A funny thing happened tonight.  I was at an educational committee meeting at my church waiting for the meeting to get started.  Everyone was engaged in small talk.  Soon the discussion turned to parent teacher conferences (the committee has four teachers--including me).  They started to talk about how they were going to student led conferences at two schools this year.  I listened, as we started this process last year.  They seemed a little scared.  The two parents listened as well.  After a few minutes, I asked the one parent (non-educator), what she thought about the idea.  Her response to me was a question: "What is the point?"  I explained that the main idea is  "to give students ownership over their learning."  She then replied, "I like the idea".  I think most parents agreed that last years student led conferences were a positive experience. 

Student led conferences have the following positives for students:

1.  Goal Setting: Students need to learn how to set realistic goals and establish ways to achieve these goals.
2.  Empowering: Students are given control over their education.
3.  Ownership, Responsibility, and Accountability:  Students have to see they are in control of their learning and take ownership for the results.
4.  Technology: Students use technology to create an "authentic" presentation to share with a real audience.  Plus, with online grades, it is very easy and clear why grades are what they are.
5.  Engagement: Parents, teachers and students engage in honest dialogue (many kids will say what I might have had a hard time stating).
6.  Attendance:  Over 80% of our students and parents found time to head to school for the 25 minute conference.
7.  Meta-cognition: Students learned how to self-evaluate and think about their learning.
8.  Organizational and oral communication skills:  They are prepared, have an agenda to follow, and have to explain their strengths and weaknesses to a "live" audience.

I am sure that there are other positives of student led conferences and some drawbacks not mentioned.  However, I think that the positives far outweigh the traditional conference.   When we moved to student led conferences, our staff had similar concerns about how conferences would work and if it was a good idea to change the format.   However, after the conferences were over, the staff agreed it had positive effects for our students.

 A  good link to check out for more on middle school student led conferences:  MiddleWeb. You can also see several examples of student led conferences on Youtube.