Innovation and Parent Involvement

An interesting topic came to mind this week: with so much innovation in education recently, how does this impact the involvement of parents in their child's education?

I decided to do some research on this question and found an article by Matthew A. Kraft called "The Underutilized Potential of Parent-Teacher Communication", in which he indicates that the majority of parents are dissatisfied with their communication with schools (2016, p.1). This point by Kraft led me to consider whether the use of digital communication would be the most convenient way to foster parent-teacher communication in our modern society. Kraft suggests otherwise: "Email communication with families living at or below the poverty line has remained flat since 2007. The income-based 'email communication gap' between families above and below the poverty line has more than doubled" (2016, p. 1). This makes it clear that technology does not necessarily lead to convenience for everyone in our society today. If parent-teacher communication becomes digital-based, some parents will be left "in the dark."

Throughout my experience as a classroom teacher, I have learned of several different digital tools which can be used to foster parent communication. Class Dojo (https://www.classdojo.com/), for example, allows teachers to update student behavior daily. This data can then be viewed by parents at home (they simply have to visit the website and log in). Parents can also engage in chats with their child's teacher. What about the families without access to the internet? If a teacher decides to use digital tools for communication, should "old school" methods of communication continue to be provided as well?

Example of Class Dojo data for parents.

I am not sure that there is a simple answer to this issue. At the end of the day, it is sadly not realistic to assume that all parents will be eager to be involved with their child's educational success. However, those who are interested, and who may live in a state of poverty, should not be left "in the dark."

I would love to hear any feedback/perspectives regarding this idea of how technology can impact parent-teacher communication.

References:

Kraft, M. A. (2016) “The Underutilized Potential of Teacher-Parent Communication.” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Retrieved from https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/communities-and-banking/2016/spring/the-underutilized-potential-of-teacher-parent-communication.aspx