What I Learned In School Today: Every teacher should utilize social media to communicate with parents.
Many teachers pride themselves on their communication with parents. Parents learn about academic progress through parent-teacher conferences and report cards, follow content covered in class and upcoming events through newsletters, and rely on email and phone conversations for student specific information.
In order to maintain positive parent communication and keep parents informed of what is happening in the classroom, teachers need to have a classroom social media presence. As of 2016, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram measure users in the 100 millions with Facebook well over 1 billion active users. Social media is a cornerstone of our culture and will remain an active part of our students’ and parents’ lives.
Parent-teacher communication happens in two directions: the parent goes to the teacher’s world or the teacher goes to the parent’s world. Most traditional communication involves parent’s going to the teacher’s world. Conferences, report cards, class/school websites, and newsletters all require parents to leave their world and enter the educational realm in order to discuss their child. This is important and reasonable to ask of parents, but it is no longer enough. Most parents use social media, so teachers need to step into the parents’ world and utilize the far reaching and powerful forms of communication available through social media to enhance the message received by parents. Parents are on social media. Teachers need to find them.