Teacher conference

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This page lists information about teacher conferences in the US that AFS either attends, used to attend, or should consider attending in the future.

Contents

Background

Results from conferences are spotty, but conferences can result in teacher contacts and requests for school presentations. Other exchange organizations participate, though many of them have a greater focus than AFS on involving teachers as recruiters with well-defined incentives.

AFS has an opportunity to make presentations at conferences, but that must be lined up well in advance.

Cost to attend and be an exhibitor can run from $350 a shot to over a thousand dollars. Non-profits get a break.

According to Floyd VanWeelden, "the more local the conference, the better." For related tips, see recruiting at a fair.

List of conferences

Where possible, each selection should include:

  • Name of the sponsoring association
  • Date of a recent or upcoming conference
  • Website
  • Information about AFS's involvement with the conference

NEA EXPO

NASSP

  • NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals) - San Antonio, TEX
  • Late February conference
  • www.nassp.org
  • Floyd VanWeelden has attended and does not feel it is something that we should exhibit at right now. According to one participants, "The principals come to golf and have a good time!"

California Association for the Gifted

CSIET

The CSIET National School Conference for 2008 was in Indianapolis on Feb. 28-29. We attended and presented (Margaret Crotty).

For 2009, the conference is in Hartford on Feb 27-28. Helen Lowman and Stephanie Cashmore will be attending.

California Language Teachers' Association

AVID

  • http://www.avidonline.org/info/?ID=3487&tabID=2
  • Floyd has attended three times the national conference in San Diego.
  • AVID is a curriculum used in multiple schools. From the AVID website: "AVID targets students in the academic middle — B, C, and even D students — who have the desire to go to college and the willingness to work hard. These are students who are capable of completing rigorous curriculum but are falling short of their potential. Typically, they will be the first in their families to attend college, and many are from low-income or minority families. AVID pulls these students out of their unchallenging courses and puts them on the college track: acceleration instead of remediation."


Northeast Conference

Southwest Conference

  • SW Conference on Language Teaching April 2-4, Norman OK
  • http://www.swcolt.org/
  • participating states in SWCOLT are Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah.

Southern Conference

National School Boards Association (NSBA)

One World Now

National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)

National Council for Social Studies

FLANC (Foreign Language Association of North Carolina

  • Conference Oct 9-11, Winston-Salem, NC. Accepting booth reservations first-come, first-served as of early April, 2008.
  • Debra S. Martín, Executive Director
  • Email: martin.debra@charter.net

ACTFL

  • Orlando Florida, Nov 20-23 2008
  • American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
  • www.actfl.org
  • Last year ACTFL was covered by Erin Betlock and she has a complete report for those who are interested in learning more about this conference that everyone agrees is worth exhibiting at and attending. This year it is in Florida. Kristen Bates and Jenny Davis are discussing who should cover the event from their region. Erin Dysart may also be of help as she has been active attending ACTFL in the past for Awards for Excellence and has some money in her budget this year for ACTFL.

The charges exclusive of individual costs (travel, lodgng meals, etc.) are:

  • Booth: $1,400 includes also four guest exhibitor registrations
  • Furnishings: Range in past at approximately $450.
  • Shipment of displays (depend on contents)
  • Giveaways/Freebies: $100 est.
  • Cost of Reception: TBA

PTA

  • National PTA Convention - June 20-23, 2008 San Diego, CA www.pta.org
  • Floyd VanWeelden has attended and does not feel it is something that we should exhibit at right now. Mostly fundraising booths, and the parents who are present are elementary kids' parents.

American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portugese (AATSP)

  • 2009 Conference: Hyatt Regency Albuquerque, NM
  • July 9-12, 2009

Other conferences

  • Pac NW Council for Languages: doesn't seem to have a big conference of their own, but they do have state-wide conferences in a couple of states:
  • http://www.pncfl.org/


NAFSA

  • association of international educators -- appears more focused on international schools in foreign countries, probably not a great match for AFS-USA
  • http://www.nafsa.org/annual_conference
  • From Margaret Hunt: Noone budgeted for it. The booth is expensive and while it is nice to be present there and some returnees find us, it doesn't seem to be the right target for us now in our resource scarce environment. So we decided not to do a booth this year. I do think someone should attend, however. Maybe Robin or someong on the training team might go (or maybe someone is part of a panel?). Robin may present there in 2009.

International Schools Studies Association (ISSA)

  • 2009 Conference: January 17-19, Tampa
  • Based in University of Denver. Develops K-12 curriculum related to international matters.

Central States Conference

  • Central States Conference: March 19-21, 2009 -- Hyatt Regency Chicago
  • http://www.csctfl.org/
  • Nancy Weis-Sanfo attended in 2006, wrote:
  • Register early. Dates are already set for 2007 and 2008. Our name was not included in the Exhibitor's Directory in the Conference Booklet because of our late registration. Hence, participants had no way of knowing we had a booth unless they passed by. Our competitors EF and YFU were in the booklet. They also had better spots than us. We were in the last row, in the corner; not too many people passed by. It was almost as if there was a glass wall separating this corner from the rest of the hall. The 4 other Exhibitors in this corner also noticed this.
  • Have better give-a-ways. We did not have much to offer, besides pencils. I had to run to the store to buy pens for people to fill out the Info Cards; it would have been better to let the person filling out the Info Card take away an AFS pen. Also, many exhibitors, including EF and YFU had plastic bags w/ their logo to give to people taking materials. This is great for attracting attention. EF was giving away water bottles; I at least bought candy to try and attract people in. It seemed teachers like little trinkets/prizes they can give their students. We did offer prizes for the 3 raffles, which were nice. However, only 1 person came to pick up their prize. Participants had to be present to win (see next point for reasoning).
  • Confirm where the Exhibition Hall will be in proximity to the Session Rooms. At this conference, the Exhibition Hall was quite far from the Session Rooms and Thursday evening was the most attended time since there were no sessions going on. Also, check out the schedule. There were not many open blocks of time between sessions when the participants could come all the way down to the Exhibition Hall. Again, Thursday evening was the best attended due to the open block of time. I think this is also why we only gave away 1 raffle prize because people did not stick around or were not in the hall a lot.
  • Add a line for email address on the Info Card. (This should be passed on to Floyd since I think it came from him)
  • Invite local exchange students to be in the booth. YFU had at least 2 students and they were an extra draw. I'm sure there will be locally hosted students near any of these events. Also, have at least 2 staff or vols attending so there is at least 1 person at the booth at all times while the other gets food, stretches, etc.
  • Have better marketing materials. We only had 3 posters left in the closet when I checked last week and when we followed up w/ Marketing to order more, they told us just to use the black and white copies. It seemed teachers were grabbing as many posters as they could from all Exhibitors. I was not about to hand out black and white copies. Also, the displays finally came in Friday morning. We missed a great opportunity Thursday evening since there was an Exhibitor reception with wine and cheese that evening. The wine and cheese table was right across from our booth. I noticed people just walked past our booth since we didn't have lights, whistles, colors to pull them in. When the displays finally came in, the hosting display was broken. Thankfully, with the help of the front desk manager, we were able to get it out but had to tape it up. Also, the sending display was starting to fall down on Saturday morning. I've already shared these details with Maureen in Marketing.
  • Most people who stopped were either AFS returnees or volunteers. I don't think I pulled in too many new people. In total, I received Info Cards from 12 people. 1 Michigan, 1 S Dakota, 1 Minnesota, 1 Colorado, 2 Ohio, 2 Indiana, 4 Illinois. Other returnees and volunteers stopped but didn't fill in cards. I think our money and time would be better spent if we could get a list of AFS returnees who are now language teachers and target them. Many commented that they host stus at their schools from other orgs but not AFS. There is good potential for new hosting schools! And they were all interested in It's Your World presentations. I will forward the leads on to the appropriate Field Coordinators.
  • There were many hidden costs. We had to pay to receive packages, the internet was extra, and shipping out also required a handling fee. My gut feeling is that this was an expensive weekend with little return."

World Youth and Student Travel Conference

Not for teachers, but rather for the student exchange business. A good place to find potential partners.

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May 24 2012
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