Student-Led Conferencing Using Showcase Portfolios

Help your students demonstrate what they know--and why they have learned it!

The increasing focus on standards and accountability has brought a new breed of challenges: educators today must not only engage students, but also their parents; they must not only provide authentic assessments, but also communicate them in meaningful ways. With the help of this updated edition of a bestseller, educators can achieve this and more as they turn student work into insightful showcase portfolios, and transform the oft-dreaded parent conferences into powerful learning and assessment opportunities.

The user-friendly and time-tested strategies outlined in the manual have been successfully implemented in classrooms throughout North America, and real-life examples are provided to illustrate how the approach can be applied at any grade level and for any subject matter.

Newly added features to this comprehensive text include:

• Strategies for beginning the portfolio process with students
• Current research findings that support student-led conferencing
• Easy-to-use timelines and sample schedules
• Blackline masters that cut down on teacher prep-time
• The latest information on electronic portfolios

In today′s standards-based and accountability-driven classroom, teachers are increasingly seeking ways to demonstrate that their students know what they are learning and are aware of why they are learning it. This groundbreaking guide shows how the combination of portfolios and student-led conferences can increase student understanding. Using this technique, students will be able to take charge of their learning, and are able to clearly communicate the goals of their education with fellow students, administrators, and parents.

Barbara Benson is a teacher and international consultant with more than 20 years of experience in middle school, high school, and university education. She works with school systems in various capacities such as helping align curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices with higher state standards, facilitating the development of performance assessment tasks such as student-led conferencing, and assisting teachers as they apply current theory and research to their classrooms. Her workshops are practical and classroom focused, covering many topics related to improving student learning. She has presented sessions at the national conferences of the National Staff Development Council and Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. She has published numerous articles on classroom practice and a book, How to Meet Standards, Motivate Students and Still Enjoy Teaching (2003). As a full-time consultant, she missed working directly with students, so Benson returned to the classroom in 2004 and is teaching middle school in Ashe County, North Carolina.

Susan Barnett has been in the field of education for 33 years.  She has an AB Degree in Early Childhood from Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia and a Master Degree in School Administration from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. Her work experience includes teaching grades k-4, working as an educational consultant with school systems throughout the United States and Canada, and serving as a team reviewer with the North Carolina Assistance Teams form 1997 to 1999. In addition to her teaching and consulting, Susan has presented at several international conventions over the years including National Staff Development Council and the 2000 International ASCD Convention in New Orleans. She is has authored several articles about innovative teaching strategies and conducts workshops on reading in the content area, writing, curriculum alignment, and student-led conferencing. Susan is currently serving as K-12 Curriculum Consultant for Language Arts, Social Studies, and Foreign Language for the Caldwell County School System. She is married, has two teen-age sons, and lives in Lenoir, North Carolina.