00:01.99

Eric Stano

This is Tech in EdTech. I'm Eric Stano with Magic EdTech. The title of our episode today is Professional Learning that Moves the Needle: Insights for K-12 Leaders. My guest today is Matthew Kennard, CEO of Better Lesson. Welcome, Matthew.

00:19.89

Matthew Kennard

Hey, it's great to be here, Eric. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.

00:23.17

Eric Stano

Well, thanks for joining. And why don't we start a little bit with your background? Tell us a little bit how you got from your training at Yale and University of Chicago, which I always mention because I just find it impressive. But you moved into a career that is in the learning ecosphere. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how you ended up there?

00:45.04

Matthew Kennard

Yeah, you know, Eric, it's funny. I always like to consider myself a late in life edtech-er, which I think is like the elder millennial type of tagline for those of us who maybe didn't start in education. But, you know, as they say about my home state of Texas - Got here as fast as we could! And I really have enjoyed my time in education. But you know my background in finance has played a large role and in the way I've thought about education. And particularly the reason that I'm in professional learning today. And I've done a number of different roles, from private equity investing to investment banking to running M&A for large organizations. And, you know, 2017-2018 really reached a limiter for myself. And felt like I needed to find a way to take the skills that, you know, I had built over time and find a way to have them have a longer lasting impact. And that's with all due respect to the private equity and venture capital industries, I really wanted to make sure that my time was spent running companies - that when I you know hung it up 50 years later - I would feel like they really made a difference for our community.

02:03.71

Matthew Kennard

And I was very fortunate to have the co-founders of LearnZillion - Alix Guerrier and Eric Westendorf - give me an opportunity to come and run their Finance and Ops org. We're a tiny company at the time based in DC, and we're able to scale that and sell that to Imagine Learning. And, you know, it was funny because people said, ‘Oh, you're a digital core curriculum, that's got to be like the center of the education world.’ And the thing that I knew from my background in finance was how we support the individuals, how we professionalize the training, how we look at our educators as people who are dedicated professionals in need of job embedded, regular support like we do in every other profession that had to be a part of the work. And that's what brought me to BetterLesson today and why I believe so firmly that professional development, you know, real high-quality professional learning has to be at the core of every district's approach to supporting their staff.

03:05.68

Eric Stano

Nice. And that leads us very nicely into the next question I was going to ask, which was about BetterLesson specifically. And if you could - actually this isn't a question, I'm just stating it - if you could, tell us a little bit about BetterLesson and its mission.

03:20.39

Matthew Kennard

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I had the good fortune of partnering with BetterLesson when I was still at LearnZillion. But Better Lesson today really thinks about - How do we provide sustained, job-embedded, high-quality professional learning in support of the key initiatives of the district. We really think about that being data-driven support. How are we both kind of killing off the idea of the one-off PD day, but instead thinking about what are the outcomes that our district partners, our state partners are trying to accomplish, and how do we use the tools of professional learning from um in-person and virtual workshops to coaching to non-evaluative learning walks as well as real tools to support data-driven decision making and the collection of data around the impact of that PL to ensure that folks are using their resources to most effectively support educators and ultimately create great outcomes for kids.

04:21.72

Eric Stano

Well, that cues up nicely my preamble to what this entire episode is going to be about. But for our listeners, today's episode is going to dive into a lot of what Matthew just spoke about, which is, we're going to dive into the practical data-driven ways to transform professional learning for real results. And maybe the best way to begin that, Matthew, is if you could tell us from your perspective, what are the biggest gaps you see in how K-12 professional development is currently approached? And on the other side, where do you see or believe districts and schools are getting it right?

04:58.99

Matthew Kennard

You know I think that one of the things that's very obvious, right, is that district leaders really are understanding today, the need to support professionals with relevant, timely, job-embedded professional learning, right? For things to be effective, we have to dispel the myth that we can do everything we need to do in PL, right, you know in a one-day session.

05:28.26

Eric Stano

Right.

05:30.62

Matthew Kennard

You know whether it's an Edutainment Day where we bring in a speaker or we talk about, you know, a key concept and then kind of let folks go and do the work. You know those are great opportunities to rally folks around the cause and to do a broad-based introduction of a concept.

But what they don't work is like real sustained learning. Because we know that people learn using one to one, one to many, and asynchronous tools to really embed any sort of, you know, goal for learning, right? So that's the reason we structure curriculum the way we structure it right? 

You know kids are going to get opportunities for broad-based introduction. They'll get chances for personalized support. They'll get chances for tests of learning, both asynchronous as well as you know in the way of formative exams. But we really try to ensure that we are looking multiple ways and providing multiple pathways for folks to be supported. And we need to you know think of our professionals in the classroom as no different than that. And I say professionals in the classroom, where I'll say this it's not just a classroom educator, right? Everybody in the structure is deserving of great professional learning to help them improve their practice.

06:52.15

Eric Stano

Alright. Actually, it brings to mind, you know we don't teach our classes on day one of algebra sets you off and running, and you abandon the students to learning from there.

07:04.33

Matthew Kennard

yeah

07:05.05

Eric Stano

It's a sustained endeavor, so that makes a lot of sense to me. For school districts with limited resources, what do you consider to be the essential must-have elements for professional learning that have the highest impact and this must be said with minimal budget. What do you think those must-haves are?

07:27.50

Matthew Kennard

You know, I think one of the interesting things that's happened, you know, really since COVID is if there's a positive to take from COVID, it's that we've been able to use technology to help create more effective and lower cost means of communication and support. And I think for school districts with limited resources, it's no less important that they determine the outcomes they're trying to work through. What I think is great is today, whether it's internally or through an external provider, like BetterLesson, you can use means like virtual workshops, virtual coaching, opportunities to bring folks together to do observations that minimize some of the in-person costs, which tend to make PL more expensive. And I think there's also a lot that can be done even with limited resources if you're collecting data on the impact, right?

08:14.48

Eric Stano

Right.

08:18.50

Matthew Kennard

Whether it's NPS scores or confidence ratings, we're ultimately looking at things like what was the impact on student outcomes. You can start to direct your work to the highest value outcomes that you need for your district. So I think it's an issue of focus and then using some of these tools that are available now to reduce that outlay cost.

08:44.63

Eric Stano

Right. And I might hear implicit in what you're saying a little backward designing from the outcomes that you're really hoping to achieve as well. Although don't let me put words in your mouth.

08:55.29

Matthew Kennard

Can we please stay on that point for a second because I think it's actually really important, right?

08:58.03

Eric Stano

Of course. Good. Yeah, please.

09:01.63

Matthew Kennard

So I'm a huge sports fan. And one of my favorite movies is Moneyball, right? And there's a highly dramatized scene where you know the young guy is coming in and saying, you shouldn't be trying to buy ballplayers, you should be trying to buy wins. I think there is some real sense to the idea that if I'm a district leader, I should be trying to get to an outcome, not fill a day.

09:26.74

Eric Stano

Right, right.

09:27.70

Matthew Kennard

Right? Because at the end of the day, filling a day is important. And I think you know we understand the time and learning requirements, and we want to see teachers, particularly in a world where there's a lot of paras right and you know emergency certified teachers, want to see them put the time in that's required to work on their practice. But that time needs to be directed towards an outcome, not the fulfillment of time itself. And I think when we step back and we think about, ‘Hey, my outcome might be - we need to work on student-centered instruction, right? And how do we do things like student self-management or work on practices like turn and talk? Or small group instruction and support of pedagogically challenging curricula that require more productive struggle?’ Like we can get very specific about the things that we're trying to do that align to the outcomes you're trying to achieve. And I think by getting more specific and thinking of professional learning, not as a PD day, but a series of tools in our toolbox that we can deploy to meet the needs of your district, to meet the local conditions that you're in, to achieve that outcome. We create an entirely different paradigm by which we're thinking of professional learning, but it's one that if we go to other industries - take law or finance where I grew up - it is one that is popularly deployed because it helps you be highly directed in creating someone who can operate at the top of their license.

11:04.57

Eric Stano

Right. And well you know while you almost lost me with the sports analogy, I'm sure that would be resonant with most of the listeners. And I'm glad we hovered on the point because I think it's a critical one that you're making and throws into sharp relief what's needed here. And we are gonna chip away at some of the answers to this next question but if you could maybe just step back and reflect a little bit more on this you know - many districts struggle to move from a one time professional development session to this ongoing, more sustained professional learning framework that you're talking about. And you mentioned a little bit of this when you were talking about some cost-saving measures or cost-conscious measures, but could you outline what you might consider some practical steps that school leaders could take to make the shift to something that is more sustained relative to professional learning?

12:01.51

Matthew Kennard

Yeah, absolutely. And Eric, I think your point about backwards designing from the outcome becomes even more important when you're thinking about how do we get to where we're trying to go, right?

12:08.68

Eric Stano

Okay. Right, right.

12:13.01

Matthew Kennard

I think if we're thinking about an outcome-based set of work, then the question becomes, where are we in that process? Right? Is this something we're trying to refine and hone? Is this a new technique for our district, a new pedagogical approach for our district? Is this a new curriculum we're adopting where we've got to really start from square one? Right?

12:35.46

Eric Stano

Right.

12:36.15

Matthew Kennard

I think that by identifying the outcome and where we sit against it, you can step back and say, okay, What do we need to do next to ensure that we're successfully making progress towards that outcome?

12:48.48

Eric Stano

Right.

12:52.71

Matthew Kennard

It may be that you need to start with an in-person day because that is how you align the people around the goal, right? There's value in in-person days.

13:02.34

Eric Stano

Right right.

13:04.38

Matthew Kennard

There's value in a PD gathering that is around, ‘Hey, here's what we're going to do - here are the tools that we made available. Here's how you'll be supported. Here are the general concepts that we're trying to get into.’ But you have to back that up with the appropriate deployment of personalized PD support. Whether that is targeted work for say late hired or new teachers or one-to-one coaching for instructional leaders and principals who have to you know be responsible for deployment of that new goal within their district, right? It's about targeting the resources towards the constituencies that need them in the right order to help achieve an outcome. And being somewhat agnostic to whether it is all workshops or its workshops plus you know X, Y, and Z, or it's all non-evaluative learning walks to start while we build you know an understanding of where we sit against the outcome. The goal here is the right deployment of offerings in the right combination to help you achieve your outcome. And that's subject to local contacts and local needs.

14:16.25

Eric Stano

Right.

14:18.77

Eric Stano

Right. And maybe it's self-evident to everyone else who is listening here, but everything that you've just said sounds an awful lot to me, like designing a curriculum, designing a course, designing a syllabus. It's the things that teachers reflexively do. It is their job. So providing that to said teachers seems a natural place to go, a natural outgrowth of the very ecosystem in which everybody's operating. Again, don't let me put words in your mouth but...

14:51.49

Matthew Kennard

No, but I think that's right. And I think, you know, if we talk about like, how do you embed that continuous learning directly into the school day? Right? How do we think about it as a strategic goal or a strategic tool for a leader? You know, at BetterLesson, we think a lot about States and district leaders are often putting out, you know, these phenomenal strategy documents about what you're trying to do as a district.

15:20.72

Eric Stano

Right.

15:22.75

Matthew Kennard

And those are incredibly important, but they aren't meaningful until what was put in that state DOE or ESC or regional service center right that impacted what happened at the district level to that strategic plan for the superintendent who's in place. Right? That doesn't matter if it doesn't, then connect to your principals and your APs, your instructional coaches, your academic officer, you know other folks in the cabinet deriving that down so that what's happening in Mr. and Mrs. Smith's 2 p.m., Thursday biology class at 2 p.m. also feels reflective of that same strategy. And the connection point for that is really professional learning. Because those strategies are laying out a pedagogical approach to how we are going to run our schools, how we're going to run our classrooms.

16:15.47

Eric Stano

Right.

16:23.39

Matthew Kennard

And by being able to connect that strategy to professional learning, you ensure that there's actual adherence and understanding for every single layer from classroom educator to AP or principal to district leader, where everyone's on the same page. And here are the tools of support that we'll be giving to ensure that you can internalize that and make it real. So ultimately, when we get into those classrooms we're doing observation, we are seeing real quantifiable evidence of change in instructional behavior. And when we look at student outcomes, we're seeing real quantifiable change in outcomes for those students.

17:06.91

Eric Stano

And at a high level, that could not make more sense than the way you articulated. I wonder if it's possible to drill down even further into precise models that you've seen work really well for embedding continuous learning directly into the school day and connecting, as you've been talking about, these practices with coaching strategies, and classroom observations used by administrators. Is there anything more even more concrete you could say by way of example for the listeners?

17:40.47

Matthew Kennard

Yeah, I think you know one of the areas that we'd spend a lot of our time on is curriculum adoption. Right? And I think if you think of the common model for curriculum curriculum with adoption, you know, a school will run an RFP, they'll choose a curriculum for adoption. They will do particularly today in the world, you know, certainly from my LearnZillion days and, you know, now Imagine Learning, right? They'll also do product training so people know how to access the curriculum, enter the site, do whatever else they need to do to practically use a tool in front of them. But there is a world of work. that goes beyond just how do I access the tool, right? And I think if any of us were at our jobs today and someone told them they had to fundamentally shift. You know, you use a Windows machine today, I'm gonna give you an Apple machine and I'm gonna tell you they're a little bit different and I expect the exact same amount of productivity from you tomorrow, you would turn around and say, well, it's just not reasonable. Right? Like I need to get used to it.

18:45.87

Eric Stano

Right.

18:46.94

Matthew Kennard

Now, imagine that times a thousand when you're going from a curriculum that you're used to teaching to a new curriculum.

18:47.22

Eric Stano

Right.

18:52.59

Matthew Kennard

And like, I think it's a wonderful thing that we have ed reports and we have amazing, particularly OER curriculum, like a lot of mathematics and others, but they are pedagogically more challenging to implement in the classroom.

19:00.00

Eric Stano

Right.

19:07.71

Eric Stano

Right

19:07.77

Matthew Kennard

So the idea that you could do two to three days of a launch PD where you gather everyone in a room and you showed them some stuff and then told them to go in the classrooms and good luck, right? That's just, it's antithetical to any sort of good learning experience that we'd want to have. And we're the people who are teaching.

19:25.52

Eric Stano

Right.

19:28.11

Matthew Kennard

So when it comes down to breaking that model, to answer, sorry, to take a, maybe a long way around to the answer to your question.

19:36.58

Eric Stano

No, it's good.

19:37.86

Matthew Kennard

Instead of thinking about how we just put teachers in front of someone to give them a PD day, we actually like to think a lot about how do we structure observation and support for leaders, specifically in year one in the form of coaching and learning walks. Along with introductory workshops for classroom educators, we're actually more focused in year one on how are we having leaders go through effective PL to support the idea of building an environment of continuous improvement in a classroom. How to support and intervene in the you know implementation of a new curriculum, and how are we doing observation to see, as folks are being introduced to the new curriculum and they're using it in the classroom, to where we're strong and where we're weak, where we can improve, and do that in a non-evaluative way, where instead of saying, like you know we're going after targeting an individual, we're saying, ‘Hey, as a building, as a district, this has been easy and this has been hard’, and how do we then direct targeted support to those constituencies that need it in the form of maybe additional coaching, maybe additional workshops. And not think of this as a 30-day change process, but one that we're going to think about over a two-year period to master the trick. And that doesn't necessarily mean that we need to spend 10 times the amount of money. It's actually just what's the proper deployment of funding to ensure we actually have the right types of PL being deployed at the right time. And that thoughtful design makes all the difference in the successful implementation of a year one curriculum.

21:13.93

Eric Stano

And again, you've begun to already, I think, answer my next question before I ask my next question you know as I'm staring at my own notes here. It brings to mind, and I wonder if this is resonant with you, an old quote from an editorial director of mine. I was in educational publishing for for a million years. And at one point in 1993, she made the statement that ‘We're also busy working none of us have time to do our jobs’ and a lot of a lot of what you're saying strikes me is that you're right in the sort of the crucible of that. And again you've begun to get to this but i wonder if you have any additional recommendations or really specific recommendations for school leaders to engage their teachers in continuous learning so that it's viewed much more so as valuable support rather than an additional burden. You know, again, it goes to that phrase of my editorial director. So busy working, don't have time to do their jobs. How can we make this something that feels that much more like it's a natural part of their job, not just something ah more more work to do?

22:29.11

Matthew Kennard

You know, the beauty of education is that it never stops, right? And every new level you're in, every new role you're in, you can benefit from support to help you master that level, right?

22:32.64

Eric Stano

Right.

22:43.15

Matthew Kennard

If you're gonna become a principal, we know it takes five years before you've really started to show mastery of the role, right? I think that if you want to see more effective adoption, of PL, it's also standing up and doing PL yourself. And, you know, we see this a lot when we do say a curriculum adoption or any large initiative at the school level, when leaders also participate in the coaching and the observation.

23:04.01

Eric Stano

Interesting.

23:15.43

Matthew Kennard

And the workshops and they can also show that they are as invested in the work as classroom educators are expecting to show up. It creates a really virtuous circle right because not only can they stand up and say listen I am using professional learning as well to support my work. It also often helps create the right type of feedback loops and support for them who are responsible for the overall outcome to feel like they have been properly supported and not just stuck in ah you know on an island and said, ‘Hey, perform. Hope it all goes well. But there's not enough support to help you in this endeavor.’

23:50.79

Eric Stano

Right.

23:53.82

Matthew Kennard

Right? It's about building a connected system of learning.

23:54.32

Eric Stano

Right.

23:58.96

Eric Stano

Nice. And I want to circle back to something that you stated at the beginning, and I think it's a perhaps a differentiator even just for this conversation because we've talked about different ways of implementing PL, but for districts aiming to use data to drive PL decisions, where should they start in terms of data collection and goal setting? You know and are there basic metrics that every district should be tracking?

24:31.08

Matthew Kennard

You know, we have spent a lot of time on this in this area. And I think that data in many respects is kind of the most important and the hardest part of professional learning in particular.

24:41.56

Eric Stano

Of course course right

24:43.60

Matthew Kennard

And I think that our part of the edtech industry has probably been the lightest on data in many respects and not for lack of trying, but when you're thinking about professional upskilling, you know, how do you measure that? Right? How do you do so effectively?

24:57.94

Eric Stano

Right

24:59.87

Matthew Kennard

We look at it as a multi tiered piece and I think that the Guskey framework gives us a good place to start right when we think about professional learning and where that takes us because it gives us a chance to think not only about, you know, a progression of work, but also what those progressions mean and and you know who is best positioned to deliver that result. So we think about the Guskey framework, right? It's been around since 2000. Understanding level one and two, right? 1) How do people react to the professional learning? 2) And like did they feel like they learned something? Are the two most common ways that we think about PD, right? What's your NPS score for the event? And what is your confidence rating coming out of that event to go and deploy the tactic as needed? And I think that you know that's an excellent place to start. And I think that making sure that we're building professional learning that was both, delightful but also useful right for our educators. Like that has to be a starting point but when you think about levels three and four right - did you do the organizational work to support putting in practices policies resources and did you see evidence of change instruction? That's where building in some of the other components like support for leaders and coaching as well as non-evaluative learning walks become really important additions to that work because the data you derive there help answer those questions directly. And I think being able to think about support and changed instruction is going hand in hand, right? Because as you create that environment, you're able to support long-term change in instruction. If it's delightful, useful and usable to the educator and you've created a supportive environment and you are looking for that evidence of change, it helps you understand how far you're progressing and how quickly. And I think that's important to track along the way as well.

27:15.85

Eric Stano

And yeah, and you've referred to the Guskey model and some of the levels there. Do you want to take a moment just for anybody who may not be as familiar with the Guskey model to just kind of briefly explain it so they can get the proper takeaways from what you just said?

27:47.79

Matthew Kennard

So the point of the Guskey evaluation model for professional learning was to make an attempt at helping folks understand what is the long-term trajectory of change? What are the steps you need to achieve in order to make professional learning meaningful in the long run for impacting student outcomes, right?

28:18.16

Matthew Kennard

And if you think about it, the steps are really about what are the things you need to do?

28:18.59

Eric Stano

Right.

28:22.46

Matthew Kennard

You need to make learning delightful. You need to make it useful. You have to create an environment for change and see evidence of change in behavior in the classroom that ultimately allows you to own changes in student outcomes based on the behaviors you're taking from a professional learning perspective. So we use that a lot as a way to think about is what we're building both from a solution perspective as well as an offering perspective helping to drive that forward.

28:41.00

Eric Stano

Gotcha. Gotcha.

28:53.56

Eric Stano

And turning the corner just a little bit, but still staying with data. For school and district leaders who are seeking to use data to refine or justify their investments in professional learning, are there particular data points that you think are, or in your experience, have been most persuasive in garnering the support that they need?

29:53.13

Matthew Kennard

Listen, I think that we are high time, we are past time for professional learning to be held to account for moving student outcomes, right? And not just test scores.

30:05.23

Eric Stano

Ah, there you go.

30:05.26

Matthew Kennard

You know, if PL is being effective, it's gonna impact everything from student satisfaction to attendance rates, to discipline referrals, right? We should be able to see clear evidence of change instruction as a leading indicator and clear changes in student outcomes as a lagging indicator.

30:22.39

Eric Stano

Uh-huh. Makes sense.

30:26.02

Matthew Kennard

And we really think that, especially for districts who are working with external providers, but even when you're working internally, building the ability to measure that change in instruction, both from a review standpoint, but also tying it to the student outcomes, right?

30:43.93

Eric Stano

Right

30:49.53

Matthew Kennard

Because every classroom doesn't get the same level of PD, right? You can AB test yourself. You can also work with a third party to do the same A-B testing.

30:55.46

Eric Stano

Sure.

30:58.80

Matthew Kennard

And we have done that on several occasions where we'll work with an external party to really look at the statistical significance of the work we have done for kind of a BetterLesson PD classrooms versus non BetterLesson PD classrooms within the same district. And you know the difference is stark. But if I'm writing the checks or I'm thinking about how I'm showing ROI to my school board or even in conversations with my educators as to why we do this. That ability to show evidence of change instruction and that ability to show change student outcomes really have to become the measures by which we think about whether or not PD is effective.

31:42.23

Eric Stano

That makes a lot of sense. That makes a great deal of sense. OK, I'm going to shift perspectives ever so slightly again on you here. And I'm going to put the teachers really in the role of the students for the purpose of this conversation. You know, personalized professional development is challenging to implement at scale. Anything personalized is challenging to develop at scale. What tips might you have for districts that do want to nevertheless tailor learning experiences to the diverse teaching and learning styles of their teachers?

32:22.86

Matthew Kennard

Yeah, I think that at the end of the day we really like to think about what is the best support and instruction personalization that you can provide given your district's needs? Does that make sense?

32:39.21

Eric Stano

It does.

32:40.76

Matthew Kennard

Personalizing to the context of a district. First of all, what are we trying to do? We are implementing a curriculum and it's broad based. Are we trying to do something highly specific? I think that. being able to think through what is the progression of learning we want to bring folks through. And this is true as a superintendent thinking about how they support their leaders or building leaders thinking about how they support their educators in classrooms, right? How are we thinking about bringing those folks through a meaningful learning journey that builds and crescendos with ultimately ownership of change behavior. And so I think that when we think about how we do that level of support or how you should be planning, it is what does that journey need to look like based on the localized context that you're facing? And you know, the outcome you're trying to achieve.

33:33.64

Eric Stano

Right. And relative to that localized context and those individual needs of teachers, do you see there being any gap between speaking to those and nevertheless aligning that professional learning with statewide initiatives or do you think the two are pretty congruent?

33:56.15

Matthew Kennard

You know, I think one of the beautiful things that we've seen lately is like a real effort from states and educational state DOEs, educational service centers, legislatures, regional service centers to align their work with districts and not work in conflict, but in concert. And I think you know whether it's open RFPs or kind of more clearly defined priorities that are coming from you know, states that are often funding some of these initiatives or from districts back up to the state saying, ‘Hey, here's where our localized context matters.’ You know encouraging that level of communication to ensure that we are building that concert in our efforts, I think will continue to be important.

34:15.67

Eric Stano

Right.

34:40.71

Matthew Kennard

But it also feels like we have never had a more robust and committed structure for ensuring that folks stay on the same page.

34:51.34

Eric Stano

Nice. Again, sort of drilling down, and I've already referenced you know to the folks writing the checks, but just to stay on that topic just for a moment or two more. When scaling a successful professional learning program district-wide, are there logistical and budgetary considerations that any leaders trying to do this should anticipate? And if there are, how do they prepare for those challenges?

35:22.19

Matthew Kennard

You know, I think this goes back to kind of like some of the pitfalls in using data, right? And I know we didn't, you know, I'm obviously a clear proponent of using data and coming up with base metrics are important, but also understanding that you sometimes have to approach things one initiative at a time and they can stack.

35:26.84

Eric Stano

right

35:30.59

Eric Stano

sure

35:41.15

Matthew Kennard

Right. And I think that sometimes being very clear that PD, we often think about PD as like, what am I going to have to do tomorrow?

35:42.35

Eric Stano

sure

35:48.53

Matthew Kennard

What am I going to have to do immediately? But taking a slightly longer lens to say, ‘If I look at my strategic plan and I think about the perfect version of that school district, what is my gapping to that and what has to come first?’ And I think if folks can step back and say, hey, listen, I want to scale a successful program. Let me think about that both in terms of resources and time. And time is a resource in all of this. Most districts can't get through seven initiatives in a year, right? That's just not a practical place to be, but you can build a plan over a two-year period to tackle two to three things a year successfully.

36:33.58

Matthew Kennard

Right, so identifying that order, identifying that stack of things that are important to work through, and that's both internally and with your external partners.

36:33.72

Eric Stano

sure

36:43.14

Matthew Kennard

So it feels like a unified vision of what's coming will allow you the breadth of you required, I think, to build a longer-term plan. And people appreciate that right because they understand the arc that you're going to take them on. It's no different than when you walk into a classroom as a student, right?

37:00.98

Eric Stano

Right.

37:02.88

Matthew Kennard

And you see here's the syllabus for the year. Here's what we're going to try and accomplish. It gives you some signposting to what is happening when and why and how those things stack.

37:18.01

Eric Stano

And speaking of that stack, that arc, that those signposts, another sort of pivot on it here, but in the post-ESSER world, how are districts and states funding that?

37:34.66

Matthew Kennard

You know, one of the nice things about professional learning is it was never dependent on ESSER as its primary funding source. Professional learning is title fundable - Title I, Title II, Title IV, right? You can use your general budgets for it. You can use your curriculum adoption budgets for it. So there's a lot of ways to be able to support professional learning.

37:55.73

Eric Stano

Right, right.

37:59.99

Matthew Kennard

And that's a great thing, right? Because it means that at every level, we're acknowledging that there are humans at the center of the work. And regardless of your initiative, it does require support for the humans you're asking to do the work. And so we have a funding guide on betterlesson.com. Definitely recommend folks checking it out. But we are happy to work with any district to help them identify the funding sources that make sense. But there are more ways to fund PL than I think most people necessarily think about day one.

38:35.99

Eric Stano

Okay, so ESSER funding going away does not have much bearing on professional learning funds as it would on perhaps instructional materials and there's there's lots of other avenues for folks to to fund such initiatives is what I'm hearing.

38:56.98

Matthew Kennard

And what I would say is that obviously the reduction in ESSER funding reduces a way that you can fund PL right and I you know, I would say that I probably stand with many educators around the country who would say, we still got some significant work to do from COVID and from pre COVID.

38:58.71

Eric Stano

Yeah.

39:13.11

Eric Stano

Sure.

39:15.02

Matthew Kennard

And ESSER was a real opportunity to supercharge some of those efforts.

39:16.67

Eric Stano

Sure.

39:20.62

Matthew Kennard

And I'd love to see, ultimately, it gets renewed. I think that PL will ultimately suffer a little less in other areas because of the diversity of funding avenues for it. That being said, it's certainly tough to see funding get more limited.

39:37.16

Eric Stano

Right. Right. I think that's well characterized and very clear. Let's look ahead. So what key trends in professional learning do you think are going to be the most impactful for K-12 schools in the next, let's look forward to three to five years from now.

39:56.92

Matthew Kennard

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the nice things about the next three to five years is there's going to be an opportunity for districts to continue to dive into the idea of data driven PL, right? I think the tools and infrastructure have been made much more broadly available to help support lots of observation, the ability to use coaching, and the ability to deliver content just in time, whether it's asynchronously or synchronously for folks. And so I think that trend and continuing to lean into how external providers can provide that technology bent and that data collection bent to the work I think will be a really important trend. And using that to also think about kind of big data set analysis on what's working around the country, right? And thinking about things like automated suggestions for PL based on status structure or district personalized context even down to kind of what's the right order and what are other districts that you may not be able to draw in immediate characterization too that are similar to your own, but actually share like similar demos, similar journeys, right? And can be useful counterparties as you're discussing and thinking through and providing leaders with others who are going through some similar areas. So we think that machine learning and AI will also play an important role in some of that automation. And we're excited to think about how we can use that even within our own offerings, being able to automate, you know, for participants in BetterLesson PL, where do you go next in our library of thousands of instructional strategies, right, to continue your work?

41:39.26

Eric Stano

And AI and automation continuing to have its effect on every corner of our lives, including professional learning. So that's interesting. 

41:48.63

Matthew Kennard

Big data set analysis has been around for 50 years, right? Like some of this is not even new.

41:56.76

Eric Stano

Of course.

41:57.85

Matthew Kennard

It's just, it's our ability to, to use it at scale and use it affordably.

42:02.82

Eric Stano

And actually that is a reminder similar to that given to me by my engineering colleagues, who every time I blush at the innovations that are being made, they remind me that it's been around for decades. Okay, well not to put you on the spot, but If there is one immediate action a school or district leader could take, if they're inspired by this conversation and they want to make a visible difference in the quality and impact of their professional learning efforts, what what would that immediate action be based, your recommendation for that?

42:38.61

Matthew Kennard

Start with an outcome. Start with the outcome that's most important with your backward map.

42:43.35

Eric Stano

Yeah, yep.

42:44.17

Matthew Kennard

Right, you can derive an outcome from what you choose to do, but rarely is that going to be the most impactful thing that you need. So I think if you can start with an outcome, that is the right place to go and then work with your team and your external providers to backwards map what you would need to do to solve that outcome.

43:06.91

Eric Stano

Right, right. And yeah, backward design, backward mapping seems to have been, in addition to the data collection, it seems to have really been a fulcrum of this conversation. So I really appreciate us circling back to that. I wish I had backward designed this conversation from that point itself, but I'm glad we arrived here and nevertheless.

43:29.72

Eric Stano

Well, listen, Matthew, I want to thank you so much for your time today, your reflections on professional learning and the changes that can take place to make it more continuous and really move the needle. And thank you for your time and insights.

43:49.00

Matthew Kennard

Eric, this has been great. I really enjoyed the conversation and really excited to see where PL takes us in the future.

43:56.00

Eric Stano

Great. Thank you so much.