Where are You Developing Teachers?

How do you conduct staff development? More importantly, where do you do it?

During our past staff development designated day I took a very different approach than in the past and as I completed the day, I wondered why I hadn’t done it before. You see, I took the Staff Development to my teachers where they are….in the classrooms.

Instead of sitting in the sterile cafeteria on hard chairs while the principal struggles to use the AV equipment, I designated two classrooms for our staff development locations. I went directly into the teaching environment and used the AV equipment my teachers use each day for instruction. In other words, I went into their world instead of making them come into mine.

The results? Outstanding. I could easily tell the teachers were more comfortable learning in this environment. The conversations were enriched and comfortable. Let’s face it, it’s much easier to converse in the classroom with 10 of your peers than in the cafeteria with 35 of your peers.

My structure was simple, I sent out an agenda several days before via vlog and explained the events of the upcoming day. I conducted two sessions on the upcoming state assessment, STAAR. One session was specifically targeted for Kinder – 2nd grade and the second session for 3rd – 5th grade. Fortunately this was a day where many of my specialized teachers were off campus at various trainings that pertain to their content. I’m planning on trying this structure again in January, but it could get slightly more complicated since I will have more staff on campus.

Overall, I was incredibly pleased with the outcome of our day. One of my goals for professional development is to provide the faculty with specialized, relevant, differentiated experiences. Basically, I plan to teach them how I want them to teach the students.

And it worked.