Will you still Pedagoo me tomorrow? David Cameron

Pedagoo Muckle

How can Pedagoo be even more Muckle?

Background

The Pedagoo Muckle event way back in October – yes, I am very slow – looked at how we might move forward with Pedagoo. The idea of this session was to look at how we might get beyond the teachmeet and make Pedagoo even more central to the culture of educators in Scotland and beyond.

We tried to recognise the challenges involved.

Pedagoo derives a lot of its credibility and status from its independence. It has always been “by teachers, for teachers”, and has never been beholden to any organisation for funding or support. At the same time, there has been a growing sense that we need strong and positive voices in Scottish Education, and in education more generally. Pedagoo is capable of making a unique contribution to that. It has no fixed formal structure. It is a genuine grass roots movement and, while it does not have a formal membership, it has a huge number of practitioners engaging with it. The nature of that engagement is unusual, if not unique. Terms and conditions are not core business. It does not deal with advancement or any form of self-interest. Its focus is relentlessly on practice, the improvement of learning, the enhancement of understanding and insight and a better experience and improved outcomes for learners.

The challenge then was how to make Pedagoo more muckle without losing its integrity.

Principles

Any further development of Pedagoo would be based on extending the existing model

Pedagoo should remain a forum for many voices, not a representative body

While Pedagoo will accept support and enter into partnerships, as in the recent partnership with the Scottish College for Educational Leadership for the Enquire Connect, Engage events, it will not act as a “delivery agency”, but only take part in activities which are in line with its key purposes

The key purposes are:-

To support teachers in sharing practice in ways that are accessible and as undemanding and possible

To encourage as many teachers as possible to use Pedagoo to share ideas and practical advice

To promote a variety of activities and events to encourage and facilitate the exchange of ideas and examples of practice

To encourage and support teacher enquiry

To provide platforms, online and face-to-face, for positive discussion of edcuational issues and ideas

Possible developments

In order to strengthen and extend Pedagoo, participants suggested the following:-

Identifying local “buddies” to support now leaders/organisers for teachmeets and other activities and using this to build confidence and to empower other teachers

Encouraging colleagues willing to promote Pedagoo in mainstream forums – e.g. Tess, GTCS Magazine, Glow etc

Establishing a “safe hands support network” with online “how to” videos – How to organise a teachmeet”, “Running an enquiry meet”, “Organising a Pedagoo learning lunch in your school” etc

Setting up a Yammer group with a possible appeal to Facebook users

Generally trying to make more use of Facebook

Putting teachmeet clips online as illustration and as resources

Offering to support individual schools who would like to use the teachmeet format for some of their CPD

Offering “Pedagoo surgeries” to assist colleagues who want to take on responsibility for organising events or more generally on “How can I get involved?”