June 18, 2019
Summit invites educators to collaborate
Holly Fales discusses how to deliver effective feedback.
The College of Education hosted the second annual Educator Excellence Summit on June 12 and 13 at the East Carolina Heart Institute.
This two-day event covered a variety of topics, such as leadership, diversity, retention, and classroom harmony, among others. Throughout the summit, several sessions were taught simultaneously in the Heart Institute’s conference rooms.
Attendees came from school districts across North Carolina ranging from Gates County in the northeast to Mecklenburg County in the southwest.
Lauren Warner, a teacher at Franklin Academy in Wake Forest, said that she loved attending the summit and would absolutely attend again. “I went to ECU for my undergrad and my masters and love how well ECU does things. Every time I come back, I’m always amazed by how great it is.”
During the first day she attended a session discussing social and emotional learning, which had a big impact on her. “For kids that might seem a little bit difficult to teach at first, we can use that to engage them,” she said.
Attendees listened to Dr. Christine Wilson welcome them to the second day of the summit.
Between sessions you could feel a sense of camaraderie as teachers from different school systems bonded over their experiences in the classroom.
That was one of the main benefits that organizer Dr. Christine Wilson hoped participants would experience.
“One of the benefits of this conference is that it brings together people from different experience levels and different areas to share expertise and perspectives that they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to on various topics,” she said. “We hope they can walk away with new insights.”
Wilson said that she hopes the summit will continue to grow and help more teachers across the state.
Among the presenters were ECU staff and faculty from the College of Education, College of Business, Center for Leadership & Civic Engagement, Teaching Resources Center and the Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center. There were also principals and teachers from various schools across the state, as well as teacher consultants and academic coaches. A learning consultant from Microsoft also taught a session on incorporating Microsoft Teams into schools.
Summit attendees pinned their locations on a map of North Carolina when they checked in.