That’s the age-old question, isn’t it? We’ll dive more into this in our first workshop, but it’s essentially a term that describes educational practices that involve making and interest-driven creative projects. It initially gained attention in education due to its potential to inspire interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and related professions, but more recently its positive impact on identity and community building of young people has started to be widely recognized. Although the Maker Movement, which is a movement of democratized manufacturing, contributed to the increased exposure of the term “maker,” practitioners, policy makers, and researchers are seeing different definitions and implications with the term.

Through our workshops, we hope that we all deepen our thoughts and understanding of the term and the field of Maker Education.

An unconference is a conference style that aims to break down power dynamics between “experts” and the “audience” by letting participants dictate the sessions. This approach has been used in face-to-face teacher professional development programs like EdCamp and TeachMeet, and they’ve been shown to be motivational and empowering, allowing teachers to engage in deep collaborative inquiry and making learning relevant to their passion and needs.

An unconference happens like this:

• Kick-off introduction from the host (we’ll play a video kicking off the workshop and introducing you to the platform and unconference format, some things to think about/discuss, and the workshop logistics)
• Participants have a certain amount of time to propose sessions that focus on a certain aspect of the event’s theme (for example, you may want to propose a session on “making in humanities classes”). You don’t have to propose a session if you don’t want.
• Participants vote on which proposals should be sessions
• The sessions that get enough votes become breakout rooms that participants can then join (for example, maybe you want to join that session on “making in humanities classes”)
• Participants run discussions in their breakout rooms for a set amount of time. The person who proposed the session facilitates, whether it’s an open conversation, a play test, a debate, role-play, creating a document together, etc.
• Breakout rooms end and everyone reports back to the rest of the group

We’re running a study to see how participant-driven synchronous online workshops can foster a sense of community and ownership in learning among teachers. The study also examines how different formats of online breakout sessions can affect participant interactions and their learning experiences.

The data we collect will include: surveys, interviews, observation of your interactions with other participants during the workshop (like chats, how long you stay in breakout rooms, etc.). We will also record the workshop video chats, but only if you consent to being recorded. All data will be anonymized when we publish our findings in conference papers, journal articles, websites, etc. Participation in the study is voluntary and will help us better understand about how technology can be used to foster communities of learning!

We’re offering 10 Professional Development Points/1 Continuing Education point as issued and recognized by the State of Massachusetts. If you’re from another state or outside the U.S., we’ll issue you a letter outlining the work you’ve done in the workshops and the corresponding credit that MA would grant you. You can then pass that letter along to your place of employment or credentialing body to see if your state/district can honor the credits.

It is very important that you take part in the live workshops and interact with other participants in real time, but we understand unexpected things do happen, and that you may have to miss a workshop.

If you miss a workshop, you can make up for it in either of the following two ways:

1. Host an Unhangout session yourself and share your experience with us by responding to our survey.
2. Write a blog post about your Unhangout experience: describe your interaction with others, what you took out of it, and advice to others on how to make the best out of it. Don't forget to share the link with us!

Please note that we only accept one makeup per person. Please plan ahead to make sure that you can participate in at least four of the five synchronous sessions if you are interested in receiving PD credits.

If you are interested in this, send us an email at unhangout-for-educators@media.mit.edu to receive more details.