Conferences

I found the conference very useful.  It helped me realize the improvements that I needed to make to my paper.  It also allowed me to know what my professor expected of my paper.  It also helped me narrow my focus on what I needed to improved, rather than being overwhelmed with revising my whole paper.  It gave me a specific starting point.
I think that the conference and the written comments were useful, and I would want that to stay the same way.  I took notes on what you said in the conference, but there were things that I did not write down that appeared on the comments on the paper.  This was useful very useful for me.  I think that the written comments were more useful than the conference because I did not have any specific questions on this paper.  I think a good way of doing it would be to post the written comments and then give us the option of making an appointment to meet with you to discuss the comments further if we needed it.
On thing that I would consider changing would be to have the conferences before the peer reviews.  The comments that I received changed the way I wrote a lot of my paper.  Thus, many of the comments the peer reviewers made didn't apply as much because I changed the paper so much.  I think that  if we had the conferences then revised the paper then had the peer conferences that would be more effective, from my point of view.