There are many surprising benefits of student conferences. As educators, or parents of children, student conferences can give us a lot of information about a child. If you have had some questions about student conferences, keep reading!
Students at some grade levels often know more than they can show on a written assessment. A short individual conference can be the best way for a student to show their understanding or lack of understanding of a skill.
Student Conference Defined
- Student-teacher conferences are a one-on-one meeting between student and a teacher.
- Both the student and the teacher can identify strengths and areas for growth
- Together they select specific strategies that will support the student’s progress in a certain skill area.
Benefits to Conferencing Students
- First, conferences provide individualized instruction for each student in the classroom.
- Secondly, conferences can provide insight into what a student is doing in any academic area.
- Finally, conferences can help the teacher investigate a student’s knowledge in an academic area.
Subject Areas for Student Conferencing
- Reading
- Writing
- Math
- Science
- Social Studies
- Art
- Music
- Physical Education
- Technology
- Foreign Language
- Behavior
Steps to Student Conferences
- Purpose: Decide on your purpose for the conference.
- Are you going to discuss student’s performance or behavior?
- What are you finding out about your student’s knowledge about a subject matter is?
- Is their an assessment of a specific skill of a student?
- Hold Conference: Meet with student
- Clearly explain the reason for the conference
- Explain what outcomes you are expecting from your student
- Include dialogue between you and your student.
- Record Results: Track student conferences
- Use a simple form or log to acknowledge conference took place
- Record why the conference took place
- Log what was accomplished during conference
- Form or log may have a place for student responses
- Follow Up With Student: Check in with student after conference
- Brief meeting or note
- Regular conference scheduled
- Check to see improvements or change goals or strategies
In summary, there are many surprising benefits of student conferences. First of all, they have great importance to the teacher and to the student. Student conferencing is another way for teachers to learn more about their students. It is also a way for students to become active in their own learning process.
Secondly, a student conference examines a student’s understanding of a skill and provide direct feedback of what they are doing well and what they may still need to work on. Finally, student conferences are powerful assessment tool for teachers!
Find some more reading activities and assessments in my store, The Teaching Scene by Maureen.
To read more topics check out my blog, “Seven Effective First Grade Assessment Tools”
