Professionally Driven: Empower Every Educator To Redefine PD

[00:01] SPEAKER_01:

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_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Jared Borman. Jared is an instructional coach, speaker, and the author of Professionally Driven, Empower Every Educator to Redefine PD.

[00:28] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome.

[00:29] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:31] SPEAKER_02:

Jared, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:33] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for having me.

[00:33] SPEAKER_02:

I'm excited to be here. Yeah, so we're here to talk about professional development, but you take that term or those initials, PD, and you change them from professional development to professionally driven. What does it mean for an educator to be professionally driven?

[00:48] SPEAKER_00:

I think the main purpose in redefining those letters a little bit was I personally was experiencing it, but I also saw in a lot of the school districts that I was working with, those letters PD or the terms professional development usually came along with some negative connotations, a lot of eye rolls, a lot of moans and groans. And so in redefining what that really is, instead of making it a thing that we do to the best version of our educator selves that we can make, That now changes it into the idea of professionally driven. And that means essentially that I am an educator who understands that I don't know everything. And I am constantly on the search for the things that aren't quite working. And I'm always working towards making them better. And usually that can be done on an individual basis and a small group basis.

[01:40]

But really, that's essentially what it gets down to is trying to always out-teach my best teaching.

[01:45] SPEAKER_02:

I think that drive to be our very best, to push ourselves to improve, reminds me a lot of Dave Burgess's work in Teach Like a Pirate. And I know he wrote the foreword to your book, which says a lot. You know, we all want to do our very best. but sometimes we feel like professional development is being done to us and is not really about being our best, but is about implementing some sort of priority. So when you're working with educators and inspiring educators to be their very best and to keep pushing, to keep improving and finding ways to get better, what do you find are some of the key differentiators for educators who really do have that fire, who do have that drive to get better? What makes them stand out?

[02:25] SPEAKER_00:

Ooh, that is a really, really good question. If I had to get down to more of a granular level, I would say that you have those educators who don't just shy away from the idea that I may not be good at something or what I call the weaknesses. I don't sugarcoat things when it comes to learning. I have to be willing to admit, number one, that I may not be good at something within my particular profession or maybe my content area. And one thing that I use is the TPACK framework to sort of help shape a person's mindset around that. Because if we use the TPACK framework, which I'm not sure if everybody understands that framework or anything, but really you have content knowledge, you have pedagogical knowledge, and you have technology knowledge.

[03:12]

And so those three areas make up the whole educator. Well, we don't come into the profession 100% in each of those areas. Teacher prep programs, at least at the secondary level for me, focus a lot on the content area. Second was probably pedagogical area. And then I remember taking that one lonely tech class that was required for me in order to graduate. Well, I'm not coming into the profession at 100%, which means that I'm given enough to really start the groundwork.

[03:43]

But I have to understand that there is still work to be done in order to shape my knowledge, my craft as an educator. And I would say the one characteristic that is probably the defining characteristic between those that are like fully blown, professionally driven and growth mindset or as George Cross puts it, the innovators mindset is really that I am actively seeking out my weaknesses. And I relate this back to CrossFit in my book where when you watch the CrossFit games, you see these athletes that are continually pushing themselves in an area that they know they're not good at in order to actively seek out weaknesses because the idea of finding a weakness is now exciting. Because now I know exactly where to start. I know my point A and I know my point B is to turn that weakness into a strength. Well, that's no different in education.

[04:34]

If I find the area that I'm not good at, I know exactly where it is I need to start with my learning. And point B is just positive effects on learner outcomes. Because that is the same point B, no matter what grade level you teach, what content area you teach, it's all the same. Point B is positive effects on learner outcomes. And just getting from point A to point B is where my learning journey now begins.

[04:57] SPEAKER_02:

And just that understanding that where we started is not where we should end up in terms of our skills as educators. And I'm grateful for that, that we all have the potential to grow after we start. Because I remember you're talking about the ed tech class that we have to take in our teacher certification program. And I'm old enough that my ed tech class featured overhead projectors with transparencies. This was before we had computers in classrooms, actually. But that growth mindset is not really something that we can just take for granted, though.

[05:26]

We can sit here, and it can be obvious to both of us and obvious to our listeners that we should continue to grow. But I think we've also all encountered colleagues who don't have that growth mindset and who feel like anything that's new is a threat to them, who feel like any change is a personal affront. What happens in schools or what happens in the individual teacher who shifts from having that fixed mindset and thinking, you know, what I'm doing is good enough and I'm going to defend it, into that growth mindset of, you know, I'm always going to get better. I'm always going to keep pushing myself as technology changes, as pedagogy, as the research changes and advances. What makes people make that shift into a growth mindset?

[06:06] SPEAKER_00:

Fantastic question. And I actually address a whole chapter in my book about this because I feel that it is such an important topic as far as we want that adult learning environment to really foster the growth mindset development. And unfortunately, traditional forms of PD, I'm talking about like the whole group stuff that's kind of focused more on training than learning and so forth. That has conditioned a lot of educators into that fixed mindset. So a mindset you have to understand is not something you're born with, as we know from Carol Dweck's work. It is, in fact, developed and can be fostered over time.

[06:44]

Well, a lot of people view an educator's fixed or growth mindset as sort of a light switch. Like you need to be fixed. And if you're fixed, just switch it to growth. And that's not the case. And something that I try to address in my book and also in some of the workshops that I do is how do we begin to identify where we are but then move towards growth? The idea is that first fight or flight moment.

[07:06]

And this also goes back to the grit work as well. When I can't develop grit, I can't develop a growth mindset if I first don't identify that fight or flight moment. And for me, when working with a lot of educators, it was the idea of upper level thinking. So over the course of time, we have gotten really, really good at assisting or helping students master the lower levels of thinking and But as soon as I ask an educator the question, where do you see students cognitively operating in the lower levels on a regular basis? So they may identify a certain part of their class, a certain lesson, a certain unit, whatever it may be. But then as soon as I ask the question, how do we move them into the upper levels more frequently over the longer course of time?

[07:55]

That's usually met with, what do you mean? Like a blank look, so to speak. And that's also where I start to see educators start to become uncomfortable. And that is exactly where we need to start. So we have to start with that fight or flight moment of, gosh, I've spent 20 years in my career really getting students good at lower level thinking, but I haven't had to really think outside that box of how do I get them into upper level thinking more frequently over the longer course of time. As soon as we start exploring that, It's my job as an instructional coach to try to keep them there and just make them feel like it's okay.

[08:29]

Like don't retreat back to this stuff that's safe and comfortable. Stay right here. Let's muscle through it together. Let's figure it out. And then we'll start plotting the course to point B together. And I'm not trying to set the bar for them.

[08:43]

I'm not, I'm not, as I use a mountain climbing metaphor and a lot of what I talk about and I'm not climbing up the mountain ahead of them saying, come on, let's get to this point. And I'm certainly not behind them pushing them up the mountain. I'm right there saying, so what's the next point you want to get to? And then the next point and then the next point and what's the end goal and so forth. So as an instructional coach, I see my role as a crucial role where as soon as we identify in the spectrum where they are on that fixed versus growth, And then they identify that fight or flight moment of how do I move students into upper level thinking more frequently. Then they go on that journey to then turn that weakness into a strength.

[09:20]

And they've taken one step closer to growth. They don't take a giant leap all the way to growth. But with each learning journey, they progressively get more towards growth mindset and to the point where you just got to stay out of their way. Like they're gone. They're sprinting, right? just get them to that point and they will start to then take off from there.

[09:38] SPEAKER_02:

It's almost like the discomfort is a little bit of a Geiger counter toward, you know, indicating where that best next step is. So I love that as an indicator there.

[09:48] SPEAKER_00:

And I've even had some administrators, you know, look at a particular learning journey goal to teach and they say, is that big enough? Is that like meaningful enough? And I say, well, to you, that may seem like a hill, but to that adult learner, that first one may seem like a mountain. So you really need to trust that that journey is the right fit for them because it's not supposed to be the right fit for everybody. It's their journey.

[10:15] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I think that segues nicely into the idea of autonomy. And I think this is one of the big tensions that we face as administrators where we want people to grow. We want people to have a growth mindset. We want them to grow professionally apart from everything that we're doing as a school. But we also have a mandate to do certain things as a school, to make certain changes that we determine as a school, that maybe our district determines, that are not just up to the individual. If we're going to adopt a new math curriculum, don't do that if you feel like it.

[10:48]

Do it because you work here and we're all teaching the same math curriculum. But I think sometimes we call what's really training, what's really maybe an initial use training, we call that professional development. Help me understand the role of autonomy in professional development as opposed to training, because I'm getting the sense from your work that that self-directed aspect to it is very important. And knowing that it's not the only piece that we have to worry about, how do we make those work together?

[11:14] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a big question I often get. And I will say that I totally understand the state mandates, the federal mandates, those things that have to be in place, the school safety things, the drills, all of that that need to take place. What I really try to advocate for is rather than taking up, let's say all of our PD time with trainings and then expecting the teachers to do the learning outside that PD time, we need to embed that time somewhere inside our PD time. So I try to advocate for pulling that in and really, respecting the educators as professional learners by respecting the time given for it. So what I try to advocate for is time per month. I have some administrators that say, Jared, we did an in-house ed camp, an in-district ed camp last month.

[12:04]

Teachers loved it. It was fantastic. They were all fired up. I said, great. When's the next one? And they have no clue.

[12:10]

Like you gave your adult learners one and done opportunity to be autonomous. So what I'm really trying to say is in order to make it sustainable, it really does have to be time per month. That then carries into a conversation with a district leadership team or a building leadership team as far as looking at the allotted PD time and then starting to get creative with how can we allot that personalized PD time for them to be able to go on their professionally driven journeys. And usually if you have a lot of schools that I work with have that experience. early out every week or every other week sort of schedule. And so those become very easy to incorporate.

[12:50]

It's the school districts that say, oh, we have one full day every other month or something like that. That becomes a little trickier to try to incorporate. But then it comes down to, well, what staff meetings are you constantly putting out there? And is that time being used appropriately? And can we shift some of that? But what I really do say is I say start small with your time.

[13:12]

because if you i had one school district that wanted to dedicate over half of their pd time for personalized pd and i say that's great but if you promise half the time you have to protect it and you have to give it because if you over promise and start cutting into that time with with staff meetings and other things you are now losing the trust and that's a really big part of this whole picture as well is building that foundation of communication and trust and time as autonomous learners.

[13:44] SPEAKER_02:

I think one of the big fears that we have as administrators is that if we give teachers too much time to use autonomously for their own professional development and growth, that some people will use it to put up a new bulletin board. Some people use it to grade papers. Some people will say, actually, I need to go home early today. And we'll be asking ourselves, you know, what did I get for that time? And there's a very real fear that that time will not be used as effectively as if we kind of contain everyone in one room and say, okay, we're all doing the same thing or work in groups, but we're all gonna be in the same room. Any thoughts on managing that tension?

[14:17]

Because, you know, as much as I can agree 100% that autonomy is hugely important for professional development, We also know that there's a level of accountability or maybe just structure that needs to be there in order to make sure that that, you know, that that reaps rewards for students and doesn't just become, you know, kind of prep time, basically.

[14:34] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so in my book, I have three chapters dedicated to the why, which is essentially the big three to be professionally driven, which is. growth mindset development, intrinsic motivation, and sustainable autonomy. I really do firmly believe that adult learning needs to be embedded on those three big principles. And then immediately after that is the chapter that's all about the how. It is the nuts and bolts the nitty-gritty of how to really set this up and a lot of school districts they'll say we appreciated that part of it because it gave us a picture as to how but we also tweaked a few things in order to make it fit for our school district as it that's fantastic what I would highly recommend if you if we're talking about trying to set up that environment is something that I would call coffee shop spaces in the book called them designated learning spaces but that word designated makes it also feel like it's a controlled factor and

[15:28]

But really what you want to say is once we get to personalized PD time, you guys can utilize these hallway of classes. Like we're going to keep everybody in the same hallway, but you pick which class you want to work in. You got your little coffee shop space, kind of like a mini Starbucks sort of a feel. And the whole purpose of that is so that way, during that two hours or whatever block of time you have per month, the instructional coach has an opportunity to meet with as many educators as possible just to say, how's it going? What support do you need? Where are you with your journey?

[16:00]

What support do you need for me? What resources can I help you get? You know, those instructional conversation or structural coaching conversations that play a major role in making educators feel supported on their journey. Well in setting up those spaces, some people may say, well that just feels like big brother watching over us and controlling us. Well that that's could be the interpretation because that may have been the culture up to that point. So I can't control that factor, but we can start to control.

[16:29]

No, really we're setting this up as being efficient with our coaching time, being efficient with our communication time, And I firmly recommend that administrators go on their own learning journeys too in this whole thing. I've had some fantastic professionally driven journeys come out of this from administrators who, when we say, who are your potential learners, that now reframes them as an educator, once again, versus like a manager or, you know, that kind of mindset. You know, we get them out of that mindset and go back to the idea of being an educator. So there's certain managerial things that go into play, but really the gist of it isn't to try to control anybody or to hold anybody firmly accountable for seat time. It's in order to make the two hours as efficient as possible.

[17:21]

So that way we can utilize our time wisely.

[17:23] SPEAKER_02:

Well, let's talk about that idea of a journey, because I mean, I completely agree that if we're modeling our own professional growth, that's going to go a long way to, you know, shaping those mindsets and those efforts in our staff. What does a journey look like in your model?

[17:37] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So it boils down to four phases and I will say that this isn't anything But I had some people say, well, this looks a lot like action research. And I'm like, yeah, it kind of does feel that way. But really, the idea is once I discover for myself, not someone else telling me what my instructional weakness is, but I discover for myself what that is, then it's a matter of if I know this isn't working in my classroom, I'm going to go out and I'm going to start my phase of research where I'm trying to find what is more effective. And so that research doesn't have to be journal articles or anything like that. It could be blogs, videos, anything that's informal as far as research goes.

[18:16]

They may want to go to a specific conference that ties in with what they're doing or anything along those lines. That's going to be all embedded in that research phase. Training is also embedded in that research phase. So let's say I'm and I use the example in my book, flip learning. If I'm going on this journey of wanting to differentiate my math instruction, then I may discover that flip learning is that pedagogical strategy that may aid in that better. Well, I will then discover I need a learning management system.

[18:45]

but I don't know what that is or how it operates or anything like that. But guess what? I can request a session on learning management systems, whether it's Google classroom, whether it's Schoology, whatever it may be. Now I'm requesting the training because I see it as a bigger need. So training really is embedded still, but in that lower research phase, once I'm feeling like I got my knowledge built up, I can move on to that integration phase where it's that continual trial and error inside my classroom practice. Then, Once I've trialed and errored that enough to the point where I feel that I am seeing those positive effects on learner outcomes that I was looking for, then I go on to the reflection phase.

[19:25]

And I will say that most professional development that I've encountered, either as a learner or as a facilitator, gets the first two phases as deeply as they can. But it's the opportunity to now go to that reflection phase where I'm essentially sharing my journey inside my district. And I had I had a teacher who said, Jared, I'm going to do that integration phase, but don't expect me to talk in front of my peers. And I was like, OK, because I kind of envision like a mini Ted style talk. Right. And I understand the fear.

[20:03]

And so I said, well, what other ways could you share within your district? Because really, we want to build that learning culture. And more importantly, what I have found is If I take that step to share my journey of not necessarily my topic of flipped learning, but if I share my journey of here's what instructionally wasn't working in my classroom and here's how I made it a lot better, then I am innately giving others in the district to go through the same trial and error process, number one. And number two, when I share that and it's positively received from my peers, I now have that intrinsic motivation fire burn even brighter, right? Like I'm now willing to run through the next wall. And so now that we've built that culture within the district, there's research coming out that shows that the more connected an educator is outside the district, the probability of higher efficacy is there.

[20:57]

And so the next phase in the journey and what is ultimately the summit is share outside your district. If that's create a video of your journey and share it via social media or present at a conference or I mean, it doesn't really matter what it is. Just share your journey outside your district. And I've heard a lot of administrators say like, oh, so if I have. A vast majority of the educators in our building who are reaching that pinnacle and sharing their journey, that's just good PR for our building.

[21:25] SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. And I think the other thing that starts to happen when you do put things out there into the world and communicate with other educators who are in different contexts is you get pushback. You get questions. How does this work? What if this happens? What if that happens?

[21:38]

And it forces you to really – think through some of those, maybe decisions that you made very quickly or very implicitly and haven't really articulated to yourself. But yeah, absolutely. If you're getting that feedback from other educators and tapping into your PLN to really sharpen those ideas, I think that's absolutely what we're looking for. So the book is professionally driven, empower every educator to redefine PD. And I love that kind of four-step cycle that you identified in the book, Jared. It really reminds me of improvement science, the plan, do, study, act cycle, or an inquiry cycle.

[22:13]

I was a science teacher, so the scientific method comes to mind as well. But just treating ourselves as malleable, as capable of learning, as capable of improving, I think is such an important mindset and such an important approach. If people want to learn more about the book or get in touch with you about PD, where's the best place for them to connect with you online?

[22:34] SPEAKER_00:

The one-stop shop is really my website, professionallydriven.com. You can find all my contact information at the very bottom of the website. You can see a lot of downloadable free resources right there on the resource page. I also do a weekly vlog through Disrupted TV, which is called Disrupted PD. And so you can see clips from the episodes there as well as where to subscribe.

[22:59]

I also have a shop there for some master learner swag if you want to check that out. But really, that is the one stop shop. And I absolutely love love, love talking about adult learning. It's my passion. I really do want to see every single educator who gets into this profession for the right reason to be empowered to not just stay in the profession, but really thrive in the profession through the duration of their whole career. So getting in touch and talking about that stuff is a true passion of mine.

[23:34] SPEAKER_02:

Well, Jared, thanks so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[23:36] SPEAKER_00:

It was an absolute pleasure. Thanks.

[23:38] Announcer:

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