012 - PD Mini Series Part 3: PD that Sticks!

Planning a good, authentic, PD can be difficult. Adding on layers of differentiation, personal choice, assessment, and alignment with district initiatives makes this coaching skill even tougher to master. This episode will divulge  our top secrets for making a PD that “sticks” all year long. Adding strategic themes, activities, and creating an environment of engagement and fun can make a huge difference.

Links mentioned in the show:

Follow Brooke on Twitter

Follow Lisa on Twitter


Podcast Team

Hosts- Katie  Ritter & Justin Thomas

Editing Team- Megan Whitacre, Mallory Kessen, Michael Roush

Social Media/ Promo Team- Annamarie Rinehart, Lisa Kuhn, Molly Lutts

Creative/Content Team- Brooke Conklin, Emily Cowan, Tracee Keough

Research & Logistics Team- Mark Gumm, Tyler Erwin

Producers- Tyler Erwin & Katie Ritter

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Transcript

Justin Thomas: 0:04

hit the restart button to recharge those batteries

Katie Ritter: 0:30

Aloha, I am Katie Ritter

Justin Thomas: 0:32

and I'm Justin Thomas. And this is the restart recharge podcast, a podcast for coaches by coaches. We bring you tips and tricks to help you in your everyday work as an instructional technology coach, or you know, whatever they call you in your school district.

Katie Ritter: 0:45

And so hopefully you're gonna leave this episode with us today feeling just a little bit less on your own coaching Island as you listen,

Justin Thomas: 0:53

and we have a really good episode today. It's the finale, if you will the trilogy that we've had here on planning good PD, and planning a good authentic PD can be difficult. Adding the layers of differentiation personal choice assessment and alignment with district initiatives makes this coaching skill even tougher to master. This episode is going to divulge into our top secrets for making APD that sticks all year long. Adding strategic themes activities and creating an environment of engagement and fun can make a huge difference. So we were trying to get it for a third time and I think we successfully did back for a another round. It's the third and final episode of RPD mini series we have Brooke Conklin returning once again, if you follow the podcast on social media, you might have also seen Brooke on a few takeovers earlier this summer beyond living out her dreams as an amateur social media influencer. Brooke is gearing up for another great school year and PowerPad PD kicking off this week. This year, she'll be returning to serve as a technology coach for a pre K to 12th grade teachers in a Southwest Ohio School District. So welcome back, Brooke.

Brooke Conklin: 2:03

Thanks, Justin is great to be back on this third PD mini series episode.

Katie Ritter: 2:09

Good to have you. All right. And I have the pleasure of reintroducing you again listeners to Lisa Kuhn. You first met Lisa back in episode two when we talked about remote face to face and hybrid coaching. She was wearing her French teacher Baray and now that she is busy seizing the summer, which was a throwback to a another appearance she made Episode Seven, she can be found wearing her whitewater rafting helmet or when she is working in the office her back to school PD prepping cap. So welcome back once again, Lisa,

Lisa Kuhn: 2:41

thank you very much, Katie, it's good to be back.

Katie Ritter: 2:44

Yes, and we we do not have a live studio audience with us today. But we did get new podcasting recording equipment here. So nothing fancy. I don't even know what this is called. But zoom. Yeah, Justin and Tyler on the team assure us that this thing is going to be just what we need to improve the sound. So thanks for bearing with us over the past few episodes, as we kind of figured out the best way to do this. And we are now super excited to have lots of we're not we're gonna try not to go too crazy on some of the sound effects here. But we just can't help it for the first recording. So you might get a few applause. No promises, but we're having fun. All right, lady. So our final in the three of the PD series here, really digging in and making PD stick. So let's first kind of situate ourselves as we remember our own PD that we had to attend either you know whether it was when you were a teacher or as a coach now. So thinking back to your own professional development, what stood out to you and it can either be for the good or for the not so

Unknown: 3:52

good. Well, I'll

Lisa Kuhn: 3:54

go ahead and start. The best PD that I ever had was in my first year of teaching, our principal told us to find a school where they would let us in and watch someone teaching the same content we did. So I went to a Dayton area school and spent the day following the French and German teachers. And that was so very pertinent to what I was doing at the time, that it was the best thing ever. I didn't have to sit and listen to someone talk about I got to watch an accent in action. So it was phenomenal. I love that. Yeah, it was great.

Brooke Conklin: 4:30

I'm gonna go far opposite. I have scars from this PD. So my former school district was very big on like choice PD at least once a year they had a full day where you could choose which sessions you wanted to go to. And I made the mistake of just picking the ones that sounded relevant to me whereas everyone else that I worked with compared notes and told each other which present errs, were enjoyable, which presentations you should go to which ones you should steer away from. So me and a few other sorry, souls ended up in this social studies PDE, where I don't remember what the name of it was or what the goal was because I don't think there was a goal, but very memorable. But what I do remember is the first 10 minutes. This, this guy's spent the whole first 10 minutes moving around the room and hanging up posters of the Ohio social study standards. So each grade level around the room K through 12, a poster of standards, then we spent the next could you not 45 minutes, touring the standards. In silence. We walked around the room, starting at kindergarten, we were tasked with just looking at the standards. And I don't even know what we're supposed to be doing. We just walked around in silence and looked at these posters. And then I think that there was maybe five minutes at the end where we like talked about what our takeaways were. I don't remember anybody's takeaways, because I don't know that there were any. But I I had no, no takeaways. It was silent. It didn't seem relevant. And like I said, I don't really know what the goal of that was. So it was

Lisa Kuhn: 6:15

like a museum visit. Yeah. A very good one. On your way to death.

Brooke Conklin: 6:24

It was slow and painful. Oh,

Unknown: 6:27

yikes. That that is painful. I'm sorry about that. Brooke. Condolences. Oh, you know, and who I just feel bad for whoever I was leading that session a little bit? Like,

Katie Ritter: 6:43

did they get any training? Did anyone guide them on what to do? Or did they just get kind of tossed in to lead this and they were sort of floundering to figure it out?

Justin Thomas: 6:52

Yeah. Well, let's talk about some of the PD sessions that you've given. Hopefully, they will be more on the Lisa side as opposed to rooks case. But I'm just glad Brooke didn't

Unknown: 7:03

say, describe me when

Brooke Conklin: 7:06

you're on the A list. Went to your session.

Justin Thomas: 7:13

Thinking back to BT sessions that you've given what stands out to you as being the most engaging or making the biggest difference? And how did you achieve that? So professional development that you have put on that was hopefully very memorable in a good way.

Lisa Kuhn: 7:28

I'll let you start so you can have a positive moment cool. Bring out the despair,

Brooke Conklin: 7:34

I have to say, I'm so glad that Lisa is on this episode with me because I've never been in a session with Lisa, that wasn't fun. She just does the best PD and just brings the joy to everything. Thank you. Thanks for being my counter. My, I think my most proud PD session that I've ever designed, or that was most engaging or made, the biggest difference was my session on Hacker Academy. So this session actually arose out of a problem. At school, there were some very clever eighth grade students that figure it out. I don't even know how they did it. But they somehow figured out the code of one of their literacy programs, they were supposed to be reading for so many minutes out of the day. And they figured out how to jump the system and just input their time manually. And then they also figured out how to see what the correct answers were on the quiz from the computer code, which had these eighth grade language arts teachers furious. So naturally, the reaction from teachers is to ask the IT department to just block whatever the program was that they're using, I think it was some kind of bot thing. And so I stepped in and realizing that students are forever going to be one step ahead of us when it comes to figuring out short cuts around the system and design this hacker Academy. So what we did, I had teachers come in and without like any instruction or any lecture, there's just that like triangle peg game. Like if you've ever been to Cracker Barrel use, like little golf tees, and you jump over one another. So I gave them maybe five or 10 minutes and had them just play the game. Naturally, some people like looked it up on their phone, they went straight to YouTube, other people just watch their neighbor do it. And then they replicated that. So then the next task that they had to do was to create their own peg game using whatever resources they had. So they created their own game objective. They created their own rules, and they got really, really into it. And so then we use that kind of as an anchor to talk about the learning that's happening in the classroom. And when you're just kind of replicating a task, or answering multiple choice questions. Your level of cognition is pretty low. So students are really motivated to find a shortcut or a way around that but when you start Chuck your instruction, and you make it project based or challenging, or you engage kids and critical thinking creativity, they're, they're more motivated to engage in the task than they are to shortcut it. So it's just a really cool session. And I think that it was so cool, because it was fun. It was experience based, we were doing hands on creative things. It was relevant. So it was addressing a problem that they had in their classroom. And it also was achievable. So if I sat down with those same teachers, and taught them about bots, and coding, and all of these kind of abstract things, to help them understand what their kids were doing, that's not really like an achievable thing for most teachers to understand. So it would have just become frustrating. So instead, we I like to say, like achievable stretches, we challenged them in a way that they could really replicate in the classroom to help out with their problem. So that was my most fun one.

Lisa Kuhn: 11:00

That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, I think one of my most memorable ones also has to do with that filling a need. Mine wasn't necessarily a problem. But when teachers have a need that needs to be filled, I think it really makes a difference. And in my case, it's the ViewSonic view boards. So my P K through three teachers learned that next year, they're going to have you Sonic view boards, instead of projectors and screens. And so everybody wanted and needed to learn it. And they were excited to learn about it here in the springtime, because they're also moving to new buildings. So this was a way to get them engaged and take one thing off their plate in the fall. It also allowed for some growth in the PD. And what I mean by that was I held several different sessions, because there were different buildings, different grade levels. And the very first one that I held was probably the most humorous of them. Because the tech director wanted to try to record the session. So that was one piece, right? Then we had to set up the view board for the first time. And I had been practicing for weeks in another building with another view board worked flawlessly. Show up at the PB, open your V Cast sender, enter the code. Everyone in the room was entering the code. Nobody was joining the screen that's out always not a single person. So for 10 minutes, the tech director is playing with my computer trying to figure out what's wrong. He's looking at the view board settings. And finally one of the teachers goes, I got it. Like what? It's a zero, not an Oh, yes. So we were all typing this code in and had the wrong digit in each session that we had presented some type of logical possible problem that we could run across. And so we created this conversation that followed through during the month of May, you know, if you've already had PD, be aware of this, or those of you are getting ready for PD be aware of that. And then the other piece was they actually got to put the ViewSonic view boards in their classroom for at least a couple of days to truly implement it and use it in the classroom. As opposed to it being a one off hey, here's how to use to have a nice summer we'll see in August so it just all went together really nicely and just fell into place like could not have been planned otherwise, like it just hit I love that that was really nice

Justin Thomas: 13:34

shout out to the teacher that thought you know what maybe that's not fairly thinks it is serious pigeonhole.

Katie Ritter: 13:45

A good way to end the year till you know, something practical and that they're able to apply and use and get them looking forward to next year. So that's good. So, okay, so, um, in our last episode, part two of this little three part series, we talked a lot about differentiation, Brooke, with you and Tracy, and how to execute that in your professional development that so we're really walking the walk, not just talking the talk with our teachers. And so when when you both as some things that you have described, like Lisa, your your perfect PD was really about, like you were very engaged in that because you were able to just walk around with the teachers that you were shadowing in the view boards, you know, the teachers were engaged because, you know, they needed it, and they were getting to do it and then use it the next day. And Brooke, it was all hands on deck with your hacker Academy and you're sort of abysmal example, like there was no engagement you just, you know, described it, like individually just walking around, silently. And so while while engagement might not necessarily always translate to like something that sticks and gets used, it's definitely I would argue, maybe, especially in PD, it's not going to stick if they're not actually engaged, because it's too easy as adults with everything else on your plate to just check your email or take care of the grading instead of the thing that's not relevant to you. So I think engagement is also super key, when we are planning really high quality professional development experiences. So thinking about kind of how these two things are related, and how they are different. Can you talk a little bit about your experience with PD and the relationship between in with differentiation and engagement in the PD?

Lisa Kuhn: 15:31

Yeah, I have found that it really helps. Even though Brooke didn't have such a good experience with breakout sessions, I found that breakout sessions work really well for that differentiation piece, because then you can offer sessions for the high level performers and those just starting, you can differentiate based on content area, because I know my my intervention specialists, and my non core teachers, the math, the worldling are the math, the music, yeah, sorry, math, you are a CT subject, my music, the art, the gym, the World Languages feel like some of those lessons and sessions are not pertinent to them. And so to have a breakout session where either someone from one of those departments is presenting, or if I pick up and you know, catch, capture that one, they really appreciate that and feel more engaged just because it's focused on them. And it's not just the nice tidy box with the ribbon, you know, covering it, it's pertinent to them. And then they've also been able to differentiate by skill levels. So one of the changes I'm making to this fall's PD is each building or grade levels that have their PD, we're having a session for new to the building or district. And so that way we can have some of the proficient teachers those they got it teachers lead some sessions showing the newbies what to expect. And I, again, I got a lot of positive feedback this year, as I started weaving that concept in with the breakout sessions. They just they love feeling that all this is about me and not about some subject that I have no idea what it is is

Justin Thomas: 17:20

picked up the visual there. Yeah,

Lisa Kuhn: 17:22

you're welcome. It was audio, but I'll give it to

Brooke Conklin: 17:25

you. Least I love how you pointed out within differentiation that includes application needs, like your content area, how they're going to apply that differentiation includes readiness, skill level, and then just speed of mastery. I think a lot of times when we talk about differentiation, we and this is kind of going back to last episode, but we tend to only think of skill level, but application need is equally important to consider. So for me, I think that when we talk about the relationship between differentiation and engagement, differentiation makes learning outcomes accessible. So whatever your goal is, differentiating is what makes it accessible to all learners in the classroom, that skill level application need speed of mastery? Absolutely. So like when you have a goal in mind, say you're wanting to help teachers personalized learning with hyperdocs. Engagement is paramount for reaching that outcome. Because educators get disengaged, if they feel like the content is too far ahead of them, like it's too advanced for them. They tune out, they check their email, they distract the person next to them more if they feel like they've already got it if what you're telling them is something they don't already know. Equally, as Lisa said, a lot of times if if they don't see a clear connection to their grade level, so you're doing hyperdocs for teachers that are like early childhood teachers, and then the connection isn't clear for how early childhood learners can use hyperdocs Those teachers are going to tune out. So they they really have to see the clear connection. And they have to understand how how to do that thing. So that thing has to be at their level. So if we differentiate and meet educators where they are, and clearly connect our content to their needs, like Lisa said, or non core teachers, math, foreign language, band, language arts, you name it, we have a much better shot at keeping them engaged.

Lisa Kuhn: 19:33

Absolutely. And it's really important to get the admin on board with that concept. Because so often a school district will have a mission or a project that they have in mind that they want the whole district to use. But it doesn't always translate into well how is the high school going to use it versus the younger, you know, the PK twos or how is math going to use it compared to band and that conversation needs to be ongoing as well.

Brooke Conklin: 19:59

Yeah, And I would argue as, as you're designing your PD, those are those connections need to be made clear right away. So don't wait till the end of your presentation, the end of your session to tell elementary teachers how they can also use the LMS. Right? Because at that point, they've been disengaged for the last 45 minutes, right.

Unknown: 20:20

Very true.

Justin Thomas: 20:21

Yeah, right at the end, like Oh, okay. Alright, so obviously, a big thing for getting people excited about PDS, maybe you need to have a little bit of building some hype right, build that anticipation. So think about how do you market your PD? How do you build that hype for your professional development sessions? And when we come back from our sponsor break, we'll listen to what you have to say on that. Looking for a program that reaches all teachers and learning new tools to integrate in their lessons, and you badges is the answer and you as in anytime, anywhere, badging program that is designed to take bite sized tools for instruction, and teach teachers how to use them. Edgy has received the STC of alignment for Educator Standards, and each badge in our expanding library is aligned to the ISTE standards and the Samer model. Learn more about the program that teachers call addicting at Ford hyphen edge dotnet backslash and you badgers. Welcome back to the restart recharge podcast, Justin Thomas, Katie Ritter, Brooke Conklin and Lisa Kuhn all involved here for a finale of this PD that sticks. And I talked a little bit before our sponsor break on how do you build that anticipation? You get people pumped up, ready to go to your PD, when it comes? Because most of the time, let's be honest, as former teachers, there's a PD session, you're like, oh, that sounds good. But at the same time, you're like, there's a lot of other things I have going on. So how do you get your teachers to be all pumped up jazz ready to go and excited for your PD?

Brooke Conklin: 21:53

Yeah, so I'll kick us off. Yeah, please do. Um, I think Lisa and I have both mentioned it, but just responding to current problems of practice. So teachers are interested in whatever wheel is squeaking the loudest at the time, whether that's those new view boards that are coming in, that they don't know anything about, or their eighth grade students that are out smarting their way around their homework assignment. teachers care about the squeaky wheels. So responding to those if you can, and your PD sessions and helping them develop, develop their instruction and teach best practice is always helpful. So such things could like hacker Academy, or digital notebooks, your kids can't lose. So you can find your way. Find your way in those problems to practice. I would also say, teas or commercials or invitations. So that can be as simple as making just like a two minute loom video of your face on a good hair day. Just telling teachers what your session is going to be about and inviting them personally. Or making a little iMovie. Something overdramatic is always pretty fun to one of my other favorite I have a whole list here. I'll just fire magic. Just

Lisa Kuhn: 23:10

keep um, I hit the applause button. Yes. Yes, I agree.

Brooke Conklin: 23:16

Catchy titles can be another fun way to hype up your session. So if you read auto grading with Google forums, doesn't sound near as exciting as 99 problems but grades eight one. So anytime you can make your title a little more fun or catchy, especially if you're presenting at a choice PD where you're also competing with other presenters for attendees.

Katie Ritter: 23:41

Brooke Do you want to share your Twitter handle or something for those not as clever as

Brooke Conklin: 23:47

to make sure that I'm doing like a side hustle of PD title development isn't against my non compete Yeah, that could be another some people up Pampered Chef, I create titles for

Justin Thomas: 24:02

Beatty title was your last title. Did you create that on the spot?

Brooke Conklin: 24:06

This one? No, I wrote it down.

Justin Thomas: 24:08

I was gonna say that that just came straight from

Brooke Conklin: 24:11

I mean, it's a good go to nine and nine problems insert whatever the other one isn't a recipe I would also say personally inviting educators so if you have a chance to week of your PD, make rounds and pop into people's rooms and say hey, I'm doing this session on Friday. I'd really love to see you there or you know whatever your tagline is but a personal invitation and a face to the session is always nice. No food is

Lisa Kuhn: 24:39

always good to know I was fortunate fortunate to host APD on May the fourth so we did a May the Fourth be with you theme. It also happened to be Teacher Appreciation Day the same day. And it was a small group that I ended up having and we did Star Wars themed everything and food and fun and that really pulled him in. I have to agree though, with the inviting people in, I think that makes a huge difference whether it be inviting them to the PD itself and getting them hyped for it, or inviting the people who are going to co present or present there. That personal invitation makes a big difference. And then kind of alluding to what we were mentioning before about, Oh, you heard that so and so's presenting, I want to go see that presentation. It gets people more excited than Oh, we get to walk through the standards Museum. Right.

Brooke Conklin: 25:35

And Lisa, if I know that you have snacks at your PD, I'm going to be there every time.

Lisa Kuhn: 25:41

I can't break the budget. We've got to watch the budget. I know it's not every time. One of the things that I had done this year was with March Madness. I actually almost started singing Justin, because we had a little promo video Yeah, with let's get ready to rumble starting it off. Yep. And then it showed the little topics that we were going to present and talk about it the the March Madness and it was a month long, where they could attend little power peds before after school, but then they also had like a tic tac tech that I believe you were one of the creators of that. Maybe not. I think it was Emily and Molly, Emily or Molly. Okay, so kudos, Emily and Molly to the Tech Tech Tech, because that went over fantastically it built in that differentiation and the engagement and oh, I can do it when I'm available. I don't just have to do it during that scheduled time, which really helps have

Brooke Conklin: 26:32

we talked about tic tac TAC on the podcast?

Katie Ritter: 26:35

I think it's been mentioned, I don't know that we've really explained it. So you might want to give like a quick little commercial for what, Lisa?

Justin Thomas: 26:41

Like I have it up.

Lisa Kuhn: 26:45

Tic Tac TAC? No tic tac. Tac is a tic tac toe board, basically. And each square is a different type of PD, mini PD, it can be on a tool, it can be on a strategy. It can be on we call it the gripe jam, but it can be any kind of jam you want. It doesn't have to be griping. And teachers try to get tic tac toe in the activities that they do. So essentially

Katie Ritter: 27:11

a choice board and they're trying to get a tick fill it out with tic tac toe to then get some kind of really small incentive for me.

Lisa Kuhn: 27:18

Exactly, yes. Now I reached out for that one, I reached out to Book Creator. And they gave me three certificates to raffle off to the people who got their tic tac tech. So maybe, you know, reach out to some of those vendors that you work with or that you use their products and say, Hey, I'm doing a PD that includes this in there. Do you have anything even if it's stickers, I mean, shoot, I taught high school for years, and my seniors loved stickers on their tests and quizzes and everything teachers like come to. So you know, whatever you can get they they love it.

Katie Ritter: 27:52

Yeah, that's a great tip. Yeah. Especially if you give them enough notice. Exactly,

Lisa Kuhn: 27:56

exactly. And then this year with the Olympics, since we're going to have back to back Olympics now. I'm working on creating an Olympics based theme that's going to take us from the beginning of the year to start with the back to school PD all the way through the school year, and working on a type of badging system a metals system that as they work through different pieces, though, get us you know, the metal, yeah. Bronze, Silver, Gold, whatever. Yeah,

Brooke Conklin: 28:24

you're so far ahead of me. It's like, what are the Olympics?

Lisa Kuhn: 28:29

Yeah, it's just the thought. I haven't. I love that. Thank you. Yeah,

Katie Ritter: 28:34

I do. I like it. And a couple of things. While we're talking about, like, the cute theme, and I think you guys have done a nice job. But Brooke, I think you always give some really good advice to people like, sometimes it makes sense to start with a theme like, obviously, the Olympics, right? Like, you're gonna go with that. And it's very easy to tie in to some things. But I think sometimes people can get kind of caught up in a theme where it sort of like distracts from what we're doing. So just a little word of caution to coaches themes are really great and fun. And they pull people in and they make it more, you know, relatable sometimes, and they just make it fun, but don't get so far off or just focus on your theme and try to fit a square peg in a round hole if it doesn't make sense. Exactly. Just kind of a little side note word of caution. And then the other thing I wanted to kind of a little word of advice to coaches listening, you both have mentioned in multiple different ways, the relevancy that is so important to our adult learners, so that they can go back and immediately apply it. And I think when we are providing that type of PD that they can go back and immediately do not something that they need that they won't need for another few months because by then they forgot it and in some ways, great because they're scheduling another appointment with you. But the goal is to really like teach them to fish not constantly have to do the fishing for them. And when they can go back and immediately do that. That's great. And so with that, I think a lot of times when we are creating these year long PD Plans, a lot of times they want to know what's coming. They want to see what's coming but like a little word of caution And then I'll give our coaches sometimes is like, allow for a couple of open slots, so that when you get there like we can anticipate a lot of their needs, but keeping not scheduling every single session, or at least somehow allowing for some of that flexibility. So that, okay, this has actually come up a lot where, you know, we're having these problems with the view boards, we need to address this, or hey, like, our teachers are, they thought they had this concept with personalized learning, but they're actually really struggling with this, let's revisit this or, you know, we didn't even think about that. So allowing those open spots to plug in for those needs, that that come up throughout the year, I think is really important. And so that that honestly kind of leads into that whole piece of that that relevancy and allowing them to go back and sort of immediately implement it by creating these authentic experiences for our teachers. You know, we talked about that a lot as coaches for our teachers that if we really want to make the content relevant for students, it needs to be this authentic learning experience. So how are we as coaches through our professional development modeling that by providing those authentic learning experiences for our teachers?

Brooke Conklin: 31:11

So I would say I have just two quick ones, I think for for this question, but simply, I always think of like the four C's as my guideposts for PD development. So creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, if I'm doing all of those are my educators are doing all of those in my session, they're engaging in really authentic learning, I think it's so so common as a tech coach to fall into the trap of spending the whole 45 minutes or an hour in front walking teachers how to do something, insert whatever it is here. And I think about like, specifically math instruction, I would be lost if my teacher spent the whole hour upfront showing me how to do something, and maybe I was following along on my own paper, maybe not. And they were never checking in with me, I was never getting time to independently practice or getting a new set of problems to try on my own. Or being able to ask questions or communicate with people beside me. So I try to incorporate the four C's into whatever my session is. And then the other thing I like to do is just point out my methods and verbalize why I made the decisions that I did for that instructional activity. So that seems weird to like narrate your behind the scenes thinking, but it's really helpful, I think, for educators. So if you put a timer on the board for the activity, point out, visual timers are great for keeping student conversations on task. Because it might not be like obvious why you chose to do that thing. So I'd say narrating your instructional decisions is really helpful to

Lisa Kuhn: 32:48

great tip. Yeah, and then I've got three that I try to incorporate. One is if it is a tool that I can have them practice with to start, whether it be an ED puzzle, again, kit, a hyper Doc, I create one that they go in and participate with as a student. And so they can see what the student is going through on the inside. And then we work our way back and learn about the tool and how to create it. discussion time, I think is very important, again, probably more so for the non Gen Ed content areas, because they often don't see how something is going to fit into their content areas. But even within the core group, you know, I had an upper level high school English teacher, two of them, the juniors or seniors, that every year, they do their analytical essay. And they're like, we want to do Book Creator, but we don't know how it's going to work. So we had the conversation. And they ended up doing a literary analysis in Book Creator. And they gave each you know, chapter or analysis that needed to be done so many pages and a table of contents. And it worked out beautifully. Because they had the discussion, they got to see how it could fit into what they were doing. And then the third thing, and it's critical, and often this is where we kind of all get bitten the butt both as coaches and as teachers attending right, time to explore and create. And that is where we're always we feel like there's so much to do to give to introduce, fitting that time in for the creation process is often a really hard one. And that's one that I'm constantly trying to rework. Because it's critical critical to getting them to really to make it stick, which is what this podcast is about. You got to make it stick somehow.

Justin Thomas: 34:36

Yeah, that's brilliant. And I mean, that kind of answers what our next question was on how do you create opportunities that ensure teachers are gonna go back into the classroom and actually implement what they've learned in the previous sessions? I mean, you both pretty kind of did a really good job of explaining that. Is there anything that you would add to that, that maybe you hadn't mentioned before?

Brooke Conklin: 34:53

Yeah, I would say whenever I give a PD session there's kind of two groups of teachers I divide up the membrane teachers that are super excited about it. And then teachers that are like lukewarm or cold about whatever I'm talking about. So for my teachers that are really excited, and I noticed in the session that they're really latching on to that, that content, I'll often like ask, do you mind if I come visit, like, whenever you do this, I'd love to see it in action. Because then that creates like a little level of accountability to make sure they follow up, because they are so excited. And if they're not quite ready to implement it, it opens up the door to me coming in to co plan for its implementation. And then for the teachers that are lukewarm to cold, they're kind of standoffish, maybe in the PD, or I'm having trouble, like gauging their interest. I'll typically give them space after the PD. And then like, within the week or so I might follow up a person, say, hey, I really enjoyed hanging out with you on Friday. So super, like non threatening, like, I enjoyed you as a human. And then I might ask them, What did you think of whatever the content is? Or have you had a chance to try it out? So that normally opens up the door to conversation about like, why they hated it, or why they didn't think that it was relevant to them. So I can either like clarify, or offer to like, model it, teach it for a while and try it out with their kids, if they're not, not sure it's a good fit, or just provide them more personal level of support.

Lisa Kuhn: 36:27

And along with that personal level of support, conversations need to happen on a continuous basis between the teachers and the coach. And sometimes the teachers, I think, think we're mind reader's, because I went to a first grade PD about EdPuzzle. And one of the teachers pipes up and she's like, You do No, we're not using this because our kids can't read yet. I'm like, why? No, I didn't You didn't tell me you weren't, you know, using this tool, you know, I was told you guys wanted this one. So conversations and reminding the teachers that it's an open door both ways. You know, it's not just us coming into their classroom, and you know, us going in and observing and giving them feedback. We need the feedback to so we know what direction to head. And then I think along with all of these pieces that Brooke has mentioned, and everything we've talked about is your passion in sharing the information. If you're not excited about what's going on. Ain't nobody going to be interested in or, you know, they ain't gonna be happy. Yeah, it's not gonna be oops,

Justin Thomas: 37:29

I fit up.

Brooke Conklin: 37:31

Do you think Google Sheets is boring? I'm for sure.

Unknown: 37:36

Exactly. Yes, I love that.

Katie Ritter: 37:41

So okay, so we have enjoyed ending with some top tips. So if you guys could our last question here is to give us your top two tips for planning PD that sticks if our listeners don't get anything else, these are your top two tips for PD that sticks.

Lisa Kuhn: 38:00

Relevant. And differentiated. would be my two. Okay, yeah, make it relevant and differentiate it. So you're hitting multiple groups?

Brooke Conklin: 38:12

Yeah, that's a great. I felt like minor as a check the box friendly. everyone's ears out. Those are very simple and concise and meaningful.

Unknown: 38:24

There was no character limit to these. Please, I feel like you're, you're like going back to what I was like, you have 10 seconds to answer. Coach camp?

Brooke Conklin: 38:32

No, it just know it. Those are great. If you know, I like on your PA plan. That's

Lisa Kuhn: 38:37

they speak for themselves.

Justin Thomas: 38:39

Yeah, they do. Yeah, one, two.

Brooke Conklin: 38:42

All right. Um, I'll challenge a listener out there to condense mine. I would say for my first one, to create your goal before you do anything else. So this is something that Katie alluded to a little bit earlier. But every single activity should support that goal. So before you start thinking about even your icebreaker before you start thinking about your hands on activity, or your how you're gonna set up the room for discussion, first, start with your goal. And make sure that every single thing you ask your educators to do goes back to that, because teachers are the ultimate masters of instruction, like they literally instruct for a living. And they can detect bad instruction from a mile away. And a lot of teachers are unforgiving for that. So make sure that you have your ducks in a row and tie all of your activities back to your goal. The second thing I would recommend is to attach something memorable to each PD that you do. So I'll give kind of a situation or description here. Example. So in the last two weeks, I've kind of been keeping tabs. But when I've been asked about PDS I've done in the past. These are the things that I've been asked. I've been asked about the PD that we made cabins in the PD where We flipped the houses, and the PD with the tower competition. So each of those things that like people on my team, remember, it wasn't the content necessarily. But it was like the memory that was made in that PD session. So if you can attach a memory, the content is going to be a lot more retrievable, because the content of those PDS were the PD where we designed effective authentic and memorable instruction, the PD where we flipped our thinking about the use of edtech in the classroom, the PD where we examined how to create classroom cultures of authentic collaboration. So make sure that your PD has something memorable, like a catchy title, a theme, a hands on activity, a video or a mantra, because I think as Katie kind of said, before, educator brands have so much stuff to juggle, they don't save space for your entire session, but they will save space for 99 problems, but grading ain't one. So if you can carve out that little memorable nugget, it will help anchor your content and educate your brains.

Katie Ritter: 41:02

Yes, and I love that. And I wrote that down I think, you know, starting with the goal, I feel like share that goal, too, right? Like make that your first slide and the presentation. Like, here's what we're doing today, let them know, so that they're not wandering around the room aimlessly wandering what they're doing there and what they're supposed to get out of your session.

Lisa Kuhn: 41:22

Well, and I think to going back to something you alluded to earlier, Katie is don't do something just because, you know, make sure that it makes sense. If humor fits, use it if creating a fancy shmancy built house, use it. But if not use the building blocks you have. Everyone starts somewhere and you can you know, grow it from there. Yeah,

Katie Ritter: 41:47

absolutely.

Justin Thomas: 41:48

Awesome. Well, thank you again, Brooke, and Lisa, for coming on. Do you think we should give him a final round of applause?

Katie Ritter: 41:55

Oh, please. One more sound effect. Do you want? Do you want to press it? Yes, it's been great having you. Thank you. Thank you.

Brooke Conklin: 42:03

The cool thing about this is if I keep holding it, it goes on endlessly.

Justin Thomas: 42:08

I hadn't thought about that when I let her. But hopefully this has been a great I mean, Brooke, you've been on all three of these forms. This series and least you join us here for the finale. One I hope that this will mini series has been very good for all of the coaches out there listening. And tune in next time, August 10. We have Susanna summers from connect hub coming on, she's going to talk to us about the importance of data collection as a tech coach. So next episode in two weeks, we'll have Susanna summers.

Katie Ritter: 42:38

Yes, really looking forward to having her to share with all of you and so with that, thanks for tuning in for this three part series. We'll see you in two weeks. And in the meantime, be sure to subscribe to restart recharge wherever you listen to podcasts at restart, recharge podcast.com And follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at our our coach cast. And if you could be so kind to subscribe and review us we would really appreciate it to help other tech Coaches find our podcast

Justin Thomas: 43:08

Also feel free to reach out to us on social media and let us know if there's any topics that you want to discuss or just feel free to reach out and just you know interact with us on social media doesn't necessarily have to have a topic you want to listen to just feel free to say

Unknown: 43:22

look yeah, we're social people. Yeah,

Katie Ritter: 43:24

so with that press the restart button

Justin Thomas: 43:27

recharging coaching batteries and leave feeling equipped and inspired to coach fearlessly with the restart recharge podcast

Katie Ritter: 43:34

at Tech coach collective.

Unknown: 43:41

Okay, ready oh I start the word dance