WestCAST 2011 Conference, Brandon, Manitoba - February 2011

Still recovering from the "first wave" of my winter 2011 cold, I flew to Brandon, Manitoba during Reading Week for the Western Canadian Association of Student Teachers (WestCAST) annual conference. This is the first time I attended this conference and I didn't realize that the conference is really focused on student teaching :) Fortunately, the focus of our MRU session was on our Education Undergraduate Society (EUS). I was also fortunate that two of our MRU Education students (Sarah and Harrison) also traveled to Brandon to help out with this session.

We've driven past Brandon, Manitoba many times on our way to the cottage in Ontario but this is the first time that I've ever visited the city. I was very impressed - a real sense of community and Brandon has hosted some major sporting events (e.g., World Curling Championships and the Memorial Cup (Canadian Junior Hockey Championships) just last year). Brandon College was founded as a Baptist Church Mission in 1899. In 1938 the Baptist Church could no longer fund the institution and it was first taken over by the City of Brandon and then the Government of Manitoba.

I learned a tremendous amount about Teacher Education Programs from this conference experience. I attended a pre-conference session on teaching placements that was very informative (notes attached) and I really enjoyed Alec Couros session on Open Learning and Teaching. This fellow really "practices what he preaches" and he provided a wonderful session resource in Google Docs.

Next year the conference will be hosted by the University of Calgary and I hope that we can get more MRU students involved with presenting and attending the conference