This past weekend, I had the opportunity to present at Augusta State University SLP Conference. It was held on Saturday, March 2, 2019.
The keynote speaker was the Georgia Teacher of the Year 2019, Allison Townsend. She gave a heart-filled key note about having positive relationships with students. It was a great speech that kicked off a super day of learning!
I attended three different sessions. My first session was by Melissa Johnson and how to effectively creative content literacy in the classroom. She shared several examples of ideas that have been working in her classroom to increase student engagement in reading. Some of the examples were using the 4 square vocabulary graphic organizer, word maps for pre-writing, 3-2-1 information sheet, and having students complete 1-pager for formal assessments.
The next session I had the pleasure of listening to was about making connections to your students by Torben Ross from North Carolina. Torben is an elementary school principal who spoke about building relationships with your students. Torben spoke of 4 different types of relationships that teachers/ principals can have with students. They include: authoritarian (rigid and follows rules), friendly (caring but not focusing on work), aloof ( doesn't really care/just there for the paycheck), and high performance relationship (caring for students and setting high expectations). The main basis was to have effective teaching, one has to to be fair and kind, but maintain high expectations for the students.
The third session I got to experience was learning about being a change agent in the classroom by Liz Raeburn, the principal of BCMS in South Georgia. Liz gave a fantastic presentation about how to make your 20 feet of the classroom into a place the students are excited to be in during the day. One great idea she shared was providing different option for hooks for lessons. Hooks for lesson are super important because it can either keep or turn away a student's behavior. Liz definitely has a love for her school and she is someone you should follow on Twitter! Her Twitter handle is @missliz31.
The last session was the session that I had the pleasure of presenting about Google Choas in the classroom. It was a 50 minutes discussion/ presentation about how to incorporate technology into your classroom in a fun and engaging ways. I talked about how technology should be enhancing your teaching, not making you dread the work day. Some of the different tools I discussed were Nearpod, Flocaubaulry, Google docs, Google Slides, and Google Forms. It was a great opportunity to network and share my information with others.
 |
| Talking about Google |
 |
| Always talking with my hands |
 |
| The beginning slide |
Presenting at conferences is always a fun and new experience. The SLP Conference is definitely
something not to miss! Have a great week!!
