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

Follow me on Twitter: @CRDowningAuthor and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CRDowningAuthor

My website is: www.crdowning.com

I'd appreciate your feedback as a comment on Blogger!

INSECTICIDE C.R.Downing's Book Tour 2018. Book #2. Finale

Book #2:

INSECTICIDE - A Science Fiction Thriller

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

Insecticide is the story of a bipolar planet. Bafwique is shattered into two planets by a meteorite. Civil wars, genocide, deception, exploration, and other struggles on and between the two planets lead to a search for a new home for the Clurn.

Background Information

If you were born before 1975, there’s a good chance you remember the Cold War at some level.

I was born in 1950. I lived through almost the whole Cold War.

For those of you too young to remember the Cold War, it was contested mostly with threats and propaganda. There were some military actions, but other methods of demonstrating communist or democratic superiority were much more common. Track meets and swimming meets, ice-skating, hockey, and the like reached fever pitch at the Olympics.

Misinformation was commonly released. Children in Soviet countries were removed from families and placed in training facilities if they showed athletic prowess.

Bottom line.

Better dead than red was more than a catchphrase in many parts of the United States.

The original short story is a simple account of an alien species invading and conquering another planet. Expanding the story to the length of a novel involved adding backstory to the original.

I’d first thought of marketing the book as a newly discovered history book released by the Intergalactic Alliance. The title of that version was The Book of Bafwique – An Unconventional History of a Planet and Its People. My beta readers’ comments were similar. It took too long to get to the story; there wasn’t enough action.

At that point, I decided to have one of the half-planets be the Soviets and the other the USA.

Narxon, even the name sounds ominous, is an unapologetic parody of the USSR. Leaders are incompetent, cruel, or both. Inhabitants are nothing more than commodities to use as desired. Narxonian drones are asexual brutes, with one notable exception.

Both Narxon and Bafwique use technology. Narxon tech is more—just more—in every way. The government of Narxon sends drones to infiltrate Bafwiquian society. They are charged with committing genocide of their relatives.

The basic backstory details the invasion of Bafwique and the struggle of the miraculous survivors of the invasion. Ultimately, the novel covers over 1000-years of Clurn history.

The book ends with a twist. There’s a challenge issued to the reader on page vi. I’m not aware of a single reader that successfully completed the challenge. Here’s your chance to be a leader!

Don’t skip the Epilog!

The Clurn develop some intriguing technology. Two of my favorites are

Selective Memory Eradication

Laboratory records recovered from The Fortress indicate that memory eradication was achieved by calculating the length of time phosphodiester bonds between consecutive ribose molecules in RNA had existed. All such bonds were formed within the last ten carnottis were broken. The efficacy of the process decreased dramatically on bonds formed for longer than ten carnotti. This procedure was able to selectively target “new” RNA in brains of Clurn and trigger their digestion by restriction enzymes in vivo. RNA production is an initial first step in Clurn memory formation. By removing the RNA basis for memories, those memories were eradicated. The downside was that RNA not involved in memory formation was lost during the digest as well. As a result, some early test subjects suffered the loss of more than memory—leading to the very tight regulations on the use of the process. (page 176)

Topographic Map Projection System

The transport vehicles arrived at the village coordinates five carnots before daylight. Eight Bafwiqueians leaped to the ground. P’lna pulled a portable projection system from her vehicle. After attaching an inflatable balloon to the unit, she filled the balloon with helium. The projection system slowly rose into the Bafwiqueian night, tethered to a winch on the front of the transport vehicle.

Once the balloon reached the designated height, P’lna radioed a command to the unit. Two additional tethers dropped to the ground. She attached one to a low wall and the other to the eve of a roof. The projection system now hung, motionless, directly above the village. A second radio command activated the unit. A life-size map of the village area was projected down. Each body and artifact was outlined in the image that provided both light and direction for the process. (page 216)

When you make up a world, there is a multitude of conditions and circumstances that must be addressed beyond the storyline.

What’s the gravity of the planet?

What kind of atmosphere is there?

How long is a day? A year?

What type(s) of government exist?

How do the inhabitants reproduce?

What are some of the customs, traditions, and ethical codes of the dominant species?

The bad news is that you HAVE TO make all the stuff up.

The good news is that you GET TO make all the stuff up.

Whether you have a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty outlook on that situation, the hard reality is that your planet must make scientific sense.

I include three appendices to lend credibility to Bafwique as a planet. Below is a sample from each. While not as enjoyable as writing the story itself, describing a new world was fun. Here's a sample of each appendix.

I mentioned in part one of this blog post that original idea behind INSECTICIDE was to market it as a history book. Toward that end, I “obtained” copies of twenty-eight source documents like this one.

At least one of them is real. It’s a telescopic image taken by one of my Great Oak High School students in one of her college classes. All the others have at least the ring of truth.

That’s it . . .

 . . . except for an excerpt from a review of the book. I changed the font color of my favorite sentence to red. It’s the kind of comment authors live for.

I read this book thinking, maybe, I dunno, aliens?  Hmm… This was my first tango with a Science Fiction Thriller. I usually have this problem with aliens or extraterrestrial beings and that is I usually cannot empathize with them. I usually label them away as alien and drop the book or movie and never give it a second thought. It’s a wonder to me that I love Doctor Who so much, though, I guess it’s because the Doctor seems pretty human and if anything, having two hearts makes him more relatable than a human.

Anyway. The reason I stuck with Rifts [now INSECTICIDE] was because, well I am a fan of world building and this book has it. Boy! Does it have it . . .

I am so glad I picked this one up. I am so glad Rifts opened my eyes to science fiction thrillers and mystery. Rifts [now INSECTICIDE] pulled me into an entire genre I was missing out on. I only hope that this well crafted novel doesn’t spoil me and put all the other stories in it’s genre to shame for me.

I highly recommend this book. I especially recommend this book if you are into things like Doctor Who.

The whole review is available at https://crdowning.com/insecticide.html

Maximizing a Storyline

In February 2018, I submitted an 8000-word short story for inclusion in an anthology titled, A World Unimagined. It was accepted for publication. The anthology will be released in June of 2018.

The editorial staff of https://lefthandpublishers.com/ are fine people. Not only did they accept my manuscript, the offered suggestions to consider for fine-tuning the story.

I chose to incorporate two of their ideas. One of those is a tie-in to the ending of INSECTICIDE. Learn how by reading “What Goes Around . . .” when the anthology is released.

Next book on the tour: The Observers – A Science Fiction Odyssey

Follow me on Twitter: @CRDowningAuthor and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CRDowningAuthor

My website is: www.crdowning.com

I'd appreciate your feedback as a comment on Blogger!

Almanac. Thoughts on Presenting at Conventions

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

I’ve presented over 100 content sessions, mostly science strategies, at science conventions for National Science Teachers Association Conventions, National Association of Biology Teachers Convention, California State Science Teachers Association Convention, San Diego Science Educators Association Convention, and Association of Christian Schools International Conference, among others.

Locations of those conferences are varied.

Arizona: Phoenix

California: San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Anaheim, Long Beach, and Temecula

Colorado: Denver

Florida: Orlando

Georgia: Atlanta

Hawaii: Honolulu

Illinois: Chicago

Indiana: Indianapolis

Louisiana: New Orleans

Massachusetts: Boston

Michigan: Detroit

Missouri: Kansas City

Nevada: Los Vegas, Reno

North Carolina: Raleigh

Oregon: Portland

Texas: Austin, Dallas

Utah: Salt Lake City

Washington: Seattle

Washington, D.C.

Topics include

Critical Thinking, Coordinated Science, Classroom Techniques, Questioning Strategies, Closure, Assessment, Kinesthetic Activities, and Learning Centers for teachers of all levels.

Workshop titles are designed to get attendees to read the description of the session. These sessions were generally 60-minutes in length.

“A is for Analogy." – Describes, supports, and illustrates the use of teacher-generated and student-generated analogies in the presentation of content material.

Classroom Management Strategies for the High School Science Class – Session objectives are to provide concrete strategies and processes to help new/novice science teachers include more laboratory experiences in their courses.

"From Dead Fish to Forensics - A model for developing and implementing an integrated science program." & "Making Connections - A model integrated science program." - Describes development and implementation of four core semesters and two elective semesters of integrated science for 9th-12^th-grade students.

It’s Late at the Estate – Describes how to incorporate creative writing activities into science classes to teach investigative skills.

Kinesthetic is Kool – Demonstrates and explains four different kinesthetic life science activities. Participants “do” one complete activity.

Learning Centers in 60 Minutes? I don't believe it! – Focuses on constructing and using learning centers in elementary classrooms by providing samples and examples.

Pedagogical Alchemy & What Do You Do If Betty Crocker Wrote Your Lab Book - Describes how to move laboratory activities from “cookbook” style toward inquiry style—steps in the process of developing open-ended labs are discussed.

PReP (Peer Review Process) Your Classes – By participating in several examples of peer review and learning how to modify existing assignments to allow for this process with students, participants learn the power of this procedure.

Science at “C” Level: A Creative, Cooperative, Cross-disciplinary Approach to Critical Thinking & Stylin’ in Science - Participants are introduced to a method of teaching critical thinking skills incorporating creativity and cooperative learning strategies in a series of cross-disciplinary exercises designed to reach a wide variety of learning styles.

Standards-Based Science Portfolios – Discusses the process Great Oak High School is pursuing in determining if students meet academic standards.

THE END: How to add closure to your student learning experiences - Sample closure activities for single class assignments, long-term assignments and units of study, semester, year, and course sequence are described and demonstrated.

They've inquired, now how do I know what they know? - Participants experience a portion of an inquiry lab,  discuss what might have been learned by students through the experience, and learn to create rubrics for several types of learnings which might have resulted from the lab experience.

Tricks from an Old Dog - I share strategies and techniques gleaned and developed during the 27 years I’ve taught science, including grouping strategies, time-saving techniques, and management ideas.

Tune up Your Teaching & “Open-ended questions are fine for some students, but mine can’t do them” - Focuses on questioning strategies: specifically how to change classroom questions from closed-ended to open-ended while teaching students the skills and techniques required to answer higher-level questions.

Descriptions of the sessions are designed to get attendees to the session, if for no other reason but to find out what kind of a presenter is this? Most had length limits on descriptions of around 25 words. See if you can match a title above to the descriptions below.

Step-by-step instructions for how to create assignments and assessments for diverse populations will be provided.  Your brain will be very active in this session.

You will participate in a typical lesson demonstration, take home reproducible materials, and learn how to create a lesson of this type of your own.

Too many activities, units, semesters, even school years just end—students are left with a sense of “Well, it’s over, but why did we do it?” This session provides concrete examples how to bring closure to your classroom.

I will share grouping strategies, time-saving techniques, and management ideas gleaned and developed during the 40 years I have taught science. I LOVE new teachers!!

Movement is a powerful learning stimulus for students of diverse populations. Come, be “moved” 1) by the demonstrations; 2) to “move” your classes too.

Routines and procedures to effectively manage your classroom and laboratory experiences will be discussed and demonstrated. A valuable session for new teachers.

Peer review of assignments is a powerful classroom tool. Participate in several examples and learn how to modify existing assignments to allow for this process.

Sessions longer than 60-minutes allowed longer descriptions.

Too many laboratory books read more like cookbooks than science books.  They provide prescribed laboratory procedures that lead to predictable results.  The only thought required of students depends on the write-up assigned by the teacher.  Many (most?) laboratory exercises are still “cookbook” in nature, many times with value analogous to the value of lead.

Reputation Matters

You never know the quality of a conference presentation until you attend it. That’s too often too late. If you’re not good, and participants rate you low, the next time you apply to present at a convention of the same sponsor, there’s a chance you won’t be selected. I know that because I was in charge of the “Sessions Committee” when the NSTA National Convention came to San Diego in 2002.

That system works the other way for presenters with good reviews. I’ve never submitted session proposals and not had at least one accepted. In fact, it wasn’t long before I developed a following. I’d recognize people from previous years when I presented in the same region.

“I always check the program. If I see your name, I put that session on my schedule,” was not an uncommon greeting I received.

I also had people stop by to apologize because they couldn’t attend my session due to school or district-mandated sessions.

My largest audience was over 300.

This was the first presentation I did. I did it with my colleague Owen Miller. It was at an NSTA Regional Convention in Texas. We figured if we had 30 people show up, that’d be a good attendance. We brought 40 copies of our 20-page handout with us . . . just in case. We underestimated our draw because of a perfect storm of circumstances.

* Our session was during the first session slot of the convention.

* It was the only session for secondary teachers.

* We were in an auditorium.

* The title was: Science at “C” Level: A Creative, Cooperative, Cross-disciplinary Approach to Critical Thinking

The smallest audience was one.

This was at the national convention for the Association of Christian Schools International. I forget the title of the session. I know it concentrated on teacher/student interaction and didn’t emphasize infusing Biblical content.

My attendee and I chatted for 45 of our allotted 60-minutes. She was happy. I was glad she came.

Closing comments on this post.

I only went to one conference where I didn’t present. It was an NSTA conference in Washington, D.C. Because the Grossmont Union High School District was paying for the trip, I felt obligated to attend as many sessions as I could.

Over three days I attended 13 sessions. I collected handouts and took notes. By the end of the third day, I was on content overload. My advice to teachers who ask about conferences that they when they pick sessions that they need to allow time between to get from one to the next and to decompress.

“If you come back with one or two good ideas and implement at least one of them, you had a successful conference experience. The reality is that you’d never successfully implement more than two new ideas/procedures into a course in a single year. Trying to implement more than two ideas will lead to frustration on the part of both teacher and students.”

If you wondered why school reform efforts have a dismal track record, re-read the previous paragraph.

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