KATE Conference

This past week I had the pleasure of attending the KATE conference and it was awesome! I got to learn some pretty cool things that I can use in my future classroom. I also had the pleasure of seeing my old high school English teachers and meeting new teachers. Not to mention I also had the pleasure of listening to Taylor Mali recite his poetry which was pretty fantastic.

On the first day of the conference I listened to quite a few helpful breakout sessions. My favorite was the first session that I went to titled Rethinking Language Arts and Crafts. This session provided me with ideas to make my classroom fun with some hands on activities that didn't require too much technology. This session not only showed us some student examples but they also provided a packet that we could take with us with all of the arts and crafts assignments. One of the sessions was a little disappointing mainly because it was a bit short. The speaker had to leave early so we only got about 10 minutes of Shaking Up  How we Approach Shakespeare. I wish I would've learned a bit more on the one because I think that would be useful when dealing with high school English.

The second day of the conference was also very useful. I learned about classroom management and using social media in your classroom. In Nonfiction: Unlocking Creativity and Critical Thinking I learned about quite a few interesting sites that I can use as a teacher. My favorite session was Command Control and Conquer your Classroom. This session focused more on classroom management and how to interact with your students in order to have a successful and comfortable learning environment. One session that I did not attend that I wish I would have was Facing the Joys and Perils of the First Year of Teaching I think this would have been an interesting and helpful session.

My favorite part about the KATE conference of course was having the opportunity of listening to Taylor Mali in person. He is amazing. I have seen his videos on YouTube but there is nothing like listening to him in person. I was absolutely amazed. Overall the conference was great and I am very greatfull that I was able to attend and listen to all these great ideas of how to make your classroom successful.