One-shot conferences are often not effective training devices. That doesn’t have to be true. FASL conferences can be effective. They can change lives. When FASL introduced Jordan Miller of Rice University to a group of educators at our one-day STEM conference held at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, his team changed the experiences of students in classrooms within only two days. Before the conference was over, one of the high schools had 3D printed a prosthetic hand for a student who had lost a hand in a thresher accident. Several years later Christine and Richard were visiting an elementary school, and sitting on a teacher’s desk was a 3D printed hand for a student. In another conference on visualizing data, 1400 teachers were trained on visual data within six months of the conference. FASL conferences change lives.
FASL designs and manages conferences for one to three days, for teachers and administrators, and all rely on the science of learning for success. With the science of learning as a backbone, conferences can range from school leadership to STEM or STEAM to the arts or visible learning. Designing a conference includes recruiting sponsors or writing grants.