MANDILEE GONZALES: So again, welcome. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Veronica Parker. 

VERONICA PARKER: All right, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning for the CAEP Summit 2022 Recognition and Plenary Address. As Mandilee stated, my name is Veronica Parker and I'm the coordinator with the CAEP Technical Assistance Project. 

And first and foremost, I want to apologize to everyone for the technical difficulties we experienced this morning, as you know, within any virtual conference. Yesterday was a smooth breeze. This morning, we're a little bumpy; however, we are bouncing back and we will recover from this and hopefully have a great time this morning recognizing our CAEP Model Programs as well as our Student Succeed recipients. 

So before we get started, I'd like to just share my screen to go over the Model Programs and Student Succeed programs. So you should be seeing my screen at this time. I am on the California Adult Education website, and I have selected the Advancing California-- I'm going to go back just a moment to CAEP home, and then I've selected Advancing California Adult Education. 

Now the Advancing California Adult Education website is a newly-launched website. We launched it last spring, I believe. And it is a relaunch of the Practice With Promise site. The Practice With Promise site was a site that was utilized to showcase practices-- best practices across the state across the CAEP objectives. 

And so we have rebranded that particular program to Advancing California Adult Education. And we-- on this particular website, we showcase model programs based on the CAEP statewide priorities. And so with this this morning, we have two Model Programs from Whittier Adult School as well as Allan Hancock College. 

But in addition to those two Model Programs, we have 11 other Model Programs that are being recognized at the CAEP Summit 2022. So those of you who are registered for the summit, you should have received your newsletter this morning and an outline for each of these programs. 

And so if you click on-- if you access the Advancing California Adult Education website, you'll be able to see all of our 2022 Model Program recipients. So here, I have the Inland Adult Education Consortium. They are being recognized for aligning super-consortia professional development through a collective impact model for social change. 

I have the Lake Tahoe Adult Education Consortium and their advanced program where they have expanded their navigation support and services for students who are in credit-bearing courses. As well as Moorpark, they have created apps to boost student engagement. 

And so the list goes on. Again, there are 13 total Model Programs that we're recognizing this year, and we do it every year. And so as we prepare for the summit next year, we're going to be opening up the Model Program submission process in January of this year and you will have until June to nominate Model Programs to be recognized at the summit next year. 

And so you will-- for submission, you we'll identify the problem in practice, let us know the unique features of the program, year response, so on and so forth. So we encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity. 

So in addition, we also have the California Adult Education Student Succeed Program. And this is brought to you by the Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. And here on an annual basis, they nominate-- excuse me, programs are able to nominate students for their excellent work in a particular program. 

And so this website is adultlearners.org. You can go to the nomination page and you can see the nomination criteria, and this will open up again at the beginning of the 2023 calendar year. So check back on this website if you have students that you would like to nominate. 

So now, without further ado, I am going to turn it over-- I'm going to stop sharing my screen and I'm going to turn it over to our first program, and that is going to be with-- to Victoria Jones who is going to introduce her program as well as her student, Helen Hoang. Victoria? 

VICTORIA JONES: Good morning. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. I'm very happy. I represent Simi Institute for Careers and Education. And I've been a teacher there-- I was a teacher there since 2006, and I just retired this year in July. So I was really, really excited to think about my career, and a student who just completely stood out to me, and that is my student Helen Hoang. Very proud of her. She is just so determined and such a hard worker. 

Helen succeeded in reaching her goals because she always knew she would. She just had a beautiful, positive attitude. She's worked so hard. She began in our beginning ESL program-- to become a business owner. So I got to work-- I'm very proud of her and I'm very honored to introduce her to you today. Helen, congratulations. 

HELEN HOANG: Thank you. 

VERONICA PARKER: Hi, Helen. Did you want to say a few words? 

HELEN HOANG: So hi, good morning, everyone. I came here in 2009, and with my husband and two kids. My parents sponser for us. I work at a manicurist, a full-time job. And when I was there in one year. I have no English. And I feel scared. I feel rejected because I cannot hear-- I cannot understand people around me. 

I thought I cannot reach my goal because I wish to open my own salon nails. And I went to Simi Valley Adult School. I took ESL classes. I took IET course, Victoria's and teacher Mai who encouraged me, who taught me to step-by-step to reach my goal. That you are a fabulous teacher. 

And I work hard at many salon nail to improve my skill. I practice every morning with my pronunciation and with Burlington English program. And I do that until I feel good, until I can understand people around me. Nowaday, I opened my own business in Westlake Village which is very busy. And I'm very happy. 

But I told myself that I don't stop here. I'm going to stop here. I keep moving forward. And I look forward to college because nowaday, I still study accounting and bookkeeping. Thanks. I'm very happy. I have a great experience with my school, with Ms. Victoria, Ms. Mai 

VERONICA PARKER: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Helen, for sharing your story. We appreciate hearing about it, and congratulations to you. Next, I will have Adele McClain who will talk about her program and introduce her student Melina. Adele? 

ADELE MCCLAIN: Good morning. It's such an honor to be here. I am so privileged to be able to nominate Melina Bezada for this award. She's not only an amazing student, but I had actually tried to nominate more than one time before the-- right as we were hitting the pandemic. 

She had gone through several of our programs. She's a successful graduate from my school, and she had also accompanied us to Ledge Day to meet legislators at the capitol that actually then came down and visited our area and actually saw that we are a place on the map. And they even-- one of them-- one of the senators became our guest speaker for a regional graduation as a result of our team and Melina going up and sharing her charm and her story with those legislators. 

During the pandemic, she really rose to the occasion. It's one thing to volunteer for an adult school. It is an entirely different thing to volunteer for an adult school in a pandemic when you have to flex to online, and she just wanted to be there to help guide other students like herself on a journey to success. 

And I was so pleased to be able to honor that. Earlier last year, my district was able to offer her employment here so that when you come into my office now, the first face that you see is Melina Bezada. And she really will draw people in because her story mirrors the story of so many of the clients we serve. So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Melina Bezada. 

MELINA BEZADA: Hello, everyone and good morning. Thank you, Ms. Adele, I surely appreciate the nomination. I'm so thankful for Apple Valley Adult School and for all the adult schools because I know it's made a difference for myself. I'm able to take what I've learned as an adult and share it with others who have felt what I have felt. 

Kind of embarrassment because I'm an older adult and I'm trying to get an education, but I love that I have made a big difference for anybody who walks in the door and I tell them my experience and I let them know that, from being a welfare recipient to who I am now, I am so proud and I'm thankful for anybody and everybody on this platform that believes in adult education just how Ms. McClain believed in me. 

I want to spread that-- all that knowledge and everything that I can to help anybody out to do forward for their education. And Ms. Helen, awesome with the college. Keep going, I'm there. It's sometimes a struggle, but if we want it, I know that we can get it. And congratulations, each one of you. Thank you very much. Keep it up with all your adult programs. I know that if you make three people flourish, it will make a big difference, not only for our school, but for our community. And thank you, I appreciate each one of you. Thank you. 

VERONICA PARKER: All right. Thank you so much, Melina, for sharing your story as well as Adele for introducing Melina. We definitely appreciate both of you being here, and congratulations to you. Now I'm going to turn it over to our Model Programs. And we have two model programs being recognized today during the CAEP Summit, and I'll start with Marina Washburn with Allan Hancock to talk about her student engagement program. Marina? 

MARINA WASHBURN: Thank you for having us and we're very honored by being selected as a Model Program. Our programs is our student engagement program. Basically we looked at our data and we realized that we're really having some deficiencies in how we engage our students, how we invited them to participate as a student, and how our institutional processes were creating some barriers that we could work around because we had digital literacy barriers as well as language barriers. 

And so what this program sought to do is to modify those organizational practices, and it changed how we engaged with students, how we communicated with our students, how we develop processes and procedures to invite them that were related to what they already knew how to do. 

And so we empowered our student body. And so we basically used texting and mobile technologies and really took advantage of that familiar space. And our students, then, were able to engage with us, participate. And so we did five things. We changed the way we marketed to our students. We wanted to be present in the areas they were at. So Facebook, in social media. 

And we really changed the way we communicated. We got away from email and actually did two-way texting communication. So it's a texting platform that is language-specific to actually remove those digital barriers. And then we changed our institutional processes to allow for a mobile registration system that allows them to register right from their phone for classes-- select their classes in a language of their preference. 

And then we-- by having-- we developed these systems that actually allowed the students to be comfortable communicating with us, engage with us. And so now we have over 52% active student engagement rate. And so with that, we were able to continuously improve our processes and procedures over the last two years. 

We're now utilizing the technology not only for registration, but also now for retention and persistence. And we'll be transitioning these technologies also to support our faculty with recruitment. So we're using all of these technologies that are easy to implement, that are not only addressing the student need, but the organizational need as well, the institutional needs. 

So we're meeting the needs in a slightly different way that allows our students to actually be welcomed, participate, empower them, and really removing those barriers and creating this place of belonging. So that is our student engagement program, and we look forward to telling you more about it in our presentation later today. 

VERONICA PARKER: All right, Marina. Thank you so much for sharing your student engagement program with us, as well as for submitting the nomination so that other practitioners throughout the state will be able to learn about how you are engaging your learners and increasing enrollment. 

So now I will turn it over to Juan and Lorraine from Whittier Adult School, and they're going to talk about how they created a ESL-to-CTE pathway at their Adult School. Juan and Lorraine? 

JUAN ANZALDO: Good morning, everybody. Let me go ahead and share the screen. So we can-- Veronica is saying that the host has disabled participant screen sharing. 

VERONICA PARKER: OK. One second, I will change that for you. One second. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Sorry about that. I will enable that right now. Go ahead and try. 

JUAN ANZALDO: OK, let me try that now. Oh, there we go. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Apologies. 

JUAN ANZALDO: OK. So good morning, everybody. My name is Juan Anzaldo and I'm the proud Assistant Principal the Whittier Union Adult School. And I'm here with Lorraine, who is-- Hammonds who's our ESL Department Chair and also TOSA. And we're here to present to you what we did with our ESL students to get many more of them into our CTE programs. 

The problem was, for several years, probably like many of you, we had very few ESL students moving into our CTE classes. While we had a good enrollment of ESL students, we still couldn't get them into the programs. And although we continued to implement various IET and IELCE programs, there was limited enrollment. 

For us, the difference was not just to change the IET program, but this year, where we saw success was changing in how we onboard our students so that they can get into the program. 

LORRAINE HAMMONDS: The solution. Technology existed in our ESL classrooms before the pandemic. We had Chromebook carts in all of the classes, but they were utilized to varying extent, kind of hit and miss depending on the classroom teacher. During the pandemic, on the onset, we could see that our students were really struggling accessing technology to attend Zoom classes, to attend other technology. 

So the silver lining for us for the pandemic was that we were offering our ESL classes via Zoom like most people, but those were only offered at 90-minute intervals, so that we had time to offer Google Workspace classes after our ESL classes. And that's Juan mentioned, I operate as a TOSA, I'm in charge of EL civics. So I do one-on-one testing with all of the ESL students within our program. 

And that gave me a lot of feedback-- positive feedback of how much they were grateful or how much they were benefiting from the Google Workspace instruction. We knew that in the 21-22 school year, that we would be back to in-person learning. And I didn't want to lose this valuable instruction for my students. So working with the administration, we brainstormed how we could offer-- keep offering Google Workspace to our students. 

What we came up with was we created a schedule that we would have utilized the co-teach model that the CTE and ESL teachers would work together two times a week. So we now have our CTE person coming in twice a week for 30 minutes. When we rolled out this new schedule and presented it to our CTE department chair, she decided that she herself would teach the morning section of Google Workspace for ESL. 

So with this plugging in of Google Workspace into ESL, many benefits. The greatest is that our ESL students can now envision themselves taking CTE classes. It's been very, very empowering. And also, I do believe that the CTE department now views our ESL students in perhaps a different light, that they need not be limited by their language level. 

We restructured our morning offerings within adult within the adult department-- or adult school, I should say. So we now allow an easy flow from morning ESL into CTE classes that are offered directly after morning instruction. And this has also led to a second pathway, our Personal Care Aide class. 

JUAN ANZALDO: And the data speak for themselves. You can see that this is how many ESL students are into our CTE programs. And you can see, we are ready, before the pandemic, this orange bar, you can see, we're already seeing a decrease at our school for ESL students going to CTE. 

So when we met to talk about our continuous improvement plan as a leadership, we knew this is an area we had to address. Now clearly the pandemic, we saw adverse outcomes, clearly. But you can see pretty quickly, we started to turn that around and getting more students into CTE to the big outcome where we have experienced this last year. 

Just to be clear, these are 85 students who have perfect attendance. Who are there every day and get the full breadth of the course with the Google class embedded. But the other thing I want to point out is, particularly for administrators, department chairs want to know, right around here is where we have the number of students who are taking ESL, but then taking a separate CTE class now outside of the ESL class. So that's going back to where we were pre-pandemic, which is what we wanted to see. 

Our greatest outcome was eliminating that barrier between ESL and CTE. And instead of waiting and hoping for ESL students to take the CTE classes, we brought CTE to them. Our ESL enrollment is almost back up to pre-pandemic levels, and we realize that our future students are sitting in our ESL classes currently. 

LORRAINE HAMMONDS: So if you build it, they will come. 

JUAN ANZALDO: Thank you, and here's our contact information, we'll put that in the chat. Thank you very much, and I'll stop sharing the screen here. 

VERONICA PARKER: All right. Thank you so much, Juan and Lorraine, for sharing about your program at Whittier Adult School as it relates to ESL and CTE. I see some comments in the chat talking about the importance of CTE as well as-- they're liking the fact that you all have created that schedule. And so much more. So definitely take a look at the chat. But thank you all very much for being here. 

And thank you to Victoria, Adele, Melina, and Helen for being with us this morning, and for talking about your programs as well as your student success. We appreciate and value you sharing. And hopefully everyone who's on the call was able to learn something new, as well as make sure you visit the CAEP Model Programs website, the Advancing California Adult Education website, as well as the Student Succeed website to learn more about the wonderful strides that are being made in adult education. So thank you all so much for being with us this morning. 

We will transition to our plenary address. But before we do, I definitely want to address our audience. Again, our sincerest apologies for the technical difficulties we experienced this morning. I am happy to report that we have at least 167 individuals in the room this morning. You got here some way, somehow, and I'm so happy that you all are here. But again, our sincerest apologies for the technical difficulties, but we are glad that you're here. 

And then also, a special thank you to the TAC team as well as the OTAN team, and any and everyone else who helped make it possible for our attendees to be with us this morning, we greatly, greatly, greatly appreciate your assistance and the partnership and the willing to jump in and help when things are going wrong, so thank you so much. 

So now I will transition to our plenary address. We have Mr. Ken Shelton with us this morning, and we are so excited for his plenary address. And I will go ahead and start reading his bio. 

So Ken currently holds an MA in education with a specialization in educational technology, as well as new media design and production. He has worked as an educator for over 20 years and spent most of his classroom experience teaching technology at the middle school level. 

As part of his active involvement within the educational technology community, Ken is an Apple Distinguished Educator, a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, and a Google-Certified Innovator. Ken has worked extensively at the policy level with a number of state departments of education, ministries of education, nonprofits, and was appointed to the Education Technology Task Force formed by a previous California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

Ken regularly gives keynotes, presentations, consults, and leads workshops covering a variety of educational technology, equity inclusion, anti-bias, anti-racist, multimedia literacy, cultural intelligences, visual storytelling, and instructional design topics. Ken is the International Society for Technology and Education Digital Equity Professional Learning Network 2018 Excellence Award Winner. 

Ken is the International Society for Technology and Education 2022 Make It Happen Award Winner due to his extraordinary commitment, leadership, courage, and persistence in improving digital learning opportunities for students. Because of his extensive and broad impact, Ken has also been named by EdTech Magazine as an influencer to follow. So now I will turn it over to Mr. Ken Shelton who will get started with our plenary address. Ken? 

KEN SHELTON: Good morning, good morning, good morning. Can you all confirm you can see me and you can hear me? 

VERONICA PARKER: Yes. We can see you and we can hear you, yes. 

KEN SHELTON: OK. And what I'm surprised-- first of all, I put in the chat-- yay, Lydia! I was going to wait. I always wait, I pause to see if someone's going to catch the background. Yes, Karen, it's the Iron Throne. If you-- for those of you, if you're fans of Game of Thrones, that is the iron throne. But if you're a true fan of Game of Thrones, you know that even if I'm sitting on the throne, it's not going to last very long. 

So with that being said, I want to-- first of all, kudos to the Whittier Union team. I love what you all are doing, and what you shared actually-- and we didn't plan this. It connects to some of what I will address in this plenary and share. 

So I want to share with all of you-- let's use the chat for sure, because I do a lot of interactive things within my talks and I want to make sure that your voice is heard within us as well. So let me do this. And now can you all confirm that you can see the slide as well? Yes? OK, perfect. 

VERONICA PARKER: Yes. 

KEN SHELTON: So I have that because I know it's just after 9:00 AM, so it's not too early for those of us that are early risers, and I just want you all to see, I have had my coffee, so it's time to get started on the work, because I'll start with my-- start working when my coffee does. 

So a couple of quick things just to lead in here. One is, that's my contact info, and that, I believe, is on the program as well. And more importantly are these social media handles. So if you use the socials and you post anything, keep in mind the hashtag for the event is there, #CAEPSummit22. 

And so here is our first thing that I want to do with you all. You hear a lot about social and emotional learning. I hear a whole lot about it. I do a lot of work in SEL. But one of the areas that I also find that is not addressed enough is to account for the social well-being of the adults. 

And in fact, I always say that no SEL program is sustainable or effective if it doesn't include the following three things. Number one, support social well-being supports for the adults, and ongoing anti-bias and anti-racist training, and then true learner agency. 

And so I share that with you all because I want to pause for a moment, and then I'm going to go do the setup for the remainder of this talk. I want you all to share in the chat, if you don't mind, something that you have done within the last four weeks for self-care. Please, just drop that in the chat. 

So I see working out, meditation. Ooh, tap class, I love that. Sleep, QT with the fam, napping, exercising. I see a pattern here. Walking, swimming, watching TV. Good. Tech-off, digital time-out, hiking, meditation, yoga, food prep, gardening, more massages. I see a pattern with there, too. More walking. Cars with friends. Ah, nice, standing desks, perfect. Yes. And more working out. 

So I'm going to share with you all, and please keep dropping those in the chat. Those are-- lunch out with girlfriends, good. Clean my office. So there's two things-- two reasons why I share that with you all, and it's something that I want to be clear on what I'm bringing up. 

I'm going to bring up a lot of things that I want to-- I want them to serve the following two purposes for you all. One, if you're already doing it, it's an affirmation. Two, if it's something that you're not, ideally you can work with in your respective divisions and your team to say, oh, Ken brought up something, I think we should normalize that to support each other. 

Because the whole idea is to recognize that, again, in this case, self-care is not selfish. And I'm going to tell you all a side note, quick story. So a school district that I did a remote presentation for last year in August, I asked him the question, and a lot of them put a lot of the same things that you all put, anything from physical activity to high-quality personal time among many other things. 

And so then I went up and worked with them this past March, and it was totally cool because I said the same thing to them that I'm sharing with you all is, try to normalize asking each other the question around what have you done for self-care? What they ended up doing was some of them formed hiking groups, some of them formed kayaking groups, stand-up paddle boarding groups. 

And the big thing for me was twofold. One is, when they told me that they form these groups and they do all this stuff, I said, OK, good. Well, when you're doing that, how often are you talking about work? And all of them said, you know what? Almost never. So that's one good thing because there's your disconnect. 

And number two, many of you put massage on there, which, yes, that's important, but I would also argue or add, going to-- well, I'll put it to you all this way. I want to figure out some way-- somehow, some way to do something that I call spa PD where we can go and get manicures and pedicures and then maybe talk pedagogy at the same time. 

I don't know what it will look like, but if you don't think of it, you can't do it. So the whole idea for you all is really start to normalize what you are doing in regards to your self-care and how you're affirming each other and doing that and encouraging other each other to do it. Yes, Erica, spa PD, that's what we both want. Absolutely. Wait, stand by one second. I don't know where that is coming from. Actually, now I do. OK. There we go. Perfect. 

So what I'm going to talk about a little bit directly points to the five core goals that you all have in your three-year plan that's starting off this year and runs through 2025. And they're all around those five areas, which is assessment, metrics, objectives, activities and outcomes, and then evaluation. 

And so I introduced that because one of the key things I want to talk about is the following. So feel free to put in the chat, what do you all think is one of the most dangerous or destructive phrases enunciated in education? Kathy put pedagogy. Yeah, OK. 

I don't have time to get into it, but yes, you all are in adult education, you all probably would not be surprised how many folks I talked to that don't understand the differences between pedagogy and andragogy. But Kim for the win! Kim and Adriana, yes! OK. Kim and Adriana for the win. That's the way we've always done it or that's the way you've always done this. That's arguably-- it's within the top three of the most dangerous things to enunciate in education. That's the way we've always done it or that's the way you've always done this. 

What that is aligned with is the following, is a bias called the bandwagon effect. And if you'll notice it's the whole idea around our desire for harmony and conformity sways our decision-making. That's the way we've always done it. I always follow it up you-- all are going to find out a lot about me in this talk, is the whole idea around-- the phrase I like to use is I like to trouble the narrative. 

I like to ask questions, and yes, sometimes it comes with a degree of resistance and backlash because I might be going to the left, as you see on this slide, versus everyone else going to the right. But ultimately, we can't learn and we can't grow if we don't ask the right questions and engage in the right dialogue which is going to lead into the very next slide. 

And so whenever you hear that phrase, well, that's the way we've always done it. OK, let me go back here. Assessment and metrics. OK. How do we assess that if this is the way we've always done it, it's the right way to do things? What are the metrics? What is the data that supports continuing to do it this way? Who does it affect in a positive way? Who might it affect in a negative way? What are the unintended consequences of continuing to do it this way? 

And Kim even put in the chat, metrics and assessment out of context is meaningless. 100% agree. So the whole idea around this is to really start to ask ourselves, if it's something that has been normalized in a way we've always done it, again, why are we doing it that way? Is there any sort of information assessing it and then data that supports continuing to do it that way? And even in that context, what is the unintended consequence around that? 

And so that's why it leads me to the next thing. I want to send you all-- I want to virtually invite you all into what is going to be the space for the remainder of this talk, which is our brave space. So I'm going to read it for those that may not be able to see it that clearly on their screen. 

So this is your formal invitation into brave space. Together we will create brave space because there is no such thing as a safe space. We exist in the real world. We all carry scars and we all have caused wounds. In this space, we seek to turn down the volume of the outside world. We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere. We call each other to more truth and love. 

We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow. We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know. We will not be perfect. This space will not be perfect. It will not always be what we wish it to be. But it will be our brave space together and we will work on it side by side. 

I'm going to pause and let you all process that for just a moment. And feel free to drop in the chat a line at the moment that resonates most with you. Yeah, like you all shared, the perfection. There is no such thing as a safe space. Side by side, brave space together, exactly. 

And Kim put my favorite line, is we have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow. I always find it amazing how many educators talk about and even self-describe and embracing of a growth mindset, but then yet, what do they usually do? Well, that's the way we've always done this. You see? That's the antithesis of a growth mindset. 

So the whole idea around this is for us to give ourselves the brave space permission and recognition that we have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow, that we have a responsibility to examine what we think we know, that we recognize that there is no such thing as perfection-- 

In fact, I will share with you all, perfectionism is one of the 15 conditions of white supremacy, and even if you are white, you are the victim of that, by the way. There is no such thing as perfectionism. All we can ask for ourselves and each other is to simply be a better version of ourselves as a result of the opportunities we have the time we spend together and the learning endeavors that we engage in, whether it be work-related or highly personal. That's really all we can ask for. 

And the examine what we think we know is definitely aligned with what you all just saw, which is this right here. Let's examine what we think we know. So, with that being said, this is our brave space. So I'm going to put some-- share with you all some things align with that, and then I'm also going to ask you all to contribute more to the chat. 

So first of all, those of you sharing, thank you very much. And for those of you that are still processing, take whatever time you need to be able to process, because ultimately the whole idea around this is that we have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow, and nobody can tell you what your growth rate is or your growth pace is. 

So my next question for you all, leading into some of the meat of this talk, is the following. And here's something that I would ask you all to consider to normalize when you meet within your teams, your divisions, and more specifically also, when you first-- when you introduce yourself with your learners. 

So here's a question. I'm going to drop it in the chat and I'm going to say it. One second here. Because I know it's not asked. What gifts do you bring to our learning time together right now? 

And I can already tell with some of you in the chat, there are some of the gifts that you bring around self-awareness, positive attitude, empathy, open mind, open heart, patience, compassion, inspiration, willingness to be present, energy, attention, grace, willingness, tenacity. These are great. Curiosity, creativity. Look at all those different gifts. 

Now here's the thing. Imagine if we were to put our collective expertise together to really approach and solve some major challenges and problems that go there or the opposite of because we've always done it this way. And I share that question with you all because there's two parts. 

One is that [INAUDIBLE] in this question, I normalize those in my leadership workshops and in my diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops. And so my question to you all real quick is, if you reflect upon your learning experiences, K through 12, undergrad, grad, higher ed, whatever it may be, how often were you asked by the educator responsible for your learning what gifts you bring to the learning environment? 

Karen put never. Darlene, never. Ah, we got an occasionally. OK. Usually-- it's funny. I would say the never probably constitutes about 99% of the responses that I get, and I got sometimes there. Good. Not in education, but in corporate, exactly. 

So my encouragement to all of you, try to normalize that. When it comes time to look at your plans over the next three years, when you're looking at your different programs, I would encourage you all to, one, ask the question, self-care, what have we done? See, by speaking it, you're speaking truth to power, and you're giving folks permission to recognize, oh, I haven't done it, I need to do something. 

But you also, by sharing it, you give others ideas. But the other thing is, think about how the impact from an asset perspective, the culture of your meetings, your learning environments can shift in a much more meaningful side-by-side direction, and the first question is, OK, here's what we need to do. And so we have, what gifts do you bring to this environment that's aligned with our objectives and our goals? 

All the gifts that you all shared, those all fit perfectly with this talk. Perfectly. So that's one of the things I wanted to normalize for us going forward. And so the whole idea around this summit is, one, the power is yours. It's recognizing that-- and if you go back to that brave space part, we fight to amplify-- We seek to amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere, we call each other to more truth and love, we will not be perfect, we will work on a side by side. That's all within our power. 

And the key for me what this talk is this, is that how might you use your plan to evolve and then reengage, both with yourself, within your program, and with your learners? I'm going to restate that. How might you use your plan to evolve and reengage with yourself, with each other, and with your learners? 

And so that leads me to the following. So again, when you think about, that's the way we've always done that, part of that is to really reflect upon, again, what is the impact of the things that you've done, what has been normalized, who does it affect in a positive way, who does it potentially affect in a negative way, and even in some cases, what are the unintended consequences? 

So that leads me to the whole idea around this talk, which is that design matters. Everything is by design. And in some cases, there is an intent behind it, and in some cases, there's an unintended component to it. 

The whole idea, though, is that if we think in terms-- if we put on a design hat-- and no, I'm not talking about design thinking, I'm talking about just design in general, it's all a process that we all go through. And in fact, if you think about many of the gifts that you all shared in the chat, those are all a byproduct of a design-- creativity, empathy, compassion, attention to detail, energy. All of those things are aligned with that. 

And for us, it's how might we rethink the learning environments. I love what the Whittier Union team just shared around the whole idea that they made Google Workspace available, and then they noticed how the opportunity for-- or the desires for enrollment and participation literally increased quite a bit, because that's a rethinking. It's not doing things the way we've always done them. 

And it leads me to the following. So one of the things I always try to do is in education, which I'm sure many of you have probably seen this, there's a lot of terminology just thrown out, a lot of words. OK, words mean nothing if you don't provide a definition within context, and in my case, I'm like, definition in context, what's your receipts and what's your proof of concept? 

So for me, the whole idea is that when it comes to redesigning-- rethinking our adult learning environments, rethinking is not a remix. You see, there is this whole energy and effort around, let's go back to the way things were prior to 2020, but we'll make a few changes. That's a remix. 

Bad ingredients in, it's still going to yield bad results out no matter how many times you really mix them. So rethinking in this case is not a remix. And it's also not disrupting. If you think about the word "disruption," think about it from the standpoint of being an educator. If you have a disruptive component to a classroom, what happens? It's temporary, because what do you do? Disruption. I've got to change stuff to stop the disruption and then reorient back to what was. 

It's the whole idea around-- I always-- whenever I hear like, we need a revolution in education, I'm like, well, if I were to take you literally, that means you start off here and you go all the way around, you end up right back to where you were because we've always done it this way. 

So the whole idea around rethinking is that in some cases, it requires the dismantling of things. Again, if you look at your plans, your programs, where you were one, two, three, four, five years ago-- in fact, where you were three years ago at the start of your prior plan, where are you now? What things need to be dismantled? They need to be removed, and then ultimately you cannot redesign until you dismantle, then re-imagine. 

Let's take it all apart, and now let's imagine, what might it look like with our new information, resources that we have now that may not have existed before, a new way of thinking, the whole idea around we have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow. Where were we? How have we grown? And where might we continue to grow? How do we ensure our growth is sustainable, dynamic, and responsive to what we do and the needs of our learners? And then ultimately you can go into a redesign. 

And that's the whole process around rethinking. It's not a remix and it's not disruption. It's dismantle, reimagine, then redesign. And I share that with you all because we're-- I would argue that we have a golden opportunity right now. Well, there's this thing that happens that-- it's still happening-- COVID. 

And you even-- like I said, I love what the Whittier Union team just shared, and it actually connects to what I'm going to share with you all right now. And the whole idea is to recognize the following. 

So here's a quick question for you all. How many of you in your schooling experience, especially in grad school and for some of you, because I see in the chat, in your doctoral program had a class that was some variation of the title of, how to teach and learn in a pandemic? I'm curious. How many of you had a class for that? And you see, we got all the nos. Exactly. 

So, the reason why I asked that question is, I want you all to call each other to more truth and love that you've been asked to do things in the last several years that there was no class for, there was no design for, there was no preparation for, and there was no infrastructure for either. 

And that's my whole thing around recognizing the importance of design and affirming all of you in the fact that you are asked to do something that none of us were equipped, prepared, or empowered to do. None of us. And in fact, I have data to back it. 

So this is-- so my friends-- and yes, this says children, but I'm going to connect this to us, so roll with me for a minute here. So my friends at All4Ed, it used to be-- they rebranded. It used to be called the Alliance for Excellent Education. Them and my friends at the Learning Accelerator, they do lots of research, and part of the contributions that I provide to those particular organizations are within the areas of digital equity. 

And so what you had is the following. So in March of 2020, they did the research, they did all these things, and you had the following. At one point, you have basically almost 17 million children that remained logged out because they don't have internet access at home. That almost led to a complete shutdown of our entire US school system. 

What's missing in this is that at home, how many of those households were there adult learners as well? You all see, the whole idea is, oh, the children don't have connectivity. That means the parents don't either. And how many parents or adult learners did you all work with that were either-- lacked the infrastructure capability and the accessibility to connect or, in many cases, what they had was inadequate in the first place? 

And the whole idea around that is precisely why I touch on the following things, is it's really rejecting deficit language. And this is why I posted this tweet in, as you can see, March 12 of 2021. The whole idea around the use of learning loss. My whole thing-- well, I pause so you all can read it real quick. 

So the whole idea around that is, I reject anything that is aligned with the deficit mindset and deficit language. You see, none of us had control over the infrastructure. Holly, yes, colonized curriculum. So you put it in the chat. The whole idea around a colonized curriculum-- I'll give you all the prime example of a colonized curriculum That I was exposed to. 

In my schooling experience, very rarely were any of the books that I was required to read, none of the authors looked like me. That's a colonized curriculum. It is exclusionary and it is culturally incompetent. And I'll touch a little bit on that later. But the whole idea around this is to reject. And Holly, there's a whole lot more, but for time's sake. 

But the whole idea is to reject deficit language. You all see, that is the opposite of what you all saw in that brave space one. Call each other more truth and love. And so many folks I know that are superintendents and everything else, they engage in what I call educational triage which is-- and one of you just put it in the chat, you handed out Chromebooks, but unfortunately, you couldn't hand out a hotspot. 

I know a lot of folks that handed out hotspots, but of course, for me, the whole idea was that's triage and I get it, but here's the thing. The hotspots, first of all, you've got to account for connectivity because, unfortunately, still today, we can go places where our cell phone has no access or our marginal access at best. And-- right, limited data availability. 

And my thing is this. Also, you can't use high-bandwidth-intensive applications. And I'm not being critical of those handing out the hotspots. The whole idea around this is to reject the deficit language, that everything we are doing is problematic or there's a problem with it and go from an asset perspective of, we have a golden opportunity to re-imagine what we're doing. 

We have a golden opportunity to provide more equitable and timely and dynamic access to learning that isn't relegated to a definable physical space among many other things. The Whittier Union team, that was a prime example of that, which, again, kudos to you all. 

So I share that with you all because I want to-- I'm going to connect this to your learners, is the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development defines equity in those two dimensions. And fairness, which means personal and social circumstances do not prevent students from achieving their academic potential, and then inclusion, which means there's a basic minimum standard shared by all students, all students. 

And so the whole idea here is to recognize that digital equity is a very important thing for all of us to amplify each other's voices around. We should not be in situations where bandwidth capability and internet connectivity is a barrier for any learners, whether they be K-12 or adult learners. 

And think about how hyperconnected a significant portion of the world is, but yet there's a large portion that isn't connected, and again, that is not due to a personal choice that they have made. Here's how that connects with you all, because they also released this graphic here around non-participation in adult learning. 

And what you don't see, there at the bottom-- look, one or two participate, but didn't. Shortage of time, work-related. Shortage of time, family-related. Lack of financial resources, inconvenient time or place, lack of employer support unexpected events, lack of prerequisites, and other. 

What you don't see there, if how many of those that wanted to participate or any of those other things was due to lack of connectivity, lack of broadband access, and lack of the equipment to be able to do it in the first place. And so that's why for us, it's looking at, what are some of our generational and big challenges-- as Veronica shared in my bio, that was some of the work I did with Superintendent Torlakson when I was on his Educational Technology Task Force. 

The theme of the task force was titled, No Child Left Offline, because the whole idea is there has to be a basic minimum standard. The basic minimum standards should be ubiquitous access to a device, ubiquitous broadband access no matter where you go. Urban, suburban, rural. That's the basic minimum standard that should be in place. 

And so that leads me to the following, which is, in your plans to evolve and re-engage, how might you recognize, identify, design for connectivity, hyperconnectivity, which means that device and broadband, and doing it in a way that ensures, for example, that if every learner has a voice, every voice is heard? And so that leads me to the next areas. 

So what does that look like when it comes to designing for equity? So I'm going to take you all through several design conditions, and I'm being mindful of the time. I actually wish I could spend the whole day with you all. But when it comes to the physical and environmental-- 

So for those of you that work in a physical structure, what does it look like when you design for equity within that physical structure? So what you're looking at is a physical-- or excuse me, a visual representation of literally every single classroom that I've ever been in, including grad school. That is an inequitable learning space design. 

I'll give you all an example, and here's my receipt in my proof of concept. I come from a family of educators and educated. So I'll give you all a prime example. I'm 52 years old and I'm the fourth generation of my family to go to college. And in fact, all of my relatives, with the exception of one-- all of my ancestors and relatives with the exception of one have advanced degrees. 

And I share that with you all because the whole idea around that is the gain of school. Is recognizing that every time I was in an environment that looks like this and the teacher had class participation as a component of the grade, I always asked, based on what my dad constantly would tell me, I always asked, can I sit in the middle and the front? And 100% of the time I was told no. 

And so the whole idea around that is, when you design for equity, there is no hierarchy within the physical environment. When class participation is encouraged, the idea is, one, am I using technology to ensure that every learner has a voice, every voice is heard? How do I account for the self-described introvert in the room? How do I ensure that the contributions are not only available to all, but there's different mechanisms for that contribution? 

How do I support-- we seek to amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere. That's one example of doing that. It's not limiting class participation to who raises their hand and who uses their voice. It's having multiple mechanisms to do that that essentially take what is a hierarchy in the physical environment and dismantling that. 

And so you remember, you dismantle that, now let me reimagine, what would it look like if I were to be-- create participatory opportunities for my learners that everybody has a voice and every voice is heard? Now I'm going to design for that. And so then that leads me to the following design conditions for you all to consider, is that does the configuration of the learning environment account for access and opportunity for all? Is it static or dynamic, especially based upon the learning experience? And then how might you involve your learners in the design of the environment? 

You all are working with adult learners, and there are several key things that I know you all know, and that I know from some of the work that I've done as well with the adult learners is, is that in many cases, adult learners have a higher degree of intrinsic motivation to be in the learning environment. 

So why not take that motivation and use it to support an asset approach to the learning environment and an equitable learning environment by literally asking the questions. One, what gifts do you bring to the learning environment? Two, how do we design this environment to ensure that it is optimized for all of our learning opportunities? And go from there. 

And of course, I always add, because you all do have your three-year plans, what policies exist or need to be in place to design an equitable-- whatchamacallit, an equitable design perspective. And then when it comes to our digital space, I just shared with you all one example. 

The Whittier Union team. Again, I keep using you all, that's why I wanted to get here early because this is a prime example. I would even say-- and they did share it. How did the use of technology-- and yes, I fully understand, recognize-- and this is why I'm an advocate and I'm a voice for it, we have to ensure that basic minimum standard. 

But once they had, at least to a large extent, that minimum standard, how did the use of technology provide equitable access to learning? And they were using Google Workspace in that capacity, in that context. And so again, for me, it's looking at using technology from a problem-centered approach. 

I would even-- for those of you that work with learners of which English is not their primary language, I would even pose a question. I need to make sure that the content is accessible to you and I don't want language to be a barrier. How might we use a technology to dismantle the barrier that exists at the moment around a-- within a context of your acquisition of English? And I'll share with you all later a lesson that I learned from a student of mine around the use of ELL and ESL. 

And so then there you go. So here are your design questions to consider around this, is how might you use technology support a problem-centered learning approach rather than content-centered? Most adult learners tend to focus on problems rather than content, especially given if they've got a body of experience. 

And then of course, the big one for you all is, how might technology provide equitable and immediate relevance to the subject matter, especially in the intrinsically motivated learner? And again, I'm throwing a lot of questions at all and you don't need to consider all of them now. It's just a provocation around, how do I design for-- in this case, design for equity? 

The next one is, how do I design for inclusion? How do we know-- and let me define inclusion for you all. I look at inclusion as simply the following. Entering a space of which you can be your whole, true, authentic self and you don't have to compromise any component of your identity or your very being in order to be welcomed and participatory in that space. Essentially, just be you. 

The whole idea around inclusion is the following. So when you think about our physical and our environmental, let's start off with the physical. What do you all have on your displays? What do you have on your class-- or your course website? What do you use within the context of your slides as well? Because the whole idea, as you can see, this is an example of where I would say representation tells another part of the story. 

And yes, it applies to adult learners just as much as it does children. And the whole idea is the following. So what you're looking at is an example of a CTE classroom. I did work with a school district in Georgia, and they have a robust CTE program there, thankfully. And by the way, I'm a big advocate for CTE programs. That's a whole other talk. 

I personally think that-- Especially when it comes to our K-12 system here in California, if you're going to require the E to G, if you're going to acquire four years of math, I personally think it should be one-- at least one CTE course should be required as well. Whole different talk, but I can directly connect my experiences teaching in as well as learning in a CTE program and many of the core content areas. 

But to this story, there's the whole idea around, it's in a CTE room. So I'm working with the leadership teams for the whole district, and I look at the wall and I'm like, oh, hey, there's me. And of course, they're like, oh yeah, Ken, whatever. I'm like, no, no, no, seriously. Look at the wall, that's me. And that's why I always laugh when I do this slide, because the whole idea is-- if you notice the question, it says, can you see yourself here? And as a matter of fact, yes. 

But here's how that align with design for inclusion. If I don't see it, I won't believe it. If I don't believe it, I won't imagine it. If I won't imagine it, I won't pursue it. If I won't pursue it, I ain't going to do it. So the whole idea is to think about, when it comes to inclusion and designing for it, what are the representations across all areas, within the walls, within the hallways of the school, within the content that you use, within all of the things that your learners and even you engage in around that? 

Yes. OK, Dr. Olinger. If I don't see it, I won't believe it. If I don't believe it, I can't imagine it. If I can't imagine it, I can't pursue it. If I don't pursue it, I ain't going to do it. So the whole idea is, if I can see the representation, I can internalize that and say, oh, I see a person-- in this case, I was-- this was an old modeling job I had around being a flight nurse. 

So for me, it's like, think about how many students will walk through this space that may be a black male or a white female especially, how many of you even know a flight nurse exists as a career? And then if you see the representation, it's like, oh, maybe that's something I can do. 

But if you don't get that representation, that stream of thought is highly unlikely to enter your stream of consciousness in the first place. And so then when it comes to our digital space-- so that's the physical space. The digital space is to ask yourself things like, who are the authors of the materials that you all use? Do they represent different diverse identities, backgrounds, language, ethnicity? All of those things. Who are the representations around that? 

It reminds me of the fact that in one of my master's degree classes that I had, I have-- I'll just share with you, I had trouble with the narrative. I knew that it was going to be responded in a destructive and punitive way, but I couldn't remain silent, and I'll share with you all part of the reason why I couldn't remain silent. One of my personal heroes that I've read and studied quite extensively was Elie Wiesel. And just sometimes you just-- silence equals acceptance. "Silence is a position," and that's a quote from James Baldwin, by the way. 

And so I share this with you all because during-- in my master's program, we were reading about classroom management and how to manage learners, how to manage learning environments, and management, management, management. And for me, the quick epiphany that I had probably about a third of the way through the quarter was, all of the authors we were reading, all the materials that we had, and all the research that's being used to support what we're reading, not a single one of them looked like me or any of the learners I'm responsible for. Not a single one. 

So of course, for me, I asked the question, how is it possible that someone who doesn't look like me or the learners that I'm responsible for, and hasn't worked in the environments that I'm working in, how much credibility can they have telling me how to do what I do when that's what I do on a daily basis? And they don't have the-- 

I'll share with you all this way. They don't have the receipts and they sure as heck don't have the proof of concept. So the whole idea when it comes to our digital spaces is to be mindful of, if I'm asking you to read something, who is the author, what do they represent? Is an authentic representation? And that leads me to, how does that-- how does that directly correlate to the whole idea around our learning environments? 

So what you're looking at is a picture of Dr. Rudin Sims Bishop who developed a concept called the mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. And I'll share with you all the whole idea around that. Now Dr. Rudin Sims Bishop, her research and her work is primarily around the consumption of texts and within a K-12 environment. 

But I will share with you all, that works in an adult learning environment as well. The whole idea is of following. Ideally can engage in, from the physical environment and the digital environment, a learning endeavor of which I see myself reflected in the content. 

I can look at and say, hey, this person looks like me, maybe represents something about me that's important to me, and I can see myself through their eyes. That gives me the ability to be affirmed, to recognize what my potential is, and to be able to reimagine what I'm capable of because of that representation. 

Where the others come in with the windows and sliding glass doors, is when you develop that awareness-- self-awareness, you then can begin to make cross-cultural connections by connecting with stories-- authentic stories and representations of others. Think about what that might do for all of you within the context of your learning environment when it comes to making cross-cultural connections. 

Think about it from the context of adult learners that are engaging in-- or within environments that are learning and, I would say, a professional capacity of which they're highly likely to have some sort of interaction with somebody who doesn't look like them, talk like them, or have the same experiences as them? 

And by the way, I will add, I reject anything that puts any of us into a siloed monolithic category. Just because we have the same language doesn't mean we have the same experiences. Just because we grew up next to each other doesn't mean we have the same perspective. The whole idea is to develop a more meaningful cross-cultural understanding, and part of that for us is, what's in the digital and physical environment and what's in our digital environment and our learning environments? 

And that ties in with these design conditions here, is that multiple perspectives on thoughts and ideas or thought particularly from a problem-based origin. Think about it. That's the way we've always done this. If everyone thinks the same, then a lot of the challenges that exist that we know of, they'll never get solved, because you're not sneaking multiple thoughts and ideas around all of that. 

And then continuing on, many instructional arrangements are used. And then I would even add the following. Time is flexible and dynamic to account for learner growth rates and patterns. Remember, and I'm going to go way back. Remember this here. We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow. And that connects directly to this design condition. Many instructional arrangements are used, time is flexible and dynamic to account for learner growth rates and patterns. 

We don't all learn at the same rate, we don't learn all learn at the same pace, and we don't all learn, in some cases, with the same arrangement. That is how we design for inclusion. And then I'm going to leave-- not leave you all, but I've got a couple of more things to share, and then I'm going to-- I want to give you all a call to action prompt. 

So now we've done equity and inclusion, what about personalization? So again, when it comes to the physical and the environmental, I cannot share with you all because I don't have the words to capture it the impact of seeing yourself reflected in the content. 

So the personalization is when you have both the equity and the inclusion part. It's really looking at the representations around-- and I've seen us even with educators that I work with where I will say-- I'll say things like, here's an example of leaders. What do you see, what do you think, what do you wonder? That's my favorite thinking when it comes to visual literacy. 

And of course, more often than not, when I know who is in the audience and I have those representations, I get the following nonverbal. And what that's telling me is now you are getting exposed to a visual that you may not have known and you are seeing something-- your mirror-- that is a representation and a position that you never thought would you be capable of being able to do. 

And the whole idea around that personalization is how do we design our learning environments so that they extend beyond the whole dynamic of learning? I always say learning is relational, not transactional. And how do we encourage more relational components to our learning environments? 

Many of you put down in your gifts compassion, empathy, all of those things. Those are all relational. How do we incorporate and utilize those in a much more meaningful, impactful design for a personalization capacity? So I'm going to leave you all with this as I conclude these, is when it comes to-- remember those five things you had in assessment? Is one, proficiency is defined and assessed in large measure by individual learner growth from a background knowledge starting point. 

You all have learners that have a lot of background knowledge. Now how do we measure proficiency? Well, we start off with the question, asset approach. What gifts do you bring to a learning environment? How might you use those gifts to support your growth and that of your classmates? How might we utilize our environment in an equitable, inclusive, and personalized capacity that not only supports you as the individual learner, but it supports all of the entire group in a cooperative learning dynamic? 

And then, of course, multi-option assignment and assessment models are used, and assessment is ongoing and diagnostic in order to be more responsive to learner needs, growth, and connect in immediate relevant ways. That is how we design for equity and inclusion, and then now personalization. 

And I want to share with you all a couple of final things in the last few minutes because I do want to allow a few minutes for-- account for a few minutes for questions, is the whole idea around Maya Angelou, one of my personal heroes. "Words are things, I'm convinced. You must be careful about the words you use and the words you allow to be used in your home." 

I take home, say, home, school setting, learning environment, and then self. Why? Because I consider myself to be a word sleuth, and all of these words that tend to be "because we've always done it this way" used in education run the risk of a type of othering which is the opposite of everything I just shared with you all. It's the opposite of personalization, it's the opposite of inclusion, it's the opposite of equity which provides a basic minimum standard to realize your full potential. 

All of these same words run the risk of othering, because they are-- in many cases, they are deficit-based, and they create-- they can easily-- they run the risk of creating a mindset of, oh, I don't fit in here because I am this, and so therefore, it's not for me. And that applies to any learning environment. 

I don't have a time, but I could share with you all how many of these words-- and honestly, which, you all saw it, these words and the use of safe space, I can share with you all how those have been weaponized against me. And so yes, rephrase them, Holly. 

So for example, what I always say is, instead of underperforming, add potential. Instead of underrepresented, historically excluded and marginalized. Instead of ELL, here's the lesson I learned from a student. ELL, you're an English Language Learner. 

Think about what that does. That places a hierarchy on language, and I'll share with you all, I'm functionally fluent, which means that I'm not-- I can't have a full-blown conversation with a lot of deaf, but I can effectively communicate in five different languages. There's power in being able to communicate more than one language. 

So I reject ELL as a label for any learner. You are developing multilingual or emerging multilingual. See? That's an asset, not a deficit. And then even things around homeless. One of you mentioned the whole thing. I had several students, when I taught, that they're like, you know what, Mr. Shelton, I'm homeless I'm like, no you're not. You are experiencing a condition of which you don't have a house. This is your home. 

And in fact, I learned that lesson and that terminology from my friends that I've had the privilege of doing work with Native Hawaiians. And they're like, we're not homeless. We might be houseless, but this is our home. And again, the terminology-- and a lot of these things are normalized, and I had to unlearn a lot of this stuff, too. 

So just to share with you all. I did not start off perfect. We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow. But the key is, when presented with new information, the gift of feedback, we need to give ourselves the time, space, and grace to process, how is this feedback beneficial, helpful, and going to support me and being simply a better version of myself? 

I acknowledge that my prior self caused scars, but I also carry wounds. I will not be the induction of future trauma and wounds knowingly because I have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow. And so that's why I share all of that, because ultimately if we start to think about things differently, reimagine-- or sorry, dismantle, reimagine, redesign, reengage. We can begin to use our time individually and together to evolve, and then continuously reengage. 

I would say, this is a cycle here. You evolve and reengage, evolve and reengage, evolve and-- it's constant. And so my question to you all-- and I got two last things to of share with you all are the following. How might you use some of what I've shared with you all within-- again, within a context of your teams in our division to uplift and support each other and do what I call hold each other in loving accountability? 

I hear you use a term. Hey, here's something that I learned and here's what was a catalyst for me learning that I'd like to share with you. The terminology as a prime example. How might you do that that's aligned with the following, which is alone we are strong and together we are stronger. 

It reminds me of one of my favorite African proverbs that I cannot-- I cannot trace a specific origin, but the proverb goes like this. If you want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go together. We want to go far. We want to go far and we gotta do it together. And remember the brave space one. We do it side-by-side, because ultimately, there is no sustainable movement, shifts, evolution, or growth in isolation. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen at all. 

And I would encourage you all to build a leadership ethos that is centered around the gifts that you bring to your environment, knowing the fact that you have to work on things side-by-side, knowing that you do need to engage in meaningful dialogue, that yes, sometimes the topics may be difficult, but ultimately, if there is a loving accountability, you are afforded the brave space and time to be able to process to engage in that growth and have it be sustainable. 

And that all ties in with the whole idea around the culture of our environments that we learn in and that we work within. And so I want to share with you all-- or in conclusion the following. So these are all design affirmations. 

You design learning-- and keep in mind, learning I use as the very large, overarching term. It's purposeful, it's responsive, it's appropriately challenging, supports creativity, it's differentiated, it's inclusive, supports collaboration, builds empathy and compassion, and supports critical and analytical thinking. 

Many of you shared in your gifts a lot of these things right here. That's a gift that you bring to the environment that you work within, and I will ask you all the following, and I'm going to leave you with two last things here. How many of these that you see here can be measured numerically? 

Oh, I see. I keep seeing Holly because that's the name that appears in the chat, so I apologize. Yeah, none of these. And if you'll notice, all of these, we can all identify as being critical to our social well-being, our opportunities for growth, and our access and opportunity to realize our full potential within our learning environments. 

So I'm going to leave you all with two final things, and that is the following. I would like for you all to utilize-- Kathy, as a math person, I'd like to try. Perfect, because if we can, then there's-- again, it's not-- nothing is in absolutes. There may be a way to do that. 

But here's the thing. I want to share with you all, here's your prompt for your time at the summit. Think about it in terms of, Ken shared a lot of overarching things, but I want you all to be able to directly connect it to something that is real and relevant to you personally. 

So it would be the response to this prompt. You take a moment when we're done and then just write it down. "We design learning which," and then what does that look like within your role and your context? And then I'll share with you all the last two things, because ultimately, the whole idea around this is in order for you all to operationalize your plans, engage in both individual and collective growth, again, alone we are strong, but together we are stronger. 

You also-- I also want to share with you all that it's-- you want to recognize the importance of your energy and your social well-being. So why do I have this slide? What you're looking at is an actual peloton. I know the name was popularized on lockdown because people are getting into bikes, but if cycling, when the cyclists are in a line, that's actually called a peloton. 

And so recognize that all of you bring unique gifts to your environments that you work within and that you operate within, and that in some cases, who's ever gifts best serve the collective good, that's who is the lead at that time. That, to me, should be part of your leadership ethos, is recognizing when somebody else needs to be in the front and lead, and even in some cases has the energy. 

Because ultimately no matter who is leading, guess what? You're still making progress. And that's why ultimately, for all of us, it's affirming each other, it's recognizing that we have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow, it's recognizing that we have a responsibility to examine what we think we know, and ultimately it boils down to the following quote-- again, from Maya Angelou. "You do the best you can until you know better, and when you know better, you do better." 

So I thank you all for being here. I thank you for your contributions in the chat. I appreciate the opportunity to spend this time with you all. Yes, I wish we were in-person, but I would say we were together even though we were apart because we're still connected here, so thank you all very much. 

VERONICA PARKER: Thank you, Ken, and thank you all very much for participating, especially in the chat. There were so many different gems that were provided to us this morning, so thank you so much, so much, Ken. We do have just a couple of minutes if there are a couple of questions. One thing that did come up, Ken, is they wanted a copy of your presentation. Is that something you were able to share with us? 

KEN SHELTON: Probably not for several reasons. Most importantly, the presentation file itself alone is about 3 gigs. 

VERONICA PARKER: OK, no worries. We will provide them with the recording so they'll have access to that. So-- 

KEN SHELTON: Yes. 

VERONICA PARKER: --will definitely do them a lot of justice. And they can take what they learned back to their agencies. But again, thank you all so much. We have about a minute before we close. Any last-minute questions that you want to ask of Ken? I see a lot of thank yous, fantastic presentation. 

Mandilee did drop the link-- the evaluation link in the chat. So definitely take a couple of minutes to complete the evaluation. Let us know what you thought about this plenary address. We hope that it met your needs, especially as we are moving forward with the implementation of the new three-year plan. This is the first year of implementation, and so we definitely want to get your feedback, and hopefully you found value in this particular session as you're thinking about and going about the actual implementation. 

Our next breakout session will begin at 10:30 AM, so definitely check the schedule. The links should be correct. I certainly hope they are, but if they are not, we are here to help you all navigate that. And before you get there, we do have about a 30-minute break, so please stop by and visit our exhibitors, they are here to engage with you all. I'm seeing in the chat, no real questions. I'll put-- 

KEN SHELTON: So one question that did come up, though, is how to save the chat. And I saw a post where if you click on the three dots and click Save Chat, that's how you can save it. Which ideally everyone can use the chat as their digital archive for not only their contributions, but also to be able to engage with the contributions of others as well. 

VERONICA PARKER: Yes. Yes, you should 

KEN SHELTON: --says it's not enabled. 

VERONICA PARKER: OK, so I just saved it, so we could definitely post the chat on this particular session on the platform so everyone will have access to the chat. So that should be helpful. 

So again, thank you, Ken, so much for your time and for being with us this morning, and we appreciate it. And we'll see you all in our next set of breakout sessions. Have a great day, everyone.