The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
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February 7, 2013 Family Involvement News: February 2013Harvard Family Research Project
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FINE Newsletter, Volume V, Issue 1
Issue Topic: New Directions for the New Year
Family Involvement News
We at Harvard Family Research Project are committed to keeping you up to date on what's new in family engagement. This list of links to current reports, articles, events, and opportunities will help you stay on top of research and resources from HFRP and other field leaders.
NEW FROM HARVARD FAMILY RESEARCH PROJECT
Partnerships for Learning: Community Support for Youth Success
This new report from HFRP draws on the experiences of national organizations and a set of community schools that have built strong partnerships among families, schools, and community-based organizations to improve children's development and school success. The report draws on examples from Elev8, a community schools initiative in several locations across the country, to illustrate the seven key elements that are essential for building learning partnerships.
Year-Round Learning: Continuity in Education Across Settings and Time Through Expanded Learning Opportunities
In this third issue of Harvard Family Research Project’s policy brief series created in collaboration with the National Conference of State Legislatures, we explore benefits of year-round learning. In a year-round learning approach, community-based initiatives connect school, afterschool, and summer learning to ensure that educational opportunities reinforce and build upon each other across settings, are seamless throughout the year, and address a broad and diverse set of needs.
The Transition to Kindergarten: Fostering Connections for Early School Success
This book chapter, co-authored by HFRP’s Christine Patton and colleagues from the University of Virginia and the University of Nebraska, offers an overview of research on collaborative approaches to the transition to kindergarten. It features case studies of three states also profiled in HFRP’s brief, Ready for Success: Creating Collaborative and Thoughtful Transitions into Kindergarten. Each case study describes how the state’s department of education, advocacy organizations, school districts, early education teachers, kindergarten teachers, families, and community members work together to support children’s early school success. This chapter is part of Emerald Group Publishing’s Advances in Motivation and Achievement series and is available for purchase.
TOOLKITS
The Early Intervention Program Archive to Reduce Developmental Disability—Sociometrics Tool-kits
This for-purchase collection of replication kits for seven early intervention programs includes programs that have demonstrated improvements in cognitive-language and/or social-emotional outcomes among children ages 0 to 5 with or at risk for developmental delays or disabilities. The programs cover an array of topics, including teaching and learning, parent education, and interventions for young children with specific developmental delays.
FAMILIES, SCHOOLS, AND TECHNOLOGY
Parents’ and Teachers’ Attitudes and Opinions On Technology In Education
This report on a national survey of teachers’ and parents’ opinions on technology in education, which included a large sampling of low-income families, summarizes the survey’s results and shares key takeaways based on the findings, such as respondents’ belief that districts are not doing enough to ensure efficient use of technology in schools to help improve teacher effectiveness and promote student learning.
Flipping Parent Communication?
In this blog post, a principal encourages teachers and school leaders to structure parent communication around the “flipped classroom” and “flipped faculty meeting” concept, which employs technology to allow students, teachers, and parents to review information and materials prior to classes and meetings. The author argues that this approach improves the productivity of conversations and accessibility of information regarding school matters, and also demonstrates to parents how technology is reshaping the way teachers instruct students.
At a High-Tech School, Supportive Adults are the Real Key to Success
Profiling one of Rocketship Education’s seven innovative charter schools, Rocketship Discovery Prep, this article highlights the school’s success in incorporating technology into the learning space. Students receive instruction through "blended learning," a combination of traditional teaching and computer-based instruction.
Media and Digital Literacy: Resources for Parents
Produced by the editors at Common Sense Media, this list of resources provides guidance for parents concerned about their children’s safe and effective use of media. In particular, the editors offer tips for dealing with overarching challenges in media use—for instance, how to address Internet safety and online privacy, and what educational issues to expect from the digital world. With each challenge highlighted, the editors also list additional relevant articles from Common Sense Media.
POLICY AND ADVOCACY
Standards Backers Seek Out Support of Parents
In this Education Week article, the author examines increasing efforts of national organizations, including the National Parent Teacher Association and other backers of the Common Core State Standards, to garner parental support for the new standards guidelines. The article discusses recent outreach efforts to families and also focuses on the roles of parents in promoting standards.
IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
Schools Falter at Keeping ELL Families in the Loop
This article addresses the cultural and political nuances in providing effective programs for English language learners (ELL) among immigrant families in school districts in southern states, citing the number of complaints that Latino students and their Spanish-speaking parents, in particular, have filed related to the issue of parents not being able to participate in their children’s educational process due to schools’ lack of language support. The article highlights programs that schools can implement to actively engage their ELL families.
Keeping the Immigrant Bargain: The Costs and Rewards of Success in America
In this new book, author Vivian Louie, an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, examines the lives of 37 Colombian and Dominican immigrants whose children achieved academic success one generation after their parents arrived in the U.S. The book is based on the author’s interviews of foreign-born Dominican and Colombian parents as well as their children. The author argues that schools, community-based organizations, and others play important roles in helping ensure that immigrant children succeed in school, and notes that family engagement and a large support network are also necessary for children to have positive learning experiences.
This resource is part of the February 2013 FINE Newsletter. The FINE Newsletter shares the newest and best family involvement research and resources from Harvard Family Research Project and other field leaders. To access the archive of past issues, please visit www.hfrp.org/FINENewsletter.