I headed to New Orleans, Louisiana this month for the Aurora Institute Symposium 2024 as a session leader alongside my high school English teacher, Abby Bendetto.
¡Y, el chisme estuvo bueno!
Aurora Institute and I have some history...
I was a Keynote speaker in 2017 when they were iNACOL Symposium, where I shared my perspective on "Leading Systems Change toward Student-Centered Learning" as a student and later joined Rose Colby & Paul Leather on the stage for a panel.
🎥 Here's the full recap if you want to check out baby Yvonne on the stage.
Have a public speaker friend they said...
In 2022, I led a virtual breakout session & panel with my high school peers to chat about how a student-centered approach can transform student outcomes. We shared how our unique experience in high school with project-based learning, which required a lot of public speaking, helped us navigate our different careers. We did that!! I was so proud of my homegirls for doing this with me!
💻 Check out the BTS of preparing for this virtual event on my Youtube Channel.
Then there were two...
Abby Benedetto was my high school English teacher & a huge supporter of my public speaking career since day one. More importantly, she is an educational consultant and the Founder of Core Shifts. Abby works to support individuals, schools, and districts across the country to identify important shifts that push on the current status quo.
To say that I was honored to present alongside her, is an understatement.
I'm a product of a project-based learning curriculum in high school that asked us to reflect & present bodies of work every year that proved we had mastered key competencies. It's where I began my public speaking journey that then led to keynote opportunities. As the teacher, Abby understood the power in this form of assessment in giving students an opportunity to show up authentically and share what they learned, in their own words. As a student, I'm a direct product of what can happen when we go beyond standardized testing and A, B, C grades.
Our workshop at Aurora Institute Symposium this year was titled: Student Voices Taking Up Space and like any great lesson we had an inquiry question: How can we nourish storytelling and narration within learning and assessment so that students are able to share what they know in their own voice, and we get more equitable & vibrant evidence of learning?
Public Speaking should be in classrooms, the practice of it should be student-driven, & it is a valuable form of assessment.
Abby contributed her genius in providing a new way for educators to assess student learning through Revelatory Assessment and I shared strategies and tools for storytelling that educators can use to foster a culture of student voice and storytelling in the classroom.
Nuestra cultura is deeply rooted in oral traditions.
It's how we share cultural values, history, shared identity, & lessons with our families and communities. In my work, I recognize how easy it is to forget that this part of our cultura is public speaking. We've been doing this! Maybe we haven't had the opportunity to practice it enough in the same spaces where we're still too often "the first" or "the only", which makes recognizing our power a little harder.
How might our relationship to the art of public speaking be different today if it were a part of everyone's educational career early on and we were encouraged to lead with our cultural connection to storytelling in the classroom?
That's what Abby and I are on a mission to share with you! Our commitment to public speaking & storytelling intersects so that we can support educators in creating the conditions for students to embody the power of their own stories, told in their own voices.
Join us online for an interactive exploration of the power of storytelling as learning and assessment in education. During this workshop we will share parts of a framework for rethinking assessment called Revelatory Assessment, as well as concrete tools/strategies for educators to center student voice & storytelling as a form of meaningful assessment.
A special thank you to the Aurora Institute Symposium for giving the stage to so many incredibly powerful students, education advocates, & innovators to share their voices & ideas for transforming education so that every student feels seen, valued, and most importantly, given agency in their learning.
🧡 Gracias,
Yvonne
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