Texas Collaborative Conference

I've been involved with the Texas Collaboratives for quite a while. In El Paso, I was trained by the Dana Center in math and UTEP in Writing through the UTEP Regional Collaborative. When I moved here to Pflugerville, I found myself working with the Region 13 Collaborative for Excellence in Science Teaching. These past two years, I've been working with the ACC Collaborative in Science based in Pflugerville, Round Rock and Hutto. The Texas Regional Collaboratives for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching is a network of Pre-K through Graduate college level educators that provide sustained professional development to elementary and secondary teachers. Here's their link if you want to find out more... http://thetrc.org/trc/
For the first time, I was able to attend the state conference. It was held here in Austin out at the airport Hilton.... wow!!!

Well, first of all, if I've been involved with something this long, there must be something that I'm getting out of it. I just don't stick with things because I like to say I was a member since 1991. As a matter of fact, I'm not much of a joiner at all. It's hard for me to even plan lessons with my very cool second grade team that I love! When I had to change from the Region 13 Collaborative to the ACC Collaborative, I did some serious grieving because I missed all my science friends who were as geeky as I am. (Some might say we don't have a life, but I say we LOVE life and want to learn all about it.) An aside: It was a little like the television show, Big Bang Theory when we all went out the McDonald Observatory... except we're all female and no, I wasn't Sheldon! Good times!

But it's not just the friendships that you develop when you are involved in such intense professional development. It's also the concepts and the things you learn that make you a better teacher! And seriously folks, science is so cool! There's always something new happening based upon new developments, technology and research. How irresistible is that?

Anyway, back to the conference... I went to two of the best sessions EVER!!! EVER!! The first one was "Building Motivation for Journaling" which, to be honest, was not my first choice. But I was late and couldn't get into my first choice session and am I glad for that! They used some Dinah Zike foldables for science and I was SO into it! I can't wait to make the the little scientist with the science class rules in his jacket with my students. They are going to love making the little magnifying glass holder with paper bags and so much more! I had had a challenging day working at summer school that day and I just wanted to go home, fall asleep and pretend it was all a nightmare but I felt compelled to attend the conference since it was quite expensive and it wasn't my cash. But that first session jazzed me up and I was ready to teach all over again! Of course, as compulsive as I am, I came home and ordered two Dinah Zike books so I can plan new foldables for my class....yeah, I spend a lot of money on my classroom.... Then I charged out of that session excited about the next session and again, the one I wanted was filled and so I found myself in a podcasting session with Stephanie Paramour-- from my old crew, the Region 13 Collaborative. Steph is a dynamo and she is an incredible teacher. I know that she's finished her Master's Degree but in my mind, she is really a Master Teacher. Steph got me all FIRED UP about using podcasts in the classroom so after I got home and spent too much money on Dinah Zike's website (hey, I wonder if I could talk the district into sending me to Dinah's "Foldables Camp"-- it's only $900.00 and I would be a trained foldables trainer... there's a new grant cycle coming up!....), then I went onto iTunes and spent hours reviewing podcasts. I found a few that might work for my second graders but most are geared toward an older audience, even third graders. But do you think that deterred me? No, now I'm just convinced that my class will have to develop some podcasts to involve the younger kids! What a great day! What a great conference! A pretty low day ended up recharging me completely. That's a good day.