WELCOME and THANK YOU for reading! This newsletter covers what happened in September and will give you a heads up on what to look for in October and the months following.

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

Upcoming Board Meetings

Second Tuesday of the month at 6:30 – 8:00 pm Eastern
Oct 10, Nov 14, Dec 12
Zoom information is available on the Member’s site

(Psst! You can visit the Academy Calendar on the Member's site and click to add the board meetings to your personal calendar!)

Recently the Academy Board has been discussing the possibility of changing the official name of the Academy to reach a wider and more diverse audience, thereby making significant progress on achieving the goals stated above. This effort could help the Academy become more visible in the Academic universe, increase research efforts, and cultivate a more diverse membership...

Conference Planning Committee volunteers!

If you're willing to lend a hand, please let Patrick know!

The Academy Board has made progress on the planning for our 2024 Conference.  Our host institution will be The University of Indianapolis, in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 11, 12, & 13, 2024. The Conference planning team is gathering next week to plan next steps.

Current planning decisions for the Conference include:

The Conference will be held in Indianapolis at the University of Indianapolis, 1400 East Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana 46227...

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.

Listening to self: tracking the focus of your inner voice and

Perceiving emotions: recognizing and identifying your own affective responses

“Non gustibus disputandum” (You can’t dispute taste)

These skills are about creating an independent awareness —thinking and feeling separate from those around us or even in charge of us. They are the foundation for metacognition, emotional awareness (perceiving emotions), and healthy social interactions.

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As always, Academy Members get 35% off.

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: Permitting the Learner to Fail

Step 5 in the Methodology for Creating a Quality Learning Environment is “permit the learner to fail”.

Most faculty find it difficult to watch students struggle in a learning situation. Their natural tendency is to jump in and remedy the situation, typically with a content-related intervention. This serves to temporarily end the struggle and provide momentary success. However, be careful to avoid enabling behavior which does not allow for failure, and, in the long run, is not in a student’s best interest...

This column features one or 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:

• The Princess Bride by William Goldman
  How can you not love a book within a book that has everything, “…fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...” and I bet you just read that hearing Peter Falk’s voice! The movie captured the book completely.  While I have read the book many times and love the movie, the real reason it is my favorite is that this book is the first gift my son bought for me on his own; “I know you love the movie, so I bought you the book.”
  
  
• Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
  We are all leaders. Leading from Everywhere is a slogan for programming that I work on at my institution. Dare to Lead gets to the root of this leadership. Leadership is not about position or power, but “really great leadership is vulnerability, speaking your truth, being courageous and sticking to your values.” The stories she tells weaving her research into the narrative are compelling. The ideas and concepts are not just how to be a better leader in general, but they help to inform teaching, teamwork, facilitation, and many other facets in our daily lives.
  
  
• Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich After a day of reading technical reports, editing manuscripts, or grading papers this series is my “mind candy”. This series is also my go-to audio books for long car rides (and if you know me, I am in the car driving to a child’s event often!). When fun, excitement, laugh out loud craziness is needed, I reach for a book in this series.
  

The best class I ever took and why: 
Economic Statistics— In our sophomore year of college, my friend made me take Economic Statistics with her. It was this course that set me on my path to becoming an economist!  The professor was amazing. She held her students to a high standard, utilized varied teaching techniques to keep us engaged, and helped me see applications of math in applied contexts (I was a math major and had only completed theoretical courses at the time). She helped me declare my dual major in economics as my new advisor and then taught econometrics (a very close second favorite course!)  

The class I’d most want to teach if I could choose: Community Innovation Lab—I am lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to design and offer the class that I most wanted to teach! The Community Innovation Lab aligns community economic development with students’ application of the skills they have acquired in the classroom. Our community’s small businesses and non-profits identify products/projects that they do not have the capacity to complete on their own. My students learn to identify their capabilities leveraging them to pitch themselves to participate in one of the projects in the Lab that semester. They grow their capability throughout the semester and provide their community partner with the product.

One piece of advice I’d give to a teacher about to begin teaching: After each class, typically as you walk from the classroom back to your office, conduct a quick SII of the class session. What went well during that class and why? What did not go according to plan? How did you adjust on the fly and what should you do differently next time? Is there anything that you learned from this class session that you need to carry forward to other classes? When you get back to your office, record what you need to do differently next time and how you will make it happen in your course notes (I usually use a Post-it Note). In this way, as you prepare to teach the course again, you already have list of “upgrades” to improve it.

3 books I love:

• Anything by Thich Nhất Hạnh
  These books have very practical mindfulness and meditation strategies I find useful for increasing my joy in daily life, and for helpful perspectives on life in general. I have just finished "No Mud, No Lotus" and love the table he included on meditation topics for body, feelings, mind, and metaphysical existence.
  
  
• The House of the Spirits by Isabell Allende
  I very much enjoy many aspects of Latin American culture, the Spanish language, and the interesting history of South America. Learning about these things through the magical realism genre of writing is fascinating.
  
  
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
  This book has helped shape my mindset for growth and productivity. I have adapted or used a number of specific techniques from it. The most impactful of these for me might be the approach to projects of determining the next bite-sized action I can take to move a project forward. It is easy to get stuck thinking too big, and this helps me determine what to actually do next. I find it a good compliment to PE practices and philosophy.

The best class I ever took and why: 
The one that comes to mind is Thermodynamics from college. The instructor had us take turns solving problems at the board and helping each other with them. He cared about helping us develop our problem-solving process and engineering analysis skills more than just getting the right answer. He also connected the concepts to applications I found inspiring and was interested in such as electrical power generation.

The class I’d most want to teach if I could choose: I am working on a Performance Development Institute - I want to help others become wildly productive and happy as they work in areas they are passionate about... beyond what they imagined possible. When it is ready, I hope some of you will participate!

One piece of advice I’d give to a teacher about to begin teaching: I have found that facilitating student development of their capability in learning to learn is more important than any specific content in a course. In a sense, the "content just comes along for the ride". What I focus on is helping students build their capability to do amazing things.

Here are the top issues discussed at the board meeting:

Summer conference planning

1. Dates: June 10 (pre-conference workshop), June 11,12 + 1/2 day on the 13th for the conference.
2. Location: University of Indianapolis.
3. We still need a volunteer to be a conference co-chair.

Winter meeting planning

1. This was discussed briefly, but mostly suspended until next month.

Budget

1. A preliminary budget was approved.
2. There are several uncertainties related to costs of the conferences.
3. Peter was asked to provide more context in the form of a chart or “dashboard” of annual trends
4. Peter has since shared a spreadsheet including this information.

Potential name change

1. A proposal has been made to include “International” in the official name.
2. It was suggested that this might be accomplished as a simple “DBA”, rather than a legal change.
3. This discussion was preliminary and will continue at the November (not October) meeting.

• The DRAFT minutes from the September board meeting are available HERE (on the Member Site).
• The APPROVED minutes from the August board meeting are available HERE (on the Member Site).

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

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