WEEK 7 REFLECTION

Have you ever heard of EdCamp?! Well, neither had I until we had the opportunity to talk about it and participate in one during Monday’s class.  

Edcamp is free and open to all educators with no expectations that you need to be there. It is usually hosted at one of the schools, where all educators can come together and collaborate. When I first saw the words Edcamp, I thought of a well-prepared summer camp. That was down to the minute booked with specific sessions you could only attend. However, only part of my assumption is correct; Edcamp is planned out that day, where all educators get to have input for what is going to happen. The session board represents the day’s plan, which is finalized by casting a vote on the sessions you are interested in. One of the neat rules for Edcamp is the two feet rule, which allows you to move from one session to another without any questions. If you really want to see two different sessions, you are allowed to leave in the middle of one and join the other session. Something remarkable about Edcamp is that all Edcamps are different from one another as the topics vary based on the popular demand of the group. 

For our Edcamp on Monday, there were many sessions that happened throughout the time period. Below I have added a chart for what our session board looked like.

Session 1: 11:40 – 12:00	Session 2: 12:00 – 12:20	Session 3: 12:20 – 12:40
Gender Identity	Classroom Management	Mental Health
Mental Health	Outdoor Ed	Supporting ELL Learners
French Immersion	Gender Identity	Outdoor Ed

The first session I attended was based on Mental Health; here I have added a few highlights from this session. 

• Making sure to do check-ins with students, almost trying to do this every day. This helps you gauge how the rest of the day will go for that student. 
• If they are a bit older, go into depth about mental health and how it can be a different experience for everyone. 
• Being transparent to students about how you feel that day shows them that even you, as the teacher, can have an off day.  

The second session I joined was on Classroom Management (including relationship building). Again, I will add a few points that I found to be super interesting.

• TOC bag always ready to go. This makes it much easier for when you get the 7 am calls that you are needed to cover a teacher’s shift. 
• Always have a lesson plan created and many different resources you could use. Sometimes there isn’t a lesson planned for that day, so it is essential to have something ready to go. 
• Always leave a note behind for the teacher on how the day went. Do this as all teachers will want to know how the day went and if anything important happened.  

Finally, the last session I took part in was Supporting ELL Learners. One issue my group ran into for this session was for many of us. We had yet to run into these types of experiences. One point I took away from this session was that an iPad can be super helpful when communicating with ELL students. It also can include great resources for students to further use for their English language. 

Altogether, I look forward to doing another Edcamp, as I loved how collaborative it was and how you can always learn something new! 

Feature Image: Photo by Author