My past week has been spent in Cullowee, NC at NCCAT with a great group of educators. This week has been filled with an innumerable amount of invaluable experiences from all the lecturers and presenters that filled my schedule this week.

The major highlight of the week for me would have to have been the rafting trip down the Natahala River. I love the idea of bringing the classroom outdoors more. What a great way to do that with the rafting trip. The best part was also having the biologist guy in the boat with my group. We stopped by the edge of the river and ate black raspberries while having great conversations about biology and students in the classroom. Not only were we talking classroom and teaching, but he was also pointing out all the plant fauna and different bird species by their calls. It was a very enjoyable afternoon down the river; COLD but enjoyable none the less.

Another highlight from the week at NCCATs Professional Development was meeting wonderful educators that are excited to be in the classroom and learn new technology to help engage the 21st child in learning. All of the presenters were great; I did not go to one presentation that I did not learn something new that I can potentially use in the classroom. It was also great to make new connections and hopefully maintain contact with educators to connect with.

I hope that my experience as a Kenan Fellows  is one about learning and increasing student engagement in learning.This past year at Apex High School there was a big push to assess how engaged students were with the content that was being taught. Therefore I am also looking to find new and creative ways to help engage students into learning science. I also hope to network with other teachers around North Carolina and be able to network with them. I am very interested to hear what other educators are using in their classrooms.

Not only am I hoping to learn a lot of new things to put into my teacher tool bag, but I am also hoping that by completing this fellowship it will allow new doors to open my horizons for more exciting things to happen in my career.

The picture above is a good representation of what I hope to gain from my experience as a Kenan Fellows. Finding new resources to use in the classroom, time to reflect on the resources and new knowledge gained, and then build the curriculum surrounding the new information that’s been processed.