ED105: Family Partnerships in ECE: ED105: From Teacher Interview to Final Project

The teacher interview is a critical assignment and is the beginning of what will later be the community resource guide and then the final project. 

For the teacher interview, you should either interview a teacher (B-12 system) or an Administrator. You can either interview them in person, by email and our video conferencing. You will need to transcript the interview so please take very good notes. 

The Interview and The Interview Questions (Part 1) 

For the teacher interview, you are REQUIRED TO ask the following questions: 

• What is the teacher or administrator’s role in understanding children and family values? What does the teacher or administrator do to support their belief?
• Who is involved in the classroom—families, volunteers, community groups? What is the philosophy behind this type of involvement? Has this level changed over the teacher/administrator’s career?
• Are there any special interest groups who influence decisions regarding curricula? If so, is it positive or negative?
• What could be done better to support the teacher or administrator efforts with families and communities?

You should ask them demographic information as well so you can answer questions in part 2 of the assignment. The demographic information would some of the following: 

• How many students are in the school or program? 
• What is the ethnic or racial composition of the school?l 
• What is the teacher/student ratio? 
• Etc. 

For your paper, you should transcript your teacher interview word for word. You may need to ask additional questions to get your interviewee to answer your questions. If you do, please include them in your paper. 

It is best to use the teacher interview questions as headings to make sure that you including all the information. 

Part 2: After completing the interview, you should reflect on the discussion with the teacher or administrator. You should answer the following:

• What surprised you about the interview?
• How does the teacher/administrator’s philosophy of building family and community? How does the teacher/administrator’s philosophy of partnerships compare with your personal philosophy on school, family, and community partnerships?
• Describe the demographics of the school and community as best as possible.
• What ideas do you have to strengthen the ties between school, family, and community partnerships?

Each of the above sections should be used as headings in the 2nd half of your paper. This is to ensure that you include all areas of this section. 

The Rubric: Don't Forget to View it (The Chart Section) 

Don't forget to review the requirements in the rubric. This is how you will be graded on the assignment. Here are the basics but please read the rubric thoroughly. 

• On Time Assignment: It must be submitted on time. Late submissions will result in a reduction in grade. This section is worth 10 points of a total 100 points for the assignment. 
• Mechanics: Please run your paper through spell check. Even better use Grammarly, which is an online software that helps students with grammar, spelling, syntax and much more. Remember the answers are sent to you by your interviewee, please still run your paper through a spelling and grammar check. If you see anything underlined while you typing in word,  then there is an error. This section is worth 10 points of a total 100 points for the assignment. 
• Teacher or Administrator’s Philosophy:  You must identify the teacher or administrator’s philosophy on building family and community partnerships and provide 3 examples. This should be specific things they do in their program to build the bridge between school and families and those in the community. An example of this might be how they use a monthly newsletter to communicate with families or the community. Remember to be specific. This section is worth 20 points of a total 100 points for the assignment. 
• Identification of Parties:  For this section, you must identify all of the parties involved in the classroom and identify the philosophy behind this type of involvement and whether or not it has changed over time and writes 5 sentences describing their involvement. Please make sure you do this. This is a section that students often forget. This is in reference to the teacher or administrators' philosophy. This section is worth 20 points of a total 100 points for the assignment. 
• Reflection and Comparison of Philosophies: You should include a reflection on how your own philosophy and the teacher/administrator’s philosophy compare. Reflection and comparison are 2-3 paragraphs in length (Combined).  Please make sure you completely do this section. You should identify what your philosophy is in regards to family partnerships and compare it to the teacher or administrator that you interviewed. Please make sure you pay close attention to how long it should be. This section is worth 20 points of a total 100 points for the assignment. 
• Ideas to Strengthen Ties: Please include at least 3 initial ideas on what can be done to strengthen ties between school, home, and community.  Remember these ideas may be used in the future to plan for your future project, so choose wisely. In addition, you may cite in this area why it is important. If you do so, you must proper APA in-text citations and include a reference page. This section is worth 20 points of a total 100 points for the assignment. 

For this assignment, you will create a community resource guide for the school community identified in your teacher interview. You should identify and include resources that would support some or all of the needs identified within your teacher interview. You must include resources from the following five categories:  

1. Nature/Outdoor Resources: examples include parks and outdoor spaces in the community. 
2. Services: examples include pediatric offices, early intervention, translation services, Office of Family Services, etc.
3. Materials and Media: examples include YouTube videos/channels, documentaries, how to (videos, websites, and pamphlets) 
4. Social Networks: examples include Facebook pages, websites, twitter feeds, community groups, etc.
5. Ethnic and Cultural Associations: examples include associations for a specific ethnic or cultural group. This must be an organization. Great examples can be found on the following website: https://globalphiladelphia.org/organizations

Each category must have at least one resource and you need to have at least 10 resources, but need to have three resources in each category (As stated in the rubric portion of the assignment). Also, each resource must be near the school's address no further than 10-20 miles away. 

When creating your resource guide, you must organize the information from each of the five categories and identify how it will support teachers work with children and their families. This means that you should use the headings listed above. This will help you clearly identify that you have provided the required resources for each category. 

For each entry, you should include the complete contact information for each resource:

• Name of resource
• Address of resource
• A brief description of the resource-No more than two sentences. 

The Rubric: Please Read it Thoroughly

 Each of the following sections will be assessed: 

• On Time Assignment: This is worth 10 points of a total 100 points. So submitting late will result in a reduction in grade. 
• Mechanics: Same as the Teacher Interview-Make sure you use spell check or Grammarly. This is worth 10 points of a total 100 points. So submitting late will result in a reduction in grade. 
• Entries Per Category: Resource file contains at least 3 entries per category, including the full name, address, and description of the resources.  Having less than three per category will result in a reduction in grade. This is worth 20 points of a total 100 points. 
• Total Number of Entries: Your community resource guide must have a minimum of 10 resources but the rubric requires 15 to get full points in this area. This is worth 20 points of a total 100 points. 
• Discussion of Surprises: You discussed and gives three reasons why you were surprised by the resources they collected. Be specific. This is worth 20 points of a total 100 points. 
• Discussion of How Resources Might Be Used: You discussed and provide 3 examples of how the school might use the resources they collected in your resource file. Remember these resources must address a need that the teacher or administrator identified. Be specific about how and why the school could benefit from using the resource. This is worth 20 points of a total 100 points. 

The final project is the final product based on your teacher interview and community resource guide. 

In this assignment, you utilize will the information gathered from the teacher interview and the community resource guide to develop a school-family-community project, such as a fundraiser or school event (This means that you must design an original event).  The project may take any form, including anything from a newsletter to a family night to a picture bulletin board.  Students are encouraged to be as creative as possible in creating an event that supports the needs described within your teacher interview.

Please note that this is a project proposal and you are not required to actually implement the project. 

Your final project should include the following three parts:

1. Documentation of the project’s implementation. This should be in the form of a timeline in which you document the project from the start to finish. Please see examples following this section for an example of how it should look. 
2. You should include a 3-5 page typed paper discussing how the project was chosen and how it relates to topics discussed in course. You should include citations from the text or other scholarly resources.  In addition, you should include information from teacher interview and community resource guide as evidence of why the project was chosen. Note: Use quotes or paraphrase text from scholarly articles that directly relate to how your project supports best practice in family, school and community partnerships. You must include a reference page. All citations and references must be in APA style. 
3. Lastly, you will present a five-minute presentation describing your project. If you are unable to present for any reason, you must either record a video or audio of your presentation. 

The Rubric: Please Read Thoroughly

You will be graded on the following for your final project including the presentation; 

•  On Time Assignment: This is worth 10 points out of 100 total points. Submitting late will result in a reduction in grade. 
• Mechanics:  Same at the teacher interview and the community resource guide-Please use spell check and/or Grammarly. This is worth 10 points out of 100 total points.
• Documentation of Project: Project documentation includes any type of medium.  Medium neat and free of spelling mistakes. Remember this a flyer, newsletter, brochure, etc. Layout and presentation matters. So please make sure you use proper design principles as well as spell check your work. This is worth 20 points out of 100 total points.
• Project Paper: Paper includes how the project was chosen and how it relates to 3 topics discussed in the course.  Be specific and clearly identify them in your paper. You will need to use in-text citations in this section. Remember paraphrasing is better but you still need a proper citation. This is worth 20 points out of 100 total points.
• Citations From Textbook: Paper includes 4 citations from the textbook in APA format. Remember just don't quote for the sake of quoting. Make sure your citations relate to your paper and support why your final project supports the information learned in the text. This is worth 20 points out of 100 total points.

• Class Presentation (Speaks Clearly): Speaks clearly and distinctly all (100-90%) the time, and mispronounces no words.​  

Remember all assignments should be properly headed. Please include the following 

• Your Full Name 
• ED105 and the name of the assignment 
• The Date Submitted 

In addition, PLEASE use Purdue Owl for any question about APA citations, formatting and/or references. Purdue Owl is a free resource that is used by millions of students, particularly education and psychology majors. It is your friend and will help you turn in the best paper you can.