Conference

This was my first ever conference and I thought it was real cool and interesting. I didn’t know what to expect, I thought that we would just sit in a big room and listen to people talk. When we broke up into workshops I thought we would be doing interactive things but instead we sat there and someone taught us useful information. The first workshop I went too didn’t really talk about how important purposeful play or leading with activities but I did learn a lot of useful information.  We discussed how the classroom environment can enhance a students ability to learn. There was this one school that was in the middle of no where and there were buildings all around the school that were run down and the state actually burned them so they can’t be used for anything. The school on the outside looked a little rough,  as soon as the person who was giving the lecture showed us a picture of the inside I was amazed. It was so colorful, hardwood floors, iPads inside the desks, seats that didn’t look like the stereotypal chairs and more futuristic, bright interactive signs on the wall, it was all for a purpose. They were installed for a specific reason, to help these kids interact more with school and find ways to help educate them and have them be their best just by the learning environment they are in. There was one example he showed us (attached a picture to the bottom) and it was of a chart of how you were feeling that day, and just by seeing where the kids are at emotionally for the day will help you in the long run. On the side there is an area where the student expresses what they learned and what their goals are for the next day. Than at the way bottom there is an easy chart to see their interest, engagement, and work completion. There could be assignments that peak their interest but were super easy for them and they finished the fastest in the class or you can see if there was little interest with no engagement. It is all just to see what works best for the kid so you can use that info in the future for creating work assignments. I like the 1-4 feelings chart because at the beginning of the day you can kind of get a feel for how the day is going to progress. If you know that little Johnny is having a bad day and when he has those kind of days he is more distracting, lashes out, or anything like that you can adress it and find a way to make his day better so that is easier for the rest of the kids in class because now you can give them all your attention rather than always having to keep an extra eye on Johnny. You could ask him to pass out the papers or be a helper for the morning, something that will take his attention off the bad day he is having and make him forget about it.