Student Led Conferences and Digital Portfolios.

     Digital Portfolios are new and on the rise in classrooms today.  This is a way for students to document their learning digitally.  They can use many different things to make a digital portfolio.  PowerPoint and Emaze are great when making presentations.  You can add videos, pictures, and even animations.  These portfolios are something students can use all during their school years.  They can just keep adding to it each year and it is something great for them to have to look back on when they are an adult.  Some apps that help make Digital Portfolios fun are Sesame and Seesaw.  Nearpod can also be used to display their learning and goals.   

 Student Led Conferences are where the student leads the conference when meeting with the teacher and the parent.  They are talking to their parents about their progress or any issues while the teacher just listens and watches.  When preparing your student for these types of conferences one method you can use is the fishbowl method.  This is where the teacher models for the student what they will do during the conference.  The teacher can even print them off a guide/script to go by and make notes on.   The students can share their conference with the class if they chose to get prepared for the real meeting.  The benefits to this are that the student takes ownership of their learning.  If they know they are going to have to explain in detail to their parent with the teacher, why they did not do something or have a bad grade they will try to work harder.  This helps the students gain speaking skills and be able to better express themselves.  The students are also doing self-assessment.  Another benefit to this is the parent gets to hear their child talk about their progress.  This helps encourage more school talk between the parent and student at home.  Some of the pros to student led conferences are the increase in parent involvement and students gain experience speaking.  Cons include students who still struggle to speak to an audience.  Some students may even be so nervous they tear up during the conference.  Parents may want to talk with the teacher about some concerns they have.  Teachers need to make sure they give the parent time to speak with them alone when the student leaves the room.   In the event parents may not be able to make it to the conference have another teacher lined up to sit in instead.  The students still gain pride in being able to talk about their progress with someone else.       

These are both subjects that are new to me.  I would have never guessed letting a student lead a conference about themselves with their parent.  After learning about this more it makes sense.  We want them to take ownership of their progress and knowing they have to address their parents in front of the teacher helps with that.   Digital portfolios is something I think I would like to use in my classroom.  Students will enjoy working with the many different programs you can use to create things.  I would also hope that they would get excited about having something they can share with the world and take with them all through school.