3-Hour Workshops - Saturday, October 23, 9:00 - 12:00 PM
Workshop 5 - Where Are You Really From? How Teacher Identity and Biases Paint the Learning Experience of Students
Bárbara Barnett
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Where are you from?... A simple, but yet ubiquitous, question that implies a progression of where you began and where you are going. Often asked out of pure curiosity, many times it can be a loaded question whose multifaceted answer may lead to feelings of exclusion and microaggressions. Are you ready to unpack this question? Come to this workshop to ponder where you are “really” from, and to explore how your own identity and biases paint the learning experiences you develop for your students.
PRESENTER BIO
A native of Puerto Rico (with some Cuban seasoning), Bárbara Barnett is an avid believer that children can and should learn a foreign language. All children have the right to access high-quality language instruction; regardless of learning styles, achievement levels, race/ethnic origin, socioeconomic status, home language, or future academic goals. Bárbara has been teaching and leading professional learning for over twenty years. She has taught and supervised Kindergarten to 12th-grade programs; including immersion and FLES. Bárbara is currently having a blast as the K-5 Department Head for World Languages at the Wellesley Public Schools where she started and continues to develop their Spanish FLES program.
Workshop 6 - Roomies, Zoomies and the Future: Lessons in Transparency from 2020-2021
Meredith White
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Participants will be charged to reflect on the planning routines and habits that can make their language class a memorable experience for students rather than just memorized content. In the context of large, diverse classes, especially in the context of 2020-21 COVID19-affected teaching, Meredith will share her department's planning and grading routines that make can-do and proficiency-based language teaching enjoyable, effective, and flexible in classroom/virtual/hybrid settings. Participants will receive all files used during the session to then, editable to fit their own needs. (http://bit.ly/MeredithWhite)
PRESENTER BIO
Meredith White earned her B.A., B.S., M.Ed., and Ed.S. all in World Language Education from the University of Georgia. Her focus on novice learners works to ingrain proficiency, authentic resources, genuine tasks, student-guided thematic units, and making language learning enjoyable. When she isn't at PRHS teaching Spanish, she's at Georgia State University teaching educational methods classes or presenting/attending state, regional, and national workshops. Passionate about sharing and collaborating with other teachers, she blogs, moderates the PLN #langchat, and serves on the GGC College of Education Advisory and SEALLT Executive Boards.