Almanac. Dissecting Conference Attendance

This is the final post of the series on the topic of attending and presenting at conferences. 

Spousal Support

The first conference I remember attending was in Washington, D.C. It was the week before Christmas Vacation in my district. I used some special project money to pay for my trip. I decided to take my wife, Leanne along.

That precedence was repeated several times over the twenty-plus years I presented sessions. Leanne and I traveled to New Orleans, Boston and environs, Seattle, and Honolulu. She spent her time sightseeing on every trip. She’s seen plantations outside NOLA, Fenway Park, and the White House at Christmas. Together, we experienced a variety of cuisine while having fun together.

Meeting relatives and friends

Several conferences were in or near cities where former colleagues or students or friends lived or worked. As a result of that

• I stayed for free with a friend in at least two cities.
• I ate dinners with both relatives and friends.
• I went with a friend to a diner that was featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
• Had a guided tour of Indiana Wesleyan University by my friend, Dr. Keith Newman, one of the VP’s there.
• I shared a table with teachers I’d never met for lunch or dinner on occasion. I know this is an outlier for the category, but it did happen.

This is me at a conference at the vendor's booth for the lab manual I co-authored. It has to be around 2010. As cool as that was, publishing the book did not keep the publisher from going out of business. They still owe me a couple hundred dollars in royalties.

Nights

I do not drink alcohol. Ever. As a result, my extra-curricular activities revolved around working on projects I had in the hopper.

More than once, I had my way paid by a supplier of biology materials or a project I was associated with. In those cases, one night was always dinner in a place that was more expensive than I was used to . . . gratis!

One of those gratis meals occurred in Boston at

The Union Oyster House, located on the Freedom Trail, near Faneuil Hall, enjoys the unique distinction of being America's oldest restaurant. This Boston fixture, housed in a building dating back to Pre-Revolutionary days, started serving food in 1826 and has continued ever since with the stalls and oyster bar, where Daniel Webster was a constant customer, in their original positions.

Lobster was the menu item of choice that evening. Of course, the company I worked with provided oysters on the half-shell, too. I don’t like oysters. I’ll eat lobster, but it’s not my go-to seafood.

Leanne and I make it a point to eat at places we don’t have in San Diego when we travel. We also try the local version of Mexican food frequently.

I ordered Nachos Grande as my entrée after the server raved about the size and taste. The item is not on the current menu. I’ll try to describe it.

Imagine an entire family size bag of high-quality tortilla chips layered with shredded cheese, hamburger, sliced jalapeño peppers, onions, olives, and salsa. It was over twelve-inches tall and had a dinner plate as the base.

I shared some with the others at the table.

Would I do it again?

Yes!

There’s something in watching the faces in an audience light up when they realize that they can do what I’m describing with their students. I can’t adequately describe it, but it lifts my spirits every time. As a speaker, I made sure to talk with every person that stayed after the session to ask questions, give an example of their own, or thank me. That meant that many of those people missed getting a seat in another session.

How can anyone not appreciate that kind of effort?

 

GREAT group of people attended my "Tricks from an Old Dog" session 12/5/14 at the NSTA/CSTA conference in Long Beach, CA. Seating for 50. SRO with a dozen in the doorway as well. All 100 handouts and over that many business cards handed out. I'm very thankful for the graciousness of my fellow teachers. Thanks to my colleague, Ryan Garcia for this shot. He was a door-stuffer! This is the only photo I have of me during one of my presentations.

Final comments

Once, while attending a session that sounded intriguing, I received a printed packet of materials. As I thumbed through them, to my surprise, I found one of my handout pages from a session with similar content. I always put my name and contact information in the footer of all my handout pages. That footer was gone.

I stayed behind and talked with the speaker. She was shocked to learn that it wasn’t original to the speaker that handed it out. 

If you are asked to speak, and you want to use another speaker’s materials, please ask for permission to use those materials question form. Then give credit where credit is due!

While with student teachers, I encouraged all of them to go to a conference if it’s within driving distance. Once there, find one idea and work on implementing it.

Two comments by attendees of my sessions will end this blog post and the series.

“I’ve taught for over twenty years and never knew why my students were so bad at answering open-ended questions. Now I know why and what to do about it. Thank you.”

Community College Teacher after the session Open-ended Questions are Fine for Some Students, but Mine Can’t Do Them.

“As soon as you started talking, I recognized your voice, but I knew I’d never seen you until today. Then it dawned on me. You’re the voice of Kinesthetic Protein Synthesis! I use it every year to ensure that my students understand the process.”

High School Teacher at a session on the importance of including whole body movement to learning steps in a process.

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The Observers - A Science Fiction Odyssey C.R.Downing's Book Tour 2018. Book #3

My publisher is having a sale the e-book version of The Observers.

https://www.amazon.com/Observers-C-R-Downing-ebook/dp/B00P288OOY/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

It's only $1.00.

Laughter guaranteed!

Book #3:

The Observers - A Science Fiction Odyssey

There is a link to Amazon for the title book in the line above this. Additional links are provided to original short stories involved in the development of the title book in the description of each story below.

Elevator Speech

Observers are expected to perform only that role for the Glieseian Ministry of Observation, Investigation, and Intervention (MOII). However, observers Mxpan and Zerpall are imprisoned twice, banished from two solar systems, threatened with selective destruction by targeting their DNA, trapped in android bodies after a faulty brain essence transfer, and forced into an ethically convoluted situation. The Observers is a comic sci-fi trip across the solar system that will keep you thinking and laughing.

Background Information

This story that triggered this book was written in the 1980s. However, it was not a novel. Neither was it science fiction.

It was a short romance story titled Magnetic Attraction.

There were no aliens. There were KGB agents.

The story morphed into what is the fourth mission by Zerpall and Mxpan.

As luck would have it, I found copies of the original story and an intermediate version, which includes Zerpall and Mxpan. However, in the intermediate version, the two observers were from the planet Rigel, not the planet Gleise.

Both versions are included in the PDF for this book. Here’s the link.

Given the fact that I had fewer than 20 legitimate dates before I met the fifth girl that I ever dated, why I thought I could write a romance story is a mystery. The romance story was mediocre, however, the story’s main plotline had potential as a science fiction piece.

By the way, I married the fifth girl 47-years ago this August 7.

June 1970. Grad Night at Disneyland. 
Leanne and I were married 13-months later.

I admit to rushing the publishing process with this book. Thankfully, the editor I worked with at KoehlerBooks saw the potential of the four missions described in the story.

The manuscript I submitted was complete, but it lacked the internal structure linking the missions together. His idea of making converting a couple of them to read as flashbacks saved the day . . . at one level.

Here’s a sample of the communication between one editor and me. The editor’s comment is the black print. My response is the red print.

4) Unless I missed something, Mxpan and Zerpall never had memories restored of their third, most uneventful mission. It'd be fairly easy to insert a sentence that makes it clear they rebuilt their memories there, too. It might seem insignificant, but if the third mission is kept hidden from them, the reader might come to think it was unimportant.

The restored memories are for how they met and their first two missions: Rigal and Epsilon-Eridani. They were “lost” during the BET process—they were not transferred into the android AI matrix, but were stored in the BET storage on the ship and degraded over time.

Memories of the Tau Ceti mission were not degraded because Mxpan selected those memories as being necessary (probably based on recency of production) during BET in their ship. Remember the colored lines on the machine?

Alpha Centauri memories were formed during the BET procedures and also never left the brains of either Glieseian. In both these cases, no reconstruction was necessary.

I should have taken the time and put in the effort to revamp the plot points like into a cohesive linear storyline. Instead, I justified my writing without due consideration of what a reader could experience. 

This review by Nebula Books that follows describes the final product as an incompletely developed story with the potential for greatness. In the end, the missions were linked into a positive flow. Still missing was detail about the civilizations being observed.
The complete review is here. ttps://nebulabooks.wordpress.com/page/4/   You might have to scroll through other reviews until you travel back in time to May 30, 2016.

The Observers explores complex scientific themes; should science and technology advance simply for the sake of progress? Who should be in control? Who does ownership of information really belong to? These themes are explored through our two main characters, Mxpan and Zerpall. Mollusc-like telepathic beings, Glieseians have made themselves technological overseers that monitor species technological development and intervene as necessary. The Observers is a comedic buddy-cop novel about two investigators, one being the by-the-book professional, and the other being a fun-loving take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy…

Different alien worlds and civilizations are treated almost indifferently – despite well developed characters downing has forgotten to characterize the worlds or environments, and with the vague story this lends to the feeling of staleness throughout the book.

However, this is a comedy book and the humour is well written: timing is everything in comedy, and Downing delivers witty punch-lines and well-paced gags that carry the reader through an often drawn-out experience. The banter between Mxpan and Zerpall is delightful and Zerpall’s child-like innocence is often laugh-out-loud material. If Downing had given even a fraction of the attention he gave his characters to the settings and plot, this book could have been a monumental entry to the genre, placing him with the likes of Heinlein or Asprin. 

What I learned from this painful experience is

• Don’t rush the process.
• Look more at the plotline.
• Have a larger beta-reader team.
• Keep characterization true to life.

The conclusion of this “book look” will focus on the science and characters.

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Almanac. Deeper Thoughts on Presenting at Conferences

Deeper Thoughts on Presenting at Conferences

This series of blogs is written in past tense because I don't think I'll be presenting at any other conferences.

Who Gets to Speak

All conferences have some form of a selection process to determine who speaks and on what day and time. Depending on the size of the conference, that process might generate thousands of applications for hundreds of slots.

I mentioned in the first blog post on this topic that I was part of that selection process for the 50^th Anniversary national conference of the National Science Teachers Association. I was the chairman of one strand of conference content. The committee of four people and I spent hours reading and rating session proposals.

Some of the proposals were outstanding, some were good, some were okay, and some were horrible. When we submitted our list of sessions, I learned that politics is never far from any process.

The powers that be cut our last five sessions and replaced them with five of the horrible ones, which were incomplete and lacking substance. When I asked why I was told that they were from one of the major sponsors of that year’s convention. As such, they were guaranteed five slots in each of the four content strands.

Picking Sessions to Attend Is a Crap Shoot

In spite of the due diligence of selection committees, unless you are familiar with a speaker, choosing which sessions to attend must be based on the quality of either the Title, the quality of the Description, or Time of the presentation.

I’ve sat through some terrible sessions by presenters who must have blackmail material on their school district administrators because the presentations were a mix of ineptitude, incompetence, and/or confused misinformation. When I found a quality speaker, I checked future conference programs for sessions they were presenting.

Typical Convention Program Page. I'd choose my session of most of the others in this time slot. Just sayin'... 
This presentation was while I was professoring at PLNU, that's why it's got the 23-years of experience. I kept adding years each time I presented this. 

 Being a Repeat Presenter with Good Rating Forms Helps

I presented a lot of sessions at a lot of conferences. As a general rule, attendees like the content and the style of those presentations. I recognized several teachers who faithfully came to session after session of mine because they knew that they’d get quality materials and an engaging presentation.

I can’t complain about my treatment by selection committees. It wasn’t uncommon for me to submit three or four session proposals. It was common for all of my proposals or all but one to be included in the program.

I got to know the NSTA employee responsible for notifying presenters of the acceptance or rejection of session proposals. I suspect that was primarily the result of the number of sessions with my name as the presenter she processed over the fifteen years I was a regular speaker at science conferences. While we never met face-to-face, I did talk to on the phone more than a few times.

Cookbook Surprise

One of my favorite presentations started out with a very creative title.

What Do You Do If Betty Crocker Wrote Your Lab Book?

The description promises teachers instruction on a way for students to think more and “fill in the blanks” less. In other words how to make student lab directions less like a recipe.

Description: In this session, you will learn how to move your labs from cookbook toward inquiry.  Steps in the process of developing open-ended labs will be discussed.  Specific examples will be given.  Handouts will be provided.

 I had a tremendous response to this session . . .

Until one conference when I distinguished-looking female approached me before the session began.

“Are you Dr. Downing?”

“I am.”

“My name is Betty Crocker,” she said while handing me her business card. She was faculty at a university in Texas and was an advocate of doing what my session promoted.

I apologized profusely.

She laughed and said, “I would appreciate it if you’d retitle your presentation.”

I agreed to do that and emailed her a copy of the replacement name and description.

Performing Pedagogical Alchemy: Transforming lead-en labs into gold-en opportunities for student learning

Description:   Learn how to change lead-en labs, heavy with cookbook procedures, to gold-en opportunities for student learning through inquiry and writing. Specific examples and handouts provided.

Betty responded positively. Ultimately, that title and description were more successful than the Betty Crocker versions.

Tricks from an Old Dog

The above heading is the title of my favorite session of all time. It’s 60-minutes of stream-of-consciousness speaking on a variety of topics dealing with teachers and teaching.

The idea for the session came by way of a visit from a first-year science teacher. Her mother also in the Grossmont District. The new teacher was feeling overwhelmed and didn't want other teachers at her school to know that. Mom told her to take a sick day and watch me teach.

She arrived before school on the assigned day. She shadowed me--LITERALLY. I mean every time I turned around, I ran into her. She asked A LOT of questions and dutifully wrote down my answer to each one.

At lunch, I told her she couldn't ask me any questions. I wanted her to talk with my colleagues. She did. I'm sure it gave her a broader perspective.

When she was ready to leave, we had a short final conversation.

"You have to send me a copy of all the questions you asked," I said.

"Okay," she answered.

"And, you have to include the answers you wrote down."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I have no idea what I told you, but I think other new teachers might like to hear those answers."

I got the questions and answered in school mail the next week.

The first time I offered Old Dog was at a San Diego Science Educators Association’s conference. Although run entirely by the local group, over 2000 teachers attended the conference on several occasions. It wasn’t uncommon for the SDSEA convention to out draw at least one of the National Science Teachers Associations regional conferences in a given year.

The session was scheduled in the curved foyer of the San Diego Civic Theater. While unhappy when I found out, I suspect they ran out of rooms for sessions and knew I’d be okay in that venue.

Probably 40-50 teachers followed my ramblings. Below is the handout from that session. The title page has been updated for the last time I presented. Unless you were a teacher in one of Old Dog presentations, you didn’t know all the stuff on the first page, even if I worked with you. I wanted attendees to know that I “can do” and still chose to teach!

Cover Page and Agenda for this session. 

 

I know you might not be able to see the right side of this, but it's too small to read if 

I don't choose the full-size option.

Filling the Gap

You never know when a presenter won’t show up for her/his session. At least twice, as I was wandering after one of my sessions I came upon a room full of people with no one presenting.

The first time, I walked to the front and asked if they wanted to hear my session. Most of the audience stayed. A couple came up afterward and thanked me. One said my topic was more interesting than the other anyway.

The second time, I knew the presenter. In fact, I worked with him on part of what he was presenting. I got up and explained that something must have happened because I knew that the speaker wouldn’t bail.

Fortunately, my friend arrived late. He’d missed his shuttle. Since I’d run out of knowledge on his topic, I was glad to see him.

The most novel “presentation” I’ve ever done was in Ft. Worth, Texas. It was around 8:00 p.m. on the proverbial “dark and stormy night.” The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was “falling” parallel to the ground.

The electricity in the hotel went out. The only light was from emergency lighting in the hallway. Within minutes, about a dozen science were seated on the hallway floor.

I asked if they wanted to hear the session I’d presented that day. Possibly because it was that or nothing, they agreed. I did an abbreviated version that was punctuated by building-shaking thunder.

The power was restored. People returned to their rooms.

All but one young woman.

“Would Y’all stay and sit with me out here in the hallway for awhile more. When I was growing up, my family’s house was struck by lightnin’. Nobody got hurt and there wasn’t no damage we couldn’t repair. But, since then I’ve been terr’fied by big lightnin’ storms.”

I sat back down

We talked about nothing special for about an hour. By then the thunderstorm passed. We said good night. I never saw her again.

Next is the final blog in this series: Dissecting Conference Attendance

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