We are halfway through the year and we are in the thick of it all. It is a busy time of year and it really does go quickly. As administrators part of our job is to ensure teachers, support staff, and leaders are receiving professional development as part of our teacher and leader quality standards. Districts also set aside specific days where students are released early or do not come to school on specific days for professional development. These days are dedicated to professional learning, but sometimes, it is really hard to ensure that the day is used productively, efficiently, and has long term impact. Here are some criteria to ensure the learning is implemented and lasts beyond the PD day:
Set up an agenda that has short spurts of ‘sit and get’ mini lessons that last only 10-15 minutes. Nothing is worse than sitting and listening all day. We are just not made for that, and it is an instant ticket to tuning out and playing on phones. Think about what your outcome and purpose is and set your mini lesson around that. Schedule your mini lessons to happen sporadically throughout the day so that they have a mini lesson, then work time to implement what they have learned. After, you can bring them all back together to regroup and capture the work they did and then do another mini lesson. I like to call this a catch and release format of learn for 15 minutes, work for 30, regroup for 5. Then repeat the process all over again.
Look for ways that the mini lesson can include all learners. Instead of just asking a question to the group or asking if anyone wants to contribute anything, set up a forum so that the quiet ones, who aren’t as comfortable, can contribute in a safe way for them. This could be as simple as small group conversations and having a reporter, using sticky notes to contribute their ideas, or using a backchat forum on a device. You could also use vertical whiteboards/chart paper around the room that get them up and moving to write their questions, ideas, or capture their conversations. Having a wonderboard as an interactive question bank during your lesson that is a place where they can post their ideas, questions, or aha moments on sticky notes so that you can change the direction of the conversation to their needs, etc. There are so many ways to include a more interactive mini lesson than just the classic ‘sit and get and put your hands up if you want to contribute’ kind of lesson. Try some of these ways and I promise, the engagement will go up immediately!
Teach them vs. tell them. Let’s face it….nobody likes to be told what to do. So teach them instead. Use story telling as a method of teaching with your outcome embedded into the story. Another great way to teach, is to model right in front of them. So for me, one of our PD days was about effective ways to include learners in gathering their own proof and evidence of their learning. I modelled looking at a piece of my own writing and wondered out loud noticing success criteria in it and labelling it in my work while I had the teachers co-construct criteria on what they saw me do as a learner to notice what I did well in my writing. Next, I took them through a process of sorting their ideas and building a master list of what students need to provide proof of in their own stories. Teachers were all engaged because they were included in the mini lesson, I had commitment to the process because they had clarity of how to implement the strategy, and they all had a chance to contribute their ideas. The teaching part doesn’t have to be this elaborate either. It can be as simple as teaching them a simple classroom management strategy like the power of redirect and proximity. Teaching provides the clarity they need to take action.
Look for ways to have PD days right inside of school days. We don’t have to wait for a district wide professional development day to learn. Think about some creative ways that you can mentor teachers or have them mentor each other right inside of a regular school day. The first place I look, is at the sub list. When we have subs, I look for preps they may have and then I send them to the mentor teachers to cover for them so that the mentor teacher can go and team teach with another teacher right inside of their classroom. Another idea is to figure out ways that teachers can combine classrooms to release other teachers to visit classrooms. We just completed a number sense routine pd day where we had a group of K-4 teachers learn about what other teachers in our school are doing to embed number routines into their math workshop. We relieved half of the K-4 teachers (Group A) for a morning while the other half (Group B) took group A’s students and combined them with their own classes. Group A started the morning learning about the purpose of setting up effective number sense routines. Next they rotated through 6 teacher’s classrooms (Group B) watching how they embed number sense routines in their classroom. Then they had a chance to unpack what they saw. In the afternoon, group B got to watch Group A perform number sense routines and followed the same PD layout. It was the best PD we ever did because we were tapping into the experts right inside of our own school and everyone had to contribute to the learning.
Another way to be creative with professional development in your regular school day, is for admin to relieve master teachers to mentor other teachers. In our school, we cover a master teacher for an hour a day for a week and teach their class so they can mentor other teachers. You can be flexible with the time frame if a week is too much. That part needs to work for you and the teacher, but relieving them is so powerful. However, it is important to note that you need to teach the mentor teachers how to team teach rather than just sit and observe, or it isn’t as effective.
We implement all of these ideas into our school year and we have seen a tremendous culture shift in teachers because their work is validated and celebrated and they learn from each other. We have learned that it is powerful to be vulnerable and it did take some time to develop the confidence and understand the purpose of teaching in front of, or with colleagues. However, we stuck with it and it has become the primary source of our learning. I have a free masterclass called The 5 Steps To Leading a Super School, coming up where I take you through how to set some of these professional learning opportunities up. You can register for the masterclass here now! As the Field of Dreams movie quote states, “If you build it, they will come.” Continue to look for ways to build adult learning into your regular days with the intention to teach vs. tell and build an army of leaders right inside of your own walls.
Don’t forget to join my FREE masterclass called, The 5 Steps To Leading a School. Enroll here now!
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