student led conferences

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student led conferences
By emme

I teach First Grade, in a school of Pre K, to First Grade. We all do traditional conferences for our first ones, in the fall. In the spring, our conferences are to be student-led, mandated by the admin. I LOVE student
led conferences. There are no harried looking parents waiting on chairs in the hall, no teachers running late because someone went over or arrived late, no tension as you check the clock to be sure you are on time. Just relaxed parents spending time in the room finding out what their child has been doing.
I set up authentic classroom activities around the room in reading, writing, phonics

dictation, math, computers. Sometimes we include a Science experiment or SS graph. The parents have a notebook telling them what skill level to look for in each activity, and what red flags could indicate to them that extra attention is needed.

I welcome them and visit each student/parent group several times in the 30 to 60 minutes they are in the room together, to be sure the parents understand the booklet and to be sure their time together is going smoothly. I warmly thank them for coming as they leave. I'm still finished in the same time frame as the traditonal interviews, but with so much less stress, no lineups, no clock checking, and with the parents finding out first hand how their child is doing in the major subject areas. These are a GREAT way to run conferences. Late in the Spring I schedule face to face interviews only with the few that are really struggling.