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

In this issue:

Hope. Napoleon Bonaparte, who lived during the 18th century, shared the piece of leadership wisdom that leaders distribute hope. As a military leader, he constantly adapted to change and laid the foundation for his troops to deal with difficult circumstances. Facilitating and managing change is part of the role of leaders. Now, in the 21st century, leaders are called to create environments that foster constructive change. Leaders facilitate change that responds to cultural issues and environmental challenges. They guide in times of ease and times of distress, such as making decisions in response to a natural disaster or pandemic. They articulate positions and strategies with hope and optimism, rather than merely relying on authority and control. What do leaders do when morale is low and the energy appears to be sucked out of the organization? Good leaders accommodate the needs and values of those they lead. In essence, those who are led need to know that the leader cares. She must give them hope.

Hope is a foundational tool that is essential for leaders. When confronted with dire circumstances, the leader must espouse hope for the future, build community, and articulate a strategy to move forward. This could be called leading from the center of the web; this requires stepping out of one's comfort zone and working in concert with their followers. Leaders share their optimism and hope for a more rewarding future. They share their hope for positive changes in a variety of modes, places, and contexts. They build a following to support reorienting the situation to achieve constructive outcomes.

Hope is an effective tool for the leader's toolkit regardless of her location within the organization. It is essential for building community and for achieving transformational visions. As you assume your varied leadership roles, engage hope as you empower your students, colleagues, and community. Enjoy the journey as you aspire to achieve great things and inspire others to be extraordinary.

(Please note that Marie Baehr, the Academy Secretary, has been heavily impacted by the derecho that hit Iowa on August 10. She still does not have internet; 80% of Cedar Rapids is still without internet! She is in our thoughts during this challenging time and we'll be caught back up with Board Meeting minutes in the near future.)

Recent Board Meetings

Remember, you can find out the Board’s current work by checking the Academy Board Meeting Agendas and Minutes posted on the Academy members’ page:

June 2020 minutes (approved)        July 2020 minutes (not yet approved)

Summary of July Board meeting work:

In July, the Board

• Discussed the possible processes for the creation of a strong conflict of interest policy

• Approved a set of priority goals and objectives for inclusion in the operational plan for 2020-21

• Received Annual Plan Assessment Reports from Director of Assessment

• Endorsed development of an article for the Chronicles of Higher Education that centers around how the tenets of Process Education can address the current challenges and inequities

• Supported a discussion series exploring systematic racism at all levels

The Next Board Meeting:  September 9, 2020 (10:30 am Eastern)

All Academy members are welcome to participate. You will be able to find the agenda for the meeting as well as the needed information to attend through Zoom on the Academy Member site.

When the membership approved the new strategic plan in June 2020, it committed to the Academy of Process Educators’ vision of being recognized as a leader in the transformation of education through performance-based learning and growth. In order to achieve this vision, the Board approved a set of priority goals and objectives to direct the work of the membership during 2020-2021.

The focus areas include: Community of Process Education Experts; Developmental Community Principles; Business Model; Communication Model; and Membership. Currently, planning teams are developing action plans to accomplish our priorities.

Links to the Strategic Plan and the priorities for this year are below.

Current Strategic Plan (2020-2025)  http://www.processeducation.org/docs/sp2020_2025a.pdf

Current Priorities  http://www.processeducation.org/docs/sp2020_2025_priorities.pdf

We encourage all members to share their talents and help achieve the Strategic Plan. Interested in working with the Membership team? Another team? Contact any board member or the Academy President, Joann Horton at joann@processeducation.org and find out how you can make a difference. 

Last month I started this topic like this,

As a Process Educator, you hold the belief that every person can grow, and take ownership of reaching the quality of life they desire. And that means that YOU can grow and reach the quality of life that YOU desire.

Sure, you want to be a self-grower. But why is it so hard?? Because there are Impediments to Self-Growth that can block progress if they're not addressed. These will be the focus of discussions in the Self-Growth Community this year, where we'll collectively explore these challenges and strategize ways to combat them to advance our own growth and self-growth. The Self-Growth Community is your home and support for growth and self-growth for the next year and is a great way to be involved in the Academy’s developmental community!

The community will hold synchronous meetings on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month, beginning September 2.

Two sessions will be held for each meeting:

2:00/3:00/4:00/5:00 pm Pac/Mtn/Cen/East
4:30/5:30/6:30/7:30 pm Pac/Mtn/Cen/East

(Continuing members – note that the latter time is one hour earlier than last year!) Ingrid Ulbrich and Dan Apple will co-facilitate this year’s community.

To join the Self-Growth Community, get more information, or get your questions answered, contact Ingrid Ulbrich. 

During this year's annual Conference, our team time leaders invited us to have some challenging conversations about police brutality and racism. This sparked a lot more conversation, and several Academy members didn't want those conversations to stop there. And so we created Academy Discussions on Systemic Racism and Bias.

This monthly series, part of this year's Professional Development series, invites all Academy members to join and continue the conversation. We'll be bringing our PE facilitation practices and values to create a Quality Learning Environment for discussion; reflect on systemic racism and bias personally, within our organizations, and Process Education theory; and empower us to make changes to eliminate unjust and inequitable systems.

The Academy Discussion series seeks to leverage perspectives both internal to our organization and also external to the Academy so that we can generate learning and action plans (individually and/or collectively) that are most likely to produce growth. We invite you to join in these important conversations over this year to help advance learning and growth for each of us and our organization.
Mark your calendar for the Fall program: 2nd Tuesdays of the month, 7-8:30 pm Eastern

•    Oct 13: Open Conversation: What are Systemic Racism and Bias facilitated by Joann Horton

•    Nov 10: Examining Systemic Racism through a PE Lens facilitated by Ingrid Ulbrich

•    Dec 8: Identifying and Eradicating Systemic Racism and Bias in the Academy facilitated by Dr. Cheryl Talley, Virginia State University

Sessions for the Spring will explore PE as a tool for eliminating bias and injustices, inclusion and diversity in PE curricula, and shifting from protests to policy changes.

For questions or to join the development team (Arlene King-Berry, Ingrid Ulbrich, Chaya Jain, Cynthia Woodbridge, Joann Horton, Masila Mutisya, Patrick Barlow, Tris Utschig, & Wade Ellis), contact Ingrid Ulbrich.

The Academy Board is looking for members who are willing to lend a hand by volunteering in the following roles:

Marketing Chair
Membership Chair
Information Director

PLEASE let us know if you can offer some of your time and energy to help lead our organization!

Please mark your calendars and register for our Fall 2020 PE Academy Professional Development Series events. They will begin in two weeks and we are so pleased to partner with our PE Academy colleagues Ingrid Ulbrich and Arlene King-Berry and the rest of the development team to offer a Discussion series on Systemic Racism and Bias this fall and spring. See their newsletter item for details!

All sessions are Tuesdays, 7:00-8:30pm Eastern Time and consist of two separate but different 45 minute segments. Attend either or both segments.

Current Fall 2020 Event Calendar

*See detailed descriptions and links for registration for our September sessions below!

Sept 15
How to Make Learning Outcomes Useful: Write Performance Criteria! (facilitated by Tris Utschig)

Sept 29
Student Voices - My Process Education Story: The Power of Learning to Learn (facilitated by Joyce Adams)

Oct 13  
Systemic Racism and Bias Discussion Series Session 1 (facilitated by Joann Horton)

Oct 27  TBD

Nov 10  
Systemic Racism and Bias Discussion Series Session 2 (facilitated by Ingrid Ulbrich)

Nov 17  
Using the IJPE Style Guide for Your Research (facilitated by Ingrid Ulbrich)

Dec 8    
Systemic Racism and Bias Discussion Series Session 3 (facilitated by Cheryl Talley)

Dec 15  TBD

As many of us start our fall semesters in the post pandemic landscape, it is more important than ever to adhere to our guiding principles of education. We may face a significant cross section of learners thrust into the online modality due to a lack of other options. That is why this month's module is so impactful since it is a reminder of what we all have in common as learners, namely the ability to improve our learning process.

Those of you familiar with my path in the Academy of Process Educators know that the Learning Process Methodology was a catalyst for my scholarship. That makes it so rewarding for me to second the recommendation of module 2.3.8 Learning Process Methodology  motioned by PE veteran Betty Hurley. This foundational work is credited to Cy Leise, Steve Beyerlein, and Dan Apple. The following testimonial from Betty provides a glimpse at the impact this model can have:

"The State University of New York (SUNY) requires that all students meet general education requirements, one of which is mathematics. At SUNY Empire State College, where the average age of students is 35, meeting the math gen ed requirement is sometimes a source of great stress. I have developed online gen ed math courses that build on our adult learners' experience that they often don't realize involve mathematics. One is "Math for the Inquiring Mind." It is built on Process Education principles and the only textbook for the course is Foundations of Learning. Early on, students are introduced to the LPM and use it throughout the course as a problem-solving approach, beginning with provided "problems" and then addressing problems of their own. In their final reflection, students often relate how the LPM will continue to be applied in their lives.Here is one sample from the Summer term:

Possibly the most beneficial skill I learned from this class was the problem-solving methodology.  Before taking MIM, I thought I was a decent problem solver (which is why I enjoyed the Lumen modules mentioned above).  I instinctively might have used a few steps in problem-solving such as breaking the problem apart and identify key issues. Learning all the steps and having them work in concert has made a significant difference in approaching a problem. In Module 4, I explained how I applied my problem-solving skills (and steps) to decide whether to find work close to home to cut my commuting time and costs or remain at my current employment place where I have been working for the last seven years. That was a tough decision to make, especially during these difficult times."

Here are some inquiry questions I wrote for one of my many presentations on the LPM:

1. Which steps of the LPM might address the idea of turning failure into academic success?

2. What is the relationship between assessment and the LPM?

3. How can the LPM be used to encourage learners to take risks?

4. Pick a model for the learning process or instructional design process. What is the correspondence between its components and the components of the LPM?

5. How are you using the LPM to support your process for instructional design? If you are not using it, how can you?

Feel free to email me to discuss the application of the LPM to the design of learning activities Matthew.Watts@rrcc.edu

All quotes from Maslow are from A Theory of Human Motivation, A. H. Maslow (1943) published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396:  http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm

Maslow’s Hierarchy describes five levels of needs, the first/lowest four termed “deficiency needs”. Maslow described these as needs, that when unmet, result in negative repercussions, either physiologically or psychologically. These levels of deficiency needs are, from lowest to highest, Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, and Esteem.

Higher level needs only come into play and receive focus when the levels below them are met. Maslow explains:

These basic goals are related to each other, being arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency. This means that the most prepotent goal will monopolize consciousness and will tend of itself to organize the recruitment of the various capacities of the organism. The less prepotent needs are minimized, even forgotten or denied. But when a need is fairly well satisfied, the next prepotent (‘higher’) need emerges, in turn to dominate the conscious life and to serve as the center of organization of behavior, since gratified needs are not active motivators.

One implication on which we’d like to focus is that realization of the highest level (Self-Actualization) in any sustained and focused way (as a primary goal or motivator) requires that each of the deficiency needs are met first.

In Maslow’s own words:

It (the term self-actualization) refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions. It is not necessarily a creative urge although in people who have any capacities for creation it will take this form.

The clear emergence of these needs rests upon prior satisfaction of the physiological, safety, love and esteem needs. We shall call people who are satisfied in these needs, basically satisfied people, and it is from these that we may expect the fullest (and healthiest) creativeness. Since, in our society, basically satisfied people are the exception, we do not know much about self-actualization, either experimentally or clinically. It remains a challenging problem for research.

Assuming then that the vast majority of students are not basically satisfied people, to what degree must educators focus on helping them meet their deficiency needs before meaningful learning can take place? At one end of the spectrum (or level of need) is the case of young homeless children. That is very clear-cut example of deficiency needs not being met and the subsequent impact this can have on learning. These young students must have food, shelter, and some degree of safety before they can even begin to focus on learning things like reading or math. (It is nice to note that more school districts are beginning to find ways to meet those needs so that students in this unfortunate situation are still able to learn. There are many resources available on this topic; http://www.serve.org/nche/ is one such site.)

But what of college-level students? At one time, college was seen as part of the pursuit of self-actualization…it was not necessary to obtain a college degree to “live the good life.” But things have changed in such a way that attaining a college degree is now seen as a basic prerequisite for the majority of jobs that pay more than minimum wage. As such, attending college is not the luxury it once was and may actually qualify, in many cases, as an attempt to meet needs at the level of Safety (specifically employment & security).

If this is the case, we have to wonder: To what degree do deficiency needs at the level of Security, Belonging, or Esteem (we will assume the college is still more of a ‘luxury’ than food, air, or water) affect or even make impossible meaningful teaching within our higher education classrooms? We think this likely enough that we’d like to put forward the notion that the Classification of Learning Skills, especially the Social and Affective Domains, might well hold the key for helping students meet their deficiency needs even as opportunities for some degree of self-actualization are realized. Or, put another way, including learning skills in the area of “Relating with Others” as part of an activity design may well help some students meet deficiency needs at the “Love/belonging” or “Esteem” level, thus making the course content of the activity more effective.

As we look around ourselves, in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, economic disaster, severe weather events, and political/civil unrest and injustice, where are our expectations, as educators? Do we presume that our students are ready or even able to pursue self-actualization? Are we?? If it is our responsibility to help our students learn how to succeed, what can we do, within the constraints of our classroom (whether physical or virtual), to help students meet their more basic needs?

Beyond (or maybe before) this, how are we meeting our own more basic needs during these troubling times? We welcome any tips or ideas you have for meeting the more critical and pressing needs that you or your students have. We will share your thoughts and ideas and keep you anonymous, if you prefer. Just let me know.

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.

Martin Conway[i] believes there are two forces at work when we attempt to remember anything: correspondence and coherence.

Correspondence is all about maintaining some integrity when accounting for the past. Most of the time, we’ll do our best to be faithful to the facts as we remember them. But this most always rests on shaky ground. If you have a sibling and begin reminiscing about some event that happened thirty years ago, you know how divergent your two accounts can be. Each of you will be willing to bet your firstborn that your account is the correct one. Without a video shot from an objective position (if you can even imagine any particular point of view being objective), good luck reconciling these two versions of reality. The best we can do is to approximate our recollection with the facts as we remember them. But as we have seen in previous blogs, memory is more of an interpretative affair than a perceptual one.

We also have an equal drive to conform our memories of the past to our current self-concept. Unwittingly, we’ll adapt our memories to pressing goals and needs in the present. This is our attempt to cohere. Our sense of self can easily be threatened if we lack coherence. If we have come to think of ourselves as generous and helpful, we might have difficulty integrating into our self-concept that we were not necessarily always so giving. We can easily compartmentalize those memories, sequestering them in some dark inner cave where they’ll never again see the light of day.

How do we balance these forces of correspondence and coherence that are so often at loggerheads? In the end, most of us favor coherence. We’ll more often than not unconsciously suborn the “truth” of what occurred to other needs and interests. This is how we weave together our identity and create the story that we live in and present to others.

Our memory also tends to dwell on a few essential details that were either relevant at the time an event occurred or are most pertinent in the context of our present concerns for telling a story. As we share, we’ll quickly discard many things that aren’t relevant to the current circumstances. All memory is selective in this way. Nathan Bransford says that “we are so adept at distilling our lives into stories that we forget how tenuous a connection they really have to reality, how much we highlight some events while brushing over others, how much our biases come into play, how we will weave together disparate events, even random occurrences, into some sort of cohesive shorthand that can’t possibly capture the enormity of a life. Heck, our stories can’t even fully capture the smallest of moments.”[ii]

We, humans, are fundamentally fiction writers. Even the best autobiography has more to do with good literature than a historical account of a life. Rarely would we ever seek out our enemies for their story about us. Without another thought, we’d neatly discount and exclude naysayers’ accounts. Even if we see our life in tragic terms, that too is fictitious. It’s merely a point of view that we have adopted. Give another person the same life circumstances, and they could just as quickly cast themselves in a heroic tale of triumph.

[i] Martin A. Conway, Jefferson A. Singer, Angela Tagini (2004). The Self and Autobiographical Memory: Correspondence and Coherence. Social Cognition: Vol. 22, Autobiographical Memory: Theoretical Applications, pp. 491-529. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.22.5.491.50768

[ii] Stories Are How We Make Sense of Life,  July 14, 2011 by Nathan Bransford, https://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/07/stories-are-how-we-make-sense-of-life

Academy of Process Educators
www.processeducation.org