Sunday, April 13, 2014

Google Forms for Conferring in Writer's Workshop

If someone asked me what my favorite part of Writer’s Workshop is, I would tell them it is conferring with my students. I love talking to my students about their writing. We laugh and cry together as their stories unfold. My writers deserve this uninterrupted time to be heard.  It is my job to supply honest feedback and help them develop their craft. How’s It Going? A Practical Guide to Conferring with Student Writers by Carl Anderson is my favorite resource on conferring.  It is filled with Post It notes and has a permanent place on my desk.
Did I mention I love talking to my students about their writing? This can be a problem when you have 23 students and conferences in workshop should average about 2-7 minutes.  I am always looking for ways to improve the conferring process without sacrificing the quality of the time spent with an individual writer or group of writers.  One idea that greatly improved the environment of our workshop was the implementation of Student PLNs.  Writers now turn to someone in their own Personal Learning Network for feedback while I am conferring with other students.  

I found that Student PLNs helped students continue to move forward with their writing while they waited, but it did not help me shorten my conferences.  I realized my conferences were taking extra time because I spent at least 5 minutes finding out what the piece was about and what skill they wanted to focus on.  I thought if I knew this ahead of time, our time together could be spent developing their craft. We are fortunate to have 1:1 Chromebooks, so I turned to Google Forms.  My students and I already use Google Forms for surveys, flipped lessons, scripts, and submitting links for Web 2.0 projects.  I created a Pre-Conference Interview Form based on the Student Checklists in the Units of Study.

My students completed the form using their Chromebook, Student Checklist and their drafts.  The following day I was able to start conferring with my updated conferring toolkit which included my student responses from the Pre-Conference Interview Form.  This additional information proved to be not only a timesaver, but an additional connection with my students.  I would start the conference with something they shared in the form, and they would smile wide, knowing they had already been heard and the conference had just begun.  

5 comments:

  1. This is timely. Our Ed Services group was just discussing iPads with Confer and Google Forms came up. Your form is not published for public access. Would you mind posting a screen shot of it?

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    1. Thanks for the comment James. The link is now public so you can share it with your group. Let me know if you have any questions.

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  2. Julie,
    I love the idea of a google form so that a student can plan for the conference as well. Is all your feedback during the conference oral? Have you thought of adding a written component to continue the conversation???

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    1. Fran,
      I give the students two forms of feedback. First, I jot our initial goals on a sticky note so the students have something to look at as they return to their desks and begin working. I also post feedback on a shared Google Doc that students and I both have access to throughout the year. This helps us remember what we worked on last time and check for progress. I also use this document at conference time to communicate with parents what skills we are working on in workshop. I would love to hear any suggestions you have. Thanks for the comment.

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