11+Facilitating+Meetings

= **Facilitating Meetings** =


 * Text Support & Personal Experience:**
 * Figure 4.2 in Lambert (2003) points out that teachers can develop leadership capacity by "[becoming] more skillful in conversations, facilitation, asking inquiry questions, and teaching" and principal's can increase leadership capacity by "[becoming] more skillful in facilitating conversations, reflection, and designing faculty interaction time" (p. 37). Our professional development committee (PDC) has been working on tailoring more of our professional development days to reflect the needs of our teachers and administrators. Overall, having quality discussions and working for a shared vision, has improved how we view those days. In addition, as I provide technology in-services, I try to survey staff before and after sessions to see what they want to get out of our time and/or what can be improved upon in the future. ~Kate

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 * Lately I have been working at a school district International Student related project. By working as a project assistant, I have learned so many things by working closely with the vice-president, the lead of the project. With this project, we have meetings quite often. One of the important leadership skills I learned is how to facilitate meetings properly. At our meeting, usually we will present our developed documents, and then we would like each representatives from the colleges to critique on them, then make the documents into final copies, which is our goal. From my experience, I think facilitating meetings means creating interactive time during the meeting, respecting each individual’s voice and to be inclusive as much as possible. -Jingfang
 * Faculty meetings "can be a major source of energy for the school when, among them, the following criteria are met: ...meeting is managed by a skilled facilitator and a process observer and ... meetings are designed so that important issues and appropriate evidence can be thoughtfully examined" (Lambert, p. 13) I have been on the receiving end of one too many meetings that was not well managed. The best case it mine and others' time was wasted, but often it is the worst case and important issues are not discussed, weighed and acted upon. ~Laura


 * Lambert states, "Successful facilitation should maintain focus, include all voices, and move the agenda along by synthesizing and summarizing what has been said." (2003, p. 24) Through discussions from the past few weeks, I remember reading a few peoples' that explained that many times their meetings weren't effective, or the use of time was negative...and so the importance of being a good facilitator at meetings is crucial for everyone involved. It is important to discuss what is on the agenda, and not to get off topic, to make sure everything was covered in a timely fashion, as well as recording what happened at the meeting. Those notes should be passed on to the people at the meeting or for those who missed to make sure there was a clear understanding for the purpose of the meeting. -Kelly