Teachers don’t get enough time to share ideas informally. We have conferences and there are opportunities there but they are often one way conversations. We have sit and get sessions. We have panels where a chosen few share ideas in answer to pre-planned questions. None of this is bad but sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough. Unconferences are different and usually a lot more interactive than traditional conferences and I like them as well.
Perhaps the problem for me is a bit of FOMO – fear of missing out. There are too many interesting things going on. Too many side conversations No one can take it all in.
A lot of people like to talk about the hallway track at conferences. These are the conversations that talk place in hallways, spaces outside of conference rooms, at bars or restaurants, or just about any place not in a formal session. They take place because attendees often have little real life contact outside of conferences and yet share similar issue, problems, or other interests. The gathering I attended four years ago was basically a two day hallway track.
The problem with hallway tracks are conferences is size. By that I mean that some conversations would be better if there were more people involved and some would be better if fewer people were involved. Take conversations at dinner for example. You can get a dozen people or twenty people all at one table. Realistically you can talk to the people on either side of you and two or three across the table from you. So there are multiple conversations that start, run their course, and then reform. Now these conversations can be great and I love them. But FOMO rears its ugly head – what is that conversation going on at the other end of the table and should I be in that one? Silly perhaps. But I suspect I am not the only one who feels this way.
There is probably an optimum size that lets everyone talk, everyone listen, and makes everyone feel involved. The setting and seating arrangement probably has an impact. Chairs or tables around a circle allows to a lot more people involved than a long single table or small groups standing around. Someone has probably done some research on this.
Perhaps book clubs can be a model? In any case, I think teachers could really benefit from small in number but longer in time chances to share ideas. We can learn a lot from each other.
Links to the blog posts I wrote about that gathering a few years ago:
- https://blog.acthompson.net/2015/07/charleston-teach-meet-day-one.html
- https://blog.acthompson.net/2015/07/charleston-teach-meet-day-two.html
2 comments:
When JonAlf and I designed and ran our once a month PD sessions last year a big part was leaving a good amount of time for the participants to interact with each other. We structured things as:
1. mixing
2. presentation / activity 1
3. Dinner / socializing / informal teacher talk
4. presentation / activity 2
5. mixing / end
Very important to give teachers time and space to talk shop.
After a few years of attending professional conferences with a colleague of mine and experiencing those valuable "hallway tracks," we began to occasionally cut out the middleman. We plan Work Weekends once or twice a year, usually retreats to an AirBNB somewhere, often accompanied by other colleagues also looking for the opportunity to share ideas, get some focused work done, and enjoy the company of our peers in a more relaxing environment. It has been one of my favorite and most-valued forms of professional development.
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