There is nothing like Vermont fall leaves and dirt roads.
Summer is feeling long gone. I have finally given up sandals, and am wearing socks and shoes and brought the sweaters up from the basement. Like many, I am wistful for summer, but also embracing all things fall (crisp apples, soup, colorful leaves).
This summer I had the chance to go on one of my favorite shows, Vermont Edition on VPR, and be interviewed by the incredible Jane Lindholm about personalized learning in Vermont. I love this show for many reasons, including the opportunity to hear a lively and in-depth dialogue about many issues impacting us in Vermont and beyond. I hoped to represent the work of incredible Vermont educators and my co-authors (Penny Bishop and John Downes) well, and describe the importance and opportunity of personalized learning as we envision it in our book, Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades, as a tool for students to be known, heard, understood for their full selves, and given opportunities for personally meaningful, significant, and relevant work.
(AND, at VPR there is both a M&M dispenser and Kombucha on tap.)
This summer I also had a chance to revisit my earlier book, Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus, in preparation for a presentation to principals. I was thinking a lot about this false binary we seem to focus on, as if they are at opposite ends of a spectrum:
What is best for teachers. What is best for students.
Often, these are the same, because the lives of students and teachers are so interconnected and relational.
A false binary: Why do we assume that what is best for students (voice, choice, self-direction, creativity, movement, active learning, personal relationships) isn’t best for teachers too, especially when concerning their professional learning + school lives?
I will be creating an article or resource to share about this follow up to Why Great Teachers Quit, focused on increasing the humanity school leaders offer teachers in their buildings and school systems.
I’m connecting themes and ideas about how can we best support teachers as human beings and their needs for belongingness, safety, purpose, and care, especially those who have not felt these things in our systems as they currently are.
Part of shifting to personalized learning is centering students in the traditional parent-teacher conference. They need to lead the conversation with families and caregivers. And this shift can be hard for folks, because, you know, change is hard! So let’s look at how you can prep families for student-led conferences. It’s all in how you design your pre-conference conversations. Let’s try to make change easier on everyone.
Overheard before student-led conferences
We get around to a LOT of Vermont schools, and we hear what educators and caregivers have said about student-led conferences. News flash: it’s not always good. So, let’s break down the following quotes while doing two things:
thinking about the purpose of student-led conferences (and personalized education), and
trying to imagine how things could go better next time.
Forewarned puts you in a place of power: you control your destiny. Mostly.
(Don’t quote us on that.)
How to design pre-conference conversations with families
Looking for some talking points? Here’s what we recommend.
“My kid already tells me everything at home. We don’t need this!”
That’s so great! But this is an academic presentation of learning. It’s a little different from relaxed, at-home sharing. Could your child need practice with public reflection and academic language? How do you see them proving they own and lead their own learning?
Even if you’ve already seen the work, and had a conversation about it, how might this presentation be different with teachers in attendance? Could they add any reflections on the learning?
Fantastic! So you’re able to come to the student-led conference with some ready questions to push your child to think deeper about what they’re presenting. That’s awesome!
Takeaway: Does every child have access to conversations at home about school? Who might this be helping? Does every child need access to high-level academic learning presentations/conversations?
“I just want to talk to the teacher about my kid!”
We hear this one a lot. It can definitely feel more efficient just to meet with the teacher. But a student-led conference doesn’t mean you can’t also meet with the teacher alone. Okay, let’s consider a hybrid approach! 10 minutes student-led, 10 minutes teacher-led, or 15 min/5 minutes. Let’s think about what split feels best considering the student.
Takeaway: Who is the conference for? Who should be centered? How can we meet all needs for a successful conference?
“I’ve been to one of these and it was awful.”
Oh no! We’re really sorry to hear that. How can we design something that has meaning, centers your student and feels valuable to you and your family?
This is such a great opportunity to spend time together; how can we maximize it? How would *you* design it to be more meaningful?
Takeaway: How can we encourage open mindsets and shifting of thinking?
“I’ve already seen this work. This is a waste of time!”
How can we together help go deeper into this learning conversation? What questions could we ask your student about the work that will help them with future activities?
Who might not have had the opportunity to see this work and have these conversations?
Consider: Could you as the educator hold back some work to share at the conference? How can you help shape this conversation to feel valuable to all?
What is “the why”?
Now that we’ve considered some of the critiques of student led conferences, we can create something that has meaning for families, centers students, and shifts the conversation. With your teacher team, it’s helpful to consider some prompts when designing conferences.
Some prompts when designing pre-conference conversations with families:
What’s the purpose of student centered/led conferences?
What’s the purpose of teacher led conferences?
And what do we want our shared purpose to be? Who owns the learning? Who is centered in the conference?
What are the ways families are informed? Should conferences be the only/primary way?
Examples from the field to keep you going:
Thankfully, there are a lot of resources about shifting toward SLCs, including examples of what they look and sound like at various levels. Take a look at some of these to inspire your planning and design.
November (identity) and spring (portfolio more broadly)
November (intro SLCs + portfolio) and spring (sharing of PBL learning)
Fall (identity/transferable skills) and spring (academic portfolio)
Lamoille educator Katie Bryant helps her students design the conversation with families by laying out a script in advance, for them to use as they choose. That and a little pep talk, and everyone’s ready to go.
And now over to you: what’s the word on the street about student-led conferences? What are you hearing?
How do *you* design pre-conference conversations with families?
Morning meetings are the norm in many K-6 and K-8 schools in Vermont. They’re a great way to empower students to find their voices and build community. Now here are five ways to organize and structure morning meetings to build transferable and socio-emotional skills (and build those strong relationships that matter so much!):
Sounds corny, and tons of middle school students will groan loudly, but it works. Different seats promote students getting to know each other, expanding friendships and connections, and supporting cross-gender friendships. Yes, cross-gender friendships, 7th graders! They are doable!
True, it’s not giving students choice, but at the beginning of the year we’ve all got these butterflies about new schools, new grades, new… people. Yipes!
So let’s help everyone out at the beginning with some structure.
I used to put out popsicle sticks each morning with student names around the circle for this purpose, particularly at the beginning of the year. This also helped reduce any arguments about who gets which cushion, couch seat, or beanbag! I decide! *muahahahaha* Plus: you can support flexible seating by giving students the choice to stand, sit, flop or yoga pose it out.
2. “What’s up in the world?”
There is so much happening in our world, especially lately. It is complicated, stressful, and unnerving — especially for students. And especially for those students who might feel unsafe or targeted. Or those who have heard bits and pieces of what is happening, but are unsure what is true and why it’s all happening. Heck, half the time all this unsettling news makes *me* wonder the exact same thing.
And that is where the weekly practice of a morning meeting agenda of What’s Up in the World? can help.
Once a week in our morning meeting, we would pose that question on the whiteboard. Students would sign up for topics they wished to discuss.
In each meeting, one student would take on the role of “fact-checker”. When we weren’t sure of the details, we would check a few trusted sources to find out the facts. We didn’t assume, or discuss without reviewing the facts when we could find them. Another student would be a “definer” and look up words that folks didn’t know and read the definitions out to the class.
While discussing world events, I would keep the conversation on track and developmentally appropriate, by steering away from the close details and images of violent events. Sometimes I had to jump in and reframe or refocus, or ask a question. We relied on our norms for the class that we created together to help guide us. But what happened regularly was that students were hungry for a space to discuss world events in a safe and supported way. These conversations changed minds. Expanded perspectives. And provided a place to digest and begin to understand the world.
Need norms? Proctor School’s Courtney Elliott for the win:
I wonder how many potential misconceptions, half-truths, and partially baked biases and stereotypes about world events we uncovered in these weekly sessions. This work felt vital and important.
3. The State of the Class
Right around the time of the state of the union address one year, my students and I joked about the state of our class and giving a speech about it. And then we had an idea. What if we check in on the state of the class each week?
You know, when students say something like: another student has taken my charging cord! Or: my jacket is buried under everyone’s snow stuff! Or: I don’t like the way our class behaved with the music substitute teacher. We had to solve these problems together.
So, we added a weekly agenda item called the state of the class.
Anyone could bring an issue up about how the class was treating each other or functioning, and we would all problem solve and come up with a plan together. That way everyone was accountable to everyone else and we had time to develop solutions that everyone was in support of.
The state of the class centered in students and the their perceptions of problems and solutions, giving students a model for democracy, citizenship and action.
I’ve seen Warren Elementary School, in Warren VT, do this very powerfully, in a way that centers listening, and relationship-building, in their “Town Meetings”. When one student brought up a current need, and explained its impact on him, you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone in the room was invested in that student’s need. And THAT, people, THAT is the room we want.
4. Learning the morning message
Another way to promote learning and growth in morning meeting is: The Message. You can either have students find the errors in a morning message, or have a chart or table to review a recent skill lesson or concept that the class has learned. Often, this was formative information for me. I could tell when a class struggled to summarize a text, a math problem, or concept. Morning messages were instant feedback on emotional states, current topics, and the daily life of the class.
This is an activity for a few weeks in, but you can begin with a word puzzle on the board, a phrase in a foreign language, a rebus, or a poem made of song titles. Be creative and goofy, and your students will follow.
For schools focusing on socio-emotional learning competencies, morning messages can be a great way to explore these very concepts. Students can respond to prompt on the white board or digitally, and then read and discuss responses during morning meeting.
At the middle and high school school level, many schools are using the Circle of Power and Respect. These meetings follow a different format but have many similarities to morning meetings, and can be huge for building community.
5. Now shift it to a student-led space
Finally — this is going to take a hot minute, so maybe toss it on the to-do list — we all know where we want this work to lead. Once students learn the parts of morning meeting (greeting, agenda, sharing, game/activity) and know how to do each one in an inclusive way, they then can begin leading morning meetings. This was after lots of modeling and practice. (Think: late fall. Build those morning meeting muscles!)
Each week, we had two students lead the morning meeting. We rotated all students through this role and gave everyone a chance to lead. For some, this was hard. They might have never had a chance to lead a group, and this gave them practice and support grow their communication, citizenship, listening and leading skills. As the teacher I would support students to participate in this role, sometimes giving sentence stems or tips to students who might have needed it. This was a safe space to practice student voice and leadership for all students.
How do you structure morning meetings to empower students?
We’ve seen a ton of lovely photos from morning meeting already this year, shared on instagram or twitter, but still: we want to hear from YOU. What are your favorite go-to activities for getting morning meeting off on the right foot?
