Student Led Parent Teacher Conferences

In order to find out if student led parent teacher conferences were more effective than conferences where students didn't lead, I had to do a little data research. The point to understand, was to know if students would take an active role in their education, even at young ages, due to presenting the information they had learned in the semester to their families. Moreover, could students get more excited about the learning process as they are able to have a say in which items to show parents their mastery. 

Initially, I started out with data from my current administrator, as she advocated for these meetings. Therefore, I needed to to a bit more research to see if it would actually be appropriate for kindergarten students. Could they take ownership over the projects and information presented to the families? Would they care? The data I collected was initiated by a Google search, in addition to a scholarly search within the Ashford Online Library. Fortunately, I was a student at the time. 

"Parents and caregivers in the study reported that student-led conferences were invaluable and that they contributed to a better understanding of their child's learning. Students reported that, as a result of student-led conferences, they felt more confident about their learning, more accountable for their own learning, and that there were more conversations at home about their learning" (O'Fee. 2012).

In addition, to raving remarks in success with student achievement and ownership, the attendance of parents increase as they are able to watch their child in action, rather than listen to a teacher the whole time. It is more powerful for parents to see their child proving mastery, than it is to listen to a teacher tell them about it. 

Blogs were another source of data, as the teachers who create these blogs are actually implementing techniques within their classrooms, and they are posting the successes and failures of these techniques. Student-led parent teacher conferences could effectively be done in kindergarten, and there were many examples of how to have success.

Pinterest also became a point of interest, as it had many resources to use during the student-led parent teacher conferences, some even free. This search led to the site www.teacherspayteachers.com, which held the manipulatives to print and laminate. Students would then use some of these ready-made items to show mastery in letter recognition or number recognition, building words, and simple addition. The child could be observed in action by the families attending the conference. 

The child would also have an accumulation or portfolio that they could show some of their best accomplishments thus far in kindergarten. 

Technology is instrumental in everything I do. It plays an active role in life practices, academics, and teaching. It is so wonderful to live in an age where we have information at the tip of our fingers. There are many search engines that will take us right to the resources we need to make an informed decision. However,  it is absolutely imperative that the searcher has experience in detecting scholarly and reputable websites and pieces of information. Without this key skill, improper choices could be made in all of the same areas, based on poor data. 

References

O'Fee, C. (2012). Trialling Student-Led Conferences in a New Zealand Secondary School. Kairaranga, 13(1), 3-6.