It was just a few weeks ago, at about 4:20pm on a Wednesday. I ran into Matt Luter in our collective dash to the post-PD-time parking lot.
I blurted out my predominant feeling at the time: “That was TERRIFYING!” Any story involving blood, unconsciousness, emergency medical situations gets my heart going. I am not in the medical field for like about 100 reasons.
Matt, however, had a different initial observation: “I am so impressed with that presenter. I remember her from last year as well. She fit in so much information in such a short amount of time and yet kept us locked in.”
He was, as he usually is, completely right. Sure. the husband-wife duo weren’t visiting our campuses to help us get better at teaching/learning. They didn’t have doctorates in pedagogy. But there sure was a lot we could take from them to level up our classroom impact. Here are some of our greatest takeaways from the CPR training this year:
- They spoke loudly and clearly with big voice modulation.
- They kept the pacing super quick and made sure to get us out on time.
- They asked questions throughout to see what we already knew.
- They included dramatic personal stories (often locally situated) to lock us in emotionally.
- They related it to our own risk (self, family, etc.) to gain investment.
- They provided props for each of us participate
- They differentiated by offering other options for those with knee/back issues, etc.
Learning how to save lives while singing “Staying Alive” in our heads is important enough to spend PD time on. But simultaneously learning lessons about how to teach better by excellent presenter modeling? That’s worth staying after school for.