CAFE™ - Managing Conferring Forms with 'In Class' Support Teachers (ARTICLE)
Last week's FAQ was all about co-teaching with a partner or an in class support person and we gave a few suggestions for sharing the duties of instruction. We then received a note from Carol, who grappled all year with 'in class' support for three of her students. Her question was not in regards to the instruction, but instead had to do with managing the conferring forms which document the instruction and progress of those receiving extra help. Just like the two of us, Carol tried a variety of ways to deal with the conferring forms for her students who were being served by more than one person. She created a clip board for each support person containing a conferring page for each child they served. The result was too much paperwork!
Then she tried keeping a small folder in the book box of the children being served. That way any teacher who came in her classroom would just pull the folder out and add notes to it. It worked better, but she felt there must be a better way. Carol was wondering what our approach was to managing the conferring pages with our own students. Even though we have very little in class support for our students, it does seem inevitable that there are times when extra services and interventions are available for some of the more at risk students in our charge. We know the power of having those interventions match our own classroom instruction. We want it to be us, the classroom teacher, who links all the instruction together so the students don't have to! Hence the development of our "Conferring for Intervention" forms. For some of our interventions we use this form by filling out the top of it each week with the exact goal and strategy for the child. At the end of the week, there is a space for the itinerant to write a note about what they noticed during the conferring times that week. The forms are collected and reviewed at the week's end -- and we often jot a note down on our own conferring sheet based on the data prior to filling a new one out for next week. We usually include a brief note back to the support teacher as well. If, like Carol, we have so many students receiving in class support that the extra forms take over our lives, we move to sharing a Pensieve or conferring notebook. When a support person pops in, he/she will grab our Pensieve, and remove the conferring form we have for the shared student. By looking at the conferring form in my notebook, not only can they see exactly what I am working on but they are also able to see a model of what data should be recorded.
There are many ways to manage this important part of our day to day work with children. We commend Carol and all of the rest of you who are constantly re-thinking how things might work more efficiently and smoothly. We are constantly rethinking our own practice, but hope that where we are now in our journey helps you in yours.
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