The Big Flop

The more we share, the richer we become. – Jim Strachan

 

As a Technology & Teaching Coach, one important job is to differentiate the type of support I provide to teachers. The role has many differentiated relationships and that means taking group size into consideration. I try to begin by providing personalized support – one-on-one time with teachers, usually around other teachers in common spaces – and when I notice trends or situations in which teachers would benefit from working with one another, I try to connect them.

As part of my action plan, I am searching for effective models of PD for teachers and have been trying to avoid the ‘Workshop Session’ when possible. I accomplished this in part by avoiding the PD Day altogether, supervising a Duke of Edinburgh Dogsledding trip in Algonquin Park over the Family Day long weekend! I’m not sure which move was colder…

I have been eager to increase the opportunities for sharing between members of faculty and there were more than a few instances of teachers trying some pretty innovative things that were nagging at me as “need-to-share” examples of risk-taking, rethinking curriculum and other acts of courageous teaching. One teacher transformed his ability to give students feedback by invoking Doctopus to ease his transition to Google Docs. Another flipped the traditional ‘oral presentation’ assignment with Explain Everything in a Grade 7 French class, and had a great survival story of technical failures to tell.

So we reluctantly booked some time in our monthly staff meetings. If your school is like mine, it is an incredible challenge to get groups of people together in meaningful ways that maintain the special mixture of availability and attention. Our staff meetings are booked from 3:45pm – 5:00pm and generally end around 4:30, give or take a few errant items for the ‘Any Other Business’ section of the agenda.

Our day looked like a good one, with an overall short agenda. Our slide deck involved the minimum number of slides needed for adequate visual support, and we worked hard to prepare clear, brief remarks, but I couldn’t have planned a worse opening act. It turned out that Officer Tony of the Toronto Police Force would be making a 50-minute presentation to staff, walking us through an aggressive and detailed response plan to unthinkable events, conjuring in his audience the spirit and emotion of emergency, and leaving the room silent with caffeine-like jitters. It was 4:45 by the time the agenda came to “Sharing from the Technology Department”. I’m sure I must have cringed for a moment, wincing at the introduction and mustering a game face.

We forged ahead and I regret it still. To the credit of our dedicated Faculty, they tried hard to care. Teachers were digging into their stores of cognitive bandwidth, cheering on their colleagues with attentive listening faces and practicing restraint to not check their watches. We finished by 5:05, final notes were delivered. At 5:12, the meeting room was empty.

The sharing happened, but definitely not in the way that I had hoped. From conversations in the days to come, I gleaned that the effort was appreciated and despite foggy memory of the content, there was some peppering of interest to hear more. Chalk it up to an event of ‘exposure’.

What is the scaffold of learning? If exposure acts as a trigger for inquiring, a motivation to ask questions and make connections, I suppose that is a small step in the right direction. What mechanisms do other schools use to make time with intentionally-assembled colleagues? I heard someone recently say that if the motivation is there, teachers will find the time.

How does your school ‘do sharing’?