Conferring and Goal Setting

Why conferences and goals?

Why do we need to conference and set individual goals?

“…the more effective classrooms have a distribution of whole-class, small-group, and side-by-side instruction. The more whole-class teaching offered, the lower the academic achievement in any school.” (The CAFÉ book, pg 9-10)

In other words, the more you get down to working with individuals, the higher your classroom achievement.

“In order for learners to develop heuristic, or goal-directed, strategies, they must have clear goals.” (The CAFÉ book, pg 10)

In other words, each student deserves goals that fits their needs.

Creating Individual Reading Goals

Individual goals for students should be discovered while benchmarking.

·    Look for the most common error.

·    Identify a goal; comprehension, accuracy, fluency, or vocabulary

·    Identify a specific skill based on the goal; inferring, synthesis…

·    Find specific strategies to accomplish the goal.

Once you decide what goal the student will be working on, based on the benchmarking, hold a “goal-setting conference.” During this conference refer back to the benchmark, letting the student see their most common errors. You may point out the error, or see what the student notices on their own. Sometimes the student will know what to work on and when the student sets their goal it is more motivating for them to work on it. This conference will take longer.

It is important to not spend too much time teaching to allow for guided practice while in the conference. Students are often ready to start as soon as you tell them the strategy. First attempts by students should be guided, prompted, coached, and given feedback by the teacher. A typical conference should take 2 minutes.

Remember, don’t stick with the skills for too long. If the touch points are in the 3 to 4 range for 3 conferences in a row, it is time to move on. Also, if the touch points are in the 1 to 2 range for more than a few weeks it is time to change something. Change the strategy, the visual, or the way it is being taught in some way.

Selecting Similar Students for Strategy Groups

Do you plan to give multiple students the same strategy? Then it may be time for a strategy group. These groups are typically made of 2 to 5 students. The focus of the time together is introducing and working on strategies, and guided practice in order to reach their goal. A strategy group meeting may last about 5 minutes.

Make A Plan- Make it Consistent

Let’s review the corporation guidelines for Pensieve:

Teachers will conduct reading conferences with students continuously and frequently using the following chart as guidance.

Above Grade Level Readers	At or Near Grade Level Readers	Below Grade Level Readers
At Least Once Per Every Week	At Least Twice Per Week	At Least Three Times per Week

In order to reach this goal, you need to make a plan. Schedules can be extremely helpful in meeting with all your students. The Sisters schedule as they go, if this system is working for you then please continue to use it. If you are the type of person who needs more control, a set weekly schedule may be best for you.

For many classes, strategy groups will need to be put in place to meet the needs of the class. These small, strategy groups count as a conference with the student. If you need help creating groups in Pensieve please let your instructional coach know and we will set a meeting with you.

Helpful Tips

How do I get it all done?

If you behavior plan in your room is working, your students are already independent. Once students are independent, you have more time to get out and conference.

During the reading block, whole class mini-lessons must remain short. Remember that students don’t get better in the lesson, they get better with practice. Here is some review information from an earlier post on brain research:

·        Four to eight minutes of content when you are teaching items which students have less background knowledge and the complexity is greater.

·        Eight to fifteen minutes of content when teaching items in which the students have greater background knowledge and less complexity.

·        Longer than fifteen minutes of content is proven to be ineffective.

How do I show interest in the students when I am busy with the computer/Pensieve account?

Before walking over to a student, take a minute; log into your account, read the last conference information you have with the student, get your goal and strategy filled in, then walk over to the student. As soon as you sit down you should be ready to go. Don’t interrupt the student and then make them wait on you. During your conference, engage the student(s), state the strategy they will use, guide their practice, and set a goal for the next meeting. When the conference is over, tell the student you will sit with them for another minute while they practice. During this minute, type your notes from the conference, pull up the next student you will be meeting with, read the notes from the last conference, fill in the goal and strategy, then walk over to the student. If you use this method you will be engaged with the student you are with and prepared for the next student when you arrive.

How do I keep all the goals straight?

To better manage the goals in the classroom, visual reminders for individuals and strategy groups can be made. This will help remind individuals to continue to work on their own when the teacher is not with them. It can also help visitors to the room know what each student’s goal is.