Catching up....End of the School Year

The end of the academic year at Central came and went in a blur! The biggest things were 1) going to Austin again, 2) celebrating the end of the year, and 3) graduation for our seniors!

UTeach in Austin

In May I attended the UTeach Conference in Austin, TX for the third time. I was on the fence about attending for several weeks, but when I looked closely at the workshops that were being offered, I knew I had to go.

There were several workshops revolving around recruiting, and once we were there, I realized that at least one or two were the same as I'd attended in previous years. However I did manage to return with a couple of ideas. It also solidified my wanting to teach a workshop at the conference at some point in the next couple of years (and now I'm currently struggling to write a good proposal, haha). 

I also had the pleasure of accompanying three of our students who were presenting two posters. Matthew and Sarah presented about our robotics internships, and Ana presented about Spanish Math Circles. They all did a great job! I love watching them in their element, and then the ideas they got from attending workshops was amazing -- their faces lit up like crazy as they talked about things.

End of Year Celebration

With 2019 being our first year to graduate students, we had to be careful and make two separate celebrations -- one for the end of the year, and the other for our graduating seniors. The interns took the lead for the End of Year celebration by organizing "The Rachels." "The Rachels" were originally created in the spring of 2018 by a couple of our now graduated interns as the awards for our program, and this year was no different from the first. It came together seamlessly and we had a great time. 

Celebrating our Seniors and Graduation

We went all out on celebrating our seniors! Graduation is on a Saturday, and with our students spread out across the state, we hosted a celebration for our students with their families. Our younger interns pitched in and helped create word clouds with words submitted by classmates. One of our interns is an expert with the 3D printers and created special ornaments that we gave our grads, along with a reusable bag filled with all sorts of goodies. A couple of awards were given out, and it was an all-around good time celebrating the hard work our students had finished.