Conferences can be hard.

You have:

• determined which students need support.
• communicated, usually multiple times, in order to find a time to meet.
• held a conference with parents/students/other staff.

Now what?

First, setting the conference up for success is important.

See my previous post on managing virtual parent/teacher conferences. 

During the conference, keep the goal in mind. SMART goals, that is. With as much student input as possible, set a short-term goal that is measurable.

Next, consider these tips to ensure you get the most return on your efforts to meet with students.

1. Manage Your Communication.

Where possible, you want to build relationships with students. You do this by tracking previous conversations so that each meeting feels like a continuation of the relationship. I use several Google tools to manage my communication with students and families.

Google Sheets: I use a Google Sheet to keep a list of my students. I use this list to email students my newsletter each Monday. Then, I have columns that record pertinent info, such as IEPs, preferred nicknames, family situations, etc. At conference time, I added a column for communication, which I will cover in more detail below.

Google Calendar: I schedule my meetings in Google Calendar. Where possible, I have students select the time. This way, Google Appointments will automatically send reminders the day and hour before the conference. If I make the appointment, I also make an email that I schedule to be sent the morning of the conference to remind everyone of our meeting.

Google Docs: In the calendar invite, I click Take Meeting Notes.

This creates a doc with the meeting time and attendees. Before the meeting, I made a few notes and set a few action steps. Then, I copied the link for this doc into the conference column of my spreadsheet. Each time I meet with that student, I return to that doc, make a new meeting note, and continue the conversation.

2. Communicate the results of your meeting with all involved.

After the meeting, send a quick summary of the goals that were set and the agreed-upon timeline. Remind of tips and tools that will be needed.

3. Schedule a follow-up.

While you have the person there, decide if you will need to meet again. Often, students will be more diligent in completing a task if they know someone is checking in on that soon.

A follow-up to a conference can mean a few different things.

Do you need to schedule another meeting? If a conference is exceeding 15-20 minutes, it might be time to offer some goals and a follow-up meeting to check in on those goals. This keeps the student’s attention and gives them an opportunity to demonstrate some responsibility for learning.

Even if you do not set up another meeting, schedule a reminder for yourself to check in with the students and parents on the goals set during the meeting.

Celebrate all successes. With this robust tracking system in place, you can easily celebrate small wins. Send a card or email when a student meets a goal. Acknowledge that they have gained a grade level since they started meeting with you. Be sure to emphasize the value they have gained for putting in the extra effort.

Conferences can be hard, but they can also be worth it!

This article first appeared on unboxingeducation.blogspot.com

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of any work-from-home job is how to not be working. It becomes too easy to have one foot in the office at all times. I learned the lesson of unplugging in the most unlikely of circumstances: teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In the fall of 2020, I saw my virtual student enrollment soar from a pre-pandemic level of 90 students to 300+ enrollments. I was also trying to support my coworkers and just generally navigate living, and parenting, during unprecedented times. 

Prior to the pandemic, I prided myself on my quick response times and my inbox-zero mentality. I worked on and off most of the day and usually late into the night. While busy seasons sometimes got my schedule off kilter, the catch as catch can method worked most of the time. 

However, by the end of September 2020, it became clear that inbox zero would be a distant memory. I also rarely got all submitted assignments graded. I remember days when I would see 3-4 assignments turned in in the time that it took me to grade one. This rocked my online world for a few weeks. 

However, I noticed a few phenomena. First, nothing crashed if I logged out and went home at 5pm, leaving some assignments for the morning. Second, when I did not respond to an email in five minutes or less, students, and parents, often did their own troubleshooting and figured out the issue without my help. Both were such obvious epiphanies. 

Learn from my experience; don’t wait for a world-altering event to force focus. I have maintained my more relaxed mentality even as life has hit a new normal. While I keep my email at hand during my office hours and strive to reply in under five minutes, I mute work emails during off times. My geography helps me to take this to an even deeper level when my family takes off on a hike beyond the reach of cell phone service. There is something rejuvenating about spending time near trees, water, and beyond the reach of technology.

My time in the office, I would dare say, is more productive and passionate because of the time I spend away. My mind is clearer and my work is more focused because my time has a focus.

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Editor’s Note: If you have other ideas on how to separate work from certain days or times in your life, reach out to Betsy and others on K12Leaders. Self-Care is not just a buzzword. It is necessary for us to bring our best selves to the job at hand. Between all of us, we can share doable suggestions!