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User Observations & Interviews

Please note: all names have been changed to preserve anonymity. 

Teachers

Teacher 1

Ms. Frizzle is a 54-year-old elementary school teacher. She has been teaching the 1st - 3rd grade for 23 years. Ms. Frizzle thinks that good communication with the kids' parents is a crucial and will affect the students' grade and behavior in school, especially if a kid is having difficulties. On a regular basis she meets parents twice a year during PTA, and unless the circumstances require she would rather not meet with parents in person. She would prefer to inform parents in an indirect way (note, email, etc.) as long as this won’t take too much time.

One example of a good communication was an email she got from a student’s mother. The mother told Ms. Frizzle that during a family vacation, her daughter was able to recognize a flower they learned about in science class, and was very proud that she could teach her mother something new. The mother thanked Ms. Frizzle for creating this mother-daughter moment.

Teacher 2

Ms. Ratburn is a 27-year-old 1st grade teacher in Israel. She recently received her degree in education and this is her first year teaching. Ms. Ratburn dedicates around 2-3 hours per day to talk to parents, and each conversation takes about 20 min. She would like parents to be more involved at home (for example helping their kid with homework), and less involved in the school disciplinary process. She wished she could tell if parents are involved in their child education, and if they are aware of notes and information that was sent to them via their kid. She would like to reduce the amount of time she spends on in person conversation every day and move those to a digital medium (e.g. email).

One example of bad communication was a parent who called her late at night to her private cell phone to ask for explanations on the homework that is due tomorrow. Ms. Ratburn thinks that some parents do not understand proper boundaries between work and personal life. 

Teacher 3

Ms. Morgan is a music teacher at a public middle school. Over the past years, she has found that parent involvement is generally important and helpful in their children’s education.  However, it was sometimes difficult to reach the parents.  For example, some parents didn’t pick up their phones or their voice mailboxes were full, and some did not have e-mails.  Nevertheless, Ms. Morgan had a lot of information to convey to parents, such as concert location, times, and dress codes.  In addition, she would like to communicate with the parents of the children who are struggling as well as offer compliments if the students did well.

One example of good communication was when Ms. Morgan called home to speak with the parents of one of her students.  The student thought that he was in trouble, but in fact, she called to say that the student performed very well in the concert.  Her compliment not only resulted in the student’s better performance later, but also brightened the parent’s day.

Teacher 4

Mrs. Krasny is a sixth grade science teacher. She also believes that communication with parents is important, as middle school is a transition phase between much parent involvement in elementary school and much student independence in high school. She mostly communicates using e-mails, because it's fast and non-intrusive. Mrs. Krasny also mentioned that while most people knew that there were parents with little involvement in their children’s education, there were also parents with so much involvement that they stress their children. Therefore, she indicated that if possible, she would also like to know the level of involvement of the parents.  

Mrs. Krasny mentioned one example of failed communication that occurred with a child in foster care. The child was most likely in a transition phase between foster families, such that his foster parents at the time did not care much about his performance in school and the social workers were not always with him to provide help and support. Consequently, whenever he had problems in school, Mrs. Krasny had no one to communicate with to solve the problems. As a result, the child's performance in school decreased significantly.

Parents

Parent 1

Mrs. Read is the mother of several children ranging in age from nursery to 10th grade.  She feels that it is extremely important to be involved in her children’s schoolwork.  There is generally sufficient communication between herself and her children’s teachers.  For younger children, the teachers often send daily or weekly notes about what they did in school, and the parents sign their children’s assignment notebooks each night after making sure the children completed their homework.  Mrs. Read speaks to the teachers at parent-teacher conferences once a year, and calls or speaks to them informally every few months to check on how her children are doing both academically and socially.  It is easy to reach the teachers because they all have personal voicemail boxes on the school phone, and at back-to-school night they tell parents the preferred way to reach them, whether it is calling them at home or on a cell phone or leaving a message on their school voicemail.
One of the Read children, D.W., often forgets things in school, such as her spelling list (although the assignment is written down in D.W.’s planner).  Although Mrs. Read would like to be able to easily access such assignments when her children forget to bring them home, she also thinks that it is important for the children to learn responsibility.  Also, her fifth-grader, Arthur, sometimes receives writing assignments orally, which is a problem since, as Mrs. Read says, “it gets lost in translation.”
Although Mrs. Read feels that she is sufficiently involved, she says that it takes a lot of effort to keep up with all of it, and one of her challenges is making the time to do it.

Parent 2

Mrs. Crosswire is the mother of several children, five of whom are in school between grades 2 and 11.  She says, “I have no clue what they’re doing in school....It seems that you have to wait until parent-teacher conferences to really know what’s going on unless your kid is a talkative kid.”  She currently speaks to her children’s teachers twice a year at parent-teacher conferences.  She does not feel the need to have additional dialogue with the teachers, but she would like to receive notes from the teachers on a regular basis (perhaps once a week), just to let her know how her children are doing.  In addition, she thinks the teachers should solicit feedback every so often (perhaps monthly) to check that the work is on a good level for each child.  She also wants to be able to contact the teacher easily when her child is having a problem.  Currently, in order to contact a teacher she needs to call the school office and leave a message for the teacher to return her call, and often the message never reaches the teacher or the teacher does not call her back. She would like to be able to use email to communicate with teachers, so that the teachers can respond at a convenient time even if Mrs. Crosswire is at work, and she can reply at night.
Mrs. Crosswire gave one traumatic example of how a lack of communication between school and home had a negative impact.  Several years ago, one of her daughters, Muffy (who was in 5th grade at the time), never received a flyer to bring home about needing to go to the school’s other building one morning for a special activity.  Muffy was dropped off her regular school building as usual, but because of the special activity there was no one there.  She ended up being left outside by herself for 2-3 hours, in the middle of the winter in the cold and snow.

Parent 3

Mrs. Baxter, who lives in Belgium, and is a mother of 5 with one child in Elementary School and another in Middle School. She thought it "very important" to communicate with her children’s because "a teacher spends more time with your child during his or her waking hours than you do." She also said that communicating with a teacher can tell you if a teacher is competent. She did not feel that it was major challenge getting in touch with the teachers. She could call the school’s office and the teacher would usually call her back within 24 hours. Mrs. Baxter thought that communicating with a teacher twice a year (besides the biannual PTA meetings) was sufficient to find out about her children’s academic performance and social integration. However, she also thought that communicating with teachers on a monthly basis is not a bad idea but that “You can’t drive teachers crazy. You shouldn't micromanage every aspect of your child’s life.” She thought her children’s work improves when she communicates with their teachers because “a parent’s involvement motivates the child to excel.” Mrs. Baxter’s preferred method of communication with teacher is with a phone call because “on the phone you get a more personal and unguarded response from the teacher where you can more accurately gauge how your child is doing. An in-person meeting is too intense and is more difficult to schedule.”

Mrs. Baxter noted two interesting anecdotes highlighting the communication channels in place at her children’s school. In one case, her son was given a handout by his teacher with the dates and times of the end-of-year exams. The child forgot the paper in his bag and never handed it to her. She found out about these exams from her son’s classmate’s mother a week before they were to be taken. The child (and mother) had to work extra hard in order to assure that he did well on the tests.
In another incident, Mrs. Baxter’s child was being bullied. Through directly communicating (over the phone) with teachers and the principal the problem was resolved quickly and satisfactorily within a couple of days.

User Classes

  • Parents:
    1. Involved: Take a deep interest in their children’s education. Will want more information, more interaction with the teachers and will be more active users.
    2. Not Involved: Take a more relaxed and hands-off approach to their children’s education. If parental action is required, they will do the bare minimum.
  • Teachers 
    1. Elementary School Teachers:
      • Have less students
      • Have more individual interaction with students
    2. High School Teachers:
      • Have more students
      • Have less individual interaction with students.

Needs and Goals

Teachers want to:

  • send information to parents efficiently and reliably.
  • easily give positive feedback to parents about their children.
  • deliver negative feedback to parents in a genial manner.
  • know the level of involvement of each parent.
  • keep a professional and well-defined boundary between themselves and parents.

Parents want to:

  • get all the information that the teachers intend to send them.
  • know what their children are learning in school.
  • know how well their children are doing academically and socially.
  • have a hassle-free and readily-available communication channel for communicating with teachers.

Information that both parents and teacher want to communicate:

  • Academic:
    1. Grades.
    2. Assignment deadlines and instructions.
    3. Comments on student academic progress.
  • Social:
    1. Comments about how students are doing socially and behaviorally.
  • Administrative/Technical:
    1. Announcements.
    2. Changes to schedule and academic calendar.
    3. Special events.
  • No labels