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 (please note the links below will only work when viewing this newsletter in a browser):

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:

April 2022 minutes (not approved)

March 2022 minutes (approved)

Summary of April Board meeting work:

In April, the Board

• Approved...

- The Academy Statement on Non-Discrimination
- Several amendments to the Academy Bylaws

• Received updates on...

- Conference Planning for the Summer Conference, taking place May 24-27, 2022
- The current state of the Academy budget through the quarterly budget report

The Next Board Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 11, 2022 from 2:30pm to 4:00pm CDT via Zoom.

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.

The 2022 Academy of Process Educators Conference will open in just a few weeks!

Planners from the Academy and our Hosts at Virginia State University have worked diligently since August of 2021 to design and organize this power-packed conference that will offer exciting discussions on the critical importance of our work to support all students to reach their full potential. Learning from the ideas, experience and research of our colleagues will enrich our own work as practitioners, researchers, and advocates. As we learn from one another throughout these four power-packed days, Academy colleagues will find many opportunities to grow our own skills in service to our students. 

The Tentative Conference Program is available now on the Academy Conference webpage. The final conference program and the PE Conference Support Site (a Moodle "course" on the Member's Site) containing all of the detailed information about presenters, sessions and materials will be available by May 10th or before. The Conference will kick off with a Pre-Conference Student Success Workshop followed by a pizza dinner and “Process Education in a Nutshell” orientation.

Our keynote speakers, Dr. William Spady (Exploring and Creating Questions that Evoke Personal Empowerment and Beyond) and Dr. Saundra McGuire (Metacognition: The Key to Fostering Self-Growth and Student Agency) are ready to share their experience and insights. Almost two dozen of our colleagues are putting the final finishing touches on their interactive breakout presentations.

Our final Plenary session will be an exciting interactive Panel Discussion focusing on “Learning Versus Doing: Post COVID Interventions to Address Student Self-Efficacy”.

Poster Presentations for the Hall of Innovation on Tuesday afternoon are being reviewed and organized.

Finally, a Conference social and learning experience is being organized for Wednesday evening of the conference. Featuring a tour of nearby historic sites focusing on the African American experience in the cradle of the American Revolution, this tour will be moderated by a VSU colleague who is a lifelong resident of the area. (Fee required)

You can still join us for this invigorating and powerful conference experience. 

Although the “Early Bird” registration deadline has passed, conference (and pre-conference) registration is still open for all participants in-person and virtual. A number of off-campus accommodation options are also posted on the conference website.

Conference registration is OPEN!

You can also still register for the Pre-Conference Student Success Workshop (May 23) at the same time. When you attend the PE Conference, you receive a discount on the workshop. Visit the PE Conference website and Registration page to learn more!

The Student Success Workshop is based on the premise that a relatively new, key role for educators in higher education is that of a mentor—one who fosters the growth and development of cognitive, social, and affective skills. Mentoring is critical for the student who aspires to take ownership of his or her own learning and become a self-grower. Self-growers develop strong self-assessment skills that help them to continually improve their own performance and ultimately mentor their own growth. A successful student is one who not only succeeds academically but also continues beyond college to develop skills that make success possible in both career and life.

Participant Benefits:

• Learn to design and build effective learning teams and facilitate in a cooperative learning environment.
• Learn to foster learner ownership and implement strategies for resistance to behavioral change.
• Learn to create a learning environment where the practice of assessment consistently elevates performance.
• Learn to facilitate active learning with timely and constructive interventions on key issues & skills.

Facilitator:
Dr. Daniel K. Apple is the President of Pacific Crest, an educational consultancy that has provided development workshops for more than 20,000 educators.

Cost:
PE Conference Attendees: $75 ($30 for students)
Workshop only: $150 ($75 for students) ($100 VSU faculty/staff or Emeritus)

Registration:
For more information, contact: Dan Apple  630-853-7535
To register for this event, visit: www.processeducation.org/peconf and use the conference registration form

www.ijpe.online/2020/universal.pdf

The Academy of Process Educators believes that EVERY person has a right to a safe, healthy community where they can learn and grow without fear of hatred, discrimination, or prejudice. While working tirelessly to support the growth and success of all people, the Academy condemns all acts of bigotry, hatred, violence, and discrimination on any basis. The Academy calls on global citizens to support every person’s right to a supportive and safe environment in which they are able to live, grow, and flourish.

Routine problems are those for which either solutions or a firmly established method for arriving at solutions are known. Non-routine problems, on the other hand tend to be open-ended, often leading to multiple solutions and not readily admitting of formulaic methods for solution. They are messy and STEM educators can be loath to use them in the classroom.

But the SCANS Report identified the ability to solve open-ended problems as a critical workforce competency; the Commission on Accountability in Higher Education (2005) identified this same ability as one that students leaving higher education tend not to have developed. In other words, it is an important skill that students are not learning. 

At least part of the explanation for this is that while routine or analytical problems are easily defined (and thus fit comfortably in a traditional classroom environment), it can be a sincere challenge for even an expert problem solver to define a non-routine or open-ended problem. Before a problem can be solved, it must be defined; defining a problem and identifying important issues associated with the problem are the first two steps of the Problem Solving Methodology. Similarly, the learning skills Identification of Constraints and Identification of Issues are shared across the processes of both design and problem solving (Faculty Guidebook 2.5.3. Distinguishing between Problem Solving, Design, and Research).

How do we help students learn to define non-routine or open-ended problems? One interesting idea comes from the field of architectural design. The following is an excerpt from Factors of metaphors in design problem-solving: Implications for design creativity by Casakin, H. P. (2007), published in the International Journal of Design, 1(2), 21-33. [Bolding below is ours.]

Metaphors facilitate the understanding of an unfamiliar situation in terms of a known situation (Ortony, 1991). By means of metaphors, it is possible to make reference to what is clearly understood in order to elucidate the unknown. Basically, metaphors constitute an uncommon juxtaposition of the familiar and the unusual. They induce the discovery of innovative associations that broaden the human capacity for interpretation (Lakoff, 1987, 1993). For that reason, metaphors are seen as valuable aids in problem-solving tasks. . . In design, metaphors are viewed as heuristics that help organize design thinking and tackle ill-defined design problems (Antoniades, 1992; Rowe, 1987). Metaphorical reasoning is an iterative process through which designers gradually increase their knowledge of a design situation. Basically, the use of metaphors aids in structuring design problems, which by definition are non-routine (Gero, 2000a). Thus, when solving non-routine design problems, it is difficult to predict what a solution will look like. It is in the early stages of the design process, when fuzzy metaphors aid reflection about the essence of a situation.

The studies cited previously indicate that something needs to be done to help students become more proficient in working with open-ended, non-routine problems. Is this a way to do that? Do we need to more explicitly incorporate creativity, possibly as demonstrated by the application of metaphor, into our approaches to problem solving?  We’d love to hear what you think. In fact, we challenge you to use a metaphor to communicate your thinking about this topic or any aspect of it!

www.processeducation.org