Term

Spring 2019

Capstone

Capstone Project

Degree Name

MAESL

Facilitator(s)

Julia Reimer

Content Expert

Idil Mohamed and Elise Toedt

Abstract

The guiding question addressed in this project was how can schools improve the involvement of Somali ESL parents? The aim of the project was to use a workshop model to discover further ways of improving the relationship between the school and the families. Somali ESL parents were targeted for this project because of cultural differences that limit their understanding of the American school system thus leading to low parental involvement. The project's content was influenced by parental involvement literature and Epstein's framework about the Six Types of Parental Involvement. The workshop content was delivered though facilitator-led presentations and group discussions with participants. Three sessions were created each lasting two hours. The first session presented the concept of parental involvement and its benefits to the achievement of students. The second session presented ways in which parents can monitor homework and assist children in reading. The final session's presentation was aimed at discovering ways to increase parental involvement from the perspective of parents. It is expected for this model to be effective in collecting first-hand information from participants about how to engage them more in the school as parents. Information from this workshop could give the school ideas about ways to design and implement their parental involvement programs.

Project Type

Professional Development

Keywords

ESL/ ELLs, Parent Involvement, Staff Development

dc_type

text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Projects

Included in

Education Commons

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