Judy Caraang: Families, thank you so much for joining us today for one of our Parent Workshops. We’re going to make lists of all of the things that our children are exposed to that we might not have been exposed to. When I think about children and I think about success, it takes all of us to help grow our students academically, socially, emotionally. The benefit of Parent Workshops is truly connecting with our families and building a learning community.

Joe Erpelding: The campus was created to be a learner-centered. Learner-centered means all of us our learners, the teachers, the parents, the students, the community.

Dana Clarkson: We look at that parent-teacher-student triangle where all three are working on behalf of the students.

Judy Caraang: Providing Parent Workshops are really essential to creating relationships, bringing our families in to what we do on a daily basis, and letting them know that we want them to be actively engaged.

Sudharma: It’s a learning for me so when I come to this workshop, there’s something new I learn every time I come here. This your drawing?

Student: Yeah, I drew all of this.

Dana Clarkson: For this particular workshop we had a movie making project for our earth science unit.

Parent: What is that a picture of?

Student: The tectonic plates pushing together.

Ava: We were learning about water, then we learned about fire and then we learned about earth and plate tectonics and all that. We got to pick one of those topics, and then we made a movie about ’em. Fire is a force of nature.

Fariba: Ava made a video that described how fire plays a role in the earth. She voiced over a dialogue and she learned a lot about disastrous fires that have happened in California. So this is a heat map showing the differences of temperatures?

Judy Caraang: I love seeing the parents so attentive. They were surprised about what their children created and the reflection that the children had.

Parent: Wow, I am amazed.

Student Voice On Tablet: This is the end of my presentation. I hope you have a great day.

Judy Caraang: In the second half of our workshop, we pulled parents together to give them a presentation around digital media literacy. Something that kept resonating with us came from our last workshop when one of our families had brought up video and how that impacts what we do and really pulls our children’s attentions. So we could be just passive viewers and passive consumers of technology, but what we would really love is to help support our kids to be active and engaged.

Dana Clarkson: So we have a video that we’re gonna watch together.

Narrated Video: There’s a Coke for he and she and her and me.

Judy Caraang: We chose the Coca-Cola video to help them think about what their role might be when they’re watching another Nike video, another cereal video, and what critical thinking skills are really necessary.

Narrated Video: There’s a Coke for you.

Dana Clarkson: What do we think the purpose of this video is?

Sudharma: Selling Coke.

Judy Caraang: In thinking about being active viewers instead of passive viewers, we can use a lot of the questioning methods, what was the story about, what was the main idea about, who is it targeting?

Sudharma: One thing I can take away from this workshop, what other kind of questions I can ask about the videos. And encourage her to choose the right content.

Dana Clarkson: We always leave about the last 10 minutes of our workshop for the parents to be asking questions and share back and forth some of the challenges that they have. We’re all in this together and as technology changes so do our challenges.

Fariba: Devices are everywhere, so I really like that they are learning to use it as a tool. I love knowing how to implement that at home. Now, you’re an iMovie expert. Do you think you can do another one at home?

Ava: Yeah.

Judy Caraang: Learning is beyond just our school walls. Our student’s success depends on our families and our schools working together.

Schools That Work

Design 39 Campus