Promising Practices Conference

            This semester I attended the Promising Practices Conference.  The first workshop that I attended was the one on Google Maps. While we were there, they demonstrated how to use the program to make our own maps so that we could make our own interactive field trip.  The professors that were presenting the workshop were both from the history department and they made a map of a walking path in Providence that would visit many of the different historical sites in Rhode Island.  They explained to us that we could find awesome field trip destinations in Rhode Island if the right research is done.  I think it would be a great thing to do with math class if I could find enough places in a close area to bring the students to see and make them more interested in the topic.  I could also use the Google Maps program itself to make an activity so that technology could be incorporated into the course.  Math can be a really difficult subject to try bring technology into, but it is also important to do.

            The second and last skill shop I went to was the one on bullying.  I find that this is a topic that must be incorporated into every class.  I found that there were some topics that I didn't realize, that should be talked about like special needs, which never are.  Some take these things for granted and just think "Oh, they should know this" or "Well this a no brainer" but no these should be talked about all the time.  With any difference that there is could be, teachers need to teach their students that acceptance and inclusion.  She gave us poems and books that would help to spread those the feelings of inclusion and understanding.  As well as poems that explain the heartache of being bullied or having a loved one who is bullied.  I want to make sure to include these lessons in my classroom because this is such an important topic that it shouldn’t just be in the advisory class or the English class.

            Then we had the speaker on hip-hop education.  This one was quite confusing for me because he wasn’t expressing what we should do exactly but that we shouldn’t have classrooms structured as they are.  He didn’t explain how exactly to include the cipher in the classroom.  So I’m not sure how to include this in the classroom, although I do believe that should be a change in the structure of the classroom.