Student-Led Conference Portfolio Checklist

Student-Led Conferences at Gateway Middle School ask students to reflect on their work in all their classes, then present this work to their families and school advisor. Students lead one conference each year, and by the time they graduate they have several years of work and reflection in their portfolios to share with their families. This resource is a sample of the work middle school students compile for the Spring Student-Led Conferences, although it is easily adaptable for secondary students. 

Since Student-Led Conferences involve coordination across disciplines, they need to be a school-wide focus to be implemented successfully. Teachers should plan on devoting at least 2-3 weeks of daily work, about 30 minutes per day, for students to compile and practice all components of the portfolio.

Student-Led Conference Classroom Work Reflection

This reflection template is designed for students to use in their subject area classes, and as such was designed for teachers to adapt easily in order to highlight the specific learning goals, skills and projects that were completed in their specific class. The template is designed to allow students to reflect both on content mastery and student agency skills, creating opportunities to think about how those “soft” metacognitive skills enable us to acquire “concrete” academic skills and knowledge across all disciplines.

The more students have reflected on their learning in class, the easier this annual reflection will be.  If students have not had many opportunities for metacognitive reflection, they may need additional prompts and suggestions to answer. With practice and time, however, it will come more naturally!

Student-Led Conference Goal-Setting

At Gateway, students complete this “big picture” reflection with the guidance of their advisory teacher, in which they evaluate progress towards academic goals set in the fall and set additional goals for the rest of the school year. Students are asked to identify why these goals are significant to them personally and academically, and the strategies and people they can lean on when faced with obstacles. Organized in two parts, the reflection is meant to be completed in part before the conference, and then finished after the Student-Led Conference is over.

As always, these resources include the templates as both PDFs and fully customizable Word docs, as well as full text overviews, links to related resources, and a video guide to using the template. There are many other resources related to Student-Led Conferences in particular, so think of these as a starting point and explore Gateway Impact to learn all about how these conferences look in practice!

Partners Announced for Gateway Impact Powerful Learners Mini-Conference on Feb. 1, 2020

We are thrilled that for the second year of our Powerful Learners Mini-Conference we will be collaborating with experts from Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco, Peninsula Bridge, and the Stanford Teacher Education Program. This wide range of expertise and perspectives allows us to provide sessions that will prove useful to anyone and everyone who supports K-12 students, whether you work in the classroom, in the non-profit sector, or are still in university. 

Our call for presentations remains open! Do you have a fabulous tool, tip or strategy that other educators could benefit from? Come share them with colleagues from a diverse array of schools and nonprofits and be inspired by them in turn. We are currently seeking presentations from educators and youth workers of every stripe about how best to support students in developing the skills, habits and mindsets that will make them successful across all content areas and beyond the classroom as well. We are open to all ideas that can help K-12 students become "powerful learners". Presenting is a great way to build connections with like-minded educators, and it’s a nice boost for your LinkedIn, at that. Submit a brief proposal to info@gatewayimpact.org and we’ll be in touch.

Save the date: 2nd Annual Powerful Learners Mini-Conference at Gateway High School in San Francisco on Saturday, February 1.