PB Connect celebrated its 10th anniversary as an internal workshop led by educators sharing best practices with their colleagues as part of the R-I district’s professional learning community model.
This year’s conference featured approximately 120 sessions for nearly 650 employees who registered to attend on Tuesday, Jan. 21, at Poplar Bluff High School. Nationally renowned speaker Dr. Tina H. Boogren topped the bill with a keynote themed “Recharge, refocus, renew: Wellness of all school staff.”
About 115 door prizes were given out, sponsored by Ozark Federal Credit Union and several community partners, along with nine $100 PB Connect Bucks prizes underwritten by Acrisure and Switzer Residential Care, plus a single $400 classroom makeover made possible by FCC Behavioral Health.
“I serve students from first through 11th grade every day and my main plan for the money is to make my classroom a more welcoming and serene space for our students to come and service their homebound hours,” reported grand prize winner Joel Pletcher of Mark Twain School. “…I have found that the more welcoming and calm my classroom is, the more comfortable my students feel, which leads to increased productivity and positive educational outcomes.”
So far Pletcher has placed on his Amazon list cloth fluorescent light covers along with LED light strips to help reduce eye strain, wobbly stools for his active young students, calming fidgets for improved focus, a magnetic timer to keep on task and other needed classroom supplies, the school-based homebound teacher detailed. Meanwhile winners of the mini-classroom makeovers included Bailey Beard, Jeremy Dawe, Terry Deshaney, April Fisher, Gladys Jones, Brittaney Miller, Kaylea Mullen, Staci Scott and William Snow.
A new theme that emerged in breakout sessions this year focused on topics related to artificial intelligence in teaching. Other popular subjects included 30-minute meals for busy teachers, understanding student loan forgiveness options, self-defense and situational awareness, creating Glowforge items, and Boogren’s follow-up about student agency and social-emotional learning, according to R-I instructional coaches Pam Davis and Gretchen Pendley, who organized the event alongside their team of building ambassadors.
PB Connect was founded in 2015 as a means of sharing technology tips for the district’s first buildings that went 1:1 under the digital transformation laptop initiative, then expanded to incorporate the Middle School the following year, before going district-wide with more generalized topics. While the workshop was canceled due to snow last school year, 2023 marked the first time the professional development was expanded to include classified staff, leading to increased participation.
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Cutline: Joel Pletcher, school-based homebound teacher of Mark Twain School, is the grand prize winner during PB Connect on Tuesday, Jan. 21.