Descriptive feedback and student conferences

Last week was assessment week at my school (grades 9-12) which means that students are double blocked into classes: m/w blocks 1 & 2, t/th blocks 3 & 4 (almost 3 hrs each). I used this time to conference with each of my students for about 5-10mins each. You might be asking yourself how that went? How long did it take? and what were the other students doing during this time? Among a few.

In advance, the students were given a list of about 10 questions to choose 2/3 feom to talk about during their reflective learning interviews of the semester. Students were expected to prep for these by brainstorming answers, gathering learning evidence, and practicing with peers. Not all of this went on, but I hope to work towards it by building a culture of reflection through the use of my schools flex blocks that we have twice a week.

During the interviews I had my laptop out and while I listened to their answers I typed a paraphrased version of what they said that then went straight onto their report cards as their comment that described exactly what each student personally learned, challenges they faced, and proudest moments to name a few. We discussed their grade, their work habit, and talked about ways to improve in other classes moving forward as this was the end of the course. I personally loved this process because of the dialogue I had with each student, the fact that there will be no surprises when their report cards are posted, and it truly described what they each learned as each student takes in information differently. Just because we explored 5 topics for example does not mean students personally learned 5. Maybe they had ample prior knowledge in a topic and did not expand their knowledge enough for it to have been meaningful for that student or maybe they were absent for 1-2 weeks and missed a topic. Or maybe they dove deep into a topic of choice during free inquiry. Each student has a personal learning journey, story to tell and that was my goal!

Looking back, here are a few things I'd change:

• make sure students are more prepared by creating a culture of reflection and goal setting

• Spread it out over a longer period of time so that it's not 12-18hrs of straight interviews for me as they were a bit draining by the end

• Have students do their own reflective feedback at the end of each unit so that they have something to look back on in addition to their learning evidence

• Have learning evidence compiled in an online portfolio

Up next week will be reflections about starting up a new semester/year.