Fresh Eyes, Fresh Insights: First-Time Attendees Reflect on the KATE Conference

Looking forward to the 2025 conference is becoming more and more exciting as each day passes.
As of current, breakout session proposals are now being accepted, registration is open, and the Keynote Speaker has been announced! It’s difficult to believe that we are arriving at the midway point between both last year’s and this year’s conference!

If you’re someone who has never been to a KATE Annual Conference, or if you are someone who has had too many emails come through since then that you’ve forgotten what happened at the conference, it’s always nice to have a refresher. 

Especially when those refreshers come from new voices and new perspectives on the situation.

Pre-service teachers in Dr. Katie Cramer’s English Education program at Wichita State University transformed their experiences into thoughtful blog posts, reflecting on the conference’s wealth of engagement opportunities, learning experiences, and takeaways.

Click ' Read more' to see what they had to say!

For instance, teacher candidate Lacy Estill discovered valuable asset-based pedagogy in a breakout session titled: “Dismantling the Tortured Teachers Department: Secondary English Engagement Strategies We Love” (presented by Dr. Ambyr Rios, Mayci Armstrong, CeAnna Allen, Riley Angel, Molly Temple, and Sarah Snyder). She highlighted how strategies like “snowball discussions” could deepen student engagement in her future classroom. 
As Estill notes, these discussions allow “students [to] start with partners to discuss a topic, and each turn, their group gets more students, and the adjustment to sharing in a larger group gets easier.”

Future educator Dylan Green took ideas about escape rooms and student choice from the same breakout session, particularly appreciating how Choice Boards “provide students with choices for a ‘main dish,’ ‘side dish,’ and, ‘dessert,’” which, in turn, allows students to make choices based on what is most interesting to them.
Green–an escape room enthusiast in his personal life–recognized their potential as a brilliant multimodal avenue for teaching both print and non-print texts!

Beyond breakout sessions, networking remains one of the KATE Conference’s greatest strengths. Our membership spans from Pre-K to postsecondary educators, which creates a rich blend of voices in conversation that ultimately benefits students in every sense.

Courtney Putman, a preservice teacher in attendance at the fall conference, found ideas and inspiration regarding self-care and being creative in a nonrestrictive way. 
Human beings naturally “struggle with attention, focus, and [follow-through] when stressed” (Healy 2023). Putman, who–in her own words–puts self-care last on the gargantuan to-do list that plagues educators everywhere, observes that unless teachers are able to care for themselves 100%, it is impossible to expect them to be able to care for students whatsoever. 

Soon-to-be Shocker grad, Alex Busch attended a session titled: “Reimagining Resistant Writers - Considering the “WHY” behind resistance and responding with creativity,” presented by Jen Coslett. Busch reflects on the impact of Coslett’s anecdotal experiences with resistant writers, using humor and thoughtfulness to cover–in detail–“exactly how [Coslett] goes about dealing with students who find it second nature to break pencils rather than write with them.”

Looking beyond classroom applications, pre-service teacher Becky Kerr found potential in KATE’s diverse range of publication opportunities. Kerr valued the flexibility that allows KATE members to write both pedagogically and creatively for KATE Pages or Kansas English, and the showcasing of student work in Voices of Kansas.

For teacher-to-be Jayden Mitchell, the highlights were the two keynote speakers in attendance: educator Jason D. DeHart, and Kansas Poet Laureate Traci Brimhall. Though not typically drawn to poetry, Mitchell deeply connected with Brimhall’s endeavors centering on the unity of Kansas’ agricultural roots and literary arts through cuisine, poetry, and activism.

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Something I have always loved, as a KATE member, is the ability to hear, share, and empower the voices from our backyard, through scholarship, camaraderie, and a shared love of English education. These fresh perspectives from first-time attendees exemplifies our continuing ability–as an organization–to provide a forum for dialogue among  educators across all levels throughout Kansas.

I hope that these reflections demonstrate the incredible learning opportunities available at our Annual Fall Conference. This year, our Fall Conference will be held on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25, 2025, at the Drury Plaza Hotel in Wichita, Kansas. See you there!

- Caleb K. Thornton, KATE President

References
Healy, G. (2023). 15-Minute Focus: Regulation and Co-Regulation: Accessible Neuroscience and Connection Strategies That Bring Calm Into the Classroom: Brief Counseling Techniques That Work. National Center for Youth Issues.

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