WELCOME and THANK YOU for reading! 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.

We've added lots of cool new stuff in hopes of making these monthly emails more fun, interesting, and interactive!

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

ONE LAST TIME...WITH FEELING!

The 2023 Process Education Conference (online June 9th and 10^th) is approaching quickly so be sure you are registered and ready to enjoy two full days of invigorating ideas for Closing the Gaps in the student experience in our classrooms and institutions. Your Conference planning team has worked diligently through the past months to design and deliver a conference that will invigorate members desire to focus on best practices in supporting success for all students. (Register Here!)

Highlights of the conference plans include...

If you’re attending this year’s PE Conference, you will have your choice of breakout sessions to attend. The list available through the button offers the schedule of those sessions, along with links to complete preparation work for sessions that require it. Note that you MUST have already registered for the conference to be able to use the links!

This is a pre-conference workshop offered by Pacific Crest.

Cost: $100 ($50 for conference attendees)

You asked:

What are the most important features of a PE classroom? I found these two resources linked below but is there a PE resource?

• https://onwardstate.com/2014/10/20/krause-innovation-studio-hints-at-the-future-of-education/
• https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/learning-spaces/

You answered:

When I hear "What are the most important features of a PE classroom?" I think of the concept of a Quality Learning Environment. There is a whole chapter in the FGB on this, but the first module 3.1.1 Overview of a Quality Learning Environment is probably the best place to start.

You asked:

My entire department is preoccupied with ChatGPT/AI and several of us are seeing it used in some student work. What are other Process Educators doing? Does PE have anything to say about it?

This article will feature a different learning skill each month and instead of talking theory will ONLY give ideas for targeting/strengthening that learning skill for ages 2 to 102! Remember that you can find ALL the learning skills in a free interactive tool.

Perceiving Emotions: recognizing and identifying your own affective responses

When the Conference Planning team and the Academy Board met to consider themes for the upcoming 2023 Conference, there was a consensus that we wanted to focus narrowly on ideas and project that were targeted toward closing specific gaps that many college students of all ages had experienced on their journeys toward earning a degree. We identified a number of specific gaps that our members experienced and we completed an environmental scan of the literature on student who has been “left behind”. This led to the development of the Conference theme and the call for proposals.

At that point we already had a relationship with a number of institutions and organizations that had similar goals and current projects aimed at reaching this goal. Thanks to our Past President, Joann Horton, one of these relationships was with Complete College America. As you can see the statements below their reason for existing, Mission, and Vision are laser focused on the goals we had identified. The consensus was it seemed appropriate that we connect with their staff to recruit our keynote speaker. Read on to learn about our colleague and keynote speaker Dr. Nia Haydel, vice president for alliance engagement & institutional transformation. ...

This monthly column shares a small idea or low-stakes practice that everyone can try out whether in a classroom setting or other learning context. Remember that all current Academy members have free access to the e-Faculty Guidebook through the Member’s site!

STRATEGY: Appreciating Gains and Rewarding Achievement (CELEBRATING)

FROM: 4.2.3 Personal Development Methodology

Step 9—Appreciate Gains (acknowledge growth and progress)

This step is about recognizing improvements in attitudes, risk, and life vision that result from taking on increasing challenges. ...

I recently had the honor of being the lead facilitator for a Learning to Learn experience at one of our member Institutions. This was a course for students in academic trouble and completing it would give them renewed access to financial aid, and another chance for success. This was my first opportunity to be a lead facilitator. And as a usual self-evaluator, I saw the potential trap of fear and worry about doing a great job. And that if I fell into the trap, I would undermine myself from the outset. But as a self-grower, I wanted to sidestep that trap!

So I pulled out a fairly recent tool: the Methodology for Developing Performance (Van Slyke, Utschig, and Apple, IJPE, 2021). I think of this methodology as operationalizing the Learning by Performance model (LxP; Leasure et al., IJPE, 2020). It gives performers a template to prepare for and execute a big performance, with plans for learning, performance, and growth. The model and the methodology also create a framework for receiving evaluation and producing assessment after the performance. Just what a self-grower is looking for! ...

This column features two Academy members each month, until we run out of members. And then we'll just get more! The point is that we're curious about each other and few people enjoy reading professional bios. Each member is asked the same set of questions:

• 3 books you love and why
• The best class you ever took and why
• The class you would most want to teach, if you could choose
• One piece of advice you'd give to a teacher about to begin a teaching career

3 books I love:

Many of my favorite books have kid heroes. I love that in children's literature so much is made possible for settings, stories, powers, adventure, and the baddie. And I love looking at how authors use characters to help kids develop confidence and manage affect. Here are three that I love:

• The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
  Four unusual and unique children are brought together to form the team that will save the world from evil. Problem-solving and teamwork in action, where everyone's special strengths contribute to solving each challenge. Plus, a great baddie who needs to be taken down!
  
  
• The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
  A girl witch, the Wee Free Men (six-inch tall blue men who are fierce, often drunk, and truly want to please their wives), and a tolling cheese as a sometimes-companion. Fairyland has kidnapped Tiffany's brother, and she's the only one who can get him back.
  
  
• Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
  Another book where kids team up who might not have otherwise found each other. While they seek a missing painting that even the FBI can't find, they are also navigating growing through middle school and the trials of middle-grade friendships. The series of four books features works by Frank Lloyd Wright, Calder, and the famous theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

The best class I ever took and why: 
I took a 100-level computer programming for non-majors during my first year of grad school. I was committed to learning this skill after almost failing a programming course as a freshman in college. Two main things happened that made this course great. One was the way the professor approached the course. We started writing in mock-assembly code (he'd built an emulator) and it really clarified how machines store and manipulate numbers. And that led to the other main thing: so many things finally made sense. Like the thing that had killed me as a freshman -- pointers. I also had a major insight in this course: there are dozens of ways to solve any coding program. I have amazing respect for computer science TAs who can walk up to a student's code, understand their approach, and get them unstuck! 

The class I’d most want to teach if I could choose: Well, Learning How to Learn! I decided to choose, and that's why I created Achieving Academic Success. We also have a Learning to Learn Math course called Crushing Math. And maybe someday we'll create Crushing Chemistry, too.

One piece of advice I’d give to a teacher about to begin teaching: You have the capability to impact students well beyond teaching them content, without having to send them to support offices. Center them as humans, listen to their stories to understand their risk factors, and be a coach and mentor in addition to a teacher.

 3 Books I Love:

• Fandom of the Operator by Robert Rankin
  Robert Rankin is a master at combining science fiction, fantasy, slapstick and the occult. He’s also excellent at inserting urban legends and upsetting, little short stories in his novels (kind of like how Dostoevsky had The Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov) that makes you go hmmm. This book, to me, is where he best combines all of it. Basically, it’s about the serial killer Gary, his zombie wife Sandra and his thief friend Dave, how they grew up and later in life learned that their minds were being controlled by aliens. And sprinkled with hilarious situations and quasi-philosophical musings. It’s all a game.
  
  
• Hyperion by Dan Simmons
  I love science fiction. But far from all of it. A lot of it I actually dislike because I think it’s silly. An absolute requirement is that its gotta be plausible. It can be farfetched, but if its plausible within its universe without being silly, it’s ok. This is intergalactic and epic at its very best. In the far future, humankind have colonized the galaxy and rely on AI for everything. But there are different branches of AI, some want to destroy humanity and create a god, others want to coexist. Throw in an evil pope and a messianic girl, and you’re all set. And the Shrike is awesome.
  
  
• Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
  One of the founding fathers of modern literature and the greatest writer of all time, in my humble opinion. This book, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, may be his best, although I may like Mysteries, The Women at the Pump or The Ring is Closed better. On the face of it, it’s about a man settling in the wilderness and from nothing builds a small empire. Epic, on a small scale, so to speak. It can also be seen as a hymn to agriculture and a manifest to anti-modernism. Or an adaption of Genesis. It’s full of tragedy, heroism, humor, and squiggly, but extremely precise descriptions. While I can’t vouch for the claim that Hamsun’s vocabulary extended to 200.000 words, it did include the phrase "sagaaktige støvler" (legendary boots).

On another day, it could have been three other books. I have dozens of books that I love.

The best class I ever took and why: It’s gotta be one of those Master level Marketing and Service Management classes about relations. It explained how we’re all customers of each other. It shaped how I look at both employment and management, and business interactions, but maybe not so much about how I look at selling products and services. Or one of the Bachelor level Nursing classes about communication. It introduced me to Travelbee’s relationship model. And that may be the single most important thing I’ve learned about human interaction; how we go from stereotype and unknown to mutual respect and understanding. Works for business and teaching, too.

The class I'd most want to teach if I could choose: How to Document Nursing Practice and Write Good Treatment Plans. Few things are more galling than sloppy, irrelevant, and unstructured journal notes. Good care and good treatment require good planning, and you can’t have that with poor documentation.

One piece of advice I'd give to a teacher about to begin teaching: Paraphrasing Kierkegaard; if you want to help someone, you have to meet them where they are. You need to know what they know and you need to know what they need. After that, you can start thinking about the didactive model, inductive versus deductive, proximal zones, and whatnot.

We are excited to announce the articles that will be in the forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Process Education! These six articles consider multiple areas within Process Education including self-growth, mentoring and coaching, producing insights as well as ways the six functions within Process Education to frame it from a psychological perspective...

The next board meeting is not yet scheduled. Dates and times for the next board meetings will be announced in the June Newsletter.

All board meetings are now 90 minutes in length. All are invited to attend! The Zoom information is available on the Member’s Site.

Including (BUT NOT LIMITED TO)
workshops you'd like to attend!