The EdCamp “unconference” was a format I really enjoyed participating in. From a structural standpoint, it is fairly easy to organize and highly engaging for participants. To be successful, the opportunity to create should be held firmly by the participants, not the facilitator, which is why allowing for user-generated topics is crucial (I like how it was done by popularity, although that could create uncomfortable feelings if this style of learning is done often with only some peoples ideas being heard). I could also envision how popular people, not popular topics, could be preferred when allowing participants to flow freely in conversation. In my future classroom, I would use this style of engagement but it may make sense to randomly generate groups by topic to start rather than everyone sticking with their friends.

Photo by Kate Hadfield & Sarah Pecorino on the Pathway2Success website

One of the topics discussed was about supporting student behaviour and how to handle behaviour deemed inappropriate (initiated by Hannah). As an incoming teacher, this is the part of classroom management I am most anxious about as I tend to deal with behaviour quite directly (as was the style in South Korea), which can put people off. I think a challenging aspect of this is recognizing all voices in the classroom, not just the loudest or the students who have the quickest cognitive processing. Teachers can subconsciously choose favourites, which can limit free thinking. The discussion was robust, and everyone was an active participant which made the conversation flow nicely. Every child is different, and how behaviour is handled in the classroom is different too. My main takeaway was that to know how to handle individual or group behaviour, you need to care about and know the source (the person).