Using Compass Points to Structure Student-led Conferences

Right now, teachers and students are busily preparing for the second round of conferences of the school year. This round of conferences are led by the students.

Because this can seem like a formidable task to such young learners, teachers provide structures that help support students as they reflect on their progress with their families.

One teacher in G5 used the thinking routine Compass Points (p. 93 from Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Church, & Morrison) as the structure her students would use to communicate their successes, needs, excitements, and worries in fifth grade.

She started by providing the students with a Google Slides presentation template with just one slide that said: 

"Usually when you think of a compass, it helps you find directions: North, South, East, West

This set of compass points helps me reflect on the learning I’ve done and the learning that’s coming up: Successes, Needs, Excitements, Worries"

Students then reflected and documented their thinking on the subsequent slides. Here are some examples of what the students shared at conferences with their families. Many thanks to the G5 students who shared their thinking with us, so can learn from them!

Some of the print on the slides is small and hard to read. Click on the images to make them bigger to read the students' thinking more easily.

After reading about how G5 students used Compass Points as a structure to reflect on their learning, how could you or have you used thinking routines as a structure to help students' collectively and individually initiate, explore, discuss, document, and manage their thinking?

Using Thinking Routines at Student-led Conferences

On February 7, 2015, I posted Making Professional Thinking Visible, where I wrote about how our pedagogical leadership team used See-Think-Wonder (a thinking routine from Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Morrison, & Church). I received some great feedback from colleagues around the world, detailing how they have used thinking routines in professional settings too.

One educator (Philippa Morgan from the MEF International School in Istanbul, Turkey) mentioned another context she has used See-Think-Wonder (S-T-W). She said she has used S-T-W "as a format for 3-way conferences with my [first grade] students and parents. The familiarity of the routine gave the students confidence as they shared portfolio pieces and the parents were able to follow lead and see a routine in action."

Inspired by Philippa, I shared her idea with a couple of teachers with whom I work. One second grade teacher decided to use S-T-W with her students as a way to prepare for their student-led conferences. Here is her story:

Throughout the last several months, students have been writing poetry and have been collecting their pieces in their poetry binders. To prepare for their conferences, students were asked to look through their binders and reflect on the learning they had done by documenting the things they saw, what they thought, and what they wondered. Some students decided to additionally write a goal for the future based on what they saw in their poetry binders.

Below are seven examples of what students created.

Student #1:

Student #2:

Student #3:

Student #4:

Student #5:

Student #6:

Student #7:

After reading about how one teacher used See-Think-Wonder to prepare her students for the conferences that they'll end up leading, how could you use thinking routines to prepare for or to structure their student-led conferences?