5 Thoughts on Facilitating Better Meetings

One of the items lacking from any of my school administrator preparation courses was how to facilitate an effective meeting, but I've since discovered that we as school leaders facilitate a lot of meetings for a lot of different purposes.

Rare are the days when I'm not facilitating some sort of meeting, and rarely do meetings happen that don't leave me reflecting on how I can do better next time.

When planned right and executed well great meetings can produce important results and generate innovative solutions to persistent problems; the facilitator's role is crucial but also different with each circumstance for meeting. How I prepare will determine if the outcomes match the purpose.

I've learned 5 things about facilitating better meetings this year; please read below.

Prepare like you want your teachers to prepare their classes

• good meetings require the same type of preparation as a good class
• prepare opening remarks beforehand so that you start the meeting off intentionally and don't gobble up too much time up front; use your words to establish the purpose and direction of the meeting
• adapt the principle of backward design to your next meeting
• start with what you want the meeting to produce and plan from there
• base your agenda on your objectives and intended outcomes; use every minute intentionally

NB: using backward design to plan my meetings has yielded great results. The meeting planner template linked above is something I put together adapted from Ubd lesson planning templates.

Facilitate like you want your teachers to facilitate their classes

• post and review the objectives, intended outcomes, and agenda before starting; leave it projected / posted throughout the meeting
• get everybody talking and sharing but always bring it back to the objectives
• settings where a small group listens to the leader talk about something aren't the same thing as meetings
• it can't be your meeting; it has to be everyone's meeting
• just as classes can't be completely teacher-centered, nor can meetings be completely leader-centered
• let them find your conclusions on their own

Communicate for purpose

• don't tell me about the problem; tell me about the solution and actions needed to get there
• don't be afraid to be honest 
• be clear - identify what you need people to hear and do beforehand
• prepare your questions as carefully as you prepare your statements

Identify and follow up on further action items

• establish at the beginning what actions are expected following
• don't make it just about the meeting; what's most important is what happens after the meeting
• meetings that don't produce or lead to anything didn't need to happen
• you'll know how good it was a couple of weeks later after the action items from it are reviewed

Don't get nervous; get prepared

Your response to your own difficulties or problems will go a long way in determining the outcome

— Eddie Evans (@ewevans3) April 22, 2014

• if you're expecting confrontation or hostility, then your best strategy is extra preparation
• visualize yourself responding to certain claims or talking points
• anticipate where the hostility may come from and plan for it
• nervousness is pointless; thinking and dreading is not the same as thinking and preparing
• don't dwell on it, but don't avoid it - be ready for whatever it is
• focus on what you can control; how someone else intends to behave is outside of your power

What's the Opposite of "Shoosh?"

Quiet is nice every once in a while in certain classroom situations, but it's not the environment that promotes long-term memory or transfer. Get them talking to each other about the material. Devote set intervals of time for interpersonal communication and reflection between students, teammates, colleagues, etc about the topic or lesson at hand if you want it to stick and have meaning.

Photo Source
Quote Source - page 58

"You want to demonstrate the process of talking through a problem so that your students will begin to see how to negotiate challenging situations." -Germeroth & Day-Hess p. 8-9

You want them talking about it now so that they're talking about it when it matters - when it gets hard.

You want them talking about it now so that they're talking about it when you're not there.

Quiet cuts out critical steps to the process of learning anything. 

We talk our way through questions and problems all of the time, because it leads better performances and outcomes. 

Even the most confident of us bounce ideas off of our colleagues and teammates every day; shared decision making and responsibility are two elements on the Massachusetts teacher rubric; we're not supposed to work quietly.

So let's not teach quietly.

Quiet is orderly; it's easier. But don't confuse order and politeness for long-term learning.

"The overarching goal is to help middle and high school students realize that by using effective learning strategies and study habits, they can control their learning and academic success, even when the work is challenging." -Germeroth & Day-Hess p.34

Dialogue and interaction with others leads toward realization. Dialogue and interactions gets us through the tough stuff.

They have to be able to do it or talk about it outside of the classroom or practice for it to matter; it's not uncommon to hear someone lament that they took a class on something but don't remember a thing. 

It was probably a wicked quiet class.

For different ways to get them talking more, I wrote down 11 strategies last month. 

Get them talking about sample pieces of work discussing ways to improve it.

"Students can typically identify problems in other people's writing more easily than they can in their own, but with guidance, they can start applying what they've learned during peer feedback sessions to their own work." - Searle p. 86

Make today's lesson really matter.

Promote engagement; promote activity; promote the long-term learning and application of your lesson; get them talking about it.

#education #classroommanagement

6 Tips For New School Leaders After 2 Months #savmp

It's been a busy two months! Packed yet awesome, my first 40 school days in a new school in a new position have been loaded with challenges that have humbled and/or empowered me and my ability to satisfy and juggle short term needs while moving forward with numerous long term visions and mandates.

The position is hard. Moving into full time school leadership is demanding; with the new job comes constant high stakes tests of my communication, organization, and time management skills. Scrutinizing my own practices constantly has become essential in developing necessary systems in place to manage my affairs well.

With that in mind I've identified 6 habits I've adopted that I have found works with the dual tasks of establishing oneself at a new school, and fulfilling everything that comes with school leadership.

1. Call People Back - whether it's good, bad, or ugly I get back to everyone the day they contact me. I figure that if I am slow to get back to people I risk sending the message that I'm disorganized, unresponsive, or worse, in over my head. Whether its colleagues, parents, or students I get back to the folks who ask to speak to me promptly; It makes for better professional relationships, and for stronger professional brand. People may not be satisfied with the message they receive, but they will appreciate that it was delivered in a timely manner.

2. Schedule Action Items - it's easy to forget to do things; even the simplest of tasks sometimes get lost during "one of those days." I schedule all my action items in the calendar on my phone / email; from walkthroughs to sending emails to checking the daily attendance I schedule it in my calendar. I'm juggling a lot of important initiatives, and nothing can fall through the cracks. It ensures that priorities and action items are addressed at the right times, and that I’m never in a position where I have to say I forgot or overlooked something that I needed to tackle.

3. Save Everything - it’s easy to lose things. If I walk from the office to the cafeteria and back, then it’s safe to say that I’m coming back with some kind of note or sticky or something the equivalent thereof from a colleague or student about something or someone that I need to address. I scan all of my hand written notes, stickies, rogue pieces of paper, etc. into digital folders as soon as I receive it. Just today (October 8,) I utilized a handwritten note from September 9 that I took down during a side conversation with a student as part of an investigation. Had I left that handwritten note on my desk in a pile I reckon it would have been lost or misplaced weeks ago; by scanning and filing digitally I’m better able to utilize the conversations and dealings I have on a daily basis to execute my job more effectively at a time convenient to me.

4. Organize Constantly - every day ends with personal organization. I take all my emails and put them in folders after I’ve addressed them; as mentioned above I scan all my handwritten notes into email and then shred the paper to keep my workstation clean and efficient. I schedule my action items for the next day. No matter how badly I want to head home or how drained I feel at the end of the day I take care of myself and organize for tomorrow. I may have 10 things going on, but at least I know where everything is!

5. Have a Running Priority List - “To Do” lists don’t cut it; I have a “Priorities” list constantly going as new ideas, action items, and needs arise. There have been things on that priorities list since late August, because something always comes up that takes priority; I've learned quickly to accept that the work will never be finished, and that the most strategic and situationally important items are the ones that need to be met on a given day. Figuring out how to identify priority items is an ongoing focus of mine;certainly one of those intangible skills people rarely talk about in leaders is correctly identifying the right time to address initiatives.

6. Go 1 on 1 - it's hard to be new in a big group and expect to lead; the best way to quickly establish yourself as a professional and a leader in the group is by purposefully engaging colleagues, students, and community members in one on one conversations. I try to schedule appointments, stop by classrooms, seek students out who were in a class walked through, or go to after school events; getting out of the group and into smaller settings was key in the first month or two. It's easier to make a big group impact when you've established your brand with individuals stakeholders.

Two months in and things are moving in the right direction, but we gotta just keep it going through the rest of the fall into winter. I need to keep identifying what works, what needs to be done, and when's the best timing for it; most importantly I need to make sure I remember it's more about the people I work with than any set of tasks assigned to me.

Lesson #1 - Give Them Something to Make

As it comes to a close this week, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my first year in school leadership; the first lesson from this year is groups and committees need something to produce.

Our Principal’s Advisory Council, a group of 8-10 students grades 9-12, designed two meaningful programs this year that should have a long-lasting positive impact. The school’s participation in Project Purple in January and the crafting of a Class of the Month program for this September are both the handiwork of the PAC; their efforts were efficient and high-quality.

Monthly meetings were productive and outcome oriented; we never had one of those awkward sessions where someone was on a rant or nobody has anything to do or talk about. We always had something that needed our attention and cooperation, and we needed all of the limited amount of time we had together.

It was always the committees and meetings where all we did was talk about problems that I dreaded the most. It’s the groups that create solutions and products that people want to be a part again next year; that’s what benefits school communities. When leading committees in the future I ought to apply the lessons learned from leading the PAC this past year.