TeachMeets in 2025?!
What’s the research saying?
Tuning in to TeachMeets again, what are the new findings suggesting?
Well, they are “self-organised groups… working at the fringes of the education system ... part of a wider movement of change looking for a more open system…” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1605), which sounds bloody lovely to me!
And it’s all anti-capitalist in bearing, as “What the research did not discover, locally or globally, is documentation that would denote business, charity, or official organisation status for TeachMeet. Searches revealed no evidence of charter, company rules, application process, mission statement, manifesto, CEO, Board of Directors, staff, nor legal status.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1607). No one is monetising it, or bringing it into their goals for financial dominance - which is rare and uncommon in this neoliberal age in which we find ourselves. Also, “In the findings there are no visible elements of officialdom in TeachMeet - no trade-mark, no formal hierarchy, no locus of control, no registry of assets.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1615). Refreshing, right?
And, “Although there is some recorded evidence of what happens during TeachMeet events, much of it is randomly scattered and without context…” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1607), and contextual explorations are crucial, because empowerment needs to occur within and often around policies and strictures that limit their autonomy.
-Appreciative inquiry
The paper makes us of “Appreciative inquiry” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1607; Shuayb et al., 2009), which is a method that is aimed at: “avoiding stereotypical answers, empowering participants, and identifying good practice” (Shuayb et al., 2009, p.4). Originally applied to improving organisational outcomes and development, in its simplest form it is akin to the common practice of a ‘gratitude journal’ applied to research methodology. In this way it is closely aligned to portraiture in intent, though with a focus upon questioning, and with a less ‘embedded’ vision of the role of researcher within the process. Typically taking place within group discussion or interviews, the model follows the four phases pictured below:
(Shuayb et al., 2009, p.7)
Notably appreciative inquiry is not suitable for controversial or potentially challenging content, where the researcher might be viewed as ‘gaslighting’ the interviewee. Lastly, appreciative inquiry (or AI for short) requires a clear definition and a clear situation for interviewees to speak too.
Back to TeachMeets
They noted a big jump in online attendees, “The in-person TeachMeets attendance average was 79 people per event; online TeachMeets attendance average was 130 people per event.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1611), which is significant!
Amazingly, the gender breakdown of hosts or ‘MCs’ provides some interesting points. They note, “At all the in-person events the role of MC was shared by two people working in relay, taking turns with the microphone; the online events were hosted in some cases by two people but more commonly by a single MC. Notes record that in almost every pairing there was a male-female mix; all of the single MCs were male.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1611). Which certainly says something about males within education…
The study noted three key features: “the catalytic role of the MC; the power of the nanopresentation; the Open Space dynamic of the event.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1614), which were present in all events observed.
They note that the, “Sharing of information seems to model the open exchange values of the open-source community (Torvalds, in Raymond 1999), in which people must trust each other to take the name and the format and to use and adapt them in good faith.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1615), which again is really not so common outside of educational settings.
The key role of social media
Again, “The ability to stay connected to each other using social media was a central theme in the findings” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1616), because otherwise, without these ‘weak ties’ online - who would arrive at a venue and share their passions for teaching via public speaking? (Surely very few people). Crucially, “The most common way participants report finding out about TeachMeet in the first place is online, suggesting that the symbiotic relationship between TeachMeet and Twitter is very strong.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1616). Which is ofcourse problematic when one of those things is mostly dead.
So, “Herein lies a dilemma born of recent events in the world of Twitter, which has been rebranded as X and changed greatly since this research was concluded (McCallum, 2023). Phenomena like TeachMeet, that relied on the free and open nature of Twitter for communication and dissemination of information, now face a possible precarity as the platform becomes exclusive and people stop using it or are blocked from reading messages. Continued operation under these conditions may become an unexpected test of the strength of the weak ties, providing a prompt for further research into TeachMeet and other unconference events.” (Armond et al., 2024, p.1616). Which further emphasises the need to see, in short, if TeachMeets will, or have, survived in light of the open-source-like platform that largely facilitated its organisation.
References
Amond, M., Johnston, K., & Millwood, R. (2024). The characteristic elements of TeachMeet. Irish Educational Studies, 43(4), 1601-1621.
Shuayb, M., Sharp, C., Judkins, M., & Hetherington, M. (2009). Using appreciative inquiry in educational research: Possibilities and limitations. National Foundation for Educational Research, 1-15.
Running Word Count (the third 100,000): 115,576