Provide professional development even when time is limited
A story from Virginia
Finding time to provide formal professional development on classroom physical activity can be a challenge. Through creative problem solving, Amy Riggio, Health and Physical Education Teacher in Loudoun County Public Schools and Ron Malm, Chief Operating Officer of Focused Fitness, figured out how to use short bursts of time to talk to classroom teachers about classroom physical activity, using common planning times or after-school meetings to reach teachers.
Key Takeaways
Think outside the box:
Professional development can:
- Be a formalized, multi-hour training.
- Be woven into prep periods or common planning times for grade levels or academic subject areas.
- Occur in short meetings outside of the school day.
- Happen informally through conversations.
- ALL OF THE ABOVE.
Professional development comes in many shapes and sizes. It is important to identify the target audience for your training and determine the best, most accessible venue to maximize participation and impact. Sometimes that requires thinking outside the box!
Mr. Malm reflected that in some Loudoun County middle schools, trainers met with teachers informally during their prep periods.
“The trainers just joined their prep periods – they didn’t ask for a time. They just said, ‘Hey, I’ve got 15 minutes. Can we talk?’ And those 15 minutes would turn to 30 minutes because teachers really wanted this information.”
Keep trainings short and sweet, with follow-up support: Because Ms. Riggio taught during grade-level common planning times, she recognized that the best way for her to reach teachers was outside of the school day. Ms. Riggio repurposed her hour-long classroom physical activity training into a quick 15 minute presentation and set up times to meet with teacher teams from each grade level outside of the school day.
“I [originally] wanted to bring the staff in and do one big professional development training on classroom physical activity. But, it actually turned out to be a blessing [when that couldn’t happen] because I got to … individually sit with each grade level. They could be a little more open with me [to figure out] how they can make the ideas work for their students.”
Prioritize content to keep trainings concise and actionable: Ms. Riggio and Mr. Malm identified the following as priority content to cover to make the case for classroom physical activity:
1) Provide a rationale for why students need to move during the day;
2) Detail the different types and purposes of classroom physical activity;
3) Provide classroom physical activity ideas that “could literally be incorporated the very next day with zero equipment and zero change to how the classroom would be set up”, and
4) Identify and address any articulated obstacles identified by teachers.