How the workshop method can help you thrive in the chaos.
Once upon a time there was a teacher who spent hours, days, maybe even actual eons planning the greatest lessons of all time. The lessons were the perfect mix of engaging and instructional. And then suddenly without warning, the evil time suck that is an assembly, or a fire drill, or a last minute meeting ravaged the classroom and all that the teacher had prepared was lost in an instant! Sound familiar?
One of the things I like the best about the workshop method is that by focusing on objectives and longer projects/assignments my teaching plans are more flexible so that I can better adjust when things inevitably go awry.
So what's a teacher to do when everything you planned has to change? Punt like a pro-bowl kicker? Cry in the corner? Give up and go home? So often when we have to change our plans what happens is all those meticulously planned lessons we worked hours to organize, plan, print, cut and paste for, go out the window and the rest of your week’s plans are completely changed and you have to spend even more time trying to figure out how to get caught up.
So how does the workshop method help you change that? Simple, it makes the organization of your classroom set up to be dynamic. So when you have a drill you forgot about, a sudden change in the schedule, a squirrel loose in the classroom you can easily shift your plans without actually having to change them!
The most recent example of how using the workshop method to organize my classroom worked for me was right before Thanksgiving break. Not only did I end up having two kids come down with RSV, but we then had an inclement weather day which gives us a totally different online schedule.
Because I organize my classroom by weeks and my activities are built around meeting objectives, it was a quick pivot of changing a few activities to one’s that used video support instead of direct teacher instruction for my mini lesson portion. The rest of the class is organized into peer/group or individual practice anyway so those things didn’t need to change. And the feedback and reflection elements were already set up to be done through our learning platform so I could just grade and give feedback later when I got the chance.
If I hadn’t been using the workshop method I would have had to completely scrap lessons I had already spent time and energy planning, or spent even more time and energy planning entirely new lessons for the sub/weather days. Or most likely both.
The workshop method is great for students, but it’s even better for teachers! Want more? Click here to Download how to workshop a lesson freebie here! to dip your toe into the workshop method and start changing the way you teach that’s better for you and your kids! For the full course on 4 steps to more effective teaching sign up here!
