For the next #21daysSDW is conducting a challenge to see how much we can positively affirm the focus of conferring and learner feedback in our classrooms across the district. We hope you join the #21daysSDW challenge as you focus your efforts on this high leverage practice. A special thank you to Krista Krauter for supplying the leadership blog post for this week.
Conferring in FLIGHT
Submitted by: Krista Krauter, FLIGHT Academy Advisor
One unique aspect for students in the FLIGHT Academy, is that they are required to attend a weekly conference with their advisor. Each advisor in FLIGHT has approximately 30 students (10 from each grade level) that he/she is responsible for. We meet with this group of students in the morning for our morning meeting, for language workshop, at the end of the day for community circle, and for weekly conferences. The advisor also serves as the primary contact for parents and other teachers at Horning. As we are now into FLIGHT’s third year, we have found the the most important thing we do is conferencing with our students.
Each FLIGHT advisor teaches “face-to-face” seminars every other day, which allows us to be able to conference with students on the days we aren’t doing the lead teaching. After students have planned their calendars with their elective courses and FLIGHT seminars, they find a 15 minute chunk of time when they can schedule a weekly conference with their advisor. This is a very special 15 minutes that each student has to meet privately with their advisor to discuss the progress they have made on their learning plan, to set new goals for the next week, and to bring up any troubles they are having with content material.
The advisor fills out a conference log at each conference. We record the progress that is being made in their core content areas (math, humanities, and science) and we also discuss any projects they are currently working on and how their elective classes are going. This is also an opportunity to discuss how the kids are feeling. (Be the first to say to Mr. Wegner in person, "Tell me the story again about what you would do for your kids at Christmas time!" - for a prize.) We want to know if they’re doing too much or too little homework, how their stress level is, what they’re doing for the weekend, etc. After the log is complete, each student and their parents get an email that summarizes what was discussed at the conference. We have received a lot of nice feedback from parents because they appreciate being informed weekly about how their child is doing.
The students really look forward to their conference time. Sometimes we miss a conference day if we’re on a field trip or a teacher is sick. When this happens, students often will ask if the conference can be rescheduled because they have so much to share with us. I look forward to my conference days every week because of the relationship that I am building with each one of my students. I enjoy having the time to help them with their struggles and celebrate their successes. I also feel like I get to know their families so well because of the weekly communication. Conferencing with students help them see how much I care. We are partners in their education and I will support them 100%.
This is excellent. I am sure all teachers in our secondary classrooms could take one nugget and try it out, and many are doing this already, such as student-led conferences. One question I have with the FLIGHT students and their assigned advisor--does that advisor remain with their student from G6-G8?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the very systematic way that all students have to access really effective and contextual feedback. Do you find in Flight, as in all other learning environments, that some students need to confer more than once a week, and others maybe less? Is your system flexible to accommodate this? Sounds like it is as students can reschedule when they miss a conference.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the very systematic way that all students have to access really effective and contextual feedback. Do you find in Flight, as in all other learning environments, that some students need to confer more than once a week, and others maybe less? Is your system flexible to accommodate this? Sounds like it is as students can reschedule when they miss a conference.
ReplyDeleteThis might be an excellent model for the Academic and Career Planning state mandate that is right around the corner. Thanks for the great information.
ReplyDelete