Getting the most out of education conferences: top five tips

Opinion piece.

As I am on the train again, this time to the annual conference of the Association for Learning Technology, I thought it was time I updated my advice for those attending and also to remind myself of what I want to get out of the experience. Here are my top five tips:

1. Don’t be an authority on meta-meta-learning. I’ve written about this before and the point is to avoid abstracting your ideas too much in your dissemination outputs. Clearly in a presentation you don’t have time to explain every decision and the full context, but also you don’t want to generalise and draw broad conclusions from a single case study. If you are coming up with a new framework, acknowledge the limitations, and note where the framework may work or might not. Education is highly contextualised and in disseminating ideas, you are looking for your audience to be equipped to apply and translate your ideas to their own context.
2. Listen. Give yourself permission to just listen. Let the ideas connect in your mind. You may go to sessions that at first seem to have no relationship to your work. That can be an incredibly refreshing experience and you might find your passions rekindled. The key point is to go to a conference with the view of ‘what you can learn from others’, rather than ‘what can others learn from you’. That applies also to presenting. Think about the questions you have about your own work, and what you could learn from the perspectives of those in the room with you.
3. Contribute. Your ideas are as valuable as anyone else’s. If you’re new to the sector, you’ll be looking at things with fresh perspectives, and if you’ve been in the field for decades, share your experience. It’s important to keep an open mind. Not everyone has had the opportunity to study, research and work to gain all the experience you may have. Make recommendations, ask questions, and related to above, try to understand the context first.
4. Don’t pick faults in public. That’s just showing off. If you are attending a presentation and you think an approach is wrong or there’s an error in the method or conclusion, perhaps you’ve not understood the context of the work or the explanation. That’s the first thing to consider. If you do have a helpful suggestion, speak to the presenters afterwards. If you can contribute to their work, they will be in a position to issue corrections. This approach is much better because you can then engage in dialogue and support the development of each other, for example if you have misunderstood or if there are errors in the method.
5. Share. Whatever you learn, share it with colleagues. Even if you find something you disagree with. You might also get affirmation that you’re on the right track and the work you’re doing is ahead of the curve. If you’ve been inspired and want to try new things out, use your post-conference buzz to put two or three ideas into action.I hope that’s been useful to get you ready for whatever conference, training or development you’re planning on attending or participating in.

Everyone is at events like conferences to learn, so always remember you are amongst friends and colleagues.If you are attending the ALT conference, I will be running a workshop on quality (session 77), talking about being a CMALT assessor (session ALT4), and supporting my team’s presentation on collaboration for digital accessibility (session 76).

Photo of my journey through the Hope Valley. Take this as a metaphor for positivity and learning landscapes.