What’s It Like Inside the Anti-Boring Learning Lab?
It’s graduation season here in the United States… and in the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, as well.
We opened the new-and-improved Learning Lab in March 2024, and the first cohort of coaches is wrapping up their learning of the Anti-Boring Toolkit and submitting their applications to become Certified Anti-Boring Coaches.
Congratulations! Today I thought it’d be fun to celebrate some of our newly minted Anti-Boring Coaches, in their own words.
As a part of their application for certification, we ask coaches to submit:
Hone It Notes. A set of “Hone It Notes” where they consolidate all their learning onto one graphic organizer (this is a process we teach them to teach students how to do, so, of course, we ask the educators to do it for themselves!)
Reflection Paper. A paper where they reflect on their main takeaways from this training, and how it has impacted their work with students.
Testimonial. If they found their training to be transformative, they are invited to share a testimonial that we can share with the public.
Let’s take a look at some of excerpts from these incredible educators’ final reflections about how their coaching and teaching has improved with the Anti-Boring Toolkit.
Making History: The First Educator to Post Her Final Reflections
First up, I’d like to celebrate Rachelle, who was the very first coach to post her final reflections inside the Learning Lab. Yay, Rachelle!!
Rachelle came to us via an academic life coaching company that trusts the Anti-Boring Learning Lab with training their team of coaches. These coaches had 3-months to complete all nine of the Anti-Boring micro-credentials and submit their application for certification.
Here’s Rachelle’s take on what she got out of the experience of learning with us:
This course is FANTASTIC! I can’t believe how much information was included. Not only did we learn, but we were encouraged to apply the information so that we can understand and teach it even better.
Gretchen even gave us printable notes to fill out, along with detailed instructions on how to teach the information to our students.
I learned so much about studying strategically, the brain, motivation, organization, creating study plans, and more. I have already started teaching some of it to my clients, and they are loving it.
If you are a coach or educator, take this course. It is well worth your time and effort!
I love that unprompted, Rachelle lifts up one of the key philosophies here in the Anti-Boring Learning Lab: specifically, the importance of learning by doing. You are a more powerful teacher, tutor, or coach when you have practice implementing the strategies you teach your students.
Hence, if you are going to learn our Anti-Boring Note Taking method, you need to practice it — over and over and over again — which is why we provided the note-taking worksheets in every micro-credential.
For example, the image above is a screenshot of Rachelle’s Final Hone It Notes for the entire course. It’s not an easy task to sift through everything you’ve learned and summarize it as a resource onto one page — but every graduate of our program has to give it a try, and Rachelle did a great job.
I also want to share three of the takeaways she mentioned in her final reflection paper:
It’s ok to be messy! Try different things out and see what sticks. Look for new and different ways to learn.
Be strategic. I loved the video about reading a book in a couple hours. I never thought about doing all those things before starting reading… I have always just jumped right in!
Study smarter, not harder. It will take extra “brain juice” to apply these things, but most of [these strategies] don’t take any more time. In fact, implementing them will often save time in the long run.
I’m so grateful to Rachelle for her enthusiastic participation as a coach-who-learns, and I’m excited for her new student clients who get to learn alongside her moving forward.
From A Recent College Graduate
Whereas Rachelle is typical of educators who enroll in the Learning Lab, our next coach, Ariel, is atypical. Why? She’s a younger coach who just graduated from college very recently.
Since she is so close to the experience of being a student herself, I was fascinated to read her reflections as she worked through the micro-credentials and applied them to her work with student clients who are essentially her peers!
Here is what Ariel had to say:
Enrolling in this program has been nothing short of transformative. As a recent college graduate, I thought I had all the new & improved tools for students.
But when starting this program, I was propelled into a world of tools that made me excited to teach, coach, and truly be a student again.
I’m sure everyone that has gone through this program can agree, ‘I really wish I had these tools as a student.’”
First of all, I had to laugh when I read this last sentence. I can no longer keep track of how many Anti-Boring Learning Lab members have said that they wished they had these tools as a student!
I also appreciate that Ariel points to her feelings of “excitement” about both coaching students and being a student again. That’s exactly why we call this Toolkit “Anti-Boring.” Learning doesn’t have to be drudgery and difficult, but it so often is in today’s schooling landscape. However, having a toolkit that honors the way the brain likes to learn, and allows for creativity and personalization in the learning process, is indeed exciting.
Ariel expanded on this idea in her final reflection paper:
As a learner, the most impactful lesson has been the Hone-It Notes lesson. As an avid note-taker, I used to struggle retaining the information in a way that wasn’t repetitive or boring.
Since starting this program, I have learned that studying can involve creativity & imagination. Through doodles, symbols, colors, and stories, I have found more joy in learning!
The above final Hone It Notes, depicted as two pages in a textbook, are an example of Ariel’s creativity in action. One of my deep joys in teaching this training is watching how different coaching visualize what they’ve learned here in such radically unique ways. Way to go, Ariel!
From a Highly-Skilled Academic Interventionist and Reading Specialist
Finally, I’d like to introduce you to Nicola. She is an Academic Interventionist in Vancouver, Canada. She decided to join the Anti-Boring Learning Lab to fill out her skillset, which is already incredibly robust.
The above screenshot is an example of her Hone It Notes on the micro-credential Academic Coaching 101, where we share “the least you need to know” about how to deliver quality academic coaching services to students, whether you are a teacher, tutor, or other kind of educator.
I also found Nicola’s reflections about this micro-credential quite profound:
I feel like this micro-credential put a capstone on the other courses I've taken from Gretchen. It brought all the elements together.
I love the chart, I think that was a big AHA for me. With the students I'm struggling with, I have identified their challenges, but I think I've felt like I'm not doing enough to support them.
Seeing it laid out like this, enables me to do a checklist to confirm that we're on the right path.
The “chart” Nicola is referring to here is what I fondly refer to as the “Academic Coaching Decision Making Tree.” New teachers and coaches are often asking me, “How do I know what skills to work on when with students?” The Decision Making Tree is my answer to this question, a tool that educators can use with students to help them partner with you in identifying what their most transformative next step could be.
As Nicola reflected here, the chart also serves as a checklist to make sure the academic coach is “on the right track” with their student. Yay for effective and supportive tools!
Here was Nicola’s final testimonial for the full training program:
The Anti-Boring Learning Lab has helped me chart a clear pathway through the overwhelming sea of research to a place of clarity.
It has provided me with simple, student-friendly tools that I can use to support students with a variety of needs.
The ongoing support from the community has been transformational as I have worked to polish my skillset. The knowledge base and kindness of the members is amazing.
Where once I felt alone in my work, I now have a network of colleagues who support and provide guidance for each other.
I’m thrilled to hear Nicola’s reflections, not just about the training and the Anti-Boring micro-credentials, but also about the high caliber of our community inside the Learning Lab.
It’s a refrain I’ve heard from many an educator — both school-based and self-employed. Our work can be very lonely, especially because it’s hard to find other teachers, tutors, and coaches who share our values, approach, and skill sets.
One of the most important changes we made to the new Anti-Boring Learning Lab is we centered the community of Anti-Boring Educators alongside the courses and training.
Our hope is that, as one of our long-time coaches said recently, “I came for the curriculum and stayed for the community.”
Would You Like to Check Out the Learning Lab for Yourself?
I’m so curious to hear what your final testimonial will be after learning the Anti-Boring Toolkit and teaching it to your students! In fact, what will your students’ final testimonial be? That is the real question to ask… and the reason we are all in this work — to transform students’ lives and help them thrive.
If you think the Anti-Boring Toolkit might help your students thrive, we invite you to come check us out.
The doors to the Lab open and close periodically throughout the year. We even offer a 3-day FREE trial so you can give our community and courses a trial run before you commit.
P.S. If you’re reading this blog post from May 14-24, 2024, the doors to the Anti-Boring Learning Lab are now OPEN for summer professional development.
If you’re going to do learning over the summer, wouldn’t you prefer it be anti-boring?! 😉
Just click the link above, choose “The FULL TOOLKIT,” and then come on in for your 3-day trial. We look forward to seeing you!
