AXIOM Insights Podcast – Scaling Professional Development with E-Learning

Scott Rutherford
Hello, and welcome to the AXIOM Insights Learning & Development podcast. I’m Scott Rutherford. This podcast is focused on driving performance through learning. And today we’re looking at professional development in the delivery of professional development for instructors at scale, through instructor led and e-learning. And we’re doing this through the lens and experience of HILL for Literacy. HILL for Literacy is an education nonprofit that’s focused on helping teachers better use literacy research and data to teach reading and literacy, particularly to elementary students. And so I’m thrilled to be joined by Cindy McGurl, who’s the director of Research and Development, and MarcyKate Connolly, Marketing Director, both at HILL for Literacy. MarcyKate, Cindy, great to talk to you, and thanks for coming on the podcast.

Cindy McGurl
Thank you for having us.

MarcyKate Connolly
Appreciate being here.

Scott Rutherford
So let’s start with a just a conversation about what is health literacy and how the organization has come to be where it is. MarcyKate, could you sort of  — I understand it was founded in 2001. What’s the what’s the arc and development of ‘The HILL’?

MarcyKate Connolly
So we began in 2001, as the Hanson Initiative for Language and Literacy, and we were actually part of MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) for our initial first 10 years or so of life. And that was we our first big project was reading first, which was a statewide project that came down through federal funding. And we are with a primary professional device, primary professional development provider, reading first and sort of put us on the map here in Massachusetts, and got us a foothold in statewide projects. And since then, we’ve been working with numerous districts across Massachusetts, that’s where are most of our clients are. We have had other state projects in Connecticut, which came after we became a nonprofit. And other states we worked with about Rhode Island, we also worked with a state entity there as well, and had worked with other states in sort of a one off capacity with a districts here and a district there that hopefully will make more inroads in other states in the future. In 2010, we decided to reorganize as a nonprofit. And we moved out of the MGH into some offices in Woburn (Massachusetts) and became the HILL for Literacy, instead of the Hanson Initiative for Language Literacy, but it’s still an acronym, still capital H-I-L-L for Literacy, not one that you climb up (laughs). And from there, we had a, there’s a few handful of facilitators who come with us. And our executive director Darcy Burns had just come back from the University of Oregon, where she got her Ph.D., and took the reins as our executive director, and she’s been leading the charge ever since. She’s our fearless leader. And she is amazing at what she does, she really has her finger on the pulse of what’s going on and how to approach things in the best way. And then after shortly after that, we started a statewide project with Connecticut called CK3LI, which stands for the Connecticut K through three Literacy Initiative. And that’s been ongoing since 2012, or 2013. And it’s still going today in different iterations that was funded through actually state legislature and helped us reach numerous districts with statewide trainings and working with schools directly with coaching and helping them implement an MTSS model.

Scott Rutherford
So when that started in 2012 2013, you’re fundamentally doing this as instructor led training, coaching, face to face seminars, is that right?

MarcyKate Connolly
All in person. All in person. We were not, it was not it wasn’t a tech savvy time for us. All there are, you know, we have we had a workbook where we would look at assessment data and go through our data and process which was originally paper and pencil. Then we put it in Excel, which was like super high tech. And now we have HILL Online, which is [a] much more advanced and much simpler way of going about doing it much more efficient and accurate, because it kind of takes out some of the human error as well. All in person initially.

Cindy McGurl
We’ve had this long journey of iterating and improving the way in which we support schools and districts. We were fortunate in that we were born at a time around the turn of the century. I can’t believe I can say that now the turn of the century. And it seems like it was just yesterday, but it really wasn’t where there was so much happening in the fields of education, both from a legislative guidelines and research perspective, in 2000, where we were really lucky, really learning in the multi tiered systems of support framework (MTSS) was born at that time. So we were a part of that initiative. And I think what we have done at the HILL for Literacy is we’ve taken that multi tiered systems of support and really operationalize it. So in our infant infancy, I think the first 10 years or so of our existence, basically what we did was we took a framework or a theory and brought it to life. Established some systems and structures that really have grown into something that has become more sustainable, replicable, scalable, and sustainable. And so the first iteration of what we did, and our first I think, a milestone of growth, is we published, we published a book in 2010, I think it was finally published, it was called Leading Literacy Change. And it was sort of a how-to book and I think that was like the first time that we really brought things together that really instructed schools and districts on how they can bring and improve literacy practices, practices across the district. And while most certainly we’re building the knowledge of teachers, it’s not just teachers. Our point of entry, and our interest is working with the organization, the schools, the district, because it’s not just the knowledge of one teacher that needs to change. It’s the practices, the values, the collective knowledge base, and so forth at the schools and districts.

Scott Rutherford
And so you’ve mentioned the multi tiered systems of support, and I’d made a note to myself, just to understand the, the pieces of that, but from what I understand, right, there’s a — that includes Roadmap, needs assessment, Expertise, which is the professional learning, and then the Continuum, which I understand that to be helping instructors, classroom, teachers better understand the data that their students and their learners are giving them. Is that an appropriate sort of summary of what that encompasses?

Cindy McGurl
So that this is a really good and important, I think, description. So the Multi Tiered Systems of Support is a framework that is nationally renowned. It includes a variety of academic as well as behavioral structures, that guide or serve as guideposts for schools and districts and implementing literacy behavior on mathematics change. And there are many assets or guideposts of that framework, one is would include leadership, is we need to have the system, structure, mechanism, operations in place to be able to make those changes from an organizational standpoint. One is assessment. So making sure that that we have the appropriate and scope of assessments necessary to really clearly understand what’s happening at the systems and at the individual student level. So that’s the second thing. The third thing is making sure that we have evidence based programs to teach literacy, we have those resources that are available, and people know how to use them. Finally, or the next-to-last piece is making sure that people have an understanding of the science of reading. So they have an understanding about the science of how students learn how to read. And then most importantly, how we turn-key that into practice, because it’s one thing to have an understanding of the science, but it’s another thing to actually know how to take that knowledge and actually use it for the students in front of them. And finally, the last facet of a Multi Tiered Systems of Support is family engagement. And so what we’ve done in our iterations of operationalizing this and in bringing this into practice with schools and districts, is we’ve started to envision facets of this, that first were us standing and delivering and working actually more aside of them. As we’re coming into schools and using more of a coaching model. I think what makes us a little bit unique to other things and other products that are out there is we’re very much more on a coaching-type embedded support embedded training type institution, whereby we’re working side by side, because although those five cornerstone big idea pillars relate to every single implementation, each school and district is unique in terms of knowing how to do it. So it’s our partnership, working together, them being the experts of their system and asset really having an understanding of the research that helps us implement that. Now backing into what you were talking about in terms of Roadmap is, as you can imagine us going in and working side by side with them is super effective and very helpful in building up or knowledge and supporting them and implementing those practices. But for from a sustainability and scalability standpoint, quite challenging.

Scott Rutherford
Well, and that’s really where I wanted to take this conversation because I think it’s fascinating. And also challenging, right? Because you’re, and this is kind of a it’s also another lens on the, the delivery journey that so many of us who’ve been on over the past five years through the COVID years, which is simply how do you take a successful face to face model and translate that through the online, online synchronous, online asynchronous modality, which just gives you that reach or, as you sort of alluded to the ability to scale and grow.

Cindy McGurl
And that’s where Roadmap and Continuum came in. Both very laborious pieces of our model, roadmap is part of our leadership component, whereby we’re taking a step back partnering with schools and districts in gathering needs assessment information, to get a sense about what’s in place and what isn’t. So when we have our point of entry, we’re making sure we’re focusing in on the pieces that we both agree are most important to support. So roadmap includes a series of needs assessment tools and information gathering tools that help us be able to gather that through a more technological solution, rather than using personnel to do that. As far as continuous is concerned, and that goes into that second goal around assessment. Continuum is our supportive embedded data meeting support tool, whereby we’re gathering information around students, and we’re systematically through this application, guiding them through how to triangulate these data and having clarity about what students need. So in essence, what we started doing, and this is in our infancy, is really flipping the experience. So we’re leading with technology. And then we as personnel can be a little bit more strategic about how we support them and understanding what they’re seeing in front of. And therein comes expertise. Expertise is our most recent adventure, whereby we really needed to bring the science of reading into the knowledge of the science of reading into schools, if teachers don’t own or understand the evidence based practices, or how students learn how to read, then they’re going to struggle to know how to do any of it. So through over the past two years, starting with COVID, the past few years, we developed first a synchronous virtual series 10 modules that fit better within a school climate, so that basically what we did is we had to 10, two and a half hour sessions that could more easily fit within a school schedule. We delivered them virtually, synchronously and embedded within that series, we also provided them with material or routines that they can immediately transfer and use within their curriculum. So we would provide a little bit of learning, we would give them something to do in between, we would debrief thereafter. And then that’s how we would roll it out over the course of a school year, which was more palatable. And we’ve since partnered with AXIOM, an amazing partnership, where we’re learning ways in which, and we have built an asynchronous version. So now we’re leading with an asynchronous learning and engaging asynchronous learning experience, and then able to follow up after the fact using our personnel to coach them in supporting and implementing those practices within their school.

Scott Rutherford
Right, I was going to ask you about that, because I think it’s not just a move to an asynchronous delivery. Because to do that… the risk, I guess, is if people say asynchronous, it’s one size fits all, it’s, you know, click through when you have a risk of a lack of engagement. And on the learners point, there’s a lot of ways that can go that can go sideways. So what you’re doing is kind of building the e-learning into a coaching environment.

Cindy McGurl
Yes. So we will not be moving away we’ve always at our heart is we are consultancy, and coaching organization, whereby we’re committed to providing on the job, culturally and situationally relevant information, into a school or district. Because again, going back to what we originally talked about MTSS in our model, the whole model, in my opinion is a fabulous framework. And most of the tenets and structures that we have within they apply to all schools and districts, but when you get down to the nitty gritty of actually having to implement these things, customization is critical. We have different populations, cultures, resources, needs, knowledge, etc., in every single school district. Each one of those variations creates a unique circumstances that requires some level of modification adaptation or nuances in terms of implementation. It’s those things that really require the partnership and support and knowing how to actually put them in practice and then knowing if they’re working.

Scott Rutherford
So how did you approach, just conceptually, when you when you start to think about, you know, it’s an elephant that you have to take a bite of? Well, where do you where do you start to, to sort of scope the project to say, Okay, well, you know, we know we need this to be robust and flexible and customizable at scale. You know, those are those are two competing interests, customizable and repeatable, tend not to work well together. So what was your thought process? Or what were those conversations like, initially, when you when you were trying to just get your get your head around the scope of what that would look like?

Cindy McGurl
So we are very committed to an Agile approach. So that’s first and foremost, such that we’re routinely working with schools and districts and bringing our framework to them soliciting a lots of feedback, lots of survey data, we are iterating, and putting small pieces of things out soliciting feedback all the time, and then coming back and improving. And we’re committed to that approach. In addition, we have a series of researchers that also support us on our team, and serving as guideposts and reminding us like, hey, try this, try that. But we very much are committed to all the stakeholders to really help guiding us. Furthermore, I would also add, what we’ve done is, we continuously go back to some of those big ideas. We’re very committed to identifying, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job at identifying, the things that are most consistent across all places. We start with those five guideposts. And I think we’ve identified the things that are replicable. And then now we’re looking at ways in which we might need to customize or tweak. So our next adventure, and what we’re starting to iterate and imagine for the future is within various facets of our application, say for instance, in terms of data meetings, figuring out how we embed just-in-time, just-right supports right within these applications. Continuum, which is our data meaning platform, houses, a bunch of data and information that really supports and guides, teachers, teachers and knowing what students might need. But what we need embedded just-in-time, just-right-there is like the why short snippets about like, why are we making this recommendations, why you might do that, or links to micro lessons, etc., that support them through that process. So that when we’re in the scenario, which we are, our landscape in education today is such that we’re hearing from schools, districts, administrators, it’s never been more challenging, resources are scant, they’ve been asked to do more and more things, and the diversity of talent that they’re seeing in front of them is so diverse. Turnover is high. And you might be sitting in one grade level. And you might have a veteran teacher with 20 years experience with somebody who’s brand new, and you’re needing to figure out ways to iterate and figure out how to meet all their needs. So it is a challenge. And we’re excited to try to address it.

Scott Rutherford
And it would seem to me that the, one of the benefits for the individual schools or the districts even in working with HILL for Literacy is that data support and not just the science of literacy learning, but the data support that you gather over practice, because I’m assuming that you’re looking as much as the individual teachers are looking at the data for their students and using that to improve how they’re how they’re how they’re responding and developing appropriate interventions for the student, but HILL’s sort of 60,000 foot view could be really powerful as well, because you can identify trends that are district wide, statewide, national, is that right?

Cindy McGurl
That’s absolutely correct. So we are we have numerous research partners. And I think one of the things that we’re really challenged with, is to date randomized control trials have been, I would say, the spotlight and just the, what we’ve all worked for, and I think in research is like that has been the golden egg, so to speak, is to have that type of research. But the challenge with the randomized control trials is number one, they’re super expensive. Number two, they’re super slow, and they’re hard to turn-key into practice. Number three, the data are gathered on under the most optimal circumstances, when you have coaches, et cetera, and it’s not always real life and it’s hard to get it to transfer. We’re in this very unique circumstance or situation where we have action, but live data. This is the real deal. We’re collecting data and information on what’s happening under real circumstances, and we’re able to adapt and iterate as things go. And I think lo and behold, the thing that’s most important for everything that we do today and in the future is being and staying committed to this model whereby not just in our development, but in our practice, having a clearer sense about where we are putting in place some practices, evaluating how it works, and then continuously looking at those data to improve.

Scott Rutherford
So I wanted to ask your thoughts, because professional development, obviously, we’re talking about professional development for educators, because that’s, that’s your focus. But the folks listening to this podcast could be doing professional development for a number of variety of other fields. And clearly there’s a very, very long list. And there are a lot of people who are looking at similar challenges about bringing instructor led training to a virtual environment to serve professional development objectives. And I mean, are there is there a advice that you that you would give someone who’s perhaps earlier on this journey, trying to make that transition to learn from your experience? What, well, you know, what, what’s your what’s your best advice for someone based on where you’ve been?

Cindy McGurl
Hmm, um, I think first and foremost, remaining committing committed to doing somewhat or doing is making sure that you’re iterating. But number two, not taking for not taking for granted the content contextual nature of in the differences in each circumstance and how those things matter. There’s ample evidence out there for any type of professional learning, it’s one thing to participate in a training and then be able to demonstrate that you’ve learned from the training. It’s another thing to apply it. So, application not only has to do with being able to take that and apply it on optimal circumstances, but it’s also negotiating and understanding and needing the support of knowing how to apply it in a variety of circumstances. So there are things that you may not get in be able to answer or address all of them immediately, but always having the awareness of thinking about how those things will apply, because application matters.

Scott Rutherford
And MarcyKate, let me let me bring you back in here, because I wanted to ask sort of a forward looking question, which is, which is also realizing that, that we’ve may have folks who are, you know, K-12, educators listening to this episode. If a school or district is not working with HILL for Literacy today, how would someone how would someone connect with you? What’s that process look like?

MarcyKate Connolly
If they aren’t working with us today, they can visit our website, which is https://hillforliteracy.org, and they can contact us on pretty much any page, there’s a little form at the bottom, and I will be the person who gets that email. And I will connect you with the correct person based on your inquiry. We have numerous entry points to our services. Right now, our science reading course, is probably our biggest entry point. So it’s definitely a very hot topic in education right now. And we are offering our asynchronous course now for districts which is awesome. In the future will offer for individuals not quite yet for individuals, but for districts right now we can bring that to any district, as well as a whole host of other ILC type of synchronous SOR (science of reading) trainings, we have early educator and for administrators, we have additional 10 modules to our basic SOR course called digging deeper, that’s currently a synchronous course, and an adolescent literary literacy course as well. So we have a whole host of things to meet pretty much any K through 12 educators, science and reading type needs. Once they engage with that, they’ll you know, set up their particular schedule, it’ll be very customized to meet their needs are in cohorts, and even that kind of a thing. We also often do needs assessments, that’s like our ideal way to start a long term partnership with a district that way, as Cindy was talking about how we can really get in there and find out what their needs are very specifically so that we can customize our services to meet those needs in a very targeted way. We’re not a prescriptive type of, or program really, it’s definitely very customized service for each school to meet them where they are, and build off their strengths and help them identify weaknesses and resolve those weaknesses.

Scott Rutherford
Well, MarcyKate and Cindy, thank you both for your thoughts. I appreciate you coming on the podcast and looking forward to celebrating your continued growth over the next few years. It looks like it’s a very exciting place to be and it’s only to the benefit of elementary students becoming more capable learners in a way that’s going to impact their entire educational and life trajectory. It’s a powerful thing. Thanks for coming on.

Cindy McGurl
Thank you.

MarcyKate Connolly
Thank you so much for having us.

Scott Rutherford
This has been the AXIOM Insights Learning & Development Podcast. This podcast is a production of AXIOM Learning Solutions. AXIOM is a learning and development services firm, with a network of learning professionals in the U.S. and worldwide, supporting L&D teams with learning staff augmentation and project support for instructional design, content management, content creation and more, including training delivery and facilitation, both in person and virtually. To learn more about how AXIOM can help you and your team achieve your learning goals, visit axiomlearningsolutions.com. And thanks again for listening to the AXIOM Insights podcast.