Skill: Communicate 2.1.2 Communication Guidelines Quest

Reflect on the needs for your individual Communication Plan. Then, construct a general outline that includes the following:
 

•           Welcome Emails: I often send two emails to students at the beginning of  class. I will send the official GaVS email that is uniform between courses – but changing the course and teacher information. The formal email tends to be very long and I find that students and parents alike do not read everything. During the first week of school I will send less formal notes like the one pictures below highlighting important things that students MUST know.

•              Personal Notes versus Mass Communication – I use both personal notes and mass communication on a daily basis in my class.  Mass communication is used to send out generic general information that is pertinent to all students or a group of students, An example is I send one mass email after each grading period informing the stakeholders that the gradebook has been updated and I ‘noticed’ that the students was missing a grade. I ask stakeholders to check grades and look for zeros.  This informs that that they are missing something, but also lets them know that they can still turn it in as I will reference the late work policy.  Individual emails should be sent to help and encourage students.. I send individual emails to help answer questions, I am grading and I notice students struggling with exams, dropbox assignments etc. I will also send encouraging emails and notes of praise to parents.

•     Stakeholders - With communication, the stakeholders involved are students, parents, facilitators, and local administration.  Every email send out of Thesis gets copied to the three primary stakeholders – students, parent, and facilitator.  I will copy local administration when a problem is arising and I might need someone to intervene.  I have worked hard in the last year to increase my communication with all stakeholders involved – and Thesis helps with that.

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•    School Policies regarding Communication - GaVS does a good job of educating us on FERPA by requiring us to take a course.  Unless someone is found in the portal registration we are not allowed to communicate with him or her. GaVS does put in place that we are to communicate with stakeholders about course updates, failures, course changes etc.  We are evaluated on our communication with stakeholders.

Tools available for effective Communication - Tools that are available for communication include but are not limited to email (using Thesis) mass and individual , Remind me – texting service to send a mass message, Dial My Calls – send a mass phone call to all or specific stakeholders, Smore  - ability to create a class newsletter.