Guest Post: The Power of Student Led Conferences by Sheldon Soper

The Power of Student Led Conferences

The parent-teacher conference is an age-old educational tradition. At these meetings, parents sit down with their child’s teacher(s) and the two parties exchange some insights about a child’s progress. Meanwhile, both parties are typically evaluating each other: what impact is the other is having on the child in question? How can this group of adults work together to positively impact the student?

When all is said and done, there’s a problem with this format: while it is about students, it very seldom involves students.

In schools across the globe, a shift is happening that is transforming the parent-teacher conference into a student-led conference. In these conferences, the script gets flipped and the adults get real feedback from the most important stakeholders, the students. This fundamental change can be the launching point for more meaningful conversations about growth and the student as a whole.

How It’s Done

The majority of what you need to know about student-led conferences is in the name. On conference day, each student stands before an audience of their teachers and family members and reflects upon their experiences and growth, not just as students, but as people. They provide insights into what they feel is going well and sincerely ask the adults in their lives for the specific support and help they need to be even more successful. Everyone in the room learns and grows from the experience. And yes, tears happen.

Student-led conferences can be effective in both elementary and secondary settings; the students just end up requiring different types of support structures to be successful. As such, student-led conferences look differently depending on the school and the age level of the students involved. Regardless of the procedural differences, the key to a positive student-led conference is ensuring the experience personal and relevant for each student.

In our district, students start their conference preparation with a Google Slides template. Included are bare-bones slides dedicated to common conference information like grades; but there are also places for students to highlight things like their executive function skills, personal points of pride, as well as short and long-term goals. Along the way, students add in relevant information and insights while customizing the template’s appearance to best represent themselves.

Beyond the presentation, students also assemble a cross-curricular portfolio of work that goes home with the parents after the conference. In some cases, students will opt to share selections from this portfolio as part of their presentation, but this choice is entirely up to each student and how they choose to run their own conference.

Ultimately, as long as a student-led conferences are as student driven and student focused as possible, there really isn’t a wrong way to do them.

There’s No Single Right Way

When it comes to variations on student-led conferences, there are a slew of them! While our urban, PreK-12 district does them a certain way, schools put their own spin on the process to make it work for their populations. This makes sense that such a personalized endeavor can take on so many unique forms. 

Some districts opt for more of a portfolio-walk approach while others put almost all of the conference planning on the students. The concept can even be modified to work in non-standard educational formats like tutoring or home-schooling. 

The magic happens when students are the ones assessing themselves and setting the agenda for growth. Whatever form a student-led conference takes, there is an inherent power in elevating the student’s role while diminishing the focus on the adults.

Setting the Tone for Success and Ownership

From a practicality standpoint, student-led conferences can require significantly more preparation than the typical parent-teacher variety. The reason being, students are the ones that are expected to run the show. Regardless of the child’s age or grade level, this is a process that needs to be scaffolded and supported to be effective.

The role of the educators is to help facilitate the conference process rather than direct it. This can happen in a variety of ways:

·      Teachers provide students with guidelines and/or templates that are flexible and customizable

·      Teachers provide students with a system (analog or digital) for saving and evaluating work for use in conference portfolios

·      Teachers provide ample class time for conference preparation and rehearsal

It is crucial to make the student-led conference process as authentically student-centered as possible. This helps to drive home the message to students that they are truly the focal point of the upcoming meeting. Furthermore, teachers can show their commitment to both the students and the process by making conference preparation a focal point of class time. In all of this, the goal is to allow the student the opportunity to shine as genuinely as possible come conference day!

So What Do the Teachers Do?

As conferences approach, it can become harder as an educator to commit to letting go of the reigns. Part of this comes from the nagging feeling that the conference is still supposed to be between parents and teachers. Fight this feeling! 

In both preparation and during a student-led conference, teachers should certainly be available to offer suggestions or probing questions to help students get ready; that being said, teachers should never edit or try to oversteer a student’s presentation. For these types of conferences to work, the students cannot feel like they are creating a presentation based upon the expectations of others. For example, whether a student’s long term goals turn out to be going to college or becoming a popular YouTuber, the student should be free (and encouraged) to put forth an honest portrayal of themselves.

Furthermore, if there ends up being a litany of grammatical or spelling errors in a student’s presentation materials, those errors should be left alone as a reflection of the student’s ability and/or attention to detail. Teachers may suggest things like extra proofreading or peer-editing but in the end, the presentation belongs to the student.

For student-led conferences to be meaningful and impactful, they need to be as student-focused and student-driven as possible. The adults are still involved in a student-led conference, but in a purposefully diminished capacity. On conference day, this means the adults in the room (typically the main players in traditional conferences) need to take a back seat and let the child shine.

As students are presenting, the adults in the room are the attentive and inquisitive audience. To prevent interruptions, consider saving questions and comments for the end. The students are likely going to be nervous; repeatedly throwing off their rhythm with interruptions will only make it harder!

The golden rule for successful student-led conferences is baked into the name: the adults must step back and let the students lead!

The Results Are Real

Probably one of the most immediately noticeable changes brought about by student-led conferences in our district has been the dramatic increase in conference attendance. In the five years since our junior high school has shifted to the student-led conference model, we have had years with upwards of 90% conference attendance. 

A large part of this shift rests on the excitement and ownership students take over the conference process. After putting in the work to craft an honest self-assessment (…and they are typically very honest!), students are eager to share their presentations and insights. In many cases, this leads to students becoming the strongest advocates for parental involvement and attendance. It doesn’t get much better than that!

However, as with all parent meetings, sometimes life gets in the way and attendance isn’t possible. In our district, parents that don’t make it to their child’s conference are still given access to the child’s presentation (thanks Google Slides!) and portfolio in the hopes that the student will still share their hard work. Since the process is student-led, often times we get reports of missed conferences happening later at dinner tables and in living rooms. Sure the input from the teachers may be missing, but once again, it’s about students not the teachers. These parents can (and often do) follow up with emails or phone calls to address any lingering questions or concerns.

Perhaps some of the most inspiring moments since our shift to student-led conferences have come when students come to their conferences even when their parents cannot attend (being a walking district in a small city makes this feasible for us). In these instances, even without parents or guardians in the audience, the students present their introspections to their team of teachers just like every other student. It shows both a sense of pride and commitment to their own growth and that they take the conference process seriously.

Shifting to student-led conferences can be a big paradigm shift as a teacher, administrator, or even an entire district; but, as with all things in education, any time you can shift the focus from adults to students, everyone involved is better for it.

What impact have you seen from student-led conferences? What suggestions do you have for making the process even more student-centered? Share your thoughts in the comments below and on social media!

About Sheldon Soper:

Sheldon Soper is a content writer for The Knowledge Roundtable. He is also a New Jersey middle school teacher with over a decade of classroom experience teaching students to read, write, and problem-solve across multiple grade levels. You can follow Sheldon on Twitter @SoperWritings and on his blog.