As an aside, I love the look of your assessments — any chance of posting a editable template? (LaTeX Junkie)

my take on back to school night:

i used to treat it as an opportunity to answer parents questions. inform them, let them know what i expect from their kids, how their kids can succeed in my class, the usual syllabus, homework policy, and contact info routine.

last year i decided that it needed to be more. it was my one chance of the year to teach parents the same way i teach my kids. i still tell them what they want to know, but all that goes onto a handout that i quickly review.

most of my presentation is about what *they* need to do to help their kids succeed. how to create a safe study space for their kid. how to allocate time for their kids to study. how to remove distractions, be it electronics, siblings, or chores. how to monitor their kids progress in *all* of their classes. where to go for help with their kids behavior. and, most importantly to me, how to support their kids learning through sports or music or art outside of school.

it’s not quite as effective yet as i’d like it to be, in part because it’s only for 15 minutes at the beginning of the year. but when my parents walk out of the classroom, i see them excited about how their kid is going to learn, and that’s another nudge to get their kids on the right track.

1) You don’t really have to do anything impressive. No one expects a fancy demo in 10 minutes.

2) It was nice to put a face to the names of teachers we hear about.

3) Two teachers had some of the kids do a skit (including the math teacher!) which effectively used up most of the 10 minutes so they didn’t have to say much :)

4) Don’t bother telling them how young you are :-O

5) Tell them how to contact you, and under what circumstances you’d like them to do it

6) Explain how grading works, what you want the kids to do if they’re having trouble, etc.

7) Brief overview of what’s “different” about you — so in your case your testing scheme, homework philosophy, etc.

8) For freshman classes, possibly a brief generic overview of how things like report cards work. This is something I still don’t know…

Sometimes I’ll have a “do now” for the parents to do as they come in, like I might for the kids. Something simple, but sciencey…my old favorite is something like “One of the following terms does not belong. Cross it off and propose a title for the remaining terms: Water, Hydrogen, Salt, Iron Oxide”. I’ll literally call on a few parents to see what they’ve come up with. Sometimes it can be pretty humorous.

I don’t have kids, so I can’t say for sure, but I feel like the parents really just want to meet their kid’s teachers, see what we’re all about, and maybe get a little idea about the class. My science classes are as hands-on as possible, so why not give a little taste of what it’s like for their students to be in my classroom? And just like on the 1st day of school, why do what every other teacher is doing?

But I have it “easy” – I’m a science teacher ;-)