Aaron and Rachael sit down with PSEA Assistant Directors of Education Services Gina Gullo and Michael Bogdan to explore the professional learning opportunities available to PSEA members. Learn about PSEA’s Center for Professional Learning and the PEARL platform, which offer flexible, free Act 48 and Chapter 14 credits through webinars, book studies, and NEA micro-credentials. Whether you're a seasoned educator or just starting out, PSEA's pro-learning opportunities have you covered.
Aaron and Rachael sit down with PSEA Assistant Directors of Education Services Gina Gullo and Michael Bogdan to explore the professional learning opportunities available to PSEA members. Learn about PSEA’s Center for Professional Learning and the PEARL platform, which offer flexible, free Act 48 and Chapter 14 credits through webinars, book studies, and NEA micro-credentials. Whether you're a seasoned educator or just starting out, PSEA's pro-learning opportunities have you covered.
Do you have some feedback for us? Send an email to podcast@psea.org.
Learn more and watch for upcoming episodes at psea.org/podcast.
Voiceover:
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you from cutting-Edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions. If it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin:
Hello and welcome to Duty Free lunch. I'm PSEA President Aaron Chapin. Sitting right next to me today is PSEA Treasurer, Rachael West. Hello, Rachael.
Rachael West:
Hello, Aaron. How you doing?
Aaron Chapin:
I'm doing really, really well. I'm excited to be here today. How's your first... Well, your year as treasurer is now over. Now you're into your second year. How's the second year going?
Rachael West:
The second year has started off pretty smooth. I feel a little bit more like I have some clue of what I'm doing, but I'm still learning a few things too.
Aaron Chapin:
I completely feel what you're feeling. I think the second year, we're in our groove here. We all know what we're supposed to be doing. There's no unusual things we think we need to be worrying about. But you feel like you know your job?
Rachael West:
I think so. Still learning a few details, but I think we're into it.
Aaron Chapin:
All right. And you're all into this podcast stuff.
Rachael West:
It's very exciting. I love doing the podcast with you.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, I think maybe you got a career after this.
Rachael West:
Maybe, we'll see.
Aaron Chapin:
Maybe. One of the things I don't think a lot of our listeners realize is, besides the fact that we're out of the classroom to do these state officer jobs, but we still are accountable for professional development even though we're not in the classrooms.
Rachael West:
Yeah. We still have to keep up that certification just in case.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, and this is probably my last go about of getting my Act 48 hours, and I'm -
Rachael West:
Not counting down at all though, right?
Aaron Chapin:
Well, I've got a year to accumulate about 80 hours. Yes, I know.
Rachael West:
Ooh, okay.
Aaron Chapin:
One of our guests just grimaced over there.
Rachael West:
Do you have a plan for getting those 80 hours done?
Aaron Chapin:
I did. I was on vacation this summer and while I was on the beach, I was listening to some of the services we're talking about today.
Rachael West:
Oh, that's awesome.
Aaron Chapin:
I got about 10 hours as I sat there on the beach, not paying attention to my family. So that's my plan.
Rachael West:
To just continue to ignore your family while getting your Act 48 hours?
Aaron Chapin:
That's not a good idea, but when I'm driving, I've got some time that I'm just sitting around relaxing because I find it relaxing. This is why we have our two guests in today.
Rachael West:
Perfect.
Aaron Chapin:
So it's not just about me.
Rachael West:
Okay.
Aaron Chapin:
It's about our listeners who are also in the same boat because there are a lot of people that are at the same spot I am that are trying to get their hours before they run out of time. So enough of all this. Today we are talking about the exciting professional learning opportunities PSEA offers our members. Specifically we're talking about two main online professional learning portals. It's PSEA's Center for Professional Learning and PEARL, which stands for the Professional Education And Resources for Learning. So on these platforms, you can find a huge variety of synchronous or asynchronous learning opportunities for members like you and me, Rachael, to earn Act 48 and Chapter 14 verification. So to walk us through all this, we've got two of our PSEA colleagues, we've got Gina Gullo.
Gina Gullo:
Hi.
Aaron Chapin:
How you doing Gina?
Gina Gullo:
Glad to be here.
Aaron Chapin:
Thanks. And we've got Mike Bogdan. How are you doing, Mike?
Michael Bogdan:
Good, good. Thanks for having us.
Aaron Chapin:
Just so you all know their jobs here at PSEA, they are the Assistant Director of Education Services and they oversee these platforms. So we are really thankful to have you in here because we hear it all the time, just how important this asset, this part of our association really pays off dividends for our members. So thank you for being here today. So let's get started Gina and Mike, so can you start by giving us an overview of the types of professional learning opportunities that are available on the Center for Professional Learning and the PEARL Platforms? Do you know? Can you?
Gina Gullo:
Sure. So I'll talk a little bit more about the PEARL offerings. And so our courses on PEARL are available to all PSEA members, no cost, completely free. They cover a wide range of topics and all of those courses are asynchronous, meaning you could do them at your pace, whenever you want. You could do it on the beach with your family or not with your family, or you could do it on a flexible professional learning day in the building from home, wherever makes sense for you. You just need an internet connection. It also means it's not scheduled. So you could log on in the middle of night, you could log on at a reasonable time, whatever works for you. And we have courses on there aligned to all different professions. So we try to meet the needs of all different kinds of members, whether you're a non-teaching professional, whether you're an educational support professional, whether you're a retired member, and of course the classroom teachers.
Michael Bogdan:
So for the Center for Professional Learning, which you can find at psea.org/prolearning, we have our webinars, book discussions, and micro-credentials. So webinars and book discussions are live. The webinars are typically 60 to 90 minutes, usually with one of our PSEA ed service staff members and on a variety of topics of interest and relevance to our members.
For the book discussions, prior to that live meeting through Zoom, you'll read the book or collection of books, complete a discussion guide and then have a one-hour discussion with fellow PSEA members on what you've read. And for those who need professional learning hours, you get credit not only for the time that you attend the live session, but also for the reading and preparation. And then finally we have our NEA micro-credentials, which are a little bit more involved or job embedded professional learning, which can be used for 15 to 20 Act 48 hours or for college credit.
Rachael West:
Okay.
Aaron Chapin:
What I love is the convenience of it. All you need is a device, whether it's your cell phone, your iPad, your laptop, all you need is a connection.
Rachael West:
It seems like you have a wide variety of things to offer. So somebody who is more independent, can do those asynchronous things and somebody who wants it to be more of a group activity has the opportunity for those book studies and things. You mentioned micro-credentials. I'm sure we have many members who are unfamiliar with that idea, could you explain a little bit more about what micro-credentials are?
Michael Bogdan:
Sure. So that's a service we have through the NEA and those as I mentioned, are job embedded. And so they involve more creating lesson plans or implementing actual activities based upon your learning in the classroom. And they usually involve several components that you then would submit to an Evaluate NEA, which if accepted can be used for up to those 20 professional learning hours. We even have an agreement with Penn West where for only $70 as a PSEA a member, those can be used for one credit with them and that eventually will lead into a master's program that we are rolling out this year.
Rachael West:
Oh wow. Okay. So you can use them for college credit if you want, but you don't have to.
Michael Bogdan:
Correct.
Rachael West:
They could just be the hours or you could pay the money to get the college credit.
Michael Bogdan:
Exactly. So whether you want to use them for Act 48 or Chapter 14 or college credit, you have different options.
Rachael West:
That's awesome.
Aaron Chapin:
Maybe move along the salary guides.
Rachael West:
Right. Many of our members need opportunities to do that as well.
Aaron Chapin:
That's fantastic. And before we got on the, sorry, we started recording. I was going to say on the air, that made me sound like I'm 90 years old. You were talking to some of the popular classes. You've got a top 10 list over there of what's popular. I think it's just kind of interesting to hear what our members have in common with some of these courses they're taking.
Gina Gullo:
Sure. So we have the top 10 courses over the last year that people completed. This could be courses that people enrolled in and not completed, but these are the ones that they actually finished and earned at Act 48 hours or Chapter 14 certificate. So we got social, emotional, equitable learning, understanding students and anger, taking care of the teacher self, medical marijuana, know the facts, can you hear us now using podcasts to teach and entertain, like this one, supporting newly arrived immigrant students, finding calm in chaos, assessment and treatment of anxiety across the developmental spectrum, understanding students in trauma, Crip Camp, a Netflix documentary by high ground productions and tobacco nicotine and vaping prevention and treatment.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, I took five of those.
Rachael West:
You took five of those?
Aaron Chapin:
I took five of those, yes I did.
Rachael West:
This sounds really interesting. There's quite a wide variety of options even in what people are taking with those specific things. We keep mentioning Act 48 and Chapter 14, hopefully people know what those are, but how do members track their progress and what are the actual requirements for those?
Michael Bogdan:
So for certified educators in Pennsylvania, they need to complete 180 hours of professional learning every five years. And a way to track that is at perms.pa.go. You can go there and it keeps a record of what you've completed and you can also go there to find your PPID, which is the number you need in order for those hours to be attributed to you through PDE. For ESP members who are paraprofessionals, they need 20 hours of professional learning under Chapter 14, and they should have those pre-approved by their administrator before pursuing them.
Rachael West:
And how are those tracked?
Michael Bogdan:
There isn't a formal structure for that. So the member should track those and submit them to their employer.
Rachael West:
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Aaron Chapin:
It's really not that hard for us to be check in our Act 48. I mean all the time because you think I would bookmark it, but it's not bookmarked in my phone, but I just type in to Google Act 48, PDE and boom, it takes me right to the page.
Rachael West:
He says, as I am taking note and thinking I should check that soon and see exactly where I'm at on my Act 48 hours.
Aaron Chapin:
Yes, yes, yes. So again, before we got on, we were talking a little bit about how I listened to the podcast episode for some credit, a summer and a half, two summers ago, actually found it really helpful as I was thinking about trying to get this thing started for PSEA. Do you have any maybe some success stories of members or a member who's really benefited from these professional learning opportunities?
Gina Gullo:
Sure. So with PEARL, we hear some interesting things coming out from our UniServs and our local presidents. And one instance I heard about recently was there was a member who ran into a bit of a disciplinary issue and it was pretty minor. It was something they needed to improve on early in their career. And the school wanted them to just kind of expand their skills and time management and they were able to work with their union rep, the UniServ, to find some PEARL courses that they could take for part of a professional improvement plan. And by taking those courses, sharing the certificates of completion, and then just showing an improvement in their practice, it was just a easier way to deal with that.
Aaron Chapin:
That's great.
Rachael West:
That's a great way to use a different outside of the box kind of idea way to use those.
Aaron Chapin:
Awesome.
Rachael West:
So that's a early career person who had an issue. How are you addressing unique needs of our educators such as an early career educator versus a veteran teacher, and then within the courses and the resources that are offered, how are we addressing the different people that might be accessing it?
Gina Gullo:
Sure. So on PEARL we have these little circles on the home page. So you go to pearl.psea.org and you see these circles that are aligned to different kinds of professions. And you could click on that and they'll show you a collection of courses that either we find or more aligned to the needs of those members or members have reached out to us and said, Hey, I'm a retired member, these courses are more relevant to me. Can you add those? And so we'll add those. We also have some flyers that we give out to local presidents to distribute for courses that might be more useful to people who are PSEA retired members, educational support professionals working in the Department of Pupil Services, things like that. And that's on the PEARL side. Mike could probably talk more about what we're doing in the Center for Professional Learning.
Michael Bogdan:
So to support our teacher pipeline, we have added recently a designation on our webinars of those that we feel are most useful to our early career members, that we define as those in their first five years of their career because we know those first five years really determine whether they're going to continue in the profession. So that's something new that we have started either designing webinars specific for our new early career educators or designating those that we think will be best suited for their needs.
Rachael West:
Wow. It makes it a little easier when they go on to know that they can look for things that are designated maybe for what they're specifically looking for, for themselves. That's actually really neat. You kind of stated that that's something new that you're doing on that piece. Is there anything else new or new features or upcoming developments on the PEARL platform or the CPL that members should be excited about and looking for?
Gina Gullo:
Sure. One thing that we just completed doing that we've been working on for a while is made it so that every eligible video, so videos that we've created or recorded on PEARL now has subtitles or closed captions to make everything accessible. And so members that might have difficulty with hearing or you're just in the classroom and you can't have the volume on because maybe you're not teaching at that moment, but there's something else going on. You could watch those videos with subtitles now and not miss anything.
Aaron Chapin:
I did not know that.
Gina Gullo:
Just last week it finished.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, I guess that's why I didn't know it.
Rachael West:
I watch everything with subtitles, so that would be really helpful for me too.
Gina Gullo:
Yeah, I'm not losing my hearing, but I still want subtitles.
Rachael West:
Right.
Aaron Chapin:
So look, I've confessed, I'm in kind of a pinch as I get through this next year. It'll get there. But I think my situation may be different, Rachael. We're kind of in the same boat. We're out of the classroom, we're busy, we've got family lives, but our members, they're busy too. They've got these busy day jobs. A lot of them have union responsibilities. They've got their families, some of them second, third jobs as well. So Michael, can you tell us what do you recommend, for our members, really to integrate this professional learning into their busy schedule so that they can get these? Because obviously they can't get all of the time they need from their school district. So what can they do to make this a part of their schedule? And I'm paying attention, so I need to do the same thing.
Michael Bogdan:
Yeah, it's a great question and that's one of the reasons we try to offer a wide variety of topics and formats for professional learning. So some people who come to our webinars, they just want that one hour or that 90 minutes to learn something and be done with it and then take it to their classroom. So that works well for them. They also like having a live instructor there where they can interact. They can answer questions, ask questions, see and hear from their fellow members. But then there are others who perhaps are not available to meet when those live sessions happen.
So they would prefer to use something like PEARL, which has recorded podcasts or videos or lessons to go through. And they can do that at any time of the year, any time of the day. So we would encourage our members to go in and just poke around and see what's available and it's okay to enroll in something and then to say, okay, that's not what I thought it was. Let me try something else. And that's one of the reasons we're trying to offer a wide variety of topics and formats. So there's something for everyone.
Rachael West:
Is there a time limit for if I start listening to one now and I get distracted and I need to go do something and then a month later I'm like, oh wait, I didn't finish watching that. Can I go back in and pick up where I left off or do I have to start over again? How does that work?
Gina Gullo:
It depends on the PEARL course. So the PEARL courses are not typically time sensitive. Most of the time we have a video there and you need to watch the whole thing to answer the questions, but nothing's going to tell you that you didn't watch it to the end or you weren't in there long enough. When we started off, we did have that and that's been removed from most things. Mostly because you can change the speed on videos. So let's just say you can listen quickly and you want to play it at double speed. You can do that as long as you're getting all that information. And so it's not going to save where you left off. You have to just know where you got back in. So maybe jot down what time you left at and come back into the video later.
Aaron Chapin:
Great question. I listened to one back in May and then I forgot I needed to go and finish the questions that went along with it. And so two weeks ago I went back in, it was right where I left off. So it's really helpful. Makes it easy for our members.
Rachael West:
Yeah. When you mentioned just if somebody has a small child and they think the kids are down for the night and then kid wakes up in the middle of the night, sometimes you have to pause, you can't finish it. So I just wondered if there was a time,
Aaron Chapin:
No. It amazes me sometimes. I've been a state officer to now my sixth year. I remember when I was first starting as Vice President, PEARL was coming to our plates and they were like, should we do it? And we almost didn't even give it the green light. Well, because there were other projects and this PEARL, it almost never came to be. And it was only through the determination of ED services. They made this happen. And I think it's something our members are so grateful for the advocacy and just a dedication because it comes free. It's part of your membership.
Rachael West:
This is one of those things I actually spoke about at one of the opening sessions, at a district, I got to go to their welcome back meeting and one of the things I mentioned is PSEA has a lot of things to offer that aren't just our collective bargaining. And this is actually one of the things I mentioned, but I didn't have as many details as I'll have now when people ask me questions about it. So I'm excited to have this conversation with you.
Aaron Chapin:
Exactly. What you pay in dues you can make back just in professional development alone.
Rachael West:
Absolutely.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah. But you know what time it is? It's pop quiz time, Rachael
Rachael West:
And I actually get to do the pop quiz.
Aaron Chapin:
And you get to. I know. Jeff's not here. It's your job now. You get the pop quiz.
Rachael West:
Okay. Well this question is for both of you, so going to try to keep it brief so we don't run out of time. What is your favorite area to lead professional development in right now?
Michael Bogdan:
So I previously was a world language teacher. So when I can work with fellow world language teachers or incorporate those skills from world languages into other subject areas, that's what I get very passionate about.
Gina Gullo:
I really like anything in the diversity, equity and inclusion area. That's what I did before PSEA and that's kind of my passion still.
Rachael West:
Awesome.
Aaron Chapin:
So do you guys travel around the state as well to different necks of our Commonwealth? Do you get around? Do you travel to do professional development still?
Michael Bogdan:
We go to all the regions, so we're everywhere.
Aaron Chapin:
You as well, Gina?
Gina Gullo:
Coming to an LDC near you.
Rachael West:
Ah, okay.
Aaron Chapin:
Yes. Again, for our members that aren't aware of this, all of our regions, they have professional development sessions that go on usually once a month. It depends though, but they're available in almost all of our regions. They put them on, sometimes they have to go to a virtual mode because of a lack of physical attendance, but they still go on. But check out what's going on in your region because it's available. So we are super thankful for both of you coming in today.
It's such an important thing for our members. They need to stay up on their Act 48 and Chapter 14 times because as local president, Rachael's been a local president, there have been times I've had to deliver bad news to my colleagues saying you did not accumulate your hours. And when that time is up, time is up. The district obviously can't continue to employ you. So this is so very important that we communicate this to our members. So thank you very much. Again everybody, our guests today, were PSEA, Assistant Directors of Education Services, Gina Gullo. Thank you very much.
Gina Gullo:
Thanks for having me.
Aaron Chapin:
And Michael Bogdan, thank you.
Michael Bogdan:
Thank you.
Aaron Chapin:
We really appreciate you both joining us. To our listeners out there, thanks again for tuning in. If you have some feedback for us, got some questions, maybe you want advice from Rachael?
Rachael West:
Maybe they do.
Aaron Chapin:
I don't blame you. She's full of advice. All you got to do is send an email to podcast@psea.org. Again, I am Aaron Chapin.
Rachael West:
And I'm Rachael West.
Aaron Chapin:
And you've been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Bye for now.
Voiceover:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psea.org/podcast to learn more and don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.