WELCOME and THANK YOU for reading! This newsletter covers what happened in October and will give you a heads up on what to look for in November 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
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!)

As Autumn begins to surround us and the temperature blissfully falls, my thoughts are filled with notions of completing tasks before winter descends. It is my favorite time of the year because of all the opportunities the Fall offers us: starting new semesters with new students, making leaf piles, creating spooky Halloween costumes, taking crisp weekend get-aways, writing in my journal and taking naps. Most of all I think of Autumn as a time for reflection. Process Education offers us many ways to use reflection to sharpen our self-awareness and search for ways we can improve our knowledge, skills, and our lives. The Academy Self-Growth project is one example of how reflection has led to productive realizations for many participants. This quotation from Confucius about how we learn connects with my interest in reflection and in the Academy.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Our annual Academy Conference will be held at the University of Indianapolis on June 11 -13, 2024. With the potential for an Institute on Tuesday June 10th.

The working theme for the Conference is Unlocking Performance and Growth. The committee will use this working theme to unify the Keynote and Plenary sessions.

Keep reading for Breakout Session topics, Fee information, etc

As we began a new Fiscal year on October 1, our Treasurer, Matt Watts, and our Finance Officer, Peter Smith, thought we would bring the membership up to date regarding our financial status.

The Academy was founded in May of 2008 with a $5,000 grant from Pacific Crest in return for free registrations to the annual conference. We incorporated in the State of New York as a Charitable organization and obtained 501c(3) nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the spring of 2009. We have filed forms with the IRS each spring since then. Almost all of our income has come through membership fees (both individual and institutional) and conference registration fees, although we welcome donations. The following chart outlines the financial trends of the Academy over the last 9 years...

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.

Recording: capturing information and representing it in some medium

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!

Convergent Critical Thinking Questions

Convergent questions build Level 2 knowledge (understanding of concepts) and help students elevate their knowledge to Level 3 (applying knowledge to solve problems). Convergent questions require students to organize, interpret, analyze, and synthesize. They many have more than one correct answer, and the level of difficulty progresses within a sequence of questions. A good convergent question makes important connections, links concepts together, leads to better understanding, and requires that students reach conclusions...

Our annual Winter Meeting (open to all Academy members) will take place on January 4th & 5th. The meeting will be virtual, with the possibility of some Board members attending in person at the University of Indianapolis (UIndy) to facilitate conference planning. The first day of the meeting will focus on Conference planning while the second day will offer an Academy Professional Development session with the specific topic to be determined.

Registration for the Winter Meeting
will be available later in November.

(EVERYONE is welcome; we simply need to
know who will be attending so we can plan!)

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 Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
  The book is about helping you on your own personal growth journey. I found an extremely strong alignment with process education and my self-growth journey. It opened up a different way to think about myself and my life. Plus, there is a picture of a horse running free on the cover. (I love horses and everything about them)
  
  
• Hershey by Michael D'Antonio
  First, I love chocolate, but I am inspired by the stories of others and how they succeeded. We all face obstacles, have aspects of ourselves we love and aspects about who we would like to be. His persistence and dedication to himself and his goals are PE.
  
  
• The Lion and The Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
  This is a short children's book that I think of when I see others in need. I value helping others just to help them.  Putting positive energy in the Universe has always been something I believe in and have fun doing. You never know how the universe will take care of you in unknown ways. The world can always be a better place.
  

The best class I ever took and why: 
Geology 101- The professor was engaging, personable, student centered, and well organized. He made rocks fun. I see the earth in an entirely different way as each rock has their own story and historical record. He was challenging and was there to support you as you learned how to figure things out for yourself. ( No enabling here and I am so appreciative to be able to take care of myself)  

The class I’d most want to teach if I could choose: Something with horses and mindfulness...

One piece of advice I’d give to a teacher about to begin teaching: Helping others learn how to learn empowers the students be higher level thinkers, more independent, advocate for themselves, use decision making skills to support their goals, and able to transfer the ability to learn anything they want to make their dreams come true.

3 books I love:

• Atlas Shrugged
  Ayn Rand captured a great amount of how I viewed life. The idea that man could self-determine what they want in life, love others unconditionally with all their heart, and be in charge of self-regulation of actions, feelings, beliefs, decisions, and how they behave within relationships. Essentially, carve life in the direction that one wants and decide what impact one wants to leave on this life and choose experiences that makes life the quality one wants to have.
  
  
• Celestine Prophecy
  James Redfield opened my eyes to seek greater meaning of connectiveness with others that led to a linkage with Deirdre that was beyond normal. After not seeing her for 18 months, when the office call to ask who had dropped by the office in Oregon, I knew it was Deirdre.  We have a connectiveness because I was open to more and let myself connect with energy that has been there. While kids caused some noise in this connectiveness, it has been opened again and we are back to a magical level of flow of energy between us.
  
  
• 1984
  George Orwell projected of what could happen if humans ever became unempowered. The need to constantly work on becoming stronger, fight for what is right, help all to become who they can become is the responsibility of everyone. Not everyone is born strong, but if we help them, they can become strong. It is our life’s duty to help all become stronger or else we will bear the consequences.
  

The best class I ever took and why: 
At UC Santa Cruz – I took a decision analysis course that has informed me today of behaviors and actions about people. This class was project based and a team of around 8 people.  At that time, there was a special site at the light house point on northern part of Monterey Bay that was being decided about what should this special site be allocated for. Each team was to use all the tools and processes being learned to present a proposal for its use.  What I learned was that in group context, early in an effort everyone is very pliable, but as each person became invested, they became more rigid and defiant as to what should happen. Continuous Quality Control of iterating and prototyping is against most people innate behaviors. If you want something to happen in the direction you want things to go, initiate first, fast, and get people’s buy in because it is the easiest up front and the costs mount as time goes on.

The class I’d most want to teach if I could choose: For so many years it has always been statistics because of the gap between what people initially come in believing it to be and what they leave being what they can do with statistics. When I took over a summer course the day before their final, the experience I had reinforces this desire. I started the class with everyone putting up on the board the most important thing they learned. Over 60% of what went up on the board was inaccurate which shocked the 15 faculty watching. I used the rest of the class having students identify what was correct and what corrections needed to be made and why. The greatest minute by minute learning that I have experienced students making. Now it is the self-growth institute because what happens to an individual every 5 minutes can’t be touched by any other experience.

One piece of advice I’d give to a teacher about to begin teaching: The greatest advice is get out of your own head and into the head of each of your learners.  What you want to do is constantly figure how what they are thinking, how they are thinking, and why they are thinking the way they are. The best way is making learning transparent by having people learn together because it makes this thinking more observable. The more you define learning roles, tools to capture one’s thinking, and know what thinking is needed at any point, the better you get at seeing the what, why, and how behind thinking.

Here are the top issues discussed at the board meeting:

Treasurer's Report (Matt Watts)

1. The updated budget document is posted on the member site. Oct 1-22 to Sept 30, 2023. We ended up a bit higher than we started last year.
2. The conference amount ($6120) is about $700 higher than the actual incoming from registrations due to a $700 donation from Pacific Crest.

Conference Planning details (Patrick/Team)

1. Working Title: "Unlocking Performance and Growth."
2. Themes: Accept all the listed themes (see agenda/planning doc) and ask the proposers which sub-theme their proposal falls under

Winter Meeting Planning (Matt/Patrick/All)

1. Decisions: A virtual winter meeting will be planned.
2. Timing: Jan 4th, and possibly part of the 5th.
3. Main focus: Strategic planning (in addition to spring conference planning).

Potential name change

1. There was a brief reminder about the potential name change that will be brought forward at the November board meeting.

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

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

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