Parent-teacher collaboration is essential in creating pleasant conditions for the success of any child and competent teachers are able to create conditions for successful work of children and establish a dialogue with the parents in the educational process. The partnership between teachers and parents is greatly encouraged, since it benefits the teachers, parents and the students. Yet, we should be aware of our expectations and the factors that influence the quality of mutual collaboration. The efforts of both the teacher and the parent are necessary for good partnership. This thesis researchers the teachers’ view on collaboration with parents.
The theoretical part of the thesis defines the teacher-parent collaboration with formal support; it includes presentation and description of various forms (formal and non-formal) and collaboration models between teachers and parents. The focus of the thesis is the partnership model, which is very important for successful and quality mutual collaboration. The thesis discusses the benefits of mutual collaboration for students, parents and teachers, as well as the most common obstacles the teachers encounter when collaborating with parents. What follows, are the main expectations of teachers and parents regarding mutual collaboration; and the conclusion of this part includes short descriptions of the competences, skills and knowledge, required for quality collaboration.
The empirical part of the thesis includes semi-structured interviews with six teachers, of which three of them from the first four years of education and the other three from higher years. The objective was to gain insight in their views on collaboration with parents or how these teachers view the collaboration. The research studied the meaning these teachers ascribe to collaboration with parents and why they collaborate, the methods they use, and what teachers expect from the parents regarding mutual collaboration and the forms (formal and non-formal) they use. This part also includes the factors (characteristics), which, in their opinion, encourage or slow down collaboration and their opinion on their capability for working with parents. The teachers were also asked about their positive and negative experiences of collaborating with parents.
|