My name is William Mwijuka, a teacher at Mpumudde Seed Secondary School in Jinja, Uganda. I have been working as a teacher for around 14 years and I am passionate about making a difference in the community, one student at a time. Teaching is a rewarding career; I love building relationships with learners while helping them piece together ideas, information, experiences and concepts to form a coherent web that constitutes their understanding and fluency.
In my role as a School Education Leader in the STiR Education programme in Uganda, I often conduct network meetings for teachers in my school that help strengthen connections, foster mutual support, and ensure sustainable improvement through learning new strategies to embed into their professional practice. These meetings encourage us to constantly innovate and test new approaches to ensure their sustainability at scale.
I follow a trusted process that has helped me to run numerous successful network meetings and I’d like to share it with you all. Happy networking!
Step 1 – Research, research and research
Research is the backbone of every successful project, and this is also true for conducting network meetings. To run an effective network meeting, make sure you do comprehensive research on the theme and strategies at hand. This will not only help you design the content for the meeting but will also make you well versed in the topic.
Step 2 – One can never be over-prepared
Strong preparation gives you mastery over a topic and this gives you the confidence to facilitate a session. Arrange for all the required things beforehand. A few of the essentials could be a laptop, projector, mission, vision and quotes clearly stated on a paper and displayed.
One of the best ways to engage all the teachers at once is to have a seating arrangement in a form of a circle or an oval. In my experience, it helps all teachers to be vocal and participate equally in the meeting.
Step 3 – Initiate with loads of energy
Being the facilitator, you should be full of energy when you start and maintain it throughout. This ignites teachers’ interest in the meeting and they will try to match your energy.
Welcome the teachers with a smile and request them to sign the tracker for record-keeping. State the objectives clearly in the beginning so that the participants will know what to expect and they will feel more involved in the session.
To kick off the session, do a quick energiser that will help catch the participants’ attention and will serve as a warm-up before the meeting. You should all have fun in this one!
Step 4 – Introduce, interact, internalise
Introduce the theme of the meeting in detail to the teachers. This should be conducted as a participatory discussion so as to clear all the doubts and the facilitator should encourage everyone to give their input. Follow this by reading the teacher’s portfolio (which contains an elaboration of the theme concepts) that will help the teachers understand and internalise the theme.
Step 5 – More the merrier – A group activity
Now, this is the fun part – teachers are requested to form groups where they discuss their ideas and models while using the guidelines from the portfolio. As a facilitator, you should move around the hall to observe their progress and answer their queries. This will depict a real classroom environment and will help teachers understand how to implement it. This will also give them the time they need to reflect on the material, ask questions, listen to their peers and comprehend the topic.
Step 6 – Time to share the ideas with everyone
Seek three volunteers who will be ready to stand in the front and share their ideas with the audience. Ideally, the presenter should be using illustrations to make it easier for the audience to understand. Having colourful visuals also makes the presentation interesting and visually appealing.
Step 7 – Create plans for the classroom practice
Encourage the teachers to create a plan on how they can inculcate this theme in their classroom practice. Once they have created a plan, they can share and discuss it with a peer. The facilitator and the peer should give constructive feedback to the teacher based on the success criteria for improvement. As a result, teachers will increase in confidence while implementing their strategy in the classroom.
Step 8 – Let’s appreciate everyone
We all want to feel appreciated for our work which motivates us and keeps us going. At the end of the session, make sure you appreciate the teachers for being honest while reflecting on their work. I never forget to thank them for learning from each other and supporting one another in their development.
Step 9 – Find peers for classroom observation
Once the teachers are in their classrooms, they will be implementing the plans they constructed in this network meeting. To measure the efficacy of their plan, they should be encouraged to find peers from the meeting to observe their classroom practice. The facilitator should ensure that all the teachers have found a peer and no one is left behind.
Step 10 – Look forward to the next meeting
Give them something to look forward to for the next time, plan and schedule the next meeting. Bid them goodbye with a pleasant smile.
And you have now conducted a successful network meeting!
