As a teacher, I always held myself to the standard of answering the question, “Would I want my child, in my classroom?” As an administrator, I am now asking myself, “Would I want to be in my department meeting?”
Since I have started judging myself based on my own likes and desires, I have included technology and strategies that I would have liked to use in my classroom. I have started flipping portions of my department meetings. I flip the portion that would be considered “lecture style.” The flip portion is information about teaching or questioning strategies, increasing student engagement, information about John Hattie’s and Marzano’s research, etc. Each time I flip, I try to use a different resource for example Zaption or Screencast-o-matic or even youtube. I am attempting to show my staff members a resource they can utilize, how they can customize it for their classroom, and opportunities to evaluate the resource’s strengths and weaknesses (is it anonymous, can I keep data, is it easily accessible, etc).
Going back to my question, “Would I want to be in my staff meeting?”
I decided to evaluate myself on our district Danielson rubric as a teacher would be evaluated by myself. Overall, I had some strengths and some weaknesses. All my teachers had an opportunity to be involved in discussion, ask open-ended/higher-order questions, and I had imaginative and extensive use of technology. Disappointingly, I did not ask my teachers to reflect or to bring closure to the meeting and I did not “assess” the learning objective. When I started this journey of flipping, my first department meeting started and the teachers walked in and would not talk, except to whisper to each other. I took this as a sign that either they did not understand my expectations or this was something foreign and new to them. By the second meeting, the conversations starting flowing. By the third meeting, I had teachers choose my department meeting over other departments. As one staff member was leaving, after coming to my department meeting for the first time, he commented, “Wow this is very different from the other department I attend.” Reflecting on my department meetings since the beginning of the year I have seen a huge increase in participation, engagement, and involvement. I do think as a teacher, I would rather come to my department meetings then others I have been to in the past. Could I make them better? Of course, and I hope I will as I continue to reflect on my effectiveness.
Next time ... reflection and closure will be part of the ending activity.
