My Top Takeaways from #JSNEC16!

After a very long journey home from the Jump$tart National Educator Conference, I’ve had time to reflect on just how great the conference was. To wrap it up, here are my Top 5 Takeaways (in no particular order):

The community! The educators at the Jump$tart conference are so supportive and encouraging of each other. Everywhere you look, you see people helping each other with classroom strategies, offering tips on how to make lessons more interactive, or even giving mini-bootcamps on “how to Twitter” (I did a few of these myself)!
The sharing! I love that Jump$tart has embraced the sharing of ideas, resources, and experience through the use of Twitter. The hashtag for the event was #JSNEC16. Please look through the tweets and take from them what you can. It may be overwhelming and you may see my face quite a bit, but the material is worthwhile! Going forward, attendees have committed to sharing the advancement financial literacy by tweeting out with the #afinlitfuture hashtag. We’ve already started. Take a look!
The respect! As an educator, we often face criticism of our profession. At this conference, the wonderful folks at Jump$tart and all of the supporting sponsors treat teachers like rockstars. We are wined, dined, and listened to. We are given the opportunity to connect with each other and collaborate. We are able to forget everything else for a few days and focus on the importance of financial literacy. We also have a little fun along the way! 🙂
The materials! We have so many fantastic options for implementing financial literacy topics in our classes. Jump$tart has assembled all of these materials into the Jump$tart Clearinghouse. Take a look around, search by grade level, resource type, or simply type in a topic. Some of my personal favorite resources come from Next Gen Personal Finance, Take Charge Today, and the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE).
The friends, old and new! It’s such a great feeling to gather with like-minded people in a new place. I joke about going to conferences like this and relate it to a family reunion. It’s like a family reunion where you get to hang out with all of your cool cousins! I already look forward to seeing everyone next year in Washington DC.