A whole week at the International Conference on Thinking 2013. I was anxious that this would be yet another conference where i risked being in workshops that bored me, in presentations that didn't connect with my world and with people who were more excited about being away from their classes than the challenge of new ideas. But I was wrong. ICOT13 was the best conference I have been to. Why?
1. It made me think. Presenters constantly challenged my existing knowledge without knocking it out of the ballpark. Although the aha moments were thick and fast. I didn't know more than they did, so I was intrigued and interested.
2. I was engaged. I made connections between the ideas, tools, strategies, and my own beliefs.
3. Everyone around me was excited. No-one was there for the free lunch. The opportunities to share, debrief, and hear other thinking after sessions was enhanced by extra long breaks. Being surrounded by that level of engagement and enthusiasm is contagious.
4. It was relevant and useful. It made sense to me, and I could see how to apply it in my work.
5. The presenters were passionate, engaging, challenging, and very experienced. They knew their material, had international stories and experiences.
6. There was a consistency of messages that allowed it to create a big overall picture. And if their messages about thinking are taken up world wide, we have a new and very positive world future ahead of us.
Now surprisingly, most of the reasons above can be seen in our NZ Curriculum effective pedagogy pages; making connections to prior learning, encouraging reflective thought and action, enhancing the relevance of new learning, sufficient opportunities to learn, shared learning ... Although teaching strategies were not front and centre (hard to do in a conference setting with time limits), these still came through clearly to me. It was a grand opportunity for me to refocus on the best ways to get key messages through. Thanks to everyone concerned for kisk starting an exciting new year for me.
Right, off to put it into action ...
Way to go Heather - I agree it was a fantastic international conference on our doorstep. Was great to spend time with you in Wellington and share the joy and excitement of what we were experiencing with such amazing people, both presenters and participants.
ReplyDeleteWe have to keep the dialogue going about thinking and risk some new ideas to learn, make mistakes and take more risks.
Gotta love it
Thanks chris. And as we learn, make mistakes and take more risks, we also need to share our experiences with other like-minded people. Silos are for grain, not thinking, so we need to listen to and engage with other views and expand! Mentally, i've had enough of the physical expansion.
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