To confer...

Confer - (verb) from the Latin con = to bring and ferre = together

This week the Reflective Writing Club (#CCCWrite) prompts our community to consider the role of conferences in our professional learning - their value in the moment and in the years to come.

In my life, I have been very fortunate to attend quite a few conferences. My first experiences were to present research findings as a graduate student. I still remember how incredibly nervous I felt at my very first poster presentation. It was a local symposium hosted by my home institution. As my confidence grew, I found myself venturing into larger forums - even presenting at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and Environmental Science & Technology (EST).

Looking back I can recognize how the skills I developed there inform my teaching practices today. Lots of those presentations were given in stuffy, dimly lit conference rooms that were very conducive to napping (especially after lunch). I noticed how easily the audience became disengaged. I also noticed what styles of presentation kept people interested. Gradually I adopted a more conversational and engaging style (and even won a few awards along the way, which helped me realize that there is value in at least some of what I have to say).

Being a good science communicator is critically important because a functioning democracy depends on a well-informed electorate. (Thank you Thomas Jefferson for this wisdom). A lot of the issues that face our country - and indeed our world - require a basic knowledge of fundamental concepts and understanding of how science works, that is what it can do and what it cannot.

Flash forward a decade. I now find myself attending professional conferences whose focus is less on scientific research and more on pedagogical approaches. In fact I was lucky enough to attend one just this past week to learn more about how to better implement metacognition and active learning through the Reading Apprenticeship framework. Thankfully, I am part of a great community of educators with varying years of experience in this approach, so we help each other out along the way sharing what works (and what doesn't). This community serendipitously spans several institutions, in part because of the connections made at conferences.

Every year the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) hosts a conference. As much as I have enjoyed all of the conferences I've attended over the years, this one is probably my favorite. It has lots of rugged Earth Scientists in attendance (like me) with lots of cool ideas about how to bring more hands-on learning to the classroom (not just in lab). Plus it has FIELD TRIPS!!! I've got to get back there soon. I didn't have a chance to go this past year, but the year before that I got to meet Dr. Tanya Atwater - one of my personal heroines - and get my hands on some really cool models (some of which I got to build myself). So now we have in my department a model of seafloor spreading that shows how fracture zones form along transform faults. (Here's where you can go to learn how to build one yourself). In fact, she has all kinds of other incredible resources available on her website.

The common theme here is where we started - it is the coming together of other seekers on the path to becoming great educators that is of greatest value (both to me personally and to our students who benefit).

Without question, the most valuable thing I take from these conferences is the connections I make with other educators. Over the years I have built up my own Professional Learning Network of adopted mentors. These are the people I emulate, often joking that "when I grow up I want to be just like ____________" - except I'm not really joking. I cherish these relationships because of the shared learning they inspire. And I do my best to pay it forward and share these inspiring ideas with others.

That we inspire one another to greatness truly is revolutionary!