Sunday, November 13, 2016

CAST: Conference for the Advancement of Science Teachers

I haven't been to a large conference for about eleven years. It was a science teachers conference in Georgia. It was my second year of teaching and honestly, I was overwhelmed and unsure how to get the most out of it. It was crowded, I spent most of my time in the Exhibit Hall talking to vendors and gathering posters etc. I went to a few workshops where lab activities were demonstrated, with no samples provided, discussions of science with little application ideas, and thus I ended up leaving the conference feeling like I didn't get that much out of it, except a weekend trip with my family.

This last weekend, my fifteenth year of teaching, I attended my second conference: CAST. It was in San Antonio, TX. It was crowded too, but in an enormous conference center, I mean gigantic. They provided half-an-hour travel time in between sessions but if you didn't leave your previous session a little early you would be at the end of a very long line for the next workshop and might not be able to get in. However, they had hundreds of sessions about 46 different at each time slot. So choices abound. I didn't have an issue, I guess my choices were not the popular choices. I attended a total of 15 hour long workshops over 2 1/2 days. Every slot offered, I was there. Plus an hour to walk the exhibits and gather some posters, videos etc. An incredible but busy few days.

I have so much information swirling in my brain. I took notes, gathered handouts and even have access to all the documents at the conference, the courses I attended and those I did not. It is very overwhelming. So in order to truly reflect on all of the awesome information I have decided to write a reflection post on every one of the sessions I attended and those I may learn about within the large amount of documents at my disposal. So over the next few weeks there will be a lot of reflection, application, and if I used the strategy in my classroom integration posts.

Professional development is critical for teachers if we want to stay current, relevant, gain insight into our teaching and reflect and grow as educators. The large conferences, as intimidating as they may seem, are the best way to network and communicate with other educators, scientists, professors and vendors.There are such amazing resources out there, many of them free, that we do not know about, I discovered three at CAST that tomorrow I will be use in my classroom, I am elated. You will just have to wait to see what they are over the next few weeks. Do I have you on the edge of your seat?

If you read my blog you know I am a risk-taker, I try new things all the time. I am also a realist and because I reflect often, I recognize my weaknesses and strengths, I face my failures not with disappointment but with an eagerness to tweak and update in order to make my teaching more successful for students. But my ultimate goal, as I have said in many a Twitter post, is not to teach my students science but to teach them how to teach themselves science. It is my curiosity that drives my growth mindset, I may not integrate the myriad of ideas in their entirety, but take bits and pieces of various strategies and lay them out for my students to choose from. I may combine some, even just take part of one, the end of another use them separately. But most of what I learned will be integrated into my classroom in some fashion. I chose courses that I knew spoke to my teaching style, unique as it may be and that provided me with opportunity to find the hidden gems at the conference.

A truly student-centered classroom is about student engagement and them knowing the expectations, so the little things that are easy to implement with modeling and routine are what work best. Challenge with big ideas, discrepant events, and choice but allow them to feel confident in the routines. So tomorrow I will demonstrate just one of many new things that my students have coming their way. I know that these will enhance their learning. Isn't that why we are here? Why we are teachers? To create authentic, active, relevant experiences that students can embrace and use to enhance their growth mindset. The greatest gifts we can present to students are curiosity, self-discovery, and independence. These are what I seek to provide for my students every day. This is why I attended the conference to learn but ultimately to find strategies to continue to help my students become curious, independent, engaged learners.

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