Teacher Talks: When Teachers Lead the Meetings
You are what you celebrate. So, why not celebrate our extraordinary teachers? One of my favorite things to do when doing walkthroughs is to be open for surprise and exceptional ideas and practices. Teachers routinely are doing something great that I did not expect!
Just last week within one hour I observed students collaborating on a science lab experiment in a Chemistry class, singing in an English class, and racing to make timelines in a Bible class. The variety of strategies and activities to engage students in learning was fantastic! Want to have more teachers hosting active learning activities? Give them a voice and a platform to share from.
Just as students oftentimes prefer to learn from their peers, the same is for our teachers. Someone who is in the same profession, with similar challenges and trials, and endures the same expectations, showing what they do to make their classes special can have a huge impact. Have teachers learn from each other.
A great way to organize this is to carve out the first 5 or 10 minutes of the staff meetings for teacher talks. Ask a couple of teachers to present on a specific strategy or activity that you observed. Or, better yet, ask teachers to suggest who they think should present and on what topics. This is a great way to learn about what you are missing, seeing who the staff looks up to, and provides public praise for those recommended teachers. Also, it encourages looking for the positive when teachers are doing peer classroom visits.
Once those teachers and topics have been selected, give them a strict time frame to present, demonstrate, or simply talk on their topic. Of course, the more interactive the better. Be sure to set aside time for questions and answers, as from my experience, this is where much of the gold is found.
Want to host teacher talks virtually? Hopefully administrators are still doing virtual walkthroughs and providing positive feedback for their teachers. Simply ask a few of them to speak in your next virtual staff meeting and provide just a little direction. They are pro’s, teachers have been teaching virtually for almost a year now!
So, whether you are an administrator or a teacher, hopefully you are spending time in the classrooms of other educators. See where they excel and invite them to share it. As iron sharpens iron, one teacher can sharpen another.