by Vanessa Faz

In January of 2017 I had the pleasure and wonderful opportunity to attend the Lily Conference in Austin, Texas. I was selected as a last minute alternate  and was thankful for the opportunity to attend. In looking at the layout of the workshops, I felt that there was not enough of me to be able to attend all the workshops as they were all very appealing. I had to really think about which workshops would benefit me the most in my classroom and as a tutor.

One of the workshops that stood out the most to me was regarding Ice Breakers and additional learning opportunities to show movies with meaning. I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn about teachwithmovies.org as it has helped me implement addition opportunities for my students to review films and gain historical knowledge in the process. Some of these movies also challenged my students to achieve critical thinking skills that are outside the norm of what they are used to. I normally teach dual credit classes, so this opportunity for critical thinking is a great opportunity for them to see things in a different light.

Another aspect of this same workshop was collecting current event articles from a website called Student News Daily. I want my students to be alert to current events and things that are currently going on around them. This website allowed me to use it in a way that was very beneficial to my students. The Lilly Conference was a great opportunity and one I hope to attend again in the future as academia changes, I can learn more and more every time.