Every parent knows that parent-teacher conferences can be snappy or dull, revealing or confusing, a positive experience or…something less.
And it’s mostly (but not entirely) up to the teacher.
An education professor at Pace University has been honored for co-writing a research article about how teachers-in-training did in parent-teacher conferences and what it showed about their readiness to communicate with parents.
Pace’s Joan Walker (that’s her) and her co-author Benjamin Dotger are the recipients of the 2013 Outstanding Journal of Teacher Education Article Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Their article— “Because Wisdom Can’t Be Told: Using Comparison of Simulated Parent-Teacher Conferences to Assess Teacher Candidates’ Readiness for Family-School Partnership” —appeared in the January/February 2012 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education.
Yes, that’s a long title, but many academic journal articles have even longer titles.
The award committee that chose the article focused on parent-teacher conferences being overlooked in teacher-preparation programs, despite their importance to parents.
Walker said this: “This award comes at an ideal time. Since the original publication, I have expanded this work into a free online course that I am eager to share with teacher educators, teachers and K-12 administrators across the country. The three part interactive course uses real-life, classroom-based challenges, video examples and other tools to help beginning teachers successfully conduct parent-teacher conferences. The future of teacher professional development is online and it is exciting to be recognized as a leader in this new direction.”
On Walker’s Pace webpage, you can find all the stuff to which she refers.
Interestingly, Walker is also director of research for the American Dream Academy, a program most active in Phoenix that has educated more than 14,000, mostly Hispanic parents how to work with their children’s schools.
