Thursday, April 01, 2010

UnConferencing History Education Part 2

Having some success in the bid to get more time for teachers to talk to teachers at annual conferences. I've put together a description of what my ideal (asterisked with the note that this not a full UnConference, but the ideal middle ground that gets things moving).

Take a look through the list and let me know what you think. We could definitely use some feedback.

The History UnConference

830 - 900 Arrival and Registration (possibly some activity to get people started, it would cool to have a power point rigged up to a projector, and people could add thoughts about the day - sort of like a Twitter feed, for the non Twitter users.)

900-915 Greetings

915-930 First lightning round of presentations - five presenters for 2 minutes each, 8 slides timed to 15 seconds each. A quick way to get people going.

930-1030 Keynote about a topic

1030-1045 Lightning Round #2 - 5 more quick presenters

1045-1100 Display and Find your workshop

1100-1200 First Round, Teachers divided by grade level into smaller groups of 15 or so. One moderator leads discussion around theme of the conference in your classroom. Each person talking for two minutes about the theme and their classroom. 15 minutes groups talk about the challenges they face. Poster Paper each group writes out three key challenges that they face in the classroom related to this.

1200-100 Display and Lunch, Poster Paper is posted in the main area for teachers to see what other groups were discussing. (Digital aspect could interview teachers about their experiences, a sort of speaker's corner booth.)

100-200 Regular presentations/sessions which people have signed up for.

200-215 break and display

215-315 Final round related back to the original morning discussion. Teachers could meet in smaller groups again with different people, each tackling a set of challenges posted in the morning. Similar discussion format facilitated by a moderator and secretary. Notes would again be posted afterwards with online component to share results. Teachers asked to come up with solutions to each set of challenges, with specific actions.