Faculty Meeting Activity - Speed Dating

Everyone gets excited for Faculty Meetings, right?  There's nothing an exhausted educator wants more than after a long-day than to attend a meeting with the Principal.  Or so we believe.

This is why I put an enormous amount of value of beginning a Faculty Meeting with positive-energy, shared success, or some type of engaging activity.  This year, I have intentionally looked to implement various activities in an attempt to expand team synergy, while also demonstrating potential Best Practice.

At my previous meeting, I utilized Mentimeter to open the meeting with an interactive activity, asking faculty and staff to share a token of appreciation for a colleague anonymously.  At the conclusion of the meeting, I displayed the Menti and also emailed the results to the entire faculty.

I thought the activity went well and provide a venue to recognize peers, while also exposing everyone to a free resource.

I wanted to incorporate a different Opening Activity for my most recent November Faculty Meeting.

After spending some time researching from my Professional Learning Network, brainstorming, and customizing to meet my objectives, I decided to incorporate Speed Dating as our Opening Activity.

The first component was the "classroom" design.  Typically, I have chairs arranged in a theater-style and very rarely step outside of this design.  For the sake of the Speed Dating activity, I utilized four long lunch tables, requiring faculty to sit in a manner directly across from someone.  I also informed everyone "be prepared to be mobile" as they entered the room.

After welcoming everyone and getting everyone arranged, I shared the instructions and process for the Speed Dating activity.  I did not display any of the questions ahead of time.

A timer was set for two-minutes, so each member had one-minute to share.

I prompted the entire group by displaying one question/share.  After the two-minutes were up, the entire table shifted to the left one spot, providing a different partner for the next question.

The four talking-points I used for this activity:

1. Share something you are proud of from the first semester.
2. Share a specific student success story.
3. Share one way you want to "be better" next semester (professionally, personally, etc.)
4. Share something you are thankful for.

I wanted to incorporate thought-provoking items, which would hopefully require faculty and staff to reflect on their practice, share success, and also discuss growth areas moving forward.  Given the timing of the meeting, I also wanted everyone to be reminded of what they value.

From my perspective, the engagement levels were very high and I was very pleased with the overall activity.  It helps that I have an incredible staff who have grown accustomed to a principal who is enthusiastic to-a-fault. 

I reached out to a few after the meeting who I can always count on to give me honest, genuine feedback.  My feedback request was simple: Engaging or corny?

One teacher shared how they enjoyed being able to engage with a teacher they normally don't get to.

My favorite response was, "I will be honest, I thought it was going to be corny when you first explained it, but I actually enjoyed it when we were doing it.  Good activity."

Some immediate feedback also included shortening the two-minutes to 90 seconds.


I have more questions stored for the next time I utilize this activity again.

Updated 11/17/17: Teacher just shared and showed me how they were implementing a Speed Dating activity into their instruction design today.

Thank you for viewing,

CS


The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.