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Welcome to the funtastic world of the Fabulous Learning Nerds! Scott Schuette and Daniel Coonrod and Zeta Gardner are Learning Executives with over 50 years’ experience between them. Together they share new ideas, learning tools, approaches and technology that increase learner engagement and impact. All while having FUN! To participate in the show and community please contact them at learningnerdscast@gmail.com
The nerds are all about creating a community of learning, innovation and growth amongst educational professionals: Instructors, facilitators, instructional designers, learning and development professionals, trainers, leadership development professionals, learning metric gurus, sales enablement wizards and more. So, if you want to learn, connect, grow and have a good time doing it, The Fabulous Learning Nerds Podcast is for YOU!
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another fantastic episode of Your Fabulous Learning Nerds, and well, you know the deal. He's here. You love him. Dan the man. Oh yeah, Dan, how are you, sir? You know, hi. I'm fair to Midland. In fact, I would even go so far as to say I'm better than fine. The Midland. I'm pretty darn gosh.
Good. Fair to Midland. Ooh, ooh. I Today. Today I was running errands around the, the town where I live. I bumped into somebody and I was asking how you do? And they responded, oh, I'm fair to Midland, sir. And I had a stop moment where I was like, ah, me too. It was awesome. But we don't have a pretty gosh darn good drop.
I'm gonna have to figure that out. Wow. I gotta keep you on your toes. That's my job. It's in my job description. No, I think it's great. I think it's great. I was, uh, teaching at the gym this morning and ooh, a veteran came by and said, um, he asked me how I was doing and I said I was pretty good. And he said, why are you not fantastic?
And I said, because I was pretty good. And then I got the lecture about how I should be fantastic. So today I am fantastic, baby. So that is, uh, That'll be really, really awesome. You know who else is fantastic? Who? Our co-host Zeta everybody.
Scott, how you doing? I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. It's excellent to be here. Oh, fantastic. Except, except for Dan, who is pretty darn good. Yeah. Except for that damn guy. Someone's gotta pick up the slack, right? I mean, something like that. It's Friday. It's really great. So it is.
Thank God it's Friday. I know I should have that drop. That's a terrible movie with a great soundtrack by the way. And I would know. So that's really sad that I would know. And that's great. You know what we've got, um, we've got a really special guest with us today. We're gonna talk some really important stuff for educators that are out there in our audience.
And, um, I'm not gonna barely lead. We're gonna learn all about our little segment that we call. What's your deal? Hey man, what's your deal, Karen? Hello? Hey, what's your deal, my friend? All right, so here's where I give my elevator pitch. Right? Elevator pitch. Go. Oh my goodness. Okay, pressure. So, um, yeah, let me see.
Where do I start? I have been in the field of education for, let's see, I think it's 18 years now. I started off in special ed. I was a speech pathologist for 14 years, and so I was doing a lot with just school teams and trying to figure out how to help. Kids learn. And so the background that I come from is, you know, we're, as a speech pathologist, you're not just thinking about speech, which is what a lot of people obviously think that someone would do if there are speech pathologists, like helping someone who stutters, but, or helping someone who has a hard time saying sounds.
But it's really thinking about. Communication all the way through the lifespan. So I have the background in, you know, from helping kids with developmental disabilities. It could be as young as just, you know, the birth to three population all the way through adulthood and thinking about how adults learn.
And then also thinking about. If you have somebody who has dementia or a stroke or a traumatic brain injury in adulthood, how do you help them? So thinking about the brain all the way through the different age ranges, so, so that's the background that I come from. But when I was in the schools, I was also getting my doctorate in special ed, and that's where I kind of.
I came into the the l and d space without really realizing it at the beginning. I was in my doctoral program trying to figure out a lot of things around programming for language and literacy for people who are in the schools. And I also was doing my director of special ed credential. And so obviously if you're doing that and you're thinking about being a school administrator, you have to think about program evaluation.
So how do I evaluate what's going on in the school district and figure out. Skill gaps and what training needs to be done. And then a lot of research on what is effective professional learning. And so the, in academia, on the field that I came from in education, I spend a lot of time in, you know, here's a workshop and then go or go to a seminar and just get overloaded for two days with, you know, all your PD hours and then, then go with no follow up.
And so that's when I really started to think about. What are those other ongoing learnings that need to be happening? And I started to do that in my job where I would take these opportunities to create a training for some of my coworkers if I felt like they needed help in their classrooms and things like that.
And when I finished my doctorate, that's when I was wanting to do something relating to school administration. But um, and also was looking at higher ed. But obviously with those types of positions, they're really competitive. You have to move and, , I, I, at the time just didn't really make sense for my family, for me to move across the country for a job.
So I had to kind of figure out how do I continue to, or create a role for myself where I am training professionals and do it in a way that is, Would I feel the next step in my career? So that's when I started my business and I started creating courses and trainings for, , I started with speech pathologists, people who are designing literacy interventions, but have it kind of expanded to thinking about the whole team and thinking about helping the, the other people on the I E P team and then as well as what do the leaders need to do to know as far as.
What training needs, needs to be in place Because as I've kind of gone into this market and started to help the people who are helping the kids, I've realized that there's this idea of what professional development days need to look like. And I know from based on what I'm asked to do, what is often being done in the school systems.
And I know that it's. Not always meeting the needs of the people who are there. So I'm trying to figure out how to, how to solve that problem in various different ways. Well, you're doing some fantastic work and I'm super excited to talk a little bit more about this. I'm sure, uh, a lot of people. Who maybe are, uh, lacking the opportunity to grow and are wanting and eager to grow, would be certainly excited to hear that.
So, without further ado everybody, let's go ahead and dive into our topic of the week.
Okay. So this week we're talking about professional development in K to 12 settings. So Karen, talk to us a little bit about that. What. Why is this so important and what are we tr, what are we, uh, what are we doing about it? Well, I mean, if, when you're talking about education, obviously funding is, is huge. I mean, that's always the, the thing that is holding a lot of people back when it comes to what, um, where the resources are allocated in K-12 settings.
And I think that when I did my training as far as. What PD needs to happen? What are all the activities that need to happen for people in the school systems to be successful? There's all these different pieces, but it's really hard to get all of them in place all the time. So I do think that there are certain times when the specific thing that you're teaching can.
Determine how, how close you get to that ideal model. So for example, um, when you are in a role where you're, you're serving students in special ed, you have to know a lot about legal compliance and paperwork. And that is, if you talk to anybody in education or special ed, you're gonna hear all about IEPs and paperwork.
And, you know, they, they all decided that they wanted to go and help kids and now they're. Writing all these reports. And so it's one of the things that you're hearing about a lot. So with those types of things, it is very procedural, a lot of operating procedures, and there's a lot you can do as far as just helping people with productivity, but really they just need to know how do we stay compliant?
So this isn't really super exciting, big picture, creative kind of work. They just need to know how to get it done so they can go and do the stuff that they actually enjoy doing. So I think with that kind of thing, um, You know, when we're thinking about training, it's like more traditional formats maybe are a little bit more appropriate, where you can have those like log into your LMS system and review the training when you need to go and review the procedures.
Or we can do a workshop and then we want need to make sure that we have. Someone who can answer follow-up questions when people inevitably get stuck. But I don't know that we really need to have this whole professional learning community with the kind of the emotional components of training. But then there are other parts of the job where.
A lot of additional support is needed. So one example of something that I had to do in the schools was when you're working with students in special education, a lot of times they might have significant behavioral needs. They maybe have experience trauma, and the way that they react to things is, you know, way beyond what you would expect.
And so you need to know how to deescalate situations. And that training was. Really interesting because people would call it restraint training, but that's not what it was. It was called, um, C P I training. So crisis prevention Intervention, where really what you're doing is learning how to monitor your body language, monitor how youre interacting with students, um, knowing how to, if somebody's really upset and you need to calm them down, or you need to make sure that the room is safe and.
Be protecting the other students and the staff. You need to know how to do all of those types of things. So that was the majority of the training. So the way that they would do that is that we'd have to have the certification. So anybody who was in, uh, involved with certain students who we knew had a lot of, uh, of needs in that area would have to go to this, this training.
And they would do it. I think you had to renew it every, every couple years. So we'd sit down and do this day long workshop. Take a quiz, get our little card that said, this is when your C P I is, is, um, you know, expired. And then that was it. The thing about that is that, um, at the end of the training, what we would have to do after we learned all the deescalation is that we'd actually have to practice.
Like what happens if a student tries to swing at you and or is like doing something that could physically harm them or other students. And so we'd have to practice on each other so that. Makes for a really interesting conversation with your spouse. Like, Hey, can I demonstrate what I learned at work today?
You know, so it's all kinds of things like that. And so those are things where it's a safety issue and if you're not practicing it on an ongoing basis, it's, it's kind of problematic. And so, yes, a lot of times, In most cases, you'd wanna make sure that you're deescalating before you get to the point where you have to do something physically.
But if you get into that situation where you do have to do it, you wanna make sure you do it correctly. So what they would say is, well, we recommend that you get to together and practice this. But I mean, you, it's one of those things where if it's not an official thing that is required and on your schedule, you don't do it.
So that's an example of where I. You know, filling out the form and checking the boxes, you can just ask the question when it comes up. But with that, you don't know when it's gonna come up. You don't know when a student's going to, you know, do something and put, be in a situation where some people might, uh, where there might be a safety issue.
So those are the types of things where I think that there is more of a need for, we need to be proactive and we need to make sure that we have those, those ongoing supports. And then the other things are, Uh, where it's not necessarily a safety issue, but it's kind of, so Karen, how can we make sure that we do these ongoing things?
I think that it needs to be, it, it's one of those things where everybody ha intends to do it. It's kind of like when you. You say you're talking to a friend and you say, let's get together soon. Mm-hmm. Let's call each other, and then you don't have anything on the calendar. So you don't do it even though you 100% intend to do it when you're having that conversation.
So it needs to be on the calendar. I mean, it's, it's, um, I mean that's, that's the biggest thing. And when it comes to the work setting and there's people who are. In the leadership position. I think that the leaders can be part of the people who are making sure those things happen, but also allowing the staff to have that time to make those things happen.
Oh, that sounds, I wanna, I wanna follow, well, go ahead. I'm so sorry. No, that's fine. I was gonna say, I just wanted to follow up, uh, two things. One, uh, the fact that you're a speech pathologist is awesome. Uh, speech impediments run in my family, like a lot that I can think of. Um, three relatives, close relatives in my family who have required, like, help in their early ages with speech and just kind of being able to effectively communicate.
So one, thank you for that. That's super cool. Uh, two. Uh, so, uh, I just wanna pick a little bit. So like, it seems like right now, c p I seems like it would be like super important. And you're saying like right now, like it's, you guys are getting a training once every couple of years, and then they're just kinda like, mm-hmm.
Okay. Everybody pinky swear and promise that you're gonna do it. And then Yeah. Ooh, ooh. Uh. Yeah. No, I definitely think that, uh, like, yeah, uh, making time for that. I mean, just even in like the corporate sector. Yeah, you know, there's, there's that monthly expectations, Hey, like we should be up-skilling and re-skilling.
It should be like, you know, an hour or so a month. You know, everybody should be having that much time. So to hear that, that might not be the case. Uh, in education is, um, I don't wanna say worrying, but I'm going to, it's worrying. Yeah, it definitely is. I would, I would just tack onto that too. I, I, I challenge the whole idea in the corporate setting that once a month that we're taking a look at upskilling.
I think that everybody feels that it's really important, but it's like, just like you said, Karen, it's like actually making the time to do it. Like so many things are so important, right? So we gotta get all these things important. But if I'm, but if I'm not equipped or if I'm not ready for those changes or if I'm not, In a place where I can apply some things then, I mean, it's, uh, it's Einstein, right?
It's just doing the same thing over and over and over and again expecting different results. Yeah. So, Well, and I think that part of it is, is the priorities. Mm-hmm. People do know that they need to get together and do things, and they often don't know how to use that time. So that's, that's a huge thing that I see with the people that I work with, where it's, I know that I need to get together with the teachers.
I know I need to get together with the other therapists or the, the leadership, but, What do we do with this 20 minutes? And it feels like, you know, we're not gonna get anything done here, we're you could get something done if there was more of a plan and if there were some more priorities. So like, who's deciding on the training needs?
Right? So we can back up for a minute. Like, so who's making this decision on, oh, my staff needs this, or, oh, this person needs that, like, Where, who's or maybe what group are are making those decisions? It kind of depends on the size of the district, but typically, if it's a bigger district, there's a curriculum director.
There might be, if it's for special ed, it might be a special ed director or maybe even someone who is a superintendent. Sometimes the principals do it, but. Sometimes that they're more in the operations. So it kind of depends on the size of the district. Sometimes a principal might have an additional role on top of that, but where I have seen it sometimes happen is that it's kind of bottom up where the staff are actually asking for things and they're going and presenting things to their administration.
So part of what I am working on right now is helping the people who are in those positions. Kind of emerge as leaders on their team to either do some of those training activities, just maybe off the record or unofficially just to make sure that they get done, um, even though you don't get PD hours for that.
But then also to present it to their administration so that they can bring people in. Um, they can have trainings on certain topics or my programs are not, uh, it's not that I don't do any. In-person trainings or live trainings for districts, because I do that sometimes, but I always try to link it with my ongoing trainings where I can actually have a forum where I can ask, answer their questions.
So I sometimes have them, will give them information for my training so that they can go and present it to their administration. So that's something that I'm working on trying to figure out. How to do that more effectively for those particular people? Cause I think it needs to come from both directions.
It needs to be, um, edu people who are in those leadership positions need to be educated. But then also people, um, who are in the positions of working directly with the students need to get in the habit of, of speaking up about those types of things. Because sometimes school administrators just, there's no way that they would understand the nuances of all the different roles of the people that they're leading.
Right. Like their feet aren't on the ground, they're not there. Mm-hmm. So they, they have no visibility except for the people who are there can say, Hey, we need this. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's really important because a lot of the specific disciplines are just, again, like speech pathology for example. Some of the things that.
I do, I mean, I couldn't even get into them in one podcast episode. So there's no way that somebody who is a school administrator would know that. Now, I did get to the point when I was in the schools where my principals and the teachers did know what I, what I did. Um, but it took a long time to get there and, and not everybody knows how to do that.
And that is another thing. That is a specific skillset where people need training is knowing how to communicate that. So I mean, to me that falls under the realm of leadership training, which is another example of the model and the type of training where that's something where you really need on ongoing support and feedback.
Because anything that's networking and communication and leadership, you can't. Check off boxes. To do that, there needs to be feedback on, I said this to this person and this is how they responded. And it just gets a little bit, I don't wanna say fluffy, but it's those soft skills that you can't train in a checklist or a continuing education seminar.
So what does good look like, right? So how, you know, so. If we were to go ahead and apply some of the things that you're working on to an organization or a district or anything like that, so what are some, what are some of the things that we might notice right away, um, that would help us understand that we're actually making contraction?
What does good look like to you? Ooh, that's a good question. Um, I think that that is something that, A question that people don't always ask very often. Um, I think that where a lot of the leadership, where their heads are, are on assessments and what are, are we, um, are our test scores where they should be.
And a lot of that is because that has to do with funding and things like that. And that's how the school's evaluated. So on the surface, that's where. A lot of the attention is, but I know that the people who do have their feet on the ground are focused more on the, the mental health needs of their students.
Um, behaviors in the classroom are students, you know, if there is a student who's having a behavioral issue and their classroom, they're, they're not able to manage the classroom. I would say just a sense of calm in the classroom. And I know that sometimes that's, here's a specific, specific. Thing that's happening that I want to stop happening or here's a specific work that I want done.
Um, and so it can be situations specific like that. Um, so those are some of the things when I'm talking about tangible outcomes that, that we're looking at. Um, I will say that among the community of people who are working in the schools, there is a little bit of pushback on the emphasis on testing, which we can't.
If we don't have that, it's a free for all and you have no, no standards and so you can't completely get rid of that. But there is a push for things to be not so testing based and that is where it's so challenging because if you do take away this, You know, this score or this thing that's very concrete, how do you measure success?
How do you measure if someone's mental health is getting better, which is a huge push right now. And sometimes you do look at some of those behaviors that are, you know, really severe, but sometimes those things are internal. So it's kind of hard to tell with students. So, Um, I think that that's a question that we need to continue to ask.
I don't know that, um, there's really consensus on how that looks yet. You know, I, I'm gonna jump in with my layman's, uh, opinion and just, and then ask your professional opinion. Uh, it, I, I feel like a place where there's a psychological sense of safety Yeah. Is gonna be good for testing. Like if, if I know my classroom is calm and I know that there is mm-hmm.
An instructor, A, a, a learning leader who's in charge of that environment, who can make sure everybody feels safe and secure. Like, I mean, if I'm just gonna get down to brass tacks and everybody cares about testing cuz that brings in the dollars. Like I get that I'm not a fan of it. Mm-hmm. But I get it.
But like, is there a way to correlate that sense of psychological safety to increase test scores to help like, push that needle on its value? Yeah, I mean that is, there are ways that you can measure that. I mean, you can, there's, there's other people who can come in and do observations and then you can look at just overall, rather than just, just looking at a specific point in time on student performance, you can kind of look at globally.
Um, one of the other things that. Is kind of a new push is just the idea of a portfolio. So rather than looking at just this individual test score, um, what is, what is this whole, what are the work samples look like for the student? And again, that's not always directly looking at mental health. Um, but if you do those other things on the side where you get those more qualitative things and you're kind of just looking at just the.
Just the feeling and the culture in the classroom. You can start to see patterns over time. So I mean, there is a lot of research that shows all of those things that you just said where it's yes, if you are in a state of anxiety, there's no way you can problem solve and concentrate on a reading test or whatever it is.
Your comprehension is just going to, you know, go down the tank. So, so yeah, I mean there, there is absolutely evidence for those kinds of things. Um, And, and I think that that's why we're trying to get better at, at using those different ways of assessing, uh, learning and how just the overall classroom environment rather than just the test score, looking at that big picture, um, seeing the successes in certain areas, like you said, um, can help guide what we need to do further.
Like for other places who, who need that same, uh, support.
Absolutely. So imagine, um, I'm an educator trying my best to do a great job, but I know internally that I need some help, right? What, what would you recommend that they do? Right? So if I'm looking around and you know what? I need some help, and it'd be really great if I had this like, Where do I go? Who do I talk to?
How do I get the ball rolling? In an environment where maybe those kinds of things aren't, um, aren't readily being taken care of. Well, what advice would you give to our educators out there that are maybe sitting in a, I ha I hate to say it, in, in a vacuum, where, um mm-hmm. There needs, we really need this.
Like we, we need Karen help. Like, you know, how do we, how do we get Karen to come in, in, or, or, you know, at least to raise the flag, there might be an opportunity. So this is where the, the answer that I give to people is it's, it's kind of a hard answer to hear, and I think it's understanding what things you need to do on a regular basis to.
Build relationships with people and kind of get your, get your 2 cents in knowing that one conversation is not going to solve the issue. So, for example, a lot of times people will say, well, I made this suggestion to my principal and nothing happened. And you know, a lot of times it's, it's not one conversation that does that, it's just this.
Ongoing relationships. So, um, making it a regular habit to have conversations with people. What I sometimes recommend that people do, especially if they are on that team, because a lot of times if they're the therapist, um, you know, there might only be one social worker in that building, for example, or one psychologist.
And so, It's not you, you kind of feel siloed off like you're the only person of that discipline that goes and serves that building. So I recommend that people not just, um, think about talking to people who are the official decision makers, but also forming alliances and relationships with the other people that are kind of their, their peers, because then, They can kind of band together and figure out what needs to happen so that when they go and now you have multiple people who are providing these suggestions to the leadership, you, you have these alliances where you can, you can get things done more, more effectively.
So I see those relationships as as big assets, but also when you're doing some of that, Off the record learning type of activities. So for example, if, um, you know, I were to, as the speech pathologist team up with the social worker and say like, let's go and see if the teachers need help with this certain thing and let's go and provide some education for them because we've been getting a lot of referrals for these kinds of things.
And so maybe we need to do some education with the teachers and kind of see where they are at with those things. So you can kind of team up with your coworkers and that does take some of the load off of you for those. More grassroots type of things, but then also for those, um, things where you are making it more official and it is more of a building wide or district-wide initiative.
So forming alliances is, is usually where I recommend that people start, especially when it's something that is not going to be an overnight fix, which this definitely won't be. Love that. That's awesome. Yeah. So, Karen, what are some of the things that you're working on that, that we could help support you with?
So, um, I do have my programs that have been up and running for a while now that are mainly designed to help, um, speech pathologists who are supporting language and literacy. But what I've been working on recently is, um, a program called The School of Clinical Leadership. And what that is designed to do is help people, help people who are in on that i e p team to figure out.
How to establish their, their operating procedures. So kind of get those things in line and then figure out how can they engage in some of those other activities where they are initiating some of the learning and the training that needs to happen on their team. So just kind of that idea of, um, being a defacto leader on your team.
And then also I, I do help them with specific programming relating to some of the cognitive skills that kids need. That need to be embedded in the curriculum, like working on executive functioning and then also how they can start to band together and get some of these things officially in place with their administration.
And then that is the theme of my podcast as well, which is defacto leaders and. It started with more, more tactical type things. Like what do I do when I have a group of students in my therapy session in front of me? And then it's kind of emerged to those other things that I just mentioned. But also just pulling in ideas from different disciplines.
Um, people who have been in, involved in their communities, people who have been involved in leadership in other industries, just to kinda see how we can apply that to education and, um, and. Kind of encouraging people to use their skills as teachers and therapists to, um, just serve in, in creative ways aside from just what they typically think of when they think of their job role.
Well, Karen, we certainly appreciate you coming, dropping the knowledge. That's been really awesome. Hey, could you do us a favor? Um, could you let our audience know how they could connect with you? Yeah, so I am on LinkedIn, so you can just search Karen Doak Brandon on LinkedIn. Um, you can find the Defacto Leaders podcast at dr karen doak brandon.com/blog.
And if you are on a school team and you wanna learn more about the School of Clinical Leadership, um, that is at dr karen doak brennan.com/clinical leadership. Thanks so much. Really great stuff folks. Go ahead and check out her podcast and all the other groovy stuff she's got on LinkedIn. Fabulous resource.
Um, and what a great topic. I really think it's really important, you know, everybody needs development, everybody needs to learn and grow, and I think you're doing God's work. That's really awesome. Daniel, thank you so much. Yes, Scott. Could you us a favor and let our audience know how they could connect with us?
Absolutely. All right, party people. If you haven't already, email us at nerds@thelearningnerds.com. Join in on the conversation, ask us any questions. Maybe tell us, uh, how you would, uh, build a sense of psychological safety or how you would, um, kind of like make sure that you were getting training out and complete when you needed to.
In a place maybe where that was difficult. Uh, if you're on Facebook, you can find us at Learning Nerds for all of our Instagram peeps, fab learning nerds. And lastly, for more information about us, what we do and updates, you can reach us at www.thelearningnerds.com. Scott. Thanks, Dan. Hey, everybody. Could you do me a huge favor?
Could you go ahead and please hit that subscribe button, right? Share this out with your friends. You found it on YouTube, share it out. You found it on LinkedIn. Share it out. We would love to get more of the word out, more of what Karen's doing, out to lots of really great people, and if you like what we're talking about, hate what we're talking about, leave us a review either on iTunes or Stitcher.
It's also a really nice way for us to get our message out. With that, I'm Scott. I'm Dan. I'm Zaydi. I'm Karen, and we're your fabulous learning nerds!