Teachers ’ Memories of Home-School Connections and their Link to Anticipated Practices

Connecting with families is now a key professional role for teachers and supports student success in the classroom. This article presents an examination of elementary education preservice teachers’ anticipated work with families and how their memories of school intersect with those anticipated practices. A qualitative research design incorporated open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with twenty-five preservice teachers. An inductive analysis using grounded theory techniques led to the identification of four main themes: (1) “involved” parents show up at school, (2) technology is a strategy to modernize work with families, (3) field-based experiences reinforce anticipated practices, and (4) institutionalized practices are the practices that count. Each theme connected to participants’ memories of school, and anticipated practices reflected traditional one-way efforts embedded in their school histories. Implications are discussed for teacher educators.


Introduction
One difficulty in changing the way teachers do things may be that our educational system self-replicates: a new generation of teachers inherits the last generation's classroom practices. These new teachers, in turn, enter the system with beliefs and experiences similar to those of their predecessors and continue teaching the way they were taught (Willis & Sujo de Montes, 2002, p. 76).
This quotation exposes one of the most difficult challenges that teacher preparation programs face. Preservice teachers enter teaching programs with 13 years of school experiences as students, and those 15,000 hours of memories serve as a powerful compass for students' future actions as classroom teachers (Fragnoli, 2005;Lortie, 1975;MacPhee & Sanden, 2016;Pajares, 1992). The memories serve as a filter through which preservice teachers interpret, reject, and/or accept information presented in their coursework (Balli, 2011). This is especially true for practices related to families and how preservice teachers plan to connect with students' caregivers (Graue, 2005;Graue & Brown, 2003;Winder & Corter, 2016). As preservice teachers prospectively reflect on how they will interact and build relationships with students' families, memories are reactivated and inform their decision-making.
Connecting with families is now a key professional role for teachers and is therefore a high priority topic for supporting successful schools and classrooms (Amatea, 2013;Danielson, 2011;). The purpose of this study is to examine how preservice teachers anticipate working with students' families and how their memories of connections between families and schools inform future actions in the classroom. Preservice teachers were asked to retrospectively reflect on memories of home-school connections when they were students and prospectively reflect on their future role in the classroom and cultivating partnerships with families. One broad question and several sub-questions guided this study: Building on the literature base of preparing teachers to work with families, which is largely theoretical (Evans, 2013), this study draws attention to the memories of preservice teachers [PSTs], an understudied and underemphasized aspect of teacher education research (Miller & Shifflet, 2016).

Families and Home-School Connections
Research continues to highlight the meaningful contributions that families make to children's educational success (Epstein, 2013;Hill & Craft, 2003;Jeynes, 2003;Mapp, 2003;Taylor, Clayton & Rowley, 2004;Weiss et al, 2003). The consensus is that families matter. With that understanding, most schools reject the paradigm that schools and homes should operate in isolation and instead, that families and schools must collaborate to support student success (Amatea, 2013). The paradigm of collaboration celebrates the knowledge and resources of both the school and the family, as they come together to set goals and support student achievement.
This study adopts the term 'home-school connections' to explore PSTs' hypothesized interactions with families, which comprehensively includes the full range of interactions between families and schools (Jensen, 2006). While the terms 'family involvement' and 'family engagement' are popular, they allude to a power indifference where schools create opportunities for families (Amatea, 2013). Family involvement is often defined as familial participation in prescribed events, which typically take place at the school (Baker, Wise, Kelley, & Skiba, 2016;Jeynes, 2013); whereas family engagement moves beyond traditional notions of involvement to encourage family members to become partners with the school by listening to family needs and perspectives (Ferlazzo, 2011). However both terms have faced criticism for remaining schooldirected, and research continues to encourage scholars to move beyond current interpretations of these terms and what it means to effectively work with families (Baker et al., 2016;Jeynes, 2013;Mapp & Kuttner, 2013).
Historically, families have resided on the receiving end of school-initiated efforts, such as newsletters, advice, and family contracts (Crozier & Davies, 2007;Hughes & MacNaughton, 2000). This type of one-way communication places schools and teachers in the role of experts who should share knowledge with families to improve student outcomes (Allen, 2006). The term connections refers to a full spectrum of informal and institutionalized practices, from an  (Miller, Dilworth-Bart, & Hilgendorf, 2014). In order to critically examine PSTs' anticipated practices with families, this study's term, homeschool connections, allows for a more holistic view and understanding of the phenomenon.
As reflected in the many terms used to describe work with families, schools often assume the lead role in these interactions and connections do not reflect the paradigm of collaboration.
The historic and ritualized nature of these interactions characterizes the school as the knower and the family as the learner; this divide becomes even more pronounced for families from lowersocioeconomic and linguistically diverse backgrounds (Amatea, Chowela, & Mixon, 2012;Doucet & Tudge, 2007). Families are viewed as lacking the pedagogical and social-emotional knowledge needed for students' success (Doucet, 2011;Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2004), and schools therefore must share their practices and knowledge with families to improve or enhance family inputs. Families are consciously or unconsciously placed on a continuum of having the most to learn to having the least to learn from schools based on their social and cultural position in society (Crozier & Davies, 2007).
Counter to deficit thinking, and placing families on a continuum, is to focus on the existing resources and contributions of families through a strengths-based perspective. The value in developing a positive disposition toward families and viewing the family unit through a strengths-based lens is well-documented (Amantea, Mixon, & McCarthy, 2012;Amatea, Smith-Adcock, & Villares, 2006;Baker et al., 2016;Ramirez, McCollough, & Diaz, 2016). The perspective that families possess intimate and essential knowledge of students that can help teachers become better educators continues to grow (Doucet & Tudge, 2007;Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005;McIntyre, Roseberry, & Gonzalez, 2001;Moll, 2015). Therefore, being an effective teacher requires the skills to recognize and build upon the knowledge and contributions of families and to recognize the family unit as co-experts on the child (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005). This mindset must begin in teacher education programs.

Teacher Education Programs
As previously stated, the behaviors observed in schools do not appear to reflect the current paradigm of collaboration. Although scholars have assertively questioned and cautioned against traditional, unilateral, home-school connections, schools still find themselves entrenched in one-way efforts (Allen, 2006;Graue & Sherfinski, 2011;Stefanski et al., 2016). Given the mounting evidence that high quality and inclusive home-school relationships yield positive  (Baum & McMurray-Schwarz, 2004). This presents a challenge, but also an opportunity, for teacher educators to help students develop positive dispositions toward working with a diverse range of families (Baum & Swick, 2008;Ramirez et al., 2016). The extent to which a teacher understands families and their professional role in building relationships contributes to a prepared and competent educator (Amatea, 2013;Vorbeck & Miller Marsh, 2008 (Amatea et al., 2012), and immersive experiences with families can increase PSTs' self-efficacy and motivation to work with families (Kim & Taylor, 2016). However, most teacher education programs offer limited curricular content related to families and even less real-world experiences (Mutton, Burn, & Thompson, 2018). For programs that claim to include content on families, it is often a few sessions within diversity or foundational courses (Amatea et al., 2012;Turner-Vorbeck, 2005), and most teachers enter classrooms feeling underprepared to connect with families (Evans, 2013;Winder & Corter, 2016).

Memories of School
To adequately prepare teachers for the field requires a conscious and critical examination of their personal histories-their memories of school. Memories of school are powerful (DePalma, Membiela, & Pazos, 2011;Fragnoli, 2005;Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2004). Even the seemingly distant memory of starting kindergarten is often recalled as a notable memory in the educational trajectory of one's life course (Turunen, Dockett, & Perry, 2015). Memories of school can be classified as positive, negative or neutral as individuals continue to revisit and make sense of these storied events (Miller & Dilworth-Bart, 2014). As students are in the process Preservice teachers' memories ISSN 2325-6389 117 of making memories of school, families and teachers carry their memories with them. At times they seek out these memories and at times they are unintentionally reactivated. Lawrence-Lightfoot (2004) refers to these memories as "ghosts" that continue to follow us as throughout the years, and even haunt us at times when one's present circumstances remind us of the past.
Research has identified a link between teachers' memories of school and current or future practices. Memories guide classroom management strategies (DePalma et al., 2011), teaching methods they view as effective (Fragnoli, 2005;MacPhee & Sanden, 2016;Scott, 2005), teacher dispositions they actively resist (Miller, 2017;Miller & Shifflet, 2016), visions of the 'iconic teacher' they hope to become (Cook, 2009), and perceptions of themselves as teachers (Flores & Day, 2006). While memories can inspire and motivate teachers, they also serve as a filter through which all new information is sifted. In fact, memories can hinder teachers' openness to new ideas or practices if they overly trust what was most memorable from their schooling (Feiman-Nemser, 1983;Hudson, Usak, Fancovicova, & Prokop, 2010). Without prompting, teachers do not always realize that their experiences are context-specific and may not effectively translate to other students or the changing landscape of classrooms (Kaya, 2018).
Much of the research to support the connection between the past and the present for future teachers stems from courses involving preservice teachers (e.g., Fragnoli, 2005 activities. This limited body of research suggests that our memories lead to mental models of how the social world should operate. In turn, these mental models guide our actions with and beliefs about families, and "we seldom question their accuracy" (Amatea, 2013, p. 20).

Theoretical Perspective
The first theoretical premise of this study is that of a family's cultural capital. Cultural capital proposes that when the cultural norms of a family match those of a school, that family, and subsequently the child, are given an educational advantage (Bourdieu, 1984;1986). Scholars suggest that traditional practices involving families are part of an entrenched system that caters to a mainstream model of home-school connections founded on White, middle-class practices (Crozier & Davies, 2007;de Carvalho, 2001;Patte, 2011). Schools are cultural spaces, as educators bring personal ideas and beliefs founded on their lived experiences and backgrounds (Delgado Gaitan, 2012). Children from higher-socioeconomic [SES] backgrounds commonly acquire the culture of schools within their families, which gives them the skills and knowledge that are desired by schools (Gracia, 2015).
Cultural practices and behaviors are not fixed and move in time with historical and societal changes. However, middle and upper-class families are often in a more privileged position to adapt home-based activities and behaviors in response to new expectations or demands of schools (Lareau, 2003;Roksa & Potter, 2011). Families may be involved in a myriad of nontraditional ways outside of the school walls, but those interactions may not be counted as 'involvement' or viewed as beneficial to children's development through practitioners' perspectives (Hughes & MacNaughton, 2000). School conceptions of what it means to be an engaged and invested family typically become a laundry list of what counts as good and acceptable based on teachers' personal biographies, and schools hold the power in applying that list to families (Calabrese Barton, Drake, Perez, St Loius, & George, 2004).
Families' participation in children's education has been constructed in a way that privileges the norms and expectation of White, middle-class populations from a traditional family structure (Doucet & Tudge, 2007). This may explain why middle-class families are more likely to actively engage with children's schooling (Levine-Rasky, 2009), and may also reflect the memories of many preservice teachers who match that demographic. Constraining the definition of what it means to be an involved or engaged parent often has the unintended consequence of failing to consider the needs, perspectives, and offerings of many ethnically or structurally diverse families (Crozier & Davies, 2007). This leads us to why it is important to consider home-school connections through a cultural capital lens and to think about how the structure of schools and perceptions of preservice teachers may create inequities in home-school connections.
The second theoretical premise of this study is Lortie's (1975) Apprenticeship of Observation. Preservice teachers have logged approximately 15,000 hours of classroom observations during their K-12 schooling. Those hours of observation lead to the dangerous assumption that they know how classrooms function and the role of the teacher (Kaya, 2018;Mahijos & Maxson, 1995). Lortie suggests that preservice teachers may unconsciously internalize their K-12 observations as effective teaching without questioning the intent or contextualized nature of what they observed. There is a growing awareness in teacher education that those memories must be directly examined in order to disrupt ineffective cycles of teaching (Browning, 2018;Darling-Hammond, 2006). Without unpacking those memories or recognizing how those memories inform their predispositions toward teaching, PSTs are likely to imitate those behaviors, including interactions with families. For example, Graue's (2005) research with elementary education preservice teachers demonstrated that observed practices in one's biography shape dispositions toward families and expectations of their roles in school.
Apprenticeship of Observation can help explain how family-oriented practices become institutionalized in school, and why teachers continue to adopt practices that might not work for the changing demographic and needs of families.

Methods
A qualitative research design was adopted to answer the guiding question: How do elementary education preservice teachers envision connecting with students' families as classroom teachers? The interpretivist design was founded on the premise that research is never purely objective and that multiple realities can exist (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007).
Therefore, to explore this topic, it required that information be gathered inductively from preservice teachers to understand the direct experience of individuals and their unique situations Kyle Elizabeth Miller ISSN 2325-6389 120 (Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006;Thanh & Thanh, 2015). Additionally, based on the theoretical framework of cultural capital, a critical lens accompanied the analysis and interpretation of data.
Components of Grounded Theory methodology were selected to align with the interpretivist paradigm and allowed for a critical interpretation of latent content (Corbin & Strauss, 2015).

Participants
All elementary education majors at a large teacher preparation program in the Midwest were invited to participate in the study. A total of 25 preservice teachers volunteered to participate, and the sample was purposefully stratified to include participants from freshman to seniors as a way to examine the potential influence of coursework or field experiences on responses. The student sample mirrored typical demographic trends for teacher education programs, with the majority of participants identifying as White, female, and middle class from suburban settings (Amatea et al., 2012). The majority of participants identified as female (88%) and White (76%); while 12% identified as male, 4% African American, 12% Latino/a, and 8% multi-racial. Thirty-six percent of the participants held freshman or sophomore status and had only completed general education courses, 36% were juniors enrolled in their elementary education required courses, and 28% were enrolled in student teaching. The majority of students attended K-12 public schools (84%), and 16% attended private schools as students.

Data Collection
Data included a pre-interview questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with the principal investigator. The questionnaire and interview asked participants to describe their anticipated practices for connecting with families, followed by an exploration of previous life experiences, school memories, and current coursework that contributed to notions of family connections. First, students recorded the strategies and/or approaches they plan to take with families as classroom teachers on the questionnaire. Second, participants recorded all of the strategies they recalled schools and teachers using to connect with their families. The questionnaire also asked participants to write about a school memory of home-school connections, based on the theoretical position that memories of observed practices create the filter through which new ideas are measured and adopted (Lortie, 1975). The semi-structured interview covered the same topics but allowed students to share their ideas verbally and extend responses from the questionnaire with researcher-generated probes. Interviews were audio-Preservice teachers' memories ISSN 2325-6389 121 recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis. There is much value in asking students to "look back" and to "look forward" through written and oral data collection strategies (Conway, 2001), and the triangulation of these strategies increased the trustworthiness of the study (Robson, 2002).

Data Analysis
Data analysis began after the first interview and continued throughout the data collection process. First, content analysis was used to categorize participants' written responses on the preinterview questionnaire of remembered practices and anticipated practices with families. The content analysis allowed for a systematic coding of listed home-school connection strategies with a goal to report on the frequency of the data (Vaismoradi, Turunen, & Bondas, 2013). Each strategy was tallied and then clustered into more inclusive descriptive titles. For example, 'family carnival,' 'family fun nights,' and 'end of the year family celebration' were grouped into Family Night. Second, interview transcripts were thematically analyzed through an open-axialselective coding process using techniques from grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2015).
Transcripts were reviewed line by line and codes were assigned to each new idea identified through a chunking procedure of content that fit together (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013).
Open codes were then compared across transcripts to develop a working codebook where codes were labeled and defined with examples (Boyatzis, 1998). The codebook served as a working document to recode the transcripts more systematically and reconfigure codes hierarchically through axial coding. Two researchers coded the transcripts independently and then compared codes until reaching consensus. Based on the ongoing process of coding and interrogation of data, the most frequent and meaningful themes were identified and compared across participants through a constant comparative method (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). These manifest themes resulted from the analysis of surface level data and reflected what participants explicitly stated in interviews (Boyatzis, 1998;Vaismoradi et al., 2013). Peer debriefings with an undergraduate student completing an independent research project helped to identify the selective coding of the data and determine the more latent storyline of study. The latent coding focused on the deeper, underlying messages in the data, which emerged through research memos and collaborative meetings (Boyatzis, 1998;Corbin & Strauss, 2015). NVivo12 was used to assist the data management and analysis.

Findings
The content analysis of the questionnaire led to a numeric representation of participants' memories and future plans in the classroom. Table 1 provides those findings to partially answer the study's primary question of how PSTs envision future home-school connections and the second subquestion related to the role of school memories. The table shows that teacher-initiated newsletters, notes, and emails were the most commonly recalled strategies and were also the most frequently named strategies reported in participants' plans for the future. desires to use many of the practices they observed as students, but to modernize the practice with technology. The third theme emerged from responses that referenced clinical experiences and internships as spaces that reinforced their plans to use traditional family involvement strategies.
The fourth theme raised questions over what counted as recognized efforts to work with families.
The manifest themes are listed below with quotations as evidence.

Involved Parents are at the School
Students repeatedly described involvement through the lens of physically showing up at school and events, as well as meeting with teachers. Interestingly, the recruitment materials, preinterview questionnaire, and interview script used the terms "connections" and "working with families" and purposefully did not incorporate the word involvement. However, participants repeatedly employed the term "involvement" when describing their memories and anticipated practices. The majority of participants labeled their parents as "involved" because they regularly communicated with teachers, served as classroom moms or chaperoned field trips. Only three participants categorized their parents as uninvolved, and it was qualified by explaining that they had work conflicts and could not attend school events. One participant shared: My mom was a class mom and helped out in the classroom. I would like to do something like that in my classroom. Where I grew up, if your mom wasn't a class mom, it was like, "well, what in the hell is she doing then?" I know it's important, and I will just explain to parents that it's important to be involved. Most parents like to do that stuff. Two participants did not contribute to this theme and sentiment that involvement should occur at the school. One participant expressed annoyance as she recalled the days of mothers helping with fundraisers and classroom parties. "Look, my parents were not your typical PTA parents. They worked a lot. They cared, but they worked a lot. I'm not sure everyone gets that." The other participant explained that a household with four children required a strict routine to get everything accomplished, and her family did not have the luxury of time to attend family events.
These participants did not label their parents as uninvolved, rather rejected the ritualized practices of school-based involvement. These participants assumed they would offer these types of classroom-based opportunities for parents who were interested but would never judge parents who could not volunteer during the day or at afterschool events.

Same Practice, Electronic Format
Students spoke about their desire to continue many practices their teachers utilized with parents; however, they planned to modernize the practices by making them web-based or electronic. Newsletters were the top strategy that students recalled and planned to replicate in their classroom, followed by sending home individual notes. Newsletters were also named as the only concrete strategy learned from their coursework, as one course assignment asked students to write a newsletter for parents. Participants noted that society has changed and although they believed the strategy was effective, they wanted to make it more relevant with the use of

Field-Based Experiences Reinforced Anticipated Practices
Relationships with cooperating teachers through internships, clinical experience, and student teaching helped participants to further commit to their anticipated practices of family relationships by seeing the strategy in a classroom. Even for freshman and sophomore students who had not participated in university-supervised clinical experiences, they all reported involvement in high-school based internships with preschools and K-12 schools that exposed them to real world teaching practices. Participants observed many one-way communication strategies that reminded them of their own schooling experience. This theme also overlapped with the previous theme of modernizing traditional practices, as some of their cooperating teachers embraced digital practices. Witnessing a licensed teacher use a practice with students and families reinforced the belief that it was an effective practice.
One participant stated: My cooperating teacher posts everything to a website so that parents can look at it whenever. I think that's what I will do, too. It is like the idea of sending home a newsletter, but just easier to get to and you don't have to trust that your students will take it home.
Similarly, another participant echoed the same sentiment: I noticed when I was doing my observations that one teacher did this blog type of thing. It was some website to let the parents go on all the time and, like, keep it updated. I think that's a really cool idea especially like with technology now. Everything's online.
Participants viewed technology as a strategy that teachers used, rather than a tool they used to continue established practices. Again, it reinforced the latent notion that what they observed must represent progress in home-school connections.
Preservice teachers' memories ISSN 2325-6389 127 One participant did not contribute to this theme and questioned some of the practices she observed in the field. She reflected on her two years of observations and clinical experiences and the movement to digitalize classrooms and work with families. She stated, "I'm not a huge fan of email, and sometimes texts do not get read the right way. Blogs might be fine, but I would rather just have a 30-second conversation. Thirty seconds can go a long way." She later referred to herself as "old fashioned" when it came to working with families because she did not plan on using the new forms of technology displayed by teachers in the field. This participant was the exception to the larger sample.
Based on literature in the field, it was expected that coursework would be named as a contributing factor on anticipated practices. When comparing upper and lower-level students and the reported influence of coursework, there was no notable difference. On the open-ended questionnaire, upper-level students named between two and four courses that integrated content on families. During the interviews, participants did not discuss the impact of their coursework until they were prompted by the interviewer. Participants reported that the perceived message from the family-related content was that they should expect a diverse range of families and need to keep an open mind.
With the exception of the newsletter, which was described earlier, coursework did not contribute to anticipated practices with families. One participant said, "I would say I feel prepared to work with families only because of my work experience with [name of school district] as a tutor. As far as my classes here, they haven't prepared me to work with families." This quotation is indicative of participant responses. Freshman and sophomore participants had not received content related to families but assumed they would before graduation. Instead, they relied on prior work experiences or high school internships to reinforce their selected strategies.
Juniors and seniors regretted the lack of skills and knowledge gained through coursework and relied on field-based experiences to reinforce anticipated practices with families.

Informal Versus Institutionalized Practices
As interviews progressed from more formal practices, such as conferences and newsletters, participants shared memories of parents engaging in informal conversations with their K-12 teachers. They described these as the most meaningful in that they were personalized and related to their individual success in the classroom. However, participants who described this personal communication also questioned if it "counted." As shared in the above theme, one participant believed that even a short conversation carries more value than other types of connections but was not sure how she would actually document it as proof that she is involving families in her classroom. Like this participant, many wondered if an informal conversation was a "thing" in working with families, an actual practice. Although participants envisioned these conversations occurring and recognized them as meaningful, they questioned if they could be part of their plan, since these anticipated moments are often unpredictable and might not involve all students. A few participants had observed this practice during summer jobs at early childhood centers but had not encountered these conversations at the elementary level. One can assume they might occur outside of the school day and were, therefore, not reinforced as an actual practice or part of a teacher's efforts.
Drawing on the data from the questionnaire, participants described these informal

Examining Memories
The findings from this study call attention to how family content is covered in teacher education courses. The reflective activities used in this study could be integrated into students' coursework as a form of intervention by acknowledging Lortie's (1975) apprenticeship of observation concept. Exploring student memories of school is one avenue of reflection to explore and disentangle the past. The reflective exercise of 'looking back' and 'looking forward' can allow students to critically review their autobiographies in order to disrupt and transform the cycle of reproduction in teaching (Conway, 2001;Gomez et al., 2000). Considering the majority of preservice teachers come from a White and middle-class background, their memories inspire the use of practices that privilege certain families and constrain the definition of what it means to be involved or care about a child's education (Bourdieu, 1986;Crozier & Davies, 2007;Gracia, 2015). For example, a family that does not show up to events might be viewed as disinterested or Exploring preservice teachers' autobiographies should serve as the initial step in creating new methods for getting to know and effectively connect with families (Graue, 2005;Graue & Brown, 2003;Winder & Corter, 2016 Hankins (2003) describes how teachers and parents can collaborate to examine family pasts and subsequently imagine new futures for students. By critically examining and reflecting on stories, individuals begin to see their current behaviors from a new angle and identify the interconnectedness between the past and present. Hankins writes, "When teachers, parents, and students share their stories, empathize, and work together toward a common goal, we can rewrite children's stories, replacing the "expected" endings with ones that inspire others to see children and families as partners" (p. 22). This process can disrupt the mental models of home-school connections that teachers bring to the classroom and helps to challenge the notion that a onesize-fits all approach with families will work in today's classrooms (Crozier & Davies, 2007;Graue, 2005;Stefanski et al., 2016).

One-Way Versus Two-Way Communication
This research illuminates the influence that previous experiences can expend on future teaching practices. Not surprisingly, memories of one-way communication, such as newsletters, transcended into participants' anticipated plans. Over a decade after Graue's (2005) study with preservice teachers, this study identified a similar finding that most imagined interactions were unilateral. The teacher and school were viewed as the experts and must share that expertise with families, and that information should consistently flow from the school to home. This envisioned practice was reinforced by a course assignment and experiences with teachers in the field. Historically, one-way communication has dominated schools' efforts to connect with families, where information flows from the school to the home (Allen, 2007;Moll, 2015). The traditional one-way model is built upon the premise that teachers are the experts and families are the passive party in need of assistance (Baum & Swick, 2008;Ramirez et al., 2016). It is founded on the assumption that the school knows something that the family does not and must be educated (Faber, 2015). The paradigm of collaboration was not reflected in participants' responses, instead anticipated connections aimed to remediate families' presumed lack of expertise (Amatea, 2013).
Several participants recalled the importance of informal conversations between teachers and parents but were hesitant to call it a practice and were unsure how to weave it into their anticipated practices. However, time dedicated to authentic conversations is documented as an effective and meaningful strategy as it lends itself to two-way communication (Amatea, Chowela, & Mixon, 2012). Two-way communication allows for a flow of information both from the school to home and from the home to school, which reflects a more equal and balanced partnership. Scholars suggest that two-way communication is more instrumental in creating trust and respect between parents and teachers, because the bidirectional flow of information opens up communication to all parties and allows families to share what they know about their child (Baker et al., 2016;Olson & Hyson, 2005). However, it is less frequently established in school communities because schools continue to recycle the traditional one-way model as teachers are often underprepared to cultivate mutually beneficial relationships with families (Allen, 2007;Evans, 2013;Hughes & MacNaughton, 2000). Seemingly, participants in this study were driven by institutionalized practices that seemed to count as home-school connections rather than preparing for the improvisation of teaching and those authentic, informal moments (Baker et al., 2016;Graue, 2005).
There was also a disconnect between participants' thinking about families and the behaviors they anticipated using with families. They expressed an openness to families and recognized that families are changing; however, prospective strategies to work with families fit a restricted definition of families and a one-size fits all approach. For example, one participant wrote on her questionnaire that she would connect with families in "any way possible." When she was asked to expand on her comment during the interview she struggled to identify any concrete strategies other than newsletters and emails. The vagueness and theoretical nature of PSTs' originality and creativity in imagining future home-school connections and specifically two-way communication.

Implications
Implications of this study call for more attention to be directed toward clinical placements and authentic curricular experiences. As described in the findings, cooperating teachers play a key role in reinforcing preservice teachers' mental models of home-school connections. Clinical sites serve as a critical space for the development of attitudes toward families and adopting family-related practices. How preservice teachers are socialized for the field is important to consider in relationship with cooperating teachers and other school personnel who may consciously or unconsciously transfer attitudes and assumptions about families. While the knowledge and skills gained in students' courses are decontextualized, clinical experiences are contextualized and make a profound impact on the attitudes of future teachers. In fact, preservice teachers claim that their most influential moments come from field based experiences, where many outdated practices continue to be utilized (Guyton & McIntyre, 1990;Koerner, Rust, & Baumgartner, 2002).
Schools still gravitate toward formalized practices such as newsletters and homework planners and view those activities as their link to families (Allen, 2007;Crozier & Davies, 2007).
Those observed practices further assure PSTs that their anticipated strategies are school-endorsed and reflect progress or innovation in home-school connections. Districts could benefit greatly from professional development on two-way and culturally relevant connections with families; and in turn, it would benefit the preparation of PSTs for their future classrooms.
Previous studies suggest family-oriented coursework can disrupt or challenge students' worldviews or belief systems about home-school connections (Kintner-Duffy et al., 2012).
However, theoretical and hypothetical discussions may not provide the scaffolding PSTs need to establish meaningful connections in the real world. Findings in this study call for more curricular opportunities that allow for authentic experiences with families in order to better understand families and challenge their current mental models of home-school connection (Kim & Taylor, 2016;Ramirez et al., 2016). Such experiences could include attending a family event, listening to a parent panel, interviewing a parent, or following a parent blog. Additionally, the lack of curricular exposure to innovation in home-school connections can help to explain the recycling of traditional practices, as well as from a fear of being judged (Wanless, Patton, Rimm-Kaufman, & Deutsch, 2012) or believing these strategies are fixed and expected of teachers (Mutton, Burn, & Thompson, 2018). Therefore, programs should provide preservice teachers with a range of different settings and experiences to meet and engage with families (Kim & Taylor, 2016), possibly even outside of a typical teaching-learning environment to learn more innovative and culturally relevant practices from the field of social work or community-based programs (Stefanski et al., 2016). Clinical hours spent with social workers, family outreach workers, or after-school personnel can introduce preservice teachers to different perspectives, models of home-school connections, and strategies.

Limitations
Findings should be considered with an appreciation of their limitations. While multiple data sources were used to support triangulation, all data were generated from the perspective of preservice teachers. The data reflect perceptions of coursework and interpretation of classroom observations and clinical experiences. Adjusting the research design to include data from teacher educators and cooperating teachers would help to create a more comprehensive depiction of this phenomenon. Further, diversifying the sample to include more PSTs from different ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds can expand the findings of how PSTs from less privileged backgrounds fit with or challenge the identified findings in this study. Next steps for this line of inquiry include a follow-up study with participants as they enter the field as licensed classroom teachers. How are plans implemented or changed when met with the demands, supports and institutional culture of a real world setting?

Conclusion
As family partnerships become an essential and mandatory aspect of teaching (Epstein, 2013;Hyson, 2003), teacher preparation programs are increasing efforts to address this topic, which has historically lacked in most programs (Amatea et al., 2012). The current school rhetoric of "family partnerships" is a misnomer, as most connections with families tend to be one-sided and a one-size-fits all approach that is dictated by schools (Amatea, 2013;Christenson & Sheridan, 2001). Unexamined memories contribute to the recycling of one-sided practices as they become the default for activities with and attitudes toward families. Memories do not act in Preservice teachers' memories ISSN 2325-6389 133 isolation and are reinforced by PSTs' coursework and field based experiences. Teacher education should help PSTs construct an understanding that technology is a tool, not a strategy, and digitalizing one-way connections is not progress. The consensus is that families matter, and they deserve a reinvention of traditional home-school connections to meaningfully collaborate with schools and teachers.