Reflection five - Parent/Teacher conferences

Well we finally had those parent/teacher conferences that were postponed because of the snow.  I have to admit that I was looking forward to seeing what the experience would be like but I was not exactly thrilled with the idea of being at school from 7 am to 7 pm two days in a row.  I was intrigued enough to have a good attitude about it and to gleam all the additional knowledge from it that I could.  I also looked at it as an additional opportunity to spend quality time with me CT and gain as much knowledge from her as I possibly could.  My CT has been absolutely fantastic about sharing everything with me that she can think of that will help me to succeed my first year and the years following.  The parent/teacher conferences were just another opportunity for us to discuss the integral part of getting parents involved.  We also discussed helicopter parents and parents who come in angry with their children or other teachers.

 

My teacher is an organization freak like me (said in the most complimentary way) and so we spent the week prior to conferences getting ready.  My CT has a form that she has the students fill out as a self-evaluation on their grades and behavior in the classroom.  We updated their grades and had them update their evaluation sheets prior to conferences.  We had a discussion with the students on honesty and how it important it is because we will call them out if they are not honest about grades or classroom behavior.  We divided sheets into hours and arranged them alphabetically to maximize accessibility.  Prior to the conferences beginning I asked my CT exactly what role she wanted me to take at the conferences so that I knew what was expected of me.  By the time the conferences rolled around, we were both ready to go. 

 

One of the first parents we had threw me for a loop, as a parent and as a teacher.  I watched her yell at and humiliate her daughter in front of both the CT and myself.  I just kept thinking to myself that I need to apologize to my own son when I get home just in case I ever made him feel like that.  I understand the disappoint that comes when you do not feel your child is doing the best they can, but I try not to ever humiliate them in public.  As soon as the parent and child left the room, I looked at my CT and said “Wow!”  She told me that was pretty standard for that family and we discussed how she reacted and the things that she said.  She told me in situations like that she really just tries to act as the mediator and tries to allow both the parents and the child respond to what is going on and she tries the reflective listening on them.  Basically, she says “I hear your mom saying __________ and you are saying ___________. Now how can we come together and come up with a plan that will provide a solution?”

 

I looked up on the NEA website, parent/teacher conferences and looked at their advice on preparing for parent/teacher conferences and this was one of the methods they recommended.  Does anyone else have any ideas they could share?  

 

Online Reflection #4: Student-Led Discussions

 

Here it is time for another reflection and the timing couldn’t be better.  I just had my first formal observation of the semester and I feel like it went rather well.  After our meeting with the university supervisor, my CT and I sat down for a little talk of our own.  There are times when I get really frustrated because I feel like I only hear negative things, and then my CT will jump in with some positives.  I know I shouldn’t get frustrated because I truly believe she only has my best interests in mind.  My CT is really doing everything she can to help prepare me for being on my own in a classroom.  Anyway, when we began talking she brought up trying to incorporate more student-led discussion into my activities.  Low and behold, when I looked at our reading for class this week it was about “Alternatives to Teacher-Led Discussions.”  Could it really be predetermined, is fate just taking over?  Well I am now going to dive into the reading and see what inspiration I can pull from the material.

 

One idea I have already come up with it to change the way I was going to have the students summarize their homework reading.  Originally I was going to have them summarize the three chapters in their table groups and see what they come up with.  Now I am going to have them create a timeline of the first six chapters of the book.  I will have one student begin by writing one important event from the chapters, then they will pass it to the next student and they will write something that happened either before or after that event.  This process will continue around all four students and keep going until time is up and they hopefully have detailed the majority of the six chapters.  After the time has expired, I will then ask the students to come up to the board, starting at the beginning of chapter one, and we will produce the timeline on the board.  The second part of this activity will allow me the opportunity to take care of a second issue we discussed, having someone other than the normal select few volunteers contribute.  This way I can call on the students who do not usually volunteer and encourage them to contribute.

 

This is one idea I have come up with without reading the suggestions from the Smagorinsky text.  I am looking forward to the reading to see what other ideas I can incorporate along the unit.