Parent - teacher conferences? How do you think people feel about them? For me, it was one of the most nerve wracking times of the year. "I hope that my parents like me!" "I hope I don't say the wrong thing!" "I hope they tell me their child likes my class!"
I would put together a list of things I had to say for each student, but I was so nervous, I rushed though everything! After answering their questions, the parents asked, "That's it?" To tell you the truth, I felt bad with how quickly I got through the conferences - I could have done better. I could have shown them more examples of their child's work...
I remember as a child, we were not allowed to attend conferences. It was ONLY for parents. While that may have been okay when we were kids, the world has changed quite a bit. When I started teaching more than 13 years ago, it was strictly parent(s) and teacher - or rather, it was supposed to be. Every year it seemed more and more parents brought their children with them - and often times it was your student along with all of their siblings!
This was *one of* the reasons my principal had us make the switch to student led conferences. Yes, every class K-5 in our school holds student led conferences! (Reminder - I teach first.)
First let me start off by telling you what I tell parents at back to school night:
"We don’t hold traditional conferences here. Instead, we hold student led conferences. There are two reasons we do this. The first reason is, if we had an issue or concern about your child, we would have contacted you well before November.
The second reason is that this gives the students a chance to share their learning with you. Think about it: How many times do you ask your child what they did at school and they say 'nothing' or 'I don't know!' Now you'll actually find out! They do an amazing job!
Since these are student led conferences, we are able to have multiple conferences going on at once."
Yes, you read that last line correctly. We have multiple conferences going on at once! I have the parents sign up on sign up genius. (I post the link on Class Dojo.) For parents who don't sign up, I send home a form for them to fill out and then I sign them up on sign up genius. Here is a preview of what my sign up genius looks like:
As you can see, for each time I have four slots available. I like to set my conference times so every half hour I can have a new batch of families. I have my first conference starting at 4:00 and my last conference ending at 7:00. What's really great about using this website is you can have the website automatically send an email reminder to parents!
To accommodate having upwards of four families in my room, I have my room set up so each family is in a different part of my classroom. Note: There are times a family might come in early or late. That is fine - I generally have another spot or two they can sit.
For families who bring their other children with them, I have paper and crayons available to keep them busy. Sometimes I take out Play-Doh.
I'm sure you all are thinking, "Enough with the signing up! What does it look like? What are students supposed to present or show? What are they supposed to say?"
I've got you covered.
I have a notebook for each student. K-2 mainly uses notebooks. Grades 3-5 mainly use Chromebooks. I know of others who use the Portfolios feature on Class Dojo.
Throughout the year, I put papers in their notebooks that show a variety of their strengths and weaknesses. There are other things I have / currently put in there for students to share:
- Our school's mission statement
- Our school rules and our classroom rules
- A monthly scrapbook where students write something they did each month of school. They simply write a sentence or two and then illustrate it.
- At the end of the year they write, "In first grade I learned and in second grade I hope to learn..."
- A place for students to write out their goals for the year
- Things they can do well / things they want to be better at
- A list of sight words where the ones they know are highlighted
- A graph of their reading level for each month of school
- Their own personal report card of how they think they are doing in various subjects and with how they work
- A reflection piece at the end where the parents write how they think their child is doing and the child writes how they think they are doing
Here are some resources from Teachers Pay Teachers that I've used before:
First Grade Data Binder
Organizer for Data and Reading
Pre-Conference Survey
Other things my students have shared before:
- Words Their Way Journal
- Writing journal
- Math Minutes binder
- Special projects we've done in class
- A book from their guided reading group
Pick and choose what works best for you!
The next step - prepping your students!
In the week leading up to conferences, I practice with my class. I'm lucky enough to have a co-teacher so when I introduce this to my class, I'm the student and I share my data notebook (a notebook belonging to one of my students,) with my "mom," (co-teacher.) If my co-teacher isn't available, I'll pick a student to be my mom or dad. The students love seeing us act! Then I have the students practice with me (as the majority of the first pages are the same for everyone.) I will have to record this next year and upload it to this blog.
After practicing as a whole class a couple of times, I have the students pair up and practice with each other. My co-teacher and I will also pull the students and practice with them.
I even have my students whose parents speak Spanish, practice in Spanish!
It's kind of tiring, but it's so worth it when you see the looks of the parents as their children share with them what they have learned! They are truly so proud of their children!
I've had parents in (happy) TEARS because they had no idea what their child had learned or was capable of doing before until they saw them in action during conferences. I've had parents tell me that this type of conference really helps them understand their child's strengths and weaknesses. This opens up a very healthy conversation of "How can I help my child?" The relationship that blossoms between students, their families, and teachers is a beautiful one!
I've been holding student led conferences for over ten years - and I can't imagine doing it any other way!
I hope you all have a wonderful day!
Feel free to drop a line with questions or comments!
~Stacey~
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