At home student led conferences

My amazing teaching partner (She teaches Math/Science with my Am/PM kids), works with me to create student led conferences. We both simultaneously decided to do this one fall. We worked out a plan, a script and implemented them one year. It was the best conference week of my professional career! No longer was I "telling" parents about their children, but the children were presenting their acheivements to their families in a way that suited their family culture.

Have you ever been nervous about a conference? Sometimes I know a student isn't having classroom success. I wonder how a parent will react. They react differently when their child presents the information. Parents can't lie when their kids are there. No more, "but they had fabulous grades last year". With SLC's the child says, "No I didn't. I had "C's and D's).

Since the time when we started SLC's for fall conferences, we have now progressed to students continuing the process throughout the year. Obviously, we can't be there with our 60 kids, but since our parents and students experienced the conference in the fall, they know what to expect. Kids write their scripts, collect their works, practice with a partner and then we send home the materials for their at-home conferences.

We coordinate this process together. We know that families are busy, so they have the week and perhaps the weekend to compelte this process. Yesterday we starting getting back the most wonderful notes on our sign off sheet. Parents loved the opportunity to understand the grades and see their child present.

I need to write more on this at some point, but must stop here.