Milobo’s Musings

Since Katie Morrow and I spent some time in our last Always On podcast talking about professional development, it got me to thinking about some of the strategies trainers can use to get teachers talking. As part of our regular 1:1 teacher meetings this year and during the district Technology Learning Facilitator meetings in my previous job, I’ve often had to find ways to encourage teachers to open up and talk to one another. Sounds easy enough, but if you’ve ever found yourself in charge of leading discussions with groups of teachers, you’ve probably experienced that empty silence that comes when no one’s quite ready to be the first to share. Here are techniques I’ve used to get conversations flowing:

Four Square

This is a very low-tech way I’ve used to get discussions started within small groups or pairs. Give each participant a piece of paper and have them fold it into quarters.  In each quarter, have participants write one word or a very short phrase to describe their thoughts. Depending on the topic, you might start with questions such as: What words would you use to describe:

• your best technology integration lesson?
• your biggest concern about the 1:1 rollout?
• your reactions to the reading we just finished?

Have participants exchange papers with a partner, who then circles one word on the paper. That becomes the discussion starter when it’s time to share. This has worked well because it piques curiosity in the words chosen and often leads to very interesting discussions. Plus, if you’ve got time to rotate discussion partners, you can keep using the remaining words as discussion starters for new conversations.

Video Vignettes

Video clips make great conversation starters, especially when you’re wanting the conversations to center on bigger ideas. I’ve started a playlist on YouTube where I bookmark videos that have been great motivators for conversations.  Take a peek through the videos linked below and see what you think.

S.O.S.

S.O.S. is a conversation organizer I came up with 4 years ago as an icebreaker for district Technology Learning Group leader meetings.  The purpose of each meeting was to allow Learning Group leaders time to collaborate and share best practices. But, because the meetings were only monthly and the teachers had little interaction with one another outside of this time, the conversations were sometimes slow to start.  At other times, the conversations had the potential to become nothing more than gripe sessions where everyone aired their frustrations, but few solutions or suggestions were offered in return. S.O.S. became a regular framework for our meetings and worked well to give purpose to the conversations. S.O.S. stands for Successes, Obstacles, and Strategies.  Those three words are used to help teachers organize their thought for sharing:

• What successes have you seen in your class (learning group, department, etc) this month?
• What obstacles have you had to overcome or are you struggling with?
• What strategies have you tried or are you planning to try to move forward?

I find that S.O.S. also makes for a good meeting outline, because it gives participants a chance to start on a positive note, air their frustrations, and end with suggestions for improvement or change. I find myself now using it for many types of meetings and even for general post-project conversations with teachers, because it can cover so many situations in a way that doesn’t inhibit the flow of ideas.

What other strategies or suggestions do you have for facilitating conversations and reflective sharing?

Picture courtesy Cliff1066 Flickr Creative Commons

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 14th, 2009 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Prof_Dev. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.