Small Things Lead to Big Connections with Families

Transcript

Kris  0:00  

Welcome to the Learning Loop Podcast, your best source for the educational insights and trends you’re looking for. I’m Chris, your host. Today’s special guest is Devin. Devin is a technology integration specialist in Blooming Public Schools here in Minnesota. Devin is a veteran teacher who’s passionate about removing barriers for students and for families. During our episode, Devin will share how she’s using Seesaw to engage families and allow every learner to be their authentic self. Devin, welcome to the show.

Devin (00:50)

Thank you for having me.

Kris (00:51)

We are so excited you’re here just to share a little bit about what is happening in Bloomington, what are the big wins, and how you guys are really being successful with family engagement. I’m going to start with a little flashback question here, though, when you were a teacher, how did you purposefully engage families in the learning process?

Devin (01:11)

If we’re going way back, it would have been pre-seesaw. And, you know, engaging families in the learning process looked like sending notes home, calling families, emailing families, you know, depending on the students to be the carriers of information back and forth. You know, we had our family nights and things like that, but otherwise it was a lot of work to keep families engaged.

Kris (01:40)

And so when you think of Seesaw being introduced to this, what are the benefits that teachers are really reaping from all of that?

Devin (01:49)

Teachers are really enjoying that they can see what their families see. So I know that a lot of the teachers I work with love that they can see when a family member has looked at a post that a kid put up. So they know that the family’s looking at the work. They know that the family is checking into what’s going on in the classroom. So that there’s like a level of understanding between the family and the teacher about what school means to that kid.

Kris (02:20)

It’s also important to make sure that everybody understands what’s being seen and how they know that information is being passed correctly. Such an important thing. Stepping into your current role, why is family engagement important for you at the district level now? And we’ll get into kind of next steps with that, but why is it so critical for you to make sure that families are engaged in the learning in your current role?

Devin (02:45)

You know, having families engaged in the learning now that I’m working in multiple buildings and things like that means that we’re making sure that families are connected to the teachers at all sometimes. You know, we have some migrant families here in Bloomington who have made a fairly perilous journey from their home country across

Central and South America to end up in Minnesota. They don’t have money, they don’t have homes, they don’t have winter clothes, which in Minnesota is a real tough spot to be in. And so to be able to use Seesaw so that they can see the experiences they’re having in, or their children are having in their classrooms and communicate with the teachers is making a really positive impact in these families’ lives.

Kris (03:40)

Amazing. And I think you’re hitting on something that goes beyond education, beyond what we can control and making sure that they’re part of this learning in a positive way also, when they might not be prepared for some of those things. That’s so important. So I love that that’s the mindset that you have coming into this too, is that we wanna make sure that they have that positive first step as they’re connecting with their teachers in their classrooms and learning in general.

Kris (04:10)

Speaking of kind of connecting families the right way, what are some best practices that you have learned that we could share that help to develop these positive relationships the right way, and they really kick them off in that direction you want to go?

Devin (04:28)

One thing that our teachers here in Bloomington have gotten really good at is making sure right away we have some of those assessment days where you’re making those first contacts with kids. Before the school year even starts, they are making sure that there’s something on Seesaw for the families to look at once they get connected, so they’re not just showing up and seeing nothing. And they are, you know.

walking families through the steps if they’re a family who needs help getting walked through the steps. They’re connecting families to interpreters if they need help getting their technology going on their phone and things like that and they’re not giving up. So if they’re not making that connection with the family that first day on the assessment day they’re continuing to reach out to the families through other means.

or involving a digital learning specialist such as myself or even some of our equity specialists who have been really vital in helping make sure that all of our families get.

Kris (05:32)

Awesome. Such important things too that you guys are very structured in how you’re putting those together, which are really powerful steps for anybody to take away and to put into practice tomorrow to make sure they’re really engaging more families. I just wanna come back to one more quick question on connecting with parents. How has Seesaw really helped you to connect with more parents? And you can think back to pre-Seesaw, which you referenced earlier.

Devin (05:47)

Yes.

Kris (05:59)

How has Seesaw really helped to bridge some of the gaps that you’re starting to fill in now?

Devin (06:07)

Seesaw has made it easy to share the little things. So before, if you needed to have communication with families and you needed to write a note for the kid to take home or write an email or pick up the phone, sometimes those feel big, right? It feels like you need to kind of almost reach a tipping point before you can reach out and communicate with Seesaw. It’s so easy for the families and the teachers to communicate back and forth about.

the little things, even as a parent myself. I was able to send a message to my kid’s teacher through Seesaw last week and say like, he really enjoyed this activity that they did, that you did today. Thank you for coming up with something that really made him feel like he belonged. So from both directions, it just really lowers the barriers to communication for families and teachers.

Kris (07:02)

I love that phrase and I love the way that you reference it too is it’s just easy. It’s easy to step in. There isn’t any barriers that are in the way at this point. So that’s amazing for your teachers to feel that way and have that mindset when they come into this because there’s so much information that comes out of classrooms that has to go to families. And if we don’t feel comfortable with doing some of those things, if we feel like we might be giving too much at a certain time, that’s just so positive for your teachers to have that.

Kris (07:31)

that mindset and that feeling.

Devin (07:33)

Yeah, I know a lot of our teachers, if we think pre-Seesaw and now, feel like they have a better connection with the family, so that when you get to conferences also, it’s not so much of a first conversation as a continuation of the conversation they’ve been having on Seesaw already.

Kris (07:51)

continuation of the conversation. I love that. That’s such an amazing feeling that you guys have built to. I want to just kind of reflect back on what you’ve learned, how your journey has grown with Seesaw, and something in, you know, we really talk about how do you get from step one to step ten at this point. Can you share any examples along that journey that you took here at Bloomington?

any examples that really highlight the impact that these relationships and that CSAW’s really had with your students and in your classrooms. Do you have any examples and or stories that you’d feel like sharing just to kind of help to paint the picture of the journey that you guys have taken.

Devin (08:35)

Yeah, I think that, uh, seesaw, we’ve had some really great, uh, district leadership around bringing seesaw into, um, Bloomington. And they really allowed for this organic growth, uh, to kind of start seesaw small. And it was just, I want to say brilliant. It was amazing how they knew that it was such a good tool.

that it kind of caught on and teachers almost had the FOMO, the fear of missing out that, oh my gosh, that teacher’s using seesaw and look at the incredible things they’re doing in their classroom. I wanna learn more about it. I wanna try it. I wanna do it too. And we were able to kind of grow that way until we reached a critical mass and then also the pandemic. And we were able to say, now that we have so many teachers using it, what are our purposeful next steps?

So things like having a checklist of things for teachers to do in CSOT at the beginning of the school year, like renaming their classroom. So it’s easier for students to figure out which teachers CSOT classes they’re in at once, or knowing that before conferences, the digital learning specialists will go through and look for those families who haven’t gotten connected yet. And…

provide that information to teachers and say like, how can we support you in connecting to these families at conferences so we can really get that much closer to the 100% that we keep striving for?

Kris (10:11)

Amazing. Yeah, those purposeful steps that you’re talking through and anyone who ever strives for 100% too, is just such a positive way to kind of get to where you wanna go. And I know you talked about organic growth that comes with this, but I do think that the practical steps that you’re also taking makes that organic growth really achievable for teachers.

It’s really easy steps for people to take and for families to take so that they’re included in the learning process. So I just love that you kind of you laid them out in such a way that it’s easy to get to where you want to. I have just a couple questions left. We’re gonna go into our throw you for a loop question. This is just a silly question from me to you. Would you rather have a pet dragon or a pet unicorn?

Devin (11:10)

I think I’m gonna go with unicorn and it’s based purely on the size factor. Like I feel like housing and feeding a dragon would require a lot more work whereas a unicorn roughly the size of a horse, I’m assuming eats about the same amount as a horse, it’s not gonna eat me out of house and home and I’d be able to like practically incorporated it for a life a little better.

Kris (11:33)

That’s awesome. I love that. I love the rationale to around why you would choose it I would probably choose a dragon because I would always love to fly on a dragon I think that’d be really fun, but you’re not wrong that feeding and housing a dragon would be something different

Devin (11:50)

Yeah, how about you get a dragon, I’ll get a unicorn, we’ll meet somewhere and share.

Kris (11:52)

There you go. That would be perfect. Two more questions left and then we’ll kind of close things up. We always end with some practical advice. Before that I want to just kind of talk about your development around family engagement and your mindset around that and how that might have changed over the course of your career. Do you have any insights or anything that you want to share with the audience about how it has changed?

and what kind of things you really prioritize, especially in your role now around family engagement, that just help you guys to be so mindful of families and to really lay out these positive paths for your teachers.

Devin (12:34)

Um, you know, we have really discovered how integral it is to be looking at the data. When we are able to see, you know, the number of family views in a school or the number of families connected by class and things like that, it really helps us get a picture on that bigger district level of how are we doing as a district.

connecting with families. We don’t have statistics for much else in terms of family engagement in the district. We know how many emails we send, but we don’t know whether or not they get read. We know how many pieces of paper get sent home and we don’t know how many just end up in the recycle bin. But we have really worked to be purposeful at looking at the data that’s provided by Seesaw to

focus our efforts in the right places in terms of family engagement to say, these are the things we’re trying and they’re working, these are the things we’re trying and we need to make some tweaks and keep moving.

Kris (13:42)

So important. And I’m being kind of a data mind myself. I think that’s also the best way to look through that. And really the way that the examples you laid out there are so important, so critical, because every teacher does those things. You know, we send the emails. We send home the little, you know, the flyers, the permission slips, whatever. But we don’t know what happens when they walk out of our schools, unless we have data coming back to us that way.

So I love that that’s your big point of emphasis and how you really use that to improve and to measure what success looks like and how do we make sure we’re moving forward all the time. So that’s amazing. Final question here is we close up our episode, we think about what else people can listen to, what else they can take away from your specific expertise here. What is one piece of advice that you’d share with somebody listening

and how they can really grow some positive relationships with their families, whether they’re at the district level or they’re a teacher in their classroom. What’s just one thing that they could start, they could try, they could do in their classrooms to help build positive relationships.

Devin (14:53)

We know that teachers and families have the kids in common, right? We all are in the kids’ lives in order to make them smarter and better and be their best selves. And so one thing we’ve been stressing at Bloomington really since about this time last year is just using the green add button to share what’s happening with the kid. Even the littlest thing showing the family that you care enough about the kid.

to take a picture of what they’re doing in class and send it on. It doesn’t have to be a very, a seven page seesaw activity with all of the features. Parents and kids really benefit from even the simplest things of, take a picture of this cool thing that the kid drew, put it on seesaw for the family to see, and then also be able to preserve it as an artifact in case you need items in a portfolio later on.

Kris (15:48)

the most practical of first steps ever. And I love that one too, because it’s easy for teachers to do, it’s easy even for kids to do, but it’s super informative for parents and everybody surrounding that child in that learning process. Absolutely love it. Well, Devin, we are closing up our episode. I just wanna say thank you so much for taking the time today to share some expertise with us. We all know you’re busy. We all know every educator is busy right now. And so thank you so much for taking some time to share some amazing things.

not only about family engagement, but also about education in general and how to improve schools anywhere that you are. We thank you so much for taking the time.

Devin (16:26)

You’re very welcome.

Kris (16:27)

Thank you, bye.