The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 275
Jennifer Gonzalez, Host
GONZALEZ: This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to Episode 275 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to look at 3 fresh ideas for structuring professional development.
Schools and districts allocate a lot of time and money to professional development for their teachers. Sometimes that investment pays off; other times, it doesn’t.
As someone who is sometimes brought into schools to provide this PD, I get to see things from the presenter’s point of view. I get to see how teachers are welcomed in, the food and other refreshments that are provided, how the physical spaces are set up, and how the time before and after my sessions is structured.
When I presented last fall to a group of instructors who are part of one of the biggest local unions in the U.S., I was struck by the way the day was set up. My part was a 40-minute keynote in the morning and an hour-long workshop in the afternoon — those were pretty standard. But the people who coordinated the event added three thoughtful design choices that really grabbed my attention, and each one could easily be implemented into any PD day.
My guests today are the two people who coordinated that day: Jenn White and Josh Kurzweil. Through their educational consulting company, Berkeley LTC, they help organizations improve teaching and learning, often by designing professional learning experiences for adults.
In this episode, we unpack the three practices they built into that training day that I think would work beautifully in K–12 and higher education settings: Pre-During-Post, Curated Q&A, and Poster Sessions. Although each strategy serves a different purpose, they all build in time for participants to discuss, reflect on, and apply what they’re learning rather than simply receive information.
What impressed me most was that none of these ideas are complicated; all of them could be implemented pretty easily, and yet they are the kind of thoughtful design choices that come from years of studying how people learn. In fact, there’s more in this interview than just the three strategies: The longer we talked, the more practical wisdom my guests shared. So whether you’re a teacher, an instructional coach, a PD coordinator, or an administrator, I feel confident that you’re gonna come away from this conversation with at least one idea you’ll want to put into practice.
Before we get started, I’d like to thank Alpaca for sponsoring this episode. I’m always looking for data that reflects what teachers experience, week to week, in real schools today. So I was excited a few years ago when I stumbled on Alpaca, a teacher retention and school leadership platform that collects that data in a pretty unique way. You may remember them from episode 230, when their CEO Karen Borchert came on to talk about semantic pulse surveying. They’ve been building on that work, and just released the 2026 School Culture Report, the most comprehensive look at school culture I’ve seen in K-12. For the first time, they’ve combined 33,000 teacher check-ins, 155 leader surveys, and 38 in-depth interviews across 35 states to show what school culture looks like right now. The patterns around leadership, retention, and teacher experience are worth a read anytime you’re thinking about how to support your team. It’s a free download, and a great resource to bring into planning sessions when you want real data on school culture to ground the conversation. Head to getalpaca.com/pedagogy to grab it. And if you want to explore the platform behind the data, listeners get 15% off their first year of Alpaca. Worth a look if you want to bring more teacher voice into how you lead.
Support also comes from Notability. Trying to keep track of everything you learn at conferences, in grad school, or even in a packed staff meeting? Notability is an all-in-one note-taking and learning app that helps you capture ideas in the way that works best for you. You can handwrite or type notes, annotate PDFs, and record audio alongside your work. Then, with Notability’s tools, you can generate transcripts and summaries from recordings, and turn key material into quizzes and flashcards for easier review later on. It’s a practical tool for educators who are constantly learning, organizing, and coming back to ideas over time. Go to notability.com today and use code PEDAGOGY25 at checkout to get 25% off a subscription.
Now here’s my conversation with Jenn White and Josh Kurzweil about three PD structures you’re going to want to try.
GONZALEZ: Hey, guys. Welcome.
WHITE: Thank you.
KURZWEIL: Thank you. We’re excited to be here.
GONZALEZ: So I’m going to talk a little bit about how we met, which was in, well, we met before I got to New York City, but I did a presentation last September for a group that you were working with in New York City. And I really loved how you had this professional development day set up. And so, we’ve been talking a little bit about the methods that you use. So tell me a little bit about what is Berkeley LTC, and, and what exactly, you know, do you do?
WHITE: So we are a small educational consulting business, and we primarily work in teacher training, facilitation, and curriculum design. And some of the institutions that we have worked for, like in higher ed, labor unions, worked a little bit in K-12, and also in the health and wellness industry. And what’s kind of interesting is that our backgrounds, both Josh and I, our backgrounds are, is actually in teaching English as a second language, so ESL. That’s kind of where we started our careers in teaching and in teacher training. I started teaching back in 2002, and then quickly became a teacher trainer through the School for International Training, also known as SIT. And that is where I met Josh.
GONZALEZ: Cool. And so, Josh, what’s a little bit about your background? Your background is also in teaching ESL?
KURZWEIL: Yeah, exactly. I started teaching English in Japan in 1990. And I did the CELTA and DELTA certifications, which are through Cambridge University in the ‘90s. And then I became a trainer for the SIT TESOL certificate program in 2000, and met Jenn in 2004.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: And we started Berkeley LTC in 2006 here in Berkeley, California.
GONZALEZ: Wow, okay. So 20 years now, yeah.
WHITE: Mhmm.
KURZWEIL: Yeah. And we ran the SIT TESOL certificate course, which is a four-week intensive training course for beginning English, ESL teachers here in Berkeley for many years.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: But then we also started to branch out with other clients as Jenn mentioned, labor unions, higher ed, that kind of thing.
GONZALEZ: Okay. So you started training basically teachers of English, and then decided that you could really branch this out and teach teachers and trainers all over the place?
WHITE: That’s right.
KURZWEIL: Yeah.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: In 2008, I, I started working for a large labor, construction labor union called LIUNA Training. They have over 500,000 members and 70 training centers across the United States and Canada. And I started doing some courses for them. Their instructors teach their members things like hazardous waste materials or concrete or asphalt.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: That’s what, they’re subject matter experts.
GONZALEZ: Yep.
KURZWEIL: But I found that a lot of the methodology that we were using translated well. And it was just sort of student-centered methodology.
GONZALEZ: Okay, well, and that’s how I met you. We were actually training union teachers, union instructors in some instructional strategies. So the day that we worked together, I noticed that you were very intentional with how you worked with this group of instructors. And I was just really impressed by the methods. And so, in a little bit, we are going to just talk about three of those things that you did, because I think people who design instruction for teachers — in mostly K-12 schools, because that’s the bulk of my audience — I think they could benefit from learning these three strategies. But before we look at those, just tell me a little bit about sort of what your approach is when you are designing a training for a day.
WHITE: Yeah. So I think one of the most important things is that we want to walk the talk. And so everything that we’re asking our instructors to do, we also want to model in the design and the delivery of our professional development. And this is, again, kind of goes back to what we were exposed to as ESL teachers and teacher trainers in that the courses that we taught, the workshops and the language learning experiences are set up so that the participants get to experience the methodology and then be able to reflect on it and talk about how it supports learning, right?
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
WHITE: And this is something that’s, was introduced to us. It’s a concept called Loop Input that was coined by and developed by a woman named Tessa Woodward. And so that’s one piece of it. And then the other piece is that around 2009, we read the book by Daniel Willingham “Why Students Don’t Like School.” So it was a combination of that and then some books that also came out in, around the 2010s that really focused on how people learn, right.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
WHITE: And so combining that, reading that, we wanted to be able to offer that information to our clients, and so we synthesized it into a document that we called the principles of learning. And so the principles are what, there’s about, I think, what, 15 or 16 principles, Josh?
KURZWEIL: Yeah, 16, yeah.
WHITE: And those we use to not only teach our instructors but also it’s what drives the professional development that we do with them.
GONZALEZ: So those 16 principles of learning you have on a Google Doc, and so anybody listening that would like to see what those are, we’re going to go ahead and link those in the summary of this over on Cult of Pedagogy. So that is fantastic. And you’ve shown me that. I’ve seen that before. And it’s, it’s interesting how much of it lines up with a lot of the stuff that I’ve tried to push out over the years and some of the people that I’ve had on this podcast. So I think that anybody that reads that is going to recognize a lot of things, and some of them might be phrased a little bit differently, but you know, we’re all trying to do the same thing. So let’s get into the strategies, unless there was something else that you wanted to add before we talk about those.
KURZWEIL: I think one thing I would just, I wanted to add that really struck me early on in my career as a teacher trainer is that when you’re doing professional development, and Jenn sort of mentioned this. That when participants in those teacher development programs or professional development programs, when they can experience the activities or the methodology, and then reflect on how it felt for them as a learner, it has a really profound impact.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And it becomes, it becomes part, it changes attitudes, and it really, it changes the way they think about methodology.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Because it becomes an emotional experience as well.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, I think that’s a great point. And it’s also just, it’s no longer abstract too because it’s, they’ve actually experienced it. And I think it makes it more accessible, first of all. They realize it’s not that difficult, this thing you’re proposing they do. And then yes, they’ve, and learning is an emotional experience, particularly the group that we were teaching, teaches adults, a lot of whom maybe were not successful in regular K-12 school. And so the classroom for them is sort of a fraught place. And so that’s an important consideration.
KURZWEIL: Yeah. It’s super important. And we, part of, part of what we do is that in all of our trainings, we will, we will, kind of clue the participants in. We’re going to be using the methodology that we are suggesting or offering to you, and that we’ll also periodically take, take moments to kind of change hats and say, let’s look at what we just did. And so there’s a kind of combination between actually experiencing it and then reflecting on it, so that they can —
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And that’s super important to actually have that moment, those moments of reflection. Because otherwise you can experience something but then kind of yada yada it and not, not really understand what just happened and how you felt.
GONZALEZ: Mhmm. And that extra little bit of processing can yeah, can solidify things.
KURZWEIL: Exactly. And we, it’s what we actually call it a lot of times is processing.
GONZALEZ: Well, and that’s, interestingly that is kind of where we are headed with the first of our three strategies anyway, and this was, these were all things that I, as your presenter for the day, was just sort of noticing and experiencing. Because I was part of the show, but also I was like, wait, what are you doing with everybody? And so the first thing that I noticed was that I gave a keynote, and you told me that they were going to be prepped ahead of time for that keynote. There was going to be some stuff they were sort of doing during the keynote, and then there was going to be a post reflection also. And I thought, as far as I know, I hadn’t been the keynote where that was going on, or at least not so transparently where I could observe it.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: So you refer to this, I believe, as the pre-during-post.
KURZWEIL: Yes.
GONZALEZ: And so tell me a little bit about this strategy. Because I think anybody who’s doing PD at their school could add this in and kind of exponentially make it more beneficial.
KURZWEIL: Absolutely, yeah. And so if I can just back up a little bit and just say that the pre-during-post, or we refer to it a lot as PDP.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: So that framework is the, the main idea behind that is that there’s some sort of input. There could be a keynote lecture, a video, a reading, a podcast, anything, any kind of input. And the idea is what, what are students going to do before they get that input? What are they going to be doing while they are working with that input? And then what do they do after that input? And so that’s the basic structure. And we, you know, we originally learned about that through ESL because that’s a lot of times the way reading and listening activities are structured in ESL, ESL textbooks.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: And training.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: To help students work on their reading skills and listening skills. But we found that that, that that basic framework, 1. It’s very flexible. You can adjust it in lots of different ways. It’s just a basic guideline. But we found that it was really easy to adapt to any content area. So whether it’s hazardous waste materials like a video on that. Or a video about, you know, how to use a chainsaw. Or a reading about critical theory in art. The, the basics of that are the same. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that when, when are in, in the real world, in our lives, when we, when we get some sort of input, like a video or a podcast, we choose it. And so we’re activating our own prior knowledge, and we’re, we’re creating our own relevance and purpose. But when you, when a teacher does that for a student, or even when a, a PD session has it, the participants or the students haven’t chosen that. And so how do you create the relevance and activate the prior knowledge and schema that’s going to make them engaged? And that’s really what it’s about. So yeah, we —
GONZALEZ: That’s a great point.
KURZWEIL: We found that that basic framework, this pre-during-post, or PDP framework just lined up so nicely with the principles of learning, activating prior knowledge, establishing context, actively engaging students. And also socially mediated because there’s a lot of pair work shares and pair work checks before and after the input.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about what are the kinds of things that happen in these pre-during-post? What are some of the activities you have people do?
KURZWEIL: Absolutely. So for example, I’m working with an instructor right now over at 32BJ where, where we met.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And she’s, she’s actually teaching a class on fire safety. And so I’m, I’m working with her on okay, so you’re going to teach this class with your students. How, how do you establish the context? What are they talking about? And so we found some pictures that showed a big arena of people or a venue that had lots of people. And then we came up with some questions like, what would happen during a fire? What could go wrong? What would be ideal? Right?
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And that’s going to establish the context and create some relevance for the students. And then also in the pre, there’s some sort of lecture outline or outline of the reading or some sort of task that we preview. So we would, like, show an outline of her lecture, and then the students would kind of look at it. They don’t need to make a lot of, they don’t need to discuss it in depth, but just having a moment to look at it and make a few predictions can help them get oriented to the lecture and kind of activate their schema about how to, how to listen actively.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: Then they can take notes on that outline, and then afterwards they can check with a partner.
GONZALEZ: So all of this happens in the same room, or it can happen in the same room. Because when I first heard pre, during, and post, I was thinking sort of like homework that happens.
KURZWEIL: It can be.
GONZALEZ: Can it be that?
KURZWEIL: So sometimes when I’m, when I’m doing, I teach ESL also over at Laney College. And sometimes what I’ll do is in the last 15 minutes of class, I’ll preview, I’ll do the pre of a lecture, give them the, like, watch the first minute of it, do a little pair work discussion about the topic.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Then assign it as homework. They do the notes as the “during” for homework, and they come back to class, and they do a pair work check where they would say, what parts were interesting for you? Were any parts unclear? I can throw them comprehension questions. That sort of thing.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Okay.
KURZWEIL: So it’s very flexible. It can work in a lot of different ways.
GONZALEZ: Do you ever assign extra readings or anything before and after? Or is it usually sort of this type of, just a reflection and then a way to structure the attention during and then —
KURZWEIL: I think that’s the key.
GONZALEZ: — another reflection. Yeah.
KURZWEIL: That it’s structuring the attention.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: If ever there’s any kind of input, right, that I’ve chosen, the students haven’t chosen, but I’ve chosen that input, then I think I need to do something that’s going to help them establish context and, and help them activate relevant knowledge, prior knowledge. So that they can, and then also give them some sort of task.
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: Like, sometimes the task could be a lecture outline that they fill out, they take notes on. It could also be questions like traditional true and false questions or multiple choice questions. But the idea is that they would look at those questions first, kind of get hungry. It creates need. And then they would go for the, for the text, whatever the text is. Like if it’s a video or a, or a listening, or whatever.
GONZALEZ: And I think if I remember correctly, it all happened in the same room that I did the keynote. I think that they, did they do the pre right there before I got on stage, and sort of at their tables?
KURZWEIL: Exactly. So this is just to paint a picture for our audience.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: There were probably 200, 250 people in the room. They were at round tables. And at each round, there were, like, maybe 12 or 15 people at each round table. And then at each round table there was an instructor coach who is, works with us at 32BJ. That instructor coach, so in this case it was Jenn from the podium, sort of introduced the basic idea. There were a few questions about, that were related to your keynote theme. At the participants, not students, because they’re all instructors. The participants started to think about. And then, and Jenn guided that. And then before the, your keynote started, the instructor coaches handed out an outline of your keynote. And then we gave the participants at each table a minute to kind of look at it and just, what do you think she’s going to say? There was no need to share that. We don’t need them to voice their guesses and be wrong.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Just a matter of, like, what is she going to say? And that gets them to read the outline.
GONZALEZ: Right, right, right.
KURZWEIL: Right? And so then, then once you started, and you, you know, we had worked with you beforehand, before you even came so that we worked on the slides, so we knew what your, you had given us your slideshow.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: So we could create the outline.
GONZALEZ: Yes, yes.
KURZWEIL: Right?
GONZALEZ: And so I’m just think, yeah, because I’m imagining, I mean schools, because that’s our primary audience for this. This is, obviously people can use this with students too.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: But I’m presenting this to my own audience as some ways to add something like this to PD because schools have keynote speakers coming in all the time.
KURZWEIL: Absolutely.
GONZALEZ: And I don’t think they’ve ever, or mostly have never thought about this. And I think there’s something really, there was something really special about doing it in the room right before I got up, as opposed to saying, here, look at this before you show up at this training day. Because it’s like, yeah, even if people have good intentions, it’s not the same level of engagement and attention as just being right there at the table. It’s about to start. Now, let’s get our brains prepped. And that just felt, and it also just felt like such a low lift in terms of, you didn’t have to do a whole lot. You didn’t have to bring in a new resource. You were just making more of what I was about to give you anyway.
KURZWEIL: Exactly. Exactly.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: So that yeah, and then, you know, some, some people are notetakers. Some people aren’t. But in either case, as you gave your keynote, they were able to follow along.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: And of course you had these beautiful, wonderful slides, which also helped people follow along. But they could sort of see what was coming next.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And they could take notes if they wanted to. We always encourage them to take notes. And then, the next bit is the post. And the post session, in this case, we had 200, 250 people in there. So what we did was we had the, as soon as you finished, rather than saying, “Any questions?”
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: We had, which can cause all sorts of problems in PD.
WHITE: Yes.
KURZWEIL: But what we did was we actually had the participants go to breakout rooms. Not on zoom. I mean they went to separate classrooms.
GONZALEZ: Physical breakout rooms, yep.
KURZWEIL: And in each classroom, there were about 18 to 20participants. And they’re from different schools and different regions.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: So it was social for them too. But they, they get together, and then in each room, there’s probably, I guess, like, 10 or 12 rooms, and in each room there’s an instructor coach who has a session planned that we design, which basically involves them putting the participants in pairs, talking about what was interesting or new or unclear.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: From your talk, by comparing their notes and their, their, their lecture outlines.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And then, then the instructor coach led a whole group discussion and also had some different activities to help clarify the ideas. We had already prepared those because we knew. Certain terminology, helping them with terms, that sort of thing.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: So there was, like, a kind of comprehension check or applying what, what you have learned.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Right? So a discussion there about, how would you use this in your classroom?
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: Or, what are some techniques you could use?
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: So kind of trying to push them in that direction. You know, the, in that post session, that are these smaller groups that are led by the, the instructor coaches, everybody gets a chance to talk about what was meaningful for them, and because we use pair work. So they had solo work during the actual lecture notetaking. They had a task. Then they came in and they did this pair work and whole class work, and the pair work comes first, just like, you know, you talk about a think, pair, share that will often bring out the quieter voices.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And people, introverts who maybe have really interesting ideas or experiences, but are not really interested in raising their hand in front of a big group. At least until they’ve talked to a partner. And then the last thing that happens in that instructor coach led post session is that we make index cards available so that they can then write questions to you. And I’ll turn it over to Jenn to explain how that works.
GONZALEZ: Yes. That’s going to, so we’re segueing now into the second strategy, which is the Q&A, and I liked the way you did that. Before we do, I just also wanted to point out, because this pre-during-post I think is even better because you have the instructor coaches working with the smaller groups. And in a lot of school populations, you have either instructional coaches or team leaders or even people that maybe for that day would volunteer to sort of lead a discussion with the smaller group. And that, you know, so often, I’ll have, I’ll be talking to groups at tables, and I’ll just say, okay, here’s a prompt. I want you to spend the next three or four minutes talking about this. And you know, sometimes they do. But without somebody who’s sort of in charge of that smaller group, it’s very easy for people to quick-check their phones, run to the bathroom, or just maybe just kind of wander off topic. And so having a person there to kind of keep it on track is, is great. Not only that, but those leaders end up going back to day-to-day work with everybody. And so they’ve all been there for this discussion, and everybody’s been participating. So that really, I think, gives it more legs for that stuff to travel even further within the day-to-day work.
KURZWEIL: Yeah, totally agree.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Totally agree. We found that that was a critical piece that we actually needed to have the setup so that there was an instructor coach at each table to manage the paperwork and to, just to kind of echo the instructions too that are given from the podium.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Because sometimes you’ll have a natural leader who will happen to be there and will do that, and other times, everybody’s just kind of like, I’m not really sure what we’re supposed to do here. And so you just have that person to kind of guide things and, and steer the ship.
GONZALEZ: Hey, this is Jenn. Since we’re on the topic of professional development, I want to interrupt for a second to tell you about a big PD offering I have almost ready for you: my online course, Mastering the Lesson Plan. We’re living in a time when teaching seems to get more and more challenging, with so many factors outside of a teacher’s control, but one thing you can get right is your lesson plan. It’s the core of our craft as teachers. And you don’t need natural talent to do an excellent job of it: There are time-tested, fundamental principles for lesson plan design, and if you understand them well and follow them closely, your students will learn better and you’ll feel more satisfied with your work. If you’re already a master teacher, you’ve probably already internalized these principles. For everyone else — from brand-new teachers to those who want to do better — grounding yourself in the fundamentals will dramatically improve your teaching. Mastering the Lesson Plan is my self-paced online course that will teach you how to build solid, engaging lesson plans and sequence them into comprehensive units of instruction. I’ve created this course entirely from scratch, and it’s taken me three years to do it.
Let me tell you a little more about the course: In five modules, we start with standards and move into writing clear objectives, then designing an effective assessment plan, choosing and sequencing the learning experiences that will get students to succeed on those assessments, and choosing strategies to meet all the diverse needs your students bring to the classroom. I use sample unit plans as models, so it’s really concrete: I don’t just give you abstract ideas about how to teach, I show you with real examples. Every lesson starts with a video where I explain each concept and process in clear, simple language. While you watch, you can use the printable workbook that has guided notes to fill out so you stay on track, plus space to take your own notes. If you have questions, there’s an open comment section at the end of every video lesson, moderated by experienced human teachers, so you can get answers to your specific questions. At the end of every module, I offer a “next steps” assignment you can apply to your own teaching, plus a quiz to check your understanding. And here’s what I think is the best part: After the five modules, you’ll find a huge library of teaching, assessment, and differentiation strategies you can use again and again, so even after you get the fundamentals down, the course will continue to provide value to you for the rest of your teaching career. I’m also including a library of templates you can make your own: unit plans, rubrics, and slide decks I designed myself, by hand, that will help you get your materials together faster and in style.
At the time of this recording, I’m still finishing the course, but I am determined to have it done by the end of summer 2026. I’m building a waiting list of people who want to be notified as soon as it’s ready, so if you’re listening in mid-2026, head over to cultofpedagogy.com/teaching101 and click on Mastering the Lesson Plan. From there you can learn more about the course and either join the waiting list or, if you are from the future, get it right away.
GONZALEZ: Okay, so then in the post, you, and you did this the day that I was there too. You had everybody submit these cards, which we then later went through these Q&A cards. So tell me about how you structured Q&A for your presenters.
WHITE: Yeah. So, you know, the keynote happened sort of in the morning, and so we hold off on doing the Q&A until the afternoon.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
WHITE: And so we collect all of the cards at the end of the debrief where they’re invited to write a question. The instructor coaches collect those, and then they gave them to me, and then you and I found a time during the day where we could sit down and I gave you the cards and had you kind of go through them and categorize them. Put the ones that were kind of similar together.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
WHITE: And then just asked you to choose which, which questions feel the most relevant to what you spoke about, which ones do you want to answer, and then what do you want the sequence to be for these questions. And then, of course, the Q&A happened at the end of the day. And Adam, the training director at 32BJ, and I sat up on stage with you and just took turns kind of moderating and asking you those questions. And then if we had time, we had a few questions that I think if we had time for, we could, we could answer.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
WHITE: But that was kind of the, the sequence of the Q&A, and we have found this process to be really effective. Because for one, it gives the keynote speaker time to think about their answers.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
WHITE: Kind of gives them agency for what they answer and the sequence of that. It also makes the Q&A a bit more succinct. Because sometimes people get up and they have a hard time maybe formulating their question, and that can take up a lot of time.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
WHITE: And so it makes that piece more concise. The questions stay more relevant to the topic. And then we have just found that it just provides a really cohesive experience for both the keynote speaker and the audience.
GONZALEZ: It was a very nice experience for me, because I have found so many times I’ll give a presentation, and we’ll talk ahead of time about, do you want to leave time for a Q&A? And you’re leaving so many things up to chance because maybe there won’t be any questions. Maybe people won’t be brave enough to get up and ask. Maybe they won’t have time to formulate the question. And it’s just, giving that space and then allowing me to look through them at a time when things were calm, and I could, we could sort them out and put them in order of sort of priority. I mean, just that little tweak on the Q&A made a huge difference for me as a presenter and probably gave them, the participants, a more high-quality experience too. Yeah. It was really, really nice. That one is a pretty quick and easy strategy, but again, something that anybody who has a guest presenter could build into their day without a whole lot of change to the way they do things but make it so much better.
WHITE: That’s right.
KURZWEIL: I would, yeah. I just, in thinking about the PDP structure too and how, you know, have kind of a think, pair, share in the post, right. And so the share is with the, with the group of, say, 18 or 20 people.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: But in the debrief room, right? But then the, then it’s sort of like a think, pair, share, big share, right? Because then the groups come back —
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: — and you have that same dynamic where rather than having the quickest thinker or the most extroverted person dominating the Q&A, you can really go through, and as a, as the keynote speaker and the person got to answer, you can go through and find the questions that really are kind of thoughtful, and maybe you never would hear.
GONZALEZ: Yes. Absolutely. Well and that’s, as somebody who has, I have a little bit of trouble managing processing of input and output. And so I have found with my own students and even in myself, if I have a chance to talk to somebody a little bit for a bit, for a while, then questions sort of surface over time.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: Through that conversation or even, if I’m not sure about something, and then I talk to somebody else, and they say, yeah, that confused me too. Then, I feel like, okay, this is actually not a dumb question. I think we need to ask this, because we’re both confused.
KURZWEIL: And that’s one of the, one of the, you know, I think one of the most important aspects of what I would call a pair work check in, in the pre-during-post.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: A lot of times, people will have exactly that feeling, like I didn’t understand this but maybe I was the only one.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: And so, I do this all the time in my trainings and my classes. So it’s, it’s almost like a reflex. If I finish a lecture, or I finish a reading, or a video, I don’t think I ever say, “Any questions?” anymore. I just say, “Please turn and check with your partner.” And my go-to is, what was interesting? What was new? What was unclear?
GONZALEZ: Oh, those are great, yeah.
KURZWEIL: Right? You can, you can shift those around and do all sorts of different questions. But then it’s amazing because as my students, a class that was silent just erupts in conversation.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: And everybody’s talking, and all of a sudden, the hands start going up, and they call me over.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: Right? And then I go, wait, hold on. We’ll do that question in just a couple of minutes. I’m going to get everybody —
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: But people are scared of looking dumb in front of their colleagues.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: Not everybody. There are a few that are not, and those people tend to dominate the whole class discussion.
GONZALEZ: Right, absolutely. But yeah, I mean this just happened to me at the gym two days ago. I, she went through the workout, and I had a question, and I asked, and then somebody turned to me and said, “I was confused about that too.” And I’m like, thank you.
KURZWEIL: Right, right. Yeah.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. So just having that chance to talk it out is fantastic.
KURZWEIL: May I add one other thing about that?
GONZALEZ: Of course, yes.
KURZWEIL: The other thing about it, and this relates to principles of learning, is that in those pair work checks, there’s often a fair amount of peer teaching that’s going on. So it’s really important for the, the teacher or the, the facilitator to monitor and pick up on any mistakes or things that are misunderstandings. But, one of the things, this idea of, in the science of learning is this idea of elaboration. And we all kind of know that.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: When you teach it or explain it to somebody else, you learn it more deeply. And the person you’re explaining it to learns it in a relatively safe environment that is non-threatening.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Yes.
KURZWEIL: And so these are all the, these are all parts of the principles of learning. Safe learning environment, peer teaching or elaboration, right?
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And it doesn’t mean that the teacher gives up agency somehow. The teacher really needs to monitor because a lot of times, there can be misconceptions, mistakes, misunderstandings. But then those things surfaced.
GONZALEZ: Yes, exactly.
KURZWEIL: And then the teacher can be much more efficient in saying, oh, I heard this during your pair work check.
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: And actually that’s not quite right, “Let me — .” And then you can repair that.
GONZALEZ: Yeah, exactly.
KURZWEIL: Yeah.
GONZALEZ: But you need to create that space for it to happen in the first place.
KURZWEIL: Right. So in your talk, you used a bunch of terms, and those were terms that people might have kind of a layperson’s understanding of. And so what exactly is trauma-informed teaching? And let’s clarify the definition of that, because as an instructor coach, I’ve started to hear things that weren’t quite right. And so it’s a chance to, as a keynote too, you can then, keynote speaker, you can know that, that our instructor coaches are going to actually make sure that people understood what you were trying to get across.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Which is again, and I know a lot of times I’m thinking about this through the lens of a person who’s presenting, but then when you see those questions come back, after, then you realize, oh, I could clarify this a little bit more in my presentation the next time I give it to a different group. And so it’s a nice loop for everybody. Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Absolutely.
GONZALEZ: So we did all of this, and so the way that the day went was I gave the keynote. You had the breakout sessions, and we did the Q&A at the very end of the day. But in between all of that, you also had these poster sessions, which I thought were fantastic.
KURZWEIL: Sure.
GONZALEZ: And so, talk to me a little bit about these, because I think schools could do this same thing.
KURZWEIL: Yeah. So the poster sessions, actually the original idea came from one of the guys at, at 32BJ in the leadership, James Barry. A little shoutout to him. And he suggested that we do this kind of poster session, because he had seen it at other conferences. And the idea is that you have lots of people giving very, with posters, standing in front of their posters giving short seven minute or eight minute talks.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: I had seen some of those before. And the thing that I didn’t like about the way those are sometimes done is that people sort of wander in and out. And so, what I wanted to do was make it a little bit more managed so that each person saw three poster sessions. And that way the poster presenters could have a start and a finish.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: And so then, then, that was part of it. I should also mention that the people doing the poster sessions were our instructor coaches who are, who do observations and workshops throughout the year with the instructors. We also have peer coaches. Peer coaches are people who’ve gone through our workshops and intensive trainings, and are taking a little bit more of a leadership role among the instructors. But they’re still instructors.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: The instructor coaches are no longer instructors in our, in this setting. It doesn’t necessarily matter for your audience, but just wanted to clarify.
GONZALEZ: So, I mean, because of the way it felt to me was that this was basically a group of colleagues sharing their own expertise and knowledge and tips and tricks in various ways, so that it could be. If it’s a group of teachers, anybody could sort of volunteer to do this.
KURZWEIL: You could, absolutely.
GONZALEZ: Okay, okay.
KURZWEIL: I also wanted to clarify though that Jenn and I worked with every poster presenter beforehand.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: To make sure that their posters were, were on topic, that they were concise, that they made sense.
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: So we did a process of review with them.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: And we came up with a really simple way. Because a lot of people were traveling. I just wanted to mention this really quick that what we do is we actually have them create eight slides on, on PowerPoint or Google Slides.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: With images. And then they submit those to us, and then we met with them beforehand to talk to them about their presentation, their seven- or eight-minute talk. They then can print out those slides and eight slides means eight pieces of paper fit very nicely on a poster.
GONZALEZ: Okay, yes.
KURZWEIL: And so people who were arriving that day, all they had to do was just print out their slides, and then just tape them on a poster.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: They didn’t have to handwrite the poster, which would be really tricky.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. It was already ready, yeah.
KURZWEIL: Yeah. So we can — yeah.
GONZALEZ: Okay, logistically, let me just get this, because I’m picturing a 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: And I’m thinking that doesn’t, what size poster are we talking? Because I can’t remember them being that big.
KURZWEIL: They were big, like, your big, I don’t remember the exact measurements, but they’re like your big flip chart poster.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: So people can, people can work this out on their own, but this idea is that if somebody’s actually not in the building, they can do this even remotely and prepare a poster.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: And that gives you a chance to review them.
KURZWEIL: Exactly. And so things like making sure that their font was the right size, and that the images were not too small.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: And that, you know, that the overall content made sense. So that was all, that was all done weeks before the conference.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Did people apply? Did you put out sort of a call for, do you want to do a session?
KURZWEIL: Exactly, exactly.
GONZALEZ: Okay. So they had to sort of submit a proposal.
KURZWEIL: Right. And we generally, we will start with the instructor coaches and the peer coaches.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: And it happens every year, so people kind of know about it.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And yeah. So, we will put out that call. Not everybody wants to do one, but we get it. And we always put preference for the, for the peer coaches, the people who are actually instructors. And they’ll present about a technique, or an issue, or an activity, or something from their own teaching. And they’re super interesting. And then they get coached by us to make sure that they’re, they actually do a seven-minute talk and it’s coherent and cohesive and all of that.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Okay. And so this, I don’t know if you’re familiar with EdCamps, but this sort of like an EdCamp that we have in K-12 schools where it’s like a PD day. It’s boutique style, but everybody presents in a different classroom and there’s a schedule and you sign. So this is a smaller, faster, almost like a speed dating version of that.
KURZWEIL: It’s a speed dating version, yeah.
WHITE: Yeah.
GONZALEZ: And we were all in the same room together. So the posters were lining the walls of this room.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: And you let us know ahead of time. They were numbered, I believe, the stations were numbered.
KURZWEIL: That’s correct. So this is where we’re always sneaking PDP in the pre, during, and post.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: So here’s where we snuck it in again. So we had everybody set up. They were already, the posters and the presenters were at the various stations.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: We created a map. It was a massive room. I don’t know if you remember.
GONZALEZ: I do, yeah.
KURZWEIL: But it was a really big room. So we created a map, and then we gave that map to the participants at the round tables the instructor coaches gave them, handed them out. And then we gave them a minute to do a pre.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Where they looked at the sessions and they thought, which ones do I want to attend? You’re going to be able to attend three. Now I should also mention that we, we tell them at this point, listen, if you, if you don’t manage to see one of the ones you wanted to see, all of the materials will be available online, including the slides.
GONZALEZ: Wow. Okay, nice.
KURZWEIL: Right? Because they’ve already submitted the slides, so we have it all in a Google folder, and we give them a link to that Google folder at the end of the day, so they don’t, they don’t feel like they’re missing out.
GONZALEZ: Got it.
KURZWEIL: So they do that pre where they’re like, oh, that one sounds interesting. This one sounds interesting. They’re at their roundtables, and then, you know, it’s like, we got to raise the energy levels, so it’s like, “All right, everybody, you ready? We’re going to go.” And so what we do is we instruct them to go to their, to the poster, their first choice. They’re going to be able to go three times.
GONZALEZ: Right.
KURZWEIL: We play music at that time. That’s the signal that it’s a transition time. So everybody’s moving. Very important: We have instructor coaches acting as crowd control.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: So you don’t want to have more than about 10 or 12 people around a poster, because it’s a big room, and it was loud. So they won’t be able to hear or see.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: So the instructor coaches were like, if there were 18 people on one poster, they’d be like, hey, can I get a few of you to go to a different one? And then you can come back to this one later. And so that was super important. It’s just a detail, but it can make or break the activity.
GONZALEZ: I remember this, yeah.
KURZWEIL: Yeah.
GONZALEZ: And I kind of remember you even prepping us ahead of time, telling us, if it’s too crowded, somebody will ask you to move along.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: So if you see a big crowd, don’t go there for that session.
KURZWEIL: Right. And you can circle back.
GONZALEZ: We were prepped ahead of time too with how the structure was going to work, and so it really did limit the wandering.
KURZWEIL: Right.
GONZALEZ: Which was really smart.
KURZWEIL: And then, exactly, so then everybody gets there. And if somebody is wandering, the instructor coach will tell them, hey, come on over to this one, or which one do you want to go to?
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: Make sure that there aren’t any people just checking their phones.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: They go. There’s a seven-minute spiel. The presenter can include a Q&A if they want. But after about seven or eight minutes, the music comes on loud, they can wrap up.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And then they move to the next one. When we feel like we have about a minute to move, they have their map. And then when the, when we’ve got everybody to their next station, we turn down the music, the presentation starts again, and then it repeats a third time.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: And then after that, and this is where, so that’s the during, if you will, right. And there’s, notice that there’s three durings.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: There’s three different inputs.
GONZALEZ: Yes.
KURZWEIL: And that’s the thing, like, it could be a jigsaw. There’s lots of different ways you could do this.
GONZALEZ: Yes, yes.
KURZWEIL: So the poster presentation, they do three of those, seven or eight minutes each. And then they come back to their round tables and we do the post. They get a partner. The instructor coach has them get a partner at their table.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: “Which sessions did you go to? What was interesting? What was new? Was anything unclear?” They do a little whole class discussion. Boom. You’ve got your little PDP. And it’s just so, once you realize, once you can recognize that there’s input — again, video, text, whatever it is, presentation. Once you recognize that it’s input, then you just apply the pre-during-post.
GONZALEZ: Yeah.
KURZWEIL: And that’s how we did the poster session.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. Man, okay. So I got to ask you. First of all, do you offer your, like if, if somebody’s listening and they are a superintendent at a school, do you offer your services to K-12 districts as well as other groups?
WHITE: Yes.
GONZALEZ: Yes, you do.
KURZWEIL: Absolutely.
GONZALEZ: So where can people find you online?
KURZWEIL: We are at berkeleyltc.com.
GONZALEZ: Okay. And I will link to that in all of the other materials.
KURZWEIL: Yeah, and please feel, our contact info is there, but feel free to share our email with your links.
GONZALEZ: Okay.
KURZWEIL: We’re happy to do that. But the website will take them right to us. And they can find the principles of learning, and they can find information about pre-during-post and all of that good stuff.
GONZALEZ: Yeah. It was really, really wonderful to work with you, and I’m so glad that we finally managed to schedule this and have you guys on, because you just study learning so carefully. And the way that you manage this day, I think that the people you were in charge with felt like it was a — I think a lot of times people or teachers feel like professional development is just not a really good use of their time. And I think these little tweaks that you make are so thoughtful, and they really make the most out of that day that we spent together. So I hope people start using these for their schools too.
KURZWEIL: Me too, and thank you so much for this opportunity. And we’re big fans of your show, and so this was just a huge delight for us.
GONZALEZ: Thank you.
WHITE: Thank you, Jenn.
To get a look at the resources we mentioned in this episode, or to read a summary or a transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com, click Podcast, and choose episode 275. To get a regular email from me about my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, courses, products, and speaking services, sign up for my mailing list at cultofpedagogy.com/subscribe. And to learn more about Mastering the Lesson Plan, visit cultofpedagogy.com/teaching101. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.