Energizing Staff Development Using Film Clips: Memorable Movie Moments That Promote Reflection, Conversation, and Action

"One of the fastest ways to provide an understanding is through a story or a visual. Film clips do both. This book is an invaluable aid to any staff developer who wants to captivate an audience and teach at the same time."
-Dr. Ruby Payne, President
aha! Process, Inc.

"Because our metaphorical minds learn through finding patterns, relationships, and analogies, the use of film clips to illuminate such elusive but enduring values as persistence, courage, empathy, creativity, and hope can accelerate their meanings more powerfully than any lecture, definition, or description."
-Arthur L. Costa, Professor Emeritus
California State University Sacramento

Make training fun, engaging, and rewarding with this powerful and readily available technology!

Video and DVD clips give participants an opportunity to explore values and ideas, learn about one another, and, in the process, build a stronger learning community. Energizing Staff Development Using Film Clips is a collection of film and television clips that staff developers can use to encourage discussion and reflection on pertinent, common themes, including courage, communication, change, conflict, creativity, and leadership. Each chapter includes real-life examples of how clips may be used in staff development settings, quotes for extending thinking and discussion, and articles and books that relate to the chapter theme.

Each film clip section includes:

• A synopsis of the scene
• An explanation of critical themes
• Start and stop times
• The length of the clip
• Suggested discussion questions
• Contexts for use

These stimulating, instructive film clips lead to helpful conversations, create positive plans of action, and promote learning through reflection. Whether planning a team meeting, a faculty meeting, or a training program, leaders and organizations will find a clip to generate conversations about many of the most pressing issues in education. 

William A. Sommers, Ph.D. of Austin, Texas, continues to be a learner, teacher, principal, author, leadership coach, and consultant. Bill has come out of retirement five times to put theory into practice. He was on the Board of Trustees for five years and President for the National Staff Development Council now called Learning Forward.

Dr. Sommers is the former Executive Director for Secondary Curriculum and Professional Learning for Minneapolis Public Schools, and a school administrator for over 30 years. In addition to being an adjunct faculty member at several universities, he has been a program director for an adolescent chemical dependency treatment center and on the board of a halfway house for 20 years.

Bill has co-authored eight books, and co-authored chapters in several other books. In January 2016 Bill and his colleague Skip Olsen launched a website www.learningomnivores.com which includes educational blogs, new rules, and book reviews. Bill is a practitioner who integrates theory into leading and facilitating schools. Dr. Sommers has continued to be a leadership coach for over 25 years to school administrators.