This newsletter covers what happened in August and 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):

Hello! To our northern-hemisphere colleagues, I hope you are having a great start to a new academic year. To our southern-hemisphere colleagues, I hope you are having a great wrap-up to the current term. And to those who don't operate on an academic calendar, hope you are fully enjoying the changing of the seasons!

As life continues in the pandemic, we continue to navigate the challenges of uncertain times. I have valued the tools of Process Education to sustain myself for the last 18+ months.

The Learning Process Methodology is in mind as I seek the information needed for frequent decision-making. My personal “why” for learning is clear and helps me create the critical thinking questions I need to answer in the information I have to do the current problem-solving.

I have strengthened ownership of my own life vision to set priorities around how I want to invest my time. I’m grateful that I set a goal a few years ago to do more hiking! Conveniently an outdoor and COVID-safe activity, I’m on track to put more than 350 miles on my boots this year.

And I have doubled down on my belief that all learners can be star performers, and that their success is my responsibility. As I examine how I craft experiences for learners, I’m even more mindful of pre-assessing where learners are, empowering (rather than enabling) them in the face of their challenges and striving to create a quality learning environment where we are all learner-humans on a trek through unusual times, striving to both live and to learn.

I’d love to hear how the tools and principles of PE have been serving you! Shoot me an email at Ingrid.m.ulbrich@gmail.com to let me know.

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:

June 2021 minutes (approved)

September 2021 minutes (not yet approved)

Summary of March Board meeting work:

In September, the Board

• Discussed the process and timeline to determine whether the Summer (2022) Conference will be face-to-face with a virtual option or completely virtual. The Conference Committee will bring a motion to the October board meeting for consideration

• Approved having the Winter Meeting in January be virtual

• Received updates on the October 1, 2020-September 30, 2021 Treasurer’s Report to date

• Approved two separate budgets for the October 1, 2021-September 30, 2022 fiscal year, one for a face-to-face summer conference and one for a virtual summer conference

The Next Board Meeting is scheduled for Friday, October 8, 2021 (at Noon CDT).

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.

Are you a planner who enjoys the challenge of creating an learning experience for your colleagues? Would you like to collaborate with an experienced professional team? Have you attended past Academy Conferences and wondered “how might we improve this experience?” If so, we need you, so join us!

After a successful virtual conference this past June, the Academy Board has proposed that we continue the successful practice of joining together in a summer conference in June of 2022. The Conference Planning Committee is now forming to design and plan this event. We are looking to this team to identify the Conference theme, the critical focus issues, and recruit speakers and presenters with provocative ideas. The tentative dates being considered for the 3-day conference are in the third week of June, 20 - 25, 2022.

We are recruiting for additional team members who would bring their energy and event planning skills to the table. If you thrive on the satisfaction of working with a team to create a rich learning experience for your colleagues please consider volunteering as a member of this active and fun committee. The load is shared by team members who meet monthly to monitor progress. Our first team meeting will be in early October via Zoom. Volunteer now by sending an email message today to Patrick Barlow at: barlowwpb@gmail.com

Twenty members of the PE Academy have entered a two-year journey to become PE Experts. They're using new certification process established by the Academy to help its members measure and strengthen their capabilities in assessing, self-assessing, facilitating, problem solving, designing, activity design, leading, learning, performance mentoring, self-growth coaching, systems thinking, consulting, measuring, evaluating, researching, teaming, teaching, self-growing, reflecting, and knowing. These individuals are using their current work and life situations to find 20 hours of growth opportunities weekly to increase these capabilities. They are also getting weekly feedback and support through performance mentoring and self-growth coaching to increase capabilities in these 20 areas.

Each month the project will share growth tips that you can use and share with your colleagues and students. Here are some we collected in September.

Growth tips

Build a productivity plan for your weekly efforts

Since productivity in a necessary condition for self-growth, here are a few simple techniques: 1) determine the number of hours you are willing to dedicate to professional and personal development for progressing to ideal self - is it 60 hours, 70 hours, 80 hours of your 168 weekly hours? 2) Then schedule these hours to maximize a set of weekly outcomes in this direction. 3) Make sure each hour is as productive as it can be. And 4) assess productivity weekly. Identify the 5 most productive hours and determine why they were most productive and identify the least 5 productive hours and create an action plan to increase their productivity. Finally, reflect to gain insight about your productivity.

Asking for Help

Fact – people like being helpful to others. Friendships start when someone helps someone else.  People feel good when they help others. If they don’t want to help because they don’t believe they can help or the timing is not good, they will let you know, and it will be no big deal. Be direct: “I am wondering if you would be willing to help me?”  You will feel good because you know you will be willing to help others in the future and realize that by asking for help, you will be able to help more people in the future. There is a big difference between asking for help and taking advantage of others, i.e., knowing that you are asking them to do something you can do for yourself. An important time to ask for help is in reviewing your work (an assessment), catching errors, and thus reducing significant negative consequences.

Standards are set for the future and stripped when reflecting and assessing the past

Turning evaluation into assessment is the process of letting go of standards and focusing instead on what happened. Without standards, you can release judging level of quality and instead be freed up to focus on what went the best and what can be improved. Gain information on why these things went well and how you can generalize this strength for the future. Then create transformative strategies and action plans that will make improvements into a future strength. Finally, without the standards, the mind is emotionally freed to start cognitively producing insights that elevate knowing in the critical areas.

Part A – The Different Flavors
Part B – The Barriers

The purpose of this workshop is to challenge academia’s reliance on grades. It is fair to say that most faculty have received end-of-term emails and grade appeals from students asking to be rounded up to (at least) the next letter grade. Most of us have become frustrated after spending hours providing feedback finding our work in the trash can outside the classroom. What if there is a different way? The intended outcome of the workshop is to plant some ungrading seeds in your gardens and see what happens.

If you plan to attend, here's how to prepare:

1. Please take time to read Ungrading by Jesse Stommel: https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-an-introduction. (Note that other blogs at the end are very good reading too!)

2. Answer these Exploration Questions on the forum for the session before the session begins. (If you do not have an account on the Workshop site, create one! Simply click on the link, "If you are new here..." and follow the instructions.)

• Dr. Stommel states that during the pandemic, grades measured how well students were able to pivot online and adapt to online learning. Please comment on how well this does or does not overlap with your experience.
  
• In his foundational questions about assessments, Dr. Stommell makes a statement that we are evaluators (judgers) of student work. What percentage of your grading is assessment versus evaluation?

3. Review the plans for both parts of the session, and prepare to contribute to the discussion and play one or more team roles noted in the full facilitation plan.

Please invite any non-Academy friends and peers!

They can easily create their own account on the Academy Workshop site (without joining the Academy)! It will take them only a few minutes. Simply share the workshop information (available at www.processeducation.org/2021_w5.html) and let them know to register for the workshop and complete the preparation tasks.

ZOOM MEETING