Educational Leadership May 2014 | Volume 71 | Number 8 Professional Learning: Reimagined Pages 36-40
Edcamp: Teachers Take Back Professional Development
What Does an Edcamp Look Like?
It's difficult to capture the Edcamp experience. That's because a "typical" day of learning at an Edcamp doesn't really exist. Each Edcamp is based on the needs of its participants.
When you arrive at the location, there is no preset schedule of sessions or presenters. Instead, there's just a big, blank sheet of paper with a grid on it.
From that blank slate, everyone builds the schedule together. As people mingle and chat over coffee and doughnuts, they put up potential discussion topics on a board. The entire process is positive and organic. Occasionally, people who don't even know each other realize they have similar interests and end up running a session together. Other folks come with an idea, throw it out to the group, revise it, and post it with a refined focus. Because anyone who attends an Edcamp event can be a presenter, it's an empowering experience for everyone.
Sessions at Edcamp are diverse and eclectic because they grow out of the interests and expertise of the participants. However, the participants themselves also actively control the quality of each session via the "law of two feet" (Boule, 2011), which states that participants in an Edcamp session can leave the room at any time for any reason. Because leaving midstream is actually encouraged, sessions with weak content or too much presenter talk often end up sparsely populated, whereas high-quality, interactive sessions are often bursting at the seams.
Most sessions are informal conversations or demonstrations. It's common for many different people to take the floor during an event to share an idea, show student work on their laptop, or ask questions. In short, the experience is closer to a vibrant summer camp than a routine day of conference sessions.
The Edcamp day ends with a "Smackdown," during which any willing participant takes the floor for 30 seconds to share an idea, tool, or tip with the crowd. There's typically music, laughing, and cheering as folks try to condense their learning into such a small time frame.
Paine Primary teachers jumped in and very successfully implemented a mini EdCamp Monday afternoon. Mrs. Schmitt began the professional learning by having the staff read a short article to introduce the concept of Edcamp to staff members who were unfamiliar with the concept. After a few questions, teachers signed up for a session, and the learning, collaboration, sharing, and talk began!
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