WABASH COUNTY,Indiana – The numbers at the two-day Wabash Innovative Summit for Education conference, or WISE, went down from 300 attendees one year ago to approximately 200 this year. Northfield High School has hosted the summit for the third year in a row and teachers and administrators from all over the state heard workshops ranging from “Teaching and learning with the iPad” to “Motivating students in math.”
Alan November
The keynote speaker Thursday morning was Alan November, Senior Partner of November Learning, which is located outside Marblehead, Massachusetts. He presented a lecture called “Who owns the learning” to a mostly filled Northfield auditorium. He spoke to the fact that teachers keep teaching in the same way despite the fact that kids can solve more complicated problems through technology.
November said that he attends about 150 conferences a year all over the world. According to Coordinator Brian Miller, one reason that there fewer people are attending this year’s WISE summit is the fact that the state has spread money out so that more districts can host similar conferences. But Coordinator Justin Vail told MiBash News that the numbers are down for, in part, a much more serious reason.
Vail specifically mention the ISTEP debacle as another one of many reasons why, in his view, the attendance is down this year. In a bit of good news, Dr. Melissa Brisco confirmed to MiBash News that the Alexandria Community School Corporation voted to approve her as the school’s new superintendent last night. Brisco is a graduate of the school corporation and her mom also taught there for 30 years. When asked why she didn’t stick around MSD to take over for the retiring Dr. Sandra Weaver who just announced her retirement on Wednesday, Brisco said that her process starting back in February and Dr. Weaver announced her intention only in the last few weeks.
