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7/10/2023 123. Unit Dreaming: A Family-Designed Unit (ELA, Music, PE) with Elizabeth and Nancy JorgensenRead Now
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Nancy and Elizabeth Jorgensen are a mother and daughter duo, both teachers and writers. They even worked in the same building for a few years! In this episode, we apply a step-by-step unit planning protocol to dream up a new unit!
Unit Planning Step 1: Context/Spark Nancy and Elizabeth co-wrote a book about their family member, Gwen Jorgensen, who is an Olympic athlete and the winningest woman in the history of the triathlon. Unit Planning Step 2: Pursuits (from Dr. Muhammad’s HILL Model) Identity: How will our unit help students to learn something about themselves and/or about others? What does it look like to be your best! Tár is a movie about the first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. Criticality: How will our unit engage students’ thinking about power and equity and the disruption of oppression? Not many middle-grade books and stories about female athletes out there. Title IX. Structures of access. Representation across intersectional identities. Joy*: How will my unit enable, amplify, and spread joy? [Joy is: beauty, aesthetics, truth, ease, wonder, wellness, solutions to the problems of the world, personal fulfillment, art, music .] Stories of joy and success and working through or bouncing back from the ache of not achieving success the first time. Student-curated resources (what brings them joy!) Unit Planning Step 3: Driving Question What environmental indicators enable us to be our best? Supporting Question: Who and what do I need? Unit Planning Step 4: Summative Project (Publishing Opportunity and Possible Formats) Students write letters to be published in a literary journal OR perform a live artistic/musical piece! Students can discuss what necessary components should be included in selections. Letter Examples:
Unit Planning Step 5: Lesson-Level Texts Ideas Rich Roll’s podcast and YouTube series Alexi Pappas’s book Bravey Student-curated resources (e.g., newsletters, music scores) Stay Connected You can find Elizabeth on www.lizjorgensen.weebly.com or email her at elizabeth.jorgensen@gmail.com. You can find Nancy on www.nancyjorgensen.weebly.com or email her at nancy.l.jorgensen@gmail.com. They are both on Twitter @LyzaJo and @NancyJorgensen More Links:
To help you implement a unit like this, Nancy and Elizabeth are sharing their educator guide with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 123 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain what to do when political discussions bring unexpected things:
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Phil Januszewski is a tattoo-covered, Netflix baking-show flopping, motivational speaking high school chemistry and physics teacher with a master's degree in teaching leadership. His mission is to bring happiness to others through education, motivation, and entertainment.
In this episode, we go in a totally unexpected direction weaving two content areas together as we apply our step-by-step unit planning protocol. It’s a wonderful example of the messiness of the unit design process! Unit Planning Step 1: Context/Spark NGSS Standards. Have to prepare students for the exam. Wants to build in more SEL touches to the Science standards. Can we weave in positive psychology and gratitude into an upcoming thermochem unit? Let’s further students’ development as humans, not just scientists. Unit Planning Step 2: Pursuits (from Dr. Muhammad’s HILL Model) Intellect/Content: Shifting energy. Endothermic, exothermic. Phases of water. Lots of algebra. Skills: Data collection/observation (review); Explanatory models/metaphors (next level) Identity: How will our unit help students to learn something about themselves and/or about others? Gratitude. Fostering connection to teacher, students, school community. Embracing the good. Criticality: How will our unit engage students’ thinking about power and equity and the disruption of oppression? Lack of belonging inhibits learning. Joy*: How will my unit enable, amplify, and spread joy? [Joy is: beauty, aesthetics, truth, ease, wonder, wellness, solutions to the problems of the world, personal fulfillment, art, music.] Experience joy during learning. Unit Planning Step 3: Driving Question Is our community more exothermic or endothermic? Note: We didn’t come up with this exact version during the show, but I think it takes one more step to bring together the student examples to analyze the community sense of belonging Phil talked about. Unit Planning Step 4: Summative Project (Publishing Opportunity and Possible Formats) Phase One: Traditional project/assessment on Science knowledge Phase Two: Students choose a situation that’s important to them and pose it to the class to discuss the question: Is [this example from life] more exothermic or endothermic? Phase Three: Suggest a practice or policy change to fix an exothermic situation. Stay Connected You can find Phil on his website at www.philjanuszewski.com He’s on Instagram and Twitter @PhilJanuszewski His Linktree is: https://linktr.ee/PhilJanuszewski You can email Phil at: PhilJanuszewski@gmail.com To help you inspire flourishing and positive psychology in your school, Phil is sharing his 3-Step Classroom Happiness Practice worksheet with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 122 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain turbulence theory and the student voice pyramid:
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Tre’ Gammage is a Social Emotional Learning Specialist focused on building social-emotional competence in school communities through program adoption, implementation, professional development, and team building. In this episode, we build out a “unit” for adult PD using a step-by-step unit planning protocol!
Unit Planning Step 1: Context/Spark Wanting to curricular-ize adult SEL professional learning experiences. Currently, Tre’ is mostly focused on working with schools and leaders on relationship and communication. Let’s build a unit around this! Unit Planning Step 2: Pursuits (from Dr. Muhammad’s HILL Model) Identity: How will our unit help students to learn something about themselves and/or about others? Current offerings focus on general communication preferences as part of adults’ identities. Criticality: How will our unit engage students’ thinking about power and equity and the disruption of oppression? Let’s elaborate on this. SEL skills are the foundation to be able to have equity conversations and changes. Group size may impact the adaptive, critical work that can be done in a generative way. We want adults to be able to stay in important situations and conversations when experiencing discomfort. Unit Planning Step 3: Driving Question Are you showing up as your best self in your community? (A lesson/activity can be defining as a group what “your best self” in community means.) Unit Planning Step 4: Summative Project (Publishing Opportunity and Possible Formats) Communication summary report for each team that includes information such as: individuals’ strengths, tendencies, whether they are people- or task-oriented and whether they have fast or slow communication styles. Application: Review these reports before and after meetings. Use the collaboration strategy list to support self and others. Final “assessment” is to address an existing tension in the school/team. Unit Planning Step 5: Unit Arc Hook: Miscommunication and high stress in the workplace as a hook. Then, take the assessment. Build the Base: Reflect on individual assessment results. Watch videos specific to your communication style. Explore high and low emotional intelligence examples. Case Studies: Case 1: Individuals think about relationships; Case 2: Strategies to support communication in your team; Case 3: Routines to help each person and the team be at their best. Project Work Time: Lower-stakes practice of team communication through “decision by consensus” options like lost at sea or lost on the moon. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on www.seleducators.com and on social media @tregammage and @seleducators. To help you learn more about adult SEL, Tre’ is sharing a bunch of informational video content with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 121 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to talk about a strategic plan for increasing student voice in the next few years:
6/19/2023 120. Unit Dreaming: Sustainable Farming + Photosynthesis with Dr. Leena Bakshi McLeanRead Now
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Dr. Leena Bakshi is the founder of STEM4Real, a nonprofit professional learning organization committed to combining STEM and NGSS standards-based content learning and leadership with principles of equity and social justice. It was super fun to brainstorm a justice-centered Science unit using both of our unit planning protocols!
Here’s what we came up with: Unit Planning Step 1: Context/Spark Real-world application: What can students do? Food desserts during the pandemic in California. Unit Planning Step 2: Pursuits (from Dr. Muhammad’s HILL Model) Identity: How will our unit help students to learn something about themselves and/or about others? Students see themselves in the lesson. Counternarratives via situations, types of farming. Criticality: How will our unit engage students’ thinking about power and equity and the disruption of oppression? Different communities’ levels of access to food by race, geography and income. Joy*: How will my unit enable, amplify, and spread joy? If the teachers aren’t having fun teaching, the students won’t be having fun. Phenomenon-based instruction inspires curiosity. Phenomenon-based instruction can happen across the content! Joy is in the possibilities of what can be! Unit Planning Step 3: Driving Question How do we farm so that communities of color and low-income communities have access to food? Unit Planning Step 4: Summative Project (Publishing Opportunity and Possible Formats) The public product can be selected by students. This might be a social media campaign, a letter to the school board, presenting at a city council meeting. Unit Planning Step 5: Unit Arc SHS Planning Approach: Standard: Photosynthesis Hook: Students look at photos of empty grocery store shelves. Society: How are we going to farm? 5 Es Unit Arc: Engage: Experiential, inquiry-based learning (just jump right in without vocabulary!) Show the picture(s), have students generate questions using the Question Formulation Protocol, share via a discussion protocol. Explore: Make observations. Measure plant growth. Explain: It doesn’t have to be teachers explaining to students. Students can explain to each other! Use a text-based protocol (e.g., video, written text, student-created model) Elaborate: Tell counternarratives. Show examples of farmers of color and indigenous farming techniques. Align with Social Justice Standards from Learning for Justice. Look at different contexts like hydroponics. Evaluate: Return to student-created list of questions from the start of the unit. What questions did we answer? Use Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning frame to respond to DQ. Use Circle protocol to discuss. Youth take civic action that feels authentic. Stay Connected You can find Dr. Bakshi McLean on www.stem4real.org and follow her organization at @stem4real on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. To help you design and implement your own amazing unit, Dr. Bakshi McLean is sharing her Lesson Planning Tools with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 120 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to talk about using practical strategies to support student inquiry:
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An educator with over twenty years of experience, Debbie Tannenbaum works each and every day to “transform” learning using technology. She’s also an educational technology consultant, ISTE Certified Educator, author, blogger and speaker. In this episode, we apply our step-by-step unit planning protocol to dream up a new unit!
Unit Planning Step 1: Context/Spark Debbie teaches a 14-week technology course as an enrichment activity for fifth and sixth grade students. She’s taught the course once before, but wants to elevate the student ownership of the learning and enable students to create something they’re really proud of. She wants students to become tech leaders. Unit Planning Step 2: Pursuits (from Dr. Muhammad’s HILL Model) Identity: How will our unit help students to learn something about themselves and/or about others? Identity as tech leader in justice realms: “creative communicators” and “global collaborators” in ISTE standard language Criticality: How will our unit engage students’ thinking about power and equity and the disruption of oppression? Critically discuss how people can use tech to harm (and how to use it to elevate justice). Joy*: How will my unit enable, amplify, and spread joy? [Joy is: beauty, aesthetics, truth, ease, wonder, wellness, solutions to the problems of the world, personal fulfillment, art, music.] Creation and creativity! Unit Planning Step 3: Driving Question What is the formula for becoming digital leaders? Unit Planning Step 4: Summative Project (Publishing Opportunity and Possible Formats) Publishing Opportunity: Space on the public website or an option to share live PD Possible Formats: Students can create virtual tech PD for students, teachers, and/or family members. They may use iMovie trailers to create videos to get people interested in specific student training. Unit Planning Step 5: Unit Arc Lesson 1: Introduce DQ. Circle Protocol: discuss and come to consensus on community agreements (Who do we want to be?) Mind map protocol: Use keywords to develop name and logo as an exit ticket. Tech tool: Canva Lesson 2: Build a Base Phase (build foundation). Look at the district’s vision of how to use tech (e.g., transformational, equitable access) and unpack ISTE standards. Lesson 3: What does equitable access mean? Trust of students with responsibility Lesson 4: Case Study- 3 presentations: visual appeal, creative commons, digital responsibility Lesson 5: Case Study- YouTube for good. Come up with 3 interview questions Lesson 6: Case Study- Interview stakeholder (e.g., family member, teacher) about their PoV on the DQ. Share out response. Use DQ as exit ticket. Lesson 7: Case Study- Becoming a Creator Lesson 8: Case Study- Situation where you got feedback- was it helpful or not? Which protocol do you like? Lesson 9: Return to driving question. What is the best answer? (What is your lens) Exit Ticket: What is your draft? Lesson 10: Protocol: What I Need Lesson 11: Protocol: What I Need Lesson 12: Protocol: What I Need Lesson 13: Presentation Lesson 14: Reflection Stay Connected You can find Debbie on www.tannenbaumtech.com and on Facebook and Twitter @TannenbaumTech. To help you help your students with tech, Debbie shares free teacher tech tips to educators on her email list. You can join here. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 119 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to talk about how to prepare teachers to use new curriculum:
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I love co-creating new units. In this series, I brainstorm with guests to dream up units across a variety of content areas. In this episode, I’m inviting you into the unit planning protocol we’ll use to create our justice-centered units.
Why Unit Dream? In her book, Unearthing Joy, Dr. Gholnecsar Muhammad urges us to develop curricular fluency. For one, it’s joyful, and when we are more readily able to create on the fly, we are better equipped to co-create curriculum with students, which for me, is the ultimate goal. How do we do this? Unit Planning Step 1: Find inspiration! I’ve started to post potential sparks of inspiration on Twitter and LinkedIn using the hashtag: #UnitDreaming to make these sparks searchable. Your inspiration may come from your daily commute, listening to podcasts, reading or watching the news, listening to music, experiencing nature, grappling with a big question about life or the human experience. Unit Planning Step 2: Brainstorm the pursuits! Specifically, I like to focus on 3 of Dr. Muhammad’s 5 pursuits in her HILL model: Identity, Criticality, and Joy. In my experience, these are the ones I see the least in curricula and also have massive potential for positively impacting students’ sense of belonging and meaningful engagement at school. Unit Planning Step 3: Start Playing with Your Driving Question This is hard. It doesn’t need to be a perfect first draft. This might take months to finesse. When I get stuck or need a headstart, I’ll use a DQ frame like: What’s the formula for ____? or What would it look like if…? Unit Planning Step 4: Civic Action as Summative Assessment Now, think about what students will do to apply what they learned in this unit to better their community? If this isn’t relatively easy to answer, it may be helpful to return to your DQ with the end project in mind. For the civic action project, consider a publishing opportunity(s) in which students will be able to share their work with an audience beyond the teacher. Also consider the variety of formats this project could take so you can share options with students and then completely open it up for more student ideas. Unit Planning Step 5: Unit Arc What are the protocols you’ll use to engage students throughout the unit? Consider which protocols elevate student talk and grappling. My goal is 75% of student talk/work time in each lesson. Unit Planning Step 6: Content/Texts When you’re ready to start thinking about content, I like to outline broad content ideas and maybe a “text” for a Hook lesson, a few Build the Base lessons, and a couple of Case Study lessons. The rest can be co-constructed with students. You may want to consider a “text library” or website where you can direct students to find texts if they will be selecting case study materials or doing their own research and need a bit of guidance. Finally… Once you’ve created something with this unit planning protocol, share it with me! Tag me on social media, reply with a comment to this blog post, or if you’re not ready for public eyes on your idea, you can email me at hello@lindsaybethlyons.com. I can’t wait to see what you create! To help you dream up your own unit, I’m sharing the one-page template I use with guests on Unit Dreaming episodes with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 118 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to talk about how to run a staff meeting on unit dreaming.
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I met today’s guests at the 2022 NCSS Conference when I attended their session on elevating and prioritizing teaching hard histories in the ELA classroom. Both curriculum specialists for the school district of Philadelphia—which includes about 250 schools—Christy primarily works with middle schools and Alison primarily works with high schools.
The Big Dream Christy’s dream is that all students can access grade level texts, and they are on the way to achieving that dream soon! In addition to Christy's dream, Alison’s dream is autonomy for students and teachers to make the best choices for their needs. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content The culture of partnership seems to be in place in many places. Leaders share the vision of partnership. Sometimes it doesn’t happen in the way it’s envisioned. Paraphrasing Dr. Ibram Kendi, Christy shared that racist policies lead to individual racism, not the other way around. The hope is personal mindsets will shift when we introduce new curriculum and have honest conversations as educators wrestle with it. There is a legacy of heavy-handedness around pedagogical practices, so there is a bit of fear around having the autonomy to do things differently than they’ve been done in the past. Another tension is due to emergency certifications and the larger context of teacher training, teachers may not have been equipped with the tools they need to be culturally responsive to the needs of their students. Christy shared an analogy: We’re not trying to give people overwhelm with a bunch of dieting recommendations, we’re saying eat nourishing meals and eat a walk every day. We’re not inventing something brand new. We’re trying to take away some things that were added to teachers’ plates that were not helping teachers and students. Action Steps The simplified goal: Read good books. Talk about them. Write about them. Curriculum Created: For each unit, we share a core text and provide daily lesson guidance documents, which includes core components of a reading or writing lesson. Each unit comes with an overview, which includes Essential Questions, big ideas, and alignment to Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s HILL model (5 pursuits). Step 1. Try to align ELA novels and texts to grade-level History units and content. Step 2. Choose culturally relevant texts. Choose one canonical text and teach it critically. Step 3. Develop lesson guidance, not lesson plans. (This enables teacher autonomy and offers opportunities for personalization in response to students’ identities in each classroom.) Lesson guidance includes things like: an opening, mini lesson, shared reading, discourse, write in response to reading). Step 4. Develop a writing-based summative assessment (multimodal writing or traditional writing). Recommendations for Leaders Doing Similar Work An Approach to Implementation Challenges: Particularly in high school, teachers are often attached to the texts they’re teaching. There’s some sticky spaces around that. They’ve pushed it back to schools to determine what they were comfortable with and what their students needed with the lens of Am I just falling back on what I know? Am I pushing myself? They’ve learned to trust schools and leaders to make those decisions and honestly communicate when that’s a struggle. Being open to the conversation is critical. Not Starting From Scratch? If you’re working with existing resources, there is still room for shifts. ”We think that novel-based units are the way to go…We start with the premise that there is no wrong text to teach in a classroom. It’s how you teach it.” We have to work within our locus of control. For example, if there’s a short story with problematic messaging, relate it to the identities present in the classroom (the teacher’s and the students’ identities), and determine how to talk about the text. Positive Deviance: Parable of the Sower and Sula units were made and previously taught by teachers prior to this district-wide curriculum design work. These units were already received well, so it became part of the standard curriculum. In fact, all units were designed by teachers and coaches in the district, which helped build trust in the curriculum. Book “Home Runs” for Students: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo and Born a Crime by Trevor Noah One Step to Get Started Shift conversations about ELA instruction to building knowledge. Books teach us about the world. What knowledge are we choosing to build? How is that built by the books we teach? Skills are very important to reading and writing, but without knowledge, they are kind of useless. There’s a lot of research on this coming out now! Stay Connected You can connect with Christy via email at cchang@philasd.org. You can find Alison on LinkedIn. You can also find the School District of Philadelphia’s secondary ELA curriculum here. To help you begin to think about leading teams to create new curriculum, I’m sharing my Curriculum Boot Camp Planner with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 117 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to talk about current events with your staff:
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DESE is releasing their new (free) Investigating History curriculum for grades 5, 6, and 7 in the 2023-24 school year. In this episode, I walk you through what’s in the curriculum and how you can support your teachers to engage with the curriculum and prepare to teach it to their students in a relevant, personalized way.
Why I Like It and the Research It’s Based On: It’s grounded in justice-centered research and frameworks. The 4 Instructional Principles:
The 3 Pillars:
Content Covered in Each Grade: *Note: This curriculum is constantly evolving based on feedback from students and teachers, so this is the outline as of this episode’s recording (March 27, 2023). Grade 5:
How to prepare teachers to engage with this curriculum and prepare to teach it? Suggested outcomes for a professional learning experience:
Leading Curriculum Implementation Tip: Co-create ongoing structures of coaching support, success shares, and resource banks. For reference: DESE’s Design Specifications document for the Investigating History curriculum. To help you get started with preparing teachers to teach this curriculum, I’m sharing my Investigating History PD Agenda with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 116 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I reveal an instructional strategy and how to build community:
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Dr. Darrin Peppard is a leadership coach, consultant, and speaker focused on organizational culture and climate. He’s the author of Road to Awesome and continues to be an educator at heart.
The Big Dream Every adult and kid in a school feels seen and valued and heard. Every single kid has an opportunity for a better tomorrow and to figure out what they’re interested in. No one gets put in a box. Mindset Shifts Required Develop portraits of a learner instead of portraits of a graduate! We can lead from the middle or the back. We don’t always need to lead from the front. Help teachers see what’s possible and give themselves permission to teach in innovative ways. Action Steps Hand over the curriculum decisions to teachers (e.g., to align curriculum and instruction to their three academies: Health, Energy, and Fire, Law, and Leadership). Dr. Peppard had three incredible leaders leading those academies, and just let them go. Of course, he was still in their classrooms all the time, but they led them. Protect and shield your staff from outside (and sometimes even inside) forces so they can do their work. Build a groundswell of interest. It can’t just come from just you; it’s gotta come from staff. Put a team together and invite someone who’s not an early adopter. Visit other schools doing great work with teachers. Ask: Who’s doing that well? Invite students from other schools doing the work you want to do to talk to your students and families. One Step to Get Started Have a vision. Be clear about that vision. What’s the shift in reality you want to see in your school for your kids? You can then make decisions about where to allocate your time and resources to make it happen. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on www.roadtoawesome.net or @DarrinMPeppard on social media. You can get the revised edition of Dr. Peppard’s book here. To help you be the best leader you can be, Dr. Peppard is sharing his free ebook on 5 mindsets to level up your leadership. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 115 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to co-create community values and agreements:
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Leaders, if you need to navigate challenging staff and/or larger community contexts or disagreements.
Origins of this Episode Leadership Coaching Question: How can we work with differing opinions among staff or between administrators and families? (How do you arrive at a common understanding?) Another Leadership Coaching Question : How can we bring our DEI team’s “theory” work to the whole staff in a practical way? What Can We Do? First, some grounding context: Upholding the dignity of all people and advancing justice are the goals. We can’t lose sight of those. Facts matter. Scholars, Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy distinguish between settled empirical issues (these are factual realities and we don’t debate them) and policy issues (we can debate what’s the best way forward). Action Step: Ground the work and discussions in shared values. In processing injustices and conflict, center human emotions and “BASE” needs (i.e., (belonging, autonomy, survival, and enjoyment) instead of personal opinions. When we disagree, if we can identify the underlying value that’s the reason that we take our specific position, it’s more likely we can connect and hear the other person. For example, if someone says the value that underlies my position is that I am afraid for me or my family’s safety. That is something we can likely all resonate with to some degree. Tip: If you haven’t already identified shared values as a staff, I recommend doing this as your next meeting activity! (You can get a sample agenda for such a meeting here.) Action Step: Collect data on students’ experiences and center staff conversations in “street data.” (Check out the book, Street Data, by Jamila Dugan and Shane Safir!) Action Step: Invite students to staff meetings and have students on leadership teams as much as possible. Action Step: Use staff meetings to practice via protocols staff can also use with students, families, teams, and/or community members, depending on their role. What’s in the 4 Staff Meeting Agendas Freebie? .
Tip: Check out the 5-minute videos for each of these available on YouTube. Sneak Peek: Next month on the podcast, we’ll be starting a brand new #UnitDreaming series featuring educators who create a justice-centered unit outline right on the show! To help you do this work with your staff, I’m sharing my Staff Meeting Agendas with you for free. (You’ll get one agenda per week for a month. Yes, slide decks and live links to all related resources are included!) And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 114 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I explain how to diagnose an adaptive challenge:
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AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
September 2023
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