IPDA Ireland slow chat explores Reflections on professional learning

IPDA Ireland hosted this Slow Chat on 12th October 2019. This page features some of the responses and analytics.

Analytics

With 64 tweets posted, the slow chat’s overall impressions were over 33,000. Followers were engaged, with 895 actions being taken, including 42 retweets, 193 likes and many link clicks.

Q1. Introduce yourself. What is your context for teaching and learning?

Responses included:

“My research and practice relates to early childhood education, special and inclusive education, autism teaching and learning, literacy and numeracy and the role of parents/guardians in education”

“I teach academic skills and a few other things to pre-uni intl students, so kind HE but kind of not. Have been widely involved ELT for round 15 years. Currently in the final-ish stages of an EdD”

2. What has encouraged/deterred you from attending conferences/group gatherings for learning in the last year

The main focus here was prompted by: “With so many educators attending conferences (especially out of scheduled teaching hours), we want to get an understanding of what the “hooks” are. However, we also want to know what the “crooks”:

Responses included:

• “Crook: biggest by far is price or cost. IF it falls at a weekend I would miss time with family or writing/study. Hook: opportunity to learn, network, socialise, test own viewpoints, understand and relate to wider issues in area. Past few confs I’ve spoken at which was v rewarding”
• “Hooks: being informed, new ideas, developing good practice, meeting & collaborating with others in your field (there & afterwards) Crooks: too many conferences in a row, same presentations just different packaging, workshops not what they say they’re going to be about”
• “Hook opportunity to disseminate research, expand my knowledge, network. Crook: cost (when self funding) & accessibility issues (am a registered blind academic)”

3. What have been the benefits for you, your schools/colleges/centres and your learners from your attendance at these gatherings?

Responses included:

• Personal benefits: learning, affirmation, being inspired & networking Back at work: sharing new ideas with colleagues (& learning from their learning at conferences) developing awareness & capacity, putting it into practice
• One of the benefits is widening my circle, oftentimes I meet other educators I can follow on Twitter, this leads to seeing more T&L ideas, or links to articles/ blogs that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about.
• Meeting colleagues with similar interests and drive for new learning, I’ve had wonderful conversations with colleagues across the globe and being connected to their ideas has certainly influenced my own.

When we think about ‘bringing back’ our learning from these group gatherings and conferences are there risks, do we need resilience and is there room for creativity in our approach?

Responses included:

• “When people come back from CPD time is added to agenda of the next staff meeting”
• “At our October staff meeting, all our staff share a tip, resource or key piece of learning the gained from their summer courses. Encourages less confident staff to share for 5mins as part of an in-house teachmeet”

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