for supporting all students’ learning journeys through school. Purpose The study sought to explore how students’ verbal participation was constructed and positioned in the narratives of parent-teacher conferences. Method A Swedish corpus of audio recordings and transcriptions of parent-teacher conferences with 24 students in years 5 and 6 (approximate student ages 10–12) across five schools was utilised as the basis for the investigation. Through an interactionally-oriented narrative approach, a collection of stories about verbal participation was identified. These stories were analysed using the concept of narrative positioning. Three stories from the collection were selected to demonstrate, in greater depth, aspects of how students’ verbal participation was constructed and how discourses unfolded. Findings The analysis demonstrated diversity in terms of how discourses were employed and how students were positioned in the narratives about verbal participation. Prevalent discourses drew on notions of learning, affect and assessment and were identified as pedagogical, psychological and performative discourses. Conclusions The study highlights how verbal participation tends to be constructed as an individual undertaking, with the implication being that students are assigned individual responsibility for this. As students are usually encouraged to make the most of their verbal participation in class, the study gives rise to important and complex questions in terms of challenging assumptions about how best to support student learning, particularly in the case of students who remain quiet in the classroom.

Parent-Teacher Conference as a Rhetorical Challenge in Educational Practice

This paper analyses educator’s communication skills during parent-teacher conferences in kindergarten. We researched the way educators communicate during twelve parent-teacher conferences in various kindergartens. In accordance with the methodology of qualitative research, chosen elements of educator’s communication during the parent-teacher conferences were observed and recorded. Results showed that observed parent-teacher conferences are well-prepared, structured, substantially suitable and interactive, with apt vocabulary and elements of eloquence. The greatest shortcoming of the educator’s communication was an underdeveloped active listening technique. Moreover, there were obvious differences in individual communication skills of the educators. The results of this research can serve as a tool for contemplating pedagogical practice in early childhood education.

Effects of Parental Oral Health knowledge on Early Childhood Caries and Oral Health Status of Children 3-5 Years of Age in Abbottabad

Dental caries can spread rapidly in children and was given the term "Early Childhood Caries" (ECC) that was coined to describe "one or more carious, non-cavitated or cavitated tooth surfaces that are missing or filled due to caries on a deciduous tooth" in a child of 5 years and 9 months of age or younger. Early childhood caries (ECC) is a “complicated condition affecting the maxillary primary incisors which quickly propagate to other primary teeth about a month of eruption”. It is a serious issue of socio-behavior or dental health which strikes pre-schoolers across the globe. Objective: To determine effects of parental knowledge on their children's oral health practices and status. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out, with a total of 384 kids from Government and Private Schools of Abbottabad City. Oral hygiene of the children was assessed through dmft scores upon the request of school administration and parents. Structured oral health questionnaires were distributed by the instructors among the parents during parent-teacher conferences/ meetings that were held after every three months in a fiscal year of the school. Results: A total of 372 of the youngsters in the study have all their primary teeth erupted (98.7%). Three-year-olds make up 35.7% of the overall sample, while four-year-olds make up 23%, and five-year-olds make up 0.5% of the sample. One or more of the sample's 245 decaying teeth affects 40.5% of the total. Conclusions: Parental knowledge and practise of oral hygiene were found to be linked to their children's oral health in this study.