The middle schools in my district do "Student Led Conferences" instead of "Parent-Teacher Conferences". Students spend time creating portfolios of their work in each class and reflecting on it. At the conference, they present the portfolios to their parents before the teacher checks in to see if the parent has any questions or concerns (or to share the teachers' questions and concerns with the parents). It is a very powerful experience when students are carefully guided through the portfolio creation and reflection process and have time to practice presenting portfolios.
I created this self-reflection sheet to include in my students' portfolios (it is adapted from our French teacher's adaption of the PE department's reflection sheet) so that they have some talking points for the conference. Also, for those students that have thrown away all of the papers that they were given back throughout the quarter, this will give them SOMETHING to show their parents.
I think that this would be a good sheet to work through with your students even if you do not have student-led conferences. It's a good "end of the quarter" activity (as you can set goals for the next quarter) and would work well to share with parents at more traditional conferences even if the student is not present.
This form is available in the ADMINISTRATIVE ITEMS folder of our Subscriber Library, and it's FREE for subscribers! PDF and Editable documents are included.
