Today, I stepped out of my comfort zone and I presented at the Colorado Science Conference! I am great at presenting to my students and pretty good at presenting to my fellow teachers. However, I do not do well in front of complete strangers. In fact, my Public Speaking class was nothing short of torture in college! I did actually get better in grad school and presented well, but I still get nervous.
Well, back in the spring I went to the National Science Teaching Conference. I got the idea that if some of those people could present, I could too! I decided to start with the state conference and I was so excited when they accepted my proposal.
My morning didn't start out great. I woke Hayden up when I was getting ready to leave and he was VERY upset that he wasn't going. Then, I was rear ended in Denver. Luckily, there was no visible damage to my car (I will still take it and get it checked out), but the other guy's was pretty messed up. I arrived at the conference a little late, but was really glad I wasn't presenting first!
I set up for the second session with little butterflies in my tummy. I didn't have any problems with set-up, people actually showed up, and I wasn't actually shaking :) I started and as I went I saw people nodding and taking notes, which is very encouraging. At the end, I had some great questions and was able to give some great feedback. I even had a few people stop by to thank me for my ideas and my help!
That makes me feel so good. I can be reasonably sure that I was not one of the terrible presentations I heard people complaining about. I think I'm going to apply for the National Conference and see if I can make it happen!
