As parent-teacher conferences come to a close, I wanted to reflect on my experiences at my master teacher's conference. Going into the the experience, I expected the conferences to be very intense. I expected to see a parent frustrated or upset about something that was happening or not happening in their child's classroom. Most of these ideas and expectations come from reading Lightfoot.
In reality, what happened in the conferences was pretty amazing. I witnessed most parents who came in feeling a little nervous about the experience, but by the time they left they seemed relaxed and at ease. My master teacher received good feedback about the behavioral and academic reports she has been sending home on Fridays. Most parents felt like there weren't any surprises. They felt well-informed about their child's performance in the classroom.
All the conferences were relatively identical. My master-teacher reviewed the report card section by section, indicating what the different letters and numbers represented. Along the way, my MT would indicate areas that needed work or where the child's strengths were. What was different in the conferences was the detailed examples she used to describe each child and they way she talked about them. My MT spoke sincerely about each child and how important they were to the classroom.
This was an eye-opening experience for me. I learned how important it is to, like Jean says, "Know your students!" Know their strengths and how to connect with them.
What is everyone else experiencing? Did you learn anything worth sharing with other future educators?
2 comments:
I've been through my dyad and main placement conferences. Two somewhat similar experiences. Each did a similar routine to what you described, going over the report card and helping them decode the letters and numbers. From there is diverged...
At my main placement it seemed more disorganized, and more an exercise in getting through the necessary bits. I thought there would have been more dialogue, but also there wasn't. There also was a scheduling issue where people were flip-flopped on the schedule, and it isn't clear who's mistake it was... nothing like 2 sets of parents ready for a conference.
At the other there was significantly more dialogue. There was more talk about the growth of the student, as well as what strategies were being used in the class to meet their needs. Each lasted about an hour (compared to more like 30 minutes) and seemed to be productive. It was an info sharing deal...
Neither of my placements have had their conferences yet, but they are coming up the third week of December. I'm looking forward to seeing the differences between the two placements because my main placement does the traditional parent/teacher conferences and my dyad placement does child-led conferences where the student does the majority (25 minutes) of talking and presenting their work. Then there will be about ten minutes of parent/teacher time, followed by ten minutes of reflection time. It sounds like it will be a long process to get the kids to the point where they are ready to present to their parents. But, the teahers said that having the student involoved in their conferences really holds them accountable for their work. The students also do self-evaluations where kids rate themself based on a rubric ranging from novice to scholar. In between novice and scholar are apprentice and one other, which I forgot. If a child feels like they are a novice at math and a scholar at reading they will mark those accordingly. I think it will be very interesting to witness.
Post a Comment