Unconferencing explored!

Have you ever thought that teacher or staff meetings go too long or are not meeting your own needs as  a learner?

Ever wondered how you might cater for or differentiate learning for your teaching staff?

Have I got an idea for you!

Unconference:
We have been exposed to the notion of the "Unconference" intermittently over the past two years as part of the Connected Cluster with Southwell School. Each session is usually split into 2  (or more sessions), with a variety of colleagues from the contributing schools offering sessions that they believe they can offer / lead learning around. Teachers do not have to feel that they are an expert in what they are offering, but they do need to feel confident enough to lead/guide dialogue about their chosen topic.

We have extended this notion of the unconference to include weekly Master class sessions at our school. these are aimed at increasing teacher capabilities particularly around e-learning at this stage, but may include a variety of topics/pedagogical practices in the future. Teachers schedule a session that they can lead for others within our own school. Teachers can opt to attend or not, dependent on their needs/skills/time available etc.

We also had the good fortune of linking up with a similar sized school in our area who are also working on growing teacher knowledge and capabilities around e-learning, more specifically - i-pads. The principal there set up the unconference based on a reading by Heinrick Kniberg that you can access here. All staff that attended felt empowered to attend mini workshops on topics that they were interested in. All staff were fully engaged in learning that was "just in time learning" for them. None of us had to sit through a long powerpoint at the end of a busy and tiring day.

Unconference can be daunting for us control freaks who like to have everything super pre prepared! It can be challenging to just wait and see what topics of interest come up. One way we countered this was to encourage our teachers to come along prepared to shared something (i-pad related) they were currently passionate about, how this impacts teaching and learning in their class, in what way. This meant that when the call for suggestions came, there were lots of ideas to choose from. They were categorised together and divided amoungst the timetabled session slots pretty easily.

Another daunting part of the unconference is the notion of voting with your feet. This means that if you join a session only to find it is not offering what you thought it would, of you've already covered the topic before, or it just doesn't resonate with you as you'd hoped... YOU JUST SNEAK AWAY TO A DIFFERENT SESSION!

Now I know that when I first heard of this, I thought it would be too rude to walk away! BUT - I believe that my time is very valuable as a busy educational professional and I am there to upskill myself! If I stay, I am doing myself a disservice. People expect you to leave if you are not getting anything from what they are offering!

This unconference notion is growing in popularity and is certainly one valid way for us to differentiate learning for our teaching staff. It isn't right for EVERY teacher meeting... we still have the odd session of power point delivery too. BUT it is energizing, fast paced and can certainly be a lot of fun! Who doesn't learn when they're having fun?

Give it a go yourselves and see what you think!