Observing a Student Led Conference - in Danish!
This morning I was sitting in my improvised office in the back of the school Library at our LEAPS school. Sandra, one of the teachers here who is really embracing project based learning stopped by to give me an ipad. On it was a video from a round of student led conferences that she did this semester. This is the first time teachers here have done them. Neither of us could figure out how to transfer the large file from the ipad to a sharable place in an efficient and convenient way, so she did a physical hand off.
The video was 20 minutes long and in Danish and despite my the language gap it was all compelling. Rob Riordan has been quoted as saying that content is critically important, but not the particular content. That learning is about how we engage with and transform the content. Similarly, the content of what the student was discussing was important to me but not the particular content. What was clear, without particular words, was she transformed her learning, how she engaged in it and how, gave it life and transformed it into something she was invested in. She created a relationship with it then shared that relationship with her family and teachers.
All that can be conveyed with tone and expression and without specific words. The child’s expressions and tones and the other members of the conference expressed engagement and depth. If you are trying to capture what a student led conference should look like, sound like and feel like, then maybe it is better to do that without understanding the particular words being used. The words can cloud our expectations. For example: “Well this conference felt really good because the student clearly worked very hard and learned a lot, that is why everyone looked so happy.” Or on the flip: “That was a difficult conference because that student has been very difficult and unengaged.” But here is what I gleaned from not knowing what they were saying: if we are talking about the necessary conditions for a productive student conference, then we need to talk about the necessary environment for students to share openly and honestly. This environment should be fairly consistent across students and not dependent on our perceptions of how the student is ‘performing’.
In this conference there was a loving and supportive environment. The room felt supportive and safe. Here are some of my observations in that regard:
The public articulation of ideas is not a cognitively low level task. When a student is presenting in their student conference they are doing a lot of cognitive tasks all at once. It is clear that this articulation requires the kind of environment describe above. It follows then, that there is likely a correlation to learning generally - the kind of comfort that is required to speak to a room of adults in a happy and excited tone is similar to the kind of comfort and excitement that is required for many complex learning activities. Are we creating safe space for kids who are ‘underperforming’? While the use of the phrase safe space might sound too sanguine for some, it’s important to question how the space we create pushes students in whatever direction we perceive them to be going already?
A final take away from watching the student led conference is that they are also a places where teachers can help model (for parents) appropriate ways to carry on professional and productive conversations with children. How to speak with them and how to listen to them. This might sound outside job description of what we do. It also might sound presumptive or insulting to suggest that parents want or need this.
To the first point, part of the job of being a teacher is creating productive learning environments, we do it every day and if you hang around long enough you do it with thousands of students. To the second point, there is nothing presumptuous or pompous about considering ourselves experts in how to have productive and professional conversations with children given that it is what we do all the time. And while it is not the place of any teacher to tell any parent how to speak with their kids, many parents ask us to do exactly that. I have had more parents then I can remember ask me simply how their kids are – not academically, just generally. At a certain age, many kids and parents have a hard time communicating. Part of that is the nature of the beast but some of it can be mitigated with thoughtful facilitation of conversations.
The video was 20 minutes long and in Danish and despite my the language gap it was all compelling. Rob Riordan has been quoted as saying that content is critically important, but not the particular content. That learning is about how we engage with and transform the content. Similarly, the content of what the student was discussing was important to me but not the particular content. What was clear, without particular words, was she transformed her learning, how she engaged in it and how, gave it life and transformed it into something she was invested in. She created a relationship with it then shared that relationship with her family and teachers.
All that can be conveyed with tone and expression and without specific words. The child’s expressions and tones and the other members of the conference expressed engagement and depth. If you are trying to capture what a student led conference should look like, sound like and feel like, then maybe it is better to do that without understanding the particular words being used. The words can cloud our expectations. For example: “Well this conference felt really good because the student clearly worked very hard and learned a lot, that is why everyone looked so happy.” Or on the flip: “That was a difficult conference because that student has been very difficult and unengaged.” But here is what I gleaned from not knowing what they were saying: if we are talking about the necessary conditions for a productive student conference, then we need to talk about the necessary environment for students to share openly and honestly. This environment should be fairly consistent across students and not dependent on our perceptions of how the student is ‘performing’.
In this conference there was a loving and supportive environment. The room felt supportive and safe. Here are some of my observations in that regard:
- look of engagement and excitement and pride on student’s face
- The laughter the father mother
- Parents hugged the child
- Everyone is leaning in, engaged and listening
- The child was animated and lively, she used a well-structured outline to guide her presentation but her commentary was unscripted and engaging. She provided lots of evidence of learning. The structure and evidence seemed to help anchor her and allowed her the space to improvise and come back.
The public articulation of ideas is not a cognitively low level task. When a student is presenting in their student conference they are doing a lot of cognitive tasks all at once. It is clear that this articulation requires the kind of environment describe above. It follows then, that there is likely a correlation to learning generally - the kind of comfort that is required to speak to a room of adults in a happy and excited tone is similar to the kind of comfort and excitement that is required for many complex learning activities. Are we creating safe space for kids who are ‘underperforming’? While the use of the phrase safe space might sound too sanguine for some, it’s important to question how the space we create pushes students in whatever direction we perceive them to be going already?
A final take away from watching the student led conference is that they are also a places where teachers can help model (for parents) appropriate ways to carry on professional and productive conversations with children. How to speak with them and how to listen to them. This might sound outside job description of what we do. It also might sound presumptive or insulting to suggest that parents want or need this.
To the first point, part of the job of being a teacher is creating productive learning environments, we do it every day and if you hang around long enough you do it with thousands of students. To the second point, there is nothing presumptuous or pompous about considering ourselves experts in how to have productive and professional conversations with children given that it is what we do all the time. And while it is not the place of any teacher to tell any parent how to speak with their kids, many parents ask us to do exactly that. I have had more parents then I can remember ask me simply how their kids are – not academically, just generally. At a certain age, many kids and parents have a hard time communicating. Part of that is the nature of the beast but some of it can be mitigated with thoughtful facilitation of conversations.