Today I attended the 39th Annual Conference for the Association of Middle Level Education in Portland, Oregon. I actually presented for this group for a couple of times about 25 years ago when it was The National Middle Schools Association. That was back in the day when we had far fewer middle schools. The model most often employed back then was the Junior High School. Junior high schools were 7-9 mini high schools. Little kids, little problems (what were we thinking?).
The middle school movement changed that for many school districts. It supported a more collaborative model for educators with a team oriented approach to education. I was a high school teacher for Six years, a junior high school teacher for ten years and a middle school teacher for eighteen years. From that perspective I describe middle school educators as teachers of kids, and high school educators as teachers of courses. I also describe elementary teachers as saints. That is not meant to disparage high school educators. Their job is to prepare students for a college environment which will be, unfortunately, far less supportive or nurturing for students.
I did not participate in many sessions today, but I did study the extensive program, and I did stop in to a number of sessions to get a feel for the conference. My focus at education conferences is no longer as a classroom teacher, but as an educator supporting professional development as a path to education reform. Through that lens, I was amazed at how little the sessions of this conference had evolved in the many years since I presented. Many, many of the sessions were hour-long, PowerPoint presentations with a period of time at the end for questions and answers. In one of the sessions that I monitored, the presenter would not take any questions until she finished her PowerPoint.
I always wonder why experienced educators with a firm grasp on learning and methods of teaching would subject their audience of adults to presentations that they know would never work with their students. For some reason, many teachers abandon what they know, to become what has been modeled to them as the method of how an educator should present to colleagues, rather than employ proven methods of teaching. How many people can retain information delivered in Text-laden slides spanning over an hour of presentation and only 15 minutes if interaction? Let me be clear. This was not done in every session, and sometimes it may be the only way. The trend however should be taking presenters to more effective methods of presentation. Presentation is teaching, and that is the subject we as educators are experts in.
The other big thing that stood out to me was the subjects of sessions that were provided. The topics covered many of the important issues of middle level education. There was however, much duplication. This could be good for the purpose of planning on the part of the attendees. It enables them more flexibility in scheduling their personal slate of sessions. It also offers different views of the same subject. The downside is that redundant subject sessions limit the total of topics to be presented.
Of course my most critical comment would be the lack of technology not in the delivery of the sessions, but within the subjects of the sessions. Yes, it is not an ISTE conference, but education is now employing a great amount of technology with in many cases limited professional development for educator’s specific needs in their specific subject areas. More sessions in any conference need to be tech-oriented supporting Technology Literacy in education for educators, as well as students.
With that thought in mind I began observing how many of the participants were connected educators. I did hear the Marzano name mentioned in a few sessions, so I believe there is some connecting going on, but is it enough? I could only identify about a dozen tweeters at the conference who back channeled sessions. I do not believe any of the sessions were being live streamed to the internet. I was impressed with the mobile app supplied for the program. That might have been why so many participants were looking at their phones. Middle School educators are the most team-oriented, collaborative educators in our education system. I could not understand why the tweets were not flying fast and furiously.
It was then that I began to consider my own Twitter Stream, my Personal Learning Network. At a glance, I realized that much of my network, although global, is weighted on the east coast. Whether I was personally connected to these folks or not, the #AMLE2012 hashtag still should have approached trending. That never came close.
The idea of connected educators should be a focus of all education conferences. Criticisms aside, this was a wonderful conference that offered educators a shot in the arm to get those creative juices flowing. People come off of a conference like this ready to move up. The problem settles in as time passes. The idea of being connected enables those educators to keep those juices flowing. The great boost that educators get at the conference is enabled to continue beyond the conference. Although many education conferences meet some needs of educators, often times there are simultaneously missed opportunities. Things are moving too fast for missed opportunities.
This, as I explained, is my view through the lens of an educator interested in Professional Development leading the way to education reform. We cannot have professional conferences that focus on supporting the status quo. We do need to effectively share what is happening in classrooms today. The greater need however, is what should be happening in whatever we decide will be the classrooms of tomorrow. This is my lens, my observations, and my opinion.
My Island View 
I get as much out of a conference from the workshops as I do from following the Twitter stream “back channel” – if not more. I agree that there needs to be more technology infused sessions and a much broader buffet of choices for educators interested in building, using, and expanding their PLN. It’s is a real missed opportunity.
Just having spend two days at Vermont Fest, our premier educational technology conference, I am amazed by how many people still take paper notes – in technology workshops. Having my device in my lap enables me to check out links, save them, play with them. Taking that notepad home only ensures that I’ll never get around to exploring ideas further.
That said, from my observation, there is a real divide at our conference – folks that are the movers & shakers, to educators that are real beginners. We don’t do enough as presenters to nurture & support them. We also don’t do a good job of tailoring presentations for the spectrum of learners – from technology novices to trend-setters. Teaching to the middle — we do exactly what we would be loathe to do in the classroom.
Spot on observations, Tom!
Wow, I am also at the conference. I love this post, it’s very thought-provoking. I tend to be a voyeur of connectedness rather than a participant. I think I get overwhelmed by the vast amount of information out there. After reading this article along with others I have recently read, I think I am finally starting to understand the importance of being connected.
Thanks for posting this. I am about to go off to the National Council of Teachers Conference this week and have noticed an uptake in number of attendees using Twitter and the conference hashtag. However, a review of the program shows much of what you found. The same old topics are being recycled. When I contacted NCTE to check on availability of wifi in session rooms, I was told wifi would not be the case across the sessions. I was surprised that an organization that touts multimedia literacies in its position statement has not arranged for universal wifi across sessions. Another conference at which I was scheduled to present, with a time slot on the same day as my NCTE one, does not indicate much in the way of sessions that will address technology infusion in the curriculum. This is a higher education conference, and a colleague will do my presentation for me. I have left her with a website with links to find all the examples of students’ blogs, wikis, and websites, as well as other resources. However, I am not entirely sure she will have the wifi connection she will need to do this presentation. Just keeping my finger-crossed she will have the access. I asked also about being present in the form of Skype while my colleague does the presentation for me. However, I was told that would not be possible. Still, we might try it laptop to laptop if we are both in a location with wifi. Tom, what can we do as educators to move professional development, particularly at conferences not focused on technology, to new mindsets? In addition, how can we move presenters to do a better job with the technology they use as part of their presentation? I recently came across this advice, and think it is worth noting.
Guidelines for Technology-Based Learning Conference/ Workshop Presentations
http://www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&EntryId=5023
We need to be loud and persistent about what educators need in the way of professional development to advance education reform. If we are not educating the educators in an ever-changing world of technology-driven information, how can we hold them responsible for educating our children? To be better teachers we need to be better learners.
This conference sounds like a lot of others that sound like they are from the previous century. In addition to an hours worth of staring at someone’s speaker notes on the screen I suspect the majority of the presentations feature one-size-fits-all approaches to covering a common curriculum and preparing for standardized tests. Worse yet, to attend one of these babies you need to come up with $1,000+ by the time you pay for the conference, room, and travel. This probably means that the audience is administrator heavy. A national conference without an active Twitter back channel is a thing of the past unless you are just looking for a road trip and a day away from the day job. It’s time for organizations such as this one to model the 140 conferences and the TED Talks conferences where everything happens in one room and you have a live Internet feed. Let me know if you find anyone with an hour worth of gas or an hour worth of attention to the same topic.
As a second year teacher, I was very impressed with the conference. I got so many good ideas and it helped remind to get back on Twitter and try to be connected with teachers all over the world. In our district, we don’t have enough technology or bandwidth to use what we do have. How do I teach and practice technology skills without the tools?
I did love the conference experience. It was frustrating not being able to go to all of the session I wanted. A bigger twitter presence would have helped to get the most out of the conference. It wish there had been a place for tech teachers to meet up. I could definitely use more guidance!
[…] Today I attended the 39th Annual Conference for the Association of Middle Level Education in Portland, Oregon. I actually presented for this group for a couple of times about 25 years ago when it w… […]
There is definitely going to be a mix of people at these conferences, and each person will get a different level of ‘takeaways’. It’s somewhat the whole point of these types of gatherings, is to share and hear different perspectives and points of view.
Our team at Understoodit.com is looking at different ways to get more education conference attendee presenters to use our web app as a way of engaging their audiences. Given our tool is used to engage students, these conferences would be a great way to get exposure, and essentially, engage the audiences. I would be curious if any of the people who attended the conference could see a good opportunity to use classroom engagement tools at these conferences, and ultimately, engaging more educators at their own game. Any thoughts?
In grad school, we discussed the complexities of change management and read Fullan among others. Change seems to be especially slow in school systems.
Whenever I see a “Why you should use tech in your classroom” blog post, I think to myself _Are we still THERE?_
Being in a 1:1 school, we obviously have resources. I see the use of resourced increase when the uses are modeled in faculty meetings. By “modeled”, I don’t mean a session on “Here is the tool and this is how you use it.” Rather, sessions ask teachers to perform a specific task to meet a meeting objective (whether it is using google docs or whatever).
So how can we get those who can model to do presentations?
@MrLaymanSS and I have talked extensively about this. As teachers, presenters and technology coaches, we see the value in professional development but quality is often incredibly difficult to find. Thank you for this post! It is spot on – I wish more presenters would read it and ask themselves these same questions!
This slide deck has lots of words, but would help us when we are shifting from teaching kids to teaching adults. http://goo.gl/6Ih2O
Speaking skills, effective presentation skills: We don’t teach them, we weren’t taught them, no school has inservice days devoted to being better presenters (to our classes, to our parent community, to staff), no school has inservice days devoted to showing us how to teach students to be better presenters. Most of what you address is the problem with the lack of attention to oral communication in education. It hasn’t been on the test, so forget about teaching it to students; it hasn’t occurred to administrators that teachers could benefit from training to become more effective. And you are correct that many teachers are not great communicators and the wonderful messages they have to share are diminished. Some help exists: http://www.stenhouse.com/shop/pc/viewprd.asp?idPr… Part book, part flipped instruction, part interactive site–the future of books?
[…] Whitby posed an interesting question a few weeks ago asking “Are EDU conferences meeting our needs?” We can probably expand that to include most conferences and ask if there are things we can […]