Ep 9: Something for a Monday: Exploring the beauty and authenticity of informal professional learning conversations, finding community and belonging through #TeachMeet networks

7:35AM May 19, 2021

Speakers:

Shelli Ann Garland

Mags Amond

Keywords:

teach

people

disposition

learning

research

mags

online

teachers

world

phd

shelli

findings

informal

academic

community

education

journey

meet

volunteer

conference

Hello,

and welcome to a dash of salt. I'm Dr. Shelli Ann and I'm so glad you're here. Whether you stumbled upon this podcast by accident, or you're here because the subject drew you in welcome. Salt is an acronym for society and learning today. This podcast was created as an outlet for inviting fresh discussions on sociology and learning theories that impact your world. Each episode includes a wide range of themes that focus on society in everyday learning, whether formal or informal. So let's get stuck in shall we.

Welcome to a dash of salt. Today I'm joined by Mags Amond, also known as Margaret Mary to her extended Amond family in County Carlo and her late parents friends in New York City where she was born, and any nuns who taught her when she was young. Mags has been retired for a few years after 35 years teaching at second level. In 2016. She signed up to do a part time PhD in the School of Education and Trinity Mags, lives in Cavan with her family and really enjoys messing about with making stuff and claims to have a unique superpower in infinite capacity for doing absolutely nothing. Mags is a wonderfully creative, positive, intelligent woman who has a really unique way of looking at life. I know that you're really going to enjoy our conversation today. I'm delighted to have you on the podcast to speak with you about your research on a form of informal continuous professional development among teachers all over the world. It's called Teach Meet where teaching professionals come together to encourage and edify and to teach each other through their own lived experiences. It is a completely voluntary organisation. And I'm totally looking forward to finding out all about it. Welcome, Mags.

Thank you, Shelli for inviting me to the space of your pod

cast. I'm

very excited about this.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your programme of research and your area of expertise? And what was the catalyst to do TeachMeet as a PhD?

Okay, I'll try and tie them all together. Maybe I taught science as you said, especially biology, and I use computers and digital equipment as much as I could have my classroom. But what has taken me here to this point with you to talk about my research to teach me is probably two of my out of classroom areas in my life as as an educator. And one of them, which probably also came from being the daughter of two parents for whom volunteering was a lifelong commitment. I got involved in the voluntary activities of to teacher professional networks, TPNs as we call them, all the acronyms will loom large in my in my research, and they were called Irish Science Teachers Association, the ISTA. But in particular, the catalytic one was CESI, the computers in education Society of Ireland. I became active in CESI at a national level and it's still very much entangled in my life and in my research. And the other thing that brought me here was during the 35 years in the classrooms as Methuselah, I stepped outside that classroom for seven years, and worked with the forerunners of the professional development service for teachers to PDST more acronyms, they will call the SLS s the JLSS. And that's how I met teachmeet in the first place, a combination of those two, outside classroom experiences took me in 2008 to meet this phenomenon called TeachMeet and the exploration of that phenomenon has now become the PhD I'm trying to begin to write up I'm trying to figure out just what is its niche in the world of professional learning, what is the essence of it? Given that teach me it has very little official I'm using air quotes here, very little official substance anywhere.

So from from someone who has, who is actually very passionate about lifelong learning, I love your learning journey mags. So you retired after 35 years as a teaching professional, you decided to take up a PhD and you're very close to completing your research. How has your journey through the Ph D been so far?

Okay, so make a cup of tea because I couldn't be I couldn't be alive. I'm really happy to talk about the research journey. And from a part timers perspective in, in particular, what I call the slow lane. And actually the journey itself, the physical journey features really, really strongly in this last five years, and perhaps one more year to go, I live in covenant. So the 109 exports that stops at every pillar and post on the end three means that over two and a half hour journey each way, each time I go into Trinity, and from my house, to the lab and in Trinity, and that's been a double edged sword. It's given me loads of time for research reading, but it takes a toll on my on my body. And yet, I love the in person meeting with my supervisors, and the chats with my fellow PhDs. But the distance meant that those face to face meetings were too infrequent. And those chats you need them to bring about improvements in your thinking as as you progress through the PhD. And maybe the only really good you good thing about this past year of at home on screen learning is that we've all gotten much better at using the technology to bring those forms of charts about and I'm thinking say in particular of last week, a lot of us from the school of education, education, we were together for the postgraduate conference, and there was a discussion on the programme about the application of the ethics process, but it went because of the agility of the way we could use the tech, it went in every direction, and it forked from the official, I think thing we were going to discuss right into the ethics of care. And because that conversation took place, I will now go back and revisit an audit my own ethics section, and do some really reflective thinking and writing, you know, before I before I progress and those unexpected twists in the in the PhD journey, they've been really, really good. And for instance, I'm looking at you, Shelli. So you took the annual PG conference a couple of years ago, and injected a completely faculty student mix into it with say, I'm thinking of the section session we had called the good, the bad and the ugly, where everything was on the table. And we could talk about it and bringing in so my heart soared when you brought in the pechakucha, which is from the unconference word that that I am studying. And we then turned to GASTA. And all of that is really important. So I've allowed myself the privilege of taking the slow route and having those those formative formative meetings along the way. I don't have the stamina for March, the stamina for marching through it like that, like a full timer was so strong. I know. I studied for a while I read and it seems to be maybe paying off. Now I I'm not sure the things like working out my methodology, like I had a dilemma for ages configure it all out, sort of solved itself along the way because we spent so long reading the literature, I was looking at organisational organisation theory and literature, I tripped over the sensemaking I realised that's what I'm doing. So that became my overarching methodology leading thing I found when I was reading about open space technology, that's where teachmeet came from. I found appreciative inquiry in there in a panic one day I found IPA interpretive phenomenological analysis, you know, for my analytical method, that's become a huge part of my life. I would add in one of the things the other thing that's really important and you know this because you've been part of it with me, back channels of communication on the journey are really really important. All our Ph. D buddies, particularly since we've been apart from each other, that you know, the WhatsApp groups, the connections with each other well, how are you doing this? How are you getting on with that? That is to me the lifeblood of of my mic, particularly the second part of my PhD journey, and it's lovely because I'm the elder lemon in the group. And being in the company of the youngsters is really really energising for me and and one other thing I will add in this is part of kind of the circle of life. I did only start my PhD in my late 50s. And my dad was very ill at the time I was doing the application. And he and I talked about it, he happened long to live where we're talking about it. Around the time I would be chatting to dad in the hospital change Trinity about the application process. And he loved this because he was the only person who knew besides me, and one day he sat back with Big grin and he said, Hmm, I've just realised like you're nearly 60. And I'm still paying for your education. Oh, so that's a lovely, that's, that's a lovely part of the journey for me. I'm quite a moving part when when I think of it, but really, really good because of their, their, their involvement and volunteer ism, as well.

I was just going to say really quickly. Basically, what pechakucha is, is is a 20 images, you're given your allotted 20 images for 20 seconds, you can speak on each image for 20 seconds for a total of 400 seconds to talk about your research. So it's a very concise, quick way of it a bit like an elevator pitch in a conference style. It's a great way for people to come on in conferences, especially educational conferences, and just give a little blurb about about their topic and what they're doing, what their methodology is that type of thing in that short period of time. And what you ended up doing the next year was to take it when you took it over. Was it two years after? Yeah, two years after me three years ago, I think Yeah, yeah. And then instead of doing a Pecha Kucha, there was another style of conference presentation, which is very innovative. And that is GASTA. And GASTA is a five minute lightning talk where you're given five minutes and, and especially in our world and rpgr conferences, you Tom Farrelly is the one that facilitates those GASTA talks, which is he's, he's quite funny, because when that buzzer buzzes at the end of that five minutes, you're done, no matter where you are, you're not allowed to speak anymore. So it was a kind of a neat and interesting way, again, very innovative way to present research. And so I just wanted to make sure that the listeners were familiar with what those were, because you didn't know us and they are important

Absolutely, and it's really important because that's short. Ehm that short ehm presentation style. The nano presentation we call it in TeachMeet is the lifeblood of teachmeet and I have to say, say Pecha Kucha has been around for for a fair while but Tom rein... he's sort of reinvented the whole idea he remixed the whole idea of the nano presentation to turn it into a really human audience participative method and it's just we call them the gospel master. So it's, it's an it's very, it's coming out my findings. It's very, very important that you have the human person, personal person to the person and feel to think so. Yeah, thank you for clarifying that. My, what I need to do is I've got immersed in things and I take things for granted I presume people know things.

And and Pecha Kucha is a Japanese style way of presenting came about in in business, originally, so not not really for educational research or that type of thing. But GASTA Do you know what GASTA stands for?

GASTA is quick.

Just do it.

And that's, that's Irish, right?

Yes, it's Irish that he makes us come to the concert down in Irish and it's great fun, particularly when it does when he does it with an international group. So they've got to learn their 12345 you know, in Irish we had it last Saturday as well and it sort of energises the room. You don't get anything in any great depth. But it's what my friend Sarah Jane calls a spragu. Oh, you get enough of an idea of what the person is doing that if it's been of interest to you. You found out where to go and find things. Yeah, it's a it's a lovely, lovely injection to professional learning. People really, really appreciate it.

Yeah, it's, like I said, it's innovative. It's fun. And I knew that GASTA was Irish, but I didn't actually know what it stands for. And I struggled to count to five in the beginning. But now I am able to do whenever the GASTA comes up, which is a as an international person, it's good for me to

three Catherine good. Yeah.

So, um, you know, mags were, we are always learning. And I heard that you recently have come to a new awareness that is everything to you at this moment. What is that? And what does that mean for you?

Yeah, I think what's different was to be telling everybody about it. But last week, I was introduced, I went I went online to to hear a woman and research and webinar with Ksenia abinadi, and she called herself a Pracademic. And I had only never heard the word before. And it was like an epiphany to me, like, I found the move into academia strange the first time one of the teach meats I observed, and it was a group in Australia and the guy who was introducing me call me an academic from Trinity College in Dublin, I nearly fell out of my chair. But 1% you said Pracademic and I've been reading up on it since. So I'm still in my practice. And I'm looking at it through an academic lens. Now that makes me happier. It makes me sit happier within the because I'm working, you know, I'm studying within the community, nothing about us. Without us, you know, shines shines shines through. So it was lovely because all the way through my school years, one of the things as a teacher and and professional development provider for for my peers was, I loved our well it's attributed to Arthur Ashe, I don't know if he was the first one to say it. But start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. So I doubt I've used it kind of as an excuse to be slow with my research, you know, I'm just doing what I can on at the moment. And I saw it in action at a Teach Meet one night there was a very special Teach Meet, the one where I was I was sitting back at a Teach Meet in 2015. I was I was part of the audience really. And I was taking it all in wondering what what was it that was causing the joy in this room, I was sitting near and one of the teachers that repeatedly came to Teach Meet, she came to every Teach Meet within a drive of her house that she could come to. And she always had a copy book with her. And I realised I looked at her. I said, that's the same copy book each time. So we have chat about it. And she said yeah, this is my professional development I jot the things down here in the copy and if they're any good for she taught in a DEIS Primary School in Dublin if there are any good for she called in my boys, I will bring that back to school on Monday. So I thought this idea of something for Monday, in in my head. But I also thought last week of her I said GOSH she was Pracademic. At the time, she was coming to hear what the academics what the practitioners were both saying equally, because that's one of the joys of teachmeet It's a lovely mix of, of Academic Presentations and practical presentations. So both of those, all of that has kind of come together in my mind in a very happy explosion of fireworks over over the weekend.

It's that's really actually quite interesting. And I love that something for Monday idea. And I also love that that the the way in which you say a prac academic because you know I, you know did my PhD, I've been here in Ireland for five years. And I used to always tell people, I'm not an academic, I'm a practising academic, and, but I love, I never would have thought, hey, let's combine it together, we can call it a Pracademic I love that it just gives you that idea that it's not always just about, you know, researching and reading, and you've got your nose and books and you know, purely from an academic sense, but that you're actually practising and taking it out into the world. And for me, you know, in the research that I did on volunteering, it was very important to me that I I not be considered, I didn't want to be considered an academic or purely an academic. Because volunteering is so community based, it's about building those relationships. And, you know, though, I was looking at identity, and I was looking at dispositions, and I was looking at, you know, learning informal and formal learning those types of things. I am out in the community, I'm part of the community and I wanted to make sure that my research was more than just about something that sort of gets put onto a shelf, but actually becomes part of the community. So I really do love that prac Adamic word and I will probably steal that and use it in the future, as well. So Um...

I'm gonna get two badges and we'll wear them

Okay, sounds great. Um, you know, I understand that Teach Meet is really a completely voluntary Group type of a phenomenon. And why is this do you think?

Yeah, it's it's due, I'm thinking about that is what I've been doing, I suppose for since the day I decided to do to do the PhD. And I think about how it started. There's a lovely photograph. It's out there online. And I call it some blokes on a bridge in Scotland, it's from 2006. But all it was where Teach Meet came from was some teachers who knew each other from this new fangled internet thing online, who met at a conference and had a chat about getting together face to face to have chats about the techie things that were working for them. And maybe at this stage, I take a little break and look out the window and wave across the sea to john Johnston, David noble, and Eoin McIntosh, who would probably shout back at me. Hey, Mags, have you not written that thesis yet?. And so the first Teach Meet wasn't even called Teach Meet it was teachers meeting, but when the next event was being organised purpose purposefully, the name was worked on with care. I know that now, as the events got more and more popular, people voted with their feet, it spread organically, and evolved as it did somewhere in the world. Almost every day, there was a teachmeet going on. And when I started to when I started to look into it and and look at the the origins of where it may have come from, I thought of it as because of it was 2006. I thought of it. And I think of it as the love charge of the unconference world and the social media. And that was brewing in 2006. The really, really unusual thing about Teach Meet in the unconference world is that it's the only totally unincorporated entity well, that I know of that I'm involved in. And even though it's fairly global, now, there's no central calm. There's nothing apart from a really carefully crafted compounding in a distinctive font logo. It's truly open. And I just as a little aside, Shelli, I'm not going into it today, that openness, and on its own owned, leaves it vulnerable to appropriation, but we will have the conversation, perhaps another day about open education. And it's almost biblical. In the simplicity that it has, all you need for Teach Meet are a couple of the teachers have venue where they can gather, and a few tests of rules that each of them will share a short, something they found useful, that might be good for others demo and discuss. That's what Eoin MacIntosh has, has often described it as us to the why you asked me, Why do you think it happens? There is a huge hunger in teachers there alone with our classes, they really want to know if there's anything they can do to improve themselves and their classroom for other students. And the metaphor I think of all the time, we've discussed this before, from from from other sociology discussions, I think of it all the time as a desire line, those elephant paths, cow paths, rabbit paths that animals and humans wear into the ground that lead them from where they are to where they want to be. And they bypass the steps and the concrete and the sidewalks that the authorities have decided and provided. So it comes down to the teachers, they're finding each other to get the inside scoop. And that's something for a Monday that we spoke about earlier.

So Mags, I know that you've read my work on the active volunteer disposition, and we've had a few discussions together about the crossover between my work and teach me. And I'd really love to get your take on this in a little bit more detail.

Yeah, I really yeah, I'm really happy to talk about the crossover with your work this disposition of volunteers, which just woke me up when I was when I was analysing the reasonings that people were bringing to me in the interviews, and it helped me to pinpoint what they were saying in the in the conversations they had with me. And okay, so your dispositions I recognise so the idealists, the guide, the champion, but it's the volunteer you call the executive volunteer disposition that came through the interview conversations. And the questionnaires as well that I analysed a catch people hearing, I kept hearing people say, the same two sides of the one coin, have a purposeful idea that do the thing, right? And do the right thing. Those two purposes, were coming right through everyone I interviewed and all of the people who, who answered the questionnaire for me, as well as the actual executive disposition that I say, I'm gonna borrow your use of the word disposition. When I describe the different motivations that people say, in my data that has brought them to teach me in my participants, I see three dispositions, I see seekers, I see sharers. And I see bringers. And the word disposition is a lovely way to describe them. They're not types. I'm not gonna put anybody in a box. It's just a way of acknowledging and complimenting them on what they have shared with me and helps me to shed light on the research questions. And I do actually have finally research questions for I love them. I have nicknames for them.

Yeah, that idea of disposition. I'm just gonna piggyback on that for just a quick minute in what you were saying with the three dispositions that you're seeing. You know, we think We should think about the word of disposition as being fluid. And it has that ability to mould and change and shape as we grow as we mature in our knowledge and our understanding. And so your seekers could, you know, come along and be seekers but then maybe as they continue to grow, and they continue to be a part of the Teach Meet now they become shares. And so they're not locked into that position. Oh, well, I you know, I was labelled a seeker. So I'll always be a seeker a disposition has that ability and that, that you know, that that air of fluidity that you can change and grow along with the learning that you get.

Yeah, and I love what you've just said, because I've seen, we've seen that in the circle of Teach Meet people who have come along as a curiosity, I kind of go, whoo, I want one of those and become the person who brings this to to others. So this position is a lovely, it's a lovely sort of super cape to carry with you. But you can you can merge from one to the other. That's what I liked in your dispositions of volunteers. I could see, I could see Oh, yeah, at one stage in part of my life, I was that I was that guide. Yep. Now I'm that executive or idealist.

Yep. Absolutely. So after a year, or after actually more than a year and a half, or almost have this global pandemic, do you think that COVID-19 has had an impact on teach me? And if so, in what ways?

Well, I do it has, I'm not in the way I thought it was. It's quite surprising. And part of what's happened in the last year with me, because Teach Meet is so very, very face to face, interpersonal. I mean, the whole point was, we want to sit down together. So I thought it would be calm after March the 12th, a renewed damp squib to go online, but I was committed to doing it. And I'm brought up to do what you said you were going to do. So I toggled along. But believe me, Shelli teachmeet, pivoted to online so quickly, much more quickly than anything else in my life. They were online within a week of the of the of the shutdown, the very same factors that take people to face to face events, took them online, they weren't allowed to be together. So they found a way to be together, that curiosity of how your peers were coping with the COVID had had a to tweet up and running within a week, the eagerness to share their new practice the hunger to be together, just long enough to get what I said, my friend, Sarah Jane calls the spragu, the spark the ignition energy to, to move onwards. And this the same, I found the same factors made for a good Teach me offline, as online with additional benefits.

And I think that it's really interesting because teachmeet is a as an informal form of CPD. And where, you know, a lot of professional continuing professional development, especially in the world of education, you know, tends to be, you know, a Saturday morning workshop or, you know, you have a release from work to be able to go to a workshop or something like that, that's very formalised. It's it's bullet points and slides. But But you, I assume, are finding this, this some, this ability, and this desire for teachers to have this informal, CPD, and they may find it even more rewarding than formal CPD. I don't know, maybe that's something that comes out in your findings. But it just something that strikes me as I've been doing some research on professional conversations, and you and I have talked about that as well. But

yeah, it's part of it, it's coming through and a lot of people would volunteer a fact that I went to the conference, but actually the unconference teach meet the night before was where I got, you know, where I did most of the of the, of the learning, but it's, it's amazing that, I guess, because of the informality and the ability to work together on the fly was part of the teachmeet communities and way of rocking, moving, pivoting, whatever you want to call it, moving themselves lock stock and barrel to what again, use what you have start where you are, was, was perhaps easier. And there was a lot of trust in the community and the web to lead the platforms, you know, leave leave the dynamic parts of the platforms free for people to use as as they wished.

And listen, I know all too well, that as you near the end of your PhD road, that that often we're very eager, I'm eager to find out about you to actually get into the meat of your research and I know that you're I'm probably very eager to shout out your findings to the whole world. But I also know that you have to be really mindful of what you can and can't share before your submission and before your viva Is there anything any nuggets of wisdom that you can share with us about your research on Teach Meet before you submit,

well, I liked the way you use the term nuggets of wisdom, because actually, nuggets of wisdom are what I'm searching for in when I'm using IPA, and interpretive phenomenological analysis where I'm looking for I'm searching for the nuggets of wisdom within what what what the park Teach Meet participants have given to me look at the moment, surely I'm wrangling with trying to iron out the findings into a legible

chapter that has fidelity to to to the participants. And it's like tidying up your house before the visitors come. And but there are huge big, lovely, emergent teams and results that I will come to in time. But there's there are two things I would like to talk about with no problem because there's the two sets of data in which I was least involved, I had really nothing to do with them. I had I've set a date for 15 teach meets that I went and observed I did fly on the wall and open passive observation. So I had nothing to do with what went on. And I also have a beautiful set of responses to you know, at the end of the of the questionnaire, if you're allowed to answer Have you anything else to say, I have learned that is probably the most powerful thing in a in a questionnaire. So I went to say the observations with the teach mates, I went to 15. Some of them were huge, some of them were tiny. Some of them were online, some of them were offline, some of them had loads and loads of papers, some had just 20. But in general, the average one was about two hours long, with maybe 10 speakers and 100 people in in the room. And to be honest, apart from Okay, the inability to provide refreshments. And the informal setting. That was the only thing the online couldn't couldn't give the same variables one out in the three of them in that sorry, in the 15 of them. And the reason I have three in my head is that three key variables seem to be in you know, working at play in the good Teach meet, the main one being the MC the bananshee, the faranshee, we when we took it to Ireland, we adopted the bananshee, faranshee here, MC is what it's usually anywhere else. The second key variable is the power of the presenter and the presentation, both of them content and context. And then the dynamics in the room, all three being tied up with the emcee, of course, who if they have a light touch, and the ability to read a room or resume, you'll recognise anyone who's been to anything will recognise this, keeping the time keep keeping to order without being too bossy, keeping the thing flowing and one of the founders, you and he, he likens it to the informal session, in a music session where everybody comes along. everybody listens to everybody else in turn, and hopefully everybody else learned something new by the end of the night. And as for the presenters and the presentations that blew me away the the people want to hear his authenticity, they want to hear the authentic story of another teacher in their classroom on wash has worked for them. They do not want the dumping of the bullet written PowerPoint thingy. And proof of concept of this for me was I didn't see much of it. I saw very little lettering through through PowerPoint. But when it happened, it was like the energy in the room had been sucked out. it's like everything turns off these are just you know coming from from from my own observation notes on the fly. I mean, a lot of people talk about it, I saw it I saw it happen and the part but I thought that wouldn't transfer the part that I was fearful of because you get to be kind of you know Irish mommy worried about your little baby Teach meet but I was afraid that the dynamic of a good or you know, convivial face to face have a good crack as well as learning Teach meet I thought that wouldn't transfer, but it did. It really, really transferred. Because once the person or the group organising the tea tweet online, realised the importance of there are two things that matter in an unconference. One is called I used to call it the law of two feet now for like, you know, you can't be ableist to call it the law of mobility, the freedom to get up and move away to someplace else if you're not driving where you are, without any judgement and to come back again, afterwards. So the law of mobility Once breakout rooms were made free for people to wander to online that worked. So online offline, the law of mobility is really important. And the other one is on calling it to chat now because I'm online, so long of getting used to call and chat. But when people go to teach me for is the conversations, the water cooler stuff, the the in between eating the turn into the person next to you and commenting on what you're hearing. Have you tried that? Can Can we do that? And that worked online. And that was the thing online, that worked much, it could work much better. Because when you're online, you can see the name of the other people who are there. And one of the two tweets I observed was the most dynamic Teach me I have ever been to the speaker was speaking in one window, the chat window was flying. arranged, not people were sharing links with each other asking questions for massage. He said, do it this way do have you tried this, there was a whole new window literally opened within within the world. So I was really happy about bash, sort of fear, my own fear my own bias, I suppose that own face to face can be good. And I would say going forward in the in the going forward in the chats I'm having with people online will online will be part of that hybrid Teach meet could be a thing that we might we might have. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Again, the other thing I said I might share I you know, in respect to the people who shared their ideas with me, I loved that the question at the end of the question, or have you anything else to say, gave me a beautiful, small, tiny, rich, it was like a mini me version of all of the huge Bank of data I got from the analysis and in the interviews. And again, what are people looking for, and I'm turning around because I've written the three words on the wall behind me, they're looking to be connected with others, they're looking to share. And the word I'm picking for the moment is they are trying to remix their professional learning. They're very, very serious about their professional learning, but they want to be you know, they want to be involved in it and to drive it more than more themselves. And I got huge riches in those, there were only 17 of them loads and loads of people on that kind of free answer, kind of give emojis and good luck. And this is great and good for you. When I put those on the side, I had 70 sentences. And in those 70 sentences, I got a huge insight into what's important inside the Teach meet how it works as professional development, how it should go in the future. So I'm great believer, and I'm really glad I've put I put that in, you know, leave an open space, be yours be as open as you can to listening to an allowing people a space to place something on its, you know, unexpected items in the baggage area can be really, really useful. So for the moment, they're the two pieces I feel that totally and absolutely belong to belong to others. I haven't interpreted anything from them in in one way. I'm letting you know what i what i saw the rest of it. I will just tonight. Yeah, take like, take take a little more time. But I'll be back to you.

Yeah, definitely. And I'll be really excited when you, you do get to that point. Because again, I can't wait to read it myself. And I can't wait to be able to have you on again and share even some more fuller findings. When that happens. And you know, it's really interesting because teachmeet You know, it wouldn't be something that I would be familiar with. Because I've never been a from the American Standard, the K 12 educator in Ireland, the primary or post primary teacher, it sounds like they're that teach me it is is a community of practice. It's a community of learners. I just love the informal nature of it. It just makes it you know, beautiful.

Yeah, there's there's that that's one of my research questions. I'm trying to it's what I call a situation trying to glean from people who engage in Teach meet, where do they place it in their professional learning? And is it community practice? Is it professional learning, personal learning, network, professional learning network, or professional development? Because if I listen to the chatter online, you know, it's there since 2006. There's a huge Bank of conference conversation going on all the time online. They're the three things I see people refer to best CPD ever. This is my PLN we're in a community of practice here, those sentences came up, over and over again on Twitter, on blogs, you know, everywhere. So, again, I'm that's in the findings. I'm teasing that out and along the way, learning as you about myself. That's what I meant about the acronyms. Actually, we could have game of Scrabble here, the only letters, the only letters we'd need would be p CLND. t. And then did I say, and we only need seven letters to form 17. I'm up to 17 on an A, for the best one of all authentic professional learning, which, which I really, really love. So we need eight letters to form 17, descriptions of teacher learning of some of some description, again, we come back to that another day, and perhaps play that game of Scrabble.

It sounds fantastic. And, you know, when you said that, you know, this is my CPD that your participants that, you know, we're saying, This is my CPD, this is, you know, it, to me, it espouses that idea of this is where I belong. And when you feel like you're an integral part of something, and that you're not going somewhere to be, you know, lectured at, or, you know, that type of thing where everybody feels like they have valuable input. It, it's that that idea of community is just can be very, very mind blowing. And I you know, I could talk about that from a sociological perspective, all day long you and I can have that conversation. But we're getting towards the end of our conversation here. So what I'd like to know from you is, what's next for you?

What's next for me in the next two weeks is a very short break from Pracademia to have a very special Bijou family wedding long awaited COVID delayed family wedding. And that would be absolutely joyful. And then I need to get I will get back on the trail with this is where Keith Johnston and Richard middle of my two supervisors will really start to to earn their crust with me because I need to take everything I have now and iron it in, as I say, iron it out, take the wrinkles out of the way, and try and make it and accessible to others. I feel very steeped in it now. And and and I know there's a lot in here in my head and pointing to my head here, I need to get it onto that flat a4 page, I need to do a discussion chapter and a reflection chapter and then hopefully within another year to try and get a handle on sorting it into something resembling a dissertation for submission. And something that does justice to everything that's really important to me, to the work I've done, but to the people who have contributed to the teachmeet community, let's call it the community, the networked community, to the phenomenon itself, which I went into, which I will denote as a biologist ecologist, I'm just trying to find the niche of this thing. And then about a year mapped out for that, and maybe we'll talk again, a year is up. Let's talk again and see how far I've got.

Definitely, um, I really always like to ask my guests if they have resources that they'd like to share with our listeners, like where Can somebody go if they want to find out more about teach meet? Or, you know, if they're just really interested in kind of the conversation that we've been having? What would you have any suggestions for them?

Well, I've two suggestions. One of them what three, one of them would be look come to me at magsamond.com. There's a small community booklet that was that was produced after the 10th anniversary of teachmeet, using the stories of of participants saying what the impact had been on them, because being an informal organisation, it doesn't even have a web presence where we could hang it. So I mind it on my examined.com go to hashtag teachmeet. That's a timeline on Twitter, that's dynamic. It updates three, four times a day from all over the world. And like timezone stuff is really funny, can update at 2 o'clock in the morning, you know, saying we had our teachmeet and this is what happened. And if you want to read something, I wrote down the names of two books, if you want me to say them Shelli want to understand the mindset of teachmeet is really the mindset of the unconference world. And all of that came from open space technology. And really, technology is a misnomer, a misnomer. But Harrison Owen owns books on on how open space technology can be set up, you get a really good feel for the unconference movement from that. Or the last of the acronyms I mentioned APL and Webster Wright. And her book on authentic professional learning, which was her PhD as well. Both of those are invaluable to me and I go back to them a lot. But you know, something Shelli, the But the big but is I would say the proper way to find about it. Find out about each page is to find one signup bull and learn about it from experience sit in the room where it happens, and I don't know anybody I don't know anybody who exists who regretted doing that. And it is my ambition to get you to a Teach meet Dr. Shelli Ann Garland.

I would love it. Great Mags. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you today and having you as a guest on my podcast. Thank you so much for sharing some a bit of your research and you know a bit of your stories and your anecdotes. The things that you've shared is just so insightful. And I thank you. It has been a real pleasure to have you today.

pleasure is all mine. Shelli Thank

you.

Thank you.

I hope that you've enjoyed this discussion on a dash of salt, a space where you'll always find fresh and current discussions on society and learning today. Season with just the right touch of experts in education and a dash of sociological imagination. Please be sure to like and share this episode. And don't forget to subscribe to a dash of salt on pod bean so that you don't miss the next episode. Thanks so much and we'll chat again soon.