It’s great to share pictures with parents. Many teachers and schools understand this, as is demonstrated in the vast majority now using social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook to share images of students’ day with families. Even gymnastics and dance studios are doing this. While sharing images is nice yes, they don’t create that deeper connection between parents and teachers that research suggest is crucial to a child’s academic success as well as decreased stress for both parents and teachers.

Digital platforms like Homeroom app only allow pictures to be shared with the whole class and not all parents are on social media platforms, some not wanting to be. Bloomz allows not just class wide pictures and videos to be shared but also individual messages, pictures or videos as well as several other features such as sign-ups, announcements, portfolios and more-all allowing for everything to be easily accessible to both parents and teachers.

Through use of the Bloomz app parents can receive immediate feedback. Immediate feedback between parents and teachers is one of the advantages of digital communication, building and supporting positive parent-teacher relationships. How happy would little Suzie’s parents be to see a picture of her reading quietly to herself (say, if this was a struggle for her)? The whole class doesn’t need this picture and that added personal, specific feedback shared further supports a teacher’s relationship with the parents.

Why is parent-teacher connectedness important?

Parent-teacher connectedness has been shown through research to benefit parents, teachers and students in the following ways:

• Student academic achievement higher
• Increases parent involvement
• Parent efficacy higher (benefiting both teachers & students)
• Reduced stress levels in both parents & teachers

How does Bloomz provide opportunities to facilitate and increase parent-teacher connectedness?

Communication Content- purposeful content such as behavior or academics, use of teacher commentary with photos, portfolios and behavior information shared

Communication Frequency- constant and ongoing exchanges in any form pictures, behavior updates, portfolios, messages or updates

Collaboration opportunities- Collaboration opportunities and communication content, using features that help support relationships of trust and support such as messaging individually, whole group, portfolio and signups for parent involvement in school/class activities.

Respect and Trust- quality relationships:

• feelings of support
• mutual respect,
• parent involvement
• facilitating meaningful exchanges

Not only does Bloomz provide better content and more options than a photo album app it’s easy to use, and quickly accessible throughout the day, especially if you’re using it on your phone. What are you waiting for? Stop using your photo album classroom app and download the Bloomz app.

Jessica King

Resources:

• Bryce, Crystal I., Bradley, Robert H., Swanson, Jodi and Thompson, Marilyn S. (2018). Parents’ and teachers’ academic influences, behavioral engagement, and first and fifth-grade achievement. American Psychological Association School Psychology, 34(5), 492-502.
• Chia, Luc, Lin, Shin. (2019). Fostering teacher-parent communication: Line plays a significant role in Taiwan. Sage Journals, July-Sept, 1-14. Dio:10.1177/2158244019862667
• Houri, Alaa K., Thayer, Andrew J., and Cook, Clayton R. (2019). Targeting parent trust to enhance engagement in school-home communication system: a double-blind experiment of a parental wise feedback intervention. American Psychological Association, School Psychology, 34(4), 421-432.
• Kuusimäki, Anne-Mari, Uusitalo-Malmivaara, Lotta and Tirri, Kirsi. (2019). The role of digital school-home communication in teacher well-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(Nov.), 1-8. dio:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02257.
• Zhang, Chun, Du, Jianxia, Sun, Li, Ding, Yi. (2018). Extending face-to-face interactions: understanding and developing an online teacher and family community. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43, 331-341. Dio:10.1007/s10643-017-0864-8