The Ed-Cafe was very interesting and there were many great things that I liked about it. It allowed students to choose the topic they were most interested in, and it provided students an opportunity to express their ideas in a smaller and informal group. This created a most relaxed environment, where I felt I could just say the thing that were on my mind about a certain topic. When the groups were the right size, it created a great dynamic of being able to contribute to the group and being able to hear new ideas from other group mates. Sometimes if a group is too big, you have to listen more and talk less; if a group is too small, you have to talk more and get to listen less, as a result you don't get to hear new ideas and see other perspectives. Overall the Ed-Cafe was fun, interesting, and very informational. I was able to gain a vast amount of knowledge at a fast pace; it was very efficient. A few things that could make it better for next time is if we had more class time to work with our partners on our presentation, because its hard to get work done outside of class. Also if the topics were posted a day early or so, it would allow people to see what topic they might be interested in attending, this would allow children to form some thoughts before they go to the Ed-Cafe. Lastly, there should be more time per Ed-Cafe, one way of going about this is to have less groups. It seemed to me, right when the discussions started to get lively and peak, time was up. Instead of having two people per group, there should be three people per group, this would allow each group to have a longer discussion.
When my partner and I presented, I believed it went well. Almost everyone who attended had a chance to talk and share their ideas multiple times. The discussion stayed on topic and it was quite lively. There weren't many pauses during the discussion, and when the conversation was starting to die down, my partner or I would ask the next question which brought the conversation back. That is one thing that I thought we did well at, we were able to keep the conversation going, but more importantly I felt that we were able to push the discussions forward. We spent and appropriate amount of time on each question, enough to get the main ideas across, then we moved onto the next one. There are many ways we could improve our Ed-Cafe for next time. One major way is having some sort of prop, whether it be a map, chart, image, or graph of something. Having a prop in my opinion make the Ed-Cafe as a whole more interesting and it gives people a topic to start the discussion. Another way that we could really improve on is having follow up question for our main questions. I thought that our question were great, and generates some great discussions but it seemed to me that after we talked about one topic we moved onto an totally different question. But overall, I believe that our Ed-Cafe was a good starting point for other Ed-Cafes to come.
I think that I was a good attendee to the point that I tried to contribute to the group. I tried to add new ideas and bring up things that people hadn't mentioned yet. But I feel as though I also wasn't a good attendee because when others spoke I mostly just listened and forgot to take notes. I tried my best to hold some of my ideas back and listen to what others have to say, but as a result I would disregard what some one had previously said and just say whats one my mind. This is one thing I would like to improve one for next time, because I think it would create a more interesting conversation if people built off of each others statements instead of strictly speaking of their own ideas and thoughts. Overall, I contributed to the group and spoke my ideas aloud, but I didn't take notes or build off other peoples ideas.
The whole Ed-Cafe experience was very enjoyable and informative. I am looking forward to doing it again and hope that it is an even better experience next time. I plan on preparing even more for it next time to make my Ed-Cafe more interesting and more creative than it was the first time.
