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Amazing Race Staff Meeting

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Staff meetings are generally very dry affairs. Often they become reiterations of the email memos that have been sent out.  In an effort to make our staff meetings more worthwhile experiences, I suggested that we use our March staff meeting to show teachers a different way of learning.  I didn’t just want to tell teachers about the benefits of constructivist learning, I wanted them to experience the benefits first hand.  I proposed holding an Amazing Race competition with our staff.  We would split the staff into teams, give them tasks, clues, detours, and road blocks.  The first team to complete the tasks would receive a “sweet million” (a King sized Hershey bar with a Starbucks gift card attached).

Tasks: These were things that the team had to do together.  For example one of our tasks was to count all of the biographies in the library, and subtract the sum of biographies that were less than 100 pages.  (Our 3rd grade students are required to read biographies that are more than 100 pages, the idea was to get teachers looking through the biographies, realizing the small number of appropriate biographies that meet their requirements).  Some of our other tasks included, stopping somewhere in the building and taking a silly team picture with a camera stationed there, searching United Streaming for an Animal Cracker (idioms) video, filling out a Google Form that asked questions about previous tasks, and using search tricks in Google.

Clues: These pointed the teams to the next task. We had route markers throughout the rooms and halls to point the way.

Detour Clue: These are random tasks.  Example: Find a maintenance form, substitute form, and reimbursement form and write who should receive each at the top of the form.

Road Block: These are completed by only one member of the team. For example: jump rope and have a teammate take a picture.

We started our Amazing Race Staff Meeting by giving each team colored bandannas, a school map, a bottle of water, pen, and notebook.  Before the race began, we watched a CHC Amazing Race video.  Our teams were off, teachers were running down the hallway and shouting directions to each other.  They were working, learning, and having fun together.

You can see our Amazing Race video and Google form here.

The meeting was a huge success.  Morale was boosted, staff bonds were strengthened, and teachers participated in a different kind of learning.  It was fun! I had NO idea how competitive our staff is.

What creative staff meetings have you been a part of?  What kinds of staff meetings do you find most useful?

Founder of Anastasis Academy, The Learning Genome Project, 5Sigma Education Conference, tech integration specialist, instructional coach, writer, dreamer.

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18 Comments

  1. I wanna work in your school!

    When I ran PD workshops, I was always amazed how much teachers LOVED to role play kids with undesirable behaviours. And yes, competitive to the extent of wrestling and cheating to win jelly beans, so I’m not surprised at your staff. I think it’s a great idea. Just wondering if anything will change with the number of appropriate biographies?

  2. Uau! What an awesome idea! I would absolutely love it if our meetings – even if only one once on a blue moon- were like that. Ours are generally boring, and everyone is pretty much eager to leave! Sad, I know.
    Thank you for sharing an alternative that actually gets us moving and working as a team. Needless to say that not every meeting can be like that – although it would be great if they could – but I do think that every school should have at least one like that each term.

  3. This is great. All of my admins are getting this. Thanks for sharing.

  4. I absolutely love this idea. The only thing wrong with it is that I’m mad I didn’t think of it first. 🙂 We seem to spend so much energy making creative, interactive, collaborative lessons for our students, yet so often our professional development is dull, boring, and follows a “one-size-fits-all” model. If ANYONE needs differentiated instruction, it’s TEACHERS! Thanks for the idea. Can’t wait to try it.

  5. This is such a great idea! I will be sharing this with all of my admins. Thanks for sharing.

  6. I used the Amazing Race as an idea behind our year 7 library orientation last year. It was certainly much more fun and promoted a team effort, which was good as the students were all new to the school. It seems like it works just as well with adults. Isn’t it amazing how were are transformed when something is fun?

  7. I think what I learned from the whole experience, is that play and fun are universal. Kids, adults, everyone appreciates it and can learn from it!

  8. It’s been said in this comments section many times, but I’ll say it again: GREAT idea! Increased engagement in pd sessions should be a focus of all schools!

  9. Just wondering how this worked. On the Amazing Race, they all do the same tasks but only so many people can count biographies at one time. Did you stagger the starting tasks or something so that folks would be in different places at the same time. I LOVE this idea and I’d love to propose it to my school or school district for admins to consider. I thought I’d ask for any help in managing the event that you had to offer.

  10. Carm,
    Yes, I set up the tasks so that each team started with a different task. We had 4 more tasks than we had teams. This way if any team tried to move to the next task and the previous team was still there, they had an alternative task to accomplish while they waited. This worked really well.
    Good luck! Let me know if you need any more help.

  11. I am wondering how you made the CHC Amazing race video?

    Also I am putting on a pd workshop for curriculum renewal. I would love some ideas on how to jazz this workhsop up, but teachers also need to know what is in the new curriculum. Any ideas??

  12. Hi Leah, I created the CHC Amazing Race video by creating a video mashup. First I found the intro to the Amazing Race on YouTube. I downloaded it using Kick YouTube and put it into iMovie. I cut the video into clips and inserted pictures of our staff in the place of the show contestants. It was really very easy to do!
    What about some sort of scavenger hunt for what is new?

  13. Kelly,

    great idea and from this idea we now have a wiki and a new hashtag #UNPD 🙂

    Seriously this is a great and we need to make PD about more development and growth and not just doing the same thing over and over.

  14. Thank you Akevy, it was a lot of fun to do and gave everyone a great example of thinking outside of the box both in PD and in their classrooms. #UnPD it is!

  15. What happened to the links to the video and form? I would love to try to duplicate this in my library.

    Thanks!

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