Empowering Students Through Student-Led Conferences: A Teacher’s Guide to Transformative Family Engagement

A new parent-teacher conference style has emerged in the past few years: student-led conferences. While these conferences have proven to be highly effective, it’s not a style that every school or family is familiar with. We’re here to bridge that gap with an introduction to student-led conferences and how they benefit everyone involved.

What Is a Student-led Conference?

Student-led conferences provide every student with an opportunity to shine.

A student-led conference is one in which students take the reins (with a little support, of course). In this conference style, students and teachers first collaborate to prepare a portfolio of work samples and reflections on their learning, which the students then share with their families. In the elementary grades, this presentation may include a poster, a binder of artifacts, or a live demonstration of students’ abilities in various learning centers. In the older grades, students might create a slideshow and include written reflections on each work sample, as well as a self-evaluation of their progress toward learning goals.

The presentation process itself is meant to be conversational. Family members can ask students questions and make (positive!) comments on their work. Students explain how their work demonstrates their understanding of concepts or skills. Toward the end of the conference, students, family members, and teachers discuss students’ progress so far during the school year and future goals. Students might come prepared with a few goals they’ve identified or invite their families to help co-create goals based on the progress they’ve seen.

Finally, after the student-led portion of the conference, family members and teachers can chat about any remaining questions or concerns. Sometimes, a teacher may set a separate time to talk without the student’s presence or send home assessment data for the parent to review independently.

The Preparation is Guided by the Grade Level

The way that you prepare for student-led conferences is highly dependent on the ages of your students.

Elementary Grades

In elementary grades, children can collect quizzes, artwork, and writing samples in a binder each week. Teachers should challenge children to not only keep their “A+” work but also work that isn’t perfect. This provides a more accurate picture of your student’s understanding and progression. Students should be sure to keep samples across all subject areas and particular learning themes, such as a piece of artwork from a special artist study or a holiday-related journal.

Early Childhood Grades

In the early childhood grades, teachers can use work samples to create focused portfolios for students. A page of a focused portfolio might include a photograph or work sample with a brief description of what it demonstrates about the student’s development and the particular standard it addresses. These portfolio items should not only be limited to academics but also highlight how students have grown in their social-emotional and motor skills. 

Middle School and High School Grades

In later grades, students can select the pieces to include in their conference presentations and then complete a reflection or self-evaluation for each piece. The teacher should still guide this by providing prompts or demonstrating how to draw connections between samples and learning targets.

Incorporate Conference Prep Into Your Daily Routine

You may be thinking, “How in the world can I fit all of this into my teaching day?” Preparing for a conference doesn’t have to be an extra task to tack on–here are a few suggestions for how to incorporate conference prep into your daily routine: 

• Write reflection pieces as a morning journal
• Practice conversation skills with a partner at the Morning Meeting
• Assemble portfolios during quiet time
• Practice at the centers they will be sharing with parents during regular rotations
• Select writing samples and practice reading them aloud during small groups
• Set out parent invitation supplies in your writing center
• Share portfolios with partners during Book Buddies

Things become even simpler if you can get a whole group of teachers, or even your whole school, to buy into the student-led conference model. Administrators will know that this prep work is vital to your classroom learning routine, and teachers can band together to prepare. Staff meetings can become opportunities to share assessments and portfolio contents across classrooms. Hopefully, your team will be laying the groundwork for this process to continue for years to come!

How Do You Get Parent Buy-in?

Parents might initially balk at the idea of a student-led conference, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the model. Sending home a flyer or posting information to the School Feed a few weeks before conferences is a great way to start explaining the benefits to parents. The communication may be as simple as a bullet-point list of the basic ingredients of a student-led conference. In School Signals, you can also create a conference sign-up hub featuring conference information to parents in detail. You can integrate an online form for parents to fill out during the sign-up with topics they’d like to discuss on conference night. If parents still express concern, it may be best to give them the option of scheduling a follow-up conversation by phone or in person.

Having students write and deliver invitations to parents can also communicate how much work their children have put into this. One of the most important things about student-led conferences is ensuring that parents attend. It can be heartbreaking for a child to prepare so thoroughly and not be able to share their work with the people they love! The best way to achieve buy-in is to communicate clearly and to do it early.

What Are the Benefits of a Student-led Conference?

The student-led conference style has gained popularity in the past few years because the benefits are clear–particularly to teachers.

Increases Students’ Accountability and Ownership over Their Learning

Student-led conferences provide every student with an opportunity to shine. They get to choose the work that they are most proud of to include in their portfolios, whether that’s an incredible piece of artwork or a well-written journal. Teachers also report that student accountability and ownership over their learning process increases exponentially when they have the opportunity to lead their conferences. Knowing that they will have to be the ones to share their progress with their families can promote engagement and improve attentiveness to their work. 

Increases Students’ Skills in Self-evaluation and Self-reflection

Student-led conferences also develop children’s real-world abilities. Throughout the process, they build skills in self-evaluation and self-reflection, organization, persuasive and expository writing, and speaking and listening. These conferences also promote goal-setting, which is a crucial skill for the rest of their school years into adulthood.

Provides a Window to Parents on How Students Learn

Families and teachers alike can also get a better picture of students’ actual understanding through the student-led conference model. Instead of just looking at assessment data, parents get an authentic glimpse into their children’s knowledge and how they apply it. In early childhood classrooms, in particular, teachers can more clearly communicate how students demonstrate learning through play through photographs and portfolio artifacts.

Increases Parental Involvement in Their Children’s Education

Finally, student-led conferences are a space for children and their loved ones to share focused, quality time with one another. It’s an event that can and should build students’ self-esteem and confidence, especially when family members express words of affirmation and encouragement along the way. Parental involvement is a key factor in students’ growth and development, and student-led conferences can be a catalyst for families’ participation in their children’s education.

A Look Inside…

Preparing for the Conference

During the week leading up to Show What You Know Night, my Pre-K class was abuzz with anticipation. We had been adding to students’ portfolios all year, including everything from special art projects, to photos of the children at play, to weekly journal pages. During small groups, I met with 2 to 3 students and let them mark their favorite pages with sticky notes; then, they practiced sharing those pieces with one another.

My teaching assistant met with her small groups and helped students fill out self-evaluation pages, where they colored in emojis to show how they felt about aspects of school. At the same time, the other students moved through learning centers and practiced the skills they would later demonstrate to their parents. For my little ones, this looked like making patterns with magnets, matching alphabet letters, and building their names with manipulatives. In our art center, we decorated a huge sign together to welcome their families to conferences and hung it outside our door.

Getting Together 

That evening, students and their grown-ups started trickling in. When they entered, I handed their parents a game board of all the tasks to complete with their students during conferences. As they completed each item, they marked it off on their board with a sticker. Students sat down to share their special portfolios with their adults, who were so thrilled to see all of the progress in their drawing and writing throughout the year. Students then took them through the centers that had practiced that week and told them about their favorite place to play during free-choice time. Finally, they introduced their family members to our class pet, Dragon, and told them a few facts they’d learned about our leopard gecko. 

Before they left, I briefly chatted with each parent to check-in. Overwhelmingly, they were so glad to have had the opportunity to see their students’ learning in action. I gave each of them a brief overview of some assessment data and then sent them home with a packet of more specific information about the letters, numbers, and shapes that their child could identify. Each parent also left armed with some handouts with ideas for supporting their students’ learning at home. The children, for all their hard work, traded in their game boards for a yummy treat.

After the Conference

After conferences, I noticed that my students seemed more intrinsically motivated to learn.

Even to someone who had long believed in the abilities of small children to rise to any occasion, I was pleasantly surprised by my students’ devotion to this whole process. It was evident that they took their work incredibly seriously and had great pride in their accomplishments. After conferences, I noticed that my students seemed more intrinsically motivated to learn. Ultimately, I sent this class off to kindergarten with loads of confidence, much of which I attribute to this general enthusiasm for learning they developed from student-led conferences.

Resources

Focused Portfolios: A Complete Assessment for the Young Child by Gaye Gronlund and Bev Engel – A book describing how to assemble portfolios to document students’ growth and development.

Having Students Lead Parent Conferences – Another great overview of the process from Edutopia.

Implementing Student-Led Conferences in Your School – A presentation for sharing this conference style with school stakeholders.

Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning Learning School Student-Led Conference Faculty Handbook – A comprehensive handbook with checklists, scripts, and an overview of each person’s role in a student-led conference.

Wildwood World Magnet School Portfolio Assessment Manual – A manual for creating student portfolios, including an example student reflection form.