g difficulty with teachers. But one-quarter of parents stated their biggest challenge has been teachers’ perceived lack of understanding for their concerns, while one in three teachers cited parents’ lack of understanding of their child’s issues as their biggest challenge.
Dr. Karen Mapp has also written: “[family engagement] mandates are often predicated on a fundamental assumption: that the educators and families charged with developing effective partnerships between home and school already possess the requisite skills, knowledge, confidence, and belief systems to successfully implement and sustain these important home–school relationships.” She explains how this is flawed:
Instead of promoting equal partnerships at a systemic level, many family engagement initiatives default to simply one-way communication (SEDL, 2013).
Can Technology Play a Role in Family Engagement?
It takes both teacher and administrator time to keep parents informed. Similarly, parents juggle work, family organization, and communication commitments to their children’s schools. Technology is increasingly being used to facilitate the regular communication that teachers want with families.
Recent studies show technology can also make a difference in relationship building and student learning outcomes. Text messaging centered on educational goals between parents and teachers was shown to boost student academic outcomes – i.e., GPA and tests scores (Wood, 2017). One study showed students get more homework done when parents and teachers emailed each other (Kraft, 2014).
However, because most content is pushed out by schools, edtech platforms can become an easier and effective way for schools to “broadcast what’s going on without necessarily engaging families,” according to Steven Sheldon, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for the Social Organization of Schools. Since low-income parents are less likely to use school web portals, Sheldon says districts need to take care not to exclude populations with the highest needs: “These technology platforms [that focus on one directional communication] are another way to help schools meet the letter of the law—but I don’t know that they help them meet the spirit of the law.” (EdWeek, 2017.)
Most studies on technology-mediated communication are limited to email or text communication. As technology plays a more pervasive role in family-teacher communication, the need to determine the most effective and inclusive way for teachers to engage families using digital forms of communication will be critical.
Our Theory of Change
HEARD is designed around a theory of change that 1) enabling two-way communication between teachers and families, 2) enabling communication among families, and 3) facilitating family engagement in student learning will build trust, collaboration and self-efficacy that improves parent-teacher partnerships around student learning — ultimately increasing student success in school communities.
How HEARD Works
Schools use a variety of different channels to communicate with and organize families. Taken together, these channels create an unmanageable volume of communication for teachers and families, making it hard to filter what’s important and engage effectively.
HEARD is a private social network that consolidates many of these channels into one multi-purpose hub. Accessible on any device and in any language, HEARD enables a school community to connect, communication, collaborate, and make home-school connections in a way that’s easy, effective and inclusive.
HEARD enables teachers to give parents a regular window into the day’s learning. More and more surveys point to parents’ desire to get more information on curriculum and what is being taught. Long newsletters capturing what happened a week ago aren’t as helpful as daily bite-size glimpses of current class activity. These snapshots of learning are not only easier for teachers to share, but provide more regular and relevant opportunities for parents to engage their child beyond “how was school today?” Families are better info