We use The Leader in Me philosophy at our school. This is a Covey program that spins off of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leaders and teaches 7 habits of leadership to kids to help them build better personal leadership skills and develop personal accountability (which in my opinion is strongly lacking in kids these days thanks to helicopter parenting). Student led conferences are an opportunity for the students at our school to record their data in their leadership notebooks and to sit with their parents and go over the information/charts/graphs to demonstrate what goals they set for themselves, the plant that they used to achieve the goals, and whether or not they had success in reaching their goals. If they were successful, it gives them the opportunity to decide if their goals should be expanded and if they did not meet them; then it gives them an opportunity to reflect on the reasons why and make the necessary adjustments, and it gives the parents the visual aids and data to understand why their student is receiving the grade that they are receiving. I enjoy student led conferences because I love the ownership that the student has to demonstrate over their own learning and grade. They are constantly logging results in the notebook, so if they are failing, they should be meeting with their teachers to come up with a plan to change the course. They have to bring the data notebooks home periodically for review with the parents so parents are informed and kept in the loop. If there was a serious concern or problem, the teachers are always available to meet and discuss issues in a private conference. It is great to see how confident and organized our young leaders can be!
