Summer Conferences

I am just returning from two days of conferences, with four sessions, and one earned college credit. (Everything but the college credit was free.) Professional development always refreshes me and makes me excited for another year.

The four sessions I attended were on Social Media in the Classroom, Intentions and Success Criteria, Best Practices in the Writing Process, and Feedback: Failure for Future Success. Only the Writing session was geared to Language Arts teachers. All the rest of the sessions hit all disciplines. Quite a few administrators who are instructional coaches for their schools attended the sessions, too. We were a diverse group of people in any session, and that was valuable, too.

I am always interested in Social Media and how it can be used to make me a better educator. The session reinforced some ways I use it, but also gave me quite a few new things to consider.

Intentions, Success Criteria, and Feedback were all relevant to some of the ideas I have been considering with Standards Based Grading. It was great to find out that what I have been thinking is part of several new movements. Much more on this for another day.

The Best Practices in Writing was a breath of fresh air in terms of grading feedback and writing audiences. I will save this for another day, too.

It is June 8th and a summer conference already has me excited for a new school year and many changes in my teaching style--not just for English, but for my speech and drama classes, too.

I am attending another conference next week. (When conferences are free, it is hard not to attend.) This time a colleague and I are attending together. It will be great to share ideas and figure out how to implement them on the way home.

Summer--recharge and revitalize time. So far, so good!