For the K-12 supervising school administrator, here is a practical working tool for stimulating the professional growth of your staff during faculty meetings and other in-service workshops throughout the school year.
Included are guidelines for planning and chairing a faculty meeting — with a handy chart for dealing with various types of motions - and seven though-provoking group activities, each focusing on a specific set of skills:
- COLORED BROKEN SQUARES (cooperation and communication)
- THE PENNY (observations, inference, and evaluation)
- THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA (trust and group benefit)
- THE SUPERVISION WINDOW (awareness and openness)
- SHERLOCK (collaboration and independence)
- WINTER GRASH SIRVIVAL (group decision-making)
- THE SPELLING TEST (evaluation)
For easy and effective use, each activity is structured and complete, including a statement of purpose with explicit learning objectives ... an overview ... a list of materials needed ... number of participants ... step-by-step procedures ... points raised by the activity ... suggestions and comments ... and applications in staff development.
Moreover, all of the material required for the activities are either provided on reproducible pages or are easily obtained (for example, a penny).
You'll find that theses activities are highly motivating to teachers and provide a welcome break from conventional approaches to supervision. They facilitate interactions in a nonthreatening situation in which everyone participates and has fun while learning, and give the teacher and supervisor a common, unifying experience that serves as a reference point for working together.
NOTE: The activities inthe Manual will be particularly useful when combined with the information and techniques in the author's School Administrator's Faculty Supervision Handbook.
