Today I had the opportunity to experience a truly unique learning experience-one that I'm sure will take a few days to fully digest and connect ideas, but I wanted to reflect at least initially on it before too much time passed.
Unique Learning
This day found me joining the edcampnj which was a new idea for me. I'd heard about how participants drove the sessions (no sessions were scheduled ahead of time) and that attendees were encouraged to leave sessions not meeting their needs but had never been to an edcamp. A few weeks prior I had read a post by +Brad Currie that was thought provokingly unabashed in that there should be no apologies given for moving from session to session and connecting via the web during sessions.
Great Conversations
I met up with a fellow #SBGChat participant and Twitter friend +Jim Cordery Right away we were talking about quality grading practice, mastery vs. proficiency among other things. Thats what I liked about this conference so much- it just felt natural. It seemed like everyone was there because they wanted to be there not because they had to be.
Lunch Takeaway
While I'm still processing the sessions I went to, the nugget I'm focusing on now it something Jim said during lunch. We were talking about how students show mastery of a topic and he said "if a student can explain it convincingly to two other students-thats mastery". I really like that explanation it just makes sense to me. We have all seen people in our lives who couldn't explain something and it was painfully obvious. Students should be able to share their knowledge in a meaningful manner and what a great way to show this by being helpful to others in the classroom setting.
Little Ideas=Big Impact
So that idea of explaining seems so small yet even if that was the only idea I picked up today it would be worthwhile. Often times these details are just waiting for us to find them among the "noise" that surrounds us. By having conversations with people who want to talk and really listening to what they say allows us to broaden our understandings and make better sense of our world.