Inspiration for session topics

The following are the kinds of sessions that might be suggested and selected:

• What is experiential learning at Memorial?
• What skills do our graduates need to be successful citizens and community members—is this different than "employability" skills?
• How do you "teach" critical reflection?
• I've created X, which has improved my students' learning experience. I want to share it with you and I want you to ask me questions about it!
• What could we do to engage undergraduates in meaningful research opportunities?
• Things I've learned by teaching courses that incorporate community agencies.
• The biggest barrier to community-engaged learning for me is X…help me overcome it!
• What is authentic assessment; how would I incorporate authentic assessments in my teaching?
• I'm interested in exploring an interdisciplinary program in X. Is anyone else interested in exploring this with me?

Inspiration for session types

Yes, as a session convenor, you're invited to host something as simple as a conversation, but the following are different ways of organizing or facilitating a participatory session.

Group discussion

A session convenor identifies a topic they are interested in, and participants join the session and engage in conversation around that topic.

Fish bowl

A discussion where there is always one empty seat. The session convenor introduces the topic, and invites the first people up who want to start. If a participant wants to jump in, they can take the empty seat. This also implies that one of the current discussion participants needs to step back, and offer their seat. Alternatively you can do this an an open-interview setting, where the key interviewee remains seated, and the rest switch.

Ideastorm post-up

Ask a really compelling question and ask participants to brainstorm for solutions or new directions to take.

Show and tell

Present something great you’ve made. Make people aware of what it is. Then open up for questions, and deeper discussion.

Ask an "expert"

Present yourself as an "expert", or request that expert if you need help from them. As the session title indicates, ask them what you need. Also request other similar or complimentary experts to step up to participate. During the session the experts could tag each other to relay between different perspectives on the problem owner’s position.

Learn how to do X

Take the opportunity to teach people how to do something.

Text adapted from: Introducing the Unconference Day.