One of the most powerful things that you can do is to bring like-minded teachers in a room to share ideas!
That is the idea of teachmeets, where highly motivated teachers catch up to share lesson ideas, resources and support to each other outside of traditional conference and formal meeting settings. The power of teachmeets is that they cross traditional boundaries; teachers from the public & private sector simply come together around a common goal around helping students and each other!

Recently Russell Cairns from Jasper Road Public School & Karl Easton from Kellyville Ridge Public School ran a teachmeet at the Museums Discovery Center in Castle Hill, Sydney. This event was fantastic; teachers got the change to rotate around a round-robin of workshops, chats and resource providers around the common theme of “Make Robots Great Again!”. It was fantastic to hear the buzz from the teachers from across north-western Sydney and importantly learn about how they were implementing digital technologies in their classrooms. Even R2D2 made an appearance! Check out the video and see what all the fuss was about and maybe reach out to Russell and Karl to get involved next time!

Even if you can’t to north-west Sydney there are plenty of opportunities to join a local teachmeet. If there isn’t one in your area there is no reason why you couldn’t start a local one and then grow your PLN! The NSW Department of Education has a great overview of the types of teachmeets out there plus you can potentially find a local one via Teachmeet NSW.  Yes, it takes a bit of effort to pull these things together, however the rewards far exceed the effort… and they’re fun to be involved in too!

Happy teaching,

Ben Newsome