Before parent conferences this week, you may want to check out these links for some ways of "rethinking" parent conferences and improving our communication with parents. In the first link, you'll find tip sheets from the Harvard Family Research Project that I thought could be pretty useful--they even have some tip sheets for parents on how to make the most out of conferences. Another link from that first bank of resources leads teachers to videos on the teaching channel that teachers new to the profession might find useful.
http://www.edutopia.org//blog/parent-teacher-conference-resources-matt-davis
http://www.edutopia.org//blog/parent-teacher-conference-tips-elena-aguilar
Teachers--please feel free to comment on this post to add your thoughts about the resources or add your own strategies for making parent conferences effective.
I always start by asking them what they heard about the class from their son or daughter. It prevents me from walking into something and addresses their concerns first.
ReplyDeleteI really like Elena Aguilar's article "Tips for Parent-Teacher Conferencing". I was happy to see #3 on her list- be solution-orientated! I'm sure we all know that feeling of anxiety when planning for a conference with a parent whose child isn't doing as well as they could in your class. I find that using the conference time to brainstorm with parents to develop plans of action to help the student gives the time a sense of productivity (not bad for only 5 minutes). Being solution-oriented also allows parents a more active role in helping their child. Conference becomes an even more valuable use of time when the student is present, that way everyone is on the same page and knows what the plan moving forward will be.
ReplyDelete