The First Teachers' Meeting

At Saint-Francois junior-high and primary school:

This first meeting took place on February 20^th 2020 with M. Ny, Ms. Srey Ya and M. Vanna. It was great and can be qualified as an utter-success. The team of teachers is highly motivated and eager to improve. 

The methodology I use with them consists in an input from a linguist or any other specialist in education. Then, we compare our actual practice with what it could or should be to get even better. 

The meeting is conducted in a non-threatening way. 

The goal is to help teachers realize they can teach in a more effective way by changing only a few things as easy as showing a photo instead of giving a long explanation.  
 

This first meeting was just incredibly rich in exchanges and discoveries for all of us. 

At Saint Francois Technical school: 

It took place on Friday 21^st February at 1:30 pm with Ms. Chenda, Ms. Tongsy, M. Toy, M. Prom, and M. Kea. It was very good!

It was supposed to last for 30 minutes but the teachers were really “hooked” and we shared for one hour.

The team is newer than the one in Chakatien, so it makes it a little less dynamic. Nevertheless, great improvements are on their way! 

Preparation of the meeting:

For our first official meeting, I think we should evaluate how effective our teaching is so far. This self-evaluation should come from each teacher regarding their personal insight on their own practice. According to the observations I have made so far in the classrooms, we should be at the top of the pyramid which is the lowest impact on students’ retention of what they’ve been taught. It is important that teachers make this statement themselves: “My teaching needs improving”

Then comes the “How can we improve?” stage where we can share ideas.

Finally, we’ll have to take one step forward: What shall I do, what specific action should I implement, this week, to be in the lower part of the pyramid, which is the best one?

We'll use the following input to base our reflection on:

It turns out that humans remember:

5% of what they learn when they’ve learned from a lecture (i.e. university/college lectures)
10% of what they learn when they’ve learned from reading (i.e. books, articles)
20% of what they learn from audio-visual (i.e. apps, videos)
30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration
50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion.
75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned.
90% of what they learn when they use immediately (or teach others)

General questions:

What is the less effective teaching method? Why?

Which is the most effective teaching method? Why?

Personal questions:

Where is my teaching now?

Where should it get?

What do I have to do to get there?

Group work:

We'll discuss the answers together.  

One step forward:

What will I try to implement this week?

(Will discuss the results in our next meeting) 

PS: The preparatory document for this first meeting has been presented to M. Samath, the Director, who validated it.