Just Did Some Professional Development

Activities to Help Educators Process and Apply PD Content and Skills

The most useful professional development (PD) is not in the “sit and get” moment at a conference or in-service training, though there can be sudden and lasting moments of insight in each. The most effective “stuff” of professional learning is in the personal reflection, application, connection, and conversation that follow these experiences. While the conference or training provides raw input and sparks personal/professional interest, what we do with that content in the weeks and months that follow results in the most positive changes in our practice.

There is significant, priming value in preparatory readings, discussions, video-watching, and reflection completed before attending any PD presentation. Let’s do those things so as to maximize the impact of the experience. The real utility and inspiration, however, come in the actions we take for ourselves as we carry new learning forward. In the same PD breath, then, let’s plan specifically for how we’re going to process and apply the content from the PD experiences we attend, including how we’ll connect and collaborate with others as we do.

More than 15 years ago, I wrote a piece included in The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli in which I emphasized the need for teachers to feel safe not knowing everything there is to know about effective instruction. Professionals in any field recognize the importance of never being finished with our learning. It’s vital (life-giving) to embrace faculty who are still developing their instructional understanding and craft, especially for today’s teachers who are under extreme scrutiny for one misstep with “science of” research that is sometimes deeply questionable and often politically motivated. From that earlier piece:

“Great PD happens in schools in which we are encouraged to change one’s thinking in light of new perspective and evidence. To do this, the emotional/political atmosphere must be accepting of candor and constructive criticism. Teachers don’t always have the tools for critiquing colleagues constructively, so building those skills may be a prerequisite to new building initiatives or individual growth. As writer and educator, Margaret Wheatley, says, “We can’t be creative unless we’re willing to be confused.” Effective schools can’t afford to have teachers spend most of their daily energy convincing others that they know what they’re doing. It needs to be a safe place to make mistakes, an inviting place to draw insights from those mistakes and [welcome] our [rising] passion to improve classroom practice as result.”

Let me offer one last, perhaps unpopular, note before offering the suggestions below: When an author, researcher, or educator comes to speak at our school or district, we should not usurp significant portions of that presentation time with activities like brainstorming, making school plans, building take-away products, or anything else that would diminish what we hear and see from the presenter. Yes, there should be mini-breaks throughout a full day PD experience to process content and help short term memory move that content into long-term memory, but the primary time and structure for processing, collaboration, creation of artifacts we can use, and other applications is on us as professionals to do after experiencing the presentation.

Of course, if the presentation is literally on creating these artifacts, doing that processing, and collaborating with others, then yes, let’s do a lot of it during the presentation itself. On the other hand, if the presentation or lecture is about something new in child development and instructional practices, let’s focus 80-90% of the day on hearing and seeing this new content, committing the bulk of our content processing and collaborating to post-presentation activities.

To improve the positive impact of professional development experiences, consider the following activities that we can do for ourselves and with others after conferences and presentations that help us dive deeply into new ideas and practices, assimilate ideas into our current practices, or adjust our current thinking and practices to these new perspectives. Take heart, too, as we explore these ideas in our own classrooms and schools that we take and use what works for us. As Robyn Jackson recommends in Never Underestimate Your Teachers, “Don’t try to apply everything you learn exactly as the presenter presents it. Focus on the underlying principles and adapt the particular strategies to your own context and teaching style.”

Summarizing/Processing PD Content for Ourselves

Strategy 1: Create “sketch-note” drawings of the presentation content as you see it, including principles, elements, connections, techniques, and what it all means for you.

Focus specifically on what you want to carry forward from the presentation. You may consider using an app like Paper 53, Adobe Draw, Procreate, or even free websites like Google Drawing or Autodraw.com. Tips on Sketch-noting and On-line examples can be found here:

Strategy 2: Write a Reflective Piece, Posting, or Email

Whenever we maintain a reflective journal or draft professional articles and online posts, we clarify our thinking and often, make connections and commit to ideas. The process is done for us as much as it is for others who might benefit from the sharing, and our teaching and leading are better for it.

Try responding to one or more of the following prompts in an email to a supportive colleague, an online posting, or a reflective thought piece that you may or may not let anyone see:

[X] was validating, reaffirming for me…
This shifts my thinking a bit…
So, what these ideas mean for me in my program is…
I like [X], but I’m concerned about…
If we did this [X], we’d have to change…
I wonder if we…
This makes me think of…
In the months ahead, I’d like to focus on…
Here’s how I would improve one or more of these ideas for our situation…
Five ideas/techniques/insights from the training that spoke to me were…
Here are two principles from the training in which I feel particularly challenged (I’m not convinced they are true). Here’s what I’d like to do to dive more deeply into their merits…
“I like, I wish, What if?” (Tina Seelig, p. 121)

Strategy 3: Based on the presentation’s content, identify one or more elements of your instructional approach, or that of the school’s, that should be dismantled and removed in the service of what’s more effective, developmentally responsive, and ethical.

Join me in making it a practice every year to unlearn at least one thing about teaching, learning, or leadership that we’ve assumed was helpful and appropriate, but really isn’t. Over the years, I’ve had to let go of a lot that I thought was legitimate. It went unscrutinized, however, and I was making assumptions. Here are some of those ideas I had to remove from my practice:

Thinking, “I’m just a teacher.”
Oral dictation spelling tests
Thinking that if I don’t grade it, kids won’t do it
0’s on the 100-point scale
Re-do’s for only partial credit
Teaching only to the extent of my own knowledge, and getting uncomfortable when students surpass me in understanding and skills
Working harder than my students when it comes to their discipline
Being teacher-centered in the classroom
Thinking we have to wait until everyone agrees before we move forward
Using technology just to use technology, especially when something without tech would work better
Feeling like a complete failure when I make one mistake during the day
Taking students’ comments about me personally
Thinking I could “move the needle” in new building initiatives by personal conviction alone
Thinking that only I, the teacher or administrator, can give useful feedback when students can be taught to do it just as well.

Along these same lines, did anything in the conference or training make you realize you might have some unrecognized biases, leanings, preferences, or, “–ism’s” such as racism, classism, sexism, ableism, and ageism? If so, get honest: How does that bias filter how you see teaching, learning, students, colleagues, new ideas, or the role of education? Does it diminish anyone or anything, and does it elevate anyone or anything? Does it shape what you consider to be “normal,” thereby excluding what others find normal? How could you open what you perceive as normal here? What three steps will you take this year to dismantle and remove that bias?

Strategy 4: Identify one principle or practice from the training that you judge so important, it’s worth the pushback or outright scorn from others if or when you implement it.

State the principle or practice, why it’s so important and helpful, and your responses to those who would push back on it.

Strategy 5: Create a one-word summary.

Choose a word that best captures the biggest elements of the PD, or that best captures your response to the PD, and argue for its merits. The word isn’t so important to our goal of personal processing here as is its defense. So, today’s session on using Google Docs is best described as door-opening (yes, hyphenated words are allowed), or the new, trauma-informed teaching methods are a root system of an established oak. Once stated, we make the case for the word’s choice, including as many elements from the PD as we can.

Strategy 6: Conduct a P-M-I (Edward de Bono) Activity

Record a compelling or controversial idea from the presentation at the top of a doc or sheet of paper. Below it, create a three-column chart with the following headings: Plusses, Minuses, Interesting. In each column, record your take on advantages of the idea in the Plusses section, disadvantages or negatives in the Minuses section, and those aspects of the idea that don’t fall neatly into either category in the Interesting section. Examples here might be how technology facilitates the new practice, what students would need to make it work, or what changes we could see in students and families if we implemented the practice.

Of course, this works well when we do it individually then share with colleagues who’ve also done this, but just doing it by ourselves and noting which column has the most comments is valuable. Revising our thinking in light of what others have noted in their columns is encouraged!

Strategy 7: Spend a moment with the operating principles of the PD’s topic, and consider: Are we just chasing quick recipes for our teacher cookbook, or do we have the principled, “Why” behind each strategy and its principles, and thus can use them strategically?

Identify an operational principle or tenet of what you’ve learned in the PD session. Make sure it’s clearly stated. Then list three or more expressions of that principle in action – What would it look like if we put the principle into practice?

Just as important, look at the teaching techniques you employ across one week’s worth of instruction: Which principles from the PD are utilized? If the answer is none, how could you adjust so they are utilized?

Strategy 8: Write a letter of no more than two pages for potential new hires in your school that describes your faculty’s guiding principles and professional expectations based on the PD, as well as other principles and practices you support.

These should be friendly descriptions of your operating tenets that incorporate what you’ve learned in the PD, mindful that those who do not ascribe to the same tenets would be frustrated working in your team, department, or school. You’re trying to be very clear here and make the case for a good match in philosophy. You may or may not use this letter, but composing it really helps put our thoughts in order and commit to taking action on the practices described.

Strategy 9: Identify one of your personal “touchstones” and consider what they would say about the PD’s recommended ideas and practices.

An educational touchstone is someone, alive or dead, such as a colleague, an author/presenter/researcher, a district or faith leader, or a family member who has earned such respect from you that you would seek their opinion when making complex decisions. Be sure to take a moment to describe why that person is such a professional touchstone for you. This is a key step as it creates a focusing lens through which to compose your response to the most essential element you do now: Identify the pro’s and con’s of one of the ideas or practices from the PD experience as if this respected individual was weighing them with you. Begin with, “What would [X] say about this?” and see where it takes you. Of course, each time you do this in the presence of a colleague or three, it improves the effect.

Strategy 10: Prepare a policy statement or “White Paper,” on the new approach to classroom practice.

To help us answer what all this mean for us in the classroom, it’s often helpful to prepare a one page statement describing the new practice in our teaching, why it’s going to be used, and how it will be implemented in our classrooms. In this case, we’ll choose one of the major ideas from our most recent PD session, beginning the statement with, “This year we will be implementing descriptive feedback techniques and students’ self-monitoring of learning progress…,” and continuing through the why and how. Your intended audience for this writing is your students, their parents, your colleagues, and your professional self, so write with these people in mind. Again, you may or may not actually send this out, but creating this statement helps us focus on the idea and, ultimately, put it into play.

Strategy 11: Create a 2-D or 3-D geometric shape or composite thereof that captures the warp and weave of one or more ideas from the PD experience.

An iconoclast is someone who breaks with conventional thinking or dogma, and it’s usually done very publicly, such as Maya Angelou, Galileo, bell hooks, Norman Lear, Shirley Chisholm, and Wyclef Jean. What geometric shapes best express their iconic contributions? Hmm. ‘an unraveling cone? Perhaps interlocking hexagons tessellating into 3D gothic depiction of forested area reclaimed from desert? Or, is the iconoclast a tangent breaking from a circle’s perimeter or a spiraling Fibonacci sequence (a steadily increasing series in which each number is equal to the sum of the preceding two numbers), though slightly skewed so as to break through the perimeter?

What is the geometry of musical disruption, government function, eloquence, our evolving relationship with Artificial Intelligence, or the infrastructure needed for aging populations? Considering the geometry of something not usually fathomed in those terms helps us isolate critical elements and see how they relate to the whole. So, perhaps student motivation is a mosaic or mandala, grading is topography, working with English language learners is a tetrahedron with familiarity for students’ cultures as its base. Give it try with some your recent PD’s concepts!

Summarizing/Processing PD Content with Others

Now that we’ve explored strategies for summarizing and processing PD content for ourselves, let’s consider ways we can do so with our colleagues.

Strategy 1: Redeliver the PD to Faculty who Couldn’t Attend

We all know that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. So, capture the major points of the PD, re-style it, if necessary, to reflect your community’s reality and personality, then present it to those who did not attend the conference or training. Isolating critical attributes and principles and reformatting them for your particular audience help determine what is salient (most important and worth retaining), makes us more versatile in the content’s applications, and strengthens our commitment to implement the new thinking in our practices.

Strategy 2: Partner A and B (Paired Verbal Fluency)

For this strategy, participants form partners, identifying one as “A” and one as “B.” On the word, “Go,” Partner A relates everything learned in the PD for one minute. Partner B is silent – nodding, trying to listen. When the presenter calls time, Partner A stops talking and listens to Partner B, who now relates everything he recalls from the presentation that has not yet been mentioned by Partner A. Both partners can reference their notes, if helpful. Presenters can also adjust the time frame, 30 seconds a piece up to two minutes a piece.

Strategy 3: Think-Pair-Share (quick version)

Ask participants to spend time thinking quietly and independently, recording responses as warranted. When time is called, ask participants to pair up and ask each partner to share their thinking. Each of these steps should take only a few minutes. Once done, ask one or both partners to share three to five responses made by them and their partner.

Strategy 4: Inner-Outer Circle

Ask half the participants to stand in a large circle with a body width between each person. Ask the other half of the group to get in the center of the first circle and, each facing one of the outer circle participants. They should be conversationally close. If done properly, this creates an inner and an outer circle, one facing the outside of the circle, and one facing its center.

Think of these circles as gears, one moving outside the other. Choose one of the gears to remain in position while the other one moves, at least at first. Later you can add movement to the other gear. For this example, let’s keep the inside gear in position and move only the outer gear, asking them to move three individuals to the right and greet their new partner, the one facing them.

In this first position, ask partners to each answer a question about the most recent learning. If possible, make it something that requires a complex response, not a simple one-word answer. Give participants 30 seconds a piece or a total of one minute for both partners to make their responses. Make the time shorter or longer as needed.

When time is up, ask the outer gear or circle of participants to move a particular number of people to the right or left. Keep track of where you send folks, so you don’t repeat partnerships, if possible. Once participants are in their new partner positions, ask another question to which both partners must respond in the time allotted. When time is up, move the outer circle again and continue with the next question. Conduct the activity for anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, then ask participants to thank their partners and return to their seats.

Strategy 5: Share One, Get One

Ask participants to create a large 3 X 3 grid on a piece of paper and record three concepts or practices from the PD they’d like to remember in any three of the grid’s nine squares. When completed, participants then move about the room asking others to record one (and only one!) of their recorded ideas into the remaining six squares of their grids while they record one of their ideas in the remaining six squares in the other’s grid. Invite participants to converse as they feel comfortable about any of the statements. When all nine squares are filled, however, each person then returns to their seat and creates a summary of the PD content incorporating each of the nine elements in their grids.

Strategy 6: Word Splash (originated by Dorsey Hammond)

As you begin a PD session, distribute an envelope with the presentation’s vocabulary terms printed on individual sheets of paper, or simply post the terms at various angles at the front of the room. Ask participants to create a paragraph using all the terms meaningfully to describe the day’s content. Remember, this is done before we even begin, we’re priming the brain for what’s to come! Then, conduct the presentation.

Now, ask the group to form partners or use their tablemates to make sense of the content by creating a well-organized paragraph that correctly incorporates each vocabulary term, dropping earlier misconceptions and revising thinking in light of the training. Ask each group to share their summary and, as time and group chemistry allow, ask the larger group to vote on the one summary that best captures the PD.

Strategy 7: Corners (originated by Spencer Kagan)

Place a different statement or principle from the PD in each corner of the room or in multiple locations along the walls of the room. Now ask faculty to move to the location with the statement that has a particular characteristic for them. For example, we can ask faculty to stand under the statement that, “Will result in the most significant change in their teaching practices,” “Most validates and affirms what they are already doing,” “Has the potential to have the most positive and lasting impact on students,” “Will require extended explanation for parents,” “Causes the strongest reaction, positive or negative, in them,” or, “Is the idea that makes me the most curious.” Once groups are formed in each location, group members share why they chose that characteristic and discuss. After a few minutes, time is called, and we ask faculty to stay under the same statement or move to a new location based on the “lens” of the next prompt.

Strategy 8: Human Continuum

Tape a long continuum across the floor with masking tape, weaving around tables as necessary. Place an arrow at either end and a perpendicular cross piece in the middle. At one end, tape a large “A” for Agree and at the other end a “D” for disagree. Ask participants to stand along the line according to how they agree (A) or disagree (D) with statements from the PD. If faculty sort of agree, but not completely, they stand only halfway out along the line to the “A,” and they do the same on the other side if they only sort of disagree. The central perpendicular line indicates the zone for “I don’t know” or “I’m not comfortable sharing my opinion.” Faculty physically move along the taped-down continuum positioning themselves in alignment with their current thinking.

Once everyone has taken a position, select a few and ask them to explain their position along the continuum. Then ask if anyone in the group wants to change their position after hearing their colleague’s reasoning and invite them to do so. Continue with the next statement and re-positioning along the continuum.

Activities to Apply and Extend PD Content

Now that we’ve taken the time to summarize and digest the PD, how can we make the most of our learnings? You may find the following strategies useful in this endeavor.

Strategy 1: Guided Practice

Practice matters. Start a structured sequence of teachers designing lessons that reflect the PD ideas, then conducting those lessons and reflecting on the results. Here’s the important part: Repeat the sequence several more times, carrying the iterative feedback forward into subsequent practice teaching. When teachers do this in small groups, of course, we grow in two ways: First, we get helpful feedback on our specific lessons and how to improve them. Second, when analyzing colleague’s lessons, we see them through our own instructional choices. We’re keenly listening to what others say about their choices, which provides us with an emotionally safe way to reflect candidly on our own work.

Strategy 2: Videotaping and Analysis

Ask a coach, mentor, or colleague to video you while teaching. Afterwards, watch the video privately, noting actions, language, and practices that align with the recent PD’s content, and note their effects on student learning. There’s no evaluation here, just analysis (breaking things down, gathering information). Even better, though, is doing this while sitting with that coach, mentor, or colleague. Let them know your focus for the lesson and remind them of the PD content elements on which you’re working. Invite them to be candid and share observations on things you may have missed. Feel free to stop the video, back it up, and play it again, as needed. Thankfully, the camera is objective, not subject to human vanities, and it leaves the reflection and interpretation to us – which is the heavy lifting we need to do to grow.

Strategy 3: Try 5

Over the two weeks following PD, implement five of the ideas from the experience. Ask a colleague to do the same. Then, sit with that colleague and share what you did and how each one went. Give the colleague a chance to do the same. Then, both of you comment on how you will revise each of the five practices to improve their effect for the next time you use them.

Strategy 4: Continue Interacting with the Presenter

In the months after the PD, reach out to the consultant/presenter with questions, even consider inquiring if the presenter would mind sitting in for a “Question and Answer” session virtually for 30 minutes in which you, your department, or school can ask questions that percolated to the surface after trying the PD. Many presenters do this for free (I’m one of them), but usually, if there’s a charge, it’s reasonably small.

There are other ways to use the consultant/presenter. They can:

Conduct an evening program for faculty on an associated topic or for parents on the main topic.
Record, or present live, a follow-up, virtual webinar customized for your faculty on a related topic within the larger subject of the recent PD experience.
Set up a space in the faculty lounge or conference room in which they sit and field specific questions about the topic for a day. Faculty rotate through during lunch and planning periods, and of course, food is made available throughout the day – It just helps.
Conduct direct observations of teachers teaching while using the PD’s ideas and later provide written feedback on those observations.
Facilitate discussions of 7 to 15-minute videos that teachers have made prior to the gatherings that focus on their implementation of the PD’s ideas. We do this in small groups, and we conduct the discussions as case studies, with teachers presenting their intended goals and colleagues providing feedback and suggestions on where to go next.
Review policies, documents, school plans, and other draft materials with school leadership, offering informed analysis and feedback on each one.

Strategy 5: Ask the Larger Questions of What We Do.

Asking the larger questions of our education work helps us see how specific ideas and practices such as those from the recent PD experience fit into the bigger picture. That context creates meaning for us, and we follow through on new thinking, empowered by the “why.” On a semi-regular basis and with one another, let’s ask the big questions of our profession, and how the recent PD supports or thwarts these efforts. Big questions include:

Why do we teach everyone, not just the easy ones?
Is what we’re doing fair and developmentally appropriate?
What is the role of schooling in a democracy?
How does my approach reflect what we know about students this age?
Why do we grade students?
Do our current approaches align with what we know about how the brain learns?
How do we communicate with parents?
How does assessment inform our practice?
How can we counter the negative impact of poverty on our students’ learning?
What role does practice play in mastery?
What is mastery for each curriculum we teach?
How are our current structures limiting us?
Whose voice is not heard in our deliberations?
Are we mired in complacency?
Are we open to others’ points of view – why or why not?
Does our report card express what we’re doing in the classroom?
How are modern classrooms different from classrooms thirty years ago?
Where will our practices look like 15 years from now?
To what extent do we allow state, provincial, country, or international exams to influence our classroom practices?

Strategy 6: Read and Discuss A Books Recommended During a PD Experience.

Find a willing colleague or three (a team or department?) to join you. Agree to meet at least twice, once after reading the first half of the book and once after finishing it. In each meeting, share what you found salient and worth lifting from the book for your own practices. These can be elements that validate what you already do, compelling perspectives and techniques you’d like to try, or anything that pushes your thinking.

Here’s the important second part of the process: During or after reading the book, employ three or more of these principles and practices in your own classroom instruction and, in a third meeting with the group, describe how each one went. Did it work? How do you know? If not, what would you change or do differently next time? What was the impact on students and their learning? What additional principles or practices from the book would you like to try?

Strategy 7: As a Small Group, Use PD to Create Informed Responses to Hypothetical and Real Classroom Scenarios.

When we are emotionally safe and non-urgent, we think clearly. When we have the opinions of our respected colleagues in our heads, we are fortified for the immediate responses we have to make dozens of times in every class. So, identify 20 or more scenarios related to the recent PD that might happen or have happened in our classes, then ask colleagues to sit in groups of 4 to 6 and brainstorm how they might respond using insights from the PD. Discussing our responses to these situations in advance can make our decisions in the moment more effective.

Strategy 8: Audit your Gradebook and Lesson Plans.

Working with a colleague or a small group, look at your lesson plans and gradebooks in light of the PD. Do they align with those principles and practices? If not, what will we change? Alternatively, look at samples of lessons and gradebooks online and do the same audit — What holds up under the scrutiny of the recent PD’s principles and practices and what needs to change? Working with samples from other schools can often be an emotionally safe place to start thinking about our own practices without feeling vulnerable and defensive.

Strategy 9: Maintain a Space on the Intranet, a Google Doc, or Somewhere Similar on the PD Topic.

Create this centralized location to post notes, insights, and ideas on the topic of study from conferences, article summaries, relevant blogs, webinars, and other PD experiences. Invite anyone who finds further thinking on the topic to share it here in this faculty portfolio, including the results of teachers trying some of the ideas in their own practice. Send an email each time something new is added to the collection.

Strategy 10: Teacher Smarter, Not Harder: Get Online!

Participate in the national conversations of your field, particularly as they apply to the PD content you experienced. When we join the online discussion we gain perspective and divergent ideas and see how the nation and profession are moving, which helps us make small to profound changes locally.

We can also subscribe to Smartbrief’s free updates, a digest of the top 10 to 12 articles in a particular field every day. They do this for many professions, so sign up for the areas that interest you most. Other online tutorials and websites I recommend including Teaching Channel (be sure to take advantage of the AMLE member discount, SchoolTube, and TeacherTube. Be sure to explore the presenter’s website as they often have helpful videos related to the PD.

Strategy 11: Instructional Roundtables

These are grassroots in nature, started and conducted by teachers, and focused on the PD content. They are one hour or less and advertised in advance. For example: “For those who are interested: Thursday, May 10th, 3:30 to 4:20 p.m, my classroom: How to Help Students Monitor Their Own Progress. BYOSS – Bring Your Own Snack and Strategy.” Everyone who attends must bring a useful idea, insight, or technique related to the PD content to share with the group. Each person presents what they’ve brought. With each idea the group has to find a way to improve upon the idea or extend it to something else. For example, if six people show up, each person walks out with 12 ideas.

Conclusion

Remember, the real impact of “sit and get” professional development is in the follow-up experiences, not in the moment of delivery. We need structured and not-so-structured interactions beyond the conference or in-service training to make this a good use of time and energy. Let’s make it a regular practice, then, to plan specific processing experiences every time we engage in PD for ourselves or our school. And hey, doesn’t this sound effective for students’ learning as well? Yes! So, let’s do for ourselves as we would for our students.

Referring to the principles of a lever, Archimedes once declared, “Give me a place where I can stand—and I shall move the world.” He was demonstrating a useful tool and its principle mechanics. His friends might have just nodded and gone about their day, but they didn’t. Handed the lever and guided in their practice after its demonstration his friends found their “a-ah!” and released the tool’s real power. That’s where we and our students stand now, too, eyeing the tools and ready to move the world.

Rick Wormeli is a long-time teacher, consultant and author living in Herndon, Virginia. His book, The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy, Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way, is available from www.amle.org/store. His newest books are Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Second Edition, and Summarization in any Subject: 60 Innovative, Tech-Infused Strategies for Deeper Student Learning, 2nd edition, co-authored with Dedra Stafford. He can be reached at rick@rickwormeli.onmicrosoft.com, @rickwormeli2, and at www.rickwormeli.com.