Hot on the heels of a successful inaugural flipped faculty meeting (FFM) in January, our school held another one in lieu of our traditional weekly faculty meeting on February 25, 2013.
Things seemed to run a little more smoothly in general simply because it wasn’t our first time at this particular dance anymore. From what I am told, our staff settled into their discussions pretty quickly on the whole. One big difference since our last FFM was the range of conversation topics. For our first FFM, our staff could choose from ten proposed discussion topics. This time around, based on staff feedback about which topics they’d like to see again (or wanted to attend last time but couldn’t), as well as suggestions for new topics, there were 19 topics to choose from! We ended up shutting down two due to lack of interest and combining some others, but I think this definitely demonstrated both interest and investment on the part of our staff. If you empower your educators to take charge of their own learning, they will do it.
For my part, I ran a slightly more traditional tutorial on Google Drive. There were just three others in the room with me, but thanks to the small group size, each attendee was able to bring an idea to the group that we all helped shape and flesh out a bit. Everyone seemed to leave the session happy, taking with them a tangible product for further development and implementation with students.
While we haven’t surveyed the staff yet for feedback, the general vibe surrounding the afternoon seemed to be positive. One comment that has stuck with me was relayed to me by our assistant principal. She told me that on the way out afterward, one of our colleagues said to her that she enjoyed the session, and that “it’s such a respectful way for us to spend our time, working on what we feel is important”.
How would it impact school culture in the long term if faculty members regularly left staff meetings feeling respected, valued, and that their time was spent wisely?