Promising Practices Conference

The Promising Practices Conference on Saturday went really well, in my opinion. I arrived around 8 am and, since I'm one of the most forgetful people on the planet, had to do a walk-in registration. The women at the desk were really nice and helpful, and it only took me a few minutes to pick my workshops and sign in. I met up with a few friends and we sat down until the first workshop began.

The first workshop I attended was "Improving Inclusion in Classroom Interaction". The presenter was organized, and had a power point for us to watch. It had a lot of really interesting information about gender issues in the classroom, as well as participation percentages. For example, the presenter told us that only about 25% of elementary school students report having constant interaction with their teachers. When you think about it, classes usually are filled with both students who raise their hands and contribute to classroom discussions, and then there are students who actively listen most of the time. However, this class went deeper than that. We talked about groups of students who have lower interaction rates, and the reasons why. Like how girls usually have a lower interaction rate than male students, because teachers tend to call on boys more, and girls are passively taught to keep quiet. Also, we talked about how, when students are asked to work in pairs, mixed gender groups tend to be led by the male in the group, and that the female will be more submissive and ask the boy for help/directions. It's unfortunate that our classrooms still have these unspoken gender biases. I felt like it really related back to the discussions we had in class about gender in education. We discussed a lot of the same issues that we did in class. We also discussed how students who come from different cultural backgrounds have lower interaction rates, because they feel excluded and unsure of themselves. It's the teacher's job to make sure that all of their students feel comfortable and equal to their classmates.

After this, I went to the curriculum resource fair. There were a lot of interesting materials and brochures to check out, so I took a few. I haven't really had the time to check them out though! I'll try and get around to that this weekend.

My second workshop was called Multicultural Teaching: A Best Practice Approach to Growing Academic Skills. The presenters were really nice, and had a few really good points. Their main idea is that many curriculums in school only discuss events and lessons from the "valued" culture of power - white, christian, etc. This reminded me of Johnson's S.C.W.A.A.M.P piece. We then had to view a power point lesson and write about how we would include other cultures and view points into the lesson. It was really informative, and I like that we got to really get involved in this workshop.

After that, we had lunch and listened to Dr. Tricia Rose. I was really excited to get to hear her talk, because her speech that we watched in class was really informative. I really liked the part of her speech when she talked about her personal experiences in the classroom with her students making subconcious innappropriate comments. Sometimes people don't even realize that just because society has started throwing around derogatory terms carelessly doesn't mean that they aren't ignorant and offensive. It's all part of the discussion that we all need to be a part of as a society.