The PD Book: 7 Habits that Transform Professional Development

[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_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by my co-host and co-author, Heather Bell-Williams, and our guest, Lori Cohen. Lori is an educator, writer, artist, and coach. And through her coaching, consulting, and professional development design and facilitation, Lori works to create the conditions for everyone to thrive. She has written for English Journal, Education Week, the California Teacher Development Collaborative, and other outlets. And she's the author with Elena Aguilar of The PD Book, Seven Habits That Transform Professional Development.

[00:46] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:48] SPEAKER_00:

Lori, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:50] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

[00:52] SPEAKER_00:

Well, we're excited to chat with you. And we're doing something a little bit different today in that my co-author, Heather Bell Williams, is joining me in hosting the podcast. Heather, how are you today?

[01:01] SPEAKER_02:

I'm great. Thanks, Justin. I'm excited to be here.

[01:03] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome, Laurie. I wonder if we could kick things off, Laurie, by just having you share with us a little bit of the work that led up to the PD book. What did you see as you were leading PD, as you were working with other people who lead PD that prompted this work?

[01:16] SPEAKER_01:

Well, the book was written when it was still the throes of the pandemic. And I think the shift to virtual learning amplified my understanding of what it takes to design meaningful professional learning that has an impact. And in the virtual world, all of a sudden heightened my attunement to all of it. So leading up to the book, my prior experiences was that I started leading PD, I think my third or fourth year teaching. I right in the first chapter of the book about the Socratic seminar workshop gone wrong. And that was the case.

[01:47]

I had led a Socratic seminar workshop that I was excited about and thought everyone else was going to be excited about and they weren't. But I found that even at an early age and early in my career as a teacher, there felt like there was this insurmountable set of barriers to leading adults where it didn't feel joyful or fun, or I just felt more intimidated. And so over the years, I strive to create the kinds of learning experiences that felt like classroom teaching, but met the needs of adult learners. And so in my 20 plus years as an educator and in conversations in my work with Elena, as we were talking about in the pandemic about all the things it takes to lead a meaningful PD that has impact both in person and virtually, we were thinking like this really could be a book and this could be a resource for people where

[02:38]

Like this is their go-to tool for how to design and lead professional learning and demystify the magic and really turn it into the practical tools and strategies. And so, I mean, gosh, that's a long answer and I'm sure I could like talk for like 10 more years about all the different lead-ups, but I think part of it was pandemic and that heightened attunement to what kind of PD was meeting the needs of the moment in the virtual sphere The early experiences I had that had cemented my own understanding of leading adult learning and what made it feel challenging and how we could sort of dismantle those preconceived mental models and create something that's joyful, that's generative, it's fun, engaging, and ultimately transformative.

[03:17] SPEAKER_02:

That's so exciting. Laurie, you mentioned the words joyful and fun and exciting. And I have to admit, both as a participant in years and years worth of PD and as a facilitator during my days as a principal, I wouldn't always have attributed joyful, fun, engaging to some of those experiences. In fact, you use the acronym PARTY in your book. So can you share with us two or three of the pieces of that acronym that stand out that are significant?

[03:47] SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I mean, I want to share all of them. I'll break down the acronym and then I'll kind of dig into a couple if that's all right. So the acronym party stands for purpose. The A is for audience. R is for routines.

[04:00]

The T is for technique. And then the Y is for you, which is sort of the all-encompassing thing, right? We have such an impact on the conditions we create. I think the ones that are kind of the most salient for me, at least in this moment, I might change my mind tomorrow, as is the case every day. But I think the P, the purpose...

[04:17]

portion of leading professional learning, it all sort of stems from purpose. Why are we doing what we were doing? And sort of both the specific why of the sessions we're leading or the meetings we're designing for, but the ultimate why. What are we ultimately here to do? What is our purpose as leaders? What is our purpose in schools and education?

[04:36]

What are the outcomes we hope to see for students? And so I think getting grounded in the why for the outcomes, for the activities, for the sort of the design and structures of the meeting I see that as the through line to already designing more intentional learning. And then I think it's funny because I'm a design geek. And so anyone who knows me knows I can spend hours like just fiddling with all the different ways we could do an activity. But I think the piece that is also up for me most is the T, the technique. And in the book, we give a lot of facilitation moves sort of interwoven throughout each chapter.

[05:10]

But we do have a dedicated chapter, chapter seven to facilitate adaptively. And it takes a certain kind of technique that is rooted in self-knowledge and is rooted in our strengths and our core values and how we identify and how we understand power to be able to facilitate well and adaptively and be responsive. So that if you run short on time or the fire alarm goes off or someone strives to derail the agenda, that as a facilitator, these things don't unmoor you, but rather you see these as moments to assess your response. Or I had yet to read a book where the adaptive moves of facilitation weren't just like some totally separate workshop that was just about de-escalation. And I'm like, well, sometimes it's because I ran out of time that I'm flustered and stressed out. Or sometimes it's because the materials didn't arrive and I don't know what to do when half the group didn't get the materials they needed.

[06:02]

So that facilitate adaptively, the technique that surrounds that is something that I think is a unique feature of this book, but also a unique feature that we don't talk about in this kind of way in professional learning resources.

[06:14] SPEAKER_02:

Laurie, you know, you talk about adult learners in the book a lot, and we all know that there's a lot of research around adult learning techniques and some of those moves to use when we're facilitating professional development for adults that are different than what we know in terms of facilitating as teachers. Can you talk a little bit about how the PD book operationalizes that research around adult learning?

[06:38] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I just said earlier, I was a design geek. I think I'm also an adult learning theory geek. I strive to think about like sort of what is that secret sauce, right? That allows folks to work with adult learners and that operationalized piece. So chapter four of the book digs into the foundational research that informs a good portion of that chapter is Malcolm Knowles' work on adult learning theory.

[07:01]

You know, a range of theories inform our work. And so What that chapter breaks down is sort of two core foci. One is, what are some of the habits or principles that are important for people to know when they're leading adults? Let's take the aspect of adult learning theory that adults come with their own experiences, right? The way I think about it is, Adults come with long histories of like conditioned experiences and mental models that they bring to the present moment, a much longer ramp than students, for example, right? Working with a five-year-old is going to be much different than working with someone who's 35, who's had a lot of life experience.

[07:34]

And so how do you leverage that experience, what some might call prior knowledge or some call funds of knowledge in eliciting a response in a professional learning space? So rather than one piece of operationalizing that is there's a table in chapter four that kind of breaks down the theories and then gives some examples of how it might show up in PD. So if adults come with histories and experiences, then how might you at the beginning of a session on maybe some new or new to you content, ask folks at the beginning to think about a time when they may have experienced something similar, or, you know, think about going back in their own experience, like where this content might have shown up in their life, or, you know, which aspects of these terms are familiar to you, these kinds of like checking questions or funds of knowledge questions. are like the techniques it would take to tap into the theory, right, and to the practice, but also using those adult learning principles in the design process.

[08:27]

And so we kind of lay out what to think about in the design process, not just in terms of the theoretical foundations and their practical applications. but also we include the conscious competence ladder as well in that chapter and how people start to build their understanding from that unconscious incompetence. It just sounds kind of demeaning when I hear that, when I say it out loud that way, but it's like, we don't know what we don't know and creating reflective kinds of activities that inspire people to think about, oh, I never knew about this before, or I hadn't thought about it like that and build their understanding from that conscious incompetence to that conscious competence. I don't think In our learning spaces, we always reach that level of unconscious competence unless someone didn't realize that they just knew how to do something. I hope that gets at the question, but I think there's like both the theoretical foundations, like here's what the theories say. And then there's the, here's how this might show up in your PD.

[09:18]

Conscious competence, for example, might be a self-assessment tool that you might use to assess people's understanding at the beginning of a series and at the end of a series, for example, with their knowledge or skill or capacity to understand a concept or the adult learning theory, just really thinking about which aspect of adult learning theory do I want to think most about as I'm working with this particular group of adults. Adults have a problem-centered approach to learning. So maybe I approach this learning experience about a problem we could collectively solve together. And maybe I frame it like that and turn it into a design challenge and pose that design challenge for the whole group, break people up into small groups, the same prompt, and just say, you have 15 minutes to design a solution or a scenario for this particular challenge. Right. That would be tapping into adult learning theory, but also doing something that's engaging, I hope, to meet their needs.

[10:08] SPEAKER_00:

That perfectly answers the question that has been rolling around the back of my mind about how to think about professional development that's required that we're not doing because we think we need to, but because someone else said that we need to, to like position it as a design challenge. So like, let's say our district says we're doing a new literacy training and here's the PowerPoint. Good luck. It's mandatory. Take us through some of what you're thinking would be if you were in that situation and wanted to approach this situation with a design lens.

[10:36] SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh. I love that question. One, because it kind of like makes me think on my feet, which I kind of love too. My answer is probably going to be clunky, which is also great. It's also because between, you know, what do you do with a resistant participant and what do you do with a mandated training are the two biggest questions I get asked. Like, yeah, this is cool.

[10:56]

I'm really glad you're sharing this, but I have to deliver these 86 PowerPoint slides in 30 minutes. and I'm mandated to do it, right? So let's say it's the, you know, like a new literacy program, right? And like, here's the mandated training, here's the PowerPoint slides, that's what I'm handed. But other than that, maybe the central office or the district has no idea what I'm going to do with those slides, right? And that challenge.

[11:17]

So the first thing I might do is just give people enough framing in advance and sort of like, I like treating it like a design sprint, for example, or like the idea of a design challenge. So Let's say it's, you know, literacy across curricula. Like the first thing I might do is if I'm bringing all these folks together from the district, let's say there's like 100 people in the room from a range of different disciplines and grade levels. What the first thing I might do is make sure that people are grouped up across like role and across responsibility. So that way we're talking about literacy across curricula. So I want math and science and arts and language arts folks to all be sort of mixed in together.

[11:53]

So the first thing I'm going to do is some intentional groupings. and get people sort of spread around the room in their intentional groupings. The second thing is I'm going to have at the tables a bunch of like, you know, either maker tools or design tools, right? Like packets of post-its, like markers, thinking putty, popsicle sticks, index cards, and blue masking tape, because why not, right? Poster paper. And I'm going to tell the group that they first need to come up with their own, right?

[12:18]

Individually come up with some sort of symbolic object. Right. That best articulates like an outcome that you hope to see for students around literacy. People are going to think it's super weird. People are going to probably be like, why am I here at this training? What are you asking me to do?

[12:32]

And then I'll be really clear about the purpose. The reason we're starting with this activity is we're going to do what's known as a divergent thinking activity. The purpose of divergent thinking is that it activates the parts of our brains that spark our creativity. And when we can get divergent about things that we kind of see in our context as normative, it helps us to get convergent and focused in real solutions. So I'd have people make these like symbolic objects and I would even name the elephant. I know this feels weird to you all because when we name the elephants, we diffuse the tension and we diffuse the potential for resistance.

[13:04]

And then as a consequence of that, maybe people make their symbolic objects, they share in their small groups. And then the bridge question might be, how does this relate to our understanding of literacy or literacy instruction? And then maybe use that as a bridge to do some of the input from those PowerPoint slides and then give groups a chance to take some design time to really sort of solve for or think about a curricular arc for or scope and sequence for literacy instruction. So I would go from like the imaginative to the practical from the like, let's spark your thinking and imaginations and maybe even make it a little weird. You know, of course, in psychologically safe conditions and, you know, sort of setting the context and making sure that, you know, I've created the conditions for people to want to learn. We can't make people learn, but at least we can strive to create those conditions.

[13:49]

But once in those conditions, I would kind of prod people's thinking a little bit before we got super practical and focused. I don't know if that answers the question, but that's like where my brain went when you asked it.

[13:59] SPEAKER_00:

I love that. And I love how much you talked about thinking and engaging people in thinking, because often that's the part that gets left out when something is mandatory, when people don't, you know, like, we're not really choosing to do this. But you went straight to engaging teacher thinking and engaging people in that kind of purposeful work.

[14:16] SPEAKER_02:

One of the things that you mentioned, both in the answer to this last question and earlier in our conversation, Laurie, was that idea of the resistors. You mentioned barriers earlier on. And, you know, especially when there's mandated professional development, you get a lot of people sitting with their arms crossed. doing the, like you said, this is just weird. This is just too out there. And so I'm envisioning times when I've been facilitating professional development and we've got an outcome or an objective and we're rolling along.

[14:48]

And then someone just out of the last time. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you do that adaptive move in the moment, those adaptive moves in the moment to deal with that and to keep things rolling along or not? Maybe there's a point at which you stop it and you don't keep things rolling along, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

[15:14] SPEAKER_01:

Obviously, I'm not doing this level of thinking in the moment, but if I were to stretch out time right now, one thing is to think about what in my design or in my framing of a topic have I accounted for and named up front so that, you know, if this is something we've done before, if there is the potential for resistance, like maybe I think in my mind, like on my facilitator agenda, I oftentimes will write down like frequently asked questions or possible responses to, right? And that way I'm ready for questions that might come up. When we come up with these sort of like FAQs as a design move, then chances are when it comes up in the meeting, one, it's not the first time, like we're ready for it. But two, we're taking a proactive rather than a reactive stance. That's if we've like had the time to design well, right? So that's entry point one.

[16:01]

Entry point two is context and relationship. I need to think about, am I an external provider at this site? And this person is saying that we've done this before, but I'm not, I don't know that. Or the quality of trust and relationship. If I'm an external provider and this is the first time we're meeting, and I haven't built a lot of trust and credibility with this group, I can understand why the question's being asked. And so that's about rooting in my own self-knowledge in the moment and rooting in the larger sort of context that I'm not aware of.

[16:30]

So a response in that situation might sound something like, I really appreciate the question. While I don't have all of the details at play for what's led us up to this moment, and while I most likely could better understand it with a little bit more context, my hope is that we can go ahead and move forward with you know, X thing that we're going to do with the understanding that I would love to, you know, chat during a break or with the understanding that everyone might be in a different place with this understanding. And I just don't have enough information from the group yet. So I'm going to ask for folks consent here to like, or maybe not consent, but I'm going to ask for folks to consider, you know, like how we might move forward in this moment. If someone is resistant and I'm in an external provider and like five to seven other people are like, yeah, that right. Or they like start to jump on that bandwagon.

[17:15]

that might be a moment where I need to hit pause and just say, I'd love to better understand the context here. And if it's a small enough group, maybe, you know, ask for a couple of folks, you know, to just share a little bit more context with me and probably say something like, well, I'm not gonna be able to adjust all aspects of today's presentation. But what I'm hoping is, is that as you listen to these pieces, you might find points of alignment and misalignment. And let's think about the opportunities where we might move forward. Right. Or where we might like kind of tap into that problem solution, funds of knowledge, experience gap.

[17:46]

If I'm within the context of the site, I might anticipate that that's going to come up. Right. If I work at the site and we start to know all the players, we know who's going to say what before the hand like, you know, kind of goes up in the air. And so if that's then I would leverage relationships. that might be somebody I actually connect with prior to the meeting. And I've done that.

[18:06]

I've gone to teachers' classrooms and have checked in and said, you know, I know this topic is something that you might not actually, you know, be in agreement with. What might you need me to know, you know, so that, you know, I'm aware of that? Or what kind of conversation would you like to have now? Some people say, well, that takes a lot of time. And I would say, Yeah, but if we don't center relationships, if we don't put a primacy on the intentionality prior to leading the learning, right, stuff's going to come up. I also, my perception of resistance is that it's a perception of resistance.

[18:36]

Really, it's just a moment in time. And it's how we respond to the moment versus react to it that makes the difference in how we move forward.

[18:44] SPEAKER_02:

I love that. I'm thinking about one of the analogies that you use in the book and you talk about pulling back the curtain. And I just really want to thank you for pulling back the curtain on that whole sort of piece around resistance and all the different possible scenarios and the pre-planning that needs to go into it and the pre-work, if it includes going and speaking to someone. I've noticed as we've been talking that although the adult learning principles are different than those that we would always use with younger children or with students as teachers, it dawns on me that the idea of a really great lesson plan is really, really critical in terms of facilitating effective Pro-D as well. And you mentioned my facilitator's agenda. Can you talk to us a little bit about the context?

[19:31]

kind of plan that you would create if you were, again, if we just said, here are the slides and here's the topic on this day, we need three hours. So talk to us about the planning process that you would use.

[19:45] SPEAKER_01:

Well, first thing is I need to look at my calendar and make sure I've blocked off time and make sure that it's uninterrupted. That might be considered a no brainer for a lot of folks, but I don't necessarily think that that's the case. I think we need to make the time to plan if we're going to be intentional about planning. So for me, step one is blocking off the time on my calendar. We write in the book that it's about two hours of planning for every one hour of professional learning. I know it to also be true that who's going to have that many hours to be able to pour into a three hour training.

[20:14]

And so being realistic. And then there's a couple of processes that I might use for my planning. So I'm going to talk about the short on time version approach to planning. And then I'm going to talk about the half more time to focus on planning. And then a third option, the team time. What if you're working with a team and you're collaborating and co-facilitating?

[20:32]

So the short on time plan is really thinking about what is the purpose of this learning? What are the outcomes I'm hoping to achieve? What are the possibilities in terms of activities and what are my priorities? And that is kind of like you're thinking about whose purpose and audience and all those pieces go together. But it's like getting rooted in purpose, outcomes, and activities at least will give me enough of a framework to plan in a short amount of time to think about like how I at least might guide my planning process. And I have what I call my high-level planning tool.

[21:04]

And it's a one-pager. And I try to see what I can fit onto a single page in terms of I write down the topic and the purpose first. My intended outcomes, which are kind of a work in progress. They're a draft of outcomes, right? Until I really start to think about my activities and I go back and revise my outcomes. And then my one page planner then allows me to visually just be able to not be overwhelmed by so many pages.

[21:25]

That's my like, we need something tomorrow and I need to design this tonight and I'm just going to have to stay up late. And I think a lot of folks who design PD are pretty short on time, right? So just thinking about some core priorities. If you have more time to work with, my process is still purpose and outcomes and then priorities. But then I start to think about what will support the gradual release of responsibility, which is the same theory we use in classrooms with students. How do we shift from facilitator-guided to...

[21:55]

pair processing or group processing to independent practice and transfer. And using that arc of learning, I then think about, if I'm doing this mandated training and I've got so many slides to go through and it's all direct instruction or direct input, I might think about that as pre-work, right? If the slides are easily digestible and there's enough content on there, I might not take the time in the session to talk through all the slides. I might give a couple of options. For people who didn't do the pre-work, because there's that too. So I always have what I call the no pre-work, no problem prompt for folks, which is in the design process, I'm thinking about the people who are well-prepared and the people who are less prepared and making sure that everybody has access to entry.

[22:37]

Let's say I've given the slides up front. Some people haven't read the slides. What I might do is also create a one-page primer so that as everybody enters in, the folks who've done the pre-work can do these deeper reflective questions. The folks who haven't done the pre-work can do the primer piece. But that's like in my design brain, I'm always anticipating. How do I create opportunities for choice, for recognition of people's busy schedules?

[23:00]

How do I stay rooted in my purpose and outcomes? And then how do I do that intentional planning to gradually release? And whatever the activity is, right, sort of calls for the needs of the moment and who my audience is. The other thing I do if I have time, we don't always have time, is some kind of learner survey. I want to know some information from folks before I lead a session. What do you already know about this topic?

[23:22]

What is something you're sick of hearing? I mean, I don't ask that question a lot, but if I work at the school, right, what's something you don't need to hear again? You know, what's one way of processing information you wish we'd do? And then I'm also planning for the range of identities and backgrounds in the learning space as well. How are introverts processing or extroverts processing too? That's a snippet.

[23:41]

And then the last thing I'll say is just with collaborative team planning, make sure that with your team that upfront you've set some agreements for how you're going to work together and what your strengths are before you dive into the planning. Because people just go straight to the planning without really thinking about who the people are on the team first.

[23:57] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Laurie, I think hearing you talk about the thinking and the planning that goes into professional development, I have to say I've never really heard anybody make all of this explicit before. It's almost like fixing things around your house and maybe building some things and then discovering that there's this whole profession of carpentry that exists and that there's all this research that's craft knowledge that exists. is out there and to hear you put it into words, I think is just so refreshing and so clarifying. Why is it that we do so much PD in this profession without really knowing this stuff, without really having an understanding of the adult learning principles, design principles? How have we gotten so far down the road as a profession without some of this?

[24:38] SPEAKER_01:

Adults are tricky beasts, I'd say. So a few things that pop into my mind as a response to that question. One is somewhere the translation between being the person in the classroom who's using a range of pedagogies to meet student learning needs. That seems to fall away as soon as someone steps outside the classroom into positions of leadership or at whatever level, right? Whether it's coaching, department leadership, assistant principal, principal, head of school. I have found that somehow something gets lost in that translation.

[25:10]

like good teaching is always good teaching, right? Really effective teaching is always effective teaching. I don't know that we've built enough of a bridge between what's happening in classrooms in terms of unlocking student learning and watching students really wake up to learning to what's happening with adults. So I think that's one piece of this is it's almost like we get this collective amnesia as soon as we step into a role of some sort of position of power. I think the second piece too is that I think in terms of power, we start to tap into more of our knowledge and credibility. I should be the solution giver as a leader.

[25:43]

I should be the one who is all knowledgeable, all expert. And so I think we start to perceive ourselves differently when we're leading adults in that I'm the credible expert. I'm the knowledgeable person. Consequently, when I'm in front of adults, I need to show them that I'm credible and expert, knowledgeable, and I'm like taking advantage of whatever forms of power I can draw upon in order to support this learning versus I'm a work in progress. I'm achingly human. I loved classroom teaching, but I'm nervous working in front of adults.

[26:16]

I haven't really thought about what it means to lead adults effectively. I think there's just a lot of vulnerability that comes with those recognitions. And I think that's a missing piece, I think, in education. As I just think we're so bombarded with too much stuff, like the system of education is so bombarded with so much like muck that we don't have the time to pause and be reflective. And I think that's another piece of this is that all of the reflection that goes into being an effective teacher for students is it hasn't transferred into the reflection about around leading adults. That is my sort of quick thoughts around this, but I imagine there's a whole other book that could be dedicated to that topic.

[26:54] SPEAKER_00:

I appreciate your thoughts on power there because, yeah, it is easy as the principal to not worry too much about how I'm going to use the best pedagogy to get people engaged and on board with something. If this is a district requirement, we're just going to do it. And I'm kind of business-like in that. And as you said, we get this kind of collective amnesia about what good teaching looks like when we start working with adult learners.

[27:16] SPEAKER_02:

Laurie, you mentioned about reflection, and I know that that's a key part of the facilitating PD, the process. We use the analogy of a lesson plan, and I know that we all encourage our teachers in our systems to reflect after a lesson. What kinds of questions do you ask yourself? What kind of process do you go through after you facilitate a professional development in terms of your own reflection?

[27:42] SPEAKER_01:

I'm so glad you asked. I just did this yesterday at the end of a workshop. So it's fresh on my brain. The first thing I do is I review when I am ready to, right? Sometimes we're not ready to look at the feedback right away. I look at the participant feedback.

[27:56]

One, I mentally prepare myself, right? Like all feedback is information. I can choose what to do with it. And it's all an opportunity to learn. So I review the feedback and then I code the feedback for themes. And I break down those themes into strengths, things to consider.

[28:12]

you know, celebrations and adaptations are some of the categories I like to use, right? So what stood out as a strength in people's learning and also just how did the learning meet the outcomes, but the questions are designed aligned with the outcomes. So what were the strengths? Like, where do I see patterns in terms of strength that came up? Where do I see some considerations, either things I didn't think about or suggestions for improvement? What do I want to celebrate?

[28:35]

We forget this part. And this is something that my professional coach helped me guide me through is that We often go from the initiation of an activity to like passing out after the activity because we're so exhausted. But the celebration is an essential step in that cycle. And so making sure I take time to really celebrate what I'm proud of and then thinking about adaptations. The next time I do this, I take immediate notes what I want to remember and try for the next time. because I don't want to lose that thinking.

[29:02]

And so I want to make sure I have those notes down. That's my typical process, right? Is reviewing the feedback and taking those themes, but then also thinking about in my own, my own design process, like what did I learn from this experience? You know, overall, like what did I gain from this experience? So yesterday when I was reviewing feedback, the themes were really clear. I had real, real clear considerations.

[29:22]

I did celebrate. I was very proud of myself. But then in my learning, it was like, oh, wow, like I could do this a thousand different ways. Right. And like, so maybe next time I'll try it this way instead. Or maybe I'll bring this activity in the following time.

[29:34]

And one big learning I had was that not only do I strive to be an adaptive facilitator, but an adaptive designer. Like I value iteration and I value revision and that no two workshops are ever exactly the same. I think that was a good insight for me to have in my own learning process. because I think it's what keeps me fresh as well. So those are some of my own reflections on learning.

[29:55] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for that. It dawns on me that that's what we want good teachers to do, right? And to quite often, you mentioned waiting until you're ready to hear the feedback or to read the feedback, whatever form it's coming in. And I think that's a good reminder for all of us, whether we're working with adults or as teachers, just taking a breath and waiting for that feedback. Lori, when you wrote this book, how did you see who was the audience and how did you see them using it?

[30:24] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we were imagining, you know, like our potential audiences for this book. Our primary audience are the ones that we had in mind were like newer to PD providers, like people who are brand new at how do I do this thing? called Designing and Facilitating Professional Learning. I think that's a primary audience. And we wanted to make everything abundantly clear and sort of demystify, as I shared earlier, the perceived magic of this experience. That was one core audience.

[30:52]

The other audiences that we thought about too were people in leadership positions who might not have time to maybe attend a professional learning on designing and leading professional learning session. They don't have time to go away for five days, but here's this go-to resource you can use. And then for folks who have done this for a long time, we wanted it still to feel like there was something in there that they could access that would be novel or at least distinct about how we were compiling these resources. There's nary a resource on how to engage emotions, for example. Or thinking about the role of power and really unpacking the impact that power can play in a professional learning setting or taking an equity lens through the design of professional learning such that we're really thinking about what is the dominant culture? What are the systems at play and the systems of oppression and how they've had an impact on how a facilitator perceives himself?

[31:43]

or even like how we might dismantle or mitigate the forces of the dominant culture where we can in our design and facilitation. So we were hoping that audiences from a range of backgrounds, values, experiences, habits, particularly those from more historically marginalized backgrounds, would feel like this book was speaking to them as well. And so- Lots of different audiences and hopefully everyone has an entry point.

[32:05] SPEAKER_02:

That's great. When I look at my copy of the PD book, it is right beside me on my desk and has lots of dog-eared pages and post-it notes on it. I perceive that that's going to be the kind of resource that lots of people will turn to regularly in their planning and development of Pro-D. You also mentioned earlier about the idea of virtual learning and how the pandemic, this book was written when we were still in the throes of the pandemic and how for some of us by design, we still work on virtual platforms. And for some folks out of necessity, they've had to, especially over the last couple of years. And so can you speak to how you address the virtual needs for PD in the book?

[32:50] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So we have at various points throughout certain chapters, we have considerations for virtual learning in our, I believe in our design intentionally chapter and in the attend to the details chapter, particularly in attend to the details and in the facilitate adaptively chapter, just some things for facilitators to think about when they're designing. So for example, in the attend to the details chapter in chapter six, There is a segment in there about the operations box, and it's basically all like the technical logistics that one needs to think about when they're preparing to lead a session. And so if you're on Zoom or Google Meet or on Teams, you come in and you create your own checklist, essentially, of things you need to think about. Make sure the slides work. Make sure all the links work.

[33:35]

Make sure your screen share is on full screen, that you've minimized windows, you've put your device on do not disturb, that the sound levels sound okay, that you spotlighted yourself, that you can see your facilitator agenda. So like those kinds of details that we plan for in in-person learning when we walk into a space, but that we create the virtual space as if we were walking into a room and sort of assessing all the different levels. And so we strive to think about, you know, that one virtual doesn't have to feel like less than just because it's online. And I think if anything in the pandemic we've learned, it could be, it could have just as much impact. And so we strive to include those little details throughout the book that help people to think about like, yes, in person, it might look like this and virtually it might look like this. And it's kind of like thinking about these as equivalent.

[34:24]

We also have in the appendix of virtual learning considerations from the liberating structures folks. And that breaks down a table of different kinds of activities you might do virtually to think about what the in-person equivalent might be. Here's the virtual consideration for that.

[34:41] SPEAKER_02:

I think it's so important that we honor that notion of virtual doesn't always have to be second best. And I understand where that came from if we were forced into virtual professional learning during the pandemic. However, I love that notion that it can be just as good as face-to-face.

[35:00] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I have to say I'm a little bit jealous of people who are just getting into this line of work now because the guidance that is available, Heather, I feel like we to a large extent kind of had to figure this out without explicit guidance, without explicit instruction in how to plan good PD. And I find myself just a little bit jealous of people who have the opportunity to learn these skills before they need them. So I just wanted to kind of close with a nod to people who may not be called upon to plan professional development right now. If you still have time to learn this before you need it, what an incredible opportunity. So to all of the aspiring instructional leaders out there who may be, who have not led whole staff professional development, this is an opportunity to learn a skill that will serve you throughout your career and that will make you just a much more effective leader. So Lori, thank you for your work in putting this resource together and the work that you do to support schools and school leaders and professional development around

[35:56]

the world. Well, Lori and Heather, thank you so much for joining us on Principal Center Radio. Thanks, Justin.

[36:01] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much. It was so fun to be here.

[36:03] Announcer:

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