1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Welcome to season two of the POGLE podcast. I'm Matt Tarka, producer of the POGLE podcast for the POGLE Project. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:16,000 POGLE stands for Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning, a student-centered approach that guides students in constructing their own understanding of content 3 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:23,000 and helps them develop important skills such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking, and problem solving. 4 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:31,000 The POGLE podcast is an ongoing conversation from the POGLE Project that celebrates innovative educators both in and out of the classroom. 5 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:40,000 This podcast episode celebrates the inaugural 2022 POGLE Impact Award, which is bestowed on individuals or teams of individuals 6 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:45,000 who have achieved extraordinary outcomes related to the POGLE Project's strategic plan. 7 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:53,000 The award celebrates sustained impact and or innovation achieved by a member or members of the POGLE community 8 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:57,000 and highlights a strong footprint in both the project and the POGLE community. 9 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:06,000 Today, co-host Alex Grouchault, who is a professor of chemistry at Rider University and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, 10 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:12,000 interviews Laura Trout, who has been selected as the first recipient of the Impact Award. 11 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:17,000 Laura Trout has a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Central Washington University 12 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,000 and a Master of Science in chemistry from the University of Washington. 13 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:27,000 She has been teaching for 25 years in both public and private schools in Washington State and Pennsylvania. 14 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,000 Laura has been using POGLE activities in her classes since 2000. 15 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:38,000 She became involved with the POGLE Project in 2004 and has been writing and implementing guided inquiry activities, 16 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:43,000 facilitating POGLE workshops, and serving the POGLE community ever since. 17 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,000 She served as the editor-in-chief of the High School POGLE Initiative, 18 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:55,000 which produced four POGLE activity books for high school – biology, chemistry, AP biology, and AP chemistry. 19 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:02,000 She has also helped to produce a lab manual for AP chemistry for PASCO scientific, which utilizes POGLE techniques. 20 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:06,000 She was a member of the POGLE Project's steering committee for two terms. 21 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:11,000 Recently, Laura has taken a position with the project as materials coordinator 22 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:16,000 and continues to teach part-time at Lancaster Country Day School in Pennsylvania. 23 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:26,000 In 2021, she earned the 2021 Div-Ked Award for excellence in high school teaching for the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting. 24 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:34,000 Alex and Laura, thank you very much for being here today. And Alex, I will now pass the baton over to you. 25 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:41,000 So today on the POGLE podcast, we're going to meet our winner of the POGLE Impact Award. 26 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:52,000 The POGLE Impact Award is bestowed on an individual or team of individuals who have achieved extraordinary outcomes related to the POGLE Project's strategic plan. 27 00:02:52,000 --> 00:03:00,000 The award celebrates sustained impact and or innovation achieved by the member or members of the POGLE community 28 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:07,000 and highlights a strong footprint in both the project and the POGLE community. 29 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:14,000 So I have the pleasure today of speaking with Laura Trout, who's the winner of the inaugural POGLE Impact Award. 30 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:20,000 Laura has been teaching chemistry at various high school levels and has been a STEM coordinator for her institution, 31 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:25,000 Lancaster Country Day School, which is a private school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 32 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:34,000 For the POGLE Project, she's best known as the leader of the development team for the high school materials that were published by Flynn Scientific. 33 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:41,000 She's also served two terms on the steering committee and also serves as the workshop materials coordinator. 34 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,000 Laura, welcome to the POGLE podcast. 35 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:46,000 Hi, Alex. Thanks for having me. 36 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,000 Oh, it's a pleasure to talk to you. 37 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:57,000 So, you know, as I think about the description of the POGLE Impact Award and then, you know, just a couple of the accomplishments that I mentioned, 38 00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:02,000 it is clear that your work for the project has had a significant impact on the community. 39 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:13,000 In fact, a couple of people who nominated you for this award said that the use of POGLE at the high school level wouldn't be where it is today without your drive and encouragement. 40 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,000 So I'd like to start there. 41 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:20,000 You know, when you started with POGLE, there wasn't much happening at the high school level. 42 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:29,000 Can you tell us a little bit about the landscape when you went to your first POGLE workshop and how did, you know, how did that guide you in your work with POGLE? 43 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,000 Sure. Yeah, that's a good place to start. 44 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:40,000 So, first of all, I'd just like to say thank you to the steering committee for giving me this award and it's very much an honor. 45 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:47,000 And I'm very proud of the work that I've done. So it was great to be acknowledged with that. 46 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:55,000 So I was introduced to POGLE at a biennial conference on chemical education in 2000. 47 00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:04,000 It was in Michigan. And at that time, there were not a whole lot of high school teachers even going to BCCs. 48 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:12,000 So it was kind of difficult as a high school teacher to find sessions to go to. 49 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:15,000 But I saw this session about inquiry. 50 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:24,000 And I thought, okay, it's a three hour session that'll fill up my morning that sounds good. And it was my first introduction to POGLE. 51 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:29,000 It was my first POGLE workshop. So what eventually what got me there, I'm going to back up a little bit. 52 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:35,000 What got me there was a Dow Chemical teacher workshop. 53 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:44,000 It was a summer workshop for two weeks at Dow Chemical. And I was introduced to inquiry at that workshop. 54 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:53,000 One of the assignments that we had to get paid for all of our travel and everything was we had to create an inquiry lesson plan. 55 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:59,000 So at the time, inquiry was sort of the education buzzword for high school teachers. 56 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:06,000 And, you know, there were probably a lot of people doing it, but not enough. 57 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:09,000 Most of science was lecture based. 58 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:15,000 Labs were mostly verification labs or cookbook labs. 59 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:23,000 But things were starting to change. And that's, as you said, like the landscape at the time was that. 60 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:30,000 I don't know if it was because I was a new teacher or if that truly was the landscape in the nation at that point. 61 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:39,000 But I specifically went to BCCE thinking I want to expand my repertoire of inquiry. 62 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:53,000 And when I sat down in the Poggle workshop and did the the nuclear atom activity, it was like, oh, my gosh, I can do inquiry in my classroom as well as in my lab periods. 63 00:06:53,000 --> 00:07:01,000 So that's what got me really excited. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I remember that BCCE and I remember. 64 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:07,000 I mean, it wasn't even called Poggle at that point, right? They were part of the new traditions. 65 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:14,000 So you were really you were indoctrinated very early on in this work. 66 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:21,000 And as you said, you started out, you know, there wasn't much activity in the high school realm. 67 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:31,000 You know, and all these like the nuclear atom was, you know, that was developed to be taught in, you know, a freshman chemistry college course. 68 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:45,000 So and in terms of sorry to interrupt in terms of chemistry, in terms of chemistry, there wasn't a lot of inquiry going on, like in the physics area, they had modeling from Arizona State. 69 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:51,000 But they hadn't they hadn't developed their chemistry modeling curriculum yet at that point. 70 00:07:51,000 --> 00:08:01,000 So I had a physics colleague that was really encouraging me in my quest for inquiry for chemistry because she was doing modeling. 71 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:06,000 And so that was sort of, you know, that was also a driver, a driver for me. 72 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:20,000 So, right. So so the there's the story among the Poggle community that initially Rick Moog, who's the executive director of the project, was really not quite sure that Poggle was going to work at the high school level. 73 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:25,000 At the high school level. And yeah, you, you saw differently. 74 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:42,000 So what, so what was it about this, this thing that you got introduced to it at Michigan that said, okay, I can do this at the high school level I mean you sort of said that initially from your first workshop, but tell us a little bit about what what spoke to you. 75 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:56,000 Yeah, I think, um, I guess I'm, I'm a little bit competitive and I'm proud. And so when Rick told me that he didn't think high school students should could do it, I really just lit a fire under me. 76 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:21,000 And probably, it was probably so impactful because I had that attitude when I started teaching. I was a skeptic of inquiry, and it was the Dow Chemical workshop that really changed my mind and and being forced to try an inquiry lab in my classroom. 77 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:40,000 And I, I just couldn't believe what my students were doing. I mean the students are so creative, and they're so resilient and being able to work through their frustration when they're working on something with inquiry and I loved seeing that spark. 78 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:55,000 And when I first did that inquiry lab in my classroom from Dow Chemical. 79 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:11,000 I mean, you don't know what you're talking about. I mean, that's basically like, I've seen this happen, and whatever needs to be done to make it happen in a high school is what I'm going to do, like, obviously, maybe the activities we're going to need to be 80 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:30,000 modified or a little more hand holding or something, but I just knew that I wanted my high school students to get that same feeling that little squirt of dopamine that they get when they learn something on their own, that I was seeing in lab, but I wanted to 81 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:42,000 do it in my in my like lecture time as well. Yeah, so, like, as we've said when you started out there wasn't anything really for high school teachers who was all college level. 82 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:54,000 So did you like start right out and say okay I'm going to write my own stuff or were you just trying to rework the college material to work in your high school setting. 83 00:10:54,000 --> 00:11:03,000 I, I promptly went to the exhibit hall and bought the Moog and Farrell book. 84 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:13,000 And I do what all good teachers do and I plagiarized quite a bit so I did rewrite all of, I did rewrite the activities that I started with. 85 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:33,000 Because just looking at the activities, I knew there were just the scaffolding wasn't there that my kids were going to need as sophomores in high school. So I took, you know, basically the learning cycle of Rick's and and John's activities and I added more questions 86 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:49,000 to the learning that helped scaffold for the kids at the high school level what they were going to do but quickly I realized, just with this new found inquiry perspective that I was exploring as a teacher. 87 00:11:49,000 --> 00:12:10,000 And I found that I was teaching that way in lecture, like, I had five sections of honors chem that year and it was so repetitive and boring, but, but it was actually a really good place for me to start exploring this because by the fourth or fifth class of the day. 88 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:27,000 I'm asking the same questions over and over again why can't I just put this on a piece of paper and make it a Poggle activity. Right. So, I mean, did you find, I mean I know that, you know, from talking with high school teachers who use Poggle, it's not something that 89 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:41,000 they do every day in the classroom, or for many of them it's like they'll do a little bit of introductory or some scaffolding and then, you know, I mean was this something that you were doing like on a regular basis daily or. 90 00:12:41,000 --> 00:13:05,000 No, I, I left the conference, the BCC conference with a goal that I would write five Poggles that year. I knew that it was going to take some time. And even even just modifying the moog and feral materials took a lot of time, and what was really great at the, in the situation 91 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:11,000 that I was in that year with five sections of honors chemistry, we were also on a block schedule. 92 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:15,000 So, on one day, I would have. 93 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:26,000 I write an activity, and I would try it with my first class, and then I had a prep period that I could rewrite the whole thing. And then, then I could try it with my second class. 94 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:37,000 And then I was done for the day, so I read write it again that night, and then I would try it two more times with the next class before lunch, which I would rewrite it, and then I would do it with my fifth class. 95 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:57,000 So, I got four years worth of rewrites done in a year to sort of, I won't say and they were nowhere near perfection. Right, but, you know, a college professor or somebody who only teaches one section of a class that might take them five years to get the activity to where I got it in one year, 96 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:05,000 because I did so many rewrites right but it was exhausting. I was just going to say, it sounds efficient but also quite exhausting. 97 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:18,000 But five times that year was enough. Yeah, I would say two or three times would have been just fine. So, yeah. Wow. So I mean did the kids who are in your first block ever feel like they were the guinea pigs. 98 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:38,000 Um, I think, I think actually all the kids sort of felt like they were guinea pigs because this was a, this was very unheard of at the time, like this was not how education went and so they, they thought this was really strange anyway and yeah, there were a lot of times 99 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:47,000 when I had to just in that especially in that first block, when I had to just say you know what this question really should say is right, blah blah blah blah. 100 00:14:47,000 --> 00:15:06,000 I refer to that as facilitating through the pitfalls of the activity. So, exactly. Right. But so, you know, and of course, I mean a lot of people are familiar with this sort of, you know grew into the hispy project, which you then you know we got together. 101 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:17,000 And we have materials now for high school in chemistry. It's what else is biology chemistry, AP chemistry biology and AP biology. Okay. 102 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:26,000 And so, so that grew out of a of a Pogal spur grant. Right. Yes. Right. Yeah, that's, that's what I was reading about. 103 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:37,000 And so, you know, so now you know we have all these high school materials and everybody knows that Laura trout is the high school materials guru. 104 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:43,000 A lot of people with a lot of people standing behind me. Yes. 105 00:15:43,000 --> 00:16:00,000 And there, there are so many other fun stories that we're just not going to tell over this short podcast about how that grew up. Yeah, but I want to sort of change directions here because you know part of the nature of the Pogal impact award is that the winner 106 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:10,000 of this award should have a strong footprint on the Pogal community. And, you know, and you've done more than just do the high school activity development group. 107 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:22,000 You've been the curator of the materials that we use in the Pogal workshops, and a member of the steering committee for the project. So, you know, it's doesn't sound like you had a whole lot of free time. 108 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:28,000 So what motivated you to take on these other roles, among other project. 109 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:30,000 Yeah, I would say. 110 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:41,000 Well, there's a couple things. First of all, Rick is really good at encouraging people to step out of their comfort zone. 111 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,000 So, I agree to that. 112 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:45,000 Yes. 113 00:16:45,000 --> 00:17:07,000 So, his, his confidence in me when I didn't have confidence in myself helped get me more involved in the project. And, you know, just his encouragement for me to be on the steering committee or write more things or, you know, develop some workshops 114 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:22,000 and that sort of thing. And, and the leadership role that I took in the hispy project when we wrote the high school materials that you know I was really learning leadership at that point, and a lot of that came from Rick. 115 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:41,000 The other thing is, honestly, it came comes from my dad. And, you know those key moments in your life that you keep going back to and you just, they were a pivotal moment, and I had a conversation with my parents in the kitchen. 116 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:59,000 I was probably a junior in college, or maybe a sophomore in college. And we were talking about me declaring my major which I had known since I was in the second grade that I was going to be a teacher, I just knew that that's what I wanted to do. 117 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:19,000 But when it came down to actually declaring my major. My dad said to me, Why do you just want to be a teacher, I don't understand it. You're so good at chemistry, you're so talented, you can do so many other things why just be a teacher. 118 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:32,000 And I looked at him and I said, I'm not just going to be a teacher. I'm going to help other teachers be really great teachers. Hmm. And he said, Okay. 119 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:46,000 And he's never questioned me being a teacher. Since that conversation. And I feel like I didn't purposely get there, but somehow I managed to get there. 120 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:51,000 And you sort of, you fell in with the right crowd to do exactly that. 121 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:53,000 Yes. 122 00:18:53,000 --> 00:19:05,000 And I think it was something that has always been in the back of my mind, but whole goal was the, the Pogel community was the perfect vehicle for me to reach that goal. 123 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:07,000 Yeah, I mean, that sounds. 124 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:10,000 Boy, that sounds very compelling. 125 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:11,000 Yeah. 126 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:28,000 So, you know, and a big part of the Pogel project is developing this community practitioners, and you know you've been a strong proponent of this and now I think we understand a little bit more of your motivations but, you know, you show up as I was thinking 127 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:32,000 about this, you know I see you everywhere, you know you're at PNM. 128 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:49,000 You're at NCAP, you know I could be visiting the Pogel office and oh, there's Laura Trout I mean I know you live nearby. I happen to make my way into Lancaster and I'm leaving one day and there's Laura Trout coming right back in, you know, and I mean a lot of people seem to know who you are from all these meetings 129 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,000 so I mean what keeps you coming back. 130 00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:54,000 Yeah. 131 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:56,000 I. 132 00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:01,000 It's ego really no I'm just 133 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:26,000 no it's, it's because I get as much from it as other people do. So, you know, it's, it's not just, you know, the little recognitions of what I've done which is nice but also I've made so many great friends that honestly, as you know one or two chemistry teachers 134 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:37,000 in a building. I really need those people outside of my school building to support me and encourage me and just be there to listen. 135 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:42,000 I mean throughout this coven landscape. 136 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:44,000 I guess. 137 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:56,000 I've been working with a lot of high school teachers to to create second editions of the high school materials. 138 00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:02,000 And it honestly, I think it has allowed us to survive this last two years. 139 00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:17,000 Just psychologically and emotionally. It's therapy, it's the, it's the therapy that every single teacher needs. And, yeah, so I think just mentally emotionally. 140 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:33,000 This has been a really tough year for two years for high school teachers and the sessions that we've had for writing those new activities, they always start off with like 30 minutes of just therapy. 141 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:52,000 Right there therapy sessions for us, and everybody from all over the country is going through the same thing, you know I've got teachers in Idaho and Seattle and Oklahoma and, you know, Chicago and it's a common experiences that we have. 142 00:21:52,000 --> 00:22:10,000 Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the things I completely agree with you because, you know, one of the things that I find is that even though I can talk with my colleagues here at my institution, the POGO community is just so much broader. 143 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:26,000 And you sort of realize that issues that are going on at my institution are not just my institution it's like, it's everywhere, you know, right, be covered or, you know, whatever, whatever other thing is going along in education. 144 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,000 So, yeah. 145 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:46,000 The other thing about being at, you know, a lot of these events is in order to do my job well at the POGO project, I need to sort of have my finger on the pulse of what's happening in the POGO community, so that I can develop the next workshop or develop 146 00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:58,000 the next tool or write the activities that need to be written or, you know, just encourage people, you know when things get started. 147 00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:12,000 So, I think that also motivates me to keep going to the meetings is that if I lose touch with what's happening each year in the POGO community then I won't be able to do my job. 148 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,000 Right. Yeah. Yeah. 149 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:23,000 Well, Laura trout. It's been a real pleasure talking with you, and I want to congratulate you on your well deserved POGO impact award. 150 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,000 Thank you. 151 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:40,000 Thanks to all of you for listening to today's conversation on the POGO podcast. For those who will be attending POGO national meeting in June, Laura trout will be officially recognized as the winner of the POGO projects inaugural impact award, and the project will 152 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:56,000 stream the award ceremony. Please be on the lookout for more details at POGO.org for additional details on how you can engage with the POGO project or its working groups, contact associate director, Marcy Dubroff at Marcy Dubroff at POGO.org. 153 00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:01,000 That's marcy.dubroff.org. 154 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:21,000 The POGO project is a 501 c three 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 155 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:48,000 POGO practitioner, Wayne Pearson, please stay tuned for future podcasts from the POGO project. Until next time, enjoy your week.