Late night hustling….all day thinking….endless searching for the next topic…all to ensure that your professional learning meetings or staff meetings are filled with value. Does this sound familiar? I know that my days were filled with a lot of this. I was doing all of the work! The crazy thing was that I wasn’t the expert on the things I was presenting, the teachers were. I just read about it or noticed it from a giant in the field and repackaged the info to give to my teachers. How could I get the experts doing more of the talking and action taking while I nudged and coached along the way?
I realized I had to make space and provide a forum for them to do the talking and the leading. I wanted to create a sort of mall type environment for the teachers to showcase and share their areas of expertise. My vision in my mind painted a picture of a mall where masters at the craft would present their own curated version of their ideal workshop or strategy that they have received massive results from. Teachers could then choose their store of interest and learn from each other with the intention to take what spoke to them and make it their own. The stores could be based on teaching craft, wellness, or connection. The key for this to be a success is that you have to present it and set the intention that this learning opportunity is not a bring and brag, but rather a place for the teacher who is leading to step out of the classroom and develop their leadership skills leading adults. It was also a forum for teachers to learn from each other and get actionable steps that they could take back to their classroom right away. It was a place for learning, developing skills, inviting them to a leadership level, and building those relationships could burgeon.
Teachers will need time to prepare and will need your guidance and support. Give them lots of notice and coaching along the way with how to lead a workshop type meeting or professional development day. Download my free Leadership Formula Template here. It is a formula that leaders can give to teachers as a framework to help them to organize an action taking, workshop approach to running a meeting or any type of learning forum. Provide leadership strategies and skills through modelling and coaching. Show them ways to create action steps that teachers can take back to their classroom to try right away, and model how to find out what types of topics teachers might like to teach about. You may also want to show them different ways that they could present whether it be through slides, workshop strategies, etc. This learning playground should be optional but present as a chance for teachers to step outside of their comfort zone to impact a culture shift. This type of a forum for leadership does not have to be an entire professional development day but rather it can be an hour of that day or during a staff meeting, leading a grade team or vertical meeting, or even a Friday Professional Learning Community.
Gather the names of teachers and their topics through a google doc on what they might like to present on along with a brief description of the what they will be teaching about. I would recommend providing a template for them to fill out that states their intention, action steps, and the results the learners will get from taking their session. They can also have the choice to pre-record their sessions so that they can also be the learner on that day. You may also want to have it over a few professional learning community times so that teachers have a chance to be the leader and the learner on different days.
Next, teachers can choose which sessions they want to register for so the session leaders can have an idea of how many will be attending. On the day of the sessions, teachers will go to the sessions. Depending on how long they are, they may rotate to a couple different sessions. Admin leaders should also be a part of the learning community and register for a few and stay for the whole session. Perhaps admin might like to lead one as well. Take pictures. videos, and work samples and gather evidence of the learning and conversations that happened that day in order to capture the residue of learning. Another strategy is to have each teacher who is a learner walk away with one decision for an action step that they will try. They will then be asked to share the evidence of how that action step unfolded in the next upcoming professional learning communities.
If you are in a virtual world still then you can do all of this virtually using Zoom or pre-recorded sessions. The Workshop Curators strategy is an effective way to put your community in your shoes to feel what it is like to lead a session and make decisions on the learning. It also sets up a forum to develop leadership skills and build relationships through teachers learning from teachers. It provides a confidence and a trust that your teachers are experts and develops the value of adult learning. It is so important to feel that your leader trusts you enough to take the wheel sometimes and can lead to some incredible new learning opportunities if we just invite it in and set up a space for it all to happen. For ways to set up a workshop structure in meetings, download my free Ultimate Guide to Workshopping Meetings!
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Check out our student led podcast called Even If You Miss, available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It is a wellness podcast by kids, for kids.
Even If You Miss..... 