Lightning Talks - Sharing Best Practices

Do you love learning from others? Do you enjoy the opportunity to share what you learn with others? I know I do! I recently implemented a new initiative at our school. I loved it and the teachers involved enjoyed it as well! In anticipation for the Twitter chat I have the opportunity to co-moderate tonight, which revolves around the idea of making practice public, I wanted to share this blog. 

My sister attended a Google/YouTube conference in New York City and heard several amazing entrepreneurs share how they kick-started their YouTube channels. They each had a slide template and ten minutes to share. I put this idea in my back pocket and recently connected it to an idea I could try at my school.

Each of our core subject teachers get a planning day with their department to plan for the coming quarter. During this time, we incorporate professional learning opportunities. I also observed a trend in the feedback I received from teachers when I asked for their input about what they would like to learn: content specific instructional strategies. Combining all these thoughts created the “Lightning Talks” initiative.

“Lightning Talks” was a way for teachers to share with their colleagues an instructional strategy they tried and were having success with in their classes. Success was defined as increased student learning and engagement.

My sister helped me build a Google Slide template. The Google slide deck was shared in edit mode so that each teacher could edit a slide.  Within each slide template, teachers identified an instructional strategy that was positively impacting student learning and engagement. Teachers wrote a description of the strategy, the process of doing the strategy and the impact the strategy made on student learning. There are stats that can be included, such as the time it takes, the increase in engagement observed, anything that gives teachers stats at a glance. Then, teachers can include a picture of what it looks like, a video of it in action, or a link to resource material. The top of the slide contains the title, which centered around how the strategy meets the needs of all students. In the upper right hand corner it says “time slot” because multiple teachers signed up to share and this was a fair way to allow them to choose the order they wanted to present. I created a separate slide deck for each department, but linked all slide decks on a common agenda so that teachers could refer to other ideas.

Here is what the template looked like:

During the presentations, I set a timer for two minutes and loosely stuck to it. After each set of presentations, some modifications I made were adding a Q&A time and extending the two-minute timer, depending on how many teachers signed up to present.

After one department’s Lightning Talks, at the very next meeting I heard teachers telling each other how they tried out someone’s idea and how much they loved it and saw how much the students benefited from it. PLCs shared with me how they tried an idea and saw the impact it had on student learning.

Teachers shared brain break ideas, Kagan Structures, cooperative learning strategies, review activities, and new ways to incorporate digital tools. While teachers were learning new ideas, the teachers presenting were gaining confidence with their presentation skills. Some asked for feedback and I was happy to share. One teacher in particular enjoyed receiving feedback that she asked to do another lightning talk during that day’s afternoon session.

At the conclusion of the planning day, I asked teachers to complete a Google Form and in it I asked which aspects of the planning day were beneficial to their learning. Most teachers cited the lightning talks and the opportunity to share and learn from each others. We will definitely be using Lightning Talks again, and I will continue exploring new ways to share our learning.

I enjoy learning highly effective strategies from others and how it unites what we strive for in education: to continuously improve our craft to benefit the students we impact.