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Most professional development begins with enthusiasm and ends before it changes classroom practice. In this episode of Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works, Gene Tavernetti talks with Suzannah Evans and Dr. Shane Saeed about the Science of Learning Collaborative in Colorado’s St. Vrain Valley School District.
What began in 2019 as a small book study nearly disappeared during COVID-19, shrinking to six committed educators. Instead of giving up, Suzannah and Shane built a voluntary, sustained model of professional learning that now connects more than 100 teachers across a large district. They explain how the collaborative creates practical learning, peer accountability, teacher leadership, and a network where educators can test ideas in classrooms and return to learn from one another.
The conversation is a useful reminder that lasting professional learning does not require a massive initiative. It can begin with a few people, a worthwhile question, a small pilot, and enough patience to let the work spread through trust and word of mouth.
Suzannah Evans is an instructional coordinator at St. Vrain Valley School District and a facilitator of the district’s Science of Learning Collaborative. Dr. Shane Saeed is an elementary ELA curriculum coordinator, author, speaker, and co-host of the Vrain Waves podcast. Together, they support educators in turning evidence-informed ideas into practical classroom improvement.
Descriptions of effective teaching often depict an idealized form of "perfect" instruction. Yet, pursuing perfection in teaching, which depends on children's behavior, is ultimately futile. To be effective, lessons and educators need to operate with about 75% efficiency. The remaining 25% can be impactful, but expecting it in every lesson, every day, is unrealistic. Perfection in teaching may be unattainable, but progress is not. Whether you are aiming for the 75% effectiveness mark or striving for continuous improvement, this podcast will guide you in that endeavor.
[00:00:00] Speaker 2: Welcome to Better Teaching Only Stuff that Works. A podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom. This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education. Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com.
[00:00:24] I am Jean Taver, the host for this podcast, and my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching. A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords, only stuff that works.
[00:00:41] Speaker 16: I am super excited to have two guests this morning to talk about, uh, some work that they have done in their district that I think is very exciting, and I think a lot of people are gonna be interested in hearing about it. My first guest is Suzanna Evans. Suzie is an instructional coordinator at St.
[00:01:01] Vrain Valley School District in Longmont, Colorado. She supports principals and teachers in analyzing data, supporting instructional decision-making, and building collective efficacy in school. She has previously taught in multiple grade levels, holds master's degrees in kinesiology and learning design and technology, and is also an adjunct lecturer for CU Denver.
[00:01:27] She facilitates the district's Science of Learning Collaborative and the Vrain Waves podcast with Shayne Saeed. And our other guest is Dr. Shayne Saeed, and she's an elementary ELA curriculum coordinator in Longmont, Color- Colorado, in the same school district, St. Vrain. Shayne's earned her doctorate in executive leadership with an emphasis in educational equity.
[00:01:53] She is passionate about sharing strong instructional practices that support all students. Shayne is the author of Be the Flame: Sparking Positive Classroom Communities, which outlines high-yield tangible strategies to cultivate strong, positive relationships with all stakeholders. She's a national speaker and presenter, as well as the co-host with Suzie of the Vrain Waves podcast, where teachers are able to discuss the science of learning and how they are utilizing what's in-- going on in their classrooms.
[00:02:28] I think you're really going to enjoy this one
[00:02:32] Speaker 12: good morning Susie and Shane. Welcome to Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works.
[00:02:37] Speaker 13: Oh, we're so excited to be here. Thank you. We sure are.
[00:02:41] Speaker 12: Oh, probably not more excited than me, but- ... lots of, lots of stuff, lots of stuff to talk about. And, I'll, I'll share a story later on with you about how important this episode is, to folks.
[00:02:55] And but, but really want to talk about the, collaborative that you guys have, have gotten started. And, so just, very briefly, 'cause we're gonna go into it, we're gonna go into more deeply, but very briefly, just want to say that most PD in schools is, is not good. You know, it starts out, it starts out, you know, r- there's a lot of excitement and every- And then all of a sudden it dies out.
[00:03:21] But, but you guys have been doing this since 2019. So if you could talk a little bit about what it is, and then we'll go into it a lot more, a lot more later. And I know you guys well enough that if you're talking about something and I know you're gonna go on and on and on, I'm gonna stop you, okay?
[00:03:39] I'll just, I'll just stop you and say, "Yeah, no, no, no, no. We'll talk about it later." We appreciate
[00:03:43] Speaker 13: that. Yes. Yeah. That's very smart and clearly- ... you know it, you know us really well, Gene. You know us really well.
[00:03:49] Speaker 12: Okay. So let's talk a little bit, h- little bit of, about the collaborative.
[00:03:53] Speaker 13: Oh, you're ... This, first, we're so honored to be here, first of all.
[00:03:56] But we, we do wanna start with saying not all PD is bad. Not all of it. And we have tried to make a real distinction between one and done professional development that is primarily focused on training in, you know, in air quotes, and move towards this more collaborative model that's about sustained learning and really practice-based and is voluntary and intrinsically motivating and has a lot of high transfer.
[00:04:28] So-
[00:04:29] Speaker 12: Okay. Look at this. Look at this. I'm gonna stop you already. Perfect. So, so, so we know, so I'm guessing that all of those things that you just described are gonna be involved in the collaborative. Sure. What was hap- what was happening before?
[00:04:43] Speaker 14: Well, I would say n- in terms of science of learning, nothing.
[00:04:48] Absolutely. Okay.
[00:04:49] Okay.
[00:04:50] Speaker 14: Absolute zero before
[00:04:51] Speaker 13: 2019,
[00:04:52] Speaker 14: right? Okay. Okay. But with, professional development in general, a lot of times the structures that were already in place were those you get a one-and-done training in a certain, like approach or ideology, and you couldn't take the training again because you'd already received that credit, and so you must choose a different path to go learn down.
[00:05:12] And, we really see the value in being able to invite people back to continue to deepen their knowledge in a specific content area, rather than saying, "Oh, no, you did your science of learning training. You're trained in the science of learning." Mm-hmm. "So go find something else to go and train in." Right.
[00:05:27] Speaker 12: Okay. So, so, so what- It's not
[00:05:29] Speaker 13: the year, the year of the science of learning, right? We see that, a lot, where like this year we're gonna focus on neuroanatomy or science of learning. That, that's not what this is about. It is continued learning over years and years with the newest research and evidence-based practices.
[00:05:47] Speaker 12: So you mentioned 2019, year of science of learning. I don't know if that's accurate. I'm just gonna take, take your word for it that that, you know, I know that that was just an example. But here's my real question. was there a time for you two- That you said, oh, science of learning. And I'm gonna guess, based on that I've never seen you separated, that it happened at the same time.
[00:06:09] Speaker 13: It did. It did happen at the same time. So in tw- a q- brief timeline, in 2019 an assessment coordinator in our district discovered Patrice Bain and Pooja Agarwal's Powerful Teaching book. And at the time Shane and I were both s- still in the classroom, and, our coordinator, her name was Kim Wiggins, and she kind of handpicked a couple, 12 of us?
[00:06:36] 12 of us across our district, which is very large, and thought, "These, these teachers are change-makers," if you will, "and I'm going to cherry-pick, a couple of them. We're gonna do a book study." And that's how this all really kicked off. There, so again, about 12 of us, 2019, just reading the book and deciding, oh, okay, we can do these prac- we can implement this.
[00:07:00] This is something. This is powerful, so to speak. And from there it started to grow, but COVID, COVID happened shortly after that, and that was a big set fall in terms of any professional development. Nobody was interested in doing professional development at that point. So we got, you know, all the way down to six people in 2021, and then we just kept at it.
[00:07:26] Shane and I started to move out of the classroom at that point, and we started to kind of pay it forward and cherry-pick people that we knew were change-makers as well. And it has grown ever since then to, you know, 50 members and then 80 members, and now we're at our current 102 teachers who are voluntarily joining us.
[00:07:50] 50% now are returning, and exciting, we have 50% who are now secondary teachers, which was really something we were striving for. So- So that's a very quick recap.
[00:08:02] Speaker 12: So 20 down to six.
[00:08:05] Speaker 13: Down to six. And, and
[00:08:06] Speaker 12: Yeah, six brave souls. And then, okay.
[00:08:07] Speaker 13: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Speaker 12: Okay. So, so when you were down to six, okay, when you, when, when you were down, when you were down to six- What made you continue to think that this was gonna be a good idea?
[00:08:18] Speaker 14: That's a great question. That was ...
[00:08:21] Speaker 15: Yeah.
[00:08:21] Speaker 14: So that was the year that Suzie and I had moved into coaching positions. and it was that we knew that this work was important, and if we stopped it, it would be dead in the water.
[00:08:31] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:31] Speaker 14: And so if there were six people that were willing to learn along with us during that time, we would work- we would learn along with them.
[00:08:39] And I'll tell you that, in our district, in order to run a class, s- you're supposed to have at least 10 people. And so I had to go to bat for this pro- for this collaborative to say, "I know I only have six. Can you, will you still let me run it and see if we can make it bigger by next year?" And
[00:08:56] Speaker 12: s- So just, yeah, just to clarify.
[00:08:58] See how I told you I was gonna interrupt continuously? That's okay.
[00:09:00] Speaker 14: That's great. That's okay.
[00:09:01] Speaker 12: So you're talking about running a class. You're talking about not a classroom, you're talking about running professional development where educators get credit.
[00:09:10] Speaker 14: Correct.
[00:09:11] Speaker 12: Okay. So, so there is an expense, and they, and the district decided 10 was the, was the cutoff point, where below that.
[00:09:19] So you got them, you got them to continue. So a- as you're working with these folks, were those the, the people who you were coaching? Is, were those the ... Did you go into the classroom to talk about that?
[00:09:32] Speaker 14: Interestingly enough, these were people that had heard about the collaborative from the last year and a half of work that had happened.
[00:09:40] So these were just word of mouth people that were just interested. these were not yet the handpicked people that we had gone out and said, "We think that you would be really interested in this, and we invite you to come and do this for a year with us." these were just quite literally s- I know, Suzie, you just said six brave souls that had heard-
[00:09:57] about it and were interested. And that in itself, it, like, they had the intrinsic motivation that even during a hard year when we came back in a hybrid manner, and then, like you had all the masking protocol. Like, there was so much going on, during that COVID-19, pandemic that- We were really proud to even have six people that were excited to do this work on top of everything else they were juggling.
[00:10:22] Speaker 12: Well, you know, that, that's interesting, you know, the, the commitment of the six people because one of the things that you know that there's always a little bit of anonymity when there's a bigger group.
[00:10:33] Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:34] Speaker 12: Yes. So it must have been a real special six. Were there ... You know, even though there were six, they were self-selected, they wanted to be there.
[00:10:41] Were there any, still any, problems push- not pushback, but just, with the content itself or did everybody say, "Oh, okay. We're good, we're good"?
[00:10:50] Speaker 13: No, they were, they were really in, all in. I think the people at the beginning have really, were really looking for how can I refine my instruction? And this isn't another thing.
[00:11:04] It's not a curriculum. It's not a program. It is just good teaching, and they were wanting to just make themselves better teachers.
[00:11:14] Speaker 14: And out of those six brave souls from that one year, we have about three of them still in our collaborative today.
[00:11:20] Speaker 12: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, you know, I, I cut you off so quickly.
[00:11:26] We really didn't have a chance to talk about exactly what the collaborative is. so, so we talked about PD that was one and done, and we talked about you've got these brave souls that are continuing to be with you. But just what exactly does the collaborative look like? How does it operate?
[00:11:47] Speaker 13: So again, we have, currently over 100 people, but our format is that we meet, once a month, and that is in a hybrid format.
[00:11:58] So we start, with an in piece- in-person meeting in September, always at the beginning of the year. And then in some of the harder months, like October, when we have a lot of parent-teacher conferences, or December when it's just December, testing months, we will meet online through WebEx. And so we have eight classes a year.
[00:12:20] Speaker 14: we have 10 classes a year. 10 classes a year.
[00:12:22] Speaker 13: Five in person. See? I don't even know.
[00:12:24] Speaker 14: Five in person and five on WebEx. And like Suzie said, on those hard months where, we have parent-teacher conferences, there are holidays, there's testing, those are the times that we end up p- having people say, "Well, I probably won't be able to join your class because I can't attend, you know, anywhere between three and five of those harder month classes."
[00:12:44] So by moving it into a hybrid, and we've learned this with, our time together. Mm-hmm. It used to be all in person, and moving to be more flexible for people. When it's online, we can record those sessions, so if they miss them, well, they can ... The idea is that they're gonna go back, they're gonna watch the session, and then they do a reflection assignment afterward.
[00:13:03] So they don't miss out on the learning just because they have commitments to their school. They wanna be a part of the learning, and we've allowed them to be able to, to continue that. So we've found that really honoring the humans- Mm-hmm ... that are teachers, right? We all have families. We all have, work- they're coaching.
[00:13:22] Speaker 13: Right.
[00:13:22] Speaker 14: They have p- Working
[00:13:23] Speaker 13: full time. Yeah. I mean, these are
[00:13:25] Speaker 14: very busy humans. We have to be flexible as well and meet them where they're at.
[00:13:31] Speaker 12: So you ... Okay, so you need to be flexible, meet them where they're at, which to me implies that there are some requirements besides just turning on your camera.
[00:13:42] Speaker 13: Yes,
[00:13:43] Speaker 12: and- And, and things there.
[00:13:44] Okay ...
[00:13:44] Speaker 13: yes, we have no homework per se. Our homework that we assign them is to go back to your classrooms and try the things. You try to implement these practices, see how it's going. You're gonna fail. You're gonna fall on your face a bit, and we want you to come back and crowdsource and talk about some strengths and opportunities, and just continue to grow as teachers.
[00:14:06] We really want to build this community of practice. And w- in a district that's this large, we have 35,000 students, we're spread over 400 square miles, it is tricky to network, to build community a- out, just outside your building. And we have found that that is part of what brings people back together all the time too, is the ability to develop relationships across our district, and crowdsource, and brainstorm, and collaborate together.
[00:14:36] Speaker 14: And the biggest question we get is, "Well, if you don't have any homework, how are you holding people accountable for actually doing the work in their classrooms?" And what we find is, I mean, the, the word collaborative speaks for itself. They aren't just receiving information from the facilitators. Mm-hmm.
[00:14:51] They are... We have lots of time built into our sessions where they are s- talking, and not only networking with one another, but as Suzie said, bouncing ideas off of one another. "I did this. It went really well. I did this. There was a barrier. What ideas might you all have for me to overcome that barrier- Yeah
[00:15:08] or make some tweaks to make my practice better?" And, what we found is that accountability for talking about it in front of your peers makes it so that there is that motivation to actually try the things in your classroom. Mm-hmm. 'Cause if you come to that meeting and you don't have anything to share, it's a little weird.
[00:15:27] It is.
[00:15:28] Speaker 13: It, this is the b- this is peer pressure in its best form.
[00:15:31] Speaker 15: In its best form.
[00:15:32] Speaker 13: Yeah. In its best form. We talk about this all the time. This is the best version of peer pressure, and they are so intrinsically motivated. And it just feeds on itself. The energy feeds on itself. like we said, people can join year after year, and we do have, we have now developed almost tiers of expertise where we have a pretty large group of people that have been with us for three or more years, and they're starting to maybe lead groups for us, or could fill in for us, or we take them to schools to do a little breakout session or lead a content area.
[00:16:09] And so now we have that group of people. Then we have a group of people that are maybe two years in, who are not learning the basics but are still solidifying their practice. And then we have the brand new, we just started, we know nothing yet. And so from those six brave souls to now, we have almost a learning progression of sorts in our group.
[00:16:31] And it's just this beautiful- They get
[00:16:35] Speaker 14: more ideas- Yeah ... from one another- Mm-hmm ... than they do just from us. Mm. And that's because we have such a spectrum of, of expertise at this point, which is very exciting.
[00:16:45] Speaker 12: So what's the expectation for how long they're gonna stay in the collaborative?
[00:16:49] Speaker 14: I-
[00:16:50] Speaker 13: We don't have one.
[00:16:50] Speaker 14: We don't have one. I mean, they have to stay, they have to partake and participate for a year to earn the two credits for that year. But, other than that, there is not an expectation- Mm-hmm ... that they come back. We just hope they do. We, we make the, we have the people who do come back at the very end of the year talk about why they choose to come back.
[00:17:10] this year Suzie had- Yeah ... a couple people who, they took a year off, quote, unquote, "took a year off."
[00:17:15] Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:16] Speaker 14: They came back.
[00:17:16] Speaker 13: They came back. So I generally work with the returning members, and I had a few people that came back in September, and they said, "I don't know why I took... That was so dumb. I don't know why I took a year off."
[00:17:28] "I'm so excited to be..." And they literally were hugging each other, and, "We're so happy to be back." I mean, Gene, it is the most beautiful thing to watch these humans who are tired at the end of a day and are, you know, working so hard in their classroom every day come together and just light up about not only seeing each other, but, "What did you try?"
[00:17:49] and, "What did you try?" and, "Oh, my..." It is, it is the most fulfilling thing that Shane and I could watch every year.
[00:17:56] Speaker 14: Yeah.
[00:17:57] Speaker 13: It's them learning amongst themselves.
[00:17:59] Speaker 14: And we just create the space for the community. Mm. They're the ones that really keep the community rolling. They are, they are cultivating it every single time that we meet.
[00:18:09] Speaker 12: You know, it's funny you use the word cultivating because- Because here's, here's what I worry about, and I don't think you guys are creating a cult. But I, I always say that I am cult adjacent to at least- Uh-huh. Oh ... at least three different, three different cults. science of learning.
[00:18:28] Speaker 13: It gets thrown out there a little bit.
[00:18:29] Speaker 12: I mean, we- Re- re- ResearchEd, EduProtocols, and I'm adjacent because they're, you know, I thought, "Man, that's good. That's good." But, you know, I'm not a joiner, okay? So here's, here's my question about, you know, you've talked about all the wonderful things that these guys do, and they go back to the schools and, and they present.
[00:18:51] Is there any sort of, I don't want to say animosity, but just, "Oh, oh, those guys. Those are, those, those are the collaborative guys"? Oh,
[00:19:00] Speaker 13: that's interesting.
[00:19:01] Speaker 14: Not that we've heard, and I'm
[00:19:02] Speaker 13: okay with that. Yeah, we, we haven't heard that. We haven't heard that. And honestly, it, it's pretty... To have 102 people across our district, I think we've, we've tipped the scales where we don't hear that anymore because we have- I don't know that there's a single school that we don't have at least one person.
[00:19:25] Maybe there's ... We have 60 schools, so we'd have to- Okay ... do that research. Yeah. I think we've got at least one person from everywhere. And so it's just word of mouth, and the word of mouth, as far as we know, is very positive. And I think part of that is that we also don't, make ourselves the sage on the stage.
[00:19:48] We are really not interested in being the e- only experts in the room with this, and I think that would get really stale. We are constantly bringing in guest speakers like yourself or, Patrice Bain or Pooja Agarwal, who- a- and that is keeping things fresh, and we wanna give people direct access to these experts.
[00:20:09] I think that's part of what keeps it from being just about us and a cult. And, and the content- ...
[00:20:16] Speaker 14: it's,
[00:20:17] Speaker 13: it's ... But I think also
[00:20:19] Speaker 14: the content lends itself to, it's not, and I hate to use the word kitschy, but- Mm-hmm ... it's not kitschy.
[00:20:24] Speaker 13: Mm.
[00:20:24] Speaker 14: And it's not, you know, oh, the pendulum is swinging in a certain way and this is just an, an, a new approach that was, you know, used years ago.
[00:20:34] It, this is evidenced and research-based- Mm-hmm ... content that everyone that once they learn a little bit more about the brain can connect to and go, "No, that actually makes a lot of sense. I can understand it in my brain," and why-
[00:20:49] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm ...
[00:20:49] Speaker 14: teaching, understanding the brain and teaching in certain ways helps our students learn.
[00:20:54] I can see that, you know, when we say low pr- or low-prep, high-yield strategies, that's not to say it's not low planning. Low prep means that we've created routines that our students know that we can use at a drop of a hat that don't take a ton of, like, cutting, pasting, printing, copying time. but they are really supportive of what teachers wanna do.
[00:21:18] At the end of the day, the whole goal is that- Mm-hmm ... students are learning.
[00:21:22] Speaker 13: Right. That's exactly where
[00:21:24] Speaker 15: I was going.
[00:21:24] Speaker 13: Yeah.
[00:21:25] Speaker 15: It came to my mind.
[00:21:26] Speaker 13: It's why we
[00:21:27] Speaker 15: do
[00:21:27] Speaker 13: things together. Right? It's why we're together all the time, is because most importantly what brings people back is the net result, which is student achievement.
[00:21:35] Speaker 15: Yeah.
[00:21:36] Speaker 13: And the data that we collect at the end of the year amongst our collaborative members is, you w- sometimes when I make the spreadsheet, I actually say, "This is not a typo. This teacher's go- o- growth in," you know, we use i-Ready most of the time to measure, some of the achievement, is sometimes 200% they have growth in their class in reading or math.
[00:22:00] 150, we see constantly 150, 160% growth in their w- in their students. That's no- that's what also brings people back, the end result.
[00:22:13] Speaker 12: How... Okay, so, let's talk a little bit about administration. I mean, and I know you guys are in, district administration, but- Ish. Uh, ish. Ish? Okay. Ish. We're
[00:22:23] Speaker 13: ad- admin adjacent, I would say.
[00:22:28] Speaker 12: So, so, I'm a teacher, and I'm the only teacher in my school in the, in the collaborative, What do the, what does the administrators, what do the administrators know about what's happening in the collaborative?
[00:22:41] Speaker 14: So good news is that, over the course of the year, because the, the word of mouth from teachers has been so positive, it has gotten to, building leadership.
[00:22:51] It has also gotten to district leadership, and we've been invited in to present to all levels of building administrators. So we've ... Last year we did multiple, like four or five sessions with secondary principals, which, you know, between us is usually kind of a difficult crowd to get excited about.
[00:23:10] Speaker 12: What?
[00:23:11] Speaker 13: Yeah. Yeah. Secondary's no joke, right? So- Uh,
[00:23:15] Speaker 14: it's not. And, you know, Susie and I come from the elementary world. We have a third facilitator who comes from the high school world. And, you know, our job, we felt like our job last year was to really make this, seem like it is important work in their schools as well, and we had great feedback from them.
[00:23:35] And we ended up being asked to come into five of those secondary schools this year to do professional development at the staff level, which is very exciting. So we've been able to talk to all of the secondary principals, we've talked to all of the elementary school principals, and all of the APs and deans across the system.
[00:23:51] So when teachers are like, "Oh, I'm doing this thing," there's at least some understanding and knowledge from the leadership of what that thing is in terms of science of learning. Mm-hmm. Which is very cool.
[00:24:02] Speaker 12: Okay. So let's go, let's go back to the beginning and talk about stuff that wasn't effective, PD that wasn't effective.
[00:24:09] How was the PD that you just described working with administrators, you know, how do you prevent them from sitting there with their arms crossed and, "Okay, well I ... Okay, when this is done I don't have to worry about it." That's a- What, what, what, what's different about how you present that content?
[00:24:26] Speaker 13: Great question.
[00:24:27] So we, we will not do a one and done. If, if a school is looking for us to actually come into their building, we're very conscious that they're being, you know, told that this is going to be a focus, and they're not coming to us voluntarily. And we just, we won't do a one session. We will usually say a minimum of three to four, and we give them kind of bite-sized nuggets of this information just to kind of level the playing field and give them some background knowledge, and always invite them to also join the collaborative as well.
[00:25:05] Speaker 14: Yeah. And we, we really try to play onto, and I know I kind of briefly t- touched on it earlier- We wanna connect it to their experiences with their own brains. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, we want them to, experience what learners experience in the classroom. So when we were working with those secondary principals, we would do a lot of their hands-on, activities.
[00:25:28] And I w- I hate to s- use the word activities 'cause it sounds- Mm-hmm ... more frivolous, but they're, to showcase how their brains are working. And so we would do, like, multitasking, examples. So I would- I pulled this, the one example from Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide, by Yana, let's see, Yana Weinstein and Megan Tsumaki.
[00:25:48] And the idea is that you have them do one single task at a time. They say the ABCs to themselves. See how fast that w- that happens. They count from one to 26 in their heads. How fast does that happen? Now we're gonna multitask the two, put them together. What happens to your cognitive load? What happens to the speed at which you can, do those two tasks at the same time?
[00:26:10] And just having experiences like that helps people- Mm-hmm ... understand their brains a little bit better and go, "Oh- That is a tangible way that I can understand why this is important. Mm-hmm. And I can also understand why it would be important that our teachers know this so that they can help our students be better learners.
[00:26:29] Mm-hmm. Right? So I would say those hands-on experiences around how their brains learn has been the most beneficial, especially for our leadership.
[00:26:37] Speaker 13: And implications for lesson design is another focus that we're constantly talking about. We do a lot of presenting on Gretchen Wagner's working memory mini-lesson, with her permission of course, and how that translates to when you're talking too much as a teacher, and where you need to chunk and pause, and s- help students understand their own limitations in working memory and why they're not holding onto things, and generally how we can shift the cognitive load to our students.
[00:27:09] Because one thing I would say all teachers have in common or all schools are struggling with is having the teachers be the hardest working person in the room. And so regardless of whether they're in the collaborative or we're coming to you, that is a theme that kind of resonates with everybody. And so f- in three or four sessions we hope that they walk away with, "Okay, how can I shift to create more student agency to have learners be the drivers of what's happening in the classroom versus me being up there all the time doing all the work?"
[00:27:43] Yeah. Students need to be doing the cognitive lifting.
[00:27:46] Speaker 12: Okay. So, I'm still, ... I'm m- I'm always interested in implementation, the implementation of these ideas. So I know that, I'm, I'm just guessing that outside the collaborative that there are, the schools have some sort of PLC, whatever you wanna call them.
[00:28:03] Mm-hmm. Their grade level teams, whatever. Okay. and so the collaborative becomes, I don't wanna say a shadow, but an additional type of, of PLC where they actually can go and, and feel safe, feel valued. There's a shared understanding of what they're talking about. I'm not- prejudicing myself with regards to that description, am I, with what should happen at the PLC?
[00:28:28] Yeah. Go. Okay. So after you've, so after you've talked to the, staff and the, the principal, the principal or admin, whatever you call them there, has said, "This is not optional. You guys are, you guys are coming," and then everything that you guys said made so much sense. Like, like, you want somebody to be there, it's gotta be worthwhile.
[00:28:49] Absolutely. And it, it sounds, it sounds like you make it worthwhile. Is there any, is there any follow-up with administrators? Do they have an administrative PLC that they invite you guys to, to how to, help incorporate this besides, you know, "Oh, next year put an app in for the collaborative?" Is it... So do you have stuff for them to do?
[00:29:13] Speaker 13: I think you're onto something.
[00:29:14] Speaker 14: Yeah, that's, that's an idea, Gene.
[00:29:16] Speaker 13: You should, we should trademark that.
[00:29:18] Speaker 12: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:20] Speaker 13: That's your next book. not PLC per se, but there is al- of course, you know, secondary principal meetings and elementary principal meetings, and that's where we have presented in the past. I, I would say they-
[00:29:36] Speaker 14: Yeah, we
[00:29:36] Speaker 13: don't- They network amongst each other.
[00:29:38] Speaker 14: They do. There's nothing, you're asking if there's anything formal, and we- No ... unfortunately don't have anything-
[00:29:43] Speaker 12: Well- ...
[00:29:44] Speaker 14: formal per se.
[00:29:45] Speaker 12: I, I, I'm not, I'm not a formal person.
[00:29:49] Speaker 13: What? Neither
[00:29:52] Speaker 12: are you? So, so I don't have checklists. We don't know many people that are. I, yeah, I, yeah, I don't, I, I don't have checklists. I don't, I don't have tho- I don't have those things. I'm an idea guy, you know, as you just, okay, you guys just recognized. But, but still they need some structure because, you know, just as the, you know, we talk about the PLCs, what happens at PLCs that are not successful?
[00:30:13] Oh, it becomes a gripe session. It becomes, "What about this?" You know, it becomes all of the things except what you're supposed to be there talking about, which is instruction and, and the things that you guys talk about. Administrative meetings are exactly the same, aren't they?
[00:30:30] Speaker 15: Yes.
[00:30:30] Speaker 12: You know? So I, I, I, I don't n- no, there's no problem- Not
[00:30:33] Speaker 15: all the time, not all
[00:30:34] Speaker 12: the
[00:30:34] Speaker 15: time
[00:30:35] Speaker 12: y- y- you know? But i- it's very, it's very difficult to talk about instruction, if they don't know the things that you guys know, if they don't know the things you're telling these other teachers, about, about what- what's going on. So okay, that horse is dead.
[00:30:51] Speaker 13: Well, I was gonna say, though, often after we have been in a school, first of all, we always ask for feedback.
[00:30:57] That is incredibly important to us, and we have an anonymous feedback form for everything we do so that we can determine trends, we can look for next steps, we can point-blank ask people their comfort level and what they would like to tackle next. And so based on that, we craft our next session, because we don't have packages or anything of PD.
[00:31:21] And also, we've often been invited to plan with teams afterward, because I think we do create a safe space and are so clearly focused on just good instruction that teams will often reach out to us to come out to their school and plan with them to help them embed more of this work into their lessons.
[00:31:44] Speaker 14: Yeah, and additionally, there will be leaders that when they have made this a focus, i- I mean, it does come down to accountability from leadership of whether or not these practices are being implemented. And so, like last year we did a s- like a few sessions at a school, and that principal did walkthroughs- Mm-hmm
[00:32:03] specifically on, like, looking for science of learning practices and implementation in her teachers' rooms.
[00:32:09] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:10] Speaker 14: And based off of those walkthroughs, we met with her, we looked at their feedback, and we could craft sessions based on what she was seeing in their classrooms and what we were, noticing from the feedback form.
[00:32:22] So it really is a, a partnership. I wouldn't say that, like again, we don't have a formal way for leaders to talk with one another, but if the leader wants to make a point to make sure that the implementation's happening in their school, we do support them through that process of, "Here's some things you might look for.
[00:32:40] Here are some questions you might ask." and we found that that, that has been successful, which has been good.
[00:32:48] Speaker 12: Okay, so going back to the, the, the collaborative, let's leave the administrators alone for a little bit. Going back to the folks in the collaborative, you said that they, may also lead something at their sites.
[00:33:01] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:01] Speaker 12: So what, what does, what does that look like? And again, I'm, what, here's what I'm worried about, you know, that, you know, which I learned from, I should never, I should never start where I'm gonna have to remember a name. The guy who just wrote the digital, book, who's testifying before-
[00:33:19] Speaker 15: Oh, Jared
[00:33:19] Speaker 12: Horvath
[00:33:20] Jared. Jared, Jared, Jared Horvath. Okay. You know, where I learned, you know, about the tall poppy syndrome. You know, where, you know, like, well, why is this teacher doing it? Well, you know, I, you know, the principal's favorite or what? You know, why should, why should I listen to this person? They attended three meetings, and now they're an expert, and now they're gonna tell me how to do this.
[00:33:40] what, what does, how is that, facilitated? How, how do you guys support that happening in, in the schools?
[00:33:48] Speaker 13: Really, like Shane said, it's a partnership. There are very few times where someone would be asked to do that and not partner with us and- Oh ... and talk about and plan with us beforehand. Okay. they usually have a very specific goal.
[00:34:06] I'm thinking of Sean Flynn at one of our schools who is in an ELD position, and so he will often do some presentations at his middle school on ELD content, but embedding the science of learning. We happen to have five other people at that particular school who are also in the collaborative. So they're seen not, I wouldn't say they're seen as experts or the favorite, but they're seen as, C- researchers in their, in their own particular content.
[00:34:36] They're seen as leaders in the school in the most positive way, not as know-it-alls, not as-
[00:34:45] Speaker 14: Yeah, and I- I
[00:34:46] Speaker 13: don't know ...
[00:34:46] Speaker 14: I feel like we, we try to model that too. So a lot of times we talk about how, like, the collaborative isn't the Shane and Susie show.
[00:34:52] Speaker 13: Right.
[00:34:53] Speaker 14: Right? Mm-hmm. we are a community of learners.
[00:34:55] Right. Like, we are always constantly learning. And although we have a vast knowledge base, it is still continuing to grow. And the same thing is said for our collab members. And our collab members- Yeah ... that's how we tell them to approach their staffs, where it's like- Mm-hmm ... "I'm doing this stuff. I think it's very exciting."
[00:35:11] Mm-hmm. "It doesn't mean I'm an expert. It means that I think this is something we could all grow in together." Mm-hmm. And there have been times where, I know over the last, like, five years, I, I don't, I've experienced where a teacher said, "I really wanna bring this work to my school, but I don't wanna lead it for that reason.
[00:35:29] I'm, I'm a little worried about this." Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. "Will you come in and do some leading?" And sh- and
[00:35:33] Speaker 13: shadow us or-
[00:35:34] Speaker 14: Yes ... be
[00:35:35] Speaker 13: with us.
[00:35:35] Speaker 14: Yeah. So I might start that work out, and then hand it over to those staff members- Mm-hmm ... so that they can kinda take it and run. but then it doesn't seem like it's coming directly from them.
[00:35:47] It's like, oh, well, this is something that was brought, and it's being handed off to the staff because you all are very, capable professionals to do the learning together.
[00:35:57] Speaker 13: And, and also I think where I was headed is a- we often see that they would sometimes rather hear from their peer-
[00:36:06] Speaker 14: 100% ...
[00:36:06] Speaker 13: than from someone coming from outside the school.
[00:36:09] They get a lot of people coming from outside, right? Curriculum people or admin people who maybe haven't been in the classroom for a while. And that sometimes doesn't land as well as the person who teaches next to you down the hall who is having some success and is saying that this is helping their students.
[00:36:29] We're very, I don't think there's, out of 102 people, I can't think of one collaborative member who isn't there for the purpose of helping their students. And when that is the message that's being conveyed, I think they're pretty excited to hear from their peers.
[00:36:44] Speaker 14: And then- Actually ... one of the things that Susie started to do last year, which was brilliant, was when we-
[00:36:50] Speaker 15: I know,
[00:36:50] Speaker 14: it's brilliant.
[00:36:51] You are, I cannot, I am on pins and needles.
[00:36:55] Speaker 12: Did you just kiss her cheek?
[00:36:58] Speaker 14: I could have. Well, what was brilliant was, you know, we had been going in and supporting staffs as administrators had asked us to come in- Oh, I get it.
[00:37:08] Speaker 13: You're gonna say now.
[00:37:09] Speaker 14: Okay ... and she was like, and she's like, "It was brilliant."
[00:37:12] Speaker 15: I don't know about that.
[00:37:14] Speaker 14: But, you know, she really did have the feedback that she was getting back from a particular site was, we would, we love this, the idea of this content. When you, when you have someone say, "We love the idea of it," you're like, okay, but you need- Right ...
[00:37:26] Speaker 13: a 180.
[00:37:27] Speaker 14: There's
[00:37:27] Speaker 13: a but. There's a but
[00:37:28] Speaker 12: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a big one.
[00:37:30] Speaker 14: Yeah. But I would like to see what it looks like in my content area, what it would look like for my grade level. And so Suzy said, "All right. We can do that." So we harnessed the, I would say, the collective efficacy-
[00:37:44] Speaker 13: Yep ...
[00:37:45] Speaker 14: of, the collaborative, and Suzy called in on, multiple members from different content areas.
[00:37:51] This was a K-8 school.
[00:37:52] Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:52] Speaker 14: So not only was it, elementary teachers, but also content specific middle school teachers that she brought in to her next session, and they did breakouts talking about ways that they used these practices in their classroom to support student learning. And so it de-centered Suzy as the facilitator with all of the knowledge.
[00:38:11] Right And it brought in, even though that school had quite a handful of educators that had been in the collaborative, even the staff members were like, "Yes, we know. We've heard from them. We know that they have expertise. What else is out there?" And so Suzy said, "I will bring people from other schools here to talk to you all."
[00:38:30] And so really bringing in and cross-pollinating- Right ... ideas from other schools, and bringing teachers to talk with one another just at the staff meeting level was really powerful. Mm-hmm.
[00:38:40] Speaker 13: So there, it was eight, I brought eight a- And we paid them, right? We got permission to give them, four hours of extra duty time, and we paid these eight people to come out to this K-8 school, and like Shane said, lead breakout sessions for here's what middle school math looked like for me doing this work.
[00:38:59] Here's what K through 2, looked like in s- with science of learning, and here are some resources, and here are some things that I do in my room every day. And it was just a smashing success, and we've now taken that, and we ask those people to do that frequently now. We tap into them quite a bit, and we, again, we always pay them and compensate them for that extra time.
[00:39:22] But that's how we build that tier of expertise. That's how we bring leaders. We bring everyone to the table when we do that, and move away from that center of just Shane and I.
[00:39:35] Speaker 12: You know, you have, in my mind addressed several big issues, in, in your collaborative. And, and when I was sitting in your session in-- where were we?
[00:39:45] St. Louis. I was, I was thinking about this. Number one, the idea of the ongoing and that you had it tiered. You had for new teachers, you had second year, e-et cetera. I think that's, that is critical because, you know, when you listen to teachers, this doesn't apply to me. Right. And your an- your answer right now, you know, handled that, handled that objection as well.
[00:40:07] another thing that I think, a-and one of the big things I hinted at earlier and why people, I think, I think this is an important episode for people to listen to, is that, you know, we go to conferences and we meet teachers, and we'll talk to them, and when they're not presenting or they're you know, you have a chance that you could really get the, the real story.
[00:40:30] And not that they're not telling the real story, because I know that they're telling the truth of what happens in their classrooms. But when you get them by themselves and you ask, "So how many people are doing this in your school?" "I'm the only one."
[00:40:44] Speaker 15: Hmm. "
[00:40:45] Speaker 12: I can't get my principal. I've talked to my principal.
[00:40:47] They don't want to do it." They, you know. And so, "So what do you do? Do you do staff development?" "Nope. I just shut up. I keep my head down, and I don't, you know, I don't make waves." And so that's w- another thing that you've addressed with this, with, okay, here's a teacher, wants to share. They, they have things to share.
[00:41:09] You know they do. And you've provided a way in for them so that they don't have to be that tall poppy cut down.
[00:41:17] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:18] Speaker 12: They're j- they're just- they've just invited somebody in who knows they know your message is gonna be helpful. They have confidence in what you're gonna say. They're not gonna get beat up because, oh, you brought Susie and Shane in.
[00:41:31] I'm sorry. Is it Susie and Shane or Shane and Susie?
[00:41:34] Speaker 15: It's interchangeable. I was like, there's no hierarchy. It's totally, it's totally interchangeable-
[00:41:39] Speaker 12: Oh, okay ...
[00:41:40] Speaker 15: depending on the day probably.
[00:41:41] Speaker 12: But I, but I think those are, those are big things because I don't know if you have those conversations y- you know, with folks at conferences, but they're, they're crestfallen.
[00:41:50] Mm. It's like, "No, nobody's doing this. I can't get anybody to do it." And, and I think that's part of the, you know, the characteristics of the cults that we're adjacent to. Yeah. Like, it's really good, but nobody does it. Yeah. So I'm going to this conference so I can talk to people who will- Well- ... that I can talk to.
[00:42:06] Speaker 13: Yes. And I think it is, you, that make, reminds me about how contagious this work is. I think a lot of us found, I certainly found I was in a place in 2019 where I was exhausted, and I was feeling really burnt out. Before, I felt like I did all the work in my classroom, and I found with the science of learning that it did shift that cognitive load and created paths for inspiration and ins- intrinsic motivation in my students, which then filled my bucket again as an educator.
[00:42:44] And I think we find that amongst our collaborative members, that we have excited people again about this field and about the work that they do every day. That is very contagious. So when they talk in their staff, they don't sound like they're on a pedestal. It's not
[00:43:01] Speaker 14: a holier than thou thing.
[00:43:03] Speaker 13: No. Right. It, it is about, like, I love being a teacher again.
[00:43:08] Speaker 14: That's contagious. And we've had, we've had, we now have an entire team from one school where it started with one member-
[00:43:16] Speaker 13: Mm-hmm ...
[00:43:16] Speaker 14: and how impactful it was for her to find her love of teaching again, that she brought her teammate who, kind of kicking and screaming, to the next year collaborative. Yep. Yeah.
[00:43:27] And after two months, that team member was like, "Oh my gosh. This is it." And now they are in their third or fourth year. Third, third or fourth. Yeah. and they've now brought in the rest of their team because they were tired too. Yep. And so I think it's the, it is the power of, you know, there's different levels of power, right?
[00:43:46] There's authoritative power where the principal says top-down, "This is what we're doing." But we really love to tap into relational power.
[00:43:53] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:53] Speaker 14: whether it be the relationships and rapport that we've built, over the course of our time here in the system with teachers. That's why I love doing professional development, no matter if it's science of learning or anything.
[00:44:04] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:04] Speaker 14: Because I wanna get to know people. Mm-hmm. So that when I say to them, "Hey, this might be something you're interested in," they'll go, "Well, you know, sh- I like Shane enough that I can, I can maybe try this out." Right.
[00:44:17] Speaker 13: She's pretty trustworthy, so.
[00:44:19] Speaker 12: Yeah.
[00:44:19] Speaker 15: I'm okay.
[00:44:20] Speaker 14: and the relational power within one another, to really believe that if someone's saying, "Hey, this was, this was really helpful," that someone will say, "I would, I would wanna do PD that's really helpful.
[00:44:32] That, that sounds pretty nice."
[00:44:36] Speaker 12: When do you reach epidemic level of this contagion that, that you've got 50% of the teachers, you've got 70% of the teachers? Right. Yeah. You've got, you've got the, you've got the, you've got the principal say, "We're bringing in the, we're bringing in the shots. You're all getting a shot
[00:44:53] Speaker 13: now."
[00:44:53] Yeah.
[00:44:53] Speaker 12: We're g- we're gonna-
[00:44:54] Speaker 13: That's a ... Yeah, it's a great question. Tom Sherrington was in our session at ResearchEd, and he and I chatted about this exact thing, actually. H- h- when do we move away from volunteer to mandatory? And, and, you know, we don't really have an answer that, for that, partly because it's actually above our pay grade.
[00:45:15] but also we love that it's the grassroots. We love that it's the good peer pressure. And if the state of Colorado moved to mandating this in some way, of course we'd be thrilled about that, but frankly, in our district, we're pretty happy to have this be a volunteer situation.
[00:45:38] Speaker 14: Yeah, and I'll, I'll give an example of how that has worked to our, our success- Mm-hmm
[00:45:42] here recently. So I'm the elementary ELA curriculum coordinator, which means that I do all of the reading and writing programming and support for all 30, almost thir- we're gonna have 31 elementary schools. And, we have a program that the teachers vehemently had really disliked the writing module part of it.
[00:46:02] It didn't work for them. I would say it was probably not the best way to teach writing, and everyone knew there was a better way. and so we brought in a different writing approach training, but we didn't say, "This is for everyone." Mm-hmm. We invited schools to choose to be trained in it. And so the first pilot year we had four schools that decided to kind of take the plunge and see how it went.
[00:46:25] they had really wonderful things to say about it, so you keep pitching it to the group. And so year two, we onboarded 12 more schools. word of mouth again spread that this was really helpful. People felt empowered in their writing instruction, and they felt like they were writing teachers, which they hadn't felt like that before.
[00:46:46] And, students were feeling like they were writers, and that was also maybe a feeling that they hadn't experienced before, which was exciting. And so then the third year we had onboarded 12 more schools, and this last year I finally onboarded the last three. So in the course of four years, with a grassroots effort-
[00:47:03] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm
[00:47:03] Speaker 14: I have all of my elementary system trained in this writing approach voluntarily.
[00:47:10] Speaker 12: Well, just to clarify, those first four schools that did it-
[00:47:14] Speaker 14: Right. Mm-hmm ...
[00:47:14] Speaker 12: did, were all the teachers at the sites expected to use the program?
[00:47:19] Speaker 14: Yes. Mm-hmm. So that was the, in order- I mean, it's a lot of resources, it's a lot of money, and it's a lot of time to spend in that training
[00:47:26] Speaker 13: But they had voted in on that.
[00:47:28] They had, they themselves had chosen to take that plunge, so they were kind of a- akin to our six brave souls in COVID, right? They decided they wanted to be in on this and had taken a school-wide vote to make that happen.
[00:47:42] Speaker 14: And they had to... It's part of our master agreement that, one, they have a say in their professional development, and two, in order to use their professional development time in certain ways, they have to pass a variance.
[00:47:54] So there has to be
[00:47:55] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm
[00:47:56] Speaker 14: There has to be buy-in. and I'll say that across the system as we had to have all the rest of the schools pass these variances for their master agreement to receive this training, they all, they all passed it with, I would say, I think the lowest was 95% at one school.
[00:48:12] Okay. Okay And so when I, when I think about when y- coming back to your original question of when does this become mandatory, in our system, just because of it's a very diverse system- Yes ... Susie already said it's a c- 411 square miles. We have, anywhere between rural areas to suburban areas to more urban areas.
[00:48:34] And, we, we can't just say one size fits all, you all are gonna receive the same training. We do have to invite them to the table, and over the course of this time, it's p- our momentum has shifted now where it's becoming more are being trained, whether it's a single training at a conference that we do, or b- joining the collaborative or us coming into a school.
[00:48:54] But I would say, I would wanna do the math on that actually- Yeah ... of how many teachers out of the entire system have at least had some experience of Science of Learning training
[00:49:04] Speaker 12: Well, I'm gonna tell you that, I had one of the teachers who I described who felt very lonely at their school, that they were the, that they were the only ones.
[00:49:14] they were very excited to attend your session. You know, at the ... They felt so hopeful and, and, but their question was, "How do we get it at my school? How do, how do we get, how do we get this thing started?" Okay, so, so I know one of the things that you guys did, you started very slowly, but, but a, a couple...
[00:49:34] How, you know, what suggestions do you have, if somebody wanted to do something in a similar fashion? And, and include in that, like, what the costs were. Like you said, you pay, you know, even though it's, you're not paying tons of money for s- for teachers to come in and, and present, but, but, I'm sure there's some costs involved.
[00:49:55] So what advice would you have for them?
[00:49:57] Speaker 13: I think that starting small piece, so like as maybe a book study, something that's not intimidating, something that doesn't seem daunting. Cher- cherry-pick, right, some people that you know want to improve their practice, and start small. I think not ha- not having a grand plan, maybe it grows organically, but with something as simple as a book study I think is, is a great opening.
[00:50:26] Speaker 14: And is, one of my favorite, pieces of advice that I ever received from my doc advisor, who was my ... When I got my administrative license, like, he also was the facilitator for that program. It was if you wanna make change, you start with a small pilot.
[00:50:41] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:41] Speaker 14: And you let the work in that small pilot speak for itself.
[00:50:46] And that's why we, I know we continue to say it, I'm sure we've beat it like a dead horse, right? Yeah. but the word of mouth really is- very, a strong motivator for other people. And so if you start with those, as Suzie said, you'd kind of cherry-pick influential teachers in your system or in your building, and maybe it's, like, two or three of you that get started.
[00:51:08] And if you're, I'm thinking at an elementary school, maybe you don't choose everyone on your team. Try to choose people on different teams- Mm-hmm ... because they then have relational power with their teammates to get them involved, right? Mm-hmm. So it's really being, strategic about who you're asking to join your small pilot.
[00:51:26] If you're in secondary, it's don't just have only the social studies department do this work. Right, right. Ask and m- move across the hall and say, "Hey, I know one person in the math department who might be interested in this." And give them your elevator pitch, right? Don't give them a book and say, "This is, this is cool.
[00:51:42] You should read it." Give them the elevator pitch- Mm ... of how it has made a difference to you and your students.
[00:51:48] Speaker 13: Student, correct. The student piece, obviously, right? Clarity around why we're doing this, which is for student achievement and lifelong learning, at the end of the day, I think is essential.
[00:52:00] Speaker 14: And so you start with that small pilot, and it will hopefully grow.
[00:52:03] And I love, we love to talk about those six brave souls. We do.
[00:52:08] Speaker 13: Because, because we did not have a grand plan. Th- back in 2019, the thought that this would, in 2026, be 102 people and in our eighth year, it, it, there, we would've laughed at you. I mean, th- none of this was planned, but we were, felt so strongly about this work that it just happened organically.
[00:52:29] Speaker 14: And change in education is slow, and so we have to be okay with playing the long game and seeing that it's a marathon and not a sprint. And so if you start with your small pilot, and the next year you encourage one, maybe two other members to kind of join in on that learning, that is growth, right? Yeah.
[00:52:48] and we have to celebrate that growth. It is, it, we are eight years in, is almost a full decade. Mm-hmm. Like, that is, it's a lot of time. We, we
[00:52:56] Speaker 13: do
[00:52:57] Speaker 14: have-
[00:52:57] Speaker 13: Yeah ... plans for year 10.
[00:52:58] Speaker 14: We do. But it takes time, it takes patience- Yeah ... and it takes dedication, but we can't expect things to change overnight and that people will wanna jump on board immediately.
[00:53:10] It's slow, but that slow burn can be really powerful. Mm-hmm.
[00:53:15] Speaker 12: Well, I think even if you don't have the contagion at the rate that you want, I think, again, talking to teachers who, you know, I chat with at conferences and different places, it would really be satisfying for them- You know, just validating for those six or those eight or whoever, or whoever showed up.
[00:53:35] Like, I'm not alone- Well- I'm not alone here.
[00:53:37] Speaker 13: Yeah. Put them in touch with us. We, we would love to chat with people about how it got started and, and some ideas about how they might do s- k- kick this off in their district. So,
[00:53:50] Speaker 14: yeah.
[00:53:50] Speaker 12: Well, you know I love talking to you guys. And we could chat, and we'll chat more the next time we see each other.
[00:53:56] Speaker 13: Yes. Sure
[00:53:57] Speaker 12: will. so but do you have any questions for me before we go?
[00:54:00] Speaker 13: We sure do. So your FAST framework we absolutely love, and in fact our sessions really mirror your framework to e- whether that happened kind of s- Well, we saw your framework when we went- We saw your framework ...
[00:54:17] Speaker 14: this is what we do. This is
[00:54:18] Speaker 13: what
[00:54:18] Speaker 14: we- But now it's explicit.
[00:54:19] Speaker 13: Yes. We were like, "Oh, the reason why we love this so much is 'cause this is what we do." Yeah. And then we actually brought it to our collaborative members to show them how the flow of a lesson is just, it's crucial in terms of, you know, students mastering that content. So our question for you is how did you devise this?
[00:54:40] Like, what was your... How did you field test it? What's the origin story behind your FAST framework? Because it truly is brilliant.
[00:54:49] Speaker 12: Well, I, I appreciate, I appreciate you saying that, and I have to let people know that, Shane was in my session in St. Louis. And there was a photo of her in the session, and she was on a device.
[00:55:01] And I, and I called her out, you know, in a text saying, "I can't believe you're on a device during my session." And then she showed me she was dual coding the, Yes ... her notes were dual coded. Anyway, how, how did it get started? Well, it, in 2003 I was working for another consulting company. And, I really didn't know, I didn't know what I didn't know.
[00:55:26] And, they did good stuff except it was so complex.
[00:55:30] Speaker 15: Mm.
[00:55:31] Speaker 12: You know? And, We would go out into schools, and, there was myself and another fellow, Frank Rodriguez. And we would go out, and we would kind of be asked to go to accounts, s- accounts, schools where the, they liked the content, but they didn't like the people who were doing it.
[00:55:52] So, so we, so we'd go out, and after a while, you know, we'd t- we'd always chat, and we discovered that same way. We like this, but it's way too complicated. Mm. You know, they had like a seven-page lesson plan. Nobody's gonna do a seven-page- No one ... lesson plan. No
[00:56:09] Speaker 15: one's got-
[00:56:10] Speaker 12: And, and so of course, you know, we thought we could do it better.
[00:56:13] And so, and so I started, you know, I started Test Consulting, and, and then we started, you know, working and collaborating. And, we realized that we didn't have to start from scratch. We started with, a name that people aren't gonna know, Madeline Hunter. And, Oh,
[00:56:29] Speaker 13: we know Madeline Hunter.
[00:56:30] Speaker 12: Okay. Okay.
[00:56:31] Speaker 13: We talk about Madeline a lot.
[00:56:32] Speaker 12: Okay. Yeah. So, so, you know, so see, it's very similar because we wanted a structure that wasn't really different because it didn't make sense for it to be really different, whether it was Madeline Hunter or Slavin or whoever. I mean, that's just how you teach. In fact, when we first started doing this, we called it the natural approach to teaching, because it just, you know, like you said, it makes sense.
[00:56:52] And so, you know, that's what, that's what you do. Shut up. You can't teach all of that, you know? We gotta break it down. So that's kinda how it started. I ... You know, did we do a lot of research, field research? I mean, you know, I, I, I feel like, like, on my tombstone I want it to say, "Not Rosenshine, but he did the same stuff."
[00:57:11] You know?
[00:57:12] Speaker 13: Rosenshine adjacent.
[00:57:14] Speaker 12: Rosenshine adjacent. Because what we did is we just watched good teachers.
[00:57:19] Speaker 13: Right.
[00:57:19] Speaker 12: We'd watch good teachers and we'd say, "Well, why did that work?" You know, what was ... What happened there? And so, we just kinda developed it, backwards, from that based on the research. So it's, it was more of a qualitative type of research.
[00:57:33] And Teach Fast is basically the result of that t- you know, 15, 20 years- No, it's longer than that, isn't it? But, you know, but, you know, teachers even, y- you know, when we first started doing this work, they'd say, "How come I didn't learn this in my ed program? You should write a book." Well, I waited until I actually knew something, you know, to, to write the book.
[00:57:55] But the big thing that we had to, get over was how does this apply to, conceptual knowledge? We needed to have a structure that, you know, be- that, that, social studies teachers and science teachers could use because, you know, there are no, there's no procedure, and everybody who was out there talking about explicit instruction would talk about a procedure.
[00:58:18] That's when, like you guys said, you lost them. You know, that's why, that's why, you know, this doesn't apply to me anymore. I knew it doesn't work, et cetera, et cetera. So, that was kind of the, that was kind of the history. I had a, ... I never wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a coach but then found out that they don't hire coaches, you know, you have to teach too.
[00:58:39] And, and so my strength as a coach was teaching, you know, and I could take a average kid and get them good enough to be on the field.
[00:58:50] Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
[00:58:51] Speaker 12: But I didn't know how to transfer that to the classroom. One of the reasons I didn't know how to transfer it to the classroom is I didn't have enough interest in doing it.
[00:59:00] But once I figured out how all of that, you know, breaking it down in small steps, I'm gonna model, I'm gonna watch you do it, I'm gonna give you feedback, I'm gonna, you know, and, and then, you know, that's how, that's how it evolved. But the, but i- here's a, it may be interesting. You decide. The reason that we called it FAST, and we c- because we were coming, we wanted to come up with a name because this was, you know, turn of the century, this was, like, right before Common Core.
[00:59:31] Mm. There was starting to be one of those revolutions, and so we didn't wanna call it direct instruction, we didn't wanna call it explicit instruction, we didn't wanna call it explicit direct instruction, so we called it focused instruction. And, and I j- I remember being on the phone at the end of the day, "What are we gonna call it?"
[00:59:52] And we were thinking of acronyms. FA- focused, focused, adaptable, structured teaching. Okay, we, we got it. And so it was, we were pandering. You know, we were pandering, you know, which a lot of consultants do. They want business, so they don't want to offend anybody. So, and we went in, we would do the training, and we would do the coaching, and just like you guys discovered, as long as it makes sense, as long as it helps the kids learn, then, then they're, they're gonna be okay with it.
[01:00:20] So- Well, it really is- ... that's kind of the story ...
[01:00:22] Speaker 13: it really is, it's in its simplicity is where it's a, it's genius because it's a framework. It's not, it doesn't bind you to this doing the same thing every day. It's that AJ Juliani- If you follow him at all, has a, a great article about structure and variety being crucial to engagement with students, and that's what I think the FAST Framework allows, is it creates the structure and it also allows for variety.
[01:00:53] And the art of teaching has to be a part of what we're doing, or we're not having fun. And so it does both. We appreciate it.
[01:01:02] Speaker 14: And it's- Mm-hmm ... it has an entry point for teachers. Mm-hmm. I feel like is you, you really hit on it where you said you didn't wanna do something that was eight pages long and completely different from how they were already teaching.
[01:01:12] Because if you tell someone, "Trash everything that you've done- Right ... and do something completely new," you immediately- Yeah ... lose the motivation and buy-in.
[01:01:20] Speaker 13: Correct.
[01:01:21] Speaker 14: And so the fact that teachers can look at your framework and go, "I can work with this because I already do a lot of this." Yeah. And it's just thinking through a lens of, how am I being really intentional with my planning, whether that be cutting, like, the too much out, right?
[01:01:38] connecting to their background and prior knowledge. Like, you're just being very intentional, with how they might already be thinking about their lesson plans.
[01:01:47] Speaker 12: And, and I appreciate that, and it's all the things that you guys talk about science of learning.
[01:01:52] Speaker 15: Yay.
[01:01:53] Speaker 12: This is where it fits. This is where it fits.
[01:01:54] Speaker 15: This is where it fits.
[01:01:55] Speaker 12: Oh, man, you guys- My friends. Yes. Yeah. That's why? Okay. We
[01:02:01] Speaker 15: didn't force you into it or anything.
[01:02:04] Speaker 12: All right. Well, guys, an- anything else before we say goodbye?
[01:02:08] Speaker 15: We're really excited to
[01:02:09] Speaker 14: have
[01:02:09] Speaker 15: you
[01:02:10] Speaker 14: out here in April.
[01:02:10] Speaker 15: It's true.
[01:02:11] Speaker 12: Oh, me too. Me too. I'm excited to go. Be a great day. And thank you so much, and we'll chat soon.
[01:02:17] Speaker 14: All right. Sounds great. Talk to you soon. Thank you.
[01:02:19] Speaker 12: Remember. Uh-
[01:02:20] Speaker: If you are enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend. Also, please leave a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can follow me on Blue Sky at G Taver Netti on Twitter x at g Taver, Netti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website. Tess cg.com. That's T-E-S-S-C g.com, where you'll also find information about ordering my books teach Fast focus, adaptable structured teaching, and maximizing the impact of coaching cycles.