conference time

In a few days it will be November, the final days of first term - and time for conferences. Some of you will be hosting traditional parent conferences, others will be doing student-led ones, still others a combination of the two. Whichever your preference (and you know which mine is!), here are some resources that may inspire or at least assist you.

This article from Education World, Student-Led Conferences Hold Kids Accountable, addresses student led conferences at a middle school level. But there's also information in it that would pertain to any grade level.

Here's an article about student-led conferences from Scholastic titled Let Your Students Take the Lead. In five sections, this article describes SLCs at a K-7 school in Vancouver. The part about Stephen dressing up is so true - kids are so proud of themselves when they conference with their families.

Peppered throughout Caity's Conference are scenarios depicting SLCs in this Oregon school district. Good ideas for conferences are intermingled with comments from parents and teachers. Note the date of the article - 1996. Student-Led Conferences have been around for a long time!

This writer shares some tools and techniques that she's employed holding student-led conferences at a private school in Colorado. I love the graphic she uses to depict the child's goal - and I especiallylike the fact that she has the child set a character goal as well as academic ones. What a great idea! When Students Lead Conferences: A Home and School Partnership - written specifically for teachers new to the concept!

Now, several links about communicating effectively with parents. Communicating with Parents and Families reminds us of the communication and interpersonal skills that make for an effective parent conference and features words of wisdom from veteran teachers. 27 Tips for Parent Communication is just that: an annotated list of good practices to employ when collaborating or conferencing with parents. And from the Vermont NEA, 15 Ideas for Successful Parent-Teacher Conferences - a simple list of good practices.

Thankfully, it doesn't happen often, but it's happened to all of us - a problem with a parent. Getting Along with Grown-ups, taken from a new Jossey-Bass book, Teacher Talk, describes several typical parent issues and gives you some strategies for dealing with them. Here's hoping you won't need to use them.

Finally, an anecdote. When asked what the best thing was about participating in a student-led conference, one of my former second graders told me it was having her mom, her dad and her teacher all at the same table all talking about the same thing - her! I was astounded that that aspect never occurred to me. But think of it: there you all are - the most important adults in a kid's life and you're having a conversation about the child. What kid wouldn't just love that?