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Here are some TESAC 2013 workshop/seminar overviews followed by reflections on the event by Conference Convenor Adrienne Reeves
The three-day TESAC 2013 conference featured well over 60 workshops, presentations and site visits, and the conference evaluations clearly indicate the value that those attending gained from the exposure to the material presented. Stories in this t-news on Techlink include overviews of a small sample of these presentations and look to provide a bit of an insight from the presenter perspective:
Calling all TESAC 2013 workshop/seminar presenters:
If you are interested in promoting your conference presentation more widely, please contact Glynn at [email protected]
… and others:
If you are a classroom teacher or Technology educator with a particular enterprising approach to teaching and learning that you would like to share, Glynn would also love to hear from you.
Reflections
by TESAC Conference Convenor Adrienne Reeves
One month ago there was a small group of teachers alongside Laura Collins and Chris Mitchell (TRCC) closely focused on the first ever combined Technology subject association conference. The phone calls from Wellington to my office were daily and emails constant. Situated on the West Coast of the South Island I was wondering how I could ‘pop over’ to Wellington for a face-to-face meeting with Laura. I couldn’t. However, fortunately three of the committee were in Wellington and they spent most of the first week of the school holidays working in the TRCC office. In this time they collated the conference handbook, checked workshop/seminar rooms, finalised numbers for these sessions and created the daily roster for the helpers. This attention to detail assisted in presenting an efficient process for the running of the conference.
Day one saw 29 presenters, from Celia Wade Brown who opened the conference through to the afternoon workshop/seminar presenters. Some of these sessions ran for 1½ hours other for 3 hours – either way each presenter had to be thanked and every room had to be set up ready to go. Thank you to those delegates who accepted the task of thanking workshop presenters and thank you also to the helpers who checked that the rooms were ready to go and made sure delegates got to the correct room. It was this level of willingness to assist that made the conference a congenial learning environment, and positioned delegates to leave the conference and return to their classrooms empowered for strengthened teaching and learning.
The feedback from delegates during the conference and post-conference has confirmed that it was an opportunity for sharing, learning and networking. Delegates took from this conference what they wanted to take. Many extended their own knowledge base by attending workshops/seminars that were outside of their specialist teaching area. In doing this, those delegates showed themselves to be future-orientated educators, educators that today’s curriculum and classroom demands. Others attended workshops/seminars to consolidate the teaching and learning in their classrooms. Either way that 270 educators from across Aotearoa New Zealand chose to attend this conference is evidence that teachers are lifelong learners. It is evidence that teachers do want to lead the learning in their classrooms.
Each of the four subject associations will be returning to their executive tables to evaluate the value of this combined conference. From a convenor’s viewpoint this conference provided a seamless learning environment where delegates stood alongside each other without prejudice. The most commonly heard question was “where are you from” – delegates wanted to hear about the teaching pedagogy of others, contextualising this information into specialist teaching areas was an added bonus if those conversing did actually teach the same ‘subjects’.
This conference was the vision of Dr Wendy Fox Turnbull – Wendy saw a combined conference as the way forward for the Technology subject associations and an opportunity to give Technology education a strong voice. HETTANZ represents both Home Economics and Technology teachers – and as a subject association readily supported the concept. HETTANZ recognised that such a conference would provide the link for those members who teach both Home Economics and Technology and have sometimes attended conferences and felt there was more on offer for one learning area than the other. The Home Economics delegates were able to stand beside their Technology colleagues with the knowledge that all learning areas add value to student learning, achievement and well-being.
Such were the attitudes that underpinned the entire conference and culminated in it being a successful professional learning experience for all delegates.
The range of sponsors reflected that this was a combined subject association conference. Nevertheless every trade display drew delegates and for most of the sponsors it was a worthwhile conference – principally because of the extent of specialist teaching areas represented. Thank you to HETTANZ’s secretary Carmel Clark who took on the enormous task of sourcing sponsorship – in the current economic climate this was no easy feat – one of the principal sponsors signed up very close to the actual conference and was pleased that they did.
Acknowledgement must go to TRCC (Teacher Refresher Conference Courses). An application was made to TRCC early in 2012 – and was accepted in August of 2012. As the co-ordinator of the conference I was very pleased that the application met with success. TRCC administered the conference taking over a large part of the workload associated with planning and running a conference. Laura Collins Executive Officer TRCC and her office manager Chris Mitchell did a splendid job of making sure that this conference ran smoothly. They had check lists, systems and procedures in place so that questions asked could be answered, lost persons could be directed and anyone who wanted to change workshops could do so. With 27 workshops on day one, this was the biggest conference Laura and Chris had administered. On behalf of all delegates thank you to TRCC and Laura and Chris for all that they did for this conference.
Thank you also to the conference planning team _ Sarah Wirth, Kathryn Levy, Jenny Blake, John Creighton, Renee Marcelis, Bruce Granshaw, Trisha Winter, Vanessa Pringle and also to Ron van Musscher who assisted with initial planning. As the conference drew near this group of busy teachers had constant demands placed on them but consistently gave of their time. The adage ‘ask a busy person’ was true.
Finally the biggest thank you goes to the 270 delegates who demonstrated their support by enrolling and attending this conference.
Kind regards,
Adrienne Reeves
Conference Co-ordinator TESAC 2013
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