Personalized Professional Learning: A Job-Embedded Pathway for Elevating Teacher Voice

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Allison Rodman. Allison is the founder of The Learning Loop, an educational consulting organization that provides professional learning services to districts, schools, and nonprofit organizations internationally. The Learning Loop designs, facilitates, and coaches professional learning that's personal, purposeful, and paradigm shifting. And Allison is the author of Personalized Professional Learning. a job-embedded pathway for elevating teacher voice, which we're here to talk about today.

[00:43] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:46] SPEAKER_01:

Allison, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:48] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much, Justin. It is an absolute pleasure to be here.

[00:51] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I'm excited to talk with you about personalizing professional learning because as a school leader, it's one of those things that's our responsibility, but taking it to the individual level, the personalized level of just seems so daunting, right? It seems so powerful on the one hand, but also like simply meeting the group's needs often is very demanding. What is personalized professional learning to you? And what does that look like when it's done well?

[01:17] SPEAKER_00:

So as a teacher, I became incredibly frustrated with the one size fits all sit and get model of professional development that so many of us as educators have experienced. And later, as a school leader, I was determined to try and find ways, despite the, as you mentioned, daunting task that it was, to personalize the process, not only for the teachers in our building, but across the different positions of instructional work within our building to make sure that they were getting exactly what they need. And I think for many of our leaders, that starts with offering choice in professional learning. But if we're truly personalizing, it's so much more than that. We want to be inviting learners into the co-creation process. process as we're putting those experiences together, and then also giving them an opportunity to really socially construct new knowledge together when they're in those sessions.

[02:15] SPEAKER_01:

I think we've all probably used that phrase, you know, sit and get kind of professional development or one size fits all, where it feels like the purpose is for someone to present rather than for everyone to learn. And it sounds like that personalization or that social construction of knowledge is really at the heart of that. Take us into what that means to socially construct professional learning or socially construct knowledge, because I think that, you know, if we can do so much better than just kind of passively receiving information or ideas, we're going to see better results. What does that mean to socially construct the learning?

[02:53] SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. So when I coach facilitators, I really encourage them to think not just about the session itself, but what's happening before learners even step foot in the door or the Zoom room, depending on what space we're in. And then how are we working together to extend that learning loop beyond the synchronous engagement? Part of that involves priming learners, being really upfront about what the expectations are. What are we here to do together? What do we expect you to bring to the table so that we have this sense of positive and mutual accountability to each other?

[03:27]

From there, how are you making the most of the time that you've got? So it kills me when I walk into professional learning sessions and we're spending so much time on logistics or just delivering information that we can be kind of digging in and exploring together a little bit more authentically. And then also making sure that there's really time for action planning. So it's not just that delivery of content, but then also having the tools and having the time to be able to work shoulder to shoulder with colleagues, make the plan, and then also troubleshoot through some of the things that could potentially be challenging along the way.

[04:06] SPEAKER_01:

I think we've also all used that phrase, this meeting could have been an email or people are always wanting more free time, more time with their team to plan. What is the value of bringing people together, especially as a whole staff for working with a presenter? And you said often you're working with the person who's going to be facilitating the professional learning. What value does that person bring? versus just team time? Because I remember hearing that frequently from teacher teams.

[04:35]

Oh, just give us time to work in our teams. Just give us time in our teams. We don't want to come all together. What is that value of bringing people all together and working with a skilled facilitator?

[04:45] SPEAKER_00:

So I think we need as leaders to be intentional about that time. And by that, I mean, we're asking teachers to be incredibly thoughtful about the pieces of content that they're facilitating whole class with their students and the pieces of content that are finding their way into small group instruction or one-on-one conferencing. We need to adopt that same mindset when working with our adult learners. So many times the coaching and the professional learning planning that I engage with with superintendents and with building leaders is to look at not only your student achievement data, but also some of your observation and evaluation data, needs assessment data that you may gather from teachers and other instructional staff in your building, And then very thoughtfully and intentionally identify what are the pieces that truly make sense to facilitate whole group.

[05:35]

It might be those pieces where you're setting expectations, where you're trying to deliver progress towards goals. Or just those points of inspiration and motivation, right, where there's that sense of community. But then thinking about what are the areas where we can be more personalized, where we can get into those smaller groups and dig in a little bit more deeply than what might be possible in a large group setting.

[05:58] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let's get into some of the dimensions of personal personalization. Because, again, as a as a planner of, you know, kind of what what my staff needs, it sounds very overwhelming to think, okay, now, how can every single person, you know, do something personalized within there? What, what can that look like, in terms of adapting to individual needs?

[06:17] SPEAKER_00:

So the first thing I always coach is start small. I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make as school leaders trying to first engage in personalized professional learning is, to your point, Justin, we think we've got to give every single person exactly what they want. And we don't. We need to offer some choice and invite those learners into the design process with us so But we don't have to offer every choice because what can unfortunately happen is when there's too many items on the menu and we experience this ourselves and we go to restaurants at times is we're not doing all of them well. So even though the choice might be there, the design aspects and the facilitation aspects really start to lose quality when there's too much quantity. So really working with leaders to zone in on what are those few offerings, at least initially, that are going to enable teachers and other individuals to feel like they have some voice in the process.

[07:17]

but that we are also able to design and facilitate in really careful and intentional ways to make sure that they're getting the quality out of that experience as well.

[07:27] SPEAKER_01:

One thing that comes to mind, Alison, is the idea of an EdCamp, where we have lots of different topics. Maybe there's not one particular staff-wide focus. Maybe it's even multiple staffs. People are coming together to just go and do quick sessions on any topic of interest. And then, of course, on the other extreme, we have one size fits all, sit and get. What can some of those in-between places look like where there is a common vision, there is a common focus, but there's still personalization?

[07:58]

Because it's easier to picture the extremes, right? So what can it look like when there is a whole staff focus, there is a whole staff agenda, there is a whole staff vision, and yet there's still personalization within that? What are some of the things that people do to personalize within that common agenda?

[08:14] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I love EdCamps because I feel as though they touch on two of those components of personalization, right? As a learner, you very much have voice. You're picking what the topics are and then also which ones you're going to engage with. And then because they are sort of so free flowing in their form, we see more social construction happen in an EdCamp type format than perhaps we see in a more traditional professional learning community, workshop, conference, et cetera. But there are a couple areas where I feel like, to your point, we can do a better job that is still a little bit of a low lift for leaders.

[08:48]

One is paying more attention to preparing and equipping the facilitators that we've identified. So I am very much a proponent of having teacher leaders involved. and other individuals within our schools be the ones who facilitate and who lead those experiences. I don't think we always need someone from the outside to do that, right? But we also need to recognize that in many cases, those individuals all day long work with students. And the pedagogy and the andragogy sides of the coin when it comes to adult learning are very different.

[09:23]

So we need to make sure as school and district leaders that the individuals that we are identifying to facilitate those sessions have the skills and the capacity necessary to do that well. So that's the first point. And then second... making sure that we're not overlooking the opportunities that exist before the engagement itself starts.

[09:46]

So too often, you know, we identify what the topics are going to be. We might even do a really good job of getting the right people in the room. But then there's this window of time between when we put people on different rosters and when they actually show up that we can leverage a little bit better. So whether it's working with facilitators to give those individuals some type of diagnostic to better understand what they're hoping to get from the session and how they want to apply the new knowledge afterwards. Or making sure that individuals are coming into the session ready to go, right? Maybe they're reading an article or watching a video or trying something out in their practice before they come in so that we're able to get right down to work and maximize that time that we have together.

[10:31] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit because we've certainly encountered the idea of flipped learning a bit and we've all faced that tension of how much information do we just send out ahead of time versus actually spending the time in the session. Everybody can read an article on their own, but on the other hand, Sometimes it's easier to get everyone to actually read it if we just sit down and do it. What, in your experience, can people be counted on to do outside of that meeting time in order to make that meeting time more productive? And what is worth just kind of zooming in on and devoting the time when everybody's there in person?

[11:07] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I'd like to have facilitators, when possible, ask learners to dedicate just 10 or 15 minutes of time before the session, right, to get in the right headspace, to understand what we're going to engage with together, and then possibly just kind of dip their toe in the water with the content. So that could be a quick article. It could be a quick video. It could be, hey, I want you to conference with one student and ask these three questions and then bring their responses later. with you to the session or try one of these three strategies. And when we first come together, we're going to debrief what went well and what was challenging.

[11:45]

But there's, as I said, this missed opportunity, I think, to prime learners and get us from a brain standpoint ready to come in and engage in meaningful ways together. So I often pull on Priya Parker's work around the art of gathering, where she looks at putting together truly collaborative and engaging spaces for adults, anywhere from a six person dinner party to a 10,000 person conference. And one of the things that she really emphasizes is this need for priming, that we come into the space primed and ready to go. So when working with facilitators, I like to think about how do we take that 10 or 15 minute chunk to really prime those learners and get them ready.

[12:25] SPEAKER_01:

Right. And you're talking about priming them, not just at the beginning, but in advance, right?

[12:29] SPEAKER_00:

Correct. So that could come through the course of an email. I've worked with some facilitators who even do like a quick video or encourage the learners in the session to have a Flipgrid video space together. But yes, that would be kind of before we even step foot in the Zoom room or step foot in the classroom together.

[12:46] SPEAKER_01:

We talked earlier about the idea of, you know, choice, but not, you know, infinite choice and having like a limited number of options that we can do well, that will still be relevant and still offer, you know, that opportunity for personalization without being just anything goes. In terms of kind of bringing people back together, you know, your organization is called The Learning Loop. What does that loop concept mean to kind of, you know, rather than just say, okay, now go scatter and do your own thing. How do we bring that back together and make it a collective learning experience, even if people are going in different directions to personalize?

[13:18] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So as we're designing, I always encourage leaders and facilitators to think about sort of that gray space between sessions, right? So whether it's a team meeting or we're getting together regularly for a professional learning community, or maybe it's a series of workshops that we're engaging in, I don't want us to overlook those opportunities to sort of collide and collaborate together between when we may synchronously be together. So we could be synchronously together in a learning management system or actually in a classroom together. But when we leave that session, when that room gets closed, what are sort of the little nudges that we can offer to say, hey, how about if you get in one another's classrooms? Or how about if you take 10 or 15 minutes over the next two weeks to engage in some collaborative planning together?

[14:06]

Or you're sharing a action planning tools or unit plan ideas together with each other so that when we come back for that next synchronous engagement, we can engage at an even deeper level than what we were able to previously. So when we talk about that learning loop, I really want to ensure that the learning doesn't just end when the clock hours do, but instead we're continuing to extend those points of collision together in meaningful and thoughtful ways.

[14:34] SPEAKER_01:

And one that's so exciting to me is the potential of getting people into each other's classrooms. As instructional leaders, of course, we want to be in people's classrooms, but it's amazing how without that nudge, without that support, without that encouragement, people can go 10, 20, 30 years teaching right next door to their teammates and really never actually set foot in each other's classrooms for any substantive kind of professional learning opportunities. So I love that as a way of potentially continuing the learning, as you said, beyond the clock hours and between sessions. What's your take on getting people to kind of see each other's practice and work together, not just in the meeting setting or in the team setting, but actually when they're doing what they do with students? How do we make that happen? What are some of the challenges there?

[15:19] SPEAKER_00:

So in my work with adult learners, Justin, what I find time and time again is that as much as we say we want choice and we want to be able to sort of make our own way and make our own decisions about what that professional learning means and looks like, I'm also finding that we need structure and we need not necessarily boundaries, but sort of guidance as to what that looks like. So there have been times in professional learning sessions where I've left action planning completely open-ended and said to folks, hey, take this where you want. You can turn in your action plan in any format. And individuals find it paralyzing, quite honestly. I've gotten much stronger and more effective responses when I give sort of, you know, multiple versions of an action planning tool and say, select one. So when we think about getting individuals into classrooms or encouraging those points of collaboration between sessions, I think even as adult learners, while we may want choice, we also need some structure and guidance.

[16:20]

That might be setting up a platform to allow some of that scheduling to take place. It might be having a space where we're able to sort of videotape lessons and share them in a virtual space together if we can't make the physical schedules match up. It may also mean providing individuals with different versions of note-taking tools or action planning guides so that when they go into a classroom, they have a clearer sense of what they're looking for and what their action steps might look like coming out of that observation.

[16:52] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Alison, I know a lot of your work involves actually working with the facilitators and the planners of professional learning within a district or organization. And often I think that's something that we don't think of as leaders, that the facilitators actually can have some training in how to facilitate. We think in terms of content expertise, this is our special ed expertise, this is our literacy expertise and so on. What particular expertise do you help people develop to be successful as facilitators of this, right? Apart from their content knowledge, apart from their existing expertise, what are some of the skills that you work with people on to be successful in facilitating professional development and facilitating the personalization of that PD?

[17:34] SPEAKER_00:

So, Justin, up until this point, a lot of that work, quite honestly, has been small group or one-on-one coaching of facilitators. So a superintendent or principal might come to me and say, I've got my group of facilitators identified for next year. Can we do a multi-session workshop with them? I've also had facilitators record some of their sessions that they've engaged with learners in, and then I will give them sort of real-time feedback as to what that looks like. But in that work, I've put together a five-step professional learning design cycle that I typically walk facilitators through. And what I'm incredibly excited about is the opportunity to be able to offer that coaching and that walkthrough to a larger group of individuals through a virtual course so that's something that's kind of on the horizon and coming very soon is being able to over the course of five different steps of that design cycle help facilitators plan their session but also plan those points of facilitation so much like as a teacher we might think through what are my discussion questions going to be or how am i going to scaffold this particular part of the lesson

[18:43]

I engage in that work with facilitators through the course of that virtual workshop so that they feel equipped not just in picking the right content, but also making the right facilitation moves that are going to have the greatest impact on those adult learners. And those five steps include the priming piece that we discussed previously, how we're going to usher learners into the space. So how does it feel like a different experience and not just walking down the hall to another meeting? How are we launching those sessions and kind of keeping logistics out of it and really getting to the heart of the learning? How are we socially constructing the new knowledge together in the session and then finally extending the learning opportunities after that synchronous engagement? So I'm excited to be able to work with even more facilitators in that space moving forward.

[19:31] SPEAKER_01:

And if people want to learn more about your direct support or course options, where's the best place for them to go to find you online?

[19:39] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so check out my website, www.thelearningloop.com. There is information there about a community that I offer for leaders as well as facilitators to be able to engage with one another, as well as that upcoming course. And then certainly follow me on social media at The Learning Loop. I'm always excited to make new connections and be able to collaborate with individuals.

[20:02] SPEAKER_01:

So the book is Personalized Professional Learning, a job-embedded pathway for elevating teacher voice. Allison Rodman, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[20:10] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much, Justin.

[20:12] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.