I enjoyed the conferences we did last class where we chose and voted on the topics that we would discuss in smaller pods. It was a very democratic approach to making sure that we were actually discussing things that we were interested in. There was no pressure for the person who suggested the idea to lead the discussion, so it was a very collaborative group discussion, and we could suggest topics that we were interested even if we didn’t feel confident enough to lead the session.
I also liked that we could flow in and out of groups as we pleased, although it was difficult sometimes to catch new people up to speed and could feel like we were starting the whole conversation over again. However, the new arrival would always have some fresh new ideas to add. I could see this being complicated to do on a Pro-D day, because the lack of organization could make it chaotic, but I liked how open the format was, and it definitely worked at a small scale. It was very cool to see the various topics in education that my classmates were interested in, and it was flattering that my idea was one of the chosen!
