Impacting Future Change as a Scholar Practitioner

 My Personal Responsibility as a Scholar-Practitioner

 

When brainstorming the numerous roles and responsibilities of a scholar-practitioner, many duties come to mind. As an educator and scholar-practitioner, my responsibility is to ensure that I am knowledgeable of the area in which I study. Early childhood education is an environment and learning area that is continuously changing. The expectations and guidelines for how curriculum and assessment should occur remain at the top of my list of duties and responsibilities. As an educator, it is essential to stay up to date with how to meet children's individual needs and evaluate student growth and development so that every child is provided an equal opportunity. Another responsibility I will assume by strengthening my role as a scholar-practitioner is to ensure that I follow program expectations and provide my students with the best knowledge-based learning possible. Through collaboration with other educators and strong partnerships, we will create communication plans that deliver instruction that is both data-based and supportive of the families we serve to increase student achievement and success. 

 

Explanation of a Greatest Barrier

 

One barrier that may impact my ability to achieve these goals is the lack of family and parental involvement as essential stakeholders. According to the National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force (2013), successful planning involves crucial components such as high-quality assessments, accurate reporting, family partnerships, and a clear understanding and utilization of data. Many times, educators struggle to include parents in the assessment and evaluation process. Therefore, families feel as though they are not important and included throughout their child's learning process. This is one of the biggest downfalls to avoid when leading program evaluations. 

 

How to Minimize Barriers Which May Occur

 

Parental input is vital to the success of any program. Families play a large role in the success of our students. Through communication with parents, we are able to discover many essential details about students that we could not otherwise comprehend or view in the classroom setting. Through careful planning and collaboration with other educators, staff, and families, we can minimize and eventually overcome the barrier between educators and families' lack of communication. As a scholar-practitioner, I will make it my sole responsibility to plan and create ways to involve my families. The program and plan designed will focus on whole groups, as well as individual populations of children and families. Goals will be created, and families will be informed of each step of the overall process through various forms of communication. According to the Technical Assistance and Training System (2017), families should be involved in every decision that affects their children's educational experiences, whether in a classroom or program (para. 4).

 

To ensure the program's effectiveness and plan expectations, teachers and other staff will attend monthly meetings to discuss when and how family communication is occurring. Families will be invited into the classroom and asked for their input on various topics and events. Parent communication logs will be kept, and monitoring of those logs will occur by other staff members. Observations will take place to ensure teachers are meeting student accommodations for learning. New teacher training will occur before teachers are placed inside a real classroom. Monthly or bi-monthly meetings will be held to ensure teachers are working to meet program goals and expectations. 

References

 

National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force. (2013). The report of the National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force: Taking stock: Assessing and improving early childhood learning and program quality. http://policyforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Taking-Stock.pdf

 

Technical Assistance & Training System. (2017). Including families in evaluation and assessment procedures. https://tats.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2017/10/best-practices-families-involvement-in-assessment.pdf