Student-led conferences build organization, communication skills

Rayna Freedman, a 5th grade teacher at the Jordan/Jackson Elementary School in Mansfield, Massachusetts, involves her students in parent-teacher conferences, she wrote in eSchoolNews. When she began the practice, each discussion took 45 minutes. Now they’re down to 20 minutes per family and much more efficiently run.Students prepare digital portfolios of their own work, and Freedman believes this is important. She has eight reasons why she has students run their own parent-teacher conferences. One is that by giving them some ownership of how their work is presented to parents, they’re more invested in their own learning.Students also learn to develop and tap into communication skills to put together a portfolio that can show their work in a way that others can understand. The conference also gives them a chance to consider what they’re doing well, and to self-assess where they may need to do more work.