Oh my word! We survived our first ever SDE conference as PRESENTERS!!! Page and I had been basically stressing for oh...I don't know...6, 7, 8 months or so since we received the very first email asking us if we wanted to present!
We decided to present on Inquiry Based Science and Social Studies since that has become somewhat of a passion for us (not to mention the sweet folks at SDE asked us to pretty please choose a science or social studies topic to present since they were in high demand!). We have REALLY enjoyed gathering student work samples, video clips, and other resources to build our presentation.
And I tell you...those 8 months flew by and all the sudden December 8th was here and it was TIME people! Needless to say we were excited freaked out about the conference. But honestly, all that worry was for nothing! We had the ABSOLUTE sweetest group of teachers you could ever meet. They smiled, and nodded right along in support, and played Kahoot! with us, and built Humpty Dumpty a new taller wall that he couldn't climb (for his own safety!!!) during our STEM challenge, and well....they just made us feel so at ease. And when the presentation was over, they clapped for us! I kid you not!! They cheered and clapped and ooh-ed and ahh-ed and I believe there was some loud chanting of our names. (OK- so I made that last part up, but they really DID make us feel so supported!) We hope they (YOU if you were with us!) had as much fun as we did!
Now of course, we were so focused on the whole presentation that we took like 3 pictures. Seriously...like 3. We were so focused on presenting and not screwing anything up that we just forgot to take them. Now if you were with us that day...please, please, please email them to us at the link up top or post them on IG and tag us. We know you guys took tons of photos of the slides and whatnot. If you do send us some, we also have NO problem with you editing them first to make us look skinny and maybe a decade younger! ;)
So what exactly did we talk about at this presentation??? Inquiry! Sweet, sweet inquiry!
Here are a couple of the slides from our presentation to give you an idea of what we covered!
We talked a lot about making sure we allow kiddos to grapple with concepts, to become real thinkers and problem solvers, and most importantly to persevere! There is a WHOLE LOT of trying and failing before we ever hit SUCCESS... and truly the journey is often times more meaningful than the end result! Can I get an AMEN!!!
So, here's a BIG thank you to all of you that chose our session at the GA SDE K Conference! We hope you enjoyed the session and more importantly, that it will positively impact your classroom. In all of our excitement with surviving the session, we forgot to show you the last slide in our presentation. Thank you again for sharing your morning with us!
