Student-Led Conferences Freebie

When I was a kid, parent-teacher conferences were scary to me.  I was nervous that my teachers were going to say bad things about me to my parents and that I would be in trouble.  Maybe they would see that one bad quiz score (that would later be dropped) and would be upset.  You can imagine my surprise when I found out my school did student-led conferences, then!  WHAT?  The students had to sit there while all of that was happening?

Well, I found out that as part of being a Leader In Me School, the students would do student-led conferences as a way to take ownership of their leading.  Students would pick out what they wanted to show their parents and would provide an explanation for each.  For example, they would say, "This is my narrative essay.  I chose it because it's my favorite memory about ____."  They had to share goals they set and their progress towards each.  These are not always A+ work samples either.  The students share their weaknesses by saying, "This is something I need to continue working on by _____."

The result?  Students take ownership of their learning and become proud of their hard work.  They learn to set goals for themselves and work to achieve them.  They also track their progress on their goals and see where they need to improve.  This motivates them.

So this year, I challenged myself to have the students report on their speech and language goals themselves.  I had them write out simple forms themselves, listing what sounds they were working on, the percentage they were out, and if they were making progress or not.  We then practiced what they were going to say a couple of times.

If you are interested in doing something similar in your speech room, you can use these forms (as pictured above)! Simply click on the picture below to access this FREEBIE!