I have come to the conclusion that every math conference’s goal should be to give attendees the best possible experience and ultimately improve student learning. My hope is that by sharing what I’ve learned, I can add transparency to the conference planning process and initiate discussion aimed at improving the conference experience. I truly believe that we make better decisions together than we can as individuals, but that can only be true if we have the same information.
Being at a conference where you are part of the program committee is like being the security guard at a football game. Technically I can say I was there but I saw very little of the actual conference sessions.
The program committee’s current responsibilities at a conference involve taking care of a group of rooms by making sure there are no technical issues as well as by collecting data. When they’re not doing that, they are helping conference attendees do things like find their session, find a bathroom, or help them locate something they lost. As a member on the 2015 NCTM Nashville program committee, I spent much of my time rotating between the Omni Broadway ballrooms, so I wasn’t able to see any presentations from start to finish. I did see parts of many sessions, but only ones that were near the groups of rooms I was responsible for. More on this later.
- It is my understanding that, at least for the Nashville venue, room sizes and the number of people that can attend the session were primarily a result of the chosen session format. For example, there was only one room size (150 people) for people who wanted tables. I am not sure how anticipated speaker popularity factored in.
- NCTM prefers to not repeat the exact same sessions. I can see both sides of this in that you don’t want the same speakers taking up the entire program, but you also want to make sure there is enough supply to meet demand. One loophole to this rule appears to be repeating the same session for a different grade band. For example, doing one version of the presentation for grades 6-8 and another for grades 9-12.
- Last minute program changes (such as sessions that were canceled or added during the conference due to a big storm that hit the midwest) are primarily communicated electronically. A paper flyer was given to attendees that showed cancellations that were received at least two days before the conference started, but no other paper handouts. If you were not using the program app on your electronic device or were not reading about it on social media or a website, you were unlikely to know about any cancellations after that. As far as I could tell, there were no signs or handouts telling attendees about these changes except for the board outside of the session. While I don’t have exact data, my guess would be that less than 50% of attendees would have access to this information.
- Over the past year, the NCTM social media team has worked hard to build their presence and this has been a great addition to the math conference experience and math education in general. During the conference they did a really great job communicating information, supporting educators, and connecting people to one another. If you only followed NCTM on Twitter, you would have had a reasonably good idea of what was happening at the conference. Obviously they can’t be everywhere or share everything, but their increased presence should be acknowledged and applauded. I wasn’t the only one noticing this:
Whoever is tweeting for @NCTM at #NCTMregionals in Nashville is *killing* it in capturing big ideas and in responding. High five !! 😀
€” ~Hedge~ (@approx_normal) November 19, 2015
Facilitating a conference is similar to facilitating a math lesson in that it rarely goes exactly the way you expect it will. Just like with a math lesson, if you don’t spend enough time anticipating what might happen and plan accordingly, you are not going to be able to meet students’ needs. Good teachers are adaptable and resilient to these types of situations, and math conferences need to be too.
The reality is that there will always be last minute cancellations and no shows. That much is out of NCTM’s control. What isn’t out of NCTM’s control is how they respond to this. Right now, when those cancellations happen, an unfortunate chain reaction of events happen. Let’s picture this chain of events from the perspective of a middle school math teacher.
You are at the conference because you want to learn ideas you can implement in your middle school classroom. You only care about middle school sessions and have a list of sessions you want to see. You head to your favorite and find out that it has been canceled. As there are a relatively equal number of sessions for each grade span, you now have a situation where the same number of attendees have fewer sessions to attend and seats to fill. As a result, sessions fill up more quickly. There is no way to get real time data about how full a session is, so you may go from finding you first choice is canceled only to walk for ten minutes to find your second choice is full. You then have to choose between a ten minute walk to another session that might also be full or sitting out this round of presentations, which may have already begun.
This scenario actually happened for quite a few frustrated attendees. Some of them were so upset that they asked me about how they could get a refund. They expressed aggravation about their experience and vowed to never return. We can pretend like this is an unavoidable problem or we can reject the status quo bias and rethink how things are done.
Conference programs need to get more adaptable and resilient and I have two very reasonable suggestions that certainly can be improved upon. Consider what would happen if you added two checkboxes to a speaker proposal form:
- “Check here if you would be willing to do this session more than once on short notice.”
- “Check here if you are going to this conference either way and would be willing to do this session on short notice, even if it isn’t accepted ahead of time.”
If the program committee had a sufficiently long list of people who checked these boxes, they could replace every single last minute cancelation with a new one. How is this not a win-win-win situation? Attendees win because they have more sessions to choose from. The program wins because it can adapt and offer more choices. Speakers win because they get more opportunities to share their message. As someone who has attended NCTM conferences that I have been rejected from, I would have gladly presented on last minute notice if given the opportunity.
Like I stated in the beginning, every math conference’s goal should be to give attendees the best possible experience and ultimately improve student learning. We are not meeting that mark when sessions are canceled and nothing is done, much like when students have misconceptions and nothing is done. When sessions are canceled, conferences should adapt. This does create some new problems, of course, such as being able to communicate last minute changes to attendees. After all, how will they know about the replacement sessions? I have some ideas for that too, primarily because it actually happened to me at this conference.
My first session on Thursday seated 150 people and was full 20 minutes before it started. With all of the cancelations I was one of four people asked to present again on Friday. I agreed but then realized I was in a peculiar predicament: how would anybody know that my session existed? As I mentioned earlier, there were no signs about new sessions nor flyers to be handed out. So, if I had even one person come, it would be a miracle. I thought about it and realized that my only hope was to harness the power of the MathTwitterBlogoSphere (#MTBoS).
I immediately walked to the MTBoS booth in the exhibit hall and told them about the situation. I asked them if they would help me spread the word by retweeting my tweet about it and get the message to people who were using Twitter at the conference and they obliged.
Hey #MTBoS at #NCTMregionals, I just found out that I am repeating session #19 from 11 am to 12 pm Friday. Please spread the word and RT. €” Robert Kaplinsky (@robertkaplinsky) November 19, 2015
I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew that it would be an experiment on the MTBoS’ influence in helping information travel. Well, to my great surprise I had about 100 people attend my repeat session. Based on the tweets below, it appears that this instance of adaptability made it better for a couple of attendees. There are likely to be far better ideas for making conferences adaptable and resilient. We need to start brainstorming and implementing those ideas as soon as possible.
Robert Kaplinsky’s bonus session has been fabulous. Great info and fabulous presenter! Glad this was offered a 2nd time.#NCTMre…
€” Leslie Baker (@BakerLR) November 23, 2015
Thank you @robertkaplinsky for an awesome and energizing surprise session today! #NCTMregionals €” Mrs. Gironda (@Caitlyn_Gironda) November 20, 2015
In addition to using social media, there should be plenty of signs and daily paper handouts of canceled and added sessions. It would help ensure that the numerous people not interacting with the conference electronically still have access to information.
- session status (has it been canceled or are there any seats left?)
- speaker data (such as previous session evaluations and attendance)
What are your thoughts on this technology? Do you feel this information should be shared with drivers so that they can make more informed decisions about choosing a parking space? Perhaps you feel that this information should not be shared as sometimes, say on Black Friday, almost all of the spaces may be unavailable and knowing that may exacerbate the situation and frustrate you more?
To me, this is a metaphor for one of my experiences on the program committee. My personal opinion is that I find access to this kind of information very valuable. If I am trying to park, my goal is to get to a parking space as quickly as possible and I greatly appreciate not having to acquire this information myself by driving around each level to see what’s available. That’s the philosophy I brought to my job during this conference.
When I wasn’t checking in on rooms, I was waiting in the halls helping attendees. Sometimes I noticed attendees walking in the direction of rooms that were canceled or full. I didn’t know for sure that they were going to that room, but they could have been. I decided that I would tell attendees about full or canceled sessions whenever possible with the hopes of saving them a few minutes. Then I would provide alternative sessions if they were interested in other options. What I came to realize was that not every volunteer agreed with me. I was even told to stop sharing this information because me telling people about sessions being full or canceled would exacerbate the situation and make attitudes increasingly negative.
I fundamentally disagreed with this person. I believed that people would be frustrated either way but would perhaps be at least a little grateful to find out without having to lose precious minutes walking to acquire this information. What are your thoughts on this? If I am right about this information being something we should share, what are the best ways to do it? Is there a way to give attendees better access to real time session status and available seat data?
- Number of people in the room when the session started
- Number of people in the room when the session ended
- Ratings submitted by conference attendees via the NCTM app
This is in addition to qualitative data including:
- Did the presenter not show up to a session and also not tell anyone?
- Did the presenter start or end the session excessively early or late?
- Did the presenter advertise commercial services in a non-exhibitor session?
So now that we know that this data exists, is there a fair and helpful way to share it? More specifically, could this data be used to give attendees the best possible conference experience? Here are my thoughts:
- As I discussed in detail in this post, using data from an NCTM conference about the number of people in a room at the beginning and end of a session is almost impossible to do. As there are 30 minute, 60 minute, and 75 minute sessions at an NCTM conference, there are overlapping sessions throughout the day. So, many attendees find themselves in situations where they have to leave their current session early to get to the next session before it begins. That shouldn’t reflect poorly on the speaker so I don’t know how this can be used fairly.
- If speaker rating data was available when the program committee was trying to figure out who to invite, I wasn’t aware of it. We would have valued speaker rating data as it could have helped us find popular speakers we were unaware of or make us think twice about guaranteeing proposal acceptance to someone who has been rated poorly.
- What about giving speaker rating data to conference attendees so that they can find the best sessions for them, much like review websites (think of Yelp or TripAdvisor) help people find the best restaurants and tourist attractions, respectively? I can see one major advantage and many potential issues. Here are my thoughts:
- Advantages
- Session evaluation data (for example in the form of a star rating system) would give attendees better information to help them choose a presenter. I would find it useful to know which speakers have been rated highly. Another way of articulating this is how I go through a program at other math conferences. 10 years ago I knew no speakers and would read every session description to find my sessions. That led to both hits and misses. These days I know many more speakers and I primarily look for sessions where I have either seen the speaker present or have heard good things about them. For example, I heard great things at Nashville about NCTM Past-President Gail Burrill‘s session and am looking forward to seeing her at a future conference. I wish I had similar information for the many other speakers I don’t know.
- Potential Issues
- It’s unclear how consistently the conference app was used. Honestly, I had completely forgotten about it, even if I should have known as a speaker or program committee member.
- Just like with teaching, speakers improve over time. I know I do much better now than when I first started presenting. We would have to be careful to not permanently penalize early issues.
- Many people would have no ratings at all, and that would always be an issue.
- Some feelings will definitely get hurt. I know that is not ideal, but is that more important than giving attendees the best possible conference experience?
- Just like you see with this news article, you could have all sorts of unanticipated issues like malicious submissions. It might already be happening.
- Advantages
Somehow we have to reconcile the belief that NCTM conferences are the all-star games of math conferences with the reality that there are still sessions that miss the mark. How can we find a way to give people the valuable information they need in a fair manner?
I understand that someone needs to help with the workload, but this problem could be solved in a number of ways. There were already many volunteers at the conference doing essentially the same job as me. I didn’t understand what value I provided beyond what they offered. However, if we don’t have enough volunteers, there could be a deal such that volunteers get increasing registration discounts based on how much they are willing to volunteer. In addition, there are a number of people who would like to be a part of future NCTM committees. Allowing them to volunteer for a portion of the conference could help them make connections with NCTM staff as well as add them to a list of potential committee members.
Additionally, allowing program committee members to attend sessions provides value in so many other areas. It builds future capacity by allowing them to see who might be good speakers to invite to future conferences. It also gives them the opportunity to connect with speakers they invited to the current conference, allowing them to strengthen their relationships. Let’s brainstorm more effective ways of using program committee members at conferences as soon as possible.
Realize also that these types of changes are not implemented easily or quickly. I hear that exciting changes are already underway for 2016 and 2017 and am looking forward to seeing what those program committees come up with. As I said in the first post, it has been obvious to me that NCTM is more interested in meeting teachers needs than in maintaining the status quo. So, I ask for NCTM and the math education community to continue to provide future program committees with two things:
- Give them every opportunity to innovate and try new ideas. Let them cut red tape with machetes and break down the belief that something has to be done a specific way.
- Realize that if 100% of the things they do work, they are not innovating enough. They may try things that don’t go as planned. Those unplanned events should be celebrated and learned from as opposed to criticized.
What are your thoughts about what I’ve shared? What am I right about? What am I off the mark on?
I think all of your ideas are great and I really appreciate your eye toward making the conference more enjoyable and effective for conference goers. I have one idea for updates during the conference (cancellations, additions, etc). Consulting a site or installing an app is a bit high friction for many people, and paper flyers would be expensive if effective, but what if you offered updates by email? On the registration you could add a box for “be notified by email to your provided address of changes and announcements during the conference.” Then whatever would go on a flyer can be sent once or twice a day using a service like mail chimp and only during conference days and maybe the day before. I know email is not slick but people like when info is pushed to them in a mode they already use. Just a thought. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us on top of all the hard work on the conference!
Now that’s a totally brilliant idea that never occurred to me and might even be relatively easy to implement. I would prefer your idea to both of the ideas I suggested. File this under yet another example of “we make better decisions together than we can as individuals.” Gotcha make sure to pass this idea along!
Thanks Kate. Great meeting you in person, finally, in Nashville.
The one conference I ran we sent out email updates every evening of announcements. Overall, it was well received. The email was super easy for people to set up and send out using the database of attendees. Though I was surprised by the number of people who either didn’t check their email or registered with an address they rarely check.
Really good points Stephanie. Maybe there is a way for people to select one or more ways to be contacted with information, like I have seen on some websites. Then you can relist the email address you want to use. For example, sometimes I use my work email address but only check my person email address during the conference. Thanks!
Great post, Robert. I was looking for parts 1 and 2 and could’t find them. I’m especially curious about how much has changed in the way speakers are chosen. I was on the program committee for the annual meeting in 1999 (in SF no less) and was somewhat critical of how it was done then. Would love to compare notes with you at some point.
Hi Ihor. I believe that the words “Part one” and “Part two” are actually links. Let me know if they don’t work. Here are the URLs for the first two parts: http://robertkaplinsky.com/nctm-committee/ and http://robertkaplinsky.com/nctm-committee-part-2/.
Hi Robert!
I agree so much with everything you have said. The only thing I’m not so sure on is having the ratings available to participants… hmm Just thinking it might not be entirely fair to the presenter for the reasons you listed. I guess it would matter how what type of data was collected. I would think to collect it in a positive way. Maybe in a format of, “What did you learn from this session? Would you recommend it? If so, to whom? Was it hard to get a seat?”
I’ve been to two NCTM annual conferences and both times I leave sessions early to guarantee I get a seat in the next one, especially if the next session is important to me. I don’t even eat meals, I am constantly running from session to session because the sessions are so great. There are few I have walked out of due to lack of interest. 90% of the time it’s to guarantee myself a spot in the next one.
My husband (he also teaches math) and I rely on the apps heavily when we attend conferences. We would LOVE to be able to reserve a seat by signing up through an app or even website. Then we wouldn’t need to leave a session early. The way I picture it in my head is if we sign up there would be a seat for us. Then, if people didn’t show up, after 5-10 minutes those seats would open up to people waiting – knowing they might not get in. Or maybe let there be a certain number of seats that can be reserved and the rest are first come, first served. Participants could show the app on the phone as their ticket into a session.
I teach/coach K-2 and there are never as many engaging sessions available to me as I would like. At CMC-South one I wanted was filled and there was honestly only one other K-2. Of course I go to many K-12 or even upper level sessions and bring what I have learned to my level, but it is really nice to hear from speakers directly speaking about K-2.
I took the bull by the horns and submitted applications to both CMC-South and the NCTM Annual conference and to my surprise, was approved to speak at both! I can’t speak of how my experience will go at NCTM San Francisco yet, but at CMC-South there were about 11 K-2 sessions in the morning when I was giving my session, and 1 in the afternoon – the experience I just shared.
Thank you for taking the time to write and share all of this with us! I truly appreciate it. I’m thinking of applying to NCTM regionals for Phoenix, but haven’t nailed down a topic yet. Better get to work, the clock is ticking. Let me know if you have any insight about what K-2 teachers want.
Thanks Jamie. You make a lot of great points and interesting suggestions.
Yes, the issue of giving attendees data such that it is still fair to the presenter is very tricky. I like your idea of how the data is framed. If you get smart people like you together and brainstorm ideas, something is bound to come up.
Regarding your idea for a way to reserve seats, it may be worth looking at what the root problem is that makes you want the seat reservation app. I think that root issue is that there is not always enough space for people to get a seat.
So, an alternative solution would be having rooms that were always large enough. An idea I’ve had that is different than your app idea is a modification of what happens for CMC South. CMC South (a state conference that is even bigger than an NCTM regional conference) uses sched.org (an online conference scheduling website). I wonder what would happen if people had to pick a schedule ahead of time (that they didn’t have to commit to) and that data could give the program committee an idea of popularity so that rooms could be assigned taking that into consideration.
Regarding your thoughts on K-2 sessions, yes, they told me at my first program committee meeting that there are not enough K-2 sessions at NCTM conferences. So, it is great that you applied and were accepted.
Thanks again for your work and I look forward to reading about your experiences.
Thanks for making the time to share your thoughts and proposed solutions with us. Additionally, thanks for being part of the Nashville program committee.
CUE 2015 (Palm Springs) had TV screens in various places throughout the convention center. It posted tweets and updates. Maybe a few TV screens spread out throughout the conference might help by posting three columns announcing:
•closed sessions
•new sessions (ones in place of cancelled sessions)
•a contact email, phone number, and twitter handle for someone to reach if someone is interested in filling in for those cancelled sessions.
I always appreciate if someone says a session is closed (full). However, if possible, I’d love if a program committee member had a list of “similar” sessions of nearby. I think this would tie in nicely with your parking lot idea. If program committee members are entering session capacities into a real-time spreadsheet (say on a Google Doc), then you can all see where to possibly send an attendee. Or maybe the conference app can display the data entered by the program committee so both the attendees and program committee can benefit from this information.
I’ll continue to think about this. I’m grateful for your insight, energy, passion, and experience. It will help push conferences to be better with every chance.
Great points Andrew. I wonder if TV screens would be a venue specific feature, but still would be helpful. Your idea about real-time data makes me think of volunteers updating room seating availability in real time on tablets and then being able to direct people to rooms they know are open and that they would be interested in.
Thanks!
Hi Robert,
Thank you for all of your hard work and for working to make NCTM better!
First of all, I think it was awesome of you to tell people when conferences were full and help them find ones that were not. Although I am sure they were frustrated about a full conference, they would have been more upset to walk 10 minutes to another full one.
I did not see any of the paper flyers and don’t think that would help much, especially for the early sessions. Most people leave their room and go straight to the session room and may not see the flyers.
Could NCTM use a service like Remind (text message service) to notify conference goers of changes in the schedule and full sessions? I noticed that some of the volunteers were wearing radios. They could radio when a session is full to the point person, who could then send text messages out in real time. Conference goers could opt in to the Reminds, there could be a link at the beginning of the emails that Kate suggested so people could sign up at any time.
Thanks again!
Julie
Hi Julie. Again, we are better together. I’ve never heard of Remind but I bet they will be reading this and will think about implementing redundant layers of information distribution. Thanks for sharing this.
Hey Robert,
Reading this was like being hit with a series of flash backs. I’ll try to recount a few of the times where I had parallel thoughts while working as a program committee member in the Twin Cities.
– Your story about informing participants about full room seems pretty sad, and different compared to my experience, In my side of the conference center we always told people about canceled sessions, and full sessions, and tried to help people find other ones. Maybe this is a culture clash between the Midwestern sensibilities vs. Southern (in)hospitality, but I agree it should be fixed through some policy change that NCTM supports.
At the Annual, I think they do have some fix for this in the Newspaper that is already printed each morning. Perhaps that could be pdf’d and emailed, or just publicized more. I also think it would be useful to have some signage on the board where the cancelled session would be. It would be great if on that sign people were given suggestions for similar talks at that time slot, and at other time slots. The people who would make those suggestions would be the program committee, but that is a whole other bullet.
– Program Committee Role. The program committee knows more about how this conference should benefit participants’ than anyone. I think their role should be to get the most of that knowledge, and make the conference cohesive and tightly aligned to it’s goals, and the goals of each of the strands. Here’s my brainstorm of how it could look:
In the month before the conference, I could see the Program Committee reaching out to individual presenters. They can make people aware of the logisitics of their room, ways to promote their talks over social media, and ask if speakers could do a double session of their presentation, if cancellations happen. Having a connection with a real person may infact limit cancellations, or at least make it more a cancellation gets reported quickly. More importantly, they could help impart more information of what the big theme of the conference is supposed to be, what participants should take away from the strand, and potential connections that can be made across talks.
During the conference, the program committee role would help direct traffic and greet some presenters. Hopefully, the committee members could meet the speakers on their strand that they have been speaking with over the past few weeks. Given that they would be familiar with the speakers in their strand, they could give the best suggestions in case of cancellations. I would also ask them to try to contribute to a conference blog of some sort, so afterwards everybody can find list of tweets and photos from each of the strands curated by the people who drafted that conference’s strands in the first place. I like the idea of their being an Asst Program Committee assistant, maybe they can help with some of the work of directing traffic and counting sessions, as well as some of the curating and writing.
It would also be good if there was some kind of Strand mixer so that people on the strands can be in the same room together. The committee members can coordinate and promote the mixer so that participants who are really interested in the strand can meet the speakers and each other.
– I think technology is at the point where a number of things you describe could be tested out with the Program Committee. For example, with google apps I can make a two-question form with ‘Session Number’ and ‘Closed’ that a committee member can fill out when a room closes. The spreadsheet can automatically email out, or tweet out that the session is closed and also include similar talks. This is something that could be implemented immediately as long as there is wifi or cellular service. Google apps aren’t the best, but if it seems useful, it may be something that is rolled into a future Conference App.
Carl- LOVE the idea for program committee members to reach out to presenters a month before, program committee assistants, and strand mixers! Don’t forget these ideas!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Carl. I think you have some insightful ideas for more better utilizing program committee members’ skill set and I am glad you will get further opportunities to try them out. I really love your idea about using technology to automatically inform people about session status. Very clever. I wish you luck and patience in turning them into reality.
Hi Robert!
In this post, you (and the commenters) provide some great suggestions. My personal favorites are the ideas for innovating ways we can provide real-time conference updates to attendees, thinking critically about how to utilize program committee members’ expertise during the conference, and growing future NCTM leaders by letting them “dip their toes” into NCTM service by playing a role in the conference duties.
Another section of your post that really got me thinking was the part on speaker data. I like the transparency you provided in listing the type of data NCTM currently collects. It’s clear to me that you’ve thought critically about potential advantages and issues with providing speaker rating data to attendees. I have a few additional ideas I’d like to contribute to the conversation:
• You make the point that it would be advantageous to know about great speakers you don’t know about (you mention Gail Burrill’s sessions – which are always great). I wonder if there are other ways to provide attendees with this information other than raw speaker data? For the 2017 annual, one of our subcommittees is focused on the before, during, and after conference experience. We are trying to create ways to get the word out about some sessions ahead of time. Another idea is to set up a “help booth” where experts that really know most speaker names could provide suggestions to attendees based on their stated needs.
• Speaker data is only helpful if we have high quality data. For example, if a presenter had 100 attendees in their session, and 4 people rated their session – I wouldn’t put much faith in the quality or meaningfulness of the data. And it certainly wouldn’t be a good practice to report such data about individuals to the public. I have attended other conferences where speaker data was collected and then confidentially given to the speaker so that they could improve their craft. Such a practice could help grow better presenters at our conferences in a formative, educative way.
• Another point that should be clearly made is that Quantity (# of attendees in a session) ≠ Quality (of the session). It is true that a really great high quality speaker might have a very high quantity of attendees (e.g. Eric Milou) but other scenarios often exist. Some examples:
o A very engaging speaker might be really well attended, but the content or pedagogy in their session might not represent research-based best practices.
o A session might be well attended solely on a catchy session title – catchy titles get attendees in the room but is independent of session quality.
o There are many, many sessions of very high quality that target a narrower interest group (pre-K, calculus, ideas considered on the fringe)
o Finally, there are a million other factors such as, was the session at the same time as a very popular speaker? Was the session in a bad location? Was the session at the end of the day?
The true mathematical quality of a session and the number of attendees attending the session are two different measures. I would most wonder about session quality and would ask questions such as:
o Does the session align to research-based best practices in pedagogy?
o Does the session align to PtA?
o Is the content of the session mathematically sound?
o Does the session address access and equity?
I always go back to thinking about the pre-service and in-service teachers I educate. It would be most important to me to send them to a session that has been peer-reviewed for quality.
I hope my comments provide some food for thought for continued discussion! I’m so glad you are posing important questions and I’m excited to be working towards improving and innovating the conference experience with the extremely competent and knowledgeable 2017 San Antonio committee members and NCTM staff! Thanks Robert for your dedicated and thoughtful work aimed to “give attendees the best possible experience and ultimately improve student learning.”
Sincerely,
Sarah Bush
Lots of great ideas, as usual, Sarah.
First, the help booth idea is absolutely genius. That has to be a staple of all future conferences and advertised like crazy. I would love to see it manned by a spectrum of people. In particular, I would love someone who is nothing like me there so she or he can tell me about people I don’t know about but should. If the person is too much like me, I will know all of the suggestions. So maybe at least two people at all times? Gosh that would be so useful.
All your points about the speaker data issues are completely valid. I like the questions you would ask. I wonder about attendees ability to answer them. For example, how many NCTM conference have attendees have heard of Principles to Action, let alone read it. My hope is that if we keep brainstorming, we can find something that is a more valid and reliable measure. I do think it would be good to share data back with the presenter. I am not sure about the extent that this is being done currently.
You’re an inspiring and connecting leader so I know great things are ahead.