Conferencing with Students: An Update on My Goal

Heather Zimmerman contributed today's post. Click here for more of Heather's thinking.

Earlier in the school year I wrote about my Professional Practice Goal (PPG) for the school year.  My goal was to work on a conferencing structure within my intervention groups that could also carry into coaching.  I just finished reflecting through my mid-year review for my PPG and wanted to share my progress with all of you.

One part of my goal was to utilize some resources.  I have heard from a lot of people the gist of How’s It Going? by Carl Anderson and hope to explore his book more on my own. My other resource I wanted to investigate was the Two Writing Teachers Blog where they talked about conferring toolkits.  I looked through all the resources on the blog and put together a system from some of their ideas.  I love that blog!

What’s Going Well-

The Format

I like the idea of giving a compliment on student work, a teaching point, and a goal for our next conference.  This keeps the conference focused on all the points I want to highlight during a conference.

Using Google Forms

As I said I was going to use Google forms to track my progress.  I really like the flexibility with Google Forms.  I have all my information in a spreadsheet, which also shares into a separate Google Doc for each student.  (Thanks to my tech coach’s help!)  

What I am Still Working On

Using My Chromebook

I find it difficult to bring my Chromebook with me and try to find a comfortable place to have the Chromebook and type into the Google form.  It is so much easier to conference with my small groups and follow the structure I have in place for a conference and then jot down notes on areas we need to work on in my lesson plan book.  But I know that is not practical for my teachers who have 130 students.  I have tried to use my iPad but it was not working out well with my Google forms. (Also my teachers do not have iPads, but all of them have Chromebooks.)  I will keep working at this- I still feel confident this format is the answer.

Anyone have any tips or thoughts on how to help me out with this?