Tisha Jones, Assessment as a Shared Journey: Cultivating Partnerships with Families & Caregivers

Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

April 17, 2025

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 16

Families and caregivers play an essential role in students’ success in school and in shaping their identities as learners. Therefore, establishing strong partnerships with families and caregivers is crucial for equitable teaching and learning. This episode is designed to help educators explore the importance of collaborating with families and caregivers and learn strategies for shifting to asset-based communication.

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BIOGRAPHY

Tisha Jones is the senior manager of assessment at The Math Learning Center. Previously, Tisha taught math to elementary and middle school students as well as undergraduate and graduate math methods courses at Georgia State University.

TRANSCRIPT

Mike Wallus: As educators, we know that families and caregivers play an essential role in our students’ success at school. With that in mind, what are some of the ways we can establish strong partnerships with caregivers and communicate about students' progress in asset-based ways? We'll explore these questions with MLC’s [senior] assessment manager, Tisha Jones, on this episode of Rounding Up.

Welcome back to the podcast, Tisha. I think you are our first guest to appear three times. We're really excited to talk to you about assessment and families and caregivers.

Tisha Jones: I am always happy to talk to you, Mike, and I really love getting to share new ideas with people on your podcast.

Mike: So, we've titled this episode “Assessment as a Shared Journey with Families & Caregivers,” and I feel like that title—especially the words “shared journey”—say a lot about how you hope educators approach this part of their practice.

Tisha: Absolutely.

Mike: So, I want to start by being explicit about how we at The Math Learning Center think about the purpose of assessment because I think a lot of the ideas and the practices and the suggestions that you're about to offer flow out of that way that we think about the purpose.

Tisha: When we think about the purpose of assessment at The Math Learning Center, what sums it up best to me is that all assessment is formative, even if it's summative, which is a belief that you'll find in our Assessment Guide. And what that means is that assessment really is to drive learning. It's for the purpose of learning. So, it's not just to capture, “What did they learn?,” but it's, “What do they need?,” “How can we support kids?,” “How can we build on what they're learning?” over and over and over again. And so, there's no point where we're like, “OK, we've assessed it and now the learning of that is in the past.” We're always trying to build on what they're doing, what they've learned so far.

Mike: You know, I've also heard you talk about the importance of an asset-focused approach to assessment. So, for folks who haven't heard us talk about this in the past, what does that mean, Tisha?

Tisha: So that means starting with finding the things that the kids know how to do and what they understand instead of the alternative, which is looking for what they don't know, looking for the deficits in their thinking. We're looking at, “OK, here's the evidence for all the things that they can do,” and then we're looking to think about, “OK, what are their opportunities for growth?”

Mike: That sounds subtle, but it is so profound a shift in thinking about what is happening when we're assessing and what we're seeing from students. How do you think that change in perspective shifts the work of assessing, but also the work of teaching?

Tisha: When I think about approaching assessment from an asset-based perspective—finding the things that kids know how to do, the things that kids understand—one, I am now on a mission to find their brilliance. I am just this brilliance detective. I'm always looking for, “What is that thing that this kid can shine at?” That's one, and a different way of thinking about it just to start with.

And then I think the other thing, too, is, I feel like when you find the things that they're doing, I can think about, “OK, what do I need to know? What can I do for them next to support them in that next step of growth?”

Mike: I think that sounds fairly simple, but there's something very different about thinking about building from something versus, say, looking for what's broken.

Tisha: For sure. And it also helps build relationships, right? If you approach any relationship from a deficit perspective, you're always focusing on the things that are wrong. And so, if we're talking about building stronger relationships with kids, coming from an asset-based perspective helps in that area too.

Mike: That's a great pivot point because if we take this notion that the purpose of assessment is to inform the ways that we support student learning, it really seems like that has a major set of implications for how and what and even why we would communicate with families and caregivers.

So, while I suspect there isn't a script for the type of communication, are there some essential components that you'd want to see in an asset-focused assessment conversation that an educator would have with a family or with their child's caregivers?

Tisha: Well, before thinking about a singular conversation, I want to back it up and think about—over the course of the school year. And I think that when we start the communication, it has to start before that first assessment. It has to start before we've seen a piece of kids' work. We have to start building those relationships with families and caregivers. We need to invite them into this process. We need to give them an opportunity to understand what we think about assessment. How are we approaching it? When we send things home, and they haven't heard of things like “proficiency” or “meeting current expectations”—those are common words that you'll see throughout the Bridges assessment materials—if parents haven't seen that, if families and caregivers haven't heard from you on what that means for you in your classroom at your school, then they have questions. It feels unfamiliar. It feels like, “Wait, what does this mean about how my child is doing in your class?”

And so, we want to start this conversation from the very beginning of the school year and continue it on continuously. And it should be this open invitation for them to participate in this process too, for them to share what they're seeing about their student at home, when they're talking about math or they're hearing how their student is talking about math. We want to know those things because that informs how we approach the instruction in class.

Mike: Let's talk about that because it really strikes me that what you’re describing in terms of the meaning of proficiency or the meaning of meeting expectations—that language is likely fairly new to families and caregivers.

And I think the other thing that strikes me is, families and caregivers have their own lived experience with assessment from when they were children, perhaps with other children. And that's generally a mixed bag at best. Folks have this set of ideas about what it means when the teacher contacts them and what assessment means. So, I really hear what you're saying when you're talking about, there's work that educators need to do at the start of the year to set the stage for these conversations.

Let's try to get a little bit specific, though. What are some of the practices that you'd want teachers to consider when they're thinking about their communication?

Tisha: So, I think that starting at the very beginning of the year, most schools do some sort of a curriculum night. I would start by making sure that assessment is a part of that conversation and making sure that you're explaining what assessment means to you. Why are you assessing? What are the different ways that you're assessing? What are some things that [families and caregivers] might see coming home? Are they going to see feedback? Are they going to see scores from assessments? But how were you communicating progress? How do they know how their student is doing? And then also that invitation, right then and there, to be a part of this process, to hear from them, to hear their concerns or their ideas around feedback or the things that they've got questions about.

I would also suggest … really working hard to have that asset-based lens apply to parents and families and caregivers. I know that I have been that parent that was the last one to sign up for the parent teacher conferences, and I'm sending the apologetic email, and I'm begging for a special time slot. So, it didn't mean that I didn't care about my kids. It didn't mean that I didn't care about what they were doing. I was swamped. And so, I think we want to keep finding that asset-based lens for parents and caregivers in the same way that we do for the students.

And then making sure that you're giving them good news, not just bad news. And then making sure when you're sending any communication about how a student is doing, try to be concrete about what you're seeing, right? So, trying to say, “These are the things where I see your child's strengths. These are the strengths that I'm seeing from your student. And these are the areas where we're working on to grow. And this is what we're doing here at school, and this is what you can do to support them at home.”

Mike: I was really struck by a piece of what you said, Tisha, when you really made the case for not assuming that the picture that you have in your mind as an educator is clear for families when it comes to assessment. So, really being transparent about how you think about assessment, why you're assessing, and the cadence of when parents or families or caregivers could expect to hear from you and what they could expect as well.

I know for a fact that if my teacher called my family when I was a kid, generally there was a look that came across their face when they answered the phone. And even if it was good news, they didn't think it was good news at the front end of that conversation.

Tisha: I've been there. I had my son's fifth grade teacher call me last year, and I was like, “Oh, what is this?” [laughs]

Mike: One of the things that I want to talk about before we finish this conversation is homework. I want to talk a little bit about the purpose of homework. We're having this conversation in the context of Bridges in Mathematics, which is the curriculum that The Math Learning Center publishes. So, while we can't talk about how all folks think about homework, we can talk about the stance that we take when it comes to homework: what its purpose is, how we imagine families and caregivers can engage with their students around it.

Can you talk a little bit about our perspective on homework? How we think about its value, how we think about its purpose? And then we can dig a little bit into what it might look like at home, but let's start with purpose and intent.

Tisha: So, we definitely recognize that there are lots of different ideas about homework, and I think that shows in how we've structured homework through our Bridges units. Most of the time, it's set up so that there's a homework [assignment] that goes with every other session, but it's still optional. So, there's no formal expectation in our curriculum that homework is given on a nightly basis or even on an every-other-night basis. We really have left that up to the schools to determine what is best practice for their population. And I think that is actually what's really the most important thing is, understanding the families and caregivers and the situations that are in your building, and making determinations about homework that makes sense for the students that you're serving. And so, I think we've set homework up in a way that makes it so that it's easy for schools to make those decisions.

Mike: One of the things that I'm thinking about is that—again, I'm going to be autobiographical—when I was a kid, homework went back, it was graded, and it actually counted toward my grade at the end of the semester or the quarter or what have you. And I guess I wonder if a school or a district chose to not go about that, to not have homework necessarily be graded, I wonder if some families and caregivers might wonder, “What's the purpose?” I think we know that there can be a productive and important purpose—even if educators aren't grading homework and adding it to a percentage that is somehow determining students' grades, that it can actually still have purpose. How do you think about the purpose of homework, regardless of whether it's graded or not?

Tisha: So first off, I would just like to advocate not grading homework if I can.

Mike: You certainly can, yeah.

Tisha: [laughs]

Mike: Let's talk about that.

Tisha: I think that, one, if we're talking about this idea of putting this score into an average grade or this percentage grade, I think that this is something that has so many different circumstances for kids at home. You have some students who get lots and lots of help. You get some students who do not have help available to them.

Another experience that has been very common when I was teaching was that I would get messages where it was like, “We were doing homework. The kid was in tears, I was in tears. This was just really hard.” And that's just not—I don't ever want that scenario for any student, for any family, for any caregiver, for anybody trying to support a child at home. I used to tell them, “If you are getting to the point where it's that level of frustration, please just stop and send me a message, write it on the homework. Just communicate something that [says,] ‘This was too hard’ because that's information now that I can use.”

And so, for me, I think about [how] homework can be an opportunity for students to practice some skills and concepts and things that they've learned at home. It's an opportunity for parents, families, caregivers to see some of the things that the kids are working on at school.

Mike: What do you think is meaningful for homework? And I have kind of two bits to that. What do you think is meaningful for the child? And then, what do you think might be meaningful for the interaction between the child and their family or caregiver? What's the best case for homework? When you imagine a successful or a productive or a meaningful experience with homework at home between child and family and caregiver, what's that look like?

Tisha: Well, one of the things that I've heard families say is, “I don't know how to help my child with blank.” So, then I think it is, “Well, how do we support families and caregivers in knowing what [to] do with homework when we don't know how to tell them what to do?”

So, to me, it's about, how can we restructure the homework experience so that it's not this, “I have to tell you how to do it so you can get the right answer so you can get the grade.” But it's like, “How can I get at more of your thinking? How can I understand then what is happening or what you do know?” So, “We can't get to the answer. OK. So tell me about what you do know, and how can we build from there? How can we build understanding?” And that way it maybe will take some of the pressure off of families and caregivers to help their child get to the right answer.

Mike: What hits me is we've really come full circle with that last statement you made because you could conceivably have a student who really clearly understands a particular problem that might be a piece of homework, [who] might have some ideas that are on the right track, but ultimately perhaps doesn't get to a fully clear answer that is perfect. And you might have a student who at a certain point in time, maybe [for them] the context or the problem itself is profoundly challenging.

And in all of those cases, the question, “Tell me what you do know” or “Tell me what you're thinking” is still an opportunity to draw out the students’ ideas and to focus on the assets. Even if the work as you described it is to get them to think about, “What are the questions that are really causing me to feel stuck?” That is a productive move for a family and a caregiver and a student to engage in, to kind of wonder about, “What's going on here that's making me feel stuck?” Because then, as you said, all assessment is formative.

Tisha: Mm-hmm.

Mike: That homework that comes back is functioning as a formative assessment, and it allows you to think about your next moves, how you build on what the student knows, or even how you build on the questions that the student is bringing to you.

Tisha: And that's such a great point, too, is there's really more value in them coming back with an incomplete assignment or there's, I don't know, maybe “more value” is not the right way to say it. But there is value in kids coming back with an incomplete assignment or an attempted assignment, but they weren't sure how to get through all the problems—as opposed to a parent who has told their student what to do to get to all of the right answers. And so, now they have all these right answers, but it doesn't really give you a clear picture of what that student actually does understand.

So, I'd much rather have a student attempt the homework and stop because they got too stuck, because now I know that, than having a family [member] or a caregiver—somebody working with that student—feel like if they don't have all of the right answers, then it's a problem.

Mike: I think that's really great guidance, both for teachers as they're trying to set expectations and be transparent with families. But also I think it takes that pressure off of families or caregivers who feel like their work when homework shows up, is to get to a right answer. It just feels like a much more healthy relationship with homework and a much more healthy way to think about the value that it has.

Tisha: Well, in truth, it's a healthier relationship with math overall, right? That math is a process. It's not just—the value is not in just this one right answer or this paper of right answers, but it's really in, “How do we deepen our understanding?,” “How do we help students deepen their understanding and have this more positive relationship with math?” And I think that creating these homework struggles between families and caregivers and the children does not support that end goal of having a more positive relationship with math overall.

Mike: Which is a really important part of what we're looking for in a child's elementary experience.

Tisha: Absolutely.

Mike: I think that's a great place to stop. Tisha Jones, thank you so much for joining us. We would love to have you back at some time. It has been a pleasure talking with you.

Tisha: It's been great talking to you, too, Mike.

Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling all individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability.