In response to: "Create Student Data Folders for Parents"
http://www.teachhub.com/news/article/cat/14/item/778
In this blog post Charity Preston discusses the need for "student data" folders to be sent home bi-weekly throughout the school year. By sending home student data folders, parents are more involved in the education of their child. Grades and comments will be sent home by the teacher and parents will be required to sign and return the folder on an assigned day of the week. Preston said that she also creates room on the data page where the students are required to write a self reflection about the past couple of weeks and how they think things are going and what they can do to improve. This is a way of having students track their own progress and so that they always know where they stand when it comes to their grades. Students are encouraged to take ownership in their work by sending home grades more often. Preston claims that even with the 24 hour a day grading system that is available on the school website that parents still claim they had no idea their child was not performing well in the classroom. This is a way to avoid that and to encourage more parental involvement. Preston offers a detailed example of how to make the folders and what to put in them to get you started in your own routine of sending home student data folders in the link above. I have used a system very similar to this and it works great. It really does cut down on the number of upset parents when report cards are sent home...
This sounds like a great idea! Last year my district adopted an online grade book which parents can log onto and check grades and attendance in real time. It worked great since parent could see when their child wasn't turning in assignments. It also meant I was getting a lot more phone calls since kids tried to lie and said they turned it in assignments. But you still have some parents who seemed shocked their child was failing since they didn't log in and didn't return my phone calls.
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