This page serves as a sort of journal for Geoff’s doctoral program, separate from the Emergentmath blog. Here, Geoff will share thoughts and reflections on classes, insights into literature and other PhD-related musings. While you’re here, feel free to explore Geoff’s main blog, various “miniseries,” and select blog posts. Here’s is Geoff’s About Me page.

Week 9 Journal: Rethinking conference attendance

When I reflect back on some of the presentations I’ve given, I feel a bit ashamed. I don’t regret any of my presentations and I do think they may have helped a few teachers here and there. But I’m struck at how thin my research was. Now that in my academic papers I’m required to justify every claim with a citation, I’m thinking I probably should have done that a bit more in the past.

Too, I’m suddenly ashamed at how most of my conference attendance was spent watching consultants and flashy speakers rather than actual scholars and researchers. It’s almost like there was an entirely different conference going on.

As I blogged about last week, I miss conferences. I find such great energy from conferences. This hiatus in conference attendance coinciding with the outset of my doctoral students has given me time to step back and reconsider how I show up at conferences: both in terms of what I present and who I see present. In the past I’ve made commitments to see more racially diverse presenters; I will now commit to attending more academically diverse presenters as well.