Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Experience With "Student Led Conferences" ???

So to me, it sounds like the majority of you who are unhappy with student led conferences have never experienced the leadership model in your schools. It is unfortunate because they really can be an amazing opportunity for your students to become better organized, set goals (yes, at any age) which leads to accountability and sense of ownership over the grade that they receive. It often takes the surprise element out of the grade that the student actually receives versus the grade they perceive they deserve because proof of the work is charted and organized continuously throughout the marking period by the student and they show this evidence to the parent at the student led conference. My daughter is in charge of her education using this model because when her grade starts to slide down, she is aware of it immediately and can set new goals to attempt to get back on the right track. If she does not, the evidence is presented by her at the student led conference and she has to be accountable for the quality of work she produced during the marking period. Or the alternative to the leadership mode/data notebooks/student led conference is that I can just wait all marking period to hear about it privately from the teacher and feel "stuck" with the end result at that point. That sounds productive.

It's great that this system is working for your daughter, but that doesn't mean it will work for everyone. My DD might really enjoy it. One of my sons would probably resent it, and see it as more busy work forcing him to tell everyone what they already know because of online grading systems and weekly email summaries (possibly; we've been getting them for years, anyway). For me, the conferences are a way for teachers and parents to discuss known strengths and weaknesses, having had time to think about them and observe progress since the last meeting.

I expect that some young kids would experience a level stress over having to lead a conference that wouldn't be outweighed by whatever benefits they might receive.

As for owning their educations, I can't agree with you. Ownership implies an authority to make decisions that doesn't exist here: you can decide to do your homework or not. That's nothing new. And if you got a D on your science test, you don't need a graph to tell you that your grade is going down.

And again, what you've described in your messages sounds exactly like annual performance reviews in industry (it wouldn't surprise me if this model is built around that idea). I've been through performance reviews and have given them, and IMO, they can end up being poor substitutes for continuous communication. They work for some, but not for many. But more importantly, I don't think that elementary school is a good place to be putting young kids into a position that resembles a adult's job in industry.

If my son had to lead a conference he would graph how much time he has extra to read novels while waiting for the rest of the class. And how many novels he reads per week. Really this school is doing a pretty good job of engaging him in several ways but he is such an outlier that they have their limits.

But he would say my STAR score isn't going to go up if you don't give me work in my ZPD and actually teach me the advanced lit analysis. But they did make him set a goal for increase in score. And he would say he needs help finding and selecting books (his own personal bookfinder).

I've already weighed in on this much earlier in the thread, and don't really have anything new to add to the discussion, other than I agree with kelly and our family has found that student-led conferences have been a good experience for our kids on many levels. Like kelly, my guess from the posts here are that most people who are so dead-set against the concept haven't really been exposed to what a student-led conference is in practice.

I don't have time or desire to go through all the different points of view, but did want to address one thing:


I can completely understand this concern, so please know I'm not singling you out Val - but I do want to share what has happened in our family, with two kids who have significant anxiety, for two different reasons.

Our ds is a kid who reacts to stressful situations with anxiety. He has an expressive language disorder that impacts his ability to put his thoughts together and express them verbally to other people. He has had to go through years of speech therapy for expressive language as well as years of support from home in learning how to express what he wants to say to others. His schools have included student-led conferences since kindergarten. Those first years of student-led conferences were extremely difficult for him - he didn't get many words out and he did stress out over the conferences - but through the years, by going through the process again and again he learned a valuable set of tools in how to advocate for himself, and he gained increasing self-confidence in talking to adults and teachers. He still struggled with this into early high school, but the conferences were a valuable tool in helping him find his voice.

I also have a completely neurotypical dd, no challenges, no fear of talking to adults, etc. - in most situations. OTOH, she becomes completely shy and full of anxiety at the mere thought of being "on stage" - so shy, for example, that even though she loves to dance she didn't take dance lessons until she was in middle school because she was so scared she'd have to perform in a recital. She took piano lessons in elementary from a teacher who firmly believed that every student should participate in an annual recital, just for parents, very small thing, and dd was so anxious over that recital that she worried about it for weeks. The teacher was adamant - she must do the recital because it will help her get over the fear of performing in front of others. It didn't - she froze, trembled, and cried silently so much that the teacher let her out of ever doing a recital again - the only student the teacher had ever let out of the recital obligation! Yet she's done fine with student-led conferences, and she has learned a lot about advocating and how to present herself from them. They have also reinforced with her the idea that she doesn't have to be scared, they are a place she can discuss her work with people she knows care about her (teachers and parents). And as she's grown and matured, I believe they are at least a small part of the supports that have helped her shed some of that shyness - she'll perform onstage now and enjoy it. She's not ready to be out front and a "star" but she's grown way past being so anxious she can't get up there.

There will always be some cases of kids or parents or teachers that one type of conference will or won't be perfect for... but we've truly seen good things come from the student-led conferences.

polarbear

I guess what people are saying is that they really can't advocate for very much or direct their own learning. They really aren't in charge of their own education so leading a little meeting isn't going to change much.

Exactly.

Polarbear, I see your point. At the same time, isn't there a better way for kids to develop public speaking skills? Like maybe in class --- small group presentations, then presentations to a larger group, etc?

I think the point was public speaking/advocating for oneself to adults and teachers, not to other students. Presenting in class would presumably be to one teacher and many peers.

As far as taking control of your own education, again, I disagree that there isn't much that they can control. I suppose it varies from student to student, but if you have a student that gets two questions wrong on a test and it causes them to slide down into the lower grade bracket, yet the student doesn't perceive missing two questions as being that big of a deal, but when charting it out and reviewing the data is able to make that correlation, then they can take control of their own education by reviewing and reestablishing their goals, talking to their teacher themselves to figure out what skills they are lacking in that they need to acquire and make a plan to do so, and communicating in real time with their parents, then I consider that a win-win situation all the way around. No, they can't control the curriculum, but they can assume control of the curriculum that they are being made to follow. We advocate for our kids all the time, I think it is great when my daughter can advocate for herself and obtain results that are measurable. It builds confidence and leadership and helps provide organizational skills.

We've had them for four years BUT I think what the problem is that ours (and probably many schools) just give lip-service to the concept but don't really use them effectively. They are nothing like what you describe Kelly! That's the problem I have: that they're 'pretending' to give the kids some control but really they have none. It's probably doing more harm than good! The 'goals' are chosen by the kids (probably randomly) from a set list of suggestions, there is no intention that anything in the classroom would change because of these goals, there is no followup to them at any stage … pointless.
In fact, the school year ends here in about 7 weeks, you've just given me the idea to ask about those goals and whether anyone has even looked at them since they were set

Here is an example of not much control.

My son last year was in 5th grade. He did a bazillion assignments per class per nine weeks. Many of them perfect. Many of them homework. Many of them classwork. Some small assignments, some more involved projects. Projects that he would spend tons of nights doing that included visual aids of some sort, report, presentation...might get graded and feed back but never entered into grade book. Some random 5 question quiz gets put in the grade book and sometimes the quizzes didn't go with what they were studying at the time but were review of 4th grade work that "might" show up on the end of they year test and they were trying to keep that in their memory and my son would get a 2 out of 5. No chance to review those concepts and retake. The whole grading thing was so RANDOM. How could he set goals with that? Put hours and hours into stuff (some written/presented in a second language in addition to presenting in material that he had to research) and it takes second fiddle to a 5 question random quiz. I completely gave up trying to make sense of the whole thing and just knew that although 5th grade was lame and totally random, he needed to be there to mature and grow and grades just didn't matter.

AvoCado and Cookie, I agree with your frustration. They may be calling that a student led conference, but its mislabeled because a true student led conference should add value, not subtract. I can understand your frustration. Have you considered doing some research on what an effective student led conference should "look" like (i.e..the leadership model) and present it at the PTA meeting (I say the PTA meeting because at our PTA meeting the principal is usually present, plus a teacher representative from every grade level). I would try to turn the ship around. I know it seems like an uphill battle and like you can't fight city hall, but someone has to be the voice of reason. What is the famous quote: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Until they implement some actual structure and productivity, then I would also be frustrated with that type of conference and would probably not be likely to want to attend.