ISKME's Big Ideas Fest - Let's Replicate!
Attention: PLEASE REMIX. This document is designed with replication of the Big Ideas Fest model in mind. Edit, add, share, and help us establish simple guidance to fuel a spread of the Big Ideas Fest model.
In an earlier Google+ post (+TimFarquer210), I expressed a wish for the evolution of all ED workshops and conferences into the Big Ideas Fest model. What follows are a few imperatives for turning your workshop, conference, or professional development into the dynamic learning event participants experience at Big Ideas Fest. Let's replicate!
Diverse Participants
The best way to generate new solutions to old challenges is by exposure to different lines of thought. Traditional ED workshops and conferences assemble groups of like minded people. We have conferences for Reading Specialists, conferences for High School English teachers, and School Administrator workshops taught by retired School Administrators. The Big Ideas Fest model allows a variety of education professionals to interact with others outside the field with a passion for kids, communities, and learning. The conversations that ensue are unique and insightful. For your next event, extend invitations to students, parents, community leaders, and business professionals. Actively include under-represented portions of your population. When these conversations are skillfully facilitated, you will be amazed at the amount of growth and learning that will occur.
The Rapid Fire
Traditional conferences march in a variety of outside speakers to inform the audience on a variety of topics. Big Ideas Fest exposes participants to the thinking and experiences of outside speakers in the form of the "Rapid Fire". During a conference Rapid Fire, each speaker is allotted 15 minutes to share their personal experience around a central topic or theme. At #bif2013 the first rapid fire was entitled "Identify Opportunity". Participants were treated to the perspectives of Chris Emdin (#HipHopEd, Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University), Nina Simon (Executive Director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, a "museum visionary"), and poet Taylor Mali. As participants left the rapid fire for their respective Action Collab, excitement and creative energy filled the room. To incorporate the Rapid Fire approach into a simple afternoon PD session, utilize the diversity of your participants. For example, give three participants 5 minutes each to model their most successful "student engagement" technique and share their experience around the success.
Action Collabs
In Action Collabs, think process over product. Each Action Collab operates within Design Parameters, the tenets of improv, and the concept of and rather than but (the idea of building off one another's ideas rather than exploiting holes in the approach). In a successful Action Collab discussions naturally flow around what led to an action (or inaction, thought, feeling, ect). The holy grail of the Big Ideas Fest model is exposing each participant to their natural tendencies in the face of challenge (aka opportunity). The workshop is successful if participants leave asking themselves questions like...
Do I actively facilitate co-creation?
Do I work to make my partners look good?
At the completion of a successful Action Collab, participants are more in tune with their tendencies and better equipt to leverage future opportunities. The product is important, but the process is key.
Production within Action Collabs revolve around the delivery of a prototype within a specific timeline. At Big Ideas Fest, a prototype is the visual representation of an idea for leveraging an identified opportunity.
Prototype production occurs in 4 phases:
- Identifying an opportunity
- Designing the prototype
- Building the prototype
- Scaling and spreading the idea.
When the time comes to build the prototype, simple arts and crafts or left-over materials will do. Remember, participants are merely building a visual representation of their idea. The idea is their product; and although each production phase is important, the creative process within the group dynamic is the key.
As you plan your next conference, your next workshop, or your next professional development activity, build the event around the imperatives of the Big Ideas Fest model. Let's replicate. Now that's a Big Idea!
For further details check out the schedule from Big Ideas Fest 2013 (#bif2013).
Prototype images courtesy of Susan Wolf. They can be found on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30002189@N03/.