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Conferring Toolkits: Record Keeping

Detailed records of small group and 1:1 conferences are one of the most important items in your conferring toolkit. Why? Keeping records:

Helps distribute your time equitably amongst students.

See the tracks of your teaching and monitor student growth.

Helps you determine next steps with each student, small groups, or the whole class.

Some people keep weekly status of the class forms while others keep detailed notes about every student. It doesn't matter how you choose to keep as long as you have a system that informs your instruction and is useful to you.

If you've never kept records inside of a conferring toolkit before, you have a choice to make before you get started. Will you keep notes on paper or will you use technology to type up your notes as you meet with students during independent writing time?

Here are my thoughts on handwritten and digital records:

Handwritten

When I had my classroom, I tinkered with my record-keeping forms regularly. I eventually settled on something like this:

It was sloppy. No one could read it. But no one had to since my notes were for my own use to monitor and track student progress. Once I left the classroom and began leading presentations on conferring with teachers, I updated them my forms so they'd look slicker. (Click here or here to see these forms.) While handwritten notes worked for me when I was in the classroom, I don't think I'd go back to them again since I have become comfortable with digital record-keeping in the past two years.

My iPad has become the place where I keep my conferring records when I work with kids in classrooms now. I've worked with students in five different places this school year. I'm not about to trust myself to bring the right notebook when I go to a given school. Therefore, I store everything digitally in Evernote, which makes pulling up a student's conferring notes fast since I have Evernote Premium. (Click here to view a guest blog post Cathy Mere wrote about using Evernote for conference notes.)

NOTE TO COACHES OR CONSULTANTS: Evernote is a fabulous place to store your conferring notes since it syncs with your smartphone and computer. It cuts down on the amount of paper you will need to carry from classroom-to-classroom or between schools.

I could use Evernote exclusively - using Cathy Mere's incredible system - but I found something that works better for me. I use KustomNote, in conjunction with Evernote, while I am in the midst of a conference. I find it helpful to have the structure of a KustomNote template (I have built separate templates for small group strategy lessons and 1:1 conferences.) to type in while I'm meeting with students. Because I'm in multiple places, having a template that prompts me to record the student's school and grade level helps me with the kind of record-keeping I do as I travel around to different classrooms.

Here's how KustomNote works with Evernote:

1. I type my notes directly into a KustomNote template, which goes to a pre-assigned notebook in Evernote. (I set up the Evernote notebook I wanted template entries to go to when I created each KustomNote template.)

2. Press "save note."

3. Go to Evernote and sync. The note appears in the pre-selected Evernote notebook.

4. From there I can tag notes, add photos of student work, and/or audio clips of a conference with a student.

Some folks might be unfamiliar with KustomNote. (I know about it thanks to Jodi Mahoney.) So, here are a couple things to help get you started if you're considering using KustomNote in conjunction with Evernote.

First, here's a look at the way a 1:1 conferring note appears on KustomNote and Evernote:

Second, if you'd like a 1:1 conference template to get you started with KustomNote, click here to view a public template I created.

* * * * *

I believe conferring notes are one of the most important things you can keep in your conferring toolkit. It doesn't matter if they're scrawled on paper or are typed on a tablet that resides in your conferring toolkit. All that matters is that the records you keep will help you to better understand your students as writers.

Take Our Poll

Let's chat on Monday, May 11th at 8:30 p.m. EDT, when the six of us host a Twitter Chat about conferring toolkits. Just search and tag #TWTBlog to participate.

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Detailed records of small group and 1:1 conferences are one of the most important items in your conferring toolkit. Why? Keeping records: Helps distribute your time equitably amongst students. See the tracks of your teaching and monitor student growth. Helps you determine next steps with each student, small groups, or the whole class.

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Pages 22-23

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Schubitz & Dorfman (2019) - Conferring- Individualize Instruction Build Community and Set Goals

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Take a tour of a paper/pencil conferring notebook, then set your own up so you'll be ready for a high level of accountability and individualized instruction.

With the exception of the calendars (available here), the forms are all available for download below. Setting up your own conferring notebook has never been easier.

Prefer technology? Check out ConferringNotebook.com. It makes curricular coherence seamless.

Working together, Cindy and Gail review the conferring protocol while discussing a recent conference.

When we started having math conferences, we discovered we needed a form for the pensive. Here's one that matches our reading and writing conferring forms.

Allison Behne shares the document she created for teachers who use the paper pencil pensieve, to inform next years teachers about student work and progress.

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A Conferring Notebook Tour and Printable Forms

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Take a tour of a paper/pencil conferring notebook, then set your own up so you'll be ready for a high level of accountability and individualized instruction. With the exception of the calendars (available here), the forms are all available for download below. Setting up your own conferring notebook has never been easier.

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Record Keeping- Why and How: Assessment Strengthens Writers

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We teachers keep all kinds of records and notes- attendance records, records of the books our students read, records about math concepts mastered, and spelling words missed. Yet, many of us struggl…

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Ideas for getting started with google forms

Record keeping is a universal challenge in workshop instruction. We get going with a tight ten minute minilesson and a solid chunk of independent writing time with opportunities for conferences and small group instruction. Once we add in an interruption and a teaching share, we realize we can't remember who we met with, much less what we taught. And yet, these conferences are crucial to student growth. Once students know they are accountable for what we teach them in more individualized settings, we are likely to see much more growth. That's where record-keeping is important.

During the twitterchat when we all talked about the fundamentals of writing workshops-Beth wrote a great round-up of the posts here - many people asked me to say more about google forms and how I've used them during writing workshops.

My very best advice for anyone who is interested in trying out this tool is to just jump in and try it-you won't make any irreparable damage, and you'll learn as you go. That being said, I'm hoping this post will serve as a VERY basic primer and inspire some people to try it out during the upcoming school year. I have found that even if I don't review the data and spreadsheets as often as I should, just the process of completing the form for each conference or small group targets and focuses my instruction in ways that supported all levels of students during writing.

When you first go to google forms, you'll get a screen that looks like this:

Go ahead and start a new form and you will see something along the lines of the screenshot below:

As my sample form, I have pulled the form I created for second grade opinion writing. Then, my first question is a list of students in the class. Forms offers an option of different formats for the questions, and for the students, I have liked selecting the checkbox option. That way, if I work with a partnership or a small group, I can check multiple students.

My next questions for my single classroom/single subject form are:

What was the compliment?
Because occasionally I give more than one compliment, I use the checklist format.

What was the teaching point?
In order to reinforce the important principle of only teaching one thing during a conference or small group, I use the dropdown option for this question.

What is the challenge?
For the challenge, I allow myself a short answer.

When I set up these forms, I use the language of the unit and my instructional priorities to create the compliments and teaching points. For example, in my second grade opinion unit, I make sure to include choices such as introduces the topic, provides a reason, uses transitional words, gives a sense of closure. I may also add other options as I teach them, and I have also added ideas for differentiation. Having ideas right there as I sit down to confer with a student has helped me when I'm not sure how to push or scaffold various writers.

In order to use the form, you have some options. You can email it to yourself or send a link. As you are making the form, that option exists in the upper right corner.

So now, you can sit down with a student, pull up the link or the email, and fill out the form. I find the convenience of the iPad touchscreen to be easiest. Literally, it takes a few seconds to check off the student, the compliment, and the teaching point. The short answer for the challenge may slow you down just a little. 🙂

As you fill out the form for students, the data will collect, and you can view it in a variety of ways. I am most comfortable with the spreadsheet that google populates. It automatically dates and sorts. The screenshot below shows the couple of "conferences" I pretended to have in order to write this post. If I met with several students, I would have several more entries, and I would be able to sort however I wanted, giving me data for individual students and ideas for next instructional lessons.

As you gain comfort, you can think about creating separate pages for your forms. I have done this when I'm coaching multiple teachers, as each teacher can have their own page. I have helped teachers set up classrooms, creating separate pages for different subjects.

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Ideas for getting started with google forms

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Record keeping is a universal challenge in workshop instruction. We get going with a tight ten minute minilesson and a solid chunk of independent writing time with opportunities for conferences and small group instruction. Once we add in an interruption and a teaching share, we realize we can't remember who we met with, much less what we taught.

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Pages 15-17

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Record Keeping begins on page 21

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Schubitz & Dorfman (2019) - Conferring- Individualize Instruction Build Community and Set Goals

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Conferring Notes: The Key to Unit Planning

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Conferring Notes: The Key to Unit Planning

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Conferring Notes: The Key to Unit Planning

As an instructional coach, I do a whole lot of unit planning, side by side with teams of teachers. Hands down, the most impactful step in the process-all too often overlooked-is planning for how we will capture our conferring notes. I would argue that planning for conferring during the unit planning stage helps everyone to be more clear about what we want writers to learn, as well as how we will know when they've learned it.

Making decisions together about what goes on the conferring sheet is an opportunity to talk in more detail about what we know we want to notice writers doing/not yet doing, as well as the skills or processes we anticipate needing to coach into. Sometimes teammates assume they're already on the same page. . . and then it turns out later they aren't.

Time is precious. Unit planning is a big investment of time-a luxury that many teams might not have on a regular basis. Crafting a system for conferring notes can be a catch-all of sorts, a strategy for ensuring that teammates engage in the highest leverage instructional conversations before the unit begins-even if they haven't had extended time to unit plan together.

Below is an example of conferring notes from a first grade narrative unit. I know there are an endless number of ways to organize conferring notes; this is not meant to be an assertion of the best way. However, I would argue that the conversation that happens as the team negotiates the categories across the top of the sheet catapults them quickly into the kinds of conversations that make a difference for instruction.

Using this set of conferring notes as an example, imagine a team sitting around a table together, collaborating around the categories at the top of the spreadsheet. The following three "leverage points" are opportunities to maximize impact on student learning through the talk that happens while engaged in this task.

Leverage Point #1: What do we want writers to learn?

Clarity is key. As teachers generate writing skills we might consider adding to our conferring sheet, it opens the door to questions like:

"What's the main focus at this grade level for this type of writing? Let's double check with the standards/our curriculum documents/our resource, etc." (If we have already unit planned together, this part of the process is pretty quick. If we have not unit planned together, this process pushes us back into clarifying what it is we want kids to learn in this unit.)

Do we want to sequence these skills in a particular way, based on when or how we plan to teach them? (This question ensures that teams have thought through the way new learning builds within the unit as teachers anticipate where they might expect to begin conferring.)

"Is that skill something we expect writers to be independent with by the end of this unit? By the end of the year?" (Clear success criteria have a dramatic effect on the minilessons we plan and the kinds of goals we set with writers while conferring. We sometimes skip this step while unit planning, guaranteeing a need to swing back to it later. Co-creating conferring notes ensures that teams address proficiency levels from the start.)

When we can walk away from unit planning with conferring notes that reflect a shared vision of what student writing will look like at the end of the unit, we are beginning with a running start.

Leverage Point #2: Windows for Coaching

As a coach, co-creating conferring notes is a natural place to ask the kinds of questions that make space for reflection and new learning. So, for example, if a team is not yet thinking about process skills as they plan for launching the writing workshop, I might ask:

"What are some of the habits of writers that you know can be challenging at this point in the year? What can we anticipate that we'll be reinforcing and coaching into as we launch the workshop?"

Teachers might then mention things like generating ideas for writing, getting themselves started, stamina for writing, etc. This opens the door to conversation around what kinds of process mini lessons we might plan for, especially if this did not happen during unit planning. Additionally, these conversations plant seeds for (and normalize) some of the speed bumps in getting started.

Over units (and over years), this has become an effective way to differentiate my coaching for teams in different places with workshop. I can see clear evidence of teacher growth as our conferring notes change over time. And because there is always more to learn, there is always another layer to consider as we plan for conferring.

Leverage Point #3: Data on the Table

A common system for documenting conferring notes makes it easier for teams to reflect on student growth during the unit. This is the kind of data (especially alongside student work) that feels safe to put on the table and discuss.

Teammates will notice visual patterns in their conferring notes that prompt reflective questions such as:

"As I'm conferring, I'm noticing that almost all my writers are solid with [insert skill or process]. I think the writing I've been doing alongside kids is helping them to understand. . ."

"I'm doing most of my teaching during conferences around [insert skill or process]. I wonder if we might need to plan for some minilessons/look for a mentor text/pull small groups to. . ."

"I'm noticing a pattern with writers who are [insert process skill] and need support with [insert academic skill]. Does anyone have ideas for how we might. . ."

Instructional conversations like these build capacity and trust on teams, and they lead to responsive workshop teaching during the unit.

With conferring notes on the table, teachers will also share and inquire around the nuts and bolts of conferring:

"How many writers are you getting to each day?"

"How long are your conferences?"

"What do you do when. . .?"

"What are you actually writing down? Is it what they're working on? The teaching point? Their goal? All of that?"

"What are some ways you're keeping track of. . .?"

All of this talk is valuable, because it builds the kind of support that will keep teachers conferring. Over time, teams will collaborate around making their notes increasingly user-friendly, which raises their ownership of the shared system. Teams will begin to crave having the information they need about their writers (or readers or mathematicians. . .) at their fingertips, organized by what it is they want kids to learn.

A data point for me is when I'm unit planning with teachers (in any content) and someone says, "Wait! We haven't made our conferring notes yet!"

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Conferring Notes: The Key to Unit Planning

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As an instructional coach, I do a whole lot of unit planning, side by side with teams of teachers. Hands down, the most impactful step in the process-all too often overlooked-is planning for how we will capture our conferring notes.