Educational Trenches: Surviving and Thriving with Dr. Dana Goodier

When the classroom feels like a battlefield, who's there to pull you through? In this illuminating conversation with Dr. Goodier, we dive deep into the concept of "educational trenches" – those challenging periods when educators question their professional path.

For instructional designers and those developing professional development, she provides actionable advice: know your audience, focus on outcomes, scaffold appropriately, and respect educators' time with blended learning approaches that include meaningful follow-up. Perhaps most importantly, she encourages all educators to periodically reassess their core motivation and be willing to explore new educational contexts when needed.

Whether you're currently in the trenches or supporting colleagues who are struggling, this episode offers both practical strategies and heartfelt encouragement. Subscribe now and join our community of education professionals committed to designing learning experiences with intention and care.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Dr. Dana Goodier
• 2:33 Defining Educational Trenches
• 6:14 Networking in Education
• 9:47 Women's Leadership Challenges
• 15:07 Technology and Cell Phone Policies
• 22:00 Instructional Design Tips
• 28:58 Final Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, GCU students, alumni, and fellow educators, welcome to episode 50 of the Designing with Love podcast. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Dana Goodier, an educational consultant, author, and podcast host. Welcome, Dana, thank you for having me. Thank you so much for coming, Dana. I appreciate you taking your time to come onto my show today. So, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 0:40

So I've been in education for 25 years. I started out teaching French for about 13 years and then I taught a bit of English. French was mostly at the high school, english was at the middle and high school and I've also taught some English as a second language. I've done a variety of admin roles like dean of students and also multi-tiered systems of support, coordinator, behavior, interventionist, and so that's like my day job. And then the podcasting is something I've been doing since 2020. You know it's a windy road in education for a lot of educators. So I went with the theme out of the trenches, because a lot of educators find themselves in several trenches throughout their careers, so I wanted to give them a space to tell their stories, and I also wrote a book, the Trenches Stories of Resilient Educators. So I know I'm going to be talking a little bit about trench stories and educational trenches. Another thing about me is I've spoken professionally for about eight years now and I speak often at conferences, but I'm available for different consulting opportunities as well.

Jackie Pelegrin: 2:02

That's great. So you keep yourself busy in the field of education and then consulting, and then with your podcast too. So it sounds like you're able to give so much insight and learn what's going on out in the field. So that's great, I love that. It's always good to keep an eye on what's going on and see how you can help fellow educators in that. So that's great, I love it. So what's your definition of being in the educational trenches, as you mentioned with your book?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 2:33

So it's really that tough period of time where somebody is questioning whether they should stay in education, and I know that there have been a lot more educators who've left education since the pandemic.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 2:47

But I think even as long as I've been in education, there are things that are tough for educators and you know, there's often the fact that educators leave within the first three to five years of teaching if they don't get that. Um, the trenches I've been in, you know they. They haven't been easy at the time, but it's. It's that philosophy of whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right. It's, it's a learning experience, right. And um, it's really important during those trenches to have a support system. And that support system might not be at your school, it might be through virtual meetups with other educators, it might be through some type of a network or professional organization, it might be just doing the hobbies or workout activities somebody likes to do. But if somebody is in a trench, it's making sure they're not living and breathing their job, because that trench could be caused by being overworked as well.

Jackie Pelegrin: 3:54

That's so true. Yeah, and it can lead to burnout and everything else. And so in the helping professions, as they call it, and I believe that teaching is in that area I often work on curriculum for counseling and social work and they talk about compassion, fatigue and burnout and how it's important to have that self-care. So even for teachers and educators, that's just as important right to have that self-care and so that they don't face that burnout and everything you know, because what you're doing is a service and that's something that even students in my class we talked about this.

Jackie Pelegrin: 4:31

There's a discussion question that talks about servant leadership and, with GCU being a Christian university, it comes into like the human flourishing aspect and that servant leadership and all of that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 4:44

And so it's amazing because a lot of my students are currently educators in K-12 education. So they talk about how it's a calling for them and they're honored to do it, but it does weigh on you after a while. So being able to reach out, ask for help, know that there's a network out there that can help you, like you said, even if it's not in the school itself, but knowing that there's a network out there that can help you, like you said, even if it's not in the school itself, but knowing that there's a network out there that can be there to support them. They may not know it's out there, so it's that's important to have that. Yeah, absolutely. So it's great that you're you're out, you're there providing that support, doing conferences to speak about it and and get that awareness out there and know that there's, even though there may be a stigma, that it's okay to ask for help, right?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 5:28

Yeah, that's great and I think leaders and others you know veteran educators who might be a teacher support person those people are much more aware that there are educators who get burnt out and that need to take some time for themselves. You know, I think that's really evolved in the last five to 10 years. I don't think that was so much the case when I started in education Because I mean, yeah, there were people who left, but it was more just, you know, you do your job and whatever it takes, kind of attitude, I think Right, but I'm glad that it's being more recognized now.

Jackie Pelegrin: 6:11

Yes, that's important and we talked a little bit about networking. So, in your experience, what's the value of networking with other educators on social media?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 6:20

So you know there's a variety of places people can network. Twitter now used to be that place. Through Twitter chats, people moved over to Blue Sky and there's some of that going on there. A lot of networking I've had is through just being part of like a podcast network and a place where people can access professional development. It's called teach better team. I got connected with them five years ago, so there's blogs there. I've written blogs, there's many other people that write blogs and then there's podcasts about 45, including mine and you know they. They do have some professional development events, either some live like webinars, or sometimes they've had these 12 hour lives where they have different guest speakers for 12 hours straight. They had a couple of conferences a couple of years ago, and so I think that's a good way to do like online networking networking.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 7:27

But also you know the social media piece in terms of if you are part of an organization that might be a state organization. That's something that I'm responsible for as president of Colorado Congress for language teachers. You know trying to get the word out there to help promote conferences that we're holding or other professional development events, and we've learned that, you know, not everybody interacts with the social media, so trying to get that sent through email blasts and also word of mouth. If there's people in leadership positions in different districts in the state that they can also send out emails to their people, that might be part of the organization as well. So it really depends on social media, where people access that, and people are part of Facebook groups. But there's also a lot of people who are on Instagram or TikTok nowadays. There's also a lot of people who are on Instagram or TikTok nowadays. So it's it's really kind of evolved and, um, you know, I think you just have to find where you get most uh, uh analytics of, of interaction from, from the people you're trying to reach.

Jackie Pelegrin: 8:39

Yeah, so the marketing you know, going across different platforms and different methods is really a key there, because you don't want to just segment just one area but you want to make sure you broaden it out and can target the audience that you need to and meet them where they're at Right and make sure that they yeah, they have what they need. If they're like you said, if they're not on social media that much but they check their email or they do good with word of mouth, you know you could always get, like, you know, little flyers out there or something, digital flyers or something say hey, this is coming up and make sure you you know if you can to come. So that's great. Yeah, it's really nice having those, those networks. They have that for instructional design too, you know, on like LinkedIn and stuff like that. So it's really nice to have those available.

Jackie Pelegrin: 9:25

And they have closed groups that are there too. So it's nice to have some of those opportunities where you know it's a little bit more exclusive and you can get some hands-on type of support as well. So that's great. Yeah, I love that You're able to champion for that and be there for them, so that's great. Able to champion for that and be there for them, so that's great. So, as we know that sometimes women have unique challenges of being leaders in today's educational climate, what do you think are some of those challenges that particularly women like us face in today's educational climate?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 10:00

I think there are often like principals at the elementary level, um, sometimes at the middle and high school level, but not as often. So I think that's also just getting more principals at the secondary level. Um, I also think in terms of like district leadership, because that's where I um, you know, I I most familiar with. You know K-12 school systems, so, um, there aren't enough women. You know K-12 school systems, so, um, there aren't enough women leaders in my opinion, in in district leadership for the organization. Um, I also think giving more people who are maybe in a teaching role, leadership opportunities, whether it's chairing committees, whether it's, you know, starting different. It could be clubs or other things for students to maybe fundraise or something like that, things for students to maybe fundraise or something like that. You know, a lot of the time the leaders have to find that themselves right and advocate for it.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 11:06

I think some challenges also could be that family and home balance.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 11:14

You know it's traditionally still, unfortunately, the mom who asked to get the kids a lot and and you know it's traditionally still, unfortunately, the mom who asked to get the kids a lot and, you know, be there and pick up the groceries. So I think that that's sometimes an issue when you know there's maybe not an equal balance in the spousal responsibilities equal balance in the spousal responsibilities and if there is a female leader who has a lot more obligations maybe later in the day they can't always be at some of those school events or pick up their kids from school it can be a challenge. So, yeah, and I think also just for women leaders getting the opportunity to speak, or for me I've always put out my name and sent the proposals in and contacted places to speak at, but I think some people need that, what they have to share. So I think that's something I'd like to see more of in leadership conferences more women who maybe don't have as much speaking experience but have a lot to share, who'd like to get into the speaking profession.

Jackie Pelegrin: 12:27

That's a great idea because that's something that another guest that was on my show mentioned to me after we talked.

Jackie Pelegrin: 12:34

He said I can send you information about someone that can help you get like a good like social, like plug for conferences, and then you can start off doing virtual ones and then you can get paid for them, and I'm like, well, that's a really good idea and it's something I've always thought of in the back of my head.

Jackie Pelegrin: 12:52

But now it's with you talking about it too. It's kind of brought it to the forefront of my mind. So I'm like, yeah, that would be nice to be able to do that and share some of that information, especially being in education for so long in higher education, and be able to share some of that. And then I see you know leaders within the university going to conferences and coming back, and I'm like that would be really unique and I think it adds to the depth of someone's experience, and especially for women. You know they can add that to their resume or their CV and be able to, you know, incorporate that and then get more speaking engagements, like you said, and have that opportunity to really have their voice heard and advocate for the students as well. So that's important, yeah, and advocate for the profession right as a whole as well.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 13:43

Yeah, yeah, it's always good to hear from people at conferences who are in the trenches and working with the students, cause there there are a lot of people who are full-time speakers and consultants who do the work and speak at conferences and might lead those sessions, but for me I can. I can tell a lot of the time who's actually doing the work. Um, and you know who knows those stories from what they're currently doing, as opposed to somebody who might've just learned about. You know a certain thing that they're trying to sell the schools as a training platform. Um, and they're just kind of going through the motions.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 14:17

So you know a certain thing that they're trying to sell the schools as a training platform and they're just kind of going through the motions. So, yeah, there's a lot to be said for people who have that hands on experience.

Jackie Pelegrin: 14:26

Right, that's true, instead of, like you said, the people that are constantly in it all the time and it becomes probably repetition for them. They get, they just get so entrenched in it, right, and it just becomes second nature for them. But for those that want to, you want that fresh perspective. I think that's that can be valuable, for that, to have that fresh look and perspective at things for sure. Yeah, I like that. That's great. Yeah, are there any other challenges you think like, especially today? You know, with the landscape, with technology, do you see that it can be challenging? With the way technology keeps evolving? Now with AI, I mean, it's all over the place has recently changed and so I'm sure K through 12 is facing that too, with, you know, making sure that there's that ethical part of it and integrity and things like that if students are using it as well.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 15:25

Yeah, I think a lot of the time it's the organization who has to figure out what kind of policy they're going to use. And a lot of schools throughout the US in different states and districts have last year a lot of them, it was in the news adopted a cell phone policy finally, like district-wide, which is about time. I mean, how long have we had the smartphone right?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 15:47

But, now, like where I'm at, they're using yonder pouches so the phones are locked up in these pouches and the kids can't access them during the day. So I do think you know okay, that was an initiative a year ago and you know it's working, because now we're don't don't have kids who are constantly on their phone during class. But then the next thing is also developing policies, especially at the high school level, because that'll feed into the university level, because there are a lot of kids at the high school level because I've taught English at high school who are trying to use ChatGPT or whatever AI to do their assignments. It's not always easy for teachers to be able to figure that out. It needs to be a school-wide or district-wide policy and you know having kids learn more academic integrity. You know feedback or asking, you know for maybe an outline which could be an AI tool, but you know a lot of those kids just do the whole paper.

Jackie Pelegrin: 17:47

Yeah, it's challenging, yeah for sure. And at the university level it's tough because there's some instructors that are they just they're like, they want to police it and I'm like of being able to, you know, sit for a job interview and say that they can use this tool and different tools, like ChatGPT, and they said, yes, it's an essential thing. So, you know, we're trying to figure out I think we have pretty much, but just knowing that there's that limitation and but, yeah, giving them the tools that they need to know how to use it ethically, like you said, and yeah, and that academic integrity and digital literacy, things like that, so very important. So they're starting to implement this stoplight method. Where it's green is like yes, you can use it, and here's the you know the parameters in the assignment, where they explicitly say you can use it. And then there's the yellow which is like yes, but you know, with limitations, and then the red is like no, you cannot, you cannot use it for this assignment, because we want you to know, we want to know that you can actually do the work and we can, we can see that you know, you know the content and you're not utilizing something else to supplement that. So, yeah, so it's. It's good to see that there's. You know that the districts are doing that and they're trying to, you know, implement that. So yeah, that's great.

Jackie Pelegrin: 19:26

Yeah, it's funny about the cell phone policy, because I saw that I read an article about that that they said 31 states have implemented that with the, that, with the policy, and I'm like it should be all across right. But yeah, they showed a map and they showed pretty much all of the Western states and the Plains and then a little bit not too much in the East as much. The East Coast doesn't really have it as much. So it seems like our side of the country, the West coast, we're, we've adopted it sooner and then hopefully the East coast will catch up. But yeah, it was very interesting to see the map was all it was pretty much yellow on our, on the one half of the United States, and then the other not quite. So yeah, I thought that was Hmm, that's interesting, yeah. So, yeah, I thought that was Hmm, that's interesting. It's usually, usually it's like East and West coast and then it all comes together. But yeah, I thought it was kind of kind of unique for sure, but, as I said, it took long enough.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 20:23

Like it's like yeah because I've had the phones for years and they've lost instructional time. And now, oh, now that there's all this research on, like, oh, social, emotional, like, there's been research, there's been bullying, all this, you know stuff that's coming from cell phones, but like it took them that long to finally realize, okay, maybe we need to do something as a system about it.

Jackie Pelegrin: 20:44

Right, I'm hoping that it doesn't take that long for AI to come around.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 20:49

Yeah, well, it's evolving so fast. And schools aren't keeping up with it.

Jackie Pelegrin: 20:54

Right, that's true. Yeah, so hopefully they can wrap their minds around it a little bit more. And because, as they say, the cat's out of the bag and can't put it back in. Once it's out, as they say, it's not going anywhere. So, yeah, that's true, true. So are there any tips and advice that you'd like to share with those who are currently in the instructional design program that I teach at Grand Canyon University, or just maybe even in general, you know, since instructional design is an education type of industry as well?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 21:27

Mm-hmm. Really, I think, just knowing your audience, knowing what the outcomes are, looking at the bigger picture first and scaffolding it's like you would do for a lesson for kids. You want to make sure you have different ways of teaching it for different learners, of teaching it for different learners. You know making sure also that everything like if you're building an online course, for example you don't always want to have the same set of types of assignments. I think you know that's something that can get a little bit repetitive. But if you're looking from for different things for different students for a variety of reasons, you want to vary up the types of assignments and also the expectations of what you would want students to do, keeping the expectations clear. But also, you know, serving different learning needs. You know visual, auditory or kinesthetic learning, which sometimes if you're teaching online, it's not easy for kinesthetic, but you could also incorporate maybe an activity where you know a student's out in nature. You know using something that they find out in nature and writing about it or something like that.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 22:53

Right there are opportunities to teach to all those learning styles.

Jackie Pelegrin: 23:00

Right, that's so important. Yeah, that authentic assessment yeah, I worked on courses before I opened it up like a psychology course and it was eight topics, eight papers all throughout. It was eight topics, eight papers all throughout, and I thought, wow, not only is that daunting and boring for the students, but for the faculty that have to grade those. I can't imagine having a paper, you know, and they were like 500 to 750 word, and then some of them were larger, and so by the time I think it got to topic seven, they were up to like 2000 words and I'm thinking, wow, burnout by the end. They would not want to write anymore after that and I and yeah, I wouldn't want to be the instructor grading those either Eight with eight papers, yeah, so that's tough I like. Yeah, so that's great.

Jackie Pelegrin: 23:47

And the scaffolding, you know, that's definitely important as well. Yeah, At any level, right, and being able to to do that, yeah, that's great. Yeah, I love that because that's something that we advocate for. And and that authentic assessment can be so helpful, especially with AI. Right, being able to, you know, go beyond what a P, a paper, and giving them something that they can do, that's more authentic and real world that they'll face as well. So that's important. Yeah, kind of helps with both to be able to do that yeah, absolutely that's great.

Jackie Pelegrin: 24:24

Yeah, is there anything else you can think of that would be good advice? Um, you know, for for this type the type of role because I I know in K through 12, usually sometimes it's called they're called them instructional designers, sometimes they refer to them as curriculum coaches, but kind of in that realm right of being able to to help with curriculum and professional development and those types of things A lot of my students like to do and what they want to go into is helping more with professional development, training and being able to help with the curriculum areas. It's really, really exciting to see that.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 25:00

Yeah, I think you know, for students who might be going into working on, you know, professional development for adults, it's really knowing that sometimes if you're working with teachers, sometimes they can be the worst students, you know, and the teachers don't always appreciate some of the types of activities, like you know, going around and writing on, you know, putting sticky notes on chart paper and those types of things. You know I mean there's different things that can be done and just making sure that you're using your time wisely, like I was at a professional development today that they had a three and a half hour time slot but it only took them half that time but then they didn't want you to let people out so early. So for about 45 minutes of the extra time people are just sitting there like work with your school on how you're going to implement this, but we don't know when it're going to implement this. But we, you know we don't know when it's going to be implemented. So you know, I mean a lot of the time.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 25:57

It's like also knowing how much time things are going to take, versus keeping people, uh, because they're supposed to fulfill a certain amount of hours, right, that continuing education yeah, yeah so just, uh, I would say, be respectful of people's time but also give them activities that they might be able to complete at home, or, uh, via some type of assignment that's, you know, going to be asynchronous, and do a week or two later, or something like that. That's a good idea, you know. It's good, uh, for if you're doing a course, for teachers to do some independent work as well, or come back after they've implemented it in the classroom and have a little bit of time to think about it.

Jackie Pelegrin: 26:39

That's a great idea. Doing more blended approaches where, yeah, where they can do maybe some pre-work before they come in to the in-person portion, do that and then, as you mentioned, do some of it at home or be able to do like a call to action, where that's what we do in a lot of our professional development. We'll give them a call to action and then 30 days later, we'll follow up, we'll do a 30 minute follow up session and we'll say, okay, how have you implemented this? What are you doing? Share some you know, some stories, some feedback, and then they can, they can ask questions and things like that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 27:13

So, breaking it up a little bit more instead of having like one long two hour session, it really helps because then people are so, as we know, you know, educators are so busy, so being able to, like you said, respect that time and make it valuable for them and then they don't complain about it Right and go, that was a waste of my time and, yeah, I don't, I don't want to do that ever again, and some of my students have have mentioned that before. They're like yeah, I went to the. You know, there's like a discussion question in one of the classes and it talks about what was the experience that was either just wasn't effective or you think could be changed, and what would you do to change it as far as training or professional development, and they really, uh, they really go into that. So it's very interesting to hear their stories and and um kind of read it and and know that, yeah, they experience it too. So, yeah, that's that's interesting for, yeah, that's good advice Absolutely.

Jackie Pelegrin: 28:14

I like that Great. Is there anything else you wanted to share with the listeners? Anything else that comes to mind?

Dr. Dana Goodier: 28:23

Well, I mentioned my book Out of the Trenches Stories of Resilient Educators. That's available on Amazon and you know, even if your students aren't going into, you know teaching roles. It's really that type of book where you're thinking about the role that you're doing within even edu adjacent what instructional design is Right, and, you know, exploring the why. What got you into that? You know, and after you know a year or two, or if you're in a trench, asking yourself, is this still fulfilling your why? And exploring like, maybe, if you're writing for a certain audience, maybe consider writing for a different audience for a while. Right, you could be writing for elementary ed as opposed to adult ed, you know, and that's still developing curricula. So I think that's. There are definitely tips and you know there's different talking points and you know it's a type of a workbook where people can ask themselves and discuss questions with colleagues. So definitely pick that up.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 29:33

People can listen to my podcast out of the trenches. I know you have my YouTube channel linked and you can also access them on Apple. Wherever you get your podcast, there's a new episode every week and, yeah, just follow me on social media. And if you have any questions about, you know, maybe getting into K-12 instructional design and professional development, but not quite sure how to go about it. Just send me a message and I'll try to help you. You know, answer your questions about, you know, getting into that space? That would be great.

Jackie Pelegrin: 30:12

I love that. Thank you, dana. I appreciate that because that you know getting into that space, that would be great. I love that. Thank you, dana. I appreciate that because that you know that's a good point because a lot of my students, when they when they get their portfolio put together, if they're in K through 12 or they're in corporate or higher ed in some capacity especially my students that are in K through 12 education they tend to, their artifacts tend to and their projects tend to be focused on that area that they're in. And I always let them know you need to have a diversified portfolio because we are going to apply for jobs.

Jackie Pelegrin: 30:44

I mean, instructional design is so varied it can be anything from K through 12, corporate, military, nonprofit so they have to be able to think outside of that realm of what they're in, and so I always mention to them go outside your comfort zone a little bit it's kind of what you mentioned and be able to do that. So that's great. I love that. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'll make sure to link everything in the show notes so that way everybody has that, and that's great. You have your podcast that comes out every week too, so it's great to know that there's educational podcasts out there that are serving the community. I love it, great. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today, and I look forward to having my listeners gain some great insight and picking up your book as well.

Dr. Dana Goodier: 31:33

Thanks so much for having me.

Jackie Pelegrin: 31:35

Thank you, dana, appreciate it. Thank you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going, you can share it with a friend or colleague, leave a heartfelt review or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support, big or small, makes a difference and I'm truly thankful for you.