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A problem-solving conference is a strategy designed to help a student address and overcome persistent challenges at school. This private discussion focuses on understanding the root of the difficulty and identifying strategies to support the student in moving past it. During a problem-solving conference, the teacher and student collaborate to tackle the issue. The teacher initiates the conversation, actively listens to the student’s perspective, and frames the problem as a shared challenge. Together, they explore potential causes and develop a plan to address the situation.
Problem-solving conferences are most effective when there is rapport between the teacher and student, a rapport established before any problem-solving is attempted. Conducted well, these conferences work because when children feel accepted and trust that their teacher cares about them, they’re generally eager to work with their teacher to become more successful in school. Here are three examples of what successful problem-solving conferences can look in practice:
Edward often clowned around during work times and interrupted his classmates’ work. When logical consequences didn’t help, Mrs. Sandoval decided to try a problem-solving conference. She thought this might be effective because Edward could get defensive at times, and in this conference she could begin by naming the positive aspects of his humor.
Mrs. Sandoval told him she noticed how he had a great sense of humor and a good memory for jokes, and how people liked to be around him because he could get them laughing. This helped him let down his guard and get into a productive problem-solving frame of mind.
They then talked about how telling jokes was not a problem, but doing it during work times was. By the end of the conference, Edward agreed to try to limit his joke telling to recess, lunch, after school, and designated Morning Meeting times. He clowned around less during work times, and he and the classmates around him finished more of their work.
Mr. Byrne had a student who dawdled whenever math started. The problem, he began to suspect, was that Ana didn’t like minute math, always the class’s first math activity, in which students would have a minute and a half to do thirty simple computations. Mr. Byrne realized that a problem-solving conference, with its structure for probing the causes of a problem, could help him confirm this and understand why Ana didn’t like minute math.
Sure enough, when Mr. Byrne posed some “Could it be” questions, Ana said she didn’t like minute math because she was “too slow,” that she couldn’t do all the problems in one and a half minutes.
So they agreed that she would do half the problems. As her confidence grew, she started doing a few more on her own. Eventually she did thirty computations like the rest of the class.
David was a fifth grader who struggled with academics and had developed a tough guy exterior to save face. He wasn’t getting his work done, and his facial expressions and body language said “I don’t care about school. This is stupid.”
Ms. Hoffman knew that children like David critically needed personal connections with caring adults, and she realized that a problem-solving conference would help her build that kind of connection with him. Having seen David playing football, Ms. Hoffman also knew what a different person he was on the field. She began the conference by noting how in football he was energetic in every play, intense in every huddle, cooperative through and through. That made him receptive enough to talk about how to transfer that sort of enthusiasm to school.
There were many challenges to overcome on that front. But one agreement they made was that David would come to school early so he could get extra help on assignments without classmates seeing. Ms. Hoffman also partnered David up with a college mentor to help him with homework. The mentor was himself a football player, so there was the larger benefit that he could help David see that in order to play football, one had to do well in school.
David needed many other supports, but the one-on-one attention he got in the problem-solving conference was an important first step.
Marty Kennedy, Maggie West, and Sheree Nolley contributed to this article.