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3.30.23 Literacy Planning Meeting Minutes

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Spring Break! No meeting

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Quick reminder of session 3 outline

Session 4 planning

Future Facilitators

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3.16.23 Literacy Planning Meeting Minutes

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-Debrief session 2; look at survey results
-Finalize plan for session 3 didactic & collab portion
-Feedback discussion--beyond surveys
-Looking ahead at curriculum

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Mock Debrief

Discuss/finalize Poll

Planning for second session  (2/13)

Look at session dates

Discuss collaboration ideas

Collecting Participant Feedback

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Contact via cell if needing anything urgent like trouble connecting to sessions/meetings
Alex 505-205-4302
Amy 505-610-1684
Jackie 505-985-3190

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-Deeper discussion of the collaborative piece of the sessions

-Share agenda for Session 1 and Mock Session

Goals: Prepare for our mock session 1/30

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Monday's 4:00 - 5:00pm MT
From February 6th to May 1st
10 sessions over 13 weeks
(no session 2/20, 3/20, 4/10)

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_3.07.23 Literacy Research Design Meeting (1)

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Goals:
-Discuss & finalize participants (size, location)
-Finalize Session 1 agenda
-Plan session 2
-Discuss collaboration/case presentation/mentorship
-Discuss program goals
-Discuss Hub team roles

Agenda:
1) Schedule Mock session
2) Discuss & finalize participants
3) Review & finalize Session 1
4) Plan Session 2
5) Collaboration/case presentation/mentorship discussion
6) Align program goals: make sure we are all about helping teachers IMPLEMENT what they learned in LETRS

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Welcome Jana and Debra!

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Lessons 42-53 Resources | UF Literacy Institute

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A consonant digraph is a combination of two consonant letters that represent a single consonant speech sound. The lessons in this unit are designed to strengthen students' familiarity with consonant digraphs.

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Goals:
1) Plan first session
2) Decide on initial plan for collaborative learning portion

Review agenda outline for the first ECHO session

Our methodology for the mentorship/collaborative learning part of the hour

Sissy share’s experiences from previous ECHO’s

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SLC Session Debrief Plus/Delta - Google Jamboard

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2022 8 15 Scarboroughs Rope Application to ECHO for K2 Literacy SG (2)

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An Origin in "EdCamps" An "unconference" (also referred to as an "EdCamp") is a participant-driven conference model that emerged in the early 2010s.

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Introduction

An academic conference is a traditional platform for researchers and professionals to network and learn about recent developments and trends in a particular academic field [ 1- 4]. Typically, the organizing committees and sponsors decide the main theme and sub-topics of the conference and select the presenters based on peer-reviewed papers [ 5]. The selected speakers usually share their research with a large audience by means of presentations and posters. However, the most stimulating discussions generally take place over coffee breaks when attendees can interact with each other and discuss various topics, including their own research interests, in a more informal manner [ 1, 6, 7], while expanding their own professional networks. An emphasis on facilitating such informal/networking interactions is a central focus of "unconventional conferences"-or "unconferences."

While many people may not yet have taken part in an unconference, the concept has been around for more than two decades. Events with unconference formats, beginning as early as 1985, include Open Space Technology, Foo Camp, BarCamp, Birds of a Feather, EdCamp, ScienceOnline, and many others. The success of these events has made the unconference format increasingly popular and widely known [ 8- 11].

Unlike traditional conferences, an unconference is a participant-oriented meeting where the attendees decide on the agenda, discussion topics, workshops, and, often, even the time and venues. The informal and flexible program allows participants to suggest topics of their own interest and choose sessions accordingly. The format provides an excellent opportunity for researchers from diverse disciplines to work collaboratively on topics of common interest. The overarching goal for most unconferences is to prioritize conversation over presentation. In other words, the content for a session does not come from a select number of individuals at the front of the room, but is generated by all the attendees within the room, and, as such, every participant has an important role.

Advantages of the unconference format include: a focus on topics that are relevant to the attendees (because they suggested them), an opportunity for teamwork development, flexibility of schedule, and an emphasis on contributions from every participant. The relationships built during an unconference often continue well past the event. The interactions can lead to productive collaborations, professional development opportunities, and a network of resources and are very effective at building a community amongst participants. The unconference format, therefore, gives participants experience in working together, and this can change how they think about their day-to-day work.

A range of articles offer tips and advice for organizing and delivering aspects of scientific conferences and meetings or observations on features of successful meetings [ 5, 12, 13], including several from the PLOS Computational Biology "Ten Simple Rules" collection [ 14- 16]. While the rules presented in this article are of particular relevance to the organization of unconferences, several of these points are also useful and complementary guidelines for organizing other kinds of events.

Rule 1: How to Decide Whether to Run an Event As an Unconference or As a Traditional Conference

While there is no magic formula, reflecting on aspects such as participant numbers, venue size, expectations of attendees, and your overall objectives can be invaluable in deciding whether to run an event as an unconference or traditional conference. Unconferences are well suited to promoting interactions and networking between attendees as they allow a more flexible agenda. Discussion topics are shaped and influenced by participants, with exchanges of knowledge from many to many. This works particularly well when discussion groups are relatively small, creating a flexible, creative, and conducive environment for exchanges. A traditional conference, on the other hand, can be better suited to larger audiences, and when the focus of the meeting is more towards formal learning and knowledge sharing rather than involvement and interactions amongst participants. However, our experiences show that including unconference sessions in such events can be another valuable way of getting people involved, making connections, getting creative, achieving goals together, and developing a valuable platform for interactive knowledge exchange. It should also be noted that some successful unconferences are relatively large (e.g., ScienceOnline Together has 500 participants).

Rule 2: Choose the Right Format

Depending on the mission and the goals of the participants, unconferences can be organized in many different ways. One example of an informal meeting is known as "Birds of a Feather"-these are events that usually accompany a traditional conference, where participants organize themselves to discuss topics without any pre-planned agenda, similar to "bar camps," where the program is rewritten or overwritten on-the-fly by the participants using whiteboard schedule templates.

Other examples involving project-driven events include those mainly focused on technology topics and that involve software project development, such as "hackathons." During such events, small sub-teams gather to work together on developing/addressing particular parts of a software project.

A little more organization is needed to arrange a "curated unconference" where topics and structures are collected by potential participants prior to the event. A group of organizers, in a transparent and open procedure, then sort through these ideas to build a structure of large and/or small-group discussion.

By forming smaller groups of participants to discuss different topics amongst each group, a "world café" style discussion allows participants to tackle several topics in a limited amount of time. At certain time intervals, every participant moves to a different table to participate in a specific discussion. Finally, all discuss the outcome of the different discussions under the moderation of the organizer.

In a "fishbowl" discussion, chairs are arranged in concentric circles with four to five chairs in the innermost circle (called the fishbowl), which channels the discussion as only participants in the fishbowl discuss the topic while others listen; participants wanting to join the vocal discussion approach the fishbowl and (via a mediator) replace one of the current members of the bowl.

Presentation styles at an unconference commonly include time limits, as exemplified by the "Ignite" and "Pecha Kucha" formats in which each presenter only has a very limited presentation time slot and slides advance automatically after 15 or 20 seconds, respectively. Such a format ensures that the presentations are succinct and fast-paced.

Rule 3: Have a Clear Mission for the Meeting

Having a clear and visible mission statement can be a very effective way of focusing ideas for the content and structure of the event. It can turn collective minds to the development of a shared common goal that reduces emphasis on the individual and instead creates an event reflective of what the group needs and wants. From our experience, there are two major reasons why people attend unconferences: (1) to interact with many people of shared interests and (2) to learn useful information or skills related to their activities (often focused on their own career progression). A clear mission is a useful way of focusing the expectations of participants to the goals of the meeting. It can help to create an environment conducive to valuable and appropriate learning, and can guide discussions beyond a mere brainstorming session. Decisions about the focus and content of specific sessions become less subjective and remain transparent when the decision criteria align with the overarching goal of the meeting.

Rule 4: Minimize the Lecture-Style Presentations

One of the defining features of an unconference is its inversion of the common features of more traditional meetings, in particular academic conferences. A common aspect of traditional meetings is the formal presentation (i.e., lecture style) with communication directed from one, typically a senior and powerful member of the community, to many others who listen passively and do not have much opportunity to actively interact with the presenter's ideas. In contrast, unconferences typically minimize the use (and duration) of conventional presentations and prioritize cooperative knowledge. This means that the session content comes from the shared experiences and expertise of all participants in the room and not just from the front of the room. The idea that no individual person has all the answers promotes a spirit of generosity, interaction, and respect amongst all participants. Every voice is valued.

Rule 5: Involve Participants in Planning and Structuring of the Event

Participant-centric thinking is perhaps the key feature that differentiates unconferences from more traditional meetings. Empowered participants, who know that they can directly influence and contribute to the structure and content of a meeting, tend to be much more invested in its success and outcome. However, the events still involve a certain amount of planning and infrastructure [ 14] and paying attention to details such as required equipment, venue, network connectivity, power outlets, and catering can have a large impact on the success of the event. Managing the flexibility of an unconference with appropriate logistical organization can avoid wasting time and, thus, avoid frustration for both the participants and organizers.

Participation is also where much of the enthusiasm and excitement of such meetings comes from, and there are many ways in which contributions can be facilitated. If a core group of organizers takes the lead in planning the event-including the program-then participants can focus on taking part in the discussion of ideas for sessions, content, or form of the unconference (see "Rule 2" for a variety of discussion formats and styles) instead of dealing with frustrating details. To ensure that the logistical arrangements are carried out prior to the event, the role of each organizer should be clearly communicated. As such, it may be beneficial to appoint one individual who coordinates the activities and is responsible for following-up on important preparations. Furthermore, the agenda should be visible to all participants before the unconference takes place and should include essential information such as the theme, sub-topics, time allowance, and contact information. These standard preparations allow the participants to arrive well informed and also create an opportunity for each participant to decide on how they may want to contribute to the unconference.

During the wrap-up of the event, any suggestions and feedback regarding the overall unconference events can be discussed and the theme of the next unconference can be decided. The goals of the next event will guide the planning and participants will be able to volunteer to be part of the new group of organizers. Finally, encouraging facilitators to include people who they know have interesting contributions to make ensures a core of contributors and promotes a lively discussion.

Rule 6: Provide an Open, Relaxed Atmosphere

In order to make an unconference a success, the atmosphere of the event should be relaxed, open, friendly, and fun. This will ensure that all participants, especially those joining for the first time, feel welcome and respected. Creating and encouraging a casual and relaxed environment is favourable for everyone involved because it facilitates interaction and communication. To promote a relaxed atmosphere, think carefully about the layout of the venue. This includes the size of the room and the placement of tables and chairs; for example, arranging tables for small group discussions or placing chairs in a semi-circle or U-shape for group discussions. A good set-up not only fosters discussion but also has a positive impact on the overall quality of the unconference by strengthening the personal experience.

The organizers, as well as participants who have attended previous unconferences, should reach out and welcome newcomers to the format. By modelling conduct and values through their interactions with other participants both before and during the event (particularly at the start), they can strongly influence the way in which people interact with each other.

An effective way to encourage communication and participation is through ice-breaker activities during the early stages of the event. Small group activities are especially helpful since many participants may initially find it easier to interact actively in smaller, more intimate groups. This also helps new attendees meet new people and start to build relationships in a casual manner.

Fear of public speaking, questioning, and debating are common in all academic fields and communities. Unconferences aim to overcome these fears by creating an environment of respect that helps all participants gain self-confidence. Nominating capable, guiding facilitators who are able to ensure respectful communication throughout the meeting can achieve this goal. The facilitators should encourage all participants to share their own thoughts, listen to others' comments, and-most importantly-consider all contributions. Repeating the name of a participant linked to a developed idea gives this participant a boost in self-confidence. However, in some cases, it may also mean that over-confident participants need to be "moderated" to provide enough time and space for the least confident participants to contribute voluntarily. Therefore, while diverse opinions are welcomed (and often result in stimulating discussions), the focus at an unconference is on how these different opinions are communicated. Good facilitators will create a natural atmosphere of mutual respect and trust.

Rule 7: Trust Your Community

Unconferences prioritize focusing on, and engaging with, everyone who chooses to get involved in the event. This is in contrast to more traditional meetings, where the focus is much more on what the organizers have planned and the scheduled session presenters. Thus, in an unconference format, responsibility for the success of the event is more equally distributed across all participants. This shift of responsibility away from the organizers can initially seem intimidating, as it might seem like there are fewer ways to influence the success of the event. The lack of control can be difficult to accept, particularly for those who tend to micromanage. In an unconference format, the organizers will be successful if they trust the community to work with them to make the event a success. This power shift is worth embracing, rather than resisting, as it brings many exciting and energizing opportunities. Sharing leadership with the participants will create an atmosphere of personal empowerment, individual responsibility, and group ownership of the events.

This is perhaps not surprising; almost everyone choosing to participate in an unconference does so to personally benefit from the event. When given the chance to influence the success of the event, the attendees count this as a benefit in addition to the content of the unconference itself.

Another benefit is that the workload of an organizer may be reduced if it can be shared amongst a group of volunteers. Finally, trusting in the community makes it easier and less risky to experiment with novel formats and topics. Even when these experiments do not work out as planned, the very act of trying new ideas by involving, engaging, and trusting in participants brings the community closer together and delivers its own kind of success in terms of networking and community building. Learning to trust the community is key to embracing and enjoying the special character of these events.

Rule 8: Communication Is Key to Your Event; Make it As Easy, Unambiguous, and Transparent As Possible

Engaging in communication is one of the reasons why people choose to come together for any meeting. One main characteristic of unconferences is the emphasis on interactive communication that gives all participants a chance to have their contributions heard by others. To this end, make use of multiple existing collaborative tools that assist in the communication before, during, and after an event. For example, a wiki can be very helpful in giving participants the chance to get involved in the organization of the event in advance-including idea and topic collections, scheduling sessions, taking care of the infrastructure of an event, as well as finding accommodation and ride shares for low-cost events.

Several tools exist to help with jotting down notes or minutes during a session: classic white boards and colored pens can be useful to collect suggestions and develop ideas together; even getting participants to scribble their thoughts down on paper tablecloths (which is a low-cost and low-tech collaborative tool with great haptic feedback) has proven to be handy and fun. The final work can be photographed and the pictures made available online later. Web-based collaborative real-time editors like Etherpad ( http://etherpad.org/) can be helpful to conceptualize thoughts and to track discussions, as they can be edited by multiple people in parallel and can be used afterwards as an equivalent to conference proceedings. However, these Web-based editors require a working Internet connection throughout the event, which may not be practical at each event. Social media such as Twitter can also be utilized to share topics, progress, statements, or questions with people who are not present at the session. Here it is important to agree on a short, but distinctive, hashtag as soon as possible to enable people to follow and keep track of the tweets. A Tweetwall-a large screen or a projector displaying the most current tweets associated with the event's hashtag-can also be entertaining and informative.

Rule 9: The Journey Is As Important As Its Destination

A great way to extract the collective expertise, knowledge, and experience of attendees during unconference sessions is to encourage participants to identify and work together towards a common goal, and to document how they attempted to get there. Any given event will rarely provide the time needed to take a goal or project from beginning to end; however, we have seen unconferences serve as excellent ways of brainstorming, developing initial plans, creating the outline for a project, and gathering together a group of enthusiastic collaborators.

It is important to have tools that allow attendees to share the resources, ideas, and challenges of the session conversations. Documenting content can be an effective way to engage people and also to further the legacy of the unconference session beyond the confines of the room. Such an approach provides a way for participants to reflect on the collective learning and thinking that took place, as well as providing the means to evaluate the success of the discussion. It is unlikely within the time constraints of a session or single event that participants will come up with "the one final answer" to a particular problem or challenge. Therefore, providing a collaborative tool to record the development of ideas during the unconference session is important. The documentation of the session is a resource for reflecting on the work done, enabling participants to think about the issue in different ways, allowing others to see the progress of the discussion, establishing ideas for future events, and building a network of collaborators. In other words, the recording of the journey yields many benefits, even if you do not reach your final destination.

Rule 10: No Idea Is Too Trivial

When a diverse group works together, some individuals will be good at big picture suggestions and others will emphasize details. Both are needed and both should be encouraged. While discussions of new ideas often begin at the conceptual level, contributions that may seem trivial or detail-oriented in the moment can also be important to a project's ultimate success. Thus, to avoid missing out on important contributions, it is essential to include even the seemingly trivial remarks or ideas. A good way to do this is to write down all ideas and suggestions, so that later they can be sorted and considered. Do not rule out anything when it is first suggested because brainstorming becomes the most productive when any idea that comes to mind is communicated without prior judgment of its value. One person's unusual idea may spark the way forward.

Final Thoughts

There is not one "right" way to organize an unconference, but there are certainly things to be sure to include (and to avoid!) so that the event is as successful as possible. Perhaps the key is thinking of the event as "we" instead of "me."

Crowdsourcing the Writing of This Article

The authors wanted to base the opinions and advice provided in this article on experience of diverse unconferences. By doing this, rather than relying on the opinions of a small group of authors, we hoped that the content would be useful to a wider range of people. Thus, we crowdsourced the content by contacting organizers of a range of unconferences and similar events and inviting them to join us as authors. We also invited as authors all participants of a Birds of a Feather session focused unconference at the ISMB/ECCB 2013 meeting in Berlin, including also those who contributed to this session remotely via Twitter. Finally, we also invited all organizers of the Heidelberg Unseminars in Bioinformatics series of events [ 17] to join as authors, as several of the initiators of this article are members of that group.

We began the crowdsourcing by collecting a list of possible rules for the article via a git-controlled repository [ 18]. This list was then trimmed to reduce redundancy and overlap, and all authors voted to identify the initial set of ten rules to be included in the article. Small teams of authors collaborated to write content for each rule using a Piratenpad ( https://www.piratenpad.de/), an online collaborative writing tool similar to an Etherpad. Native English speakers amongst the authors then processed this first draft to provide a common tone and language to the article. The resulting draft was then discussed by all authors, distributed as a Word document, and edits were implemented on the basis of this discussion by one of the authors until a consensus version of the text was agreed upon and submitted to the journal.

Authors are listed in the byline in the order in which they made edits to the manuscript.

Funding Statement

The authors received no specific funding for this article.

References

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Ten Simple Rules for Organizing an Unconference

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An academic conference is a traditional platform for researchers and professionals to network and learn about recent developments and trends in a particular academic field [ 1- 4]. Typically, the organizing committees and sponsors decide the main theme and sub-topics of the conference and select the presenters based on peer-reviewed papers [ 5].

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Reflection and mentorship piece of literacy program.docx

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Reflection and mentorship piece of literacy program.docx

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Picture this-you're in a conference room filled with attendees. You attend a boring introductory speech and panel discussions where speakers are more focused on listening to each other than interacting with the audience. Presentations that either confuse or don't add anything new. Sound familiar? (Do you even remember when we attended conferences in-person?!?) If you say you've never attended a conference like the one just described, well, you're one of the lucky few.

Most conferences, though- whether in-person or online -function on a "coffee-presentation-panel discussion-coffee-repeat" schedule. And honestly, don't most of us attend conferences for the corridor talk or coffee break networking or connections made over happy hours? Does it even make sense to spend most of the day in dimly lit rooms listening to one person speak at the audience?

That's where unconferences come in.

So, What Exactly is an "Unconference"?

Unconferences or open-space conferences have minimal structure and put the participants in front of the steering wheel rather than the event organizers and speakers.

You know those sessions with a fixed schedule and strictly monitored sessions? Unconferences are the complete opposite and depend on attendees to build an agenda based on what they want to discuss. In essence, the event participants are the event organizers and vice versa.

Most in-person unconferences have facilitators to take suggestions from attendees, filter session ideas, track the most popular topics, and then create a list of final topic niches. This ability to collectively build the schedule, host the sessions as a group, and get everyone to engage in meaningful conversations is game-changing. It is why unconferences are often more engaging and participatory. Unconferences are by the participants and for the participants. Their interests, topics, and live, face-to-face discussions are the central, essential elements of the event.

Unconferences are gaining popularity because of the two main rules that guide these sessions:

1. There is no one giving a presentation to others. It's about having conversations.

2. It advocates the Law of Two Feet, meaning if a session isn't interesting to an attendee, they have the freedom to move and find a session where they can make a difference.

This sense of ownership and autonomy go a long way in getting attendees as involved in the event's success as the organizers or speakers at a regular event.

But the question is ...

How Can Unconferences Be Organised Virtually?

Unconferences are about encouraging attendees to drive conversations they want to have. And so, organizing virtual unconferences requires some planning.

Kubeshni Govender, Coach and Facilitator, says about virtual meetings and events,

"Facilitators and organizers should not be tempted to work leaner than they would in 'live' situations. There are so many more variables that facilitators need to manage during an online session that one person might be overwhelmed, especially if the meeting runs for a full day or over multiple days."

While virtual unconferences may not need facilitators' active participation, there are a few things you need to tailor, pay attention to, and adapt to get the unconference up and running in the first place.

The Tools + Technologies to Go VIRTUAL with Your Unconference

Pre-COVID, most unconferences typically took place in person with live facilitators, real whiteboards, face-to-face conversations between participants. More importantly, their environment was conducive to following the "Law of Two Feet" literally (i.e., use your two feet to show which sessions most interest you).

When the rest of the world had to adapt to social distancing, so did unconference organizers- they had to now take an offline, real-life event and make it work online, with all key stakeholders (attendees and facilitators included) being entirely virtual.

This meant organizers needed to find, learn, and adopt a new set of tools and technologies.

They needed to start with a platform conducive to an unconference gone completely online. Without the right platform, virtual unconferences can be a colossal failure.

According to the classification of online event types, the core features needed to take an unconference virtual are:

Audio and/or video streaming ability for presenters

The ability for participants to select and move between rooms

Peer-to-peer webcam within casual groups and/or with vendors

Options for participants to choose to host and lead sessions

The ability for anyone to present or share screen

The option to crowdsource the agenda

Voting/polling features

System to test the waters for session interest

Features to help organize scheduling across time zones

Audience chat

It all starts with the event hosting platform- you need a platform that offers most of those core features.

MaestroConference Video gives participants the flexibility to create, lead and move between engaging breakouts (so participants can abide by the Law of Two Feet), peer-to-peer webcams, options to crowdsource the agenda, easy ways for any participant to create/host/lead a breakout, and robust voting and polling.

VoiceVoice, on the other hand, allows for hosts to offer asynchronous sessions for participants who can't all attend at the same time.

The ability to integrate MC Video + VoiceVoice gives virtual unconference organizers a unique, robust solution that combines live event capabilities + options for asynchronous, self-facilitated sessions. This flexibility to host live+asynchronous events expands the potential reach and audience of any virtual unconference event, allowing hosts and facilitators to promote knowledge sharing, accelerate learning, or collaborate - by leveraging breakouts and interactivity- across time zones and geographic regions.

Bringing VoiceVoice to OFU Exchange: A Brief Case Study

The Online Facilitation Unconference (OFU), an annual online learning exchange on the art and practice of facilitating in virtual environments, is a community-driven event. A BYOT (bring your own technology) event, OFU encourages attendees to try out different technologies during the unconference.

With participants located across the globe this last year, OFU suggested 3-hour windows for sessions on each day of the conference to optimize for trans-continental bridging.

Given this global audience coupled with the spontaneous, unstructured OFU format, the VoiceVoice team used the platform's 'Host Your Own Time' feature to set up unscheduled, self-guided demo sessions- participants could jump into and experience the technology for themselves at any time. We also had some pre-scheduled times for group demos aimed at different time zones- Asia, North America, and Europe. Since the platform allows a host to pre-record content and provide group facilitation elements in advance, our PST time zone-based team didn't need to attend every demo session. And we were still able to host participants from around the world.

We also brainstormed with OFU to host a wrap-up session to convene participants and drive home key learnings. Our asynchronous sessions created experiences for participants across geographies, at their convenience, within their micro-communities, and without a facilitator.

The Structure of Virtual Unconferences

Yes, unconferences are all about crowd-driven agenda. However, with virtual versions still relatively novel, it's up to the facilitator to give a guideline of sorts to help attendees get the best out of the session. Develop a rough structure for the day, which can be a jumping-off point for attendees.

Decide if you need event facilitators from the audience for introductory or live sessions. If yes, can they be attendee-volunteers on the day of the session or pre-selected from the attendee list? Think of sharing related content with the audience when they sign up and after the event, so they know what to expect and have tangible takeaways.

Noreen Whysel, Information Architect and UX researcher, is a part of the team that organizes UXCampDC, an unconference focused on design. This year the unconference went virtual, and she underlined the importance of having volunteers and sharing content.

"We had two people in the main room "lobby" to help people get into their rooms and greet stragglers. Volunteers in each breakout recorded the sessions which will be posted to our publication."

Pro-Tip: Dedicate time at the start of the session to agenda creation on a digital whiteboard like Miro or Mural to translate the unconference method of creating an agenda on a shared wall to a virtual environment.

Ease of Movement: Following the Law of Two Feet

But is that enough? Not really. If you are organizing a virtual unconference, think about how attendees can find different sessions or network with ease with a person they met during a group activity or how they can move out of a session and join another one with ease. The idea is to create physical places in a digital space.

OFU organizers used Mighty Networks as the central coalition space for session ideation and to coordinate sessions. Participants needed to join this "attendee-only collaboration space to be able to fully participate in the unconference."

Nenad Maljković displays how to create a flexible open-space session encouraging free movement in his virtual open space experiment.

So, Do Virtual Unconferences Engage Attendees Better?

The short answer, yes. But don't take my word for it.

Joshua Kauffman, a long-time proponent of unconferences and facilitator, says in a Forbes article,
"So much of life and work is overly structured that it doesn't give us, or our ideas, the room to run and grow freely. By contrast, the unstructured, high-energy environment of the unconference amplifies ideas."
Unlike top-down communication, which is the mainstay of regular conferences, unconferences encourage conversations between all attendees and hinges on collaboration. Additionally, they facilitate peer-to-peer learning as long as the audience mix is qualitative, and everyone brings some amount of expertise to the table.

Experts, therefore, stress the importance of inviting the right attendees for virtual unconferences. One way of doing this is building a community beforehand. Judy Rees, one of the top names in online facilitation, has been organizing Metaphorum, an online unconference, for six years now and she says,

"It's clearly possible to organise an online Open Space which is not underpinned by a specific online community. But why would you, when it's so cheap and easy to pull people together into a Facebook group (or whatever) to get the conversation started?"

She explains how establishing attendees as a part of a community heightens the unconference experience,

"We've done our storming and norming. We've knocked the obvious edges off our discussions and got into the interesting stuff. The people who post regularly, expressing strong views, are well known. Even the people who only click 'like' occasionally have familiar names. And this all-together-at-the-same-time experience is a delight: a high-point in our community's lifecycle."

Therefore, conversations are often more relevant, useful, and engaging. The commonality and flexibility offered to attendees mean they can decide which issue they want to spend more time on. They can also decide which discussion will bring the conversation to a satisfactory solution. Most importantly, they have complete control over what they take away and how good their learning experience is. Additionally, continuing to inhabit the same community after the event is a huge benefit. Because they then have the opportunity, infrastructure, and support to take the next steps.

So, giving the attendees ownership can minimize the passiveness so typical of a conference participant. A well-organized virtual unconference can be an excellent platform to exchange unfiltered creative ideas.

The Last Word

Unconferences aren't a recent phenomenon. Some experts say it can be traced back to 1828. That year, Alexander von Humboldt invited European scientists to meet and discuss discoveries in informal settings. Today's unconferences, in-person or virtual, descend from a similar meet-up of sorts.

Unconferences aren't just about learning; they are about building your community and having conversations that impact. In his article, The Campfire Principle for Community, Charles Vogl, author, and speaker, says, "People don't feel connected to your community because they joined a big crowd in an arena. They feel connected because of the individual conversations, private moments, and vulnerability that they experience with other participants."

Virtual unconferences amplify that community connection.

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Featured image designed by studiogstock / Freepik

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Virtual Unconferences + Why They Are More Engaging for Attendees

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Picture this-you're in a conference room filled with attendees. You attend a boring introductory speech and panel discussions where speakers are more focused on listening to each other than interacting with the audience. Presentations that either confuse or don't add anything new. Sound familiar? (Do you even remember when we attended conferences in-person?!?)

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-Debrief session 2; look at survey results
-Finalize plan for session 3 didactic & collab portion
-Feedback discussion--beyond surveys
-Looking ahead at curriculum

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Post session 2 evaluation questions 2.14.23

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SLC post session survey questions session 1

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Self Administered Checklist 2/6/23  (excel data)

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Self Administered Checklist 2/6/23  (excel data)

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02.06.23_Self-administered checklist for structured literacy practices in the classroom(1-25)

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Self Administered Checklist 2/6/23 (PDF)

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Self Administered Checklist 2/6/23 (PDF)

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Literacy K-2 Case_Rec Form(s) data sheet (1)

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_2.22.23 Literacy Research Design Meeting

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This weekend a friend of mine introduced me to a writer who focuses on habits and decision making named James Clear. He isn't exactly an education writer, but his posts are in many ways completely about education, as they are about how we learn, evolve, and view the world. There was one post in particular called Identity-Based Habits that sent me running to find my notebook for quotes like the following:

Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously).

I think what grabbed me about Clear's work is that I've been thinking a lot about the massive role identity plays in how students perform in our classes, and his wording so clearly encapsulated what I'd been noticing. The post's introduction to me was also timely, as my interest in identity has further solidified over the last month as I've watched my Juniors go through the spring battery of standardized testing (for regular readers, that is where I've been over the last three weeks). While helping them prepare for these tests, I stood amazed by just how much their core beliefs about themselves seemed to control every aspect of how they approached these tests. The students who identified themselves as a bad writers and expected to fail avoided studying at all costs. The message was clear: They knew they were bad, so what was the point and why spend time thinking about something they will never be good at? On the other side, students who identified as strong writers came into my classroom at all hours of the day with stacks of practice essays, highlighted practice questions, and dozens of clarifying questions concerning the most minor rhetorical or mechanical details. They knew that they were good writers, and they were going to ensure the number the test spit out would match their skills.

I recently came across a researcher named John Hattie who reads every piece of evidence possible concerning education and ranks factors that influence student growth in the classroom. While each year the rankings shift according to new data, the top spot has been clearly occupied by "student expectations" - which is essentially a synonym for student identity - for nearly a decade straight. And after the last month I am even more completely convinced he is right.

Some of John Hattie's Effect Sizes

I've written previously about how a large number of students enter my classroom identifying as bad writers or not even writers at all and how I strive to improve their identities by offering thoughtful praise and building narratives of progress that reframe their journey as writers in a positive light. But I want to go further because during my last round of responding to student papers, I was struck by a realization: If one thinks about it, teachers are the only serious audience most students have ever had for their writing. Sure, a few will be writers outside of class and some might have parents or peers occasionally help with little things, but for the vast majority of students, for their entire lives, teachers have probably been the only ones who have deeply and directly responded to their writing, making teacher responses more than important to student writing abilities; for many students, how their teachers have responded to their writing is likely at the geographic center of how they see themselves as writers.

When considering the massive influence a students' identity has on their learning and the core role teachers play in how most students view their writing, it is essential that we do everything possible to make sure that our responses cultivate positive writing identities for our students. Luckily, some of our best teachers have long recognized the awesome power identities have and the awesome power teachers have to impact student identities. Here are some of the best suggestions that I always strive to keep in mind to make sure that I am helping my students to build writing identities that are positive and growth oriented, as opposed to negative and closed off:

In Teaching Adolescent Writers, Kelly Gallagher's first commandment for building successful young writers is: "Remember that all writers, especially young writers, are fragile. They break easily. Don't pound them by pouncing on every error. Nurture them by keeping the focus narrow and attainable." I am a gardener, and so Gallagher's combination of fragility and nurturing struck a chord with me. When I first look at any paper, I strive to remember this line and use it as my compass for approaching each student with the thoughtful, calculated care that I give to my seedlings when they are transplanted in the spring.

In Embarrassment, Tom Newkirk references a quote from Plato where he compares writing to sending one's child into the world "unprotected from misunderstanding and criticism." In conversations we can clarify, hedge, justify, and otherwise revise our message based on its reaction, but this is not the case in writing for both the student who writes the piece and the teacher who writes comments on it. This is why I always do writing conferences (more on how to do that with tons of students here). No matter how clear and kind I think I was in my feedback, I always have a number of students who are confused, upset, or both confused and upset by my responses; conferences, beyond all of the other benefits they bestow, are my way to read the student to ensure that my messages are received correctly and work towards building up a student's writing identity instead of knocking it down.

In No More Fake Reading, Berit Gordon says that "Teens are grateful to have an adult who listens. And they're shocked when an adult doesn't come with all the answers or lecture on what to do." I've already talked about how essential it is to make it clear that you are listening to students, but what I love about this quote is how it also highlights the importance of not offering answers at times. As teachers it can feel like our job to always have the answer, but by opening space for students to fill in some answers too, you are both making them work (which will help them learn) and showing that you trust that they are enough of a writer to do it right.

In Helping Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that what makes successful parenting coaches is that they, "don't get hung up on which specific nursery rhymes and peekaboo techniques parents use with their infants; they know that what matters, in general, is warm, responsive, face-to-face-parenting...That parenting approach, however it is carried out, conveys to infants some deep, even transcendent messages about belonging, security, stability, and their place in the world." He then makes the claim that these principles also all hold true for our classrooms too and that teachers, both consciously and unconsciously, constantly send explicit, implicit, or even subliminal messages about how students fit in the classroom. I've found this to absolutely be the case. Students can generally feel how we feel about them, and in the context of writing that often means they can feel whether or not we think they are a good writer. With this in mind, I strive to approach each paper with the mindset that this writer, like every other student in the class, has strengths and areas in need of growth. This might seem like a small shift, but I've found occupying this mindset usually makes a major impact in how I respond, especially in regards to the students who do have a lot of struggles and generally feel as though teachers don't like their work.

In the end, the idea of using our feedback to both teach the students content and to cultivate the students' writing identities may seem like a heavy lift. I get that, as teaching content in the margins is already hard enough and identity is abstract, largely unconscious, and not an easy thing to shift. But it is worth thinking about it, as identity is incredibly powerful stuff. Further, in the end there are actually only four identified factors associated with students developing what are considered positive mindsets. For those, I will end by turning it back over to Paul Tough. He argues that students will have positive mindsets that are set up for success if they believe the following:

1. I belong in this academic community.

2. My ability and competence grow with my effort.

3. I can succeed at this.

4. This work has value for me.

Or put another way, get students to believe they belong, can do it, and should do it, and you have a very good chance to change their writing forever!

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Matthew M. Johnson has taught every grade 7-12, written a book for new teachers, contributes to and Principal Leadership magazine, and taught in both private and public schools. He is currently working on a book for on writing instruction and regularly delivers professional development and keynotes across the country.

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How to Cultivate Strong Student Writing Identities

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This weekend a friend of mine introduced me to a writer who focuses on habits and decision making named James Clear. He isn't exactly an education writer, but his posts are in many ways completely about education, as they are about how we learn, evolve, and view the world.

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NM ECHO for the Structured Literacy Classroom (SLC)
https://echo.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErcu6qpj4jH9A-9_RglXQQzwmuKaA1b2z6