In this issue:

The SII feedback format (strengths, improvement, and insights) is recognized as a core PE practice that can make an immediate impact on improving student learning, yet maximizing that impact takes practice! Improving team performance through the use of assigned team roles is similarly impactful, yet mastering facilitation of those roles takes time. This session provides an opportunity for new and experienced PE practitioners to elevate the impact they can make in the classroom and other contexts using these two simple yet powerful PE techniques.

Register here: Click me! Click me!!

The facilitation plan, Zoom information, link to the discussion forum and readings, and just about everything else is available on the Workshop Website:  http://www.processeducation.org/2019_w5.html

Part A: Optimizing SII Feedback        7:00-7:45 Eastern

The REQUIRED pre-reading:

The SII Method for Assessment Reporting (FGB module)

The Critical Thinking Questions (answer PRIOR to the session!)

Part B: Facilitating Team Roles Effectively    7:45-8:30pm Eastern

The REQUIRED pre-reading:

Designing Teams and Assigning Roles (FGB module)

The Critical Thinking Questions (answer PRIOR to the session!)

There are lots of things going on, web-wise. This column will catch you up on the latest.

1) The Academy Board is now a Google Group. This is for email purposes and will make it easier for board leadership to contact all board members.

2) About that...Denna dropped her wand while magicking the group into existence and, as a result, the initial email board members received doesn't show the correct email address for the group. It (the correct one) is available on the Member site, under the category "BOARD". Sorry about that.

3) We have an official Academy Calendar! It is available on the Home page, the Member Site, and all board members have access to the calendar as part of the Google Group so they can add events as needed. All recurring board and committee meetings are available on the calendar. (If you invent a time machine, please remember that others will not share your ability to schedule events in the past.)

4) There is now a separate category for "Meeting Agendas". So MINUTES go in one place and AGENDAS in the other. That should help keep us organized. (Think of meeting minutes as the ghosts of agendas past.)

5) Navigation of the Member site should be easier now. Simply note and use the navigation bar at the top of the site. Clicking the appropriate area will take you to the following areas of the Member site:

Board, Conf 2020, DDO, Grants, Newsletter, Projects, Research, SP 2020, Workshops, IJPE, Docs, and Links

Also available are shortcuts to the Academy social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. (There are no links to terrible things like spiders and candy corn.)

6) If anyone wants to add an item to the agenda for an upcoming board meeting, you will need to use the form available on the Member site which will send your request and information to Cynthia. She will add them to the agenda cauldron. See the image below. Thank you!

The Academy of Process Educators is on a developmental journey to embody its vision as a model of a transformational organization. Established in 2007, the Academy is beginning its second decade of service.

We invite new members to join us on this journey as we strive to be more intentional about our growth as a Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO). DDO principles align with PE principles. For example, both value growth, care or respect, unlimited capacity for learning, performance criteria, and assessment. Your talents are needed. We value your input. Lend your support to a current project or join a committee of peers. We want to support you in meeting your personal goals as you contribute to the accomplishment of the Academy’s vision and mission.

We are in the initial stages of developing the Academy's strategic plan for 2010-2025. I challenge you to review the current strategic plan (developed in 2007), draft issues papers, and engage in lively discussions. You can participate online during the next couple of months and face-to-face at the Winter Academy meeting in St. Louis, MO on January 2020.  Become a part of the planning team. 

Feel free to contact me or another Academy member to indicate your interest in contributing to actualizing our vision of transformation. Remember, teamwork makes the dream work.

Please be sure to save the date for the 2020 Process Education Conference! We've created a flyer for you to share with others too (just click the graphic below).

The conference website is: www.processeducation.org/peconf

The DEADLINE for submitting a proposal for a session at the 2020 PE Conference is Dec. 15.

Go HERE to learn more
and then
GO HERE to submit your proposal online!

It was a night with the usual challenges of making an evening online meeting.  Andi's kids had some Big Issues to resolve, which came to light before the Self-Growth Community meeting.  Normally, Andi would skip the meeting and help the kids with their issue, putting them ahead of her personal priorities. 

But not this time!  Andi used mentoring skills to help the kids address their issue themselves.  She encouraged the kids to take ownership in addressing their issue, encouraging them to be independent.  After the self-growth meeting, I bet that Andi talked with the kids about their solution and gave consulting feedback.  For herself, Andi used several growth skills, including changing behaviors by committing to self and focusing on self-improvement.  In sharing her growth moment with the Community meeting, she valued growth.

Co-Facilitators of the Self-Growth Community, Dan Apple and Ingrid Ulbrich are excited about this project.  Contact either of us with questions about the Community, our process, our discoveries, or for tips on your own self-growth!

We are beginning the process of developing the Academy’s Strategic Plan for the next five years.

You can contribute in a variety of ways: join the planning committee, research higher education issues, review background materials, complete planning surveys, analyze data, participate in the strategic planning workshop in January 2020, etc.

Your first step? Complete the planning survey as outlined in the upcoming November Newsletter. Your feedback is important. Thank you!

Did you know that the minutes of the Academy Board Meetings are available to ALL Academy members? In this article, we offer highlights of the most recent board meeting(s):

Sept 2019 Minutes       Oct 2019 minutes (not yet approved)

Project Proposals

There are/will be project proposals located under the November meeting thread.  Please review them and comment prior to our next meeting.

Winter Meeting Agenda

Joann has posted our tentative agenda for the Winter Meeting.  Please provide feedback asap.

Research Projects

David posted a suggested list of research projects.  Please look over the list and contact him if you’re interested in taking a project on or you have a project to propose.

Potential Grant

The Next Board Meeting

Our next Board meeting is 14 November at 6 pm Eastern. The Zoom link is on the main page AND below. Please join us if you can.

URL:  https://zoom.us/j/295947580
Meeting ID:  295 947 580
Telephone number:  646 558 8656
iPhone one-tap: +16465588656,,295947580#

The Deliberately Developmental Organization’s Companion to a Voluntary Community of Practice

Principles

Process Education is an organization that relies on recruiting, serving, and being served by its members. As Peter Drucker once quipped, “We’re all volunteers”. Some of us are paid, some not, and some, like our members, even have to pay. The point is, our members are free to choose how to spend their time. So, we have to make it worth their time to be with us while being true to our purpose as an organization.

The primary purpose of our organization is to advance the knowledge and practice of process education. We do it through our members. Our members come to us for their own reasons at various levels of PE maturity. So, we meet the definition of a community of practice, as defined by Lave & Wenger (1991) in their book, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. The implication of that is that we have a stratified community visualizable as a mountain that has the new-to-PE folks in the base camp and our most expert-PE people climbing toward an infinite summit. We advance up the mountain of PE by becoming more adept in practicing PE, contributing research that extends the height of the mountain, and serving the PE organization and the upward progress of its members.

One thing about our volunteer members is they come with the hope that PE will help them achieve their own purposes, i.e., their own reasons and destination for climbing up the mountain. How do we generalize this personalization? That’s where Positive Psychology can help. Martin Seligman has proposed PERMA as the acronym to describe 5 dimensions of positive psychology – the science of human flourishing. I add two more dimensions for a total of 7.

P - Positive Emotions

E - Engagement

R - Relationships

M - Meaningful activity

A - Accomplishment

and my addition,

L - Learning & Growth

These dimensions are required for overall human flourishing, and I suggest it holds for membership flourishing as well. I mention that Seligman is considering adding “H - Health” to the set as well.

Application

Here are some possible directions to apply this information:

• Treat the DDO that is PE Academy as a voluntary community of practice that supports each member to flourish according to their own definition

• Organize activity of PE Academy on a foundation of improving PERMAL for each member, asking all members to articulate, reflect, and assess goals and support them to make plans to achieve the goals (maybe as a workshop at the conference and in PD webinar)

• Support member Learning & Growth through Legitimate Peripheral Participation to create opportunities to legitimately participate at the periphery and to progress toward the summit, such as:

-- develop & test a PE starter guide

-- inject PE into curriculum & teaching*

-- contribute to case library of practice

-- do lightweight research with PE concepts leading to publication (RiBs - research in a box)

-- provide a coaching service that would develop more advanced members as coaches and let them coach a video or other performance of other members

• foster opportunities in the CoP for better Relationships

• determine how to incorporate Positive Psychology concepts into the practice of PE, the DDO, and CoP

• connect the work we do with the members’ and organization’s purpose to create meaningful activity

• recognize and celebrate member accomplishments

• measure the above by engagement of the membership in the Organization and their legitimate contributions to the community

Were You There in 2019?

Click the report cover below to read the event report!

Will You BE There in 2020??

Click the report cover above to learn why this institute is well-worth your time and effort!