Students share their knowledge & skills
Recently a colleague from fourth grade asked, “What about the Reception students, they don’t do student-led conferences, do they?
“Yes, they do,” I said.
“Really! What does that look like?” she asked.
I’m so glad she asked. It never occurred to me that others might think Reception children didn’t participate in student-led conferences. Student-led conferences are a time for the student to share their knowledge, skills and learning goals with their parents.
Preschoolers are naturally motivated to explain and share their ideas. Young children (our Reception students are three and four years old in October) love to tell family and friends what they know and show them what they can do.
“Look what I can do!” “This is what I know!”
Some gregarious children will tell random strangers about their achievements if they get half a chance.
Learning Journey Portfolios
Our program in Reception is rooted in play-based, child-centered, constructivist philosophies. To document each child’s learning journey, we photograph the children as they play, question, build, create, deconstruct and learn. We transcribe conservations had with the children and include them in their portfolios so the children’s voices are present. Each child’s personal portfolio is a collection of their photographs, conversations and artwork.
Student-Led Conference Day
Each family has forty-five minutes with their child on student-led conference day. The children spend twenty minutes in the classroom, first showing their portfolios to their parents, then touring the classroom. The students are always very eager to show their parents their favourite areas and experiences of the indoor learning environment (ILE).
The next twenty minutes is spent in the outdoor learning environment (OLE). To assist the parents in having conversations with their children about their learning, I publish weekly classroom blog posts explaining the children’s learning in more detail than is possible in the students’ portfolios.
But parents are busy and some of them don’t find the time to visit the classroom blog as often as they would like. So, for student-led conference day, I decorate our OLE with balloons containing conversation-starting questions.
The children have twenty minutes to take their parents on a tour of the OLE. I’ve helped the students prepare for this exciting day by hanging the balloons the day before student-led conferences. We walk through the OLE and I show the children all the balloons. The students discuss the questions on the balloons with me and their classmates.
The point here is not to feed the children “correct” answers. Each child talks about the OLE areas from their perspective and level of understanding. The reason for showing the balloons and talking about student-led conferences beforehand is to create sense of happy anticipation and excitement for this wonderful event.
And it is wonderful! It’s one of my favourite days of the whole school year. I love the look of pride and happiness on the children’s faces as they share their learning and skills with their parents.
Parent-Teacher Conferences
As the parents and children are leaving, we take a quick five minutes to ask, “Is there anything you’re seen or heard today that you need clarified?” We are available to answer parents’ questions about our program and curriculum if necessary. Very often no further clarification is needed because the children have so thoroughly explained everything.
On student-led conference day, there are no parent-teacher conferences. The focus of this day is purely for the children to share their learning and achievements with their parents. Parent-teacher conferences, an opportunity for us to speak to the parents without the children present, are scheduled in November.
What are some ways you help your parents have conversations with their children about their learning? I’d love to hear from you on Facebook, Twitter, or email me at breedlove@isdedu.de.
