Tea break at #TMBrisbane (photo by author)

#TMBrisbane 2013 (September)

I recently publicised a TeachMeet that my students and I were hosting at QUT as part of a unit on English Curriculum Studies. This particular TeachMeet had the theme ‘What works in education?’ and was designed to facilitate the kind of professional sharing that I want to model for my students – open, generous and friendly with a focus on developing relationships and building communities of practice.

The picture above shows a few of our participants in further conversation during the tea break. This was an after-school session, run from 4.45-6.30pm, and it was great to see presentations from a wide range of contexts. Speakers on the day were:

• Alison Welch – The benefits of collaboration
• Mark Yeates – Use of LMSs from a Year Level Coordinator’s Perspective
• Greg Howes – Designing infographics to promote creativity
• Garry Collins – One little thing that works in teaching grammar
• Nathan Beveridge – Bananas about STEMx: Applications of Fruit and High Technology in C21st Learning
• Lisa Furuya – Gamifying your practice
• Kelli McGraw – The ongoing relevance of the Productive Pedagogies
• Anita Garnsworthy – Inside learning goals: Gathering student insight and feedback
• Josephine Wise – Leading and Teaching: 10 Top Tips for moving from Highly Accomplished to Lead Teacher
• Bruce Lee – Introducing the Scootle Community (www.scootle.edu.au)

The big messages and important links from the TeachMeet have been captured using Storify at this link:

The power of TeachMeet…

Reflecting on the event, I think the best part of a TeachMeet is the opportunity for face-to-face connection with other educators in a non-threatening environment. Although we also had a strong backchannel occurring in both Twitter and Scootle, it was the chance to ‘put a face to a name’ that I valued most.

It was also awesome to see experienced educators modelling courageous sharing for my preservice teachers – everyone authentically attempted the ‘pecha kucha’ or ‘micropresentation’ styles, which are challenging to master!

TeachMeets are PD events run in the ‘unconference tradition’ – they are free to attend and the presentations are short (2 or 7 minutes only). Our TeachMeet had a mixture of classroom teachers and school leaders, as well as a university teacher, a student/pre-service teacher, teachers undertaking research degrees and policy workers. I was so proud of my students for having the confidence to host the event and get involved in professional conversations…they also put on a pretty mean afternoon tea spread 😉

The next Brisbane TeachMeet will be held soon, on Thursday 24th October, at Marist Ashgrove. If you are an educator in SouthEast Queensland I encourage you to attend – you can sign up via the wiki.