A decade of TeachMeet: An interpretive phenomenological analysis of participants' tales of impact

Abstract

TeachMeet is an emerging informal professional development event organised by teachers for teachers, commonly described as an unconference. It is a volunteer-led global phenomenon without any established hierarchy. To celebrate the first ten years of TeachMeet, the founders announced an open call for participants to submit, online, their stories of impact. The resulting submissions were subjected to an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), capitalizing on the 'double hermeneutic' lens of the experience of researchers whose positionality is that of informed insiders. Findings revealed the categories in which the lived experiences reported by participants reflected the impacts of TeachMeet: ranging from appreciative description of the event they attended to reflective confessions of life-enhancing transformation in their personal and professional lives, their classrooms and the wider teaching community. These finding are examined in the light of how they align with several models of evaluation of teacher learning (Guskey 1998, Kennedy 2005, Kirkpatrick 2006, Desimone 2011, Wenger, Trayner and de Laat 2011), and what they indicate about where evolving TeachMeet communities and networks may be situated in an informal learning landscape.