Edcamp Baltimore: A Great Day of Sharing and Learning

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Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending my 3^rd edcamp; this one in Baltimore. Approximately, 70 educators from as far south as Virginia and as far north as New York (maybe even New Hampshire) attended the unconference at Digital Harbor High School. As with all edcamps, the passion and energy were high—as one would expected when 70 committed educators come together on a Saturday.

Of the attendees, several I regularly communicate with on twitter. Despite being limited to 140 characters, I felt as if I knew these people already, but I relished the opportunity to have in-person conversations with them.

Conversation and ideas flowed from the initial gathering through the morning sessions, through lunch and until I left for the trip back to Virginia. I attended 4 great sessions.

1.     Flipped classrooms. Flipping is about much more than just providing direct instruction through video. For a flipped classroom to be effective, what occurs in class is even more important.

2.     The power of collaboration. Most educators that attend edcamps are pretty connected and see the value of twitter and other means of being connected. We must do more to bring more teachers onboard to increase their PLNs.

3.     Social media in the classroom. As teachers, we have a responsibility to model safe use of social media to our students. Doing so, however, requires that students, parents, administrators, trust teachers to do what’s right.

4.     PD and meet. Seeing the power of edcamps, each participant in this session agreed that we must continue our learning and participation by involving more teachers and administrators in the edcamp philosophy.

Despite the nearly 2:30 hour trip home (Washington even has rush hour on Saturday afternoons), I returned home energized and wanting more. The committed and passionate professionals I met today inspired me and represent some of the best-and-brightest in education.

A special shout out to the great organizers and sponsors of Edcamp Baltimore.

Parent Engagement

As part of our Kettle Run edcamp (read: prior posts) , we created a hour-long parent-teacher roundtable. As the organizer of the roundtable, I tried to include a diverse parent panel. The roundtable was well-attended by approximately 2 dozen teachers. Although we only had an hour together, I learned a lot and I believe the others in attendance did as well.

Four Take-Aways


1. We all want what's best for the students/children. 
Teachers want their students to thrive in their classroom and beyond. Parents, of course, want the same. One teacher put it simply, "We're in this together. We need your support."

2. Communication is a shared responsibility. 
One parent sheepishly admitted she wasn't sure if it was OK to email teachers with comments and concerns. Reflecting the views of all the teachers present, a veteran teacher begged, "Please, please email us. We want to communicate with you."

Another remarked, "If you have a concern, please let us know. We [want an opportunity] to address your concern and fix it if necessary."

Expressing the delicate nature of the balance between communicating with parents and allowing students to learn on their own, a teacher commented, "I want my students to take responsibility for their actions. You (parents) won't always be there and it's important for students to learn on their own from their own failures."

3. We have the same concerns. 
While parents want what's best for their children, they also want what's best for all of the children. During the roundtable one parent brought up the widespread cheating that seems to occur, a sentiment shared by most of the teachers present. As a result, at least partially, cheating was brought up in later edcamp discussions and administratively we're looking at what actions we should take. Parents thanked us for creating a safe and nurturing environment and they expressed a concern/understanding over high stakes testing and their impact on learning. 

4. Parents want to be heard. 
Well over half of the parents I invited couldn't attend the parent-teacher roundtable because of prior commitments. Almost every parent who declined the invitation encouraged me to invite them to future parent-teacher roundtables and many took the time to email me their concerns and feelings.

Moving forward with the goal of increasing parent engagement
While none of the points above is earth-shattering, the conversation reaffirmed my beliefs that we must actively engage parents.

I'm hoping to offer future parent-teacher and parent-administrator roundtables in the future because this truly was a valuable experience for all involved. While much of communication between parents and school officials takes place informally (on the sidelines of children's games, at churches, at the grocery stores), we must find ways to ensure parents are heard.

Immediate ways to increase parent-school engagement:

• Expand our social media presence (Remind101, Twitter, school website)
• Friday Five: randomly call five parents on Friday to discuss school affairs 
• Offer parent/community trainings (in person and online) once a month on what we're doing at Kettle Run. Possible sessions include: AngelLearning (our course management software), Twitter, book clubs, bullying, cyber-citizenship. 
• Increase attendance at Parent-Teacher Conference nights by showcasing student work, staging live performances, etc.

Ideas for the future:

• Offer roundtables and gatherings in the community (coffee shop, local Pizza parlor, etc.)
• Create a school blog allowing parents to communicate with school officials
• Community service day involving students, parents and school staff

Parents, teachers, administrators, what are your ideas for increasing parent engagement? 

Kettle Run's First Edcamp: A Reflection

A special thanks to Kim Ritter, for co-writing this article and for co-organizing the edcamp.

On the Monday, October 8^th In-Service Day, Kettle Run High School teachers and administrators participated in their first Edcamp or KRHS Unconference.  After beginning the day with a quick greeting and orientation, schedules for the day were distributed. From this evolving menu, each staff member chose to go to 2 one-hour long sessions and 3 thirty-minute sessions.  At the conclusion of the workshops, faculty gathered in their departments for a focused discussion on the day followed by an entire staff debriefing in the auditorium.

Signs that it was a great day of professional development:  

·      Teachers were actively engaged, asking questions and taking notes as opposed to the traditional PD where teachers are grading papers, reading books, playing on their cell phones, crocheting, etc.

·      Conversations continued past the bell. Walking around the cafeteria, discussions regarding morning sessions continued.

·      The edcamp reflections completed at the end of the day also reflected that each session offered valuable insight and information.

Feedback received from teachers:

·      “I was glad to see the faculty members break out of their departments and attend workshops by other disciplines. This helps to encourage cross curricular activities that can incorporate today’s technology…It was also very helpful to have an end of the day department meeting to exchange ideas and information.”

·      “The day gave us a chance to learn what innovative ideas other teachers are using in their classrooms.  We get so caught up in our own rooms that we forget to access all of the talent that is around us every day.”

·      “[The day] was a wonderful opportunity for staff to engage in conversation about what is happening in their classrooms and to share those resources with each other.”

·      “Let’s make sure we do this again next year. I’m definitely leading a session next year.”

·      “It’s too bad we don’t have the opportunity to do this more often.”

Changes for next year:

·      Because there was no pre-signing up for sessions, several facilitators/session leaders expressed frustration with not knowing how many copies to run-off. Next year, we’ll make better use of online storage options (Google drive, Dropbox, our course management software). One of the problems I foresee, however, is teachers may not have real-time access to these because many of our school provided laptops don’t keep sufficient battery charge.

·      Expanding and improving the parent-teacher roundtable and student-teacher roundtable.

Science department chair Tammy Hagan led one of the more popular sessions on creating foldables. Because of the session’s popularity it was repeated in the afternoon. 

Twenty-eight staff members led 33 sessions over the course of the day. Truly a school-wide experience, one popular session incorporated a parent/teacher roundtable and another a student/teacher roundtable.

Kettle Run Edcamp

For teachers in our county, October 8 was an in-service day with each school responsible for creating their own professional development. 

After returning from EdcampLeadership, I approached my principal about using the Edcamp approach for our inservice day. Instead of paying for a guest presenter, who teachers may or may not have found worthwhile, we decided to host our own unconference.

Knowing the knowledge and expertise to move our school forward can be found within our own walls, our Edcamp was made by the teachers for the teachers. After all, who better understands what’s going on in our school and what we need, than our teachers?

Preparing for the Edcamp Kettle Run

1.     Because this was something new and because we had to turn in our plans to Central Office, many of the sessions were pre-created. Along with our school librarian, we created a google form and asked teachers to sign-up to lead sessions. Because it was a totally new experience, we needed to actively approach teachers—some mild arm-twisting—to lead various sessions. In the end, we had more than enough sessions (to see our schedule click here).

2.     In creating the sessions, we focused on our new teacher evaluation system, AngelLearning (our course management program), lesson planning, and 21^st century skills. Two of the more interesting sessions were a parent-teacher roundtable and a student-teacher roundtable.

3.     Our schedule:

8:00-8:15       Meet in the auditorium

8:30-9:30       Session 1

9:40-10:40    Session 2

10:50-11:20  Session 3

11:20-12:20  Lunch: Salsaritas

12:20-12:50  Session 4

1:00-1:30       Session 5

1:35-2:00       Meet in departments

2:05-2:30       Wrap-up

For sessions 4 and 5 we purposefully left several “spots” open. These were reserved for teachers to continue a morning session in more detail, repeat a prior session that teachers were unable to attend, or for a new session to be added. The spots were quickly gobbled up as teachers wanted to continue their AP Roundtable conversation, a repeat of foldables was offered and a new session was created by one of our math teachers.

4.     In creating the schedule, we did two things untraditionally. First, we kept the schedule secret until the day of the event. Secondly, we left teacher’s names off of the schedule because we didn’t want teachers to choose a session based on the facilitator/leader. We did, however, tell the facilitators where/when their session would be held. This decision had both positive and negative consequences, which I’ll discuss in my follow-up posting.

 I'll post a follow-up to the great day of learning in a day or two.