I was able to assist in a two-day symposium provided by Utah State Universities Early Childhood department. I was very excited beforehand to meet the two keynote speakers, Dr. Douglas Fisher and former IRA President, Dr. Maureen McLaughlin.
Here I am setting up the room as the prepped the sound system.
He spoke about the top 5 most important Common Core Standards and how in San Diego, they conduct research in literacy that focuses on Close Reading of text. The teachers were taught how to choose, teach and determine text complexity. He was an excellent speaker with stories, book recommendations, video's, jokes, research points, and he even brought his text to give-away to each participant.
The second day of training with Dr. Maureen McLaughlin was more literature-based with picture book mini-lesson ideas, ways to use music in the classroom to teach and other information about the Common Core Standards and how they came about. I was hoping to hear more about her international experiences but that didn't come up as I'd hoped.
Overall, I enjoyed the presentations, and loved getting to know the speakers personally during lunch. The teachers also felt like they learned a lot and some even went on to take college credit with me about the topics that came up during the conference in an online class.
