100 Posts in 100 Days
Yesterday’s post, “Make ‘Em Beg” wasn’t about making anyone beg at all, but rather, it was about creating conditions that pique curiosity and motivate teachers to be continuous learners.
I noted three questions I want to pay attention to this week as our faculty and staff return to campus:
- How have we arranged their learning environment so that they can take full advantage and optimize their learning?
- What resources, learning challenges, and supports will nudge them this week that will help them hone their craft as educators?
- How do we engage their curiosity and creativity so that they want to learn (beg for) more?
Today, some thoughts about how we are arranging the professional learning environment. Certainly the meeting and activity rooms are set up and prepared in advance with technology, adult seating, rooms sizable enough for the number of participants, nametags, coffee & snacks, and so on.
What I decided I wanted to take a look at and reflect upon is how we are allocating time this week. While each division (lower school, middle school, high school) customizes for their unique needs, after looking at their respective agendas, here is a fairly close schoolwide breakdown of how we are spending our time together this week.
Social and fun time includes a morning where mixed teams of faculty and staff play games as a way to reconnect, laugh, and generally just enjoy each other’s company. This year’s games were all “Minute to Win It” themed. I suppose if I had included daily breakfast and lunch, this piece of the pie would be even bigger.
Division Meeting Time is faculty meeting time. These agendas often focus on the logistics and information everyone needs to open the year, such as schedules and routines.
Team Planning Time: This is when grade levels and departments collaborate on curriculum and plan opening week details.
Personal Planning Time: Teachers use this time to set up their classrooms and workspace and complete other tasks on their own.
Professional Learning Sessions: Our professional learning is focused on the instructional goals in our strategic plan. We are collaborating about how to help students achieve deeper learning outcomes; how to help them develop mastery of content, identities as learners, and creativity to express themselves and their learning.
Examples of “Other” include our opening welcome message and new student orientation.
I don’t know if this is the “right” mix of time. We’ll have to talk with teachers and administrators as the week progresses. However, this chart demonstrates that we value learning together and we value personal and team planning time. I’m hopeful that we use the time well and this distribution time optimizes the learning for our teachers.