Professional Learning

Why Edcamp?

Edcamps are informal sessions by and for teachers, where anyone can present, and the focus is on collaboration and connections, group expertise, tech tools, and instructional design.

April 23, 2013 Updated April 12, 2016

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Photo credit: K.W. Barrett via flickr (CC BY 2.0)

During the past six years, hundreds of Edcamp events have popped up worldwide. Teachers from every corner of the globe have been organizing open opportunities for educators to collaborate and solve problems.

In spite of this growth and energy, there are still many educators who are either uninformed or skeptical of the Edcamp model for teacher professional development. Given the plethora of "silver bullets" and magical cures in education, some skepticism is healthy. It ensures that we refine and revise our beliefs through meaningful investigation.

What's an Edcamp?

Let’s begin with a definition. In short, Edcamps are:

Despite the concrete definition, it can be difficult to truly capture the Edcamp experience. That's because a "typical" day of learning at an Edcamp doesn't really exist. Each Edcamp is unique and based on the needs of the participants. When you arrive at the location (usually a school or university) on the day of the event, there is no pre-set schedule of sessions or presenters. Instead, there's just a blank sheet of big paper with a grid on it.

A session grid set up next to steps
Photo credit: Kristen Swanson
Edcamp session grid.

From that blank slate, everyone builds the session schedule together. As people mingle and chat over free coffee and donuts, they put up potential discussion topics on a board. Since it's my job to build the schedule at the Edcamp events I organize, I can truly attest that the entire process is positive and organic. Occasionally, people who don't even know each other realize that they have similar interests and end up running a session together. Other folks come with an idea, throw it out to the group, revise it, and end up posting it with a refined focus. Since anyone who attends an Edcamp event can be a presenter at the event, it's a very empowering experience for everyone involved.

The skeptics are likely wondering, "What do you do if no ones signs up?" (I get that question a lot.) And while there are certainly specific strategies you can use to ease your anxiety (building an idea board on the event page, having conversations with amazing educators who are planning to attend, etc.), they usually aren't needed. I've never attended or heard of an Edcamp where the schedule board didn't fill. It just doesn't happen.

What Happens in a Session?

Given the spontaneity of the schedule creation, you may be curious about the content of the sessions that are typically shared at an Edcamp. Well, it's certainly hard to generalize, but here is a sampling of sessions from recent Edcamp events:

  • Edcamp Omaha
  • Edcamp Atlanta
  • Educators often have very specific, concrete takeaways from sessions like these all over the country. Consider these positive personal outcomes:

    These aren't merely fluffy concepts. They are specific, practical strategies and ideas that educators are sharing and investigating at Edcamps all over the nation.

    Beyond the Takeaway

    Further, the social, interactive, recursive nature of an Edcamp is directly aligned to adult learning theories. In a whitepaper I wrote in 2011, blog posts about Edcamp were qualitatively analyzed to determine common themes. The most popular ideas were:

    These themes are directly correlated to the tenets of effective adult learning as stated in the meta-analysis by National Academies Press entitled How People Learn: Brain, Mind Experience, and School. And further peer-reviewed research in 2016 has corroborated these findings and added greater understanding about the efficacy of the model.

    The Edcamp model provides educators with a sustainable model for learning, growing, connecting, and sharing. Everyone's expertise is honored, and specific, concrete strategies are exchanged. When professional development is created "for teachers by teachers," everyone wins.

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