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 (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:

August 2022 minutes (not yet approved)

June 2022 minutes (approved)

Summary of Recent Board meeting work:

In August, the Board

• Discussed...

- the use or non-use of titles for peer-to-peer communications. The general agreement was that titles can be somewhat too formal for the culture of the Academy and not always inclusive. The general consensus was we will continue to use full names in formal communications and first names in informal settings.

• Considered...

- a proposal for the co-sponsorship by the AoPE of the International Summit on Breaking Academic Failure Syndrome (discussion to continue at the next board meeting)

• Agreed...

- to pencil in December 14th for the December board meeting. The secretary will send the calendar event.

The next board meeting is scheduled for September 14 @ 2:30pm EST.

Future board meetings are @ 2:30pm EST on 10/12, 11/9, and 12/14.

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, once both are posted.

The 2023 Winter Meeting will be online on January 3-5, 2023 with the major themes aligning with the strategic plan and hopefully wrapping up details of the AoPE Conference. Patrick Barlow and Grace Ndip agreed to help with the planning of the winter meeting.

We'll share more details in future newsletters!

With a continuous improvement mindset, the Conference Planning Team conducted a “Post-Mortem” assessment to help identify Strengths, Areas for Improvement, and Insights about the 2022 conference. These observations will be used as the AoPE Board begins moving forward to determine the structure and objectives for the 2023 conference. We will also continue to review the individual assessment submissions for the overall conference experience. Here you will find a condensed version of ideas gathered from the team and other AoPE and VSU participants.

Highlights of Strengths of the Conference Program & Planning Process

• We need a new team overall chair/lead like we used this year. It is Critical to recruit a person(s) to lead the effort ASAP.
• The Academy brought experience of planning a national conference, had the layers that needed to be addressed. Legal, logistical & pedagogical. Created a varied and impactful program. Team concept worked more collaboratively than previous conferences.
• Struggling with a late start, the program came together well in the end.
• The Division of responsibility worked well as AoPE and VSU members of the team shared the load. Individuals accepted and carried out responsibilities. Dedicated to learning HOW to accomplish the blend on a virtual conference. Integrating online and in-person well. The two teams came together to establish themes and ideas a research approached.
• We need to Review/Chat with VSU colleagues regarding the minimum technology needed to replicate this blended style of conference.
• Expenses were handled well and were divided between host VSU and Academy.
• Having administrators at VSU “On-Board” for using the VSU Grant to supplement the income greatly enhanced the conference (e.g. Institutional memberships were paid by VSU)
• Teams met almost every week from September to June in the planning process which allowed us to stay on track and know who was responsible for what.
• The Moodle site was easy to navigate and well designed.
• Our Process modeled effective collaboration practices: common objectives; identified roles and responsibilities; joint planning and problem-solving; and communication throughout process

Areas for Improvement to the Conference Program & Planning Process

• We should begin the process earlier than this year. Team in place by late August.
  • Our Attendance goal was not met. How might we increase attendance?
  • Dates selected might have impacted the attendance.
  • Conference attendance might have been an economic issue.
  • Has funding for Prof Development been reduced at institutions?
  • Is there more of a push to attend online? Should our conference follow this trend?
• Planning for business meeting needs to be followed much tighter. We missed treasurers report and Approval of minutes of previous annual meeting. Awards did not take place. Plan the business meeting as a component of the overall conference planning and walk through master task list at least 2 weeks prior to the conference. We need a dedicated leader to be sure this process is attended to.
• Challenge to do assessments within the conference proper. Could time be provided to completed these?
• Define the five strands how were they incorporated as a marker for understanding the Goals as stated. What was impact of them? What was the impact of the host University? The Academy? These ideas should be more transparent.
• We should create a simplified registration fee structure with only two prices (i.e., regular price and discount price).
  • Ask during registration (in the form) which days people plan to actually attend. (No discounts or single day fees)
  • Use hotels for all visiting attendees. The Dorm was a fail in many ways and should never be done again.
• Offer only two breakouts at a time. We don’t have enough attendees to populate 3 sessions.
• Consider having no online keynotes or plenaries – It worked this year but was a ton of work for VSU and we cannot count on that from the host school.

Insights related to the Conference Program & Planning Process

• Colleges are recognizing that campuses can be used as a resources for income.
• We must reach out to administrators who have input to hosting the conference.
• Personalities and easy to get along with and positive and open.
• The joint planning team was very well involved, positive and communicative
• Having 3 VSU members as Academy Board members will help to strengthen relationships.
• Relationship building is critical for individuals and the institutions and students. This is the essence for what we do and why.
• Find a way to take a next step on the topic of Metacognition…Build some connectivity between conferences year to year.
• Could the conference be a design experience, collaboration on development of resources and courses.
• Keynote presentations (metacognition, etc.) can expand and elevate learning strategies.

Steve Beyerlein, David Leasure, and Grace Onodipe unveiled the collaborative research workspace with members in the August 24th professional development workshop. PEARL, or the Process Education Academy Research (co) Laboratory, is implemented with the google workspace technology donated to the Academy by Google. A slide deck provides a tour.

Project leaders who wish to collaborate using the platform can request a personal folder, create subfolders for each of their projects, and invite participants through the "sharing" feature.  One of the workshop participants, Cheryl Talley suggested treating PEARL as a neighborhood, and the personal folders as individual homes. Within a home, there are many project rooms. A project lead/homeowner can share the keys with collaborators, either to their house or to selected project rooms.

In addition to project folders, a resource folder contains a list of known projects, a professional development workshop announcement template, and an IJPE paper template that matches the author guidelines.

Watch for a future workshop describing how to use the free reference software Zotero with PEARL, use zotero within google docs, and how to access the common reference repository containing IJPE and other Process Education references.

To participate in PEARL or to suggest other (non-monetary) support for research, contact David Leasure.

We will be starting up for the 2022-23 academic year on the first Wednesday of September (9/7/22).  There will again be one-hour sessions at 5:30 and 7:00 pm Eastern Time.  A fully populated Moodle site for the 9/7/22 session is coming VERY SOON and a special invitation/announcement will be circulated at that time. We would love to have new members join us, so by all means extend an invitation to colleagues who might enjoy our activities. It isn't necessary to commit to attending every session. Drop-ins are welcome.

We would be honored to have you join us for all or some of the self-growth community sessions during the upcoming academic year.

This year we will be having community members take the lead in designing/facilitation sessions that are aligned with current efforts/projects. Steve Beyerlein is available to provide whatever peer mentoring you desire in carrying out your plan. Our first session will be led by Chaya Jain on September 7th. She will be harnessing the power of our community to provide input on PE Framework 2.0 that includes an updated graphic navigator (like the one in the 2016 IJPE edition focusing on knowing/learning/learning-to-learn), but expanded to include performance/growth/self-growth.

Please be forthcoming in sharing leadership for a session idea that is close to your heart. Steve Beyerlein (sbeyer@uidaho.edu) will again be coordinating the Self-Growth Community. If you would like to join more than forty other Academy members on the Googlelist that receive self-growth community announcements, send Steve an email.

Ongoing Activity: Mentoring Skills Booklet Development

Over 20 PE Academy members have contributed to the development of Performance Measures for each of 38 mentoring skills. This year we have held a 2-day Performance Measure Institute, two Performance Measure Saturdays, and approximately nine 2-hr working sessions advancing these measures. We now have complete drafts of measures for over skills, with approximately 5 additional skills nearing completion and 5 more that have been started.

Our next sessions will occur on Sept 1 from 3-5pm Eastern, Sept 2 from 12-2pm Eastern, and Sept 20 in a TBD 2-hr slot between 1 and 4:30pm Eastern. Contact tutschig@kennesaw.edu if you would like to participate or for more information about this project.

Upcoming Event: Writing Critical Thinking Questions

September 14, 5:30-6:15pm Eastern; $4

Critical thinking is a skill everyone agrees is important, yet few feel it is widely practiced with high quality. Practicing critical thinking, like any other skill, can lead to improvement. So, how can we effectively and efficiently create the conditions for high quality practice of critical thinking to help people grow their critical thinking capability? By writing critical thinking questions that produce high-quality practice! Participating in this session will provide the opportunity to hone your skills in writing critical thinking questions that can help any learner become a stronger critical thinker.

Prior to the workshop: Enroll and engage with each part of the Learning Module

Accomplish this by visiting the link to purchase access. It is $4.00 and the user receives a pdf with the URL and instructions for logging in, as well as the enrolment key.

Visit the workshop page for complete details: http://processeducation.org/2022_w5.html

Our most recent event:

On August 24th, a group of 16 PE colleagues registered to participate in a 90 minute webinar about how the Academy can collaboratively support your research using the Academy's shared PEARL Google Workspace. We explored a case study on the preparation of a draft submission to the Academy’s scholarly journal (IJPE) for an on-going project advanced by using the Educational Design Research (EDR) Framework supported in the workspace. The workshop covered the EDR requirements, process, and how the case study fits the model. The second part was a breakout into small teams to assess the case study and perform an opportunity analysis for the PE Academy Research Laboratory (PEARL) to support the needs of Academy members through the functions identified in the EDR framework.

If you have questions about any of these events, if you would like more information, or if you have ideas for professional development events, please contact Tris Utschig (tutschig@kennesaw.edu).

The full facilitation plan is available here.

Prior to the workshop:

1. Learning module completion: Enroll and engage with each part of the Learning Module prior to the workshop.
   1. Accomplish this by visiting https://sowl.co/s/bn7eah, which is the link to purchase access.
   2. The cost is $4.00 and the user receives a pdf with the URL and instructions for logging in, as well as the enrolment key.
   3. The module itself allows for multiple ‘attempts’ and is not graded (though quiz answers are marked as correct or incorrect).
   4. Users are given the opportunity to download responses to all essay-type questions.
2. Respond to the Exploration Questions on the appropriate topic of the workshop forum, prior to the workshop.

www.processeducation.org