This week, I was given the opportunity to attend a parent conference with my supervising teacher. During this conference, I took notes on what was said, how information was presented, and how the parents reacted to the information given.
My teacher followed the parent conference outline I have been taught in my previous class. She opened with several compliments about the student's behavior and good work examples. She followed these compliments with the core problem, his motivation and focus. The teacher provided the parents with several poor work samples from the student and also provided good examples from his classmates. The parents were hesitant to believe what the teacher was claiming until they saw their son's work examples. Once they saw work samples, they were more open to the teacher's suggestions. My teacher and I worked together to suggest several changes in the student's home life we believed would help with the student's motivation problem. We suggested having a set schedule each day, requiring nightly reading, and taking the student on educational trips over the weekend.
Overall, I believe this conference was very helpful. In the days after the conference, we noticed a slight change in the student's attitude and motivation. He was more focused during the day and completed a larger portion of his assigned work than he had before the conference. Seeing this conference helped ease my fears about communicating with the parents in my future classroom.
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