March 13, 2026 Reflection

This week we tried out doing Ed Camps! Ed Camps is a type of discussion activity to lead in zoom classes in which students suggest and then vote on possible discussion topics, before going into breakout rooms to discuss their topic of choice, before returning to the main room to present the results of their discussion to the whole class.

Students in breakout rooms tend to get off task and stay off task if left unsupervised. Our group of soon to be professional teachers, discussing a topic that we were genuinely interested in very quickly got off topic, but as adults we were still able to redirect our focus back to the topic.

In order to use EdCamps in an online class setting, I would spend quite a bit of time scaffolding how to lead discussions, as well as assigning specific roles for each group ahead of time. Despite these measures, I think that I would only use it online with secondary students, as I anticipate elementary and middle school students having too hard a time with focusing in this online setting. In a physical classroom, a teacher can notice how group conversation is going, and when necessary use proximity to refocus conversation. As such, I think it would be possible to adapt this for use in physical classes with any age.