Teacher Training: Choosing the Best Time

Teacher Training Basics

Use these fundamentals in your teacher training:

1. Communicate training expectations upfront.
   "When we first talk to somebody about being involved in children's ministries," says Earl Radford, children's minister in California, "we talk to them about our teacher training programs that we have. We require that they attend at least two training sessions a year." Radford's teachers must also attend a membership class and a foundations of Christian doctrine class.
   
   
2. Realize that not everyone will come every time.
   It's very difficult to get 100 percent attendance at teacher training meetings. Radford realized "that I wasn't going to get everybody at the teacher training meetings. I couldn't take that personally."
   
   
3. Choose the time yourself.
   Don't take a vote. "Don't change your schedule for any reason because people will say, 'I didn't know when the meeting was,' " says Judy Wortley, author of The Training Remedy.
   
   
4. Make training interesting.
   Find out what teachers' needs are. "Survey the teachers somehow to discover what it is that they feel they need training in," says Bolton. And make the meeting time interesting. Bolton suggests, "Have a pretty high level of involvement so they're not just sitting and listening." Form small groups for active discussion and problem solving.
   
   
5. Build a team relationship.
   Acquaint teachers with what other teachers in other grades are doing. "If someone works with preschool, he or she doesn't have a clue what's going on in 5th grade," says Wortley.
   
   
6. Love your teachers.
   Volunteers want to be appreciated. "If you don't love them, you'll lose your volunteers," says Wortley.
   
   
7. Use experienced teachers as leaders.
   If your seasoned teachers can't see why they should come to teacher training, tell them how important their role modeling is to younger teachers. Have them lead a part of the training, and they'll want to come.
   
   
8. Start and end on time.
   
   
9. Provide child care.
   
   
10. Meet in a relaxed atmosphere such as someone's home.
    
    
11. Distribute an agenda ahead of time.
    
    
12. Record the meeting.
    Use audio- or videotape to preserve the meeting for people who can't make it.
    

copied from Children's Ministry Magazine