During the January 15, 2013 instructional faculty meeting, we were too pressed for time to really dig into the content. So, I was asked to follow up the January process by facilitating the morning portion of staff development day on Monday February 18th, 2013.
The theme and delivery system of our morning staff development will be similar to our last meeting, yet we will have time to properly consider and discuss the content in a more active and creative environment. In order to better the chances of making staff development relevant and effective, we are asking for your collaboration.
Each of us has (at least) one technique, philosophy, approach, or theory that is successful in terms of helping students learn. If we each share (at least) one of those proven best practices, the content we will be considering in our small groups on the 18th will be richer. The goal to look at concepts that work well, and have a dialogue that is relevant to everyone on the Deep Run faculty.
The theme and delivery system of our morning staff development will be similar to our last meeting, yet we will have time to properly consider and discuss the content in a more active and creative environment. In order to better the chances of making staff development relevant and effective, we are asking for your collaboration.
Each of us has (at least) one technique, philosophy, approach, or theory that is successful in terms of helping students learn. If we each share (at least) one of those proven best practices, the content we will be considering in our small groups on the 18th will be richer. The goal to look at concepts that work well, and have a dialogue that is relevant to everyone on the Deep Run faculty.
Directions on Sharing your Ideas:
Email your ideas to [email protected]
Subject of your email should be: Staff Development
1. Give your idea a title
2. Briefly describe your idea.
Here is an example from our last meeting:
Email the Parents
This is not your typical email communication home, but one that causes parents to also become “stakeholders” in your class. Formulate a type of newsletter to send to parents every now and again. But don’t make it a newsletter per se. Give the communication a catchy, quirky name so that when the parents get the email, they recognize it for what it is and can’t help but go to it. Formulate a class distribution list.
A few years ago, I added up the time I spent answering emails from parents. It was taking up serious quality time. I discovered if I was pro-active and sent out timely email announcements ahead of time about class activities and what we were doing, it reduced the amount of emails I was having to respond to. I discovered that parents were actually looking forward to the emails, using them to communicate with their child on a regular basis and it opened up other avenues outside of the classroom for learning. The parents were becoming active supporters of the learning process and were much easier to talk to when I had to make phone calls home or host conferences.
-Grant Odell
Email your ideas to [email protected]
Subject of your email should be: Staff Development
1. Give your idea a title
2. Briefly describe your idea.
Here is an example from our last meeting:
Email the Parents
This is not your typical email communication home, but one that causes parents to also become “stakeholders” in your class. Formulate a type of newsletter to send to parents every now and again. But don’t make it a newsletter per se. Give the communication a catchy, quirky name so that when the parents get the email, they recognize it for what it is and can’t help but go to it. Formulate a class distribution list.
A few years ago, I added up the time I spent answering emails from parents. It was taking up serious quality time. I discovered if I was pro-active and sent out timely email announcements ahead of time about class activities and what we were doing, it reduced the amount of emails I was having to respond to. I discovered that parents were actually looking forward to the emails, using them to communicate with their child on a regular basis and it opened up other avenues outside of the classroom for learning. The parents were becoming active supporters of the learning process and were much easier to talk to when I had to make phone calls home or host conferences.
-Grant Odell