Fall Conference Reflection

So last week I posted a blog about going to a meeting with all of my colleagues at Hostos Community College to "collaboratively learn" as teachers. Well, this meeting or shall I call it (7-hour) conference, truly exceeded my expectations.

Although it was very long, it was never boring. Firstly, teachers and administration staff came to the conference from all CUNY Start programs from BMCC and HCC, all CTI programs from LaGCC and KCC, and CTP from Lehman. It was great to see and socialize or as my advisor professor Gleason always says, to "network". I actually also got to see an old classmate who came as the academic advisor from BMCC. As I went around and met new people, I realized just how small of a world CUNY really is. My job at lagcc writing center connected to the new test talk to the internship I did last summer at the CLEP GED bridge program to my co-teaching job at Hostos to my Language and Literacy program at ccny to that professor whose class I took last semester to the conference.

I won't go over each detail of the conference, but I must highlight the section where all the Reading/Writing teachers gathered together in one room and went over the new CATW tests. This was a true collaborative learning experience where we went over different students' sample essays and tried to figure out what score each one would get. In each case, we brought in our own previous knowledge of the test and what we have been told from here and there and our own knowledge of writing and tried to learn together. I truly benefitted from this portion of the conference as I did with other parts as well. Another section of the conference was an honored guest who came to speak to us about the issues with learning disability students at CUNY and specifically in the said CLEP programs and to what they are privileged and whatnot. As my lead teacher and I have been realizing there are a few students in our classes who have learning disabilities, this was a great eye-opener.

One other thing I noticed when I was at the conference was the realization that I was the youngest member there. This both scared me and made me proud of myself. The fact that I have so much to learn still from these people and the realization that I actually do have something to offer as a "beginning" teacher. So far, the experiences have been very gratifying for me. I hope to genuinely learn and grow more and more as an instructor and student in this program.