Prior to the jam session, we had reviewed an online discussion from one participant’s social psychology course, using the same single-point rubric the teacher used to assess the student work. Discuss how this process aligns (or not) with current practices and what the challenges are in transitioning to this process for teachers.Interpret specific outcomes to think further and learn about CBL-based assessment.Try a collaborative process: looking for learning (outcomes) in student work and inferring what the outcomes reveal about the condition of aligned competencies.While participants read the jam session goals and agreements before our gathering, early on we revisited them together:
#Global jam session professional#
The question also reflects the core belief in our approach to faculty professional learning: we believe that faculty learning increases and improves student learning. What’s one thing you’re learning right now? What would success in that effort look like? Recently we held our first one, which began with an icebreaker to build the team and set the tone: Through a collective, more intimate look at student work, we move from what can gobble our attention - details and logistics (not that these don’t matter) - to the essential goal of this whole enterprise: learning.
#Global jam session series#
We offer jam sessions as a series of smaller meetings rather than a single gathering of the entire faculty.
Further, Aguilar believes “the health of a meeting reflects the health of a team.” We have to build the team and design meetings to focus conversations on what teachers care about most: students and their learning. Building a team requires trust, time, skillful leadership, and emotional intelligence. In The Art of Coaching Teams, Elena Aguilar argues that teams are built, not just named or assembled. Having a powerful communication platform frees up meetings for what’s worthy of gathering at the same time, able to see each other’s faces and body language, able to collaborate. Our introduction of Slack has led to efficient messaging and information sharing and has reduced a lot of email. Make time and space for learning-focused meetings by using varied and intentional communication.We identified three priorities in designing jam sessions: How might we make the most of time we spend together? To design the jam sessions, we thought broadly about communication and the topics worthy of synchronous gatherings. We want faculty to leave with new ideas about assessing student work, and we want faculty to grow their competencies, especially with feedback. We’ve renamed faculty meetings “jam sessions,” and, like a jam session, we’ll invite everyone to bring (metaphorical) instruments and aim to build something together, which wouldn’t be possible as soloists. Inspired by Ron Berger's work and my own experience reviewing student work with colleagues, we’re making discussing, reviewing, and analyzing student work the shared purpose of our teacher gatherings this year. Shaping such a purpose requires focusing on the why rather than the what. To eliminate mundane gatherings, Parker describes how their purpose has to be specific, unique, and disputable.
In The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and Why It Matters, Priya Parker argues that gatherings are essential, yet many gatherings in our lives - from conferences to dinner parties and meetings at work - are unproductive if not lacking and lackluster. However, when an agenda item did provoke lively, if not tense, reactions, we left with little resolved and a weekend to stew. Rarely did the content require being in the same place at the same time. The timing was rough, the gatherings mostly uninspired. We’d gather in a large room, where rows of chairs faced the front, where administrators made announcements on a microphone. I once taught in a school where faculty meetings were held on Friday afternoons at the end of the class day at the end of long weeks. How often do faculty meetings focus on learning?
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