Changing the View: Student-Led Parent Conferences [Paperback]

“This book will give teachers a window into a new world where true partnership exists within a learning community, and students and their parents care as much as the teacher does about how children learn and how to assess their progress toward their own goals. It is an inspiring and positive picture.”–Cooperative Learning

Assessment continues to be a major topic for teachers as many move away from a teacher-focused classroom to a child-centered one. Reconciling this approach to teaching with traditional assessment is often difficult.

In Changing the View, Terri Austin shares her journey as she steps back and offers the responsibility of assessment to her middle school students. By reflecting on their own learning, seeking out the views of others, and preparing their own portfolios, the students become knowledgeable about themselves as learners. Instead of the traditional teacher parent conference, the students assume the role of expert and share their information with their parents. As a result, the end-of-quarter review becomes a time of sharing successes and celebrating learning rather than focusing on the negative.

Accessible and practical, Changing the View describes how parents, students, and a teacher worked together to form a partnership in the assessment process. It offers a different way of looking at student assessment within the set boundaries of a school district, and tells the story of how one teacher found a way to work within the system to create a major change in assessment for and by her students.

Combining assessment, teacher research, parent involvement, and student-centered responsibility, Changing the View will speak to any teacher and administrator looking for an alternative way to view assessment. Teachers who want their students to assume more responsibility in their own learning, to be active learners rather than passive ones, will find the book invaluable.

Terri Austin teaches sixth grade in Fairbanks, Alaska, and works with preservice and practicing teachers throughout the state. She is active in the Alaska Teacher Research Network, a statewide teacher support group, and is working toward her Ph.D. at the University of Bath, England.