Teachers Teaching Teachers

Signe Gurholt, president of APACT has her photo assignment looked over by the class.”

Derek Croney NBCC Photography instructor teaches a group of instructors about the rule of thirds at the APACT Conference earlier this week.

By Tony Bourgeois

WOODSTOCK-The 37^th Annual Atlantic Province Association of Communication Teachers Conference was held at NBCC in Woodstock earlier this week with instructors from all over Atlantic Canada coming in for the event. This year the focus was about making students feel involved.

“The main theme of this year conference is inclusion, so we have looked at that from all sorts of angles,” said APACT President Signe Gurholt. “We’re thinking of ways to get all sorts of different kinds of students learning.”

The most popular part of the conference, like most years, was the ‘best practices portion’. The idea is for instructors to share lessons, tools or methods they have used and found helpful so other instructors can learn from them.

Tammy Hillworth, an instructor at Holland College in PEI attended her first APACT conference.  She says the part of the conference she loved the most is the best practices, “We get ideas from other teachers on activities and strategies and tools they use in their classroom that’s invaluable.” Hillworth presented her project geared toward the students who ask, “Why do we need this?”

Woodstock was chosen to be the location of this year’s conference by request from other members. It was Hillworth’s first time in Woodstock. “I’ve never been to Woodstock before and I didn’t realize the town was as big as it actually is,” said Hillworth. “It’s very beautiful and the campus here right along the river is just gorgeous.”