Conferences and Report Cards By: Farrahn Evans

STAGE 1 Understandings I will understand how to organize conferences in a way that will promote growth for my students. I will understand various ways that I can effectively convey to my students and their guardians their learning strengths and weaknesses.

STAGE 1 Essential Questions What should my students and or their parents take away from our conferences? What do student-led conferences look like? What is the intent behind giving letter grades? Are they necessary? Is common core reporting reminiscent of standard referenced assessments?

STAGE 1 Knowledge… – I will know some ways that various teachers or school systems conduct conferences – I will know where to begin with my own conferences Skills… – Conducting conferences – Questioning students – Researching and presenting information using various mediums.

STAGE 1 Transfer Goals I will be able to use my learning to communication with the parents of my students and my students in a useful manner. I will be able to use this learning to compare the ways that various teachers provide artifacts to show how a student is progressing.

STAGE 2 Formative Assessment – Informal Assessing Oral questioning Self Assessing – Performance Assessment Powerpoint Presentation

STAGE 3 Learning Plan Read peer reviewed articles and journals that discuss why or why not reports cards are necessary and analyze them to form a clear understanding. Conduct a phone interview of someone that is in the role of a parent and a teacher to hear their perspective on conferences. Use a thinking routine from Making Thinking Visible to encourage class discussion on personal experiences with parent-teacher conferences. Re-visit the book Essential Conversations and consider Lightfoot’s key points as they relate to the way a teacher’s mind frame should be when critiquing a student. Review examples of report cards from people in various school districts or settings. Class discussion…What’s positive about this type of report? What’s lacking?

The Explanation Game Name it. Explain it. Give reasons. Generate alternatives.

A Guest Speaker What age are your boys? Have you had any negative experiences with parent-teacher conferences? Were your sons ever present during the conferences? What do you think you took away from most of the conferences you’ve attended?

The Need to Reconstruct how we conduct conferences Most conferences were organized in this manner, – Introduction – Orientation – Information – Consolidation – Closing Teacher dominated No differentiation According to Shulkind (2008), “Two fundamental errors about assessment: that assessment is synonymous with GPAs, dean’s list and honor rolls and that assessment is about measurements and reports generated by a teacher or another external body” ( p.55 ).

Natural enemies? Power Struggle Difference in ideologies of the role of the parent or the teacher Female dominated Pre-determined mindsets and self fulfilling prophecy (Lightfoot 2003)

The Goal of Parent-Teacher Conferences To create a healthy balance between school life and home life. Build classroom community. KNOWLEDGE UNDERSTANDING of progress. To give direction To build esteem

Moving in a positive direction Encourage discussion – To begin conferences a Swedish pre-school begins with Strength Cards. Use artifacts as tools to lead discussion Preparation – Not only should the teacher be prepared for the conference, but all parties involved. – Generate questions and ask parents or students to send you questions they may have prior to the conference (Markstrom 2011)

Student Led Conferences Students follow an outline (Dear Parents…) Introduces the adults involved in the conference and the teacher fades Goals for the future Parent participation went from 45% - 95% after student led conferences Encourages self reflection and self evaluation and communication (Kinney 2005)

Report Cards Communicating assessment results Academic and conduct grades should be separate Students should have an understanding of HOW they are being assessed Never rely solely on ranking (Stiggins & Chappus, 2011)

Grading Systems Norm-Referenced Grading Criterion-Referenced Grading Self-Referenced Grading (Salend 2005)

Common Core Reporting Video WYkY WYkY

What do Common Core Report Cards look like? Relate directly to the standards High Point was the pilot school for Fulton County There has been a mixed response from teachers and parents about this report card format – Reasons why that might be?

Works Cited Chappuis, J., & Stiggins. R.J. (2011). An introduction to student-involved assessment for learning. (6 th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Kinney, Patti. (2005). Letting students take the lead. Principal Leadership, 6(2) Lightfoot, S.L. (2003). The essential conversation: What parents and teachers can learn from each other. New York, NY: Random House. Markstrom, A. M. (2011). To involve parents in the assessment of the child in parent-teacher conferences: A case study. Early Childhood Education Journal, 38, Salend, S. J. (2005). Report card models that support communication and differentiation of instruction. Teaching Exceptional Children, 37(4) Shulkind, S. B. (2008). New conversations: Student-led conversations. Principal Leadership, 9(1)