Chapter 2

Academic Conferences for Classroom Teachers

Great teachers know when to make decisions quickly

And when to step back and reflect.

—Lana Danielson

Ms. Adams looked around her classroom and organized some last-minute lesson plans for the sub. Her mind was racing about the academic conference she was about to have. She said good-bye to the sub and walked past trees turning to reds and yellows. She wondered, “Why do I get to be the first one to share with the principal how my students are doing?” Having the last name of Adams meant alphabetically she was first up once again. As the first teacher to go through an academic conference at her school, she felt like a guinea pig. But first for what? She figured she’d find out soon enough. Her fellow teachers reminded her repeatedly that she had to report to them all of the sordid details. She braced herself as she walked into the conference room; the principal, assistant principal, counselor, and instructional coach all met her with a smile. She wondered if they really were happy to see her, or if they were smiling because they were going to feed her to the lions for having “problem students.” She knew that several of her students were having academic difficulties, but would the conference make a positive difference? . . . Thirty-five minutes later Ms. Adams left, amazed by what had just happened. She thought, “The other teachers aren’t going to believe me.”

Transforming Instructional Support

Our classrooms and schools need to experience a dramatic turnaround. This change in education must be much more than just “school reformation.” It needs to be a school transformation. If we want to transform our schools, we need to focus on improving the internal processes. Transformation only happens from the inside out. A transformation must affect the internal processes of the education system that often are overlooked. Academic conferences benefit our struggling schools by providing educational interactions that can transform how teachers are supported in their work. The conferences serve as a forum for counteracting the challenges of disconnected teachers and schools. Classroom teachers and school principals have the ability to collectively transform our schools. We must begin changing our schools from isolated, segregated, and unconnected experiences to transparent, trusting, and united learning environments that truly transform how we work with students and with each other. We have “reformed” so many things in education including the school calendars, the busing routes, cafeteria menus, daily schedules, and an endless list of other external factors. The problem is just that: They are all external factors.

Transforming our schools is not a singular event that happens with the wave of a magic wand. It is a focused set of processes at work continuously toward achieving academic progress. This transformational process incorporates a series of academic conference sessions that cohesively hold together the actions, accountability, and achievement of the individuals involved. To improve our profession, Price Waterhouse Coopers (2001) notes, “An essential strand will be to reduce teacher workload, foster increased teacher ownership, and create the capacity to manage change in a sustainable way that can lay the foundation for improved school and pupil performance in the future.” Academic conferences offer a solution that requires each participant to participate, to take ownership of the challenges of their students and their school and to take the responsibility for creating and maintaining real solutions to these problems. The academic conference provides the framework where true ownership can happen.

Supporting Teacher Contributions

Teachers rarely seem to receive the attention and support they deserve. And the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is: When do teachers and principals talk about the real issues that face our students? The classroom-teacher academic conference brings the teacher and principal together with support staff to confer about the issues that face our students. The list of challenges that teachers experience seems to grow by the day. Studies have shown that teaching is the second most stressful profession (Jarvis, 2003). Our schools need to target teacher stressors and develop sustainable solutions for our profession. Sarason (1990) points out, “When a process makes people feel that they have a voice in matters that affect them, they will have great commitment to the overall enterprise and will take greater responsibility for what happens to the enterprise.” He also notes that research identifies several academic challenges that we face as teachers:

Without allocating time for frequent conferencing, the teaching profession tends to be viewed as a fragmented and isolated experience. Experienced and new teachers alike can sometimes feel lost or alone in meeting the growing demands of achievement for all students (Johnson & Karns, 2011). One can only believe that there must be a better way.

Transforming Instructional Culture

Academic conferences are the catalyst for transforming school and classroom culture, because they provide the mechanisms for shifting the organization to greater achievements. The more academic conferences are integrated into the learning culture of the school, the more a feedback spiral of understanding will produce ever-increasing results. Studies by Karen Seashore Louis and colleagues (1996) have identified five areas that characterize a vibrant academic culture in successful schools:

  1. Reflective Dialogue. Reflective practice implies self-awareness about one’s work as a teacher. By engaging in in-depth conversations about teaching and learning, teachers can examine their instructional practice.
  2. Collective Focus on Student Learning. An undeviating concentration on student learning is a core characteristic of school communities.
  3. Shared Expectations and Values. Members of a school community share a sense of common values and expectations.
  4. Professional Collaboration. Collaborative work with administrators and teachers increases everyone’s affiliation with one another and the school.
  5. Transparent Instructional Practice. In professional communities, teachers reflect and share their classroom practices.

Effective schools and districts achieve these outcomes throughout the school culture by engaging in dialogue that allows for sharing of expectations, time for collaborative conferencing, and time for reflection on instructional practices. Teachers and administrators need time to discuss instructional progress.

Learning Conversations and Classroom-Teacher Academic Conferences

At the heart of successful schools are authentic learning conversations that create effective learning organizations. These conversations should be focused on the twin purposes of student learning and the quality instruction that supports student learning. Academic conferences provide the time, space, and capacity to conduct learning conversations that benefit students. Looking at individual student data contributes to the quality of the learning conversations regarding student progress. Effective learning conversations need several key structures in order to be successful. Learning conversations allow the vision of learning organizations to be inculcated effectively throughout the entire school system. Leithwood & Poplin (1992) point out:

One of our studies suggests that teacher motivation for development is enhanced when they adopt a set of internalized goals for professional growth. School leaders can do their part by helping to ensure that such goals are clear, explicit, and ambitious enough to be challenging and realistic. Feedback from colleagues about discrepancies between their goals for growth and their current practices can be especially helpful.

Academic conversations are purposeful conversations that reveal instructional intent. They are designed to achieve specific academic outcomes such as reflecting, planning, creating solutions, and committing. Effective learning organizations outline the roles of learning and provide time for individuals to discuss the progress in their respective roles.

Roles and Relationships

The roles established in academic conferences are designed to enlist the best thinking of everyone at the table. We have the ability to create solutions to the challenges that face our students. The relationships in academic conferences need to be made safe by encouraging open dialogue and frank discussion of student data results and their specific needs. Three main roles share the academic conference:

  1. Chief Contributor (classroom teacher)
  2. Facilitator (typically the school principal)
  3. Supporters (assistant principal, counselor, academic coach, etc.)

The most important aspect of the academic conference is to strengthen the relationships of those who have responsibility for student learning. Our roles overlap, and we have a collective ownership to work as interdependent leaders on behalf of our students. Developing these relationships in ways they can flourish takes a different approach than most typically considered. Let’s take a quick look at each of the three roles outlined in academic conferences—facilitator, chief contributor, and supporters. We will take a more in-depth look at the specific responsibilities of these roles in the upcoming chapters on classroom-teacher and school-administrator academic conferences.

Facilitator’s Role

The facilitator sets the stage for the academic conferences and helps lead the chief contributor to a successful conferral session. The facilitator’s role is to nudge and guide the conferral conversations forward. Effective facilitating and coaching supports school improvement (Costa & Garmston, 2002). The facilitator asks the focus question that keeps the conversation on students and classroom learning. The facilitator also helps focus on individual student data to determine successes and identify additional areas for instructional support. Facilitators can help bring innovative thinking and creative solutions to the surface.

The facilitator creates an atmosphere of trust where ideas can be shared, instructional plans can be made, student data can be analyzed, solutions can be developed, and commitments can be made. Five skills are essential to facilitating effective academic conferences:

  1. Asking focus questions
  2. Analyzing classroom data
  3. Encouraging plans and goals
  4. Suggesting solutions
  5. Confirming commitments

Typically, the principal assumes the facilitator role at the classroom-teacher academic conference, yet anyone who is trained in the key processes of facilitating can fulfill this role. The facilitator (principal) begins the academic conference by asking a focus question that helps guide the dialogue of the conferral session. The facilitator also provides classroom and student data on a projector so that everyone in the room can see and analyze the data. Patterns and trends are identified; then the chief contributor (teacher) identifies five students he will focus on over the next eight weeks to see if he can make significant academic progress with these specific students. Once the data have been viewed and five students have been targeted, the facilitator helps the chief contributor establish plans and set three goals the teacher will work on for the next eight weeks to increase learning outcomes for all students. If the teacher feels he needs help creating a solution to a challenge in the classroom, the facilitator can offer three suggestions that may help student learning. Finally, the facilitator will identify one professional growth area the teacher would like to work on and then confirm the three commitments made by the teacher.

A Variety of Individuals May Serve as the Facilitator

The principal will most often serve as the primary facilitator for classroom academic conferences. Yet, the assistant principal, academic coach, counselor, department chair, or other team member can serve as the facilitator for the conference. For large high schools with more than seventy or eighty teachers, responsibilities for conducting academic conferences may need to be shared, and other members will need regularly to take on the facilitator responsibilities. Schein (2004) notes, “A paradox of learning leadership is that the leader must be able not only to lead but also to listen, to involve the group in achieving its own insights into its cultural dilemmas, and to be genuinely participative in his or her approach to learning and change.” When listening intently is used in an academic conference, greater relational trust can be developed throughout the organization. In-depth listening supports understanding during the academic conference and creates an accumulated benefit as relational trust increases over time between individuals.

Chief Contributor’s Role

The chief contributor is the primary individual who influences the academic conference. We know that the teacher is the individual most important to the success of the classroom. The ultimate success of the academic conference hinges on the chief contributor sharing ideas, creating solutions, making commitments, and then taking the actions to improve academic progress.

The chief contributor is the most important individual at the academic conference, because she knows the most about what is going on in her primary area of responsibility—the classroom or the school. In addition, the skills of reflection, analysis, planning, solution creating, and committing to purposeful action are the key processes that make academic conferences so powerful in achieving results for kids. Her five key skills are:

  1. Reflecting on instruction
  2. Analyzing student data
  3. Planning and setting goals
  4. Creating solutions
  5. Making commitments

The teacher is the chief contributor in the classroom-teaching conference, and the principal is the chief contributor in the school-administrating academic conference. The chief contributor engages in dialogue and discussion with the facilitator in order to reflect on instruction, analyze student data, and select five specific students to track progress, develop plans and set three goals, create classroom solutions, and choose one key professional development growth area for the next eight weeks. The process involves powerful steps for improving instruction and student learning.

Supporters’ Roles

Supporters play several roles in the academic conference. Their most important role is to listen to the chief contributor so that they can understand additional ways to support him. Supporters help prepare data for the conference discussions and ensure effective follow-through after the completion of the conferral sessions.

Supporters may take notes as needed to record the plans, solutions, and commitments made during the conference sessions. Supporters play a quiet, yet important, role in the academic conference, but their most lasting impact typically occurs through the actions they take to support their colleagues after the conference session. Their three key skills are:

  1. Recording information
  2. Listening intently
  3. Providing follow-up support

    Figure 2.1. Supporters in Classroom-Teacher Conferences are typically assistant principals, school counselors, instructional coaches, etc.

In the classroom-teaching academic conferences, the key supporters are usually instructional coaches, school counselors, resource specialists, and any other staff members who support instruction. The supporters’ role in the conference is to listen and learn how they can better support individual teachers in the classroom and individual schools in the areas where they need it most. Supporters play an important role in preserving a written record of ideas shared, plans made, and commitments to follow through on. Supporters continue to provide their support by the actions they take after the conference session is over.

Classroom-Teacher Academic Conferences Create Support

Academic conferences bring teachers, principals, and support professionals to the table to discuss the most important focus for our schools: student learning and classroom instruction. Figure 2.2 shows the three key roles:

Academic conferences provide a clear focus for classroom teachers and site leaders to meet and discuss the academic progress of schools and students. Aligning the vision, interests, and actions of everyone at the school site allows the school to move forward effectively and efficiently. It is important for the students that the facilitator, chief contributor, and supporters confer.

Vertical Alignment within School Organizations

School-administrator academic conferences connect the vision and leadership of the district with the leadership and implementation of school administrators. Without each individual stepping into his role as an academic leader, the school will be unable to move in a strong direction as a unified body. Creating an environment and culture where key instructional leaders (teachers and principals) can dialogue and discuss reflective feedback together is important for academic progress. Isolation, lack of influence, and limited feedback all contribute to feeling that our efforts are increasingly distant and impersonal, so it is important that we work together to align our collective efforts through classroom-teacher academic conferences.

Figure 2.2. Academic Conference Roles and Relationships work to create collaboration.

Who Are the Major Players in Classroom-Teacher Conferences?

The academic conference pulls together the major players and puts them in one room with the responsibility of talking specifically about student learning.

Figure 2.3. Classroom-Teacher Conferences align learning efforts between teachers and school administrators.

What Processes Are Covered in Classroom-Teacher Conferences?

Classroom-teacher academic conferences should focus primarily on the two primary purposes of school—student learning and quality instruction. The academic conference is a time to emphasize and dig deep into what the school values. The questions that the facilitator asks will guide the direction of the conversation and keep the dialogue and discussion flowing. The academic conference is a time of discovery where the instructional leaders share and discuss with one another academic progress in the classroom. Five key processes focus everyone’s instructional efforts:

  1. Reflecting on instructional practice
  2. Analyzing student data
  3. Planning and setting goals
  4. Creating effective solutions
  5. Making academic commitments

When these five conferral processes are coordinated together, the classroom-teacher conferences create metacognitive reflection, understanding through data discussions, clear goals and plans, effective classroom solutions, and a collective commitment to work together to continually improve instruction and academic outcomes.

Where Is the Best Place to Hold Classroom-Teacher Conferences?

The academic conference should be held in a location where it will not be disrupted and the leadership team and teachers can interact comfortably. The library conference room, office conference room, or any other room where everyone can talk openly can work well. Sitting at a round or rectangular table where everyone can see each other is important. The conference should have space for a projector where up-to-date student data can be displayed for everyone to review.

The classroom-teacher academic conference should provide the space and time for instructional leaders (teacher, principal, coaches, etc.) to look at the data and discuss students’ needs.

When Should Classroom-Teacher Conferences Be Held?

Classroom-teacher academic conferences are typically held four times a year to support classroom teachers, yet they can be held as frequently as needed. The first academic conference for each school year should be held before school begins, with subsequent conferences interspersed throughout the school year. Many schools hold their academic conferences after students take grade-level benchmark assessments. This way teachers and leadership team members can review and process up-to-date student data in order to track progress and identify areas of success. It is amazing that a few effective academic conferences held throughout the year will develop unity, transparency, and trust. When academic conferences are held consistently throughout the school year, they create a systematic method for changing school culture. Let’s see how a principal would typically schedule classroom academic conferences into the school’s calendar.

Calendar for Classroom-Teachers Academic Conferences

The accumulated planning, reflecting, and follow-through from the academic conference sessions will enhance instructional leadership and improve student learning for districts, schools, classrooms, and students.

Some things to consider:

Academic conferences can be held during the school day with a rotating substitute teacher covering classes for thirty to forty minutes. While teachers participate in the collegial conversations, the substitute can make sure students are continuing to work in class. So, when is the best time to start academic conferences? The simple answer: right away.

Why Are Classroom-Teacher Academic Conferences So Powerful?

As professional educators, we need to have pointed conversations about our students so that we can meet their academic needs. Many of these conversations happen in the school parking lot, over the lunch table, or in the teacher’s lounge, yet they rarely seem to happen in a focused setting with relevant data. Classroom-teacher academic conferences are powerful because they help develop the leadership capacities of teachers and align support for students.

Leadership Capacities Developed through Academic Conferences:

Classroom-teacher conferences develop our instructional leadership while building trust and confidence among team members; increase vertical alignment of the school’s vision and collaboration; and, ultimately, increase the independent thinking and empowerment of teachers. Consider the following statements from school and teacher leaders:

In the academic conferences we got a lot of things done. We established goals, developed plans, focused on students, and made commitments to continue our progress.

—seventh-grade teacher

We really talked about students in what felt like a one-to-one conversation about the kids in each teacher’s classroom.

—elementary principal

It helped create a sense of urgency and it helped us to organize our instructional priorities.

—first-grade teacher

We were able to see a lot of growth in the teachers and in ourselves as leaders when we looked at the data for our kids and reflected on the instructional practices and interventions that produced results.

—instructional coach

The academic conferences were extremely beneficial because they followed a clear yet open format that focused on the particular needs of my classroom and my students.

—third-grade teacher

Academic conferences benefit students, teachers, principals, and support staff in achieving the learning objectives for the entire school organization.

Figure 2.4. Academic Conference Template

Academic Conference Template

A key component of effective conferencing is the academic conference classroom-teacher template. The template provides a clear framework for discussing the instructional progress students are making in the classroom. The classroom-teacher template begins by noting the important roles of chief contributor (teacher), facilitator (principal or other trained facilitator), and supporters (key staff members). The rest of the template is dedicated to highlighting the five processes of reflecting, analyzing data, planning, creating solutions, and making commitments. The template provides space for the facilitator to initiate the focus question and encourage academic reflection by the chief contributor (the teacher may reflect about whichever aspects of instruction she believes will be helpful to improving student learning). Next, the template outlines the data to be analyzed and provides space to identify the five students the teacher will specifically track for instructional progress over the next several weeks (any five students may be selected). The template then encourages outlining future instructional plans by identifying goals the teacher will work toward in her classroom. The next part of the template, creating solutions, is optional (as the chief contributors, teachers may not feel they need to brainstorm and discuss new solutions). The final—and, in many ways, the most important—part of the conferencing template is confirming commitments. The chief contributor or teacher identifies her professional growth area, and the facilitator identifies an appropriate commitment for supporting the teacher’s professional growth. Finally, the conference ends with the facilitator confirming the three commitments the chief contributor plans to implement in the classroom (the follow-up to the commitments may be the most powerful part of the conferencing process).

How Do You Do It?

We have yet to consider the most important question of all for academic conferences: the how question. Although the conferencing template provides a format and structure for the academic conference, it is a flexible tool designed to support reflection, independent thinking, and interdependent action. The facilitator should feel free to be flexible in using the classroom-teacher template to help guide academic conferences. The facilitator can jump around to different parts of the conference template, emphasizing various aspects of the conferral process, and spend more time on one conferral process than another depending on the interests and needs of individual teachers. The supporters (counselors, instructional coaches, psychologists, etc.) should leave each conferral session with greater insights into how they can support teachers and students over the next several weeks. Most importantly, each classroom teacher as the chief contributor of her conferral dialogue should leave the conference session with an increased awareness of academic data, instructional plans, and classroom commitments for improving student learning. We will go into detail in chapter 4 regarding the key processes that make successful classroom-teacher conferences. For now, let’s peek back at our vignette from earlier in this chapter.

Ms. Adams let out a sigh of relief, and a smile crept across her face as she walked back to her classroom. Overall, things went very well, and she wasn’t fed to the lions after all. In fact, she felt a bit rejuvenated. She wondered how to describe the experience to her fellow teachers. It felt good to talk about her students and how they were doing. She rarely had the opportunity to share the challenges that each of her students faced in the classroom. She wanted every one of them to have a great year, and she felt like the planning, reflecting, and problem solving covered in the academic conference would truly make a difference. With the support of the school leadership team, she knew she would have the help needed to meet the academic challenges her students faced. As she returned to her classroom, she felt she had a clearer plan of action, additional intervention strategies, and a greater commitment to increase achievement for each one of her students.

Summary

In these times, it is more essential than ever to engage in academic conferences to ensure that the collective efforts of individual educators will successfully contribute to the core mission, goals, values, and instructional interventions of the school organization. Conferencing allows us time to plan and reflect on our professional practices and organizational progress. The classroom teacher serves as the chief contributor to the conference session, while the school principal typically serves as the facilitator of the conference. Academic conferences provide a forum for teachers and leaders to make sure that our students do not slip through the cracks. They support a school culture of self-directed learning and collegial cooperation on behalf of students and the challenges they face. The conferences develop true ownership or internal accountability for the actions that teachers and administrators take toward instruction. We need to embrace a system for developing ownership where individuals at all levels personally commit to making changes that will affect the progress of student learning. Academic conferences help school leaders and teacher leaders work together to improve instruction. Conferring supports interdependent leadership where every educator plays a valuable role in working together to create solutions for students. As we embrace the opportunity to work collegially as a team and align our common purposes in our profession, our students will definitely benefit.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

  1. How can academic conferences help your school organization and develop instructional leadership within the members of your organization?
  2. What are the potential benefits of implementing academic conferences in your school and district?