UnityEd 2024 returned to the city of Birmingham for the second year in row! The Library of Birmingham welcomed educators from around the country to discuss the latest trends and hot topics in teacher professional development. This years event included:
- Rebecca Earnshaw delivering a keynote at UnityEd 2024.
Keynotes:
- Time for Adaptive PD - Andy Newell, IRIS Connect
- How Can We Keep Great Teachers? CPD As A Tool For Teacher Agency - Sam Gibbs, Greater Manchester Education Trust
- Speaking Up: How To Amplify Oracy and Change the Conversation in Your Classroom - Rebecca Earnshaw, Voice21
Workshops:
- Adaptive Instructional Coaching - Haili Hughes, IRIS Connect
- AI for Adaptive PD at Scale - Matt Newell & Andy Newell, IRIS Connect
- Sustainable Collaborative PD & Lesson Study - Vesna Belogaska, IRIS Connect
Full Recordings below
Video Recap of UnityEd 2024
Time for Adaptive PD
by Andy Newell, Managing Director, IRIS Connect
One-size-all fits none. Every teacher is unique, as are their students. If we want teachers to notice and adapt strategies to dynamic environments, then we must adopt the same approach to their PD. At IRIS Connect we believe Teacher PD must be responsive to distinct contexts, informed by dialogue, peer support, and evidence-informed frameworks.
But how to do this at scale without running the risk of lethal mutation? How can we sustain adaptive programmes without spiraling cost and complexity? Does emergent technology hold the key?
How Can We Keep Great Teachers? CPD as a Tool for Teacher Agency
by Sam Gibbs, Trust Lead for Curriculum & Development, Greater Manchester Education Trust
As teachers continue to leave the profession at an alarming rate, schools and Trusts must ask themselves how they can grow and develop their staff, so as many great teachers as possible stay in our classrooms. In this session, Sam will explore the difficult balance between accountability and autonomy, making the case that school leaders should prioritise professional learning which promotes teacher agency.Speaking Up: How to Amplify Oracy and Change the Conversation in Your Classroom
by Rebecca Earnshaw, Voice 21
Talk is the most adaptive of teaching and learning tools but it is too often undervalued and overlooked. With the growing recognition and evidence base for the need to take speaking seriously, Beccy will explore the case for oracy in light of current educational challenges and priorities and how adaptive professional development can make talk count in your school.
Adaptive Instructional Coaching
by Haili Hughes, IRIS Connect
Instructional coaching is taking the professional development world in schools by storm. Yet it isn't a silver bullet. Careful consideration is needed to ensure coaches have adequate training. Also, when PD programmes are rolled out at scale, sometimes too much complexity is removed, meaning teachers receive a disempowering one size fits all approach. This session explores how schools can ensure they have a consistent yet adaptive instructional coaching approach, which is underpinned by the science of learning and meets a teacher where they are.
AI for Adaptive PD at Scale
by Andy Newell & Matt Newell, IRIS Connect
We know of the importance of personalisation for effective development. Highly adaptive, personalised programmes, however, require a large amount of resources due to the needed human involvement in one-to-one or one-to-few situations. In order to keep costs low and allow us to reach a large number of people, we therefore tend to cut down on the adaptability of the learning programme and focus on a much narrower curriculum, with ultimately varying outcomes. In this talk, we explore whether AI could possibly change this dynamic and, if yes, what it could look like.
Sustainable Collaborative PD & Lesson Study
by Vesna Belogaska, IRIS Connect
This workshop explores what sustainable collaborative PD is, why it's important, what its enablers and barriers to embedding it are and how IRIS Connect can be used to facilitate it. We'll take a closer look at Lesson Study as a particular model of collaborative teacher enquiry and demonstrate how the tools and frameworks on the platform can guide educators through the process and activities in a safe shared collaborative space.IRIS Connect PD Awards 2023/24
A BIG THANK YOU to everyone for submitting their nominations and a HUGE CONGRATS to all the winners:
đ Most Inspiring Classroom Impact - Gill Rogers, Brooklands Middle Schoolđ Best Coach or Mentor - Lizzie Sansam, Manchester Enterprise Academy
đ Collaboration Champion - Will Johns, Manchester Enterprise Academy
đ PD Leads of the Year - Jess Hunter & Carrie Mariner, Rosebery School
đ IRIS Connect Philanthropist - Josh Hamblin, Exeter House Special School
đ IRIS Connect Pioneer - Whiteheath Junior School
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