Welcome to season two of the Poggle Podcast.
I'm Matt Targa, producer of the Poggle Podcast for the Poggle Project.
The Poggle Podcast is an ongoing conversation from the Poggle Project that celebrates innovative
educators both in and out of the classroom.
For our second episode this season, we will focus on Poggle's national meeting and what
we do.
We'll be answering several questions, including how does this meeting help the project move
its strategic plan forward, as well as how do the working groups associated with the
strategic plan make that happen?
Today, co-host Alex Bruchow, who is a professor of chemistry at Rider University and chair
of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, interviews Marty Perry, vice chair for professional
education in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
We'll also have Suzanne Rutter, professor of chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University
in Richmond, and Chris Bauer, professor of chemistry at the University of New Hampshire's
College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
Alex, Marty, Suzanne, and Chris, thank you very much for being here today to discuss
the importance of Poggle's national meeting.
And Alex, I will now pass the baton over to you.
This season, we will explore the inner workings of the Poggle Project.
The project, it turns out, is not just about creating materials and disseminating them
to the broader educational community.
There are many other activities that people in the organization undertake to promote the
mission of the project.
We'll talk to educators around the country who have worked to steer and shape various
aspects of the Poggle Project.
Through different episodes this season, listeners will learn about the many opportunities participate
in the workings of the project.
In this episode, we're going to discuss one of the key working aspects of the Poggle Project,
the Poggle National Meeting, or PNM.
Early in the history of the Poggle Project, the PNM was convened annually to bring together
the major participants of the National Science Foundation grants that funded the early days
of the Poggle Project.
At these meetings, principal investigators of the grant got together to make sure that
all aspects of these large grants were being addressed and that the work that was proposed
was actually getting done in a timely fashion.
As the project grew from a grant-funded endeavor to a nonprofit organization, the activities
at the PNM also evolved.
As the strategic plan was developed, the activities at the PNM became more focused on operationalizing
the aspects of the strategic plan through what we call working groups.
In today's podcast, I'm speaking with Marty Perry, Chris Bauer, and Suzanne Rutter.
All three of them have been working with the Poggle Project for many years and are veterans
of many PNMs.
So welcome to you all.
Glad you could join us.
Chris, I want to start with you.
So we discussed the strategic plan in our last episode, and you were sort of the architect
of our last revision of the plan.
Can you tell us a little bit about how these working groups that I mentioned are related
to the strategic plan?
Sure, Alex, and appreciate the chance to be here to share this with everybody.
So the working groups that get together at the Poggle National Meeting are actually the
way that the strategic plan moves forward.
The working groups are established ahead of time by the steering committee, and that's
based on looking at where the project has come, progress that has been made in the past,
and also what goals we have looking for the future.
And the steering committee decides where do we want to have people focusing their attention
and their time to try to push those goals along.
So each of those working groups, the steering committee carefully thinks about where the
challenge is, where do we want to be going, and provides a at least crude charge to the
working groups to give them some idea of what direction they would like them to be going
in to kind of make sure that they're aware of past efforts and kind of what the status
of the current project is.
But they also have some autonomy.
They're not just following a recipe that the steering committee is providing.
So that's kind of what folks come into the national meeting find when they get there
is they find this structure already set up and they're assigned.
The people we know who are coming are assigned to working groups, and we kind of balance
the invitations to make sure the working group participation has folks on it who we think
are going to be able to contribute best there.
Right.
So people come in with not necessarily told, oh, you're going to be working in this working
group.
There's some selection that goes on beforehand, right?
Yes.
Usually we try to adapt to the interests of the folks who are participating.
I mean, oftentimes these are continuations of past working groups, but we do have new
people each year at the national meeting and we look for what their interests and expertise
are and then attach them to these other working groups where there's already folks who have
some experience.
Gotcha.
So and then these working groups are connected to aspects of the project strategic plan,
and they're often more than one working group connected to a single goal in the plan.
Can you give me an example of, you know, two working groups that work towards the same
sort of goal in the strategic plan?
Yeah, sure.
We have five different goals and we have at the moment something like 10 or 12 different
working groups.
So first of all, it's clear that we have multiple groups working on different aspects of goals.
One of the goals that's emerged is very important is one that involves diversity and inclusivity,
and this is with respect to our community of practitioners as well as with students.
And there's been an interestedness over the past, but at the last national meeting, we
actually thought about this more and to be more proactive, we actually divided that up
into several different working groups.
So we have an equity working group that's looking at how to embrace equity in general.
It's kind of like the ethos for the whole community.
We have a working group on mentors, specifically thinking about how can we mentor new folks
who are joining the community to be aware of equity and diversity issues there.
In other words, what kind of support might be necessary to help people participate.
And then also we have a working group looking at recruitment, how to bring people to the
project who may not have been attached to the project before and kind of reaching out
to different sorts of populations.
Each of those things require some effort and instead of making them the responsibility
of a single group, we decided to spread that out and allow some focus on those particular
issues.
Another place of overlap, we do have a research working group.
Suzanne may say more about that in a bit, but I'll point out that that has overlaps as well.
We've developed observational protocol instruments and in one working group and the research
working group is thinking about how to make use of that in terms of research projects
that may go on.
So it's typical to have overlap here.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks, Chris.
So Marty, I want to turn to you.
You're currently chair of the steering committee and in that role, you help sort of connect
people in these working groups.
I guess some of the assignment of the new people, as Chris talked about, falls to you.
Can you tell me a little bit about what these working groups are actually then doing at
the PNM?
Sure, Alex.
And it's great to be here with this awesome group of people.
And I definitely want to give a shout out to two people who've really helped shepherd
and get us to the point where we are now with the strategic plan.
Of course, that's Chris, who helped with our last iteration plan, but also Susan Shadel,
who was a part of the previous podcast.
If you haven't listened to Susan discuss the initial development of the strategic plan,
you should definitely do so.
But when we get to the PNM and people have indicated their preference for a particular
working group, usually as a part of the application process, each person will list two or three
working groups that they would potentially like to be a part of at the PNM.
They're only going to serve most likely on one of those unless there's some reason why
they should overlap and do more than one.
But most people are just on a single working group during their time at the PNM.
And they can expect that that's going to be a devoted time at the PNM, at least a couple
of hours every day that's allotted for the working groups to work on those charges that
Chris talked about just a few moments ago, but also to potentially go in unique directions
that the team feels like are important directions to work on while they're at the PNM.
So again, at least a couple of hours, sometimes a little bit more on a given day is devoted
to this working group time.
And so then, you know, these working groups, as you say, a couple of hours a day, the meeting
is only like three and a half days long.
How much are they going to get done in that period of time?
And you know, what are the expectations?
Because that's not a lot of time to like, you know, sort of figure out, you know, equity
in within the project.
Well, that's of course true.
And several of these working groups are long term, they've been working on their particular
tasks, in some cases for many years.
Some of them are just getting started.
We hope that there is some accomplishment by the end of the meeting, or at least a plan
or a strategy that's outlined.
Some groups will do a little pre work before they come to the PNM.
So often a chair of a working group may reach out to their, their team before the PNM and
say, Would you please read this or think about this particular idea before you come to the
PNM so that we can hit the ground running, so to speak.
Right.
So there's definitely it's not just, you know, a three and a half day commitment, people
are coming in and there's going to be things to do once you're done.
We're hoping again, there's no requirement that people commit beyond the PNM, but we
would hope that most people will choose to continue their commitment to their working
group, potentially for the entire year.
And again, some people have been on a particular working group for many years.
You know, Alex, I know you were a part of the PAC development in its early stages.
And we're on that group for many, many years.
Now you've joined strategic collaboration.
So I want to emphasize to everybody that just because you're on one working group doesn't
mean you have to stay on that working group forever.
So if you find something that's of interest that for some reason you want to switch, join
another team, you're, you're certainly free to do so.
Great.
Yeah.
You know, I know some people have moved from working group to working group, you know,
over the course of several PNM.
So yeah, you definitely can sort of see a number of different activities within the
project as you come to PNM.
So speaking of going to a number of PNM, Suzanne, you've participated in a number of these activities.
Can you tell the audience what kinds of activities take place at a PNM?
I mean, it's not just, you know, working in a group for three days.
Sure.
Thanks, Alex.
I'd be happy to talk about my experience.
PNM is structured a lot differently from a typical conference or meeting that you might
have attended before.
I'm usually at, you know, a scientific conference.
You might just attend talks and maybe give your own presentation.
The focus of PNM is really to work together towards a common goal, which is really the
definition of teamwork that the POGO project uses.
So we really are working as a team.
The working groups are certainly part of this goal related to the strategic plan.
But as you indicated, the working groups are not the only thing that happens at a meeting.
There's lots of other opportunities where people can get together with others who have
similar interests to exchange ideas or work on a task.
For example, some people have made the time to discuss maybe solutions for a particular
classroom situation that they may be having issues with.
Sometimes people meet separately to talk about writing activities for a content area that
maybe doesn't have many activities or even discuss writing a grant proposal for funding
for a new idea.
So there's lots of time scheduled for setting up your own meetings.
The meeting has lots of these opportunities to connect with people, not just those in
your working group.
The poster sessions I found to be a really great place to discuss ideas with participants
who are presenting their work and to get new ideas and provide them with feedback.
There's also concurrent sessions that you can choose from to attend during the meeting.
And these usually are set up to look at new products from the project.
For example, the project might be putting together a new workshop and you can participate
in that workshop or part of that workshop and provide them feedback.
You can get an idea of what some of the new things are that are going to be presented
out in the summer workshops.
Or you could learn about a tool like the Optic tool that I think Chris mentioned earlier.
So if you don't know anything about the Optic tool, you can choose to attend this session
where they have you use the tool and then you can also provide feedback on the tool
to help improve it.
So it's really a lot of working together to learn and provide feedback on different tools.
And then I think a favorite aspect of the meeting is at the end of the meeting, the
working groups present what they've been doing as part of a gallery walk.
And in the gallery walk, you get to find out what everybody else has been doing and you
can even share how your working group goal or your working group tasks have aligned with
that particular working group.
So you find out more about the other working groups.
And this also gives you an opportunity to say, hey, I'm really interested in this.
I'd like to help out with this working group as well.
So there's lots of different things that go on.
Yeah.
So I just want to unpack a number of the things you mentioned, like a poster session.
So even though this is not like a normal research conference, there still is a research aspect
that goes on.
People are sharing work that they're doing that are outside, kind of outside the working
group materials as well.
Is that right?
Yes.
So you can choose to set up a meeting during some of the open work, open time and pick
whatever you want.
And then other people can choose to show up.
So you just look at, well, at least when we were in person, it would be on a whiteboard
in the room and you would sign up virtually.
It was done a little differently, but you still have an opportunity to sign up and see
what other people were talking about and to join those sessions if you wanted to.
And so you mentioned this thing called open working time.
I just wanted to sort of tell our listeners that there is part of the meeting, which is
designed to be unstructured.
And what people do is sort of they gather, try and find other people who are interested
in this, a particular topic that doesn't necessarily relate directly to the strategic plan, but
it certainly is something that might be of interest to other people who are working in
the project.
And we'll say, we will meet at 2.30 during the open time and discuss X and anybody who's
available.
So when we were in person, we would do it at a particular time or we'd send out the
Zoom link.
And so Marty, about how much of this time is structured and how much is unstructured
in what we're doing at a PNM?
Yeah, I mean, the PNM is unique in terms of professional experiences.
I don't intend anything quite like it throughout the year.
As Suzanne's already mentioned, there's lots of different things going on, some of which
is structured.
So yes, we have working group time and yes, we do workshops and those types of things,
poster sessions.
We have a plenary speaker.
So there's opportunities for you to get developed, but also to contribute to the work of the
project, but also to have fun.
I mean, it's a collaborative meeting.
You're going to engage with lots of interesting people and there's time to be informal and
to socialize.
There's an afternoon at the meeting where we take several hours and there's nothing
structured and nothing scheduled.
For the last 10 or more years, we've been at Washington University in St. Louis near
Forest Park.
And so people will go on walks in the park or go to the zoo or go to the city museum,
go for bike rides.
There's all kinds of interesting things that people get together and do during that time.
So we believe that everything should not be structured and that we should provide this
time for open and informal networking and give people a chance to socialize and to build
those relationships.
I think the connectedness of the project is again, what makes it so unique.
Alex, if I could jump in.
Just to confirm and kind of reiterate what Suzanne and Marty were talking about in terms
of this being a different sort of meeting.
I mean, sometimes from the outside, you look at the Pogal project and say, it's a thing.
It's kind of like done.
What could I possibly have to contribute this?
Which is kind of the way that most people see a standard conference is everybody sharing
the product of their work.
The PNM and the Pogal project really is all about the process.
It's an ongoing process of developing professional development, developing materials and developing
ways in which people can participate in that.
And so it's a very much more open and engaging and set of activities that people can be invited
to continue to participate in and contribute to in terms of ongoing development.
I'd like to jump in there and also say that it's okay if you've never attended a PNM.
There's always spots for people to jump in and contribute and not feel like, oh, I can't
do that because I have never been involved.
There's very welcoming project that welcomes everybody at all different levels to participate
in the project.
Yeah, again, just to piggyback on that, we typically have 60 to 70 people that attend
in a given year.
And on average, 10 or 15 of those attendees are people that are new.
So yes, we definitely want folks who are going to be attending their very first PNM to give
it a consideration and to integrate and be part of the project.
We need fresh new ideas all the time.
Yeah, that's absolutely true.
I mean, I will also say that a number of people who have been sort of connected with other
activities, either just authoring POGAL activities but are just not really connected with all
of the other aspects of the POGAL project have sort of jumped in and said, hey, I'm
kind of curious about what's going on at this national meeting and definitely reach out
to any of us to find out how to get involved.
I think the invitation is sort of an open invitation to find out what's going on every
year and then people apply.
And basically, as Marty said, the people who can be connected with various aspects of the
strategic plan through the working groups are the people that end up getting invitations
to come back to the PNM.
Did I get that right, more or less, in terms of the process?
Okay, great.
So we've touched on a couple of things here that there is working time that's structured
for everybody to meet and then there's some informal working time where we sort of get
together, either go for a walk in the park, but usually you still end up engaging in some
sort of discussion around professional development, even when you're out wandering through the
zoo.
And then we all sort of do our gallery walk at the end, as Suzanne alluded to, and you
sort of find out, and I think that I just want to say that the gallery walk is really
probably one of the coolest parts of the meeting where you get to see pretty much what all
of the other working groups were doing.
And then we all go home.
And then what happens?
Somebody want to chime in?
Go ahead, Marty.
So again, the steering committee stays for another day after everybody goes home.
And so we begin to process all of that information.
Also want to point out, as we mentioned it earlier, the steering committee has liaisons
to every single working group.
And each working group has its own chair who is not a member of the steering committee.
So it's the steering committee's job to continue to follow up with the working groups throughout
the next year.
So we don't want, when the meeting ends, for the work to end.
We really want that to continue so that when we meet again, we've made more progress and
we're ready to continue to move that particular project forward or maybe to sunset it.
Maybe we've accomplished the goals of that particular project and we're ready to move
on to something different.
Another aspect of the strategic plan that maybe has not been as well addressed.
So we definitely want the work to not end, even though most people who attend the PNM
will tell you that they are really exhausted at the end.
But it's a good exhaustion.
We feel like we really contributed a lot and made a difference.
So let me add a little bit in terms of, we mentioned the gallery walk a couple of times
and mentioned the fact that there are liaisons from the steering committee to each one of
the working groups.
One of the interesting structures here is trying to help the entire community make progress
forward on the goals, but at the same time, keep everybody informed as to what's going
on in different corners of the community because there's a lot of stuff that is happening.
And at the national meeting, that's when you have essentially all of the folks who are
most highly engaged doing stuff together at the same point.
So there's a number of things that we do where people are sharing their status within
each of the working groups.
That kind of happens kind of early towards the beginning of the meeting.
And then kind of a middle of the meeting report, quick report out on what's going on or where
they want input or insight or sub meetings to happen.
And then the gallery walk at the end kind of culminates the activity that's going on
there.
But everybody gets a chance to provide feedback to each of those groups.
It's structured into the activity that it's not just that you listen to what people have
to say about what they're doing, but there's time set aside for you to provide feedback.
And sometimes that's with Google Docs or sometimes that's with sticky notes or whatever.
But all of that information is collected and then the working groups have used that then
to gather information from the whole rest of the community about how the rest of the
community perceives the direction of their activity.
So I find that's a really interesting structure that kind of pulls everybody together, allows
everybody to kind of have transparency about what's going on and to communicate amongst
all of these groups.
And I think that's really been kind of essential and unique in terms of the whole organization.
So to address your question, I think earlier, Alex, about what happens after the meeting,
because you often don't finish all of your tasks during the meeting.
But as Chris mentioned, you get feedback from the whole community during the gallery walk.
And then we usually set up meetings once a month or so into the year, into the academic
year to meet with the working group team and have some assignments and make some progress
on the feedback and the tasks that we were assigned as part of the working group.
So generally we meet once a month or so and individuals work on little separate parts
of the tasks that were part of their working group.
And then report out to the steering committee liaison a couple times a year, I think, on
the progress the working group has made.
But it's flexible because we all know that things come up and perhaps December is not
a very good time to meet.
So we'll shift the month if people just haven't had a chance to work on stuff.
Yes.
And I also want to point out that the PNM has also been a place where side projects
have jumped out.
Myself I've been part of what's called the Pogel PCL group.
That's PCL is for PCAM lab.
So this was a group of physical chemists that got together and it ended up resulting into
National Science Foundation grants.
Suzanne, you've had the same experience, I believe.
You want to tell us a little bit about how that got started at the PNM and then what
you've done with it since in your group.
So you were referring to the ellipse project.
Correct.
Yes.
So part of it is we meet people at PNM that you see frequently every year.
And part of how our National Science Foundation funding came about was I found out that a
couple of people were working on process skills in one area and then I was interested in that
and started doing some stuff on my own in a slightly different area.
And then we decided the next year maybe this would be a good idea to merge our two pieces
and write a grant proposal on process skills.
And that's in fact what we did and we worked that funded and it's called the ellipse project.
And it was a five-year grant which is we got an extension that is ending now.
But I think that we met each other and got the ideas from interacting at the Pogel National
Meeting and then took it from there.
And in fact we've had some of our non-scheduled working group time has been with primary collaboration
team members on that project and we meet at PNM in order to have some time together in
person.
And so that's some of the time that I've spent at PNM was working with people that are working
on that project as well.
So lots of connections.
Yeah.
I mean I think that that's one of the great things about the PNM is you're not always
sure who you're going to meet and who you're going to talk to and what sort of interesting
collaboration may turn up as a result.
So anyway I want to thank you all for sharing your experiences about the PNM to our larger
audience.
Later on in this season of the Pogel podcast we will talk with other people associated
with some of the other working groups to describe their work with the project.
So please tune into more Pogel podcast this season for more details on all the activities
of the Pogel project and how you can become involved with this community of practitioners.
Thanks to all of you for listening to today's conversation on the Pogel podcast.
For additional details on how you can engage with the Pogel project or its working groups
contact associate director Marcy Dubroff at marcy.dubroff at pogel.org.
The Pogel project is a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
If you would like to make a donation so we can keep providing podcasts, low cost workshops
and classroom materials please visit www.pogle.org backslash donate.
Intro and outro music of our podcast is produced by Pogel practitioner Wayne Pearson.
Please join us next time where we discuss the first of five goals of Pogel strategic
plan to grow and support Pogel practitioners.
Until then, enjoy your week.