Student-led conferences are a trending topic in the educational world. The idea of a student-led conference, as described in the YouTube video titled Student Involved Assessment, is that a teacher meets with both a student and their parent, with the hope of shifting accountability back to the student. Having both a student and their parent in the room with the teacher during a conferences opens up communication between the three parties. According to When Students Lead Parent-Teacher Conferences by Countryman and Schroeder (1996), what parents hear at home from their student is often quite different from the information that a teacher expresses during a conference, forcing parents to side with one party or the other. Teachers are then forced to either advocate for the student, or act on the defensive about their own practices. During student-led conferences, students are forced to have an honest conversation with their parent about their grades and classroom performance.
I am lucky enough to work at a school that requires students to enter the room with their parent during conferences. However, these meetings have never been deemed "student-led", nor have I put much effort into making the student the initiator during the conference. After viewing this YouTube clip and doing a little further research, I have decided to make my upcoming Parent-Teacher Conferences (on Wednesday) student-led. Although student-led conferences take a great deal of preparation, I believe that I can slowly start to implement this now, although time is limited, and build upon it in the coming quarters.
To begin, I will need to prepare students for their conference. Students need an opportunity to reflect upon their performance and evaluate their efforts. According to Countryman and Schroeder (1996), students should be assessing five different areas of focus that I have described below:
-Do I express my ideas clearly?
-Am I self-motivated to do my work, and do I take the initiative when I need help?
-Do I think deeply, or give up on difficult work?
-Am I involved in school activities?
-Do I collaborate and work well with others?
Students will be given these questions during a class period prior to their conference, and have adequate time to journal about their responses. I particularly like these reflection questions because they cover student performance on multiple levels, not just academics.
It is then suggested by both Countryman and Schroeder (1996) and the YouTube video that students create a portfolio of work to share with their parent. My plan is to simplify this, and have students select two pieces of work; something they are proud of, and something that demonstrates what they need to work on. Students will share this work with their parents during the conference.
The final piece of advice that I gathered from When Students Lead Parent-Teacher Conferences is to allow students uninterrupted time to present their reflections and portfolios to their parents. By asking parents to write down their questions on an index card during the conference and saving them until the end of the meeting, it allows the student to calmly present their self-evaluation without feeling threatened or nervous by an angry parent. I plan to use this practice as well during my conferences on Wednesday.
I have sat through many conferences when students deny any awareness of their low grade and parents angrily begin punishing students before they even leave my room. It is my hope that by slowly changing students to the moderator of their own conferences, parents will give their child an opportunity to explain their progress and weaknesses.
Countryman, L.L., & Schroeder, M. (1996). When students lead parent-teacher conferences. Educational Leadership, 53, 64-68.
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