Thursday
morning may have been one of the most overwhelming moments of my young career
as an educator. Here I am with thousands of people around me, getting to listen
to some of the brightest minds in Science and Education. My mind was circling,
“What should I go to? How can this session benefit my kids? Does this
pertain to anything I do?”
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So I decided on going to the First
Year Teacher Session put on by the NSTA. They gave us background on
everything and helped set the tone. After this session, I felt more
comfortable. The
best session of Thursday for me had to do with the NGSS and was put on my
Stemscopes, a company based out of Texas. They did a great job of interacting
and making the session fun, while at the same time, answering questions about
the NGSS and then of course pushing their online curriculum.
Overall, my favorite session of
the whole weekend was Fostering Insatiable Curiosity in Learners presented by
Wendy Saul from University of Missouri-St Louis. She had many great lines and
quotes, but the main thing I took away from this session are 1) We must as
educators make our classes memorable. Students and people in general remember
specific occurrences and instances where they succeed or when they do
something unique. To truly get our students engaged and get the most out of
them, we as teachers must do this. 2) In order to accomplish this, we must
have 3 things, Authenticity, Autonomy and Community.
Saturday morning we learned more
about Missouri’s plans for adopting our own new Science standards. There is a
timeline available at dese.mo.gov, but it is coming up fast! The main goal is
a great goal and should be used in every class, not just science. We have to
get rid of the apathy of our students. To do this, we must make the brain and
the heart connect!
This was an excellent learning
experience for me and my coworkers. I look forward to implementing these
strategies in my classroom and continue my growth as an educator.
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