A Tale of Two Conferences...bring on Edcamp!
Recently I was privileged to present at two conferences during the same weekend, the view I had of professional development was one of curious delight. One gathering, 12000 educators strong, is two days of inspirational educational keynotes (Sir Ken Robinson, Pasi Sahlberg) while the other was two dozen educators with two local educational heroes speaking, while the rest of the sessions the attendees were charged with generating the synergy. Although they appear on opposite sides of the spectrum, the two formats solidified my belief that professional development does not work if a culture is received. At the large PD gathering, CCTCA , the passive lecture I had prepared went well. The audience was clearly keen on sitting and listening so I talked away. The feedback was positive but no one other than the speaker had any chance to contribute to the session. I have found this creates a dialectic of quickly forgetting key points and noting down resources to be filed away who knows whe