Summer Professional Development # 7- Kean Institute for CommonCore-Statewide Teacher Conference

Today, August 8, 2013, I attended the Kean Institute for Common Core-Statewide Teacher Conference at the Kean University STEM building. WOW! It is such a beautiful building. I got a free book when I signed in! I was so happy to get a free book, especially since they were on my reading list. Our morning keynote was given by Dr. Tracey Severns, Chief Academic Officer at the NJDOE. She presented about the Role of the Teacher in regards to the Common Core Standards. She showed us one of those e-cards, and it was true for a lot of us. We are so OVERWHELMED with all of the things we need to do to be great teachers.

Tracey gave us a lot of great information regarding the CCSS and the PARCC assessments. Then we split up into groups based on our subject area and grade level. I went to the middle school group. It was great to get a grasp on the CCSS and how to implement them into the classroom setting. We had a nice lunch and a really moving lunch keynote. We sometimes forget that we do ACTUALLY matters. Check out the following speech from a then ten-year-old boy. It's SO good! 

After lunch we broke into our groups again. This time, we took a closer look at the actual standards. We gathered ideas and resources on how to implement them in the classroom. Overall, it was great. I am excited and can't wait to really try to dive in and teach these standards.