First Day of Conferences

Our first day of parent-teacher conferences were today. It’s a very new thing for me so I am learning a lot. As far as the conference structure goes, it’s pretty much as I imagined it. We review their report card and talk about how the student is doing in each area (mostly math and reading), talk about behavior, and then hand out any information about the future while fielding any questions the parents have. We only had three conferences today, but I was able to learn about those parents and how they are supporting their child. The three that visited today all seemed to be involved in motivating their child if nothing else. They all had questions of what area the child needed improvement most, and they all already had an understanding of where their child stands before meeting with us. The really neat thing was that the three students whose parents visited today are on three different academic levels. So, it was nice to see firsthand that these parents are involved whether their child is “high” or “low.”

We scored a win for science this week! Instead of doing math for ELT this week, we will be doing science during the early release days since science is usually in the afternoon. This way, we will not fall further behind schedule in science than we already are. On an even better note, it looks like I will actually be able to begin the second part of my unit this week. However, I may take a day or two to re-teach and/or elaborate on genetics and cell division a little more. It’s really tough material, and I think I planned too short of a time to cover it. Even getting a surface understanding of this material as they are required would have been similar to my first week of genetics and cell division in tenth grade biology. I really just feel it’s necessary to go back, review some things, and tie it all together.