Portfolios: the basis of the conversation.

In order to discuss the work the student has done, that work should be readily available. Looking through it together will allow you and your student to get an overview of and observe trends in her work, to notice whether she has responded to comments or learned from mistakes. Seeing the range and quantity of work that has been accomplished is also an opportunity to celebrate the effort she has put into the class.

What does the physical portfolio look like? Where is it stored? What student work is actually collected, and how is it collected? How often will the portfolio be made available? The mechanics of the portfolio will depend on the subject being taught, the level of responsibility of the students, and the space constraints in the classroom. I found that providing every student with a hanging file folder worked well. The folders went into freestanding stacking bins, one per class, and they were stored on the side of the room. Students learned quickly to store their tests and their contracts in their portfolios.

Of course, student work is increasingly completed in a digital format. Clearly, you must create a system of organizing that work in a way that is analogous to a physical portfolio. The use of physical and digital uses of portfolios is described further in “The Role of Student Work”.

The grade conference form

The structure and content of a conference should take a form that summarizes what you and your student are bringing to the conversation. If well-designed, the form will serve a number of functions:

Defining all the factors contributing to the grade. Your school may constrain how a grade is derived. Obviously, the form you design will have to take these constraints into consideration. Still, it is worth remembering that grades are fundamentally subjective, and the form is, at its root, a form of communication between you and your student.

Providing the relative weight of each factor in the grade, and therefore defining its importance in determining the grade.

Reporting all the grades collected in your gradebook.

Giving the student a voice in self-evaluating her performance. The form defines what attributes are valued and gives a mechanism for self-evaluating them.

Making a student’s strengths and weaknesses visible.

Allowing a comparison of your perception of the student’s performance and her own perception. Differences often lead to meaningful conversations.

Allowing for some flexibility in determining the final grade, which can be well-defined or left open to discussion.

Allowing for commentary, responses to the strengths and weaknesses displayed by the student, and plans for improvement.

Documenting the status of the student’s learning experience at that moment and allowing for comparisons and the analysis of trends over the course of the year.

As always, good graphic design improves the functionality of a grade conference form. There should be plenty of white spaces available in the margins, as well as a place for both student and teacher evaluations and comments. All the relevant information, like the percentage weights of different grade factors, should be clearly discernible.

A sample grade conference form is shown below.

Finding the time

Conferences take time. This is a central impediment to be dealt with. In my experience, conferences averaged about five minutes per student. Multiplying that by the number of students, and allowing for occasional breaks to instruct the class and check on how they were doing, and I generally found it necessary to dedicate three or four class periods to the process. If you consider repeating this at the end of every marking period, (in my case, four quarter grades), it might seem like a daunting amount of time.

It is important to remember that our intention is to foster self-sufficiency and responsible behavior in our students. By the time the first marking period is over, they have had many experiences of open work time, where their activities are not being directed by you. This will make them better able to be self-sufficient and self-directed while you are busy with individual conferences. More importantly, the culture has hopefully evolved so that they recognize both the importance of these conferences and their own capability of working independently.

Boost efficiency by reducing the transition time. The amount of time needed for conferences can be made shorter by optimizing the efficiency of the process. This entails carefully defining what a student must prepare for the conference, as well as conveying the importance of making the transitions between each conference as smooth as possible. The mechanics of this process are described in detail later in this section.

Hold some conferences outside of class time. Depending on your schedule and those of your students, it may be possible to hold a number of the conferences outside of class. With incentives (such as having an early conference), some students may volunteer to meet before or after school or during a free period.

Classroom activities during conferences

The question remains: while you and one student are in a conversation, what is the rest of the class doing? It is, of course, essential that this time remains productive for them.

Here are some activities students can do during conferences:

Extended open work time. Define a contract with more optional work available and a higher minimum number of contract items. This requires careful planning on your part, both in defining the optional work and timing it to match the conference schedule.

Projects. I have had students work on a goal where several days are required to, say, build some object for a competition that embodies principles we have studied. For instance, I might have them create a “Rube Goldberg” contraption that uses simple machines and the principle of energy conservation, which must be explained before the machine is actually used.

Useful audio/visuals. I rarely showed movies in my classes, but if there were any that were truly useful and relevant, I would save them for the conferences.

Independent research. If your school has a computer lab, scheduling the conferences there allows students to pursue a range of topics and report what they have learned immediately following the conferences. Of course, a library or research center would also serve.

Extended study group work. Timing a contract so that students can do homework that will be discussed in study groups, followed by self-administered check-ups, can occupy one or more class periods.

Any combination of these strategies can be used, and you may have many other options available, depending on the discipline you are teaching and your school’s facilities. For some teachers, it may be possible to do a number of conferences outside of class. For instance, my physics classes met seven periods every week, with three periods free as study hall time for my students. During those periods, students often volunteered for conferences. I also had a homeroom duty that provided some time for meeting with students.

When to have conferences

The most obvious time for grade conferences is just before the end of marking periods, when permanent grades must be generated. If it is not possible to complete the conferences before the end of the marking period because, say, it’s the end of the semester and you can’t generate a semester grade until after the exam has been scored, then you might choose to have a conference summarizing those things which have already been completed.

In some cases, it may be possible to extend the timing of grade conferences beyond the due date for grades. For example, if a student agrees with you about what her marking period grade is, a conference can occur well after grades are due. This allows you and the student to still have the same meaningful conversation that you would have had before the due date.

Where to have conferences

In general, the conversation you have with each student must be private enough for an honest exchange without fear of being overheard. The size of the room and the number of students are, of course, major factors in how much privacy is possible. Depending on how well you can trust the class to operate independently while you are holding conferences, you may need to be within sight of whatever activity the class is doing, or you may be able to hold conferences outside your classroom. You may need to vary the location of the conferences based on changing circumstances, class behavior, and what activities they are working on.

The sequence of conferences

There are several factors in deciding the order in which conferences are run. Doing them in a sequence, such as alphabetically, gives students lots of warning about who is up next, which can improve efficiency. On the other hand, running them in a random order requires everyone to be prepared from the start, which can create a sense of readiness in the class.

Some conferences will be more problematic and take more time than others — there may be serious disagreements between you and a student that need to be resolved. You may choose to do the difficult conferences first so that you have time to do them justice or come back to them if there isn’t a timely resolution. If possible, it may be preferable to have those conferences outside of class, both for the sake of efficiency and privacy.

Tips on running conferences

Be prepared. Have all your materials ready before the first conference begins. These may include your gradebook, whether physical or digital, the grading scales used for tests or other assessments, a calculator, and office supplies like a stapler, paper clips, and highlighter. Similarly, each student should be prepared to show up with all her materials, including her portfolio, with all non-digital materials organized and ready to lay out on the conference table, her journal, and any other evidence of learning she may have.

You need to be very explicit about what students must bring with them and how it should be organized. This is particularly true during the first conference. If a student is unprepared, you can bump her to the end of the line and have the person who is “on deck” take her place. There should always be two students getting ready to meet you while you are working with the current student.

First things first. Remember that the cultivation of a responsible, honest posture in the student is the goal. Grade conferences can make a student’s lingering habits of doing school visible. If she has a dishonest or manipulative attitude and is trying to get away with something, that should become the topic of discussion. Bring the conversation back to the question of whether she is genuinely learning, rather than engaging in a legalistic argument over what her grade should be. This reminds her what really matters and helps her see her academic materialism for what it is. Deciding on a grade will come later. Reacting negatively to a student’s efforts to get a grade that is better than what she has earned will only shut down the conversation and prevent the student from learning from the incident.

Be non-judgmental. Whatever the student has or hasn’t accomplished academically, it’s grist for the conversation. It is essential that any feelings a student has of shame or anger over poor grades are allayed and replaced with a positive response. That begins with your being a role model in looking at a student’s mistakes and failures with a nonjudgmental posture. It is all just feedback about what the student hasn’t learned yet.

A student’s behavior during the conference itself may also require a sense of equipoise on your part. Perhaps the student is angry about the grade, or depressed, or wants to manipulate you into giving her a better grade. All those actions can serve as the starting point of a conversation that leads to the student having better self-awareness.

Talk less, listen more. This can be quite difficult, especially with a student who is reticent to speak up for herself or disagree with you about her grade. Besides, most teachers I know (including myself) like to talk, to explain, to teach. Remember that one of the purposes of grade conferences is to give students a voice in evaluating their academic progress.

Ask the student for her perceptions about problem areas before telling her your observations. It is important to know whether she even sees and can articulate any problems she is having.

Come up with a plan together. Grade conferences should result in a specific plan for how to improve every student’s performance and experience. While it may be tempting to rush in with your own solutions, it is better to wait. If a student can come up with a plan for resolving current issues on her own, she will be much more likely to follow through than if it is your idea. Therefore, don’t offer suggestions to her unless she is unable to do so herself.

All ideas for improvement should be written as comments on the grade form. That way, there is a record that can be reviewed during the grade conference at the end of the following marking period. By the end of the year, these forms can create a clear record of the arc of the student’s experience and how well she has learned from her mistakes and improved her performance.

Discuss and celebrate the student’s successes. Positive reinforcement generally works better than criticism. While it is important to identify problem areas, it is equally important to recognize progress and success. Such celebrations can be pivotal for students who suffer from a fixed mindset. It shows that their self-imposed limitations can be overcome.

Adjusting, Compromising, Bargaining. Remember, all grades are subjective, no matter how precisely they are calculated. A final grade for a marking period should be the culmination of a conversation. This is not to say that you are negotiating with the student in order to come up with a settlement. Rather, you are working to find consensus on what a fair grade should be.

Certainly, the factual basis for the grade, as laid out in the grade conference form, is well established. Test grades, homework completed, etc., are not controversial. Other factors, however, can affect a final grade, including trends in a student’s performance and academic success, how she has responded to suggestions from the previous marking period, how challenging it has been for her to accomplish the specific goals she has been working on, and so forth.

It is also possible to legitimately bargain with the student, particularly when determining interim grades. The grade being discussed can be provisional, depending on the student’s ability to accomplish certain agreed-upon goals during the next marking period. These goals and the provisional nature of the current grade must be recorded on the current grade evaluation form, so they can be reassessed during the next grade conference.

Most importantly, student voice matters in any conversation. Your ability to read how genuine a student’s point of view, concerns, or requests are is paramount. This requires trusting your students and, at the same time, being attuned to their motives so as to discern when they are trying to game the system. When that happens, the fact that they are doing this needs to become part of the conversation. Why is gaming the system more important to them than the act of genuinely learning and earning a grade based on their accomplishments? Such conversations can be the most important of any grade conference.