Time

This morning I had the privilege of presenting a professional development to our staff. I had about 40 minutes to do so. Most people were very engaged and gave positive feedback. Those that were not as positive were definitely aligned to my thinking - they didn't have enough time to process! Forty minutes really doesn't afford much time to really dig into a topic. I did my best to keep the pace moving and get staff engaged, but would have loved to be able to dive in more deeply, give staff a chance to ask questions, and discuss the content with one another. Really all I needed was another 20 minutes. It would have been great.

This experience does help me think about what I would want to do with my future staff. I think it's really important for a whole group professional development to set up the work that will be done in small groups and for one week to flow into the next. With structure a short amount of time can feel as productive if not more than a 90 minute session. For example, I'm currently doing a series of sessions with my fourth grade teachers. We are having an amazing time, but only have 30 minutes per session. Each week flows smoothly from the last and the conversations seem to be getting more and more rich over time. This week we wrote a goal for literacy improvement over the rest of this quarter. Everyone agreed and was really excited about the work we are going to do together.

Striking the balance of how to use time, resources, and energy is important, but challenging when the stakes are so high. There are hundreds of students counting on us to get this right. A coordinated effort that makes sense to staff and maximizes time seems to be the key to successful professional development.