Monthly Staff PD - September
Greetings, friends!
Welcome to the first edition of Monthly Staff PD for the ‘23-24 school year!
Those of you who were subscribers last year know that we send out a special email on the first Sunday of each month. It contains some turnkey materials that you can use for staff PD in whatever context fits best with your school. It’s usually usable for between 15-45 minutes of content and contains everything you need - videos, activity templates, PowerPoints, Google Docs, etc.
We received tons of positive feedback regarding last year’s PD. However, we were often scouring YouTube for the best videos on a variety of topics. This meant that, month-to-month, the quality and relevance of the videos varied a bit. Well, this year, we have a few resolutions. We pledge to:
Make staff videos more relevant and engaging by creating them ourselves and including clips from real teachers where possible
Make the content even more user-friendly and turnkey for you
Relate the PD from one month to the next - our focus for the entire year will be classroom management
Keep our emails a bit shorter
Oh yeah, we’re also changing the name from “Monthly Meeting Prep” to “Monthly Staff PD.” It’s a bit more on point.
So, without further adieu, on to this month’s PD.
Enjoy!
Mike
P.S. Typically, Monthly Staff PD is a feature just for paid subscribers. Since it’s the first edition of the year, we’re sending this month’s email to everyone for free.
Monthly Staff PD - September
Topic: Classroom Management - Procedures and Routines
Staff Objectives:
I (the teacher) can explain why structure and predictability are critical for students to learn
I can identify key procedures in my classroom
I can discuss the importance of refining procedures and routines with my colleagues
I can create new procedures for student success where necessary
Context:
We’ve been focusing on classroom management in our Weekly Emailable PD so far this year and will continue to do so for all of ‘23-24. As such, it makes sense to keep our monthly PD consistent and to reinforce these small tidbits we cover each week.
I want to give a shout-out to Henry and Rosemary Wong’s The Classroom Management Book for inspiring the content in today’s video. This foundational book has helped me and countless other teachers across the globe.
Also, I want to highlight that we will include clips from some of our Peer Driven PD content in most videos. This means there will be interviews with real classroom teachers about the content. We do this for a few specific reasons. We’ve found that:
Videos featuring real teachers (rather than paid consultants or professors) have instant credibility with teachers
It’s much more digestible when a fellow teacher sets a high standard rather than an administrator - real teachers prove it can and is being done in a real classroom
I always include a disclaimer that not every idea is for every teacher. There are rarely single solutions to anything in education - just what works for some. The key is sharing and brainstorming actual solutions from actual classrooms.
A Special Note on Video Style:
I’m taking some creative liberties with the videos this year. Typically, the videos we produce for Peer Driven PD are done with very high-quality equipment, produced by a team including professional editors, sound engineers, etc. It’s quite a task.
These monthly videos will contain some of this high-quality content, but they’ll also contain more vlog-style content created on a tight time budget by yours truly. The reason is that we want to remain flexible and get work done quickly, even if every camera angle and audio file isn’t perfect. Also, as I’ll note, I have twin newborns at home so I have to film and edit when I can. I hope you’ll forgive me for these constraints.
Content:
On Coffee and Structure - Elementary Edition
On Coffee and Structure - Secondary Edition
How to Use this Content:
Show either the elementary or secondary video, depending on your school level (they’re the same video with different teachers featured)
Create a copy of this Google Form and send it to your staff. Have them fill it out as many times as they’d like (the more, the better)
View the form results as a spreadsheet (Responses tab on from>Link to Sheets) and project on a screen or share back with teachers via email.
Note: Once viewed as a Google Sheet, I highly recommend that you wrap text on all cells (Format>Wrapping>Wrap) and add some color to the questions in row 1 to make them more noticeable.
Provide time for teachers to review procedures from colleagues and identify 1-2 new procedures they can implement in their room to increase student trust and increase instructional time.
I would love it if you would share back your results with me! I can compile them (removing any teacher names) and share them back with the group.
Interested in more teacher PD?
If you’re interested in accessing any of the course content from these videos, you can view some details below. (The course featuring Jeff Culp just wrapped, so we’ll have it posted within a couple of weeks).
Course featuring Haley and Ashley:
Classroom Management Essentials: Do’s and Don’ts for Early Elementary Teachers
Course featuring Jeff Culp:
Demystifying Language in the Science Classroom (coming soon)
You can see a full outline of current courses here. Simply submit a quote here and you’ll receive a quote for one course, three courses, and an all-access subscription for your teachers - whether you’re a paid subscriber or not!
That’s it for this month, folks! Please reply and let me know what you think. Our chief goal is to make content that is actually useful to you, so if something is or isn’t working, we want to know!
Cheers,
Mike