Welcome to season two of the POGLE Podcast.
I'm Matt Tarca, producer of the POGLE Podcast for the POGLE Project.
POGLE stands for Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning,
a student-centered approach that guides students in constructing their own understanding of content
and helps them develop important skills such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking, and problem solving.
The POGLE Podcast is an ongoing conversation from the POGLE Project that celebrates innovative educators both in and out of the classroom.
For our fourth episode, we will focus on the second of five strategic goals in the POGLE Project's strategic plan,
which deals with the creation of high-quality POGLE activities.
Today, co-host Wayne Pearson, who is a retired chemistry professor from the U.S. Naval Academy,
will interview three panelists who work closely with both the project's endorsement process and its POGLE activity clearinghouse.
Carol Fish, professor and chair of the interdisciplinary science department at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Sean Simonson, professor and director of the Human Performance Laboratory in the Department of Kinesiology at Boise State University
and editor of the book POGLE, an introduction to process-oriented guided inquiry learning for those who wish to empower learners.
And Melissa Reeves, an associate professor of chemistry at Tuskegee University,
where she specializes in physical chemistry and computational chemistry.
Wayne, Carol, Sean, and Melissa, thank you for being here today to discuss the importance of the strategic goal.
And Wayne, I will now pass the baton over to you.
All right. Well, thank you, Matt. It's my pleasure to be with Carol Fish from St. Vincent College. Carol?
Hello. Nice to be here.
And Sean Simonson from Boise State.
Hello, everybody. Thanks for listening in today.
And Melissa Reeves from Tuskegee University.
Hi. Nice to be here.
Okay. So as Matt said, we're going to talk about activities and what the project is doing to try to produce the highest quality activities that we can develop.
And I'd like to actually start with the pack, if we could. What is the pack and how did it start?
Either Carol, Melissa, whoever wants to take that question.
Yeah, I'll start.
So the pack is short for the POGAL activity clearinghouse.
And it's a platform for POGAL authors to get feedback on activities.
And this could be activities from raw ideas up through polished activities.
We like to think of it as a community supporting the development of POGAL activities.
Both the current and the past strategic plans have included a goal, usually goal two, about increasing the availability of high quality POGAL activities.
And the pack was formed to support the authors so that such activities are being developed.
We had an endorsement process for collections of activities and we had a feedback process for authors, but the feedback was typically a one time thing.
So it became clear that in order to really distribute high quality activities, there needed to be a process that would allow authors to collaborate and develop their activities through different stages until they got to that high quality POGAL activities that we were looking for.
We became a working group at the POGAL national meeting several years ago. And because it was this was a clear need within the project.
After several years, name changes, platforms, and other iterations, the pack came together. And we posted our first issue September of 2020.
We're about to post our fourth issue. And when posting we mean we put activities online in various stages of development to foster collaboration among authors and reviewers.
And so those activities are available to members of the pack.
And I think we'll talk more about what that means in a little bit.
We've just recently we're in the process of becoming an entity within the project and not really a working group anymore. So it's going to be similar to NCAP I think of it.
It'll ensure the long term viability by providing project support.
We're still developing some processes, especially classroom testing, but we think we have a plan that where the pack is going, and that we will be able to support the continued development and the availability of high quality POGAL activities.
Sounds great. So, so what is the the pack process for review so if I want to submit to the pack, what would I say as an author need to do and what kind of feedback should I expect to receive, Melissa.
Well, the first thing you have to do is take a workshop, which is, I'm sure a surprise to anyone who's involved with POGAL.
We have something called collaborative feedback training and it's a 90 minute online workshop.
We're offering it. I think we offered it six or seven times last year. And in that 90 minutes participants are walked through what the pack looks like, and the reviewing process for looking at other people's activities and how we want them rated and what
kinds of things are involved in the rubrics at the end of that workshop participants are eligible to review activities for the pack and also to submit their self authored activities for their own feedback.
And then right after they do that they can enter another round of workshops called collaborative peer feedback, and the authors are put into teams of three, and they do a round robin review of each other's activities.
And then after they receive those reviews, they have about a one hour online virtual face to face meeting to discuss the outcomes of those reviews and to get some additional directed feedback.
So, you can get a lot of feedback on your activities by going through those, those reviewing rounds.
So, so Melissa again, what happens to the activities after they are reviewed.
So, after review, no matter what level that the activity is has been rated at, it is eligible to be posted in the next issue of the pack. So we have activities that are posted that are still under review.
Some of them posted at the classroom testing level. And there's another level which is the approved level which is the final POGAL labeled activity. So, we don't reject anything, and we encourage everyone to go ahead and post, no matter how they've come out of the
reviewing process.
Great. So, so what if not I'm not interested in writing my own activities, but I'm looking for high quality POGAL activities to use in my classroom. Can I join the pack and and participate in that way.
Absolutely. We are hoping that everyone who has gone through POGAL workshops, decides to join the pack to go through the training and become eligible to review other people's activities to classroom test other people's activities, and also to just keep an eye on the
kinds of things that are being authored within the project as a whole.
Great.
So, I guess the question everybody wants to know the answer to how do you get involved with the pack.
Yeah, so, as Melissa said the first step is a collaborative feedback training so so kind of everything funnels through that. And then, after that people are allowed to submit activities and review them.
So that kind of gets the ball rolling. Once you've kind of done some of that. Then if you're, we also need curators who shepherd the activities through this process that we have, we need facilitators for our workshops that's the collaborative
training and the collaborative peer feedback. Those workshops need facilitators and so you that might be something that you're interested in. We also need some more help in just the, the organizing and developing and evaluating the process and what we think of
the almost like a steering committee executive committee. So people that are really more involved in, in thinking about the process and really organizing this and and keeping everything going.
But as I said the first step is go through the collaborative feedback training.
That's going to get your, you know, feet wet and and in the process.
Okay, thank you very much.
Okay, so now we're going to move on and talk a little bit about the endorsement process that the, the project has developed and Sean.
Could you give us some information about what the Poggle endorsement working group is all about. Yeah, how did it start and, and how is it different from having activities in the pack.
Sure, Wayne. First, let me tell you a little about what endorsement is the Poggle project endorses collections of Poggle activities and content areas at a variety of levels to provide additional resources to the community.
The process is appropriate for collections activities that are undergone extensive testing with students that have been used in Poggle learning environments, other than those of the author.
So we're looking for people that have had other people try their activities, and the intent of the endorsement is to serve as a final review prior to collection publication as a course book or broader dissemination beyond Poggle.
So we strongly encourage authors to have prior formal training and writing activities within the project, and to submit activities and development to the to the pack for formative feedback before submitting activities for endorsement.
So the way I like to think about it, and this comes from the pack training is it's like growing this idea and impact they start with a seedling and you, you grow it into a plant and you water it and you care for it and finally it's a plant.
Well endorsement is taking a collection of those plants so it's the whole garden and providing them for review.
It's evolved over time to what it is today and it's not really a working group in that the principal work is not done at PNM rather endorsement reviewers are solicited from the project, and they work during the summer to review completed and tested
activities.
So, let's say somebody has a collection of activities and would like to get endorsement by the project, how would you go about doing that.
So, the highest complete the highest level of pack review with several of the activities or feeling want one activity endorsed without one activity.
And then we have a steps that authors should go through and the first is submit a letter of intent.
Generally in February.
And then in March, we want to submission form that tells us the table of contents the target audience, that type of thing. Then we expect the all materials to be ready by May, and submitted to the project.
And then between May and July, the product the materials will go through review and authors will receive feedback by late July, and really it's not a, it's not a formative process like the pack.
It's more of a summative assessment of does this follow the Poggle learning cycle.
Does this follow or endorse the Poggle's process skills.
Is this a Poggle activity, rather than just a guided inquiry activity.
Okay, so what are, what are some of the benefits say from an author having a collection endorsed by the project obviously the Poggle name is very powerful but what other benefits might there be for an author to have an endorsed Poggle collection.
Well, really, the big thing is that you can call it a Poggle activity or Poggle collection. And that's for broader dissemination if you want to share your activities, say through a research project and say that I studied Poggle activity implementation
in my classroom, or if you want to publish a collection of activities so that other classrooms can use your activities.
They need to go through the endorsement process.
So the intent of endorsements to serve as a final review prior to collection publication as a course book, or broader dissemination beyond the pack and the project itself.
Okay.
So the last question I have for the three of you is, how do you see this process the pack or the endorsement, helping to drive the project forward into the future.
Who wants to start with that.
Well, I can start with something that the pack is doing that endorsement can't quite do, which is to allow someone who's new to Poggle, who wants to get involved in authoring, and who might not have access to curriculum materials in their field,
but they can put an activity out there for feedback and get it posted, so that they can connect with other people in their, in their field who would also be interested in a new pedagogy.
And so far we've had submissions in math and high school physics, music, psychology, and you know just a bunch of areas that we don't have endorsed collections in yet so we're starting to find people who are interested, but, and who don't have
curricular materials, and they're starting to build something in new fields for us so I think that's a really big asset to the project.
And, and then, you know, perhaps eventually endorsement now have that ability to really expand into these areas that we don't currently have, including, you know, different disciplines but also, you know, kind of across the board in terms of different kinds
different levels.
So, there are all kinds of opportunities I think that the pack has to really help the project move forward.
To me, goal to having access to Poggle high quality Poggle activities is the essence of Poggle, you know, without those activities it's really hard to do Poggle.
And that has stopped a lot of people. And so I think that that being able to have this process now in which you can get feedback on on your activities, and not just feedback but feedback that takes you to the next level and then you get more
feedback and, and so the, the whole point of the pack is not just providing feedback it's really helping those activities to get better and better, so that they can be high quality activities and be approved activities and approved activities will have the Poggle
brand, they'll just be individual activities. I think it then can mesh with them with the endorsement process, either by pulling a bunch of these activities together and making a collection, or someone that's interested in writing a collection can can use the pack to get
initial feedback that they can then use to make edits to, you know, they just get to be better Poggle writers and the better your writing is, you know, the more likely you are to have an endorse collection and so I think, I think, you know, I think the two can really,
you know, meet together and become a really important part of keeping moving the project forward. And I think both of you are very correct in that this helps us provide broader base of activities to areas that we don't already have activities in, and
the pack is really effective for that. But I also think where endorsement comes in is once a collection has been endorsed, it can be published, and then people can see Poggle from that side.
And so, it can be bringing people in why they find the activities first, and then they want to learn how to use them, and they can come into Poggle from that perspective so that helps grow Poggle as a pedagogy, by having these published, enforced activity collections
available.
And it also then making them endorsed and getting them published.
It's easier for people to adopt Poggle. As you both said, there are people who do not adopt Poggle as a pedagogy because there are no activities in that area. And so getting things endorsed getting them published and available broadly can help with that issue.
Well, I really want to thank you guys for being with us today.
There are so many exciting things going on in the Poggle community and having really solid good activities, really to me is is an indispensable part of doing Poggle and offering these things to our Poggle practitioners.
So, thanks again everybody, and we'll see you a little later.
Thanks, Wayne.
Thank you.
Thanks to all of you for listening to today's conversation on the Poggle podcast. For additional details on how you can engage with the Poggle project or its working groups, contact Associate Director Marcy Dubroff at marcy.dubroff at Poggle.org.
That's marcy.dubroff at Poggle.org.
The Poggle 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.poggle.org backslash donate.
Intro now to a music of our podcast is produced by Poggle practitioner, Wayne Pearson.
Please join us next time where we discuss the third goal of Poggle strategic plan titled diversity and inclusivity guiding principles and learning communities program.
Until then, enjoy your week.