Sometime in April or May, I had Googled, “Math Teacher Conferences” and stumbled upon the Academy of Best Practices 3.0 through CPM. It was a lengthy application, with a 1-minute video and two letters of recommendation required, and I barely made the deadline, but I was pretty proud of myself. Doing something like this would be enhancing my leadership and that was something I have been striving for as my years in education have progressed. I found out near the end of May that I was one of the chosen teachers for the conference. I went on YouTube and Vimeo (where we had to submit our videos) to cross-reference the email of selected teachers with the search results from YouTube/Vimeo to see if EVERYONE was accepted.
Spoiler alert: over 160 math teachers applied. I was one of 32 to be selected. HOLY.FREAKING.COW.
Math was super hard for me in junior high. My dad spent an hour EACH night with me at the dinner table, working on math. I knew for many years that I wanted to be a teacher, but it wasn’t until something clicked with me in high school math that I realized I could change the lives of my students if I was to be a teacher like the ones I had in high school (thanks Mr. Dunn, Mr. Adcock, and Mrs. Gaede!).
I have to say that I was a touch hesitant to be away from my typical Ironman training routine....like, I emailed the person in charge asking if we'd have access to the University's fitness center and did a ton of research on pools and biking in the area. I knew I wouldn’t be able to bike on my tri bike at all, but also was feeling okay with the fact that I had found a pool to swim at and could obviously run. I decided that taking 8 days off of riding my bike would be okay (I mean, I did just complete an Ironman) and that this experience would be 100% worth it (spoiler alert: it totally was).
My dad dropped me off at O’Hare (thanks, pops!) with about an hour to spare. I was fortunate to be flying out with two other teachers: Taylor (who had never been on a plane before—yay!) and Rebecca (who would be in the “Veterans” course versus the “Newbies” course that I was in).
We ended the day with a meet-and-greet with the other teachers we would be working with. There was definite variety in the group between location, experience, and even age (I was on the “old” end!).
BEFORE CLASS: I had done some research and found that the Queen Anne Pool was just about 1-mile away from our apartments. They had open swim from 6-7:30am, so I ran/walked (lemme tell ya, Seattle is NOT flat! And their “hills” are “mountains” compared to what we have in the Midwest!) and arrived right at 6. The pool was totally different from what I’m used to at LifeTime, so I assigned myself a spot in the “Medium” lane to begin with. As the lanes began to fill, I realized at this pool I would be considered “Fast,” which was most definitely a confidence booster! The run back to the apartments was mostly good minus the HUGE downhills that about broke my knees. I told myself I was glad I didn’t find a bike to rent at this point because I would likely flip over the handlebars or something crazy from the downhills!
I met my roommates at Gwinn for a quick breakfast (welcome back to college!) from the awesome omelette station before heading to McKenna Hall for our first session of the day.
BEFORE CLASS: I meant to wake up and run… but chose to sleep in instead. I knew this was going to be a crazy, busy, but fun, week, and was not willing to set my body up to potentially get sick.
CLASS: Each day from here on, we came into class by getting some sort of object. This object sent us to a certain table where we often were grouped differently than before, which was great in terms of being able to work with other teachers and meet new people. We did the Marshmallow Activity that I’ve done with my classes before, and it was fun to watch a group of teachers do it as well.
We then learned a LOT about Algebra Tiles, which is something I am 100% going to use in my classroom. I really feel like this will help my PreAlgebra students with many of the misunderstood concepts throughout the year and am looking forward to it!
We also discussed Feedback. I feel like this is a really difficult part of teaching. Regardless of if you are an elementary teacher with 20-30 students or a middle/high school teacher with 100+ students, finding ways to give descriptive, effective feedback is always a challenge. I left the day feeling like I had strategies to incorporate better use of feedback at least on a weekly basis with my students.
BEFORE CLASS: I started my swim in the Fast Lane right away today after realizing on Monday that maybe I could challenge myself a bit more. Nothing like a bit of a confidence booster for that slow swimmer!
BEFORE CLASS: A few people had recommended going to Discovery Park, so when I saw it was just under 3miles from my apartment, I decided to incorporate it into my run. I also found out there was a lighthouse at the end of the park, so I decided to run on some of the trails to get there. After potentially getting lost a few times, I made it. FYI, the lighthouse is super disappointing. But, I got close to 10 miles in for the day, so still felt like I accomplished something. Oops!
Our speaker for today discussed Equity in the math classroom. We viewed a video on “My Favorite No,” which is something our district math group has watched before. I really like the concept and think I might try and include it more in my classroom so that students DO see that it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as we learn from them. We talked a bit about Academic Mindsets as well before ending the day.
BEFORE CLASS: my last day of swimming at the Queen Anne Pool. My roommate Taylor was awesome again and had my omelette ready for me by the time I arrived (they had an omelette station in the cafeteria but it the line was ALWAYS so long!).
We worked with Algebra Tiles once more (completing the square!) before wrapping up our time together. It was bittersweet to be ending, but I was completely exhausted.