Category: Child Care

Is There a Difference Between Disruptive Behavior Disorders and ADHD – Amanda Morin

Behavior Psychology, Child Care, Children Psychology, Content Marketing, Health/Psychology, Human/Psychology, Parenting/Children News, Psychology/Behavior, Psychology/Emotions

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You may have heard people use phrases like “out of control” or “wild” to describe kids who have a hard time controlling their emotions and impulsive behavior. If they’re talking about your child, you might wonder if your child has a disruptive behavior disorder or ADHD. You might even think disruptive behavior disorders and ADHD are the same thing. Disruptive behavior disorders and ADHD have some things in common, such as trouble keeping emotions in check and doing risky, impulsive things. But there are big differences between the two that can affect the strategies used to help your child………..

Read more: http://sco.lt/5VTdM9

Nutrition For Kids – Get All The Support And Guidance You Need To Get The Right Nutrition For Your Kids

Child Care, Content Marketing, Health/Diet Plan, Healthcare Study, Nutrition Facts/News, Nutrition Plans/Strategies

Children today are more likely to consume foods that are delicious rather than nutritious, and most foods that come under the delicious category are usually either highly sweetened or salted, either way the delicious choice is not good for the child at all. It is up to the adult to ensure the meals a child consumes us as balanced as possible. With balanced meals, the child will be able to have all the necessary nutrition needed for optimum and normal growth patterns both mentally and physically……

Read more: https://nutritionforkids01.blogspot.com/

What to Do When You Can’t Stop Worrying About Your New Baby – Kate Rope

Baby Care/Study, Child Care, Content Marketing, Parenting/Children News

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Almost all parents worry about the health and safety of their newborn children. In fact, we’re evolutionarily programmed to scan our environments for any potential threat to the little life we are now charged with preserving. You might worry that your child will stop breathing in the night. That a car might leap onto the sidewalk and mow down you and your stroller. Or, even, that you could do something to harm your new baby, like drown her during those awkward newborn sponge baths……

Read more: https://offspring.lifehacker.com/what-to-do-when-you-cant-stop-worrying-about-your-new-b-1826008586

 

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Give Your Toddler a Roller Coaster Experience With a Laundry Basket – Michelle Woo

Child Care, Children Psychology, Content Marketing, Tech News

When it comes to toddler hacks, this one has all the winning components. 1) You probably have the materials. 2) YOU GET TO SIT. And 3) It’s damn fun.Oklahoma City dad Terrance Gay gave his daughter Kayla a thrilling ride by placing her inside a laundry basket atop his knees as they watched a 3D roller coaster video on TV. Pretending she’s on the track, he dips, twists and shakes her as she squeals “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” with glee. Her mom posted the video on Kayla’s Facebook page……

Read more: https://offspring.lifehacker.com/give-your-toddler-a-roller-coaster-experience-with-a-la-1827518185

 

 

 

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Teaching kids the importance of empathy can help shut down bullying | king5.com | Empathy Magazine

Child Care, Children Psychology, Children/Kids Education, Emotional Science, Empathy/Sympathy Study

You have the school supplies purchased and loaded up in your child’s backpack, ready to start the year on the right foot – but what about making sure your child is equipped with empathy?

Establishing strong, successful relationships and friendships are vital to your child’s development and growth. “Practicing empathy is really just watering the seeds for kindness, tolerance, respect, and compassion,” says Dr. Tiffany Spanier of Allegro Pediatrics.

Sending your child back to school with a better understanding of these social elements can help them know what to do in bullying situations and establish a better communication connection between you and your child.

Source: Teaching kids the importance of empathy can help shut down bullying | king5.com | Empathy Magazine

 

 

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Parental Debate: Should Your Kid Have a Cellphone in School – Edward C. Baig

Addiction/Alcohol, Child Care, Children Psychology, Children/Kids Education, Content Marketing, Parenting/Children News, Parenting/Permissions

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Lawmakers in France recently passed a ban on the use of smartphones in schools, impacting students in their early to midteens. In U.S. school districts where digital device policies are all over the map, parents and teachers are divided on how to curb or permit phone use in the classroom.

Some schools have students stash their phones in their lockers – as they do for middle schoolers in my Northern New Jersey town. Others have kids place them in a canvas “pocket chart” – essentially a hanging shoe organizer – in the classroom.

What most everyone agrees on is that screen-time addiction is a problem for young and old, an issue that companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook are finally tackling with recently announced software updates. You hear all too often how kids who are fixated on smartphone screens are only modeling the behavior of their parents. (It’s also not unheard of that a teacher also may use a phone in the classroom, to check on his or her own family at home.)

According to nonprofit family media watchdog Common Sense Media, 24 percent of kids from 8 to 12 years old have their own smartphone and 67 percent of their teenage counterparts do, with tweens using an average of about six hours’ worth of entertainment media daily.

Compounding the confusion is the age at which families give their kids a phone – often, but not always, when the youngster is about to enter middle school. But what  effect does a kid who has a phone that’s visible at school have on a classmate who doesn’t have his or her own handset?

Some schools implement “one-to-one” programs to provide computers, tablets or other mobile devices to each student. Other cash-strapped districts may have to share tech gear in the classroom. And some educators may even encourage students to bring their own devices for class use.

It’s safe to assume that most schools aren’t about to dictate to a parent that a kid can or cannot use a device on the way to or from school, though some do actually ask families to sign commitments to temper tech use.

Keeping all this in mind, here are some of the arguments made for and against a stricter cellphone-use policy in schools.

Why cellphones should be permitted in schools

“Have a plan, not a ban,” says Liz Kline, vice president for education at Common Sense Education in the San Francisco Bay Area, a group whose  mission is to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. “There are legitimate learning contexts for using devices in the classroom,” Kline says, whether students are making movies or studying photography.

Kline acknowledges that digital distraction is “totally real,” and she recognizes that setting up the classroom norms for when it’s appropriate to use a phone – and when it is not – is not a simple matter.

Lisa Highfill, an instructional technology coach at the Pleasanton Unified public and secondary school district in Pleasanton, California, believes letting students have phones helps them prepare for higher education and eventually the workplace. “How many people go to work each day and turn their phone in?” she asks. “To me, getting ready for career and college is learning how to avoid the distraction of your phone.”

Educators should have dialogs with students about when and why kids feel compelled to pick up their devices, she says. “Teach students how to refocus, how to take care of something that is really nagging at them and then move on and put it away … Self-monitoring is a lifelong skill that we have an opportunity to integrate into our lessons.”

Of course, there ought to be times when phones are put away or even collected by teachers, no questions asked, namely during test time. Indeed, some students use the devices to cheat.

Safety concerns are also often given as a reason to let kids have devices at school. When there’s an accident or tragic incident, the presence of phones lets parents get in touch with the kids, and the kids can get in touch with a parent.

“Phones are as much for peace of mind of parents as they are for kids,“ says New York City-based social media coach Sree Sreenivasan, a parent and co-founder of the Digimentors consulting firm.

But parents may also try to reach the youngsters under more routine circumstances.

“I ask kids all the time, who do you normally get texts from during school? Their friends, of course,” Highfill says. “But their mothers are texting them, and it’s actually very practical. ‘Don’t forget to talk to your math teacher’ or ‘don’t forget you have this appointment at the end of the day.’ ”

Kline adds another dimension to the let-kids-have-phones-in-school argument. In some lower-income areas where there’s concern surrounding the digital divide, the school might offer the kind of speedy internet access that is not available at home. “I think there is some nuance around this,” she says.

And then there’s this argument: Restrictions just might not work.

“I really believe that the more rules and restrictions you put on top down, the more kids will just work to try to work around those rules. And they’re good at it, the best hackers,” Highfill says.

When her IT department blocked Snapchat access at school, kids built their own server as a workaround. Highfill also knows of students who put their cellphone cases – but not the phones themselves – inside pocket charts to fool teachers.

In a scene from the "Screenagers" documentary, students

The case against phones in class

“When we’re asking these 12  to 13 year olds to carry the phone and not be on them, we 100 percent know that’s not happening,” says Delaney Ruston, a physician and director of the documentary “Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age.” “You can go into any classroom or ask any middle schooler, and they will tell you consistently how they and/or their friends are sneaking being on the phones during class times.”

The consequences? According to the “Away For The Day” initiative Ruston developed with the team behind “Screenagers” to try to institute policies requiring phones to be put away, 56 percent of middle schools allow students to carry phones on them all day, yet 82 percent of parents don’t want their kids using phones there.

The Away For The Day website cites various academic studies that point to potential negative outcomes of classroom phone use. In one such study, 75 percent of teachers reported that the attention spans of students have decreased. In another study, students regularly interrupted by text messages had test scores that were 10.6 percent lower.

Ruston believes that putting the phones away can improve a child’s emotional well-being in school and help with their focus in and out of the classroom.

And while she recognizes that a teacher might ask a kid to pull out a phone during a given lesson, “to do X, Y, Z … the reality is that many of these kids now on their personal device have gotten so many notifications that they’re actually not going to whatever the teacher is saying they should be doing, but instead sending and receiving messages or going onto their video games.”

“You’re already going to have those struggles with (school supplied) educational devices,” Ruston adds, “but it gets exponentially more challenging when it’s a personal device.”

Even if a device on a student’s desk is turned off, the worry is that it still becomes a distraction.

Ruston also dismisses the safety argument. She pointed to an NPR report in which security experts have said that letting a kid have a phone in the classroom during a lockdown makes them less safe, not more. When students should be quiet, for example, a ringing or vibrating phone might alert an assailant where kids are hiding. Parents trying to reach youngsters in an emergency might jam communications and interfere with first responders. And the kids might miss instructions from the authorities.

But Ruston concedes that “that’s not to say there’s not an emotional upside for a parent.”

 

 

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Prevent Children From Exposure of Electronic Devices

Child Care, Children/Kids Education, Content Marketing

Parents are being admonished to control their children’s use of electronic devices The Worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, says parents, who prevent their children from the uncontrolled exposure to electronic devices are worthy of praise. His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Khalifatul Masih V, said the proper upbringing of children in the society […]

via Prevent children from exposure of electronic devices

 

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Trauma Can Make it Hard for Kids To Learn, Here’s How Teachers Learn To Deal With That – Adeshina Emmanuel

Child Care, Children Psychology, Children/Kids Education, Content Marketing, Educational Technology, eLearning Issues, Health/Psychology, Learning/Knowledge, Mental Health, Teacher Strategy, Teaching Innovations

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There’s no debating that childhood trauma seriously impacts how students learn. Researchers have tied stressful events such as divorces, deportations, neglect, sexual abuse and gun violence to behavioral problems, lower math and reading scores, and poor health. The latest research, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, finds that children who endure severe stress are more likely to suffer heart attacks and mental health disorders.

So, we know trauma affects kids, but how do we teach educators to confront it? That’s where Dr. Colleen Cicchetti comes in.

A child psychologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s medical school, she helps lead the hospital’s efforts to improve how local schools handle trauma. The goal: to train teachers to spot and respond to warning signs in kids. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, about 150 aspiring teachers with Golden Apple’s scholars program attended day-long training sessions.

It’s not the job of a teacher to become a mental health provider, said Cicchetti, who earlier this year was named Public Educator of the Year by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “It’s really their job to try to understand what barriers are making it hard for them to do their job.”

Chalkbeat Chicago interviewed Cicchetti about training teachers, the cost of childhood trauma in Chicago communities, how it takes a toll on classrooms, and what teachers can do to promote healing in schools.

What are some examples of the different types of trauma Chicago children might be dealing with?

Seeing someone shot, seeing someone stabbed. It could be sexual abuse, it could be physical abuse. It could be parents incarcerated, divorced, separation, death. It can be someone that you know being killed, someone you know in a car accident.

What are some ways that trauma finds its way into the classroom?

Flashbacks, difficult sleeping, difficulty eating, choosing not to — or being unable to — enjoy the things you used to enjoy. Being hyperalert where you are scanning the space because you don’t feel safe, which impacts your learning. There’s that hopelessness and sense that the world is dangerous. They might be getting in fights. Another thing we sometimes see is frequent absences.

We see some kids who are spending a lot of time in the nurse’s offices, complaining of stomachaches and headaches — their biology is triggered.

We often see it manifest in difficulty negotiating relationships with other people. Some days they can be really engaged with the teacher, the next day they’re really angry and throwing temper tantrums.

How do you teach teachers to recognize trauma?

We do these trainings called Trauma 101. We show them pictures of brains and which areas of the brain are impacted by that flight-or-fight response being triggered all the time. We talk about the ACES studies. (Many studies on Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACES, have linked childhood trauma with the development of diseases like diabetes and heart disease, behavioral problems, substance-abuse disorders in adults, and self-harm. But chronic trauma also can disrupt brain development, impair learning, and make it hard to cope with emotions.)

child trauma pyramid

We look at the symptoms you would see [of PTSD] and what that would look like in a classroom. For example, a kid having flashbacks: You might see a kid who is distracted or looking out the window, or they’re having nightmares so they’re coming into class and putting their head on their desks and they’re sleeping during class because the classroom feels safe and they can’t sleep at night. We sort of try to walk between the clinical symptoms and the manifestations you may see in the classroom.

How do you teach teachers what to do once they see signs of trauma? What are they supposed to do?

The first level is to be aware of kids you think are likely to be experiencing trauma in your classroom. What do you do to create a sense of safety, and do that self-regulation and peer building in your classroom? But if you have kids who are sort of experiencing more challenges and those things aren’t working, in Chicago Public Schools we have something called a request for assistance. Teachers can fill out a form and submit it to their social worker or their behavioral health team. Somebody in the school will do a more in-depth assessment or screening. Those kids are then linked to services, either provided by the school or, in some cases, there’s community providers.

There are few — if any — jobs harder than teaching. What are the limits to what teachers can really do?

In a lot of schools, it’s not very safe for a teacher to say ‘I’m struggling with this student.’ But when teachers feel very isolated, and then feel bad and get angry at themselves and at the student, that’s where burnout comes in. What we’re trying to create is a culture within a school, not just the teachers, but from the administration to all the adults in the buildings, that says it’s our job to take care of the whole child here. If a child is struggling, it’s not a bad teacher, it’s a situation we need to modify.

We try to only go into schools and have these conversations when we’re invited in at the systems level, where the administrators are talking about understanding professional development and reflective learning practices for new teachers, and mentoring, so they can understand why this work is crossing over into their home lives, why they’re coming home grumpy, or overeating or drinking, and don’t want to go back to work. It’s hard, but we can teach you what you can do to set your classroom up to be successful, and also make sure you have the right kind of supports, so if you’re seeing a kid who’s struggling — and you’re struggling — that you can reach out to other adults in the building.

What does a safe classroom look like in practice for a kid who has experienced trauma, maybe multiple forms of trauma in their lives?

It’s predictable. [Students] know what expectations are, what they need to do to be successful. There’re different parts of the day where it may be getting hard for them to focus, but then they get breaks.

If you didn’t get your homework done it’s not super punitive. We want to hold people accountable and help them be successful, but let’s say maybe they took three buses to get to school and they were babysitting their siblings last night, so they don’t have enough time for an assignment. Are you going to get a zero or will you be coming in during your recess or lunch break to get this done?

It’s an environment that says, I believe you can be successful, and I’m going to stack the deck for your success. I’m going to provide both physical safety and emotional safety. We’re going to have rules around respecting differences and how we talk to one another. We’re going to have restorative conversations and practices around discipline, so we can not be so reactive. And we’re going to foster relationships both with kids and between each other.

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Teaching Children About Digital Footprints and Online Reputations – Kathleen Morris

Business Reputation/Reputation, Child Care, Children Psychology, Children/Kids Education, Content Marketing, Educational Learning Tools, Educational Technology

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Promoting Positivity, Not Fear

Traditionally, digital footprint resources tended to focus on the negatives and promoted a culture of fear. This isn’t helpful. Our students are generally heavy internet users and scare tactics are unlikely to make them want to disconnect completely. Nor would we want them to.

While we can’t be complacent, the message I like to promote is that we should protect and shape our digital footprints, and try to ensure they’re positive.

Encouraging students to avoid posting or doing anything online is not the answer.

As the Harley Davidson commercial famously said,

When you write the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.

When it comes to digital footprints we have some control.

But We’re Not Always In Control

Digital footprints are sometimes defined as active and passive. It’s important to remember that despite aiming to “hold the pen” and write our own story, this is not always going to be possible.

Images can be altered. Data is stored and accessed without our knowledge. Words can be misquoted. Intentions can be misread. Personal interactions can be shared. Individuals can be tagged without permission. We can’t assume we always have control.

So, what is the answer?

Perhaps as Seth Godin once said,

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The Weight Of Digital Footprints

Back in 2009 Chris Betcher said:

I can see a day in the not too distant future … where your ‘digital footprint’ will carry far more weight than anything you might include in a resume or CV.

Has that day come? Probably. But some people might not realise it.

Reports of colleges or employers relying on Google searches to help make judgements about applicants are nothing new. But maybe where the search used to focus on character judgements, there is now an additional expectation that a portfolio of work will be available?

Surely an archive of online work is going to begin carrying more weight than an outdated qualification or random personal reference?

What Should Be Shared?

One certainty is that young people need guidance navigating the online world, just like the offline world. Because of their age and limited life experience, it can be difficult for students to consider if what they’re happy to post online now is something they’ll still be happy with in 1/5/10/20 years.

There are certain things you can teach students to definitely avoid sharing online. One acronym I’ve always liked using is YAPPY (Your full name, Address, Phone number, Passwords, Your plans).

There are many grey areas beyond YAPPY though — sharing opinions, sharing information about others, deciding if content you create should have a public audience… the list goes on. Experience and conversation can be vital.

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Feel free to use the above visual on your blog if it would be helpful. Just link back to my site!

Beyond Students: What are Teachers and Parents Doing?

Have you ever cringed seeing a fellow teacher post a questionable photo or loaded opinion on social media? I have. Perhaps underestimating the importance of digital footprints is still a widespread problem.

Another scenario that I still believe is common is teachers not having a digital footprint at all. These issues are worrisome to me when thinking about the need for educators to be role models.

Nowadays, an individual’s digital footprint often starts being created before they are even born. Perhaps with a pregnancy announcement on social media followed by all sorts of childhood “firsts” broadcast for a online audience. What are the consequences of this? We can’t know for sure, but maybe more education, discussion, and awareness of digital footprints is required within the wider community.

Can our students assist with this task?

How To Teach Children About Digital Footprints

Digital footprints comes under the umbrella of digital citizenship. This used to be called cyber safety or internet safety, but the definition has broadened.

In Teaching Digital Citizenship: 10 Internet Safety Tips for Students, I suggested a four layered approach to covering digital citizenship.

The same approach could be useful for digital footprint education.

  1. INTEGRATION: Digital footprint education should be embedded into the curriculum in an ongoing and authentic way (e.g. through a classroom blogging program).
  2. STORYTELLING: Students should be presented with “real-life” scenarios to consider, discuss, and learn from.
  3. STRATEGIES: Practical strategies should be taught so students build a toolkit of actionable ideas and skills.
  4. COMMUNITY: Messages from parents and educators should overlap and there should be ongoing communication.

Read more about this model.

Conversations around digital footprints should be on the agenda from an early age and this is a topic for the whole community. The work of one teacher is not enough.

10 Things Young People Need To Know About Digital Footprints

I’ve summarised these key points in a poster below which you’re welcome to use in your classroom.

  1. When you visit websites, search, and interact online, a trail of information is left behind.
  2. Elements of your digital footprints can be searched or shared.
  3. Digital footprints can be helpful or harmful to reputations both now and in the future.
  4. Once online, things can exist forever (even if deleted).
  5. You should always think before you post online.
  6. Personal information or opinions sent to one person can be shared with a larger audience.
  7. Googling yourself can be a good habit to get into (or try a search engine like Pipl).
  8. Old or inactive accounts should be disabled or deleted.
  9. You should keep certain personal details private and you can control the privacy settings on many of your online accounts.
  10. We need to be mindful of the digital footprints of others too (e.g. Ask before tagging others in photos).

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How Technology Can Help Not Hurt Family Connections – Julia Freeland Fisher

Child Care, Children Psychology, Children/Kids Education, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Educational Learning Tools, Educational Technology, eLearning Issues, Family/Life Matters, Health/Psychology, Tech News

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Between headlines about children’s ballooning screen time to growing concerns about the costs of distracted parenting, it’s easy to scapegoat technology for troubling family dynamics. The warm glow of a touch screen threatens to pull children and adults alike from investing in caring and face-to-face connections. In 2018, good parenting and technology don’t seem to mix.

But what if technology could start to prompt conversations that parents and children otherwise struggle to initiate? And more importantly, what if technology opened up time for more and better face-to-face interactions to take root? Luckily, edtech entrepreneurs are beginning to explore these possibilities.

Emerging platforms are starting to do what one founder, Josh Schacter (of the app CommunityShare), calls “going online to go offline.” In other words, although tools may require some online interactions and infrastructure, they ultimately aim to choreograph connections that can blossom offline.

One such tool is PowerMyLearning, which is breaking new ground in helping triangulate teacher-student-family connections and engaging parents actively in their children’s homework. I sat down with the organization’s CEO and Co-Founder, Elisabeth Stock, to learn more.

Julia: How does PowerMyLearning strengthen the relationship between schools and families? How is it different from traditional approaches to family engagement?

Elisabeth: At PowerMyLearning, we believe that students are most successful when supported by a triangle of strong learning relationships between students, teachers, and families. If you ask an adult, “What is the education system?” they’ll usually respond, “Well, there is the superintendent, the principals, the teachers union, and so on.”

But if you ask a student, they’ll say, “Oh that’s easy, it’s my teachers and family.”

PowerMyLearning ensures students, teachers, and families can operate as a system, with everyone rowing in the same direction, by transforming teaching and family engagement in schools and districts nationwide. Our work includes innovative coaching and workshops, and our digital platform, PowerMyLearning Connect.

PowerMyLearning’s Family Playlists are a great example of work we do to strengthen the triangle. These playlists are interactive homework assignments through which students practice a set of learning activities and then teach them to a family partner, usually a parent, who then provides feedback to the teacher about the experience (like how well the child understood or explained the lesson). Family Playlists differ from traditional approaches to family engagement in three ways:

First, Family Playlists leverage the type of family engagement that has the most impact on academic achievement: families supporting their children’s learning at home. Second, Family Playlists put families in the role of teammate and supporter.

Traditional family engagement efforts put families in the role of enforcer (“The parent portal shows that you haven’t turned your math homework yet – why not?”). Ellen Flanagan, a principal at one of our partner schools in New York City, said, “Our teachers love Family Playlists. They shift the homework dynamic from compliance to engagement and students learn the material better.”

Third, Family Playlists make family engagement measurable because teachers and principals can easily track family participation throughout the school year, which means family engagement can be improved. For students without an engaged family member, schools can help identify a supportive and caring adult outside the classroom to help with their learning.

Julia: Do you also see shifts in students’ relationships with their own families resulting from your approach over time as well?

Elisabeth: We definitely see a shift in students’ relationships with their own families over time. Usually, an after-school conversation goes something like: “What did you do in school today?” “Nothing.”  “What did you learn?” “Nothing.”

Family Playlists completely change that dynamic. Parents are excited to have the opportunity to sit down with their kids and understand what they are learning. Bilingual parents, in particular, are engaged in a way that they never were before. One mother from one of our schools this year, said: “It’s taken me back to my school days.

My child understanding factors has helped me understand. It’s also helped my child improve and enjoy doing school work, in and out of school. Parents and children can actually vibe and communicate a lot more with each other. I just want to give you guys a huge (thumbs up emoji) for such a great invention.”

Working with partner schools implementing Family Playlists, we have found that students were not only teaching academic concepts to their families, they were also teaching socio-emotional learning competencies like persisting when struggling and keeping a growth mindset about learning.

It’s hard work for students to teach their parents—some even say they take away their parent’s phones to keep them on task. However, the students lean in to the struggle because they feel confident teaching their parents something they don’t know.

From interviews with the kids, we also saw that trust and attachment were powerful byproducts of Family Playlists. One student, Binta, said her mother trusts her more because she’s now directly involved in her learning. She said, “Family Playlists make our bond better because we interact more.

We have more fun times than we normally do. My mom used to tell me every day to study and go over my notes. Now, she trusts me and knows how well I’m doing. She likes to listen to me explain what I’m learning.”

Julia: There’s a technology infrastructure–the PowerMyLearning Connect platform–behind your model. Where is that technology facilitating online connections and where is it coordinating offline interactions? How do you think about the right balance between online and offline teacher-family-student connections to best support student success?

Elisabeth: We have done a lot of thinking about how Family Playlists can facilitate a balance of both online and offline interactions to best support student success.

We use online interactions when supporting the connection between teachers and families. Online enables them to interact comfortably (in their own language) and asynchronously (to accommodate schedules). For example, when a teacher assigns the playlist, family partners receive a text in their home language with the due date and a link to the full Family Playlist.

Once students have finished the teaching portion, the family partners can use their phone to send a photo of their work and/or themselves (who doesn’t like taking selfies?) to the teacher, along with feedback on how well their child understood the concept. The photos bring the teacher “inside” their home and helps provide a clearer understanding of their child and home context.

We use offline interactions during the portion of the Family Playlist when the students teach their family partner. For example, when teaching coordinate plane, students work with their family partner on creating a map of their neighborhood together. They plot their home at the origin and then graph the coordinates of important locations nearby.

We go offline for these teaching moments because we want the students and family partners to be present for each other: we want them to look at each other, touch real-world items around their home and have a real conversation.

The idea that face-to-face interactions facilitate teachable moments ties closely with recent studies showing that our cell phones can hurt our close relationships when we are in the same room or at the same dinner table; in those moments, interacting without screens fosters closeness, connectedness, interpersonal trust, and perceptions of empathy—the building-blocks of relationships.

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