Student-Led Conferences

Over the past few decades, classroom practices have begun to shift away from teacher-centered direct instruction methods to student-centered constructivist approaches. As teachers create learner-centered classroom environments, they strive to actively engage students in the learning process and to assist students in assuming personal responsibility for their academic progress. Methods of communicating student performance to parents also are becoming more learner-focused, as student-led conferences are used in schools as an alternative to traditional parent–teacher conferences. This format has been effectively used in grade levels from kindergarten through high school.

In the traditional parent–teacher conference, teacher and parent(s) typically discuss the student’s educational progress while excluding the student from this dialogue. In contrast, the student-led conferencing model involves the student, parent(s), and teacher in the academic conversation with the student taking a...