Thursday, October 30, 2014

Student Led Conferences

Student Led Conferences

Student Led Conferences are starting next week.  Officially, parent conferences are on Wednesday from 5-8PM and on Friday from 12-2PM.  However, you can schedule your 5 hours of parent time flexibly to best meet the needs of your advisees and their families. For example, if mornings work better for your families, you can elect to come in early to meet.  Then you would not be expected to stay until 8 (or 2).  The main goal for SLCs is to get as many parents in as possible.  Flexibility in programming makes this a bit easier.

Students will be officially dismissed after benchmarks are complete.  Teachers are encouraged to flexibly use time to schedule conference.

To keep track of how many parents come, I'm asking all advisors to complete an APPOINTMENT sheet.  Please be sure that all of your appointments are entered into this document (which is soon to come) by WEDNESDAY 18NOV15.  If you are having problems getting in contact with a family member, please make sure to reach out to Carol for support.



Student Responsibilities for SLCs

Use Advisory and Class time to prepare students for their SLC Responsibilities.  Student responsibilities are as follows:
  • She is prepared with curriculum materials and student work that illustrates a specific conceptual challenge for each subject area.   In addition, she is prepared to reflect upon her social-emotional learning and it's impact on her academic achievement.  Prior to the SLC, she has unsuccessfully attempted to resolve confusion independently. 
  • Using the challenge as a frame of reference, she independently explains existing understandings related to the identified challenge(s).
  • She can independently explains their confusion, and describe her needs.  
  • She takes initiative to work through challenge/confusion. She demonstrates how she is the primary agent in resolution.  
  • She states 'take-away' and explains how new understanding can be applied to other situations. 

    SLC Suggested Agenda (30 minutes)

    NOTE:  Teacher may guide or facilitate, but should not take over by teaching, demonstrating, or solving the problem for the student.
    • [2min] What am I hear to show?:  Student Welcomes & Introduces Family & Staff
    • [5min] What do I know?  For each subject area, student describes what she knows in a full statements. She also explains current struggles and problems within each class.  Struggles focus on conceptual dilemmas, but can also reference social-emotional hurdles.
    • [5min] What don't I know? Student talks about where/how understanding is currently breaking down and explains what she doesn't understand or know.  She should also discuss prior work to resolve these unknowns and why/how these attempts failed.
    • [5min] What are some trends and patterns?  What are some specific needs? After reflecting on each of her courses, students should now identify trends and patterns that stretch across classes and also highlight individual specific struggles that need to be expressed. In particular for juniors and seniors, students should reflect on their courses and their work in these courses and connect their trends to their path towards graduation and college readiness (and completion).
    • [5min] What's my resolution(s)? Student resolves her breaches by relating what she knows to what she doesn't know.  For example, "First, I (describe problem)"; "Then, I (pivot point - describe how you came to new realizations/learnings)"; "Finally, I (discuss how you applied your new understandings to resolve the breach)".  Also discuss
    • [3min] What are my goals and next steps?  Students explains what she learned (or ‘take-away’ that can be applied to similar situations in the future), and commits to specific measurable and achievable goals for her learning.
    [5min] Logistics.  Please save some time to review these logistics with families:  
    • Review student attendance and make goals for improvement
    • Check to make sure you have all working phone numbers and email addresses
    • Make sure families can log onto Pupil Path
    • Ask families to complete this short survey


      Here are some resources from other grade teams that may be informative or useful to you!

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