What Is Teacher Fest?

Post date: Jun 08, 2015 4:23:59 PM

What is TeacherFEST?

TeacherFEST! Henrico County's first festival to, for and by TEACHERS!  More specifically, TeacherFEST is a day long gathering of Henrico County secondary teachers who are driven towards mastery in their craft.  That s why this year’s TeacherFEST theme is “The Craft Teaching Approach to Education.”  

What is the Craft Teaching Approach to Education? 

We spoke to amazing teachers from secondary schools all over our country about their beliefs critical to the craft of modern teaching.  What we found were four core beliefs which formed the vision for the Craft Teaching Approach to education; Innovation, Involvement, Individualism, and Integrity.  Because these beliefs come from you, the Craft Teacher, they will serve to guide the conversations of TeacherFEST 2015.

Innovation: Craft teachers recognize and value traditional and researched based instructional strategies but continually reinvent and perfect those practices to meet the needs of their ever changing students.  Instead of accepting an unchanging learning environment, craft teachers view this room for improvement as a personal challenge. 

CONNECTION: Creativity and Innovation, Authentic Tasks, Using New Digital Resources & Tools, Strategic Risk Taking, Analyzing Trends & Making Predictions, Learning Environments that Support Innovation.

Involvement: Craft Teachers collaborate with their colleagues to cultivate effective lessons and make the local school culture thrive. Raising the quality of instruction across the district, the involved teacher builds relationships, coaches colleagues, and problem solves to empower the modern learner. 

CONNECTION:  Communication and Collaboration, Cross-curricular Instruction, Cooperative Learning, Co-teaching, Distance Learning, Digital Tools that Facilitate Collaboration,  Instructional Coaching, Mentoring, Peer Reflection, Video Learning Teams.

Individualism: Craft Teaching is about having distinctive, individualistic approaches to connecting with students and not a one-size-fits-all environment.   Being yourself and giving students a voice and choice in your own unique way is what makes you a Craft Teacher.  

CONNECTION: Information Fluency, Differentiation, Inquiry Based Instruction, Drive & Motivation, Personalized Learning, Synthesizing Learning, Praise and Recognition, Problem-based Learning, Go to Lessons, Student Choice.

Integrity: Craft teaching is about doing the right thing for students! The mission of Craft Teaching is to partner with our students, staff, parents, and local community, to decide what is important and powerful to them.  

CONNECTION: Critical Thinking, Identifying Problems, Digital Citizenship, Questioning, Formative Assessments, Decision-Making, Selecting Digital Tools, Fostering Relationships, School & Internet Safety, Higher Order Thinking Practices, Data Driven Instruction, Open-ended Tasks, Content Curation.

Does this sound like you?

If this description sounds like you, or your ideal version of education, you’re a Craft Teacher! Join others like yourself at the first annual TeacherFEST, on August 12th, at Glen Allen High School, and work on your craft. 

Remember...  

Please consider starting your year off in a new trajectory by attending the first annual TeacherFEST, and interacting with other teachers who share the Craft Teaching Approach to education.