NBEA Conference in Chicago

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend my first NBEA (National Business Education Association) conference. This year’s conference was held in downtown Chicago at the Marriott on the Magnificent Mile. What a great chance to connect with other business educators and learn! Although I was only able to stay for 2 days, I took full advantage of every moment I was there. Here are some of my highlights:

Academy for Leadership Excellence: As a board member and officer of the MBEA (Massachusetts Business Educators Association), I attended the Academy for Leadership Excellence workshop one morning. Leaders from various state business educator organizations gathered to learn about becoming more effective and efficient leaders, cultivating membership, and motivating others. We learned from NBEA past presidents Maurice Henderson and Judy Olson-Sutton who offered their wisdom of experience to us. I will be taking so much back to my own organization and classroomfrom this workshop.
#Busedu Twitter Chat Meetup: Every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month, dedicated business educators chat on Twitter about various topics relevant to our classrooms under the #busedu hashtag (more info HERE). The annual NBEA conference seemed like the perfect place to meet some of these fabulous folks in person. I arranged for an informal gathering and met 12 of my virtual friends! We had a great night meeting and chatting in person over dinner.
The sessions: Attending the sessions to see what my fellow business educators are currently doing in their own classrooms is such a treat at local conferences. To see this at a national level is even better! Learning about how other regions implement business education gave me new ideas and strategies of how I’d like to shake things up in my own classroom and even reaffirmed strategies that I already use. I’m already thinking of how I may be able to give back and “pay it forward” by presenting my own session at next year’s conference!
Reconnecting: Over the years and through varying professional development opportunities, I have built quite the tribe of business educators that I share ideas with . . . some I had met through the Jump$tart National Educator Conference, some through the PwC-KWHS Seminar, some through work in my home state with the MBEA, and some I had only met virtually through Twitter. Being at the NBEA conference was such a great time to reconnect and strengthen bonds with them.

Check out the tweets from the entire conference here: #NBEA17

I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference in Baltimore!