Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ???

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Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? daytripper75 #224405 10/25/15 03:24 PM
Joined: Jun 2012 Posts: 517 M Mahagogo5 Member
Mahagogo5 Member M Joined: Jun 2012 Posts: 517	Originally Posted by daytripper75 Our school does them, it's a TAG school. It's actually adorable. DD will sit in the teacher's seat and go through papers that she personally selected for each subject and tells us what she was learning and why she was proud of the work she had done. Once she had said her piece, she went into the hallway and we had a chance to speak to the teacher alone. We've had a couple of issues at the school. In third grade, dd was failing math and the school wanted her to move back a year in math to be on grade level. We did not find this to be acceptable after talking with dd and how she felt about the work. We hired a tutor and got her up to par pretty quickly. The school admitted they were wrong and apologized. We also had trouble with one of the specials teachers, half dd being stubborn and half the teacher being stubborn. This was never resolved. I find that conferences are a better place to sit and listen and that making appointments when we have longer than 15 minutes is best for real issues. This would work for me, you need to have that time without the child in the room. My DD at age 5 does NOT need to know all my concerns about what goes on in the classroom.

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? Val #224406 10/25/15 03:27 PM
Joined: May 2012 Posts: 235 N nicoledad Member
nicoledad Member N Joined: May 2012 Posts: 235	Student led conferences are the biggest waste of time. They know most parents won't go to them and thus it gives administrators and teachers pay without having to do any work.

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? shifrbv #224413 10/25/15 09:15 PM
Joined: Apr 2013 Posts: 202 A AvoCado Member
AvoCado Member A Joined: Apr 2013 Posts: 202	I find them a bit pointless. We're in DD's classroom all the time looking at her work, and discussing school with her, but we go anyway because she likes to show n tell I don't treat it as a catchup with the teacher at all, we schedule those separately. I suppose there are parents who are not at all interested in their children's education, so it's good to force them to come in and look around once a year? The goals the children set for themselves are pretty much spoon fed to them - DD made up her own one for the first time this year, which is great. But we never have a second conference (also that word: it's just a meeting!) later in the year to see how it all went

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? AvoCado #224417 10/26/15 01:30 AM
Joined: Dec 2012 Posts: 2,035 P puffin Member
puffin Member P Joined: Dec 2012 Posts: 2,035	The problem i see is that if you can't be at school muyou ch as you work and the kids go to afterschool care then you need to be able to talk to the teacher during the meetings. If you are at school often enough to not need to talk to the teacher then you have probably seen the work. Parent teacher interveiws are the only time we get told about test results etc so although they are supposed to be tgree way i leave the kids outside.

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? shifrbv #224418 10/26/15 03:09 AM
Joined: Aug 2012 Posts: 128 R ruazkaz Member
ruazkaz Member R Joined: Aug 2012 Posts: 128	We discuss school often with DS and do not need to do this again at school. We would like the opportunity to discuss his performance/issues with the teacher instead. I agree that student led conferences are a waste of time.

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? shifrbv #224427 10/26/15 06:59 AM
Joined: Dec 2011 Posts: 187 K kelly0523 Member
kelly0523 Member K Joined: Dec 2011 Posts: 187	This is a great article that explains the pro's of a student led conference and why it is important for your student to participate in a conference. If there are extra ordinary issues that you wish to address, they can always be addressed in private with the teacher, at the end of the student led conference. http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/middle.htm

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? shifrbv #224521 10/27/15 05:17 PM
Joined: Apr 2013 Posts: 202 A AvoCado Member
AvoCado Member A Joined: Apr 2013 Posts: 202	Well I think it's bogus that the child actually has any input into their own education - they're taught what they're taught and measured against a predetermined set of standards and none of us, especially an 8 yo, gets much say in that

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? kelly0523 #224528 10/27/15 07:37 PM
Joined: May 2012 Posts: 235 N nicoledad Member
nicoledad Member N Joined: May 2012 Posts: 235	The reality is in middle school teachers can have 100+ students. Conferences are mostly scheduled during the day in our district. Most kids don't want to go and certainly don't want to lead a conference. our district goes over MAP testing scores that you know already. Most people on this thread have an interest in kids education. thus to me the conference is unnecessary.

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? spaghetti #224529 10/27/15 08:15 PM
Joined: Jul 2015 Posts: 34 M Marcy Junior Member
Marcy Junior Member M Joined: Jul 2015 Posts: 34	Originally Posted by spaghetti The assumption of the conferences is that it's a time for parents to learn about what their child has been doing in school. So, it lets the kid tell the parent and takes the teacher out of the hot seat. Our union is pushing for them to ease the "burden" on teachers. They hope that there will be fewer conferences where the teachers ask administrator to sit in. So the school system is also pushing for it. This is ridiculous. Schools that I have attended as a student or my son has attended always just had an open house night for that. About a month into school they have a few hours, like 5-7pm where parents can come in and see their children's work displayed, how the class is set up and what they're doing. It seems a huge waste of time better spent discussing things more important to your child to have a "child-led" conference. While I obviously care that my son's education is individualized, I don't think that he should in any way be in charge of it. Given his druthers he would spend the day on Minecraft and Legos.

Re: Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ??? shifrbv #224533 10/27/15 09:39 PM
Joined: Feb 2011 Posts: 833 somewhere out there F frannieandejsmom Member
frannieandejsmom Member F Joined: Feb 2011 Posts: 833 somewhere out there	I ike the student led conferences. I like seeing my kids take charge. This is when they get to advocate with me sitting there. My son especially, whose needs are not being met in our district, is more confident with me next to him to speak up to his teachers. The kids do go over some work samples. They go over fall MAP scores and they state what their goal for spring MAP is. This often differs from the targeted growth target. They write a plan ahead of time to state how they will meet that goal. I see it as prepping them for the future as adults in the workplace. Teaching them how to set goals and set up the way to achieve them. If I need to speak with a teacher without my kids, I have no problem emailing or calling and doing just that.

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