Monday, October 15, 2012
Conferences
I am just getting home from conferences so I decided to write about that as my choice. Today was my first ever conference on the teacher side and it was interesting. What a busy, busy day. I am still teaching the entire day right now so I was busy all day teaching and then stayed for conferences in the evening. It was so nice to meet with the students and their families! It was so interesting to meet the parents and see looks and traits in the parents that the students possess. It was great when the students came as well, to see them interact with their families and get to know them on a personal level. I feel like I know the students so much better after tonight and will think about them just a little bit differently when I am teaching tomorrow. I learned a lot about good items to share at conferences and my cooperating teacher made this great sheet for parents with test scores, reading level, and subject goals. It was a nice summary that parents could take home. My cooperating teacher was always really positive with families as well and even if there was an issue she was able to spin it in a positive way. Parents were very responsive and it was a good example for me to see. These are long days, but I am looking forward to meeting more families tomorrow! I think tomorrow may be my last day of teaching everything. Wish me luck. It is my last week in fourth grade next week and I will start to give subjects back slowly. My time has gone by so fast!
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It sounds like you had a perfect introduction to parent conferences--the full day of teaching followed by an afternoon and evening of hobnobbing is a classic teacher experience. I'm glad Jane's preparation and interaction with parents served as a useful model for you--I'd love to talk more about her conversations with parents, particularly in situations where a child might not be having a "stellar" start to fourth grade, but she was able to "spin" her language to be positive, but goal-setting. That's a difficult balance to accomplish. I think, though, when you're really invested in your students as a teacher, it's a lot easier to talk about them in affirming ways.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet that Tuesday was especially exhausting for you. It's easy to underestimate how tiring it is to put in an extra full day because adrenaline often pushes us through, then we collapse!