Student Led Conferences and Digital Portfolios
Student led conferences are a great way for students to take ownership of their learning and present it to their family members or other members in the school setting. Students are able to showcase their work and become a leader of their own learning. With their teacher facilitating, students take the reigns and learn valuable skills that will be used throughout thier lives. This can be achieved easily in your classroom! Plan a time for parents or guardians to come visit the classroom. Prior to this meeting, work with your students to pull together pieces of their work. Go over data reports, visual charts, that show student's growth. Help your students learn how to read these charts and understand the information. Goal setting is important for all of us. Students need to be able to set their target, devise a plan to reach said goal, and what to do after that goal is met or if the goal needs to be adjusted. Each students showcased work does not have to be the same; give your students flexibility when needed to choose which pieces of work they show during their conference. Practice is important! Have students pair with a peer, with you, or someone else from the school, and have a "mock" conference to prepare for the big day. Students can also have a list of talking points to help them stay on track as to not lose focus on important topics during their conference. Have a list of questions or sentence/question starters for parents as well.Digital portfolios will benefit your students by allowing them to keep up with their work. With online tools, work samples can be easily accessed at any time and archived. Student growth is visible as more work is added to the portfolio. Reflection is difficult for some to do, but is important. Any grade can include a reflection prompt to include with the work. Students need to look back over what they have done and see where learning took place, areas of struggle, and pondering questions that lead to further learning. With the portfolio being stored online, you can instantly share students' work with family members across the globe. Artsonia Kids Art Museum is a great source for students to showcase and explain their work. WeLearnedIt is a project-based learning platform where teachers can create lessons and students can archive their work.
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