Leading professional development, staff meetings, or any type of group can be very daunting. My “go to” was powerpoints that I perhaps didn’t use in the most effective way. So many times I put hours into endless slides of information that I wanted to get out into the brains of everyone who was sitting there. I put a lot of work into the slides and learned so much from creating them, however, I was the one who learned the most, not the ones whom I was presenting to. I realized this was because I did the most work during the session. I spoke the most, I wondered the most, I created all the information, and the only thing I did the least was give wait time for others to respond. I wonder often about ways to go deep into the time that we have together. I reflect on how to effectively get out of the shallow waters of information and get more and more people doing the work, generating the information, and talking so that they learn the most.
I decided to uncover the layers of my presentations and research and pull out the hidden gems to optimizing time and learning. I tried a lot of these within our own staff meetings or professional development and it was tricky but well worth the exploration.
My research into building the most optimal and impactful professional development consisted of Sandra Herbst’s, Beth Parrot Reynolds’, and Ann Davies’ work with Assessment for Learning. They talk a lot about using effective practices for adult learning and the importance of co-constructing success criteria, setting goals, feedback, and leaders modelling their expectations. I have also explored giants in the field such as Matt Glover, Penny Kittle, Peter Liljedahl, and Rachel Hollis and have watched through the lens of their presentation craft rather than just listening to the information they were trying to get across to their audience. Paying attention to John Hattie’s work on effect sizes was also a part of my research which gave me the numbers and data to back up what I was uncovering within my own work. Here are a few of the things that I have tried and learned along the way:
Hattie’s research on effect size of impact of learning, states that building collective efficacy has a 1.57 effect size (anything over .4 is a substantial effect size) and self efficacy is a 0.92 effect size. Therefore, we, as leaders must realize our role of using the time that we have to build our adult learning knowledge within ourselves and whom we lead. Cognitive task analysis was also at the top of the list with a 1.29 effect size and that was where I decided to start when it came to leading my sessions or meetings.
We dug deep into what we already do and co-constructed success criteria on the big questions or ideas that we had. Co-constructing criteria revolves around a question such as, what’s important when including students in assessment for learning? We then do a short mini-lesson or presentation on the research or work on this topic. The teachers write what they notice is important on sticky notes while I work through the lesson (the lesson will include direct teaching, conversation, questioning, modeling, etc). They write one idea per sticky note. After, the teachers work in groups to sort their ideas into groups and come up with a heading for each section. Next, we come together as a large group and develop the master list of criteria according to their ideas. This list lives throughout our meetings and our work to set goals, build more criteria, give feedback, or learn more about each criteria.
Another important action that I have learned that has one of the biggest impacts on adult learning is the power of modelling. Everything that leaders expect our teachers to do should be modelled by leaders as well. For example, we set an expectation that our teachers start to take on more of a workshop model to dive deeper into learning and getting the students to do more of the work. Therefore, we have to make sure that our meetings were also taking on a workshop structure so that teachers could learn more about their craft but also experience strategies that they could take back to their class and try the next day. A workshop structure consists of a warmup, then moves into a mini lesson. The mini lesson consists of a 15 minute session starting with making a connection, choosing one teaching point, inviting active engagement and then closing with a link. Once the mini lesson is over there is more time allotted for independent or collaborative work time bringing in a midpoint teaching as needed. Providing a closure to the meeting or lesson is essential and sets up the next actions steps to take before the next meeting. A sample meeting might look like:
Warmup
Find one person across the room to share the evidence that you brought to this meeting that showcases an action step that you took towards one of the seven actions for assessment for learning (strategy to integrate with prior knowledge effect size is .93). You can do this with anything that you have been learning about, the assessment idea is just an example. This can be a struggle or a success but be sure to talk for the entire three minutes. The other person will talk for three minutes after you are done. Once the six minutes have passed, the teachers would move to another person.
Mini Lesson
Connection – “Today we are going to explore one of the seven actions of assessment that we have been researching and experimenting with all year. We previously talked about co-constructing criteria. Here are some samples of evidence that I saw while working in classrooms and walking through the halls.” This might be a showcase of pictures of teachers anchor charts, students work using criteria, video, testimonials, etc. within our school. Next, there might be some direct instruction (effect size .6) about using criteria to inform specific feedback between students and teachers. “In what ways, has criteria lived in your classrooms beyond the event? Can we have a turn and talk (explicit teaching strategies effect size .57) about that right now?” We might finish with a whole group recap.
Teaching Point – “Now that we have experienced the power of co-constructed criteria and spent time with this, let’s talk about how that criteria might inform feedback from the teacher and students.” This teaching point might include research, evidence of it happening in classrooms already, and specific examples of how it might look in different subject areas.
Active Engagement – There are many ways that you could do this. It could be through having the teachers co-construct criteria (classroom discussion effect size .82 and teacher clarity effect size .75), using margin symbols which is a deliberate practice to read an article. Next, you might have them walk and talk to summarize (summarize effect size .79, exposure to reading effect size is .43) or do an inside/outside circle about their symbols asking them to react, respond, project, or connect. It may even be through a gallery walk of student work or teacher work samples that are in the school to explore evidence of the use of criteria within student learning.
Independent/Collaborative learning – The “one stay many stray” strategy (cooperate learning effect size is .40) is very effective with getting teachers to share their work or ideas and including all voices. In this workshop strategy, after working in groups on an activity, one teacher stays to be the expert, while the rest stray to other groups with the intent to add to another group’s learning and take learning back to their original group. The strays may switch tables multiple times. It is an effective way to jigsaw (1.2 effect size) information in an efficient and impactful way.
Another idea for active engagement and independent work time might be to include a couple teachers as process observers. Their goal is to listen to the conversations that are happening and capture the patterns and trends of learning that they notice. They then present their evidence to the entire group as a way to capture the conversation. This could be considered a type of cognitive task analysis (effect size 1.29), in which the process observers looks at the processes of thinking that unfolds as the learners problem solve, use their memory, make a judgment, make decisions and analyze information. It is also a quick way to guage the level of engagement and topics of conversation that arose.
Journal writing or independent work can also live in the active engagement part of your workshop meeting. As a leader, one must remember that not all learners are just going to shout out or contribute in large groups. There needs to be a space for the quieter or more introverted learners who have just as much to contribute but do not feel comfortable voicing their ideas in a large group. This is where small groups can help or even the independent work before moving into collaborative work. The independent work might be journaling about their learning or writing or sorting evidence that the work is happening in their classroom. It might also be examining work samples from teachers or students and noticing success criteria and next steps. In the independent work, goal setting and reflection often surface. It is a chance to reflect, celebrate and then set the next right step on our own individual continuums. However, the expectation is that once you set the next step, consider what action will you take to make an impact to further your own and you’re student’s learning. How will you show that growth through evidence of your impact (self efficacy effect size .92)?
Link/Closure
The last part of the meeting might be where you link what you have learned in the session to previous meetings and where you will go next. Again, there should be a consideration of the next step as leaders always want to model what we expect teachers to do in their own classroom.
Some ideas to link the learning to ongoing information and next steps might be to use exit slips. Some sentence starters might be, “I want you to notice that I…I am going to try….Next meeting, the evidence that I plan to bring forward is..” These sentence starters also touch on goal setting (.68 effect size) and reflection which are so important for getting traction in what we set out to do. Another idea might be throughout the meeting, the teachers were expected to chart their learning that happened throughout the session. For example, the first section is what I know about feedback. They would write this at the very beginning of the meeting. The second session would be written in the middle of the meeting after the teaching point/mini lesson. They would write what they know about feedback (.7 effect size) after the direct teaching. The last section would be written at the end of the meeting after they had a chance to work with people or research independently. They would write about what they know now about feedback (evaluation and reflection .75 effect size).
If you co-constructed criteria previously, another way to set a goal or action step to link to the next meeting might be for the teachers to write their name on a pink sticky note and they can place it on a criteria that they feel they are very successful at. Next they could write their name on a green sticky and place it on a criteria that they feel they need to grow on. This is an effective way to guage where the next learning might need to happen based on the feedback from the teachers (teacher estimates of achievements effect size 1.29).
Another link that is effective with reaching into the minds of what your learners need is called a wonder board. At the end or during the entire meeting, teachers can write what they are wondering about on a sticky and place it on the wonder board (teacher clarity effect size .75).
These are just some of the ways I might set up a staff meeting or a professional learning community. There are many more ways to do it but we are always more successful when the learners are doing more of the work, researching and generating ideas, while the leaders provide the support and resources. The main point of this very long post is that leaders need to “walk the walk” alongside the teachers learning with them, for them, and for ourselves. We need to experience all of the learning/teaching and then model it so that teachers also have a chance to experience workshop as a learner. It is then that we have that perspective of just how effective our teaching can be. Research, learn, try, practice, model, reflect, and assess the impact and then do it again and again and again.
Hattie, John. (2008). Visible Learning. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Davies, A., Herbst, S., & Parrott Reynolds, B. (2012). Leading the Way to Assessment for Learning: A Practical Guide (Second ed.). Courtenay, Canada: Building Connections Publishing Inc.
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