This past weekend, I had the awesome opportunity to travel to Charleston, South Carolina with my cohort of South Carolina Teaching Fellows. Once there, we met with over one hundred other sophomore Teaching Fellows from across the state.
Students from the eleven college institutions that sponsor the Teaching Fellows program, such as Winthrop University, Anderson University, and Francis Marion University, met for an exclusive educational conference geared at introducing us to new classroom techniques and getting us even more pumped about entering classrooms in around two years.
First, we got to mingle with other Teaching Fellows. It was like entering an area where everyone had similar interests and goals as you. As a secondary English education major, I was so excited to meet others in my concentration area. It is hard to find anyone else crazy enough to want to teach high school!
We were given the chance to meet Dr. Michael Fleming, the Teaching Fellows Program facilitator. Then, each Teaching Fellow was able to choose three break-out sessions to attend. This proved more difficult than you would think, as each session seemed exciting and a "can not miss." I ended up attending "Your Six Word Story." "Set the Stage to Engage," and "Humor in School is Serious Business...Sort of."
In the "Your Six Word Story" segment, Teaching Fellows were given the chance to recount their most memorable school experience, pick out the key components, and boil it down into a six word sentence to be used as our professional and personal mission statement for teaching. (After all, you only have seven seconds to make a first impression on someone new---your mission statement should not take no more than a few seconds.) After working with three partners individually, my mission statement for teaching is "Every person gets a second chance." Just because students entering my class may have baggage or a past doesn't mean they shouldn't have a clean slate to begin the year with! I don't care what I have heard, in my class, you're brand new.
During the "Set the Stage to Engage" segment, my creativity was sparked by the speaker's use of every day objects to make incredible lessons for her students. Want to make an informal assessment more engaging? Turn out the lights and have a glow party! A teacher can use glow stick bracelets to play bingo, use glow sticks to match answers from two different columns, and larger, glow stick rings to play Ring Toss Review. The students love the fun way to review and the teacher gets everyone involved and knowledge tested. It's a win-win. I also have new ways to incorporate theme pies, grammar surgery, and Shakespeare boot camp into my lessons! I am so excited!
The last session I attended was "Humor in Schools is Serious Business...Sort of." The speaker discussed the scientifically proven ways that having laughter in a classroom promotes a good environment and good learning. He discussed the best ways to create a humor-filled atmosphere. He also discussed how to incorporate games and personal stories to engage students without getting off topic. The best part of humor in a classroom is it doesn't have to be a whole comedy routine or knock-knock joke after knock-knock joke. It can be something as small as a silly question at the end of a test or a bell-ringer question that's a riddle. Anything that lightens up the mood of the classroom, gets students to relax a little bit, and draws them in is a step in the right direction.
Overall, my time spent at the Teaching Fellows Sophomore Experience was incredible. It was amazing to get mingle with other Fellows and professors from across the state. The break-out sessions were not only informative, but inspiring and entertaining. Now more than ever, I am excited about my future profession.
Thank you to CERRA and the Teaching Fellows program for making incredible experiences like these possible.
