Andamio! Engaging Hispanic Families for ELL Success Using Brain-Based Learning

Susan Tierno

• Publisher: Andamio Press, LLC
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781087896502
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book is not a technical, academic book. It is a template for creating parent engagement through brain-based learning initiatives. It uses several approaches that hook parents into engagement, specifically, in Hispanic districts and schools. It is a scaffold filled with a choreography of brain-based strategies for Title 1 schools.

"I believe Andamio! is significant and relevant because parents want to know how to help their children in their educational journey. Parent trainings are essential in order for true engagement to take place. Susan's model works. I personally observed how much it helped the parents from our district that participated in this training"

Pat Campos, Title 1 Parent and Family Engagement Coordinator.

Laredo Independent School District, Texas

SECTION III
PARENT TRAINING

CHAPTER 9
Boots on the Ground:
Brain-Based Training in Action

Just like a city, the brain’s overall operation emerges from the networked interaction of its innumerable parts…. And so it is with the brain’s operation: It doesn’t happen in one spot, Just as in a city, no neighborhood of the brain operates in isolation. In brains and in cities, everything emerges from the interaction between residents, at all scales, locally and distantly.

― David Eagleman

It is my experience that school districts often find it difficult to know where to begin to engage parent stakeholders. In order to discover whether brain-based training can improve engagement between Hispanic parents and their ELL elementary-age children, I conducted a series of surveys to develop the pilot training and coaching program.

I recommend that administrators and coordinators take time to plan each step and, most significantly, know their parents from within the community.

A NEW PARENT PARADIGM

The model design was planned to build experiential learning around authentic intentional engagement by getting parents to participate in hands-on activities. The goal was to provide intentional, purposeful, and engaged educational experiences for Hispanic parents to enrich their role in the lives of their ELL elementary-aged children in the home, at school, and within the school community.

For the pilot program, parent engagement meant learning about brain functions and strategies to enhance those functions for parents of ELLs. The training program was intended to connect and bridge learning strategies from school to home in sustainable ways.

Based on 24 years of training sessions, evaluations, and my research study, my program design addresses the real needs and barriers experienced by today’s parents with children in American public schools. They include:

1. How can I talk to my child’s teacher more effectively?
2. How can I understand the directions on the homework?
3. How can I help my child to listen and follow directions more closely?

What resulted was a new paradigm of parent needs:

1. What is my purpose as a parent in my child’s learning?
2. How will it meet the social responsibility of my child—especially with technology—in the future?
3. How do my emotions impact my purpose, and how do they impact my parent role and my family?
4. How does my learning as a parent create a cognitive impact on my children?

A PILOT WITH A PURPOSE: PARENT SUCCESS

By offering this uniquely designed pilot program, we had the direct experience of observing, analyzing, and video recording the thoughts, feelings, learning, perceptions, insights, and beliefs of 40 Hispanic parents as they completed the brain-based training program.

The pilot program took place in a south Texas border town. Researched and implemented in five urban school districts across the United States, the program model had not
been implemented in border areas prior to the pilot program. My intent was to capture participant perceptions about the structured parent-training program to determine whether the strategies were useful and applicable to specific needs and growth when working with their children at home.

To launch the study, meeting with key administrators was essential. The purpose was to build a coalition of social capital with stakeholders within the schools and among the administration, and generate school community support for the program, in order to create a sustainable model and lay the groundwork for the parent training.

I know from leadership experiences that it is advantageous to establish positive dialogue with anyone invested in the success of students.

To ensure the pilot’s success, all thinking and learning styles needed consideration to meet the needs of the Hispanic parents participating in the training.

Therefore, structures in the form of a choreography were set in place with purposeful tasks and timelines, specific to the desired goals, needs, and barriers of the parents in order to achieve successful outcomes.

BUILDING SOCIAL CAPITAL THROUGH AUTHENTICITY

Establishing authenticity (“a sense of self within self”) was a priority. Did you know the word authenticity shares the same root word as author? This insight resonates with me as an author. It means that I bring my authentic self and my authentic experiences to these pages in order to share my ideas and give you a tried-and-true starting place to replicate and create your own authentic programs.

Building social capital with authenticity was critical to the first phase of the process. I held the stakeholder/parent meetings prior to designing and implementing the brain-based training program to help me learn, feel, and engage purposefully and comfortably with the stakeholders in a more natural and authentic way.

In order to communicate my passion for the training program to the parents during social capital building, at the initial meeting I shared the story of how my mother gave me a green tin frog when I became an entrepreneur and told me, “Jumping forward was the most important thing to know in life,” because, biologically, frogs cannot jump backward. I held my tin frog as I welcomed the stakeholders to the team that only jumps forward!

My Boots on the Ground approach meant planning, scheduling, organizing, and defining the goals of the brain-based training program. To facilitate future replication of the pilot program meant looking at the total picture, which included all the planned details and dates sequenced logistically and aligned creatively.

CREATING A PATHWAY FOR THE BOOTS

To use of the Program Training Evaluation (PTE) analysis in the Boots on the Ground phase, the following procedures and steps required planning:

1. Arrange with administration for a parent orientation for two schools and invite parents to attend through marketing flyers and e-mails.
2. Gather and recruit the parent participants during the orientation.
3. Explain the brain-based training program to interested parents and inform them of what the training entails, answer questions, and obtain participation consent.
4. Secure translator services for training sessions.
5. Build social capital with the school district’s parent coordinator through meetings and emails.
6. Arrange for training location and the use of technology, including video and audio equipment, and inform parents of dates, times, and locations of training. Personal phone calls to each participant are critical.
7. Arrange for childcare at training locations and ensure transportation and refreshments for parent participants.
8. Hold training sessions and follow-up sessions.
9. Conduct post-training interviews with participants to see what strategies were effective with their children.
10. Share results and conclusions with school administrators and stakeholders.

While recruiting the parent participants, it was crucial to ensure that their interest for engagement was coming from the heart and not for material gain or recognition. It was also essential to ensure that the same standards applied to the district stakeholders. Therefore, everyone involved had the opportunity to take the same survey, thus providing equal voice for all stakeholders.

ACCESSIBLE NETWORKS

In May 2015, a two-hour orientation for Hispanic parents of ELLs was held at the two selected schools and included questions, video sharing, and light refreshments. Out of 80 parents who attended, 66 attendees signed up and expressed an interest in participating in the training.

From the 66 parents who signed up, 40 Hispanic mothers were ultimately selected to be participants and attend the four-day, brain-based training, the follow up coaching session, and the final celebration with certificates. Final participation was based on the need for equal numbers from each school, having children in pre-K through Grade 4, participant availability for a five-day commitment, and subject to the principal’s approval.

All participants were parents of ELL children enrolled in two of the poorest and lowest performing elementary schools in the district. All participants were mothers who had at least a middle school or high school education obtained in the United States or in Mexico, Honduras, or Guatemala.

SETTING THE TABLE

Food services and community resources were included so that all the physiological needs of the parents were met. It also ensured that they were able to engage fully in the training. Training for both schools was from 8:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in a large, district-owned facility that was air-conditioned.

Mornings began with a breakfast beginning at 8:15 a.m., and lunch was provided at 12:45 p.m. Childcare for approximately 65 children of the parent participants was also provided.

We provided the meals for the parents and their children, and the school district provided childcare. The school district also provided eight parent liaisons and audio/technological equipment services.

Members of my training team included three facilitators and one technology specialist.

BEST PRACTICES

During the training, participants sat at round tables in groups of five to promote greater interaction and engagement. Each day, participants sat at different tables to create new parent teams and allow them to begin building their own community liaisons.

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