ChangED
ChangED is an educator based podcast for Pennsylvania teachers to learn more about the PA STEELS Standards and science in general. It is hosted by Andrew Kuhn and Patrice Semicek.
ChangED
You've Registered for NSTA, Now What?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What did you think of the episode? Send us a text!
Prepare to be inspired by the vibrant fusion of culture, education, and innovation as we gear up for the NSTA conference in Philadelphia. Join us, Andrew Kuhn and Patrice Semicek, alongside the esteemed Dr. Alicia Conerly, NSTA President for 2024-25, as we explore the rich tapestry of experiences awaiting educators this year. Discover how the Professional Learning Institutes and Leaders Institute are transforming science education through enhanced 3D learning and high-quality instructional materials. Embrace the diverse and inclusive community of educators from across the nation, united by a shared passion for advancing science education.
Our episode also serves as your ultimate guide to effective conference planning and networking strategies, vital for making the most of your time in Philadelphia. We offer insights into balancing the need for information gathering with self-care, ensuring you return home energized rather than exhausted. From navigating the schedule to mastering networking opportunities, we provide practical tips to enhance your conference experience—don't forget that backup battery! Tune in for a blend of expert advice and a sprinkle of excitement as we look forward to engaging with the next wave of educators and innovators.
Experience more NSTA podcasts and learn about the Philly NSTA Conference by visiting nsta.org/podcast.
Want to send us a show idea or just say hi? Email us at: thechangedpodcast@gmail.com!
welcome to the nsta podcast. We are so excited that you tuned in and that you are listening and that you have registered for nsta in philly this spring. Well, you've registered now what that's why we have this podcast so that we can have conversations with you, learn from people who are going to be there, hear from keynote speakers, hear from presenters, and so that you can feel fully prepared as you get ready to embark on this journey to come to Philadelphia. My name is Andrew Kuhn. I'm an education consultant from Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, part of the Change Ed podcast, and with me is Patrice Semicek, also out of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Southeastern PA.
Speaker 1So we're very excited to be here with you and for our very first podcast for NSDA, philly, we have none other than the president of the entire scientific world, alicia Connerly. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3Thank you, andrew. Thank you, patrice. Like you said, I'm Dr Alicia Connolly, nsta president 24-25. And back to the matter at hand. You registered now what, and I'm so excited to have you all here with us and I'm excited about the things to come and I'm excited about visiting with you, getting to know you, engaging with you and just networking all of the above here in Philly.
Speaker 1Well, philadelphia is a unique and wonderful city. There are so many things here to see, to do, to experience. So my hope for all of our listeners is that they are coming excited to also experience all that the city has to offer. Don't just go to the conference, don't fly in, fly out Intentionally. Plan some time to experience wherever it is, see the different cultures and the different foods and all the things that each area and part of our country has to offer.
Speaker 2They can literally walk across the street to Reading Terminal Market. There's so much at the market you could literally eat something different every meal of every day for the entire week. You're here in Philadelphia just in the market. It's amazing. Well, I plan on doing just that. I think it's like the oldest market. I don't know, I'm not from Philly so I pretend to know these things but it's like one of the oldest markets and it's inside, so it doesn't matter the weather.
Speaker 1We've learned that if you say things with confidence, it feels like the old run.
Speaker 3People are like learned that if you say things with confidence, it feels like yeah, that's right, it's the oldest run, sounds good and I'm excited about it. I plan on doing just that.
Speaker 1Eating something every night don't necessarily come to philadelphia with a workout plan right like that's like an after this is like you leave philly and then you're like, oh, now it's new year's, I need my new year's resolution. But you don't come to philly, you come to Philly. You come to Philly. Plenty to consume.
Speaker 2Come to Philly with your elastic waisted pants.
Speaker 3That's right, I do not set myself up for failure, then yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Clearly you've had a lot of experiences with different NSCA conferences throughout the country. I'm curious what is unique about Philadelphia that others might not have seen or experienced in other conferences?
Speaker 3Yes, With our conference committee. The goal is always to bring the culture, to bring the love that each city has in its own place. So with that, when our conference team as a matter of fact, part of our conference team just got back from visiting Philadelphia last week, and the planning that goes into it is making each experience at each conference unique and different. So that way, those of us, especially like me, coming from Mississippi, coming to Philadelphia, pennsylvania, what is going to make me even want to come back even after this conference? So the conference makes sure to bring the city to us in the amount of time that we're there, those few days. So we just try to make every experience at each stop that we have an experience of a lifetime.
Speaker 1And you know, what I love that I'm hearing is that the science bleeds through. So, whatever culture you're in, whatever part of the country, whatever you're experiencing, that's the commonality that we can easily find, that brings us all together in that space as educators.
Speaker 3Science is the most diverse discipline there is. So we are without excuse to not intertwine, to bring in, to connect. We're without excuse. We're the most diverse discipline there is and nobody can outshine the science people. I'm just saying.
Speaker 1Totally agree. I've registered for NSDA. I'm coming to Philly. Yes, what can I look forward to? What do I do now, besides listen to this amazing podcast? What do I do now?
Speaker 3Well, now that you've registered and you are coming to Philly, let me talk to you about a few things that we will have that are new. So we have our new Professional Learning Institutes and Leaders Institute, which will be that Wednesday. It will be a day-long learning experience to deep dive into specific areas of focus this conference. We will be focusing on OpenSciEd as well as creating instructional supportive assessments tasked to support 3D learning, because that is what everyone is moving to the 3D learning. How can we make everything more applicable, how can we make it more real for our teachers, for our students?
Speaker 3And then the Leaders Institute topic will be implementing high quality instructional materials, or what we call as admin H-Q-I-M, when trying to determine what curriculums we will bring into our school districts or into homeschool, into private schools, magnet schools, whatever the school may be. We want to ensure that science educators, that we are vetting the high quality instructional materials because we want teaching and learning not to just be engaging but to push every student towards proficiency. So we're looking forward to that Wednesday with our new professional learning institutes and our leaders institute. But that's only the tip of the iceberg, you know, I would say, but there's more If you act now don't delay.
Speaker 3So with that we have a STEM showcase, which will also be Wednesday and it will be from 1.30 to 3.30. It will be in Exhibit Hall D of the Pennsylvania Convention Center and one thing about this guess what teachers love F-R-E-E. So this event will be free and it will showcase the variety of STEM and science-based programs, organizations, mobile labs, local Philly attractions and dynamic flea market style. Oh hey.
Speaker 2I got excited about that part.
Speaker 3So each table will offer a chance to share the learning materials and let me tell you the teachers we'd love to borrow, fill, keep, revitalize, and in science we do all of that. So we will be sharing those learning materials, program information for our first time attendees or those just new to the atmosphere of coming to one of our larger conferences and any upcoming opportunities that we may have. And also, some people may also be registering on site. Guess what else? We will have a food cart so we will be able to mingle in our networking space which will lead up to our opening reception and our keynote which was started for. So, as you can see, it's going to be very engaging. And there's, but I'll wait, there's more.
Speaker 2There's more, okay, wait. So all of that, all of that's on Wednesday.
Speaker 1All of that's on Wednesday. The that's on Wednesday. If it's free, it's for me Showcase. It sounds like that's open house.
Speaker 3The STEM showcase. You're good, come on, but you better do it between 1.30 and 3.30. I can't.
Speaker 1I'm just saying after that there are limitations to the free. It's like a happy hour. It's not one hour, it's two hours. This is a With snacks.
Speaker 3You want to know that there is more. There's more, there is more. So that Wednesday we will have our keynote, errol Williams Jr, and his name is 99% human, 1% amazing, and we're looking forward to having him. Please, if you want to know more about him, go on his site, engage in his site, so therefore, you can learn more about him before he gets there. And then we will also have Mr Ricky Arnold from Science for Space Lessons Learned from NASA, and that will be on that Thursday. So we're looking forward to both of our keynotes that will be engaging as well as uplifting to all of our attendees that we're not doing that sit and get where we're just learning and focusing on. We need to come together to be rejuvenated and revived, and that is why we're so intentional with those that we select as our keynotes for our conference.
Speaker 2But I also wanted to say Alicia, we have the pleasure of having both of them on our podcast. So we're going to have, I know, so they're going to get a little snippet, a little taste of who they are even before coming. So we're very excited about that. But you said there's more. There's even more. I don't even know if I can handle it.
Speaker 3Well, we're going to bring it on down because before I get into what not to miss, I want to discuss that we have a lot of sessions and workshops for all grade levels and that's one thing that I love about NSTA and our conferences not just grade levels but roles, because, like I'm an administrator at the district level and a lot of times the conferences that we attend are teacher specific, admin specific, federal program specific, curriculum specific.
Speaker 3But here at NSTA we try to cover that in our sessions and even in our workshop and we also have levels all the way up to. We're going to offer our teachers paradise in the expo hall. So we love taking care of our teachers, we're just really enjoying it and we always want to promote our NSTA hub. In our NSTA hub the space has been redesigned, we have brand new activities and offerings across the organization and that is where you can meet me, the president I spend time there Others in our presidential chain Dr Julie Love, who's our retiring president, dr Bev DeVore Wedding, who's our president-elect, and then also more members of our board and council, our past presidents, because we love engaging our attendees. So stop by our NSTA hub and we can have a meet and greet, and we're always looking for our photo ops at our. You Belong here, so that's awesome.
Speaker 2I'm excited, me too, so excited here's a question for you.
Speaker 1How do you personally attend a conference? How do you decide what to go to?
Effective Conference Planning and Networking
Speaker 3When I'm just an attendee. I love taking time, once I registered to and I'm still a paper pencil girl, so I print out the schedule and I go through and I highlight and then sometimes, when things overlap, I may have to flip a coin or I may have to say okay, if I have other individuals who are with me from my district, let's split it up. So you have to be very strategic with some of the things, because sometimes it's like everything is amazing and they're all at 10 to 1050 and I can't go to them all. So, planning in that aspect, I would suggest that if you're coming with others in the group, take time to really sit down and split up where you would like to go. Also, try something new. It never hurts to try some of the sessions or workshops.
Speaker 3Everyone is different, while some may say, okay, I'm just going to use the app. Typically, the app is released one to two weeks prior to the conference. People can live life like that. I don't live life quite on the edge like that, so I have to go ahead and print it out. You can go ahead and begin to put things in your calendar, your own calendar, as to where you would like to be so, just taking time to sit down, look at who the presenters will be, look at what is it that they're offering in the presentation.
Speaker 3Because sometimes, while the title of the presentation may be catchy to you, as you read along concerning what it is they're going to be presenting on, you may say, oh okay, well, I can just go back in the conference thing after it's all over with and pull that transcript or pull that information if they upload it. And there's also one thing that I enjoy about NSTA If you are a registered attendee, you can go back into the portal those sessions that you didn't get to say. If you're traveling alone, you can go back and the resources will have been uploaded from those presenters, as well as their contact information. I'm all about networking and I'm all about contacting people. If there's something I want to know, I'm going to ask and I'm going to ask the people that know that have the information.
Speaker 2There you go. I like that you brought up the point of planning. I've gone to conferences where I showed up the day of and I'm like I'm going to see what I see and it never works out well. It never works out well. So, yeah, I would completely agree that there needs to be a little bit of planning ahead of time, just especially in such a big conference like this, where it can be overwhelming when there's 10 or 15.
Speaker 3Especially if you're new, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2All of those people at one time you're going to want to do everything and you're just going to realize we cannot do everything.
Speaker 2I cannot do everything, right, yeah, right, right, there's only so much coffee, although I try to make time for taking a minute for myself, because if I'm in a session after session, after session after session, my brain shuts down and I'm like I can't absorb anything else. It's my little sponge is not not as big as it used to be, I think and mapping out time where maybe I'll walk the expo hall in between two or three sessions. There you go Downtime myself, so that way I'm not so overwhelmed with information, because it's a lot, it's so much good stuff, but it can be a lot to absorb, yeah, yeah. The other thing I try to do is sorry, andrew is bring a backup battery if I'm using electronic stuff, because there's not a lot of plugs in any conference center I've ever been in, because there's not a lot of plugs in any conference center I've ever been in. So either a notepad or rechargeable battery or something, because inevitably my laptop will die when I'm trying to take those notes.
Speaker 1So, yes, yes, that's a great Philadelphia tip as well, of, like, we don't have any secret outlets, nope. So just come with your managing expectations. So I have two questions for you as we close this podcast Managing your expectations. So I have two questions for you as we close this podcast. I have many more that are going to be coming to support everyone who's coming to Philadelphia for this conference. So my first question is it's probably the easiest question I've asked all day who is the better host of this show, myself or Patrice?
Speaker 2I can't believe you did that. I cannot believe you did that.
Speaker 3You do not have to answer that question, that's the first time she hasn't like immediately had an answer. Can you believe you did that? I'm cutting that out. That's so rude, Very rude. But it will be girl power anytime anywhere. Never mind, it stays.
Speaker 2I don't care if you say a word, we are in it to win it. Thank you, ms Alicia. He does this all the time, by the way, and it always backfires. I apologize.
Speaker 1I forgot my second question, so thank you for coming on the show. I'm just kidding. My second question is what are you most excited about? What's that thing that you're just like? I can't wait to get to Philadelphia. I'm so excited about this.
Speaker 3I'm excited about engaging with the teachers, oh, and also if there are children there that will be presented, because in NOLA we had a couple of middle schools that presented as well. So engaging with our next generation of educators, our next generation of innovators and scientists, that is what excites me the most.
Speaker 1Alicia, it's a real pleasure for us to connect with you again and on this podcast and share you with all of the listeners, and we are super excited that NSDA has come here to Philadelphia and that we're going to be here. We look forward to joining our listeners on this journey through NSTA up to the conference, during the conference and beyond. So thank you, registered NSTA member, for tuning in, for listening to this. We have a lot more where this came from. We've created a series of information so that you can keep getting more and more information and feel forewarned and forearmed when you come to this conference, to get the most out of this conference. So be sure to be on the lookout for additional podcast sessions coming your way with more information.
Speaker 3Thank you. Thank you, and Patrice said, at any time he is under the weather or feels like continuing on with podcasting is beneath him. I'm your girl. Done, done.
Speaker 2I don't even need him to have those feelings or thoughts. I'm in.
Speaker 1Have to hang up now, Blake.