I got to the Conference around 8 in the morning and was thrilled to see what this might be like and what kind of things I would learn and hear at the conference. When I got all settled in I sat down and looked through the folder that they gave me. I found many interesting things inside the folder that could be beneficial for me today and in the future. I was very intrigued as to what was to come in the conference just from seeing what was inside the folder I received.
My first session that I took was called “Students with Special Needs.” I picked this because I want to do my concentration in special needs to I figured that it would be very beneficial to me in the future. The first thing that we ended up doing was we looked at pictures of students and tried to identify their disability if they had one. I thought this activity was alright but I thought that the point of it was going to be for something more than just showing us how students with special needs look the same as non-disability children. I feel like we could have spent the time on something better than realizing sometimes you cannot tell if a child has a disability or not. After that we did many other activities to show us what it would be like to be a student with a disability. We did a listening activity that we had to listen really carefully to in order to figure out a puzzle that we were supposed to make. We had to listen to the recording and do what it was saying in order to make a picture out of shapes. This was really difficult and gave me good insight on what it might be like to be a student who has a difficult time listening and following directions. Although we did many other activities like the ones I mentioned above I wish that we had learned a little bit more about special needs and the ways we can help the students learn rather than understanding how they feel. I think understanding how they feel when they are having trouble with something is important too but helping the student find ways to work through the trouble is the most important part as a whole. I feel like the main message that the speaker was trying to send was to start small with a child and work your way up. She used examples like color coding questions and the answers in readings so the child can identify they match up. She also used reading lower level stories at first and working your way up to the correct level as an example. I agree with her and think it is good to start small but not too small because I feel as though some children take it differently than how the teacher might want them to take it.
This relates to the story we just read about in class recently about children with disabilities and how they are separated from other students because they are considered a student with “disabilities.” I think sometimes teachers need to evaluate students more than they do and try to think of what might be best for them and if staying in a segregated class is what is good for them then so be it but if going into a general education class will benefit that child more, then that is where that student should be.
The second session that I went to was about social skills and different activities that we could do to help a student develop better social skills. We played a game where everyone got a number 1-7 and you did not know what number you had. You then were not allowed to talk to anyone with a lower number than you had. Because no one knew what number they had it made it clear who had higher numbers and who had lower numbers because the ones with lower numbers were alone not talking to anyone and the ones with higher numbers were being ambushed by people. I liked this activity because it shows students who are less shy the others what it might be like to be ignored if they have a lower number and it also helps students talk to others even if they do not know that person. One thing that I did learn during this session was that even the smartest students might not have any social skills. The speaker showed us a video of a boy who had won the spelling bee recently. He was being interviewed but he had no social skills at all and said things that most people would not say back to someone who was interviewing them. I thought that was very interesting to watch.
This topic relates to the theme of tracking in schools because even if you are smart you could have no social skills. What I mean is that tracking is to separate students into groups based on their ability in school. How can you put a student in an honors class when they have no social skills and are not able to hold a conversation with another person? I think tracking is a difficult thing to have when it comes down to situations like this one where the boy is extremely smart but just cannot talk to someone normally. I wish the speaker would have explained more about this topic and how we would solve issues like this one.
I really did not enjoy the keynote speaker at the end of the conference because I thought he was boring to listen to and should have used more examples of things instead of listing everything and talking in such technical terms. Most of what he was saying I just did not get and I thought he never got a main point in his speech where he told us what his point was. The one thing that I remember the most about his speech was at the end he said it should be about the kids and he showed a picture of a various amount of students of different races. I agree with him that it is about the kids and we need to do what is best for them as teachers to educate them in the right ways.
I thought the conference was a great experience even though I did not get as much as I would have liked to get out of it. I will definitely be attending many more in the future in hope to gain many strategies to educate students the right way.
