MCTE Thoughts
O.k., where to begin. First of all, this was an awesome experience and I am so glad I made the decision to go. I had never been to any kind of academic conference before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. In the end I feel that this was a great experience and highly recommend any future teacher to attend. It helped a lot to be able to pick different sessions to listen to, ones that I was interested in hearing.
The conference started off with a keynote by Kathleen Blake Yancey which she called “Literacy, Technologies, and the 21st Century: Where We Have Been, Are Now, and Are Going”. She is a really good speaker, but I did find parts of her presentation boring; I knew most of it, it was pretty much common sense. Yancey’s presentation focused on three main points for the definition of 21st century literacy.
1)We have a choice of technologies, 2) We are networked, and 3) this kind of literacy requires intrapersonal knowledge, articulated through various forms of reflection.
W hat I really enjoyed about Yancey’s presentation was how she compared digital natives versus digital immigrants. This means, print natives learn from digital natives, and digital natives learn from print natives. Those who grew up knowing only how to write in cursive are learning from those who grew up/growing up knowing how to use computers and digital writing techniques.
The next speaker I listened to was by Jill VanAntwerp called “Hanging on by your Fingernails until you gain a Toehold: Advice for Future Teachers from New Teachers”. I chose to attend this session for two reasons, 1) Jill is from Grand Valley, and 2) her presentation was specifically for future teachers, which is where I fit in, or will fit in. Jill summarized her presentation by saying:
I will summarize some of my findings from 50 interviews with teachers in the Grand Rapids area (graduates from many colleges and teachers in many disciplines) about their orientation and induction periods as well as their first years. These teachers have a lot of good advice about how to handle those first years successfully.
I was extremely shocked with Jill’s statistic that 50% of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years. This actually quite scared me. I got to thinking that maybe this profession is harder than I thought. I just hope that after all this money I have spent to become something that I have wanted since I was in the first grade, that I do not become one of the 50%. Overall, I loved Jill’s presentation. I feel that it was very honest, coming from a teacher itself, and very practical. She spoke on many ideas for teachers to incorporate into their classrooms and things that go right when you first start teaching, and things that can go wrong. This opened my eyes and made me realize what I should look for and try to avoid once I start teaching.
The third session I attended was by Maja Wilson called “Why Rubrics Don’t Work for Me: Reclaiming Subjectivity in Writing Assessment”. Maja’s presentation was summarized as follows:
Rubrics represent writing assessment’s “view from nowhere”–our attempt to provide the illusion of objectivity by giving students a universal (generic) response to their work. Not only do rubrics fail in their attempt to be objective, but this very attempt keeps writing teachers from recognizing, honoring, and using the value of subjectivity in their teaching and assessment of writing. The presenter will show how current assessment practices are problematic, and will give examples of assessment conversations with students that help students become better writers at the same time that they value subjectivity.
Maja’s presentation opened my eyes to a few things. For starters, I always found myself a fan of rubrics. All through middle school and high school I had to write according to a rubric. This didn’t leave much room for imagination, but it was a starting place and kept me on track. It also prepared me for standardized tests, which I think is a big thing for rubrics. I do agree with Maja’s theory though, when she pointed out that grading by a rubric is objective. When we grade by a rubric, mainly for MEAP writing tests or other standardized tests, we are reading and grading what is written and not leaving ourselves or the student open for any imaginative thoughts or creativeness. Her presentation mainly focused on the MEAP and what the readers are looking for. I liked what Sarah Reaser said about this idea, “The MEAP rubric basically wants all of the readers to agree on what a good piece of writing looks like. When in reality writing means different things to different people.” In the end, I realized that rubrics should not be used in writing assessment, but students should be taught some specific forms to be prepared for what standardized tests are looking for.
Overall, I really enjoyed this conference and I hope to attend next year’s. I learned a great deal and plan to apply most of it to my own classroom.
