Student-Led Conferences & Digital Portfolios

Student-led conferences are a great way for students to showcase their work and take responsibility of their own learning. This is a way to provide positive communication between the student and parent in a school setting. Student-led conferences show that the teacher is able to be a facilitator for their child and let the child be on their own. In these conferences, students showcase their progress and also goals they have for the remainder of the school year. The student is in charge of preparing the materials that are going to be showcased during the conference. This type of conference can benefit ELL students and their families because they are encouraged to use their native language. This means that the parent will feel more comfortable speaking in his/her native language. Student-led conferences impact student learning greatly because no longer are they handed a sheet of paper stating what will be discussed in the conference or not being informed at all and just sitting there and listening as if they are a bystander. With student-led conferences students are the LEADER. They take the initiative to decide what will be discussed, what their goals will be, and they will lead the conversation the entire conference. I believe that is how our students can benefit most is by giving them the steering wheel and us teachers taking the backseat and letting them own that responsibility of their learning.

Now let's move on to digital portfolios... have you ever asked yourself "Where am I going to put all of these end of the year tangible portfolios?". I mean think about it... when your child is in 8th grade thats eight end of the year books to keep up with that are so meaningful yet often times get thrown away because of the lack of storage space. Well this is not an issue with digital portfolios! Digital portfolios are a great way for students to upload their work and to keep building on that each school year. The best part? There's not a million booklets lying around taking up space! But, there are more benefits than not having to worry about finding a place to put it. You know that aunt that lives in another state or cousin who really wants to keep up with your child, but lives so far away? That is not problem with digital portfolios! Digital portfolios allow family and friends from around the world access to what your child is doing throughout the school years. This greatly impacts student learning because it allows students to reflect on what they have accomplished and what they could have done better on. It gives students an easy way to look back on school years in the past and see how they have grown as a student. It once again gives them responsibility because they choose what they want to be in their digital portfolio. It also gives teachers a way to assess students' without giving them a paper/pencil test every week. This gives teacher an easy way to check in on students and see what they are doing by individually assessing their work.

I learned a lot of about these two topics. I learned that the student is the leader in both of these areas and that is why they are so impactful on students' learning. I learned that student-led conferences can benefit ELL students because they are able to speak in their native language which makes the parent(s) feel a lot more comfortable in the conference. I learned that digital portfolios are a great resource for the student, parents and even extended family. I learned that these portfolios can be accessed by anyone who is interested in seeing what the child is accomplishing academically. I will definitely use both of these in my future classroom. I will have student-led conferences regularly so that parents are able to check in and students are able to act of that responsibility of leading a conference on their own. I will use digital portfolios to give the students a way to showcase there work and have a way to look back on it in the future.

The video below is an example of a kindergartener leading a conference with her parents and teacher.