As the teaching profession continues to look for inspiration and ideas to continually improve and raise the bar, many teachers are turning to each other for the answers.
Where better to get the magic formula than from fellow teachers who are successful practitioners in their own right? And with physical education recently being on the radar of the government, there had never been a better time for PE teacher and assistant head teacher at Wooodham Academy, Jon Tait, to organise a global gathering of PE staff.
Although local TeachMeets have taken place before, including an incredibly successful event at Woodham last year, the idea was to widen the catchment to include teachers from the length and breadth of the UK and across the world using the power of the internet.
Teachers from as far away as Australia and Dubai signed up to deliver an online presentation. This event epitomised what is fast becoming a revolution in teacher training and professional development. TeachMeets are springing up everywhere, attracting teachers from all subjects and teaching groups, all with the desire to learn from each other and share good practice. Add modern technology to this and you suddenly have a potential global audience with endless g collaboration possibilities!
Utilising Adobe Connect technology, presenters were able to showcase their ideas easily, sharing their desktops, presentations and screencasts. This proved to be extremely successful with PE teachers from around the world who were able to take away some real gems they could use the very next day to improve their own practice. The event was also followed by hundreds of other teachers on Twitter.
Due to the popularity of the event, last week, the PE department at Woodham hosted a PE department from Sheffield for the day who came to look at the outstanding practice on display. Their day culminated with their participation in the International TeachMeet.
Organiser of the event, Jon Tait, said “The ability to connect with teachers from around the world and share outstanding practice is superb. It’s great to know that our students at Woodham are benefitting from this desire to continuously look for the best ideas and practices from around the world and by transferring these to the classroom and the field”.
