Skills you will gain
- Family-Teacher Partnerships: Understand the impact of family-teacher collaboration on student outcomes.
- Effective Communication: Learn tools and strategies for clear communication with families.
- Family-Centric Environment: Explore how classroom environments and curricula can support family involvement.
- Principles of Home-School Collaboration: Identify best practices for fostering strong home-school partnerships.
- Overcoming Communication Challenges: Address common barriers to effective communication between home and school.
Course Description
This course will examine ways of creating an environment where parents and teachers work in partnership for the education of young children. Attitude, understanding and skills which lead to effective communication and cooperation between home and school will be shared and explored.
Topics
- Parent Profiles
- Family-Teacher Partnerships
- Communication with Families
- Classroom & Curriculum
- Families as Teaching Partners
- Welcoming Families
Additional Information
Together we will explore effective and productive ways of engaging parents and families in partnering with day care, preschool, and other school professionals on their children's education. Current research and best practices in the field of early childhood will be presented. Effective partnering with parents begins with our understanding of what families do at home and in the community to support their children’s learning and development. It also means providing systems of ongoing communication that engage families of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) identifies effective family engagement as an important and necessary practice of early childhood educators.
- Online Traditional Complete online with instructor-set deadlines.
| Date | Start Time | End Time | Meeting Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue, 01-06-2026 | 12:01am | 12:02am | Online Traditional | ONLINE |
| Tue, 02-17-2026 | 11:58pm | 11:59pm | Online Traditional | ONLINE |
Online Traditional courses have a structured learning environment and fixed deadlines. This course is largely self-study with instructor guidance and includes online learning modules, assignments, and/or quizzes. All course materials and assignments will be available on Canvas, our learning management system.
For this section, student access begins on January 6, 2026. All course work must be completed by 11:59 pm on February 17, 2026.
You will be granted access in Canvas to your course site and course materials approximately 24 hours prior to the published start date of the course.
Required Text:
From Parents to Partners, 2nd ed., Janis Keyser, Redleaf Press, 2017. ISBN: 9781605545141
This course applies to these programs: