Written by Leah Walker and Adrienne Luczkow<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0Decades of research have highlighted the importance of family engagement with schools.1,2<\/sup><\/span>\u00a0The research suggests that the reason that family engagement works to improve student outcomes is that it helps families and schools to co-create more impactful instructional strategies and more inclusive school policies and procedures. This logic is reflected in best practices which recommend that schools and families communicate about student learning and behavior<\/span>3<\/sup><\/span> and research has shown the importance of doing so in a positive way.<\/span>4,5,6<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n So even though technology has made it easier for parents and families to communicate more often, how well do their conversations cover these important topics in productive ways?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a universal family engagement technology platform, TalkingPoints is uniquely positioned to explore this question by studying how teachers and families actually engage with each other in the real world. We set out to better understand the content of the millions of conversations between educators and families on our platform and share what we learned with educators to help inform their family engagement activities.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We analyzed de-identified data consisting of 40,000,000 messages sent on the TalkingPoints platform over a 15-month period. We then used NLP techniques and leveraged machine learning tools to train, test, and ultimately use models specifically designed for sentiment and topic classification. With the help of Google\u2019s AutoML service and well-established repositories like TweetEval, we were able to categorize each of the 40,000,000 according to topic<\/span> (e.g., academics, behavior, logistics, etc.)<\/span> and tone (positive or negative).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The data revealed interesting patterns that can inform recommendations to build and strengthen relationships between educators and families. \u00a0For more, see the recording of our webinar<\/a> Family Engagement: Is more really more? An analysis of quality vs. quantity dynamics in school-family communication<\/i> where we shared some of our findings, and view the webinar companion guide<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n More than three out of four messages – 78% – discussed logistics<\/strong> (\u201c<\/span>The homework is on Google Classroom<\/span><\/i>.\u201d) or were standard replies (\u201c<\/span>Thanks for the update.<\/span><\/i>\u201d). Meanwhile, only eight percent of conversations focused on academics<\/strong>; two percent discussed behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Based on these findings, we recommend the following to increase emphasis on the high-impact conversation practices that lead to improved student outcomes:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As part of our ongoing efforts to support building collaborative relationships between families and schools, we analyzed the more than 40 million messages they have sent to each other and now better understand the character of those conversations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Inevitably, in any given week or month, teachers will have to communicate some good news, some bad news, some logistical information, and some academic updates. And while the data here can\u2019t reveal what a \u201cgood\u201d message is, it can see if the overall proportion of message type and tone is aligned with what research shows is the most likely to contribute to the outcomes families desire for their children. And it can help identify opportunities to use these conversations to address important behavior and academic progress.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Working with our school district partners and with guidance from TalkingPoints advisor and acclaimed Harvard researcher Dr. Karen Mapp, our upcoming research will describe the relationship between these conversation patterns and student outcomes. By collaborating with partners on understanding how communication can improve student outcomes, we will co-create new best practices and share these widely to equip schools and districts with actionable strategies they can use to build strong family-school partnerships.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TalkingPoints is an education technology nonprofit that drives student success by removing critical barriers to equitable family-school partnerships, such as language, time, mindsets, and capacity. Ten of the country\u2019s twenty largest school districts trust TalkingPoints to create a district culture where all families, no matter their background, can engage with their schools. Our simple, intuitive family engagement platform offers the highest-quality human- and AI-powered two-way translated communication available \u2014 in 150 languages and counting. Named by\u00a0Common Sense Education<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cthe best overall family communication platform for teachers and schools\u201d, TalkingPoints leads to higher test scores and lower absenteeism, as shown by\u00a0rigorous causal research<\/a>\u00a0that meets the ESSA Tier 2 standard of evidence. To learn more, view our\u00a0TED Talk<\/a>\u00a0or visit\u00a0talkingpts.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Leah Walker and Adrienne Luczkow \u00a0 \u00a0Decades of research have highlighted the importance of family engagement with schools.1,2\u00a0The research suggests that the reason that family engagement works to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":11491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[163],"class_list":["post-11445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How do teachers and families actually<\/em> engage in the real world?<\/b><\/h2>\n
How we used AI to explore school-home conversation dynamics<\/b><\/h2>\n
What we learned from the data<\/b><\/h2>\n
Finding 1:<\/b> Most conversations between teachers and families were about something other than student learning. <\/span><\/h3>\n
\n
\n
Finding 2: <\/b>Overall, we found a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative messages, which aligns with best practice recommendations for building trust in school-family relationships. <\/span>The exception to this finding was conversations about student behavior, which were more often negative in tone.<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n
Recommendations<\/b><\/h2>\n
Prioritize opportunities to discuss student learning and behavior: <\/b><\/h3>\n
\n
Give praise as often as you can: <\/b><\/h3>\n
\n
Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n
Looking ahead<\/b><\/h2>\n
Sources:<\/span><\/i><\/h4>\n
\n
About\u00a0<\/b>TalkingPoints<\/b><\/h5>\n