Assess, Plan, Implement, Improve!
As the first few weeks of school have passed, our school culture is becoming more settled and we as a staff are noticing areas that we would like to improve. At our morning staff meetings or after school, we discuss these as a group, decide which solutions we want to use, make a plan to implement those, and then do so.
Improvement should always be one of our goals. How could we make the transition between music and art class more smooth? How could we reduce distractions in a large room with two classes going on at the same time? How can we hold Johnny (not his real name) accountable and encourage him to finish his work?
This week we tackled all these issues, and by the end of the week had successfully implemented three plans which greatly improved all three problematic issues.
Discussing these issues together enabled us to brainstorm and gave us many more ideas and thus options for solutions. It also gave us the advantage of discovering which teacher had the time to be able to help the other teachers with their issues. By the end of the week, the solutions had all been implemented and were working well.
Teacher A helped teachers B and C keep Johnny accountable and offered to stay inside with him a few minutes of break, lunch, or art to make sure he got his work done. Our secretary rearranged the art room and seating plan, which greatly reduced distractions for our much-happier art teacher. The music teacher offered to work on a quieter activity for the first five minutes of class, allowing the art teacher to explain the art procedures in a much quieter environment.
Next week, I’m sure we will find a few more areas that need improvement, and thus we will begin the process again:
- Assess weak areas.
- Plan ways to fix these areas.
- Implement the plans.
- Improve!
