EduNow 2013: Empowering New Teachers

Last September when I proposed the idea of hosting our own conference for new teachers as a way

of welcoming them into the profession and setting the bar I wasn’t sure how it was going to be received. I shared the idea with a few trusted colleagues who encouraged me to run with the idea and we built a team to carry out what seemed like a long shot at the time.

Yesterday we hosted EduNow 2013: “Empowering New Teachers” and welcomed 100 registrants and 30 presenters at our inaugural event. The energy from both participants and presenters was amazing and the initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The event that was free for beginning teachers featured free breakfast and lunch, a keynote speaker, 4 concurrent sessions, and raffle of new teacher survival gear.

The effort to pull off this event was truly collaborative and wouldn't have been possible without the varied expertise and talents of my amazing colleagues. It was also an incredible learning process for myself that took me well outside of my comfort zone. The first education conference that I attended as a second year teacher had a profound impact on me as I discovered a connected world of professionals who were committed to positive collaboration and change well beyond the confines of their own classrooms. I am hoping that this event will help to pay forward some of the opportunities that I have had and encourage those coming into the profession to push some boundaries and not be content with the status quo.

EduNow 2014 is already in the works and we will be scaling up for next year!

Design Thinking for Educators

High achieving educators who are up to date with their practice need to consider themselves as creative types who carefully design learning experiences for students using a variety of methods including technology integration, ideas from across disciplines, opportunities for reflection, and opportunities to contribute to projects that have lasting value.

That were the main idea of my recent presentation for new teachers at EduNow 2013: