This newsletter covers what happened in April and will give you a heads up on what to look for in May and the months following.

In this issue:

Greetings:

I hope that you are well. And, I hope that you are experiencing moments of joy during this time of transitions.

Niebuhr penned these words during World War II, a time of grave uncertainty for the country. We were fighting for our lives. Once again, we are in the midst of great uncertainty; however, the cause is a global pandemic rather than an arms war. Still, Niebuhr's words ring true today. We accept the fact that we are enduring a global pandemic. We dare to do several things: continue physical distancing; maintain healthy practices; stay socially connected; encourage others; and nurture ourselves, as well as others. Also, we can reflect and define some personal goals for such a time as this. We can work toward achieving success for our families, our students, and our various communities.

I challenge you to keep a journal of something wonderful that happens to you each day. Consider it a gift of the day – family, friends, etc. Whether you document a splendid sunrise, a birthday surprise, or an inspiring message does not matter. The important thing is to highlight something positive that occurs each day.  Let us have the courage to care, hope, and act to improve our collective situation.

Be safe and stay well.

Joann

Did you know that the minutes of the Academy Board Meetings are available to ALL Academy members? In this article, we offer highlights of the most recent board meeting(s):

March 2020 minutes (not yet approved)        April 2020 minutes (not yet approved)

Changes in Annual Dues

Annual dues will be increasing to $70 and annual institutional memberships to $375. This year, dues will provide you membership form 1 August, 2020 to 30 September 2021 in order to align with the new Academy fiscal year.

Our PE Conference Goes Online

Our annual conference has moved online and our team is working hard to get a program ready and registration up. Please stay tuned for announcements from them.

The Next Board Meeting:  May 13, 2020 (10:30 am Eastern)

ANYONE is welcome to join us! Please check the Academy Member site for the ZOOM information you'll need to join the meeting!

The Conference Planning Committee has been working diligently to successfully redesign the 2020 conference to a 100% online experience. The committee has worked to craft an experience that maintains the principles of Process Education while meeting the needs of our members. Thank you all for sharing your suggestions and comments throughout this process. We listened and responded to the need for a schedule that included a shorter time commitment, frequent breaks, simple access to conference materials, and the ability to interact with fellow conference attendees. 

The conference design has been crafted with active learning experiences to keep you engaged and alert. Your active participation throughout the conference will be critical to both your success as well as that of your colleagues. Team concepts will be used in the general sessions and in many of the breakout sessions as well allowing you to form a closer connection with other participants. In addition to the synchronous sessions of the conference, asynchronous sessions that can be accessed anytime during or after the conference will be available to participants. As an example, The Hall of Innovation (Poster Sessions) will be pre-recorded and available asynchronously. To expand opportunities for participation beyond the normal confines of the three days of the conference, additional Professional Development workshops in both synchronous and asynchronous sessions will be available pre and post conference.

The schedule is almost complete and will be posted soon. Check the web site for more details. As you contemplate participating in this vigorous and engaging conference, head to the Conference Website and Register for the best $100 bargain of the summer. 

In the self-growth community this year, we’ve been working to differentiate Performance Mentoring and Life Coaching. I discovered this week that I haven’t been using each at the right time! So I’m sharing my insights and tips so you can use them for your own self-growth. 

What’s the difference between Performance Mentoring and Life Coaching? Simply put, performance mentoring is about improving performance, and life coaching is about improving quality of life. With this definition, it seems obvious which advisor to employ for every assessment, whether the mentor and coach are oneself or others. 

But there can be a trap in each case. For a self-grower who is very focused on one extreme, they might invoke one perspective for all of their self-assessment. Or when working with an external mentor or coach, that person may have a tendency to lean toward performance mentoring because the results are faster and easier to see, and everyone is happy that the performance was improved. But the life coach role can create a growth or self-growth experience for their client. Though the results won’t be immediate, the self-growth capacity of the self-grower is increased so that they can create future results for themselves. 

At the last Self-Growth Community session, I discovered that, because I’ve been very focused on improving life quality, I’ve called upon my internal Life Coach every time I do assessment. I’ve wanted to improve performance to improve quality of life, so I applied the overarching hat. But it’s not working because performance mentoring looks at different opportunities for improvement than a life coach does. The life coach is helping me become a better person – which is all well and good – but isn’t what I need in that moment. 

Now I have a new strategy to get what I need in each assessment moment. In the weekly assessment system suggested in the Self-Growth Community this year, I will use my internal Life Coach to choose the three areas of performance that I’ll focus on for that week, my internal Performance Mentor to choose the action plans and associated learning skills and to assess those performances, and at the end of the week, use my internal Life Coach to do my overall assessment. 

You can learn more about the distinction between Performance Mentoring and Life Coaching when you participate in the Online Self-Growth Institute in June. Performance criteria will be available for both roles, and your team mentor employ the appropriate role to help you meet the growth objectives of each activity.

One of the reasons I was drawn to the Academy of Process Educators is the community of practitioners that provide feedback and support to one another as we all strive to improve. A key process in that improvement is peer coaching. This month we put the spotlight on this topic with module 4.1.11 Peer Coaching. This module was penned by past president Dan Cordon and was selected by communications director Joyce Adams, who states:

"Through peer coaches’ assessments my performance as a facilitator has improved. I was able to show my students the value of an assessment by being willing to be assessed in front of the group. The students witnessed the behaviors I changed that were distracting while facilitating. This process grew the students’ appreciation of assessment as well as other faculty observing the process. Through peer coaching I have grown my assessment skills."

Not only does this improve your facilitation skills, but it provides a great opportunity to get a colleague to try Process Education.

As you read this module, consider the following inquiry questions. (And if you have any questions about Peer Coaching, feel free to email me at mwatts@tcc.edu.)

Designing and Facilitating your PE Conference Session - Why attend? PE Academy members value interaction with colleagues to mutually foster learning and growth. These sessions have been created to help conference session facilitators and attendees design, present, and participate in online synchronous sessions for the 2020 PE Conference. Specifically, the sessions will model how to design your online conference session as a Process Education activity to achieve these goals using Zoom and the PE Conference Forums.

Session dates and times - these are our previously scheduled Academy Professional Development event dates, repurposed to help you contribute towards creating the best possible conference experience for our community.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020 @ 7:00-8:30pm, Eastern (Parts A&B)

& Tuesday, June 9, 2020 @ 7:00-8:30pm, Eastern (Parts A&B repeated)

Click to visit the workshop page for this workshop!

ZOOM INFORMATION is available on the

Academy Member site in the Workshops section.

Part A (PE Conference Session Design and Preparation): Practice using the PE PD session model to create easily accessible resources along with simple, yet challenging and rewarding, online activities supporting participant learning and growth during your PE Conference session.

Part B (Facilitating PE Conference Sessions using Zoom and the Conference Forums): Utilize the PE conference technology effectively to foster learning and growth by using breakouts for teamwork, forums for recording, etc. This session will utilize the Zoom Tips Sheet and the PE Conference Forum(s).

Prepare for the Workshop
•    Visit the workshop page and complete the REQUIRED reading and answer the Exploration Questions PRIOR to the workshop!

(Register for the workshop on the Workshop page or on the main Professional Development page.)

The Self-Growth Institute for the dates of June 20 – 24 will move forward online. We have started updating the curriculum and facilitation plans and  expect that the outcomes of the Institute will help the Academy build the expertise needed to operate as a successful DDO.

The outcomes of this Institute continue to include at least a 50% increase in learning performance with a target of an increase of 100%. We're also aiming for a 50%  increase in growth capability so that individuals can improve their quality of life by 50% each year. We believe that the progress gained from research and the Self-Growth Community will have a major impact on participants' self-growth capability.

Please register HERE (or through the Pacific Crest Home page). The registration costs are $600, with a 50% discount for Academy members. Please register as soon as possible because we are beginning to design the teams NOW. Participation at this event is expected for every key Academy member who wants to be a significant contributor to the DDO initiative over next three years.

At the Academy Meeting that will be held online on Saturday, June 27, the Academy membership will elect members to fill four positions: Secretary, Treasurer, and two Members at Large.  Position descriptions can be found in the Academy Bylaws, and performance criteria for each position are available.

The Nominations Committee is seeking nominations for all positions.  You may nominate yourself or others!  We welcome all Members to participate on the Executive Board.  This is a great way to increase participation with the Academy, step out of your comfort zone for growth in the DDO, and to strengthen leadership skills.  It's also a way to give back to the Academy, share institutional knowledge and wisdom, and develop our future leadership.  

Please send your suggestions of candidates and their potential roles to the Nominations Committee via the President-Elect, Ingrid Ulbrich (ingrid.m.ulbrich@gmail.com).  The Committee will confirm with all candidates their interest in running for the suggested position.  We welcome your nominations by June 1!

Finally, we send our gratitude for those whose terms are concluding! Thank you to Matt Watts, Past President; Cynthia Woodbridge, Secretary; Peter Smith, Treasurer; and Dan Litynski, Member at Large.  And thanks to folks who stepped in to fill vacancies in the roles of Member at Large, Will Ofstad and LaShunda Calvert!

We are pleased to now feature blog content from Richard Stone... Thanks, Rick! You're welcome to visit his blog as well and fill out the contact form on his site if you'd like to subscribe to his weekly blog.

Plato in his work Phaedrus tells a strange tale of the god Theuth and the king of Egypt, Thamus. Theuth was responsible for the invention of all things pertaining to the arts. Thamus served as a sort of clearing house for these crafty creations and had to approve of Theuth’s handiwork before it could be introduced to the people. His consent was like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. One day Theuth invented writing. He was ecstatic and couldn’t contain his enthusiasm for how this was going to benefit humankind, convinced writing would improve our memory and make humans wiser. Thamus listened intently to Theuth as he waxed on about the many benefits of this invention, then stopped Theuth in his tracks, contradicting his suppositions. “My dear Theuth,” he said, “this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”[i] 

We needn’t look far to confirm this insight. As Thamus professed thousands of years ago, we have discovered in our own work once things are written down, they are soon forgotten. In a project we did years ago for Walt Disney Imagineering in Orlando, we assessed how knowledge was being shared throughout the organization. At the completion of every major project the Imagineers and engineers would be required to write a detailed report on every facet of what they did with the hope future Imagineers would read it and learn from all of their successes and mistakes. Many of these tomes were thousands of pages long and all were stored in a secure repository on the 9th floor of the Imagineers’ offices. When we asked Imagineers if they had ever visited these stacks to read about projects similar to rides or hotels they were currently designing, not one had ever stepped foot on the 9th floor. It turns out, like ancient cultures, Disney’s is primarily oral when it comes to sharing knowhow. If you were planning a new water park and knew I had designed one ten years earlier, you could write me an email requesting I share my wisdom, but the result would be a fairly cursory recounting of the lessons I learned. There wouldn’t be much to be learned here. On the other hand, if you knocked on my door and asked if I had a few minutes to talk, even if we had never previously met, I would willingly spend hours of my day telling you stories of all of the challenges we faced and everything we gleaned from our errors. What Disney discovered was capturing wisdom in an accessible written document was not very useful. They had to find ways to increase the face-to-face connections between the old guard and the new if they were going to avoid replicating the costly mistakes of the past. 

Fast forward to today. It would seem our interaction with digital devices may be impacting the continuing evolution of a new generation of Homo Sapiens in unexpected ways. In the minds of many, it’s not all for the good. For example, recent research has demonstrated the average attention span of heavy multi-screeners has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. That’s 1 second less than the average goldfish! When we consider how malleable young brains are, this inability to concentrate may actually become wired into future generations’ brains. Those who rely on digital devices are much more distractible; brains of heavy digital users are demonstrating similar patterns typically found among drug addicts; and, our ability to empathize with others and pick up on social cues has been seriously diminished.[ii]Are we unwittingly reversing the evolution of our storied brains through our technological advances? Some would argue these digital devices are training our minds and molding our brains to better prepare us for the world we now live in. The son of a friend of mine was a demon with computer games and was able to translate that skillset to flying planes, becoming a Top Gun in the Air Force. But the jury is still out. The fact many parents in Silicon Valley are restricting their children’s use of technology is telling.[iii]What do they know that we don’t? Can storytelling in all of its richness and applications be just the antidote needed today?

Next Week: The Story Brain Tango

[i] Phaedrus 274b–278d

[ii] https://www.samuelmerritt.edu/news/2017/5-ways-technology-altering-our-brains

[iii] https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-parents-raising-their-kids-tech-free-red-flag-2018-2