Power Up Blended Learning: A Professional Learning Infrastructure to Support Sustainable Change

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Katlyn Tucker. Katlyn is an educator, speaker, author, and blended learning consultant, and the author of four books on blended learning, including Power Up Blended Learning, A Professional Learning Infrastructure to Support Sustainable Change.

[00:35] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:37] SPEAKER_01:

Katlyn, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:39] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:40] SPEAKER_01:

So there's a lot out there in our profession about blended learning now. There are a lot of schools that are trying to go blended learning. Sometimes it seems like it's a technology-driven thing. Sometimes it's driven by the desire to make pedagogical shifts. But I was intrigued by the subtitle of your book, this idea of professional learning infrastructure. You know, sometimes we just jump in with both feet and say, OK, we're doing this and we figure it out as we go.

[01:04]

Why do you believe it's important to have a professional learning structure in order to support sustainable change?

[01:10] SPEAKER_02:

So I've had the opportunity to be a teacher using blended learning strategies and making just a boatload of mistakes in learning on my own. I never was trained on blended learning in the context of my school or professional development at my school. And then I've also obviously worked as a trainer and coach and seen teachers trying to make this transition. And there's a couple of challenges that I see as a coach, as a trainer, consultant that One is that a lot of the learning that happens on campus is still taking place in a single day or a handful of days over the course of the school year. And to be really honest with you, a fundamental shift in the way we design and facilitate lessons that blended learning is really calling for, it has to be a process. It can't be an event alone.

[01:58]

And so for me, when I wrote this book, I really wanted to think through how do we develop this infrastructure on a school site where teachers are really encouraged to learn all the time, because the changes happening in technology, they're not going to slow down, they're not going to stop, they're just going to continue to exponentially, there's going to be this exponential change. And teachers are trying to figure out how to keep pace with some of this change. And if Learning is relegated to a handful of days. That's just not going to happen.

[02:29] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I don't know if this has ever happened in any of the schools that you've worked in as a practicing educator, but it seems like we'll have an initiative and then the district will have an initiative and we'll be thinking we're going to spend at least our three summer days and then we'll do some more stuff over the course of the school year. And then those three summer PD days, you know, the district claims one of them and says, actually, you need to use it for this. And then maybe somebody else tries to claim half of one of the other ones. So our upfront time gets squeezed. And then, you know, that support throughout the year, I think I agree completely, is so critical.

[03:00]

That need for ongoing learning. What does that look like in a school that, you know, that maybe has done the initial, you know, They've done some upfront training. They've developed a model. They kind of know what they're going for. What does that ongoing need look like? Because I imagine there's a lot to it.

[03:21] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So in the book, obviously, I lay out my ideal vision. If I could make all the decisions, this is what I would suggest. And it's really a three-part progression. So in this context you just presented, They've already, it sounds like, established the why. You know, they've had the spark.

[03:38]

They've brought someone in to get teachers excited because this fundamental change in practice, you have to get teachers on board. They have to understand why they're being asked to invest so much time and energy and really to step outside their comfort zone. So once you've generated that excitement that you've established the why, I call that the spark in my book, then I really feel like the ongoing practice, the opportunities for personalized learning in this journey happen with a coach. And so having teachers work through, and I present the blended learning coaching cycle that I use when I have enough time to go through it with teachers, but this cycle of learning with a teacher and a coach so they can Think about what does this look like for my students in my subject area at my grade level? I have someone who can support me in setting goals, in lesson planning, in thinking about how a lesson went, in coaching in real time.

[04:33]

And then also the kind of gradual release that I talk about in the book is then participation in professional learning communities. Are you able – is there time in your schedule for you to sit down with colleagues and And work through kind of like an action inquiry cycle where you figure out what do we as a group want to focus on? What are we going to implement? What data are we going to collect? And how are we going to continue kind of iterate on our practice?

[04:57] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Well, and I wonder if maybe we should circle back to that vision a little bit, because as I was mentioning in my build up to the first question there, I feel like sometimes blended learning works. becomes the solution before we've really defined what the problem is. Like we are buying devices, we're buying Chromebooks, we're buying iPads, and now we need to like justify the fact that we've bought them. What does a stronger vision for blended learning look like? Like what are some of the things that you hear principals or superintendents say that make you think, yes, they get it.

[05:29]

They're doing this for the right reasons. They have a why that's going to carry them through. What are some of the big pieces of that vision for blended learning?

[05:36] SPEAKER_02:

So I absolutely think you're right. I think people recognize like, okay, technology's here. We got to get some for the classrooms. They spend just a ton of money purchasing technology. Hopefully they purchase devices that their teachers are going to really meet the needs their teachers have. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.

[05:55]

So they purchase all this technology and then they expect to see transformation. And a lot of school leaders, it's only after they've purchased the technology and then it lands in classrooms. and teachers are just not opening Chromebook carts even, it's just too much of a hassle, or they're simply using technology to substitute for tasks that could have been done pre-tech, that they start to think, oh my goodness, what are we going to do? And then they're like, blended learning. We'll just do blended learning and we'll get them all trained up. But the reality is we have to establish why this is valuable.

[06:28]

And for me, technology is simply a vehicle. It's not the end goal. I think that when I hear school leaders talk about kids need more agency, kids need to be driving the learning, kids need to be leaning in and have opportunities to think creatively and collaborate and create and publish, then I'm like, yes, let's create student-centered, student-driven learning environments where kids are active agents, they're actively engaged in the learning process. Those should be the drivers that are really pushing this change. But another thing you said that I think is worth really highlighting is that within districts, and I see this all the time, a leader will get really excited about a why and be like, yes, blended learning is what we need. But there's so many competing priorities and there's so many shifting trends in education that they might make it a priority one year.

[07:18]

But to be quite frank, it's something you have to invest in. You're not going to see transformative results immediately. It's going to take time. And leaders who bounce from one initiative to another without really nurturing the seeds that they're sowing in terms of blended learning, they're not going to see those results in the classroom that really got them excited about this shift in the first place.

[07:38] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, and back to that idea of professional development as an event that's over, you know, we see that every single year, right? We have our summer days, we have our days throughout the school year, and many of them are just that, just an event. So you mentioned the importance of a coach. When blended learning comes into a school or district and someone is designated as the coach, what typically is the background of that person? Who comes into that role? Yeah.

[08:04] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So in my book, I kind of describe the perfect blended learning coach as someone who has experience in the classroom, obviously being a teacher. Teachers are really kind of like an interesting breed. And I can say that because I am one where when you're receiving it, you know, whether you're in a training, you're receiving information or you're being coached, you want to feel like the person you're working with understands your situation. And teaching is such a challenging, demanding profession that, But I really do think it's critical that the coach has classroom experience. I think that when we talk about blended learning coaches or coaches who are going to support the shift of blended learning, they also need to be kind of like that tech enthusiast, the person who's going to poke around and check out tools so that when a teacher says, hey, I want to do X, Y, or Z, they have some ideas.

[08:51]

They can say, oh, this might be a cool tool to accomplish this. Or, oh, we might want to check out this. And then the third part is I do think that they need some training on how to be a good coach. Because At the core, being a coach is all about relationships, and they have to be able to nurture that person and connect with that person on a very human level with some just basic kind of coaching techniques. So, yeah, experience in the classroom, tech enthusiast, and some coaching training.

[09:18] SPEAKER_01:

So thinking about people who do have that enthusiasm and the people who do not, what are some of the differential needs that you see in a staff that is building capacity in this area, that is moving toward blended learning? Because obviously it's easy to encourage the people who are drawn to this kind of thing naturally, the teachers who are enthusiastic about blended learning, who are comfortable with technology, What are some of their needs in terms of coaching? Because I'm getting the sense that enthusiasm and technical proficiency are not the whole shebang, right? Like there's a value to coaching support, even for people who are perfectly fine to Google things on their own and try them out. So what value does a coach provide or can a coach provide to people who are already on board, already proficient with technology?

[10:04] SPEAKER_02:

Man, those are the people I start with. Because sometimes schools, it seems so backwards to me, but they're like, let's try to get our really hesitant teachers on board because then everybody will get on board. And I'm like, no, no. You're going about this the exact wrong way. You're going to have a very limited number of coaches on a staff or in a school site. You need to maximize...

[10:23]

those coaches and to be quite frank you're not going to get to all your teachers at one time or maybe even in a school year so I encourage school leaders find those teachers for the first round of coaching who are excited who are your early adopters your trailblazers your eager excited folks and train them because the reality is and I go through in the center of my book I literally have a chapter dedicated to each part of this coaching cycle that I really like. And I use with teachers, but with your early adopters, you're excited folks. You might go through it once they get a good sense of, okay, this is how I design a lesson. And here are some great tools. And I have a coach kind of giving me feedback during a lesson and I'm reflecting on it. Boom, I'm ready to run.

[11:04]

And then the value is you have these folks who are often running and you can use their classrooms as these open spaces where then you go to your next level who are like, interested, but they're nervous, or they're hesitant, and you can take them into these open spaces where they can see blended learning happening in action. And then you might spend a little longer on the coaching cycle with those folks and, you know, go and lesson plan twice and coach twice, and then just keep working your way down until you're scooping up you know, the majority of the staff. And then hopefully the work they do in PLCs complements that, where they start talking about their practice and what they're doing. And those eager, excited folks start to build some momentum among the staff about, oh, so-and-so's trying this and having these results. And to be quite frank, students start to talk, too. Like, oh, we're doing this in so-and-so's class.

[11:52]

I think that natural momentum starting with those early adopters is really helpful to get the ball rolling.

[11:58] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that phrase, early adopters, and Everett Rogers' diffusion of innovations model that basically says you've got that small number of people who are early adopters, and then the bell curve kind of goes up, and you've got the early majority, the late majority, and then you've got the tail end of people who would rather die than get on board.

[12:18] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

[12:18] SPEAKER_01:

But, you know, the momentum is built by the time you get to those people. Right. Like like the train has left the station. Most people have hopped on and and it's much easier going to bring those last few people on board than if you start with them. What are some of the pitfalls that the most enthusiastic people tend to run into? Like like what what do they need from that coach to really avoid the pitfalls?

[12:41] SPEAKER_02:

I think the biggest pitfall, I love working with those folks. They're just so open, which is exciting as a coach, but they also tend to bite off a little bit more than they can chew in the very beginning. And so I think when I work with those folks, it's about tempering that excitement a little bit and saying, okay, we're, you know, maybe we're, we're focused on a particular model, station rotation or the playlist or whatever. And they're thinking of all the different things they could do. And oftentimes it's all the different things they can do with tech. And I'm the voice there that just reminds them that it's a balance of online and offline.

[13:15]

And even though they're all excited about all these different things, let's choose one or two strategies, or let's focus on differentiating one or two parts of this so that when they get in the lesson and It doesn't end up becoming kind of like this beast that's so overwhelming that they get a little bit disillusioned. They don't tend to give up, but they feel like, oh, I failed at that lesson. I'm like, you didn't fail. You just bit off a lot. And so it's just kind of reigning them in the beginning so they can experience those small successes on which they can build.

[13:40] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And avoiding that shiny object syndrome that I think ed tech draws us to if we're not careful.

[13:45] SPEAKER_02:

Which is why we have to stay focused on the why and the pedagogy and like, what is the technology really enabling students to do?

[13:53] SPEAKER_01:

And then I'm glad you mentioned for the teachers that come next, you said maybe doing extra coaching, maybe not just one cycle, not just one model lesson, but layering it a little bit more thickly for that second group.

[14:04] SPEAKER_02:

it was funny. I was interviewed and asked like, what trend do I hope to see in 2019? And I said, personalized professional learning. Like we are all in different places. We all have different needs. And so when I'm a coach working with teachers, my question to them is what are your long-term, your short-term goals?

[14:22]

What do you want to get accomplished? And then what are they going to need from me as a coach? Are they going to need, you know, lesson planning? And then I go in and co-teach with them. And then we go back to lesson planning and then they teach and I coach. So It just depends.

[14:34]

And for some people we can skip a step or we can repeat a step and it should be customizable. It's not lockstep in any way, shape or form.

[14:41] SPEAKER_01:

Do you recommend that coaches try to approach the reluctant people or is it one of those things where you kind of serve the people who are interested in working with you? And I feel like most coaches will have the experience eventually of being assigned to work with like a grumpy, reluctant person. Any advice for coaches in that situation?

[15:00] SPEAKER_02:

So I have definitely worked with the grumpy, I don't want to be here teacher. And I knew exactly, you know, you always know who those people are, too, before you even meet with them. And so there's a couple strategies. One, I will often invite, sometimes they don't take me up on it, and that's okay, but I will invite them into an observation or to sit and see a lesson, like I said, in action. But then for those folks, often they're grumpy until we hit the co-lesson planning part of the cycle. Because up until then, I'm like this outsider.

[15:27]

I'm threatening. I'm asking them to do something they're not comfortable with. But as soon as we sit down in co-lesson planning, and I talk about this in my book, it's not about figuring out what they need to do to create the lesson once they leave the meeting. We are co-designing. So I am opening up documents. We're creating things together.

[15:44]

And I think that's the moment in the cycle where even the grumpy teacher who is kind of like, wow, this lady is bringing value to this relationship. She's helping me. She has resources. She's putting fingers to keys and being, you know, an active part of this process. And then often those reluctant folks, you know, will instead of going straight into co-teaching or coaching, I'll do a model lesson so they can see it done. So it's just a little bit more.

[16:08]

It's like scaffolding for that hesitant teacher.

[16:10] SPEAKER_01:

I wanted to ask about goal setting, too, because there is the potential for a blended learning coach, I think, to be reduced to tech support. And I feel like you're talking about a lot more than tech support. And here's how you log in and use this tool. What role does the coach play in helping the teacher set goals? And what role do goals play in the overall initiative? Because I could also see...

[16:32]

where, you know, we want it to be personalized, but at the same time, as a school, we don't completely want it to be choose your own adventure. Everybody do something and we don't care what, you know, so help me kind of align those goals and make sense of it.

[16:43] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think there's goals that leadership sets for a blended learning initiative where, you know, oftentimes a lot of the leadership I've worked with, they decide, okay, this is the model we want to focus on first and let's get everybody initially trained on it. Let's get coaches supporting the process of teachers planning for and implementing this particular type of model. And so I do a lot of work with schools on station rotation model because not everybody's one to one and they want to balance the online and offline. And so I think creating goals as a school or as a district and making those goals really visible, whether it's like we want, you know, everyone to plan and implement a blended, you know, a station rotation by this time. We'd love to see teachers using this particular adaptive software in a station rotation or being really explicit. Like if you are a school that doesn't want to choose your own adventure, every teacher's on their own path, then make that visible.

[17:36]

But then I think, and then I think the coaches working with teachers can use that as a guide. So when they start talking with teachers about, okay, let's set some smart goals. What is really manageable and what is the timeline on these goals? And then making sure teachers have much more incremental, small goals they're working on about how they approach this. So for example, when I'm working with that middle of the road teacher and we're planning a station rotation, The first goal isn't going to be to differentiate multiple stations, right? Like that's something that's going to come later.

[18:04]

So what makes sense in the very beginning in terms of the goals I'm setting for myself as a teacher? What am I looking for in terms of, you know, what I want to see among my students? But I do think if leaders have really clear expectations, they have to make that visible. And then coaches can use that to inform their conversations with individual teachers who are setting SMART goals.

[18:25] SPEAKER_01:

I wonder if we could do a little bit of a scenario. Let's say I'm in a school where we have collectively decided, you know, we have the devices, you know, we have Chromebooks or iPads or something, and we've decided that we want to do Google Classroom. Like we want to be a Google Classroom school. Maybe we're a middle school and, you know, it's developmentally appropriate for our students. They can handle it, but that's kind of as far as we've gotten. Where would you advise us to go next?

[18:49]

And then what would you advise us to run with in the coming school year if all we know is Google Classroom?

[18:54] SPEAKER_02:

So I think for me, I would be framing it around what does Google Classroom allow us to do? And then I would conduct my coaching and my training around the strategies or the learning outcomes I'm hoping to achieve or the blended learning models. Like what role would Google Classroom take in a blended lesson? Like how could we use that to connect students to information or organize tasks and descriptions and collect student work? So it's interesting because like this summer I'm doing a three-day training and the whole thing will be around using Schoology. to like facilitate blended learning.

[19:31]

But the goal is not Schoology. The goal is blended learning and blended learning models and differentiation and all of those things. So I think that's the advice I would give your coach. Just think about why Google Classroom is valuable in terms of teaching and learning and then design your training from that vantage point, not from, hey, let's learn about Google Classroom.

[19:52] SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I think that skill of asking that question is really critical for anybody who's put into that kind of coaching role, because often the decision makers, honestly, are not going beyond that, hey, let's go with Google Classroom and Chromebooks kind of decision. So somebody has to be the one to say, this is about pedagogy. This is about the learning. It's not about just the tools.

[20:12] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and if you train people on tools, that's a very blah experience. Like, oh, Google Classroom can do this and Google Classroom can do that. But if you engage them using Google Classroom to learn how to do something, yeah, that's more anchored in like pedagogy and what they're teaching and what they're hoping students will learn, then that's a much more meaningful experience for teachers. And the tool isn't disconnected from the pedagogy.

[20:33] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I really appreciate, Catlin, the way that your book is itself kind of a roadmap for anybody who either is looking to put somebody into that coaching role or somebody who finds themselves in that blended learning coach role. And you include a lot about planning cycles and co-planning coaching cycles. going through model lessons and kind of managing the coaching process overall. If you could wave a magic wand and get every school that's interested in blended learning to do one primary thing or one first thing, what would that be?

[21:06] SPEAKER_02:

Honestly, I think as much as my book, the heart and soul of it is the coaching component. I think that if you don't start with that powerful why and establish the value, the purpose of what you are doing and get people excited about it, then nothing else is going to be really successful after that. So I would say to school leaders, whenever you are planning to do anything with teachers or students, ask yourself, why are we doing this? And then make it really clear to everybody.

[21:33] SPEAKER_01:

So the book is Power Up Blended Learning, a professional learning infrastructure to support sustainable change. And Katlyn, if people want to get in touch with you, learn more about your work, follow you online, get the book, where's the best place for them to do that online?

[21:47] SPEAKER_02:

I'm on Twitter, so Katlyn underscore Tucker, and I write a blog at KatlynTucker.com, and all of my books are on Amazon.

[21:55] SPEAKER_01:

Katlyn, thanks so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[21:58] Announcer:

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