(0:00) Hello and welcome to our Listen and Learn series of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. (0:05) This is a special series for winter 2026. And as a reminder, these Listen and Learn series (0:10) is part of our interchange as we move from one season to another season.

And this Listen and (0:15) Learn series is super duper special because we are recording it live at the National Association (0:20) for Gifted and Talented Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And Matt and I, this week, (0:25) we’ve done some scholarly work that’s about our upcoming book, 10 Actions to Fuel the Future (0:31) Creative. So be on the lookout for that link.

And this Listen and Learn series is all about (0:37) capturing some moments we’ve had with some scholars and practitioners and even a past guest we’ve had (0:43) on the show who was fantastic to talk about the latest and greatest of what’s happening in (0:48) creativity and gifted education. So as always, don’t forget that with these Listen and Learn (0:53) series, we do take all of the episodes and put them on our websites. They’re available on one (0:58) page.

You just need to go to FuelingEducationPodcast.com to find that series and we hope you enjoy. (1:04) Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

(1:07) And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. (1:09) This is Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. (1:13) On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the (1:18) field of education.

(1:19) We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, (1:24) challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity. (1:27) All with the goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, (1:33) administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity (1:37) into teaching and learning. (1:40) So let’s begin.

(1:41) So this is episode two of the Listen and Learn. And I have met the newly minted Dr. (1:48) Sarah Carleo. (1:49) And we’re going to talk to you a little bit about her poster presentation that was around (1:53) training educators for positive advanced learning outcomes, a systematic review.

(1:58) And this was actually done in partnership with someone, a past guest of ours, Dr. Jonathan (2:03) Flucker. (2:04) So he was your doctoral advisor. (2:06) He was.

And this was a part of his big federal Javits grant called Project PETL, which stands (2:12) for, going to put me on the spot, Professional Transformation for Advanced Learning. (2:17) And so we got to do a lot with professional learning. (2:19) We’re excited to talk about it today.

(2:21) Great. (2:21) So tell us what outcomes, what did you discover about professional learning? (2:26) Yeah. (2:26) So in this study, we did a review of all of the studies that have been done in the U.S. (2:30) related to advanced education.

(2:32) And we learned quite a bit. (2:35) We were looking to see what types of studies have been done related to professional learning (2:39) and how different features and different focuses have shaped teacher and student outcomes. (2:44) So I’m happy to talk about any of those.

(2:46) Yeah, I would love to know more. (2:48) So what kind of different things did you find? (2:50) And then what did you discover as a result? (2:52) So we found 32 articles that fit our criteria. (2:57) And within those, a lot of them used strategies that are endorsed by the general education (3:03) professional learning literature.

(3:05) So they did things like they had sustained duration, meaning it’s not just a one-time (3:09) professional learning session, but instead they’re doing it either in multiple sessions (3:13) over one year or even longitudinal. (3:16) And we noticed that when things were done in that sustained duration, they were typically (3:19) associated with better teacher and student outcomes. (3:22) So that was like one finding that we found to be particularly exciting.

(3:28) Another one that struck us was that in the general ed lit, they recommend having concrete (3:34) materials that you give teachers in professional learning settings. (3:37) So instead of just talking about an abstract topic like differentiation, you give them (3:42) something concrete to walk away with, whether it’s a curriculum set that has differentiation (3:47) already kind of built into it and teach them how to use it, or even just a task that’s (3:52) already differentiated. (3:53) And not a ton of studies in our corpus did that, where it gave them concrete materials, (3:58) even though that’s what it says in the gen ed literature to do.

(4:01) But when studies did do that, I think there were like four or five in our corpus that (4:06) did that, and all of them had stronger outcomes specifically related to student learning. (4:10) So we thought that was pretty interesting because it kind of supports what gen ed literature (4:13) has found, but is really suggesting to people who are leading gifted and advanced education (4:19) research that we need to be giving more tools, like concrete tools, and not just saying (4:24) here’s differentiation, go do it. (4:26) Right, so the tools and doing it over time.

(4:31) So it’s interesting because when I came to you, I said oftentimes when people come to (4:35) us and say, we want creativity training, can you teach us everything you want to know (4:39) about creativity in an hour and a half? (4:41) I say, well, it’s more than just a quick something I can give you that’s going to (4:47) teach you everything you want to know about creativity. (4:49) So Matt and I are very strong advocates for making sure that we have time, and that incubation (4:56) time I think is really important as well. (4:58) So did you find anything around the incubation time in terms of you do a professional development, (5:03) you give them those tools that they need and those strategies, they go out, they try (5:07) to implement it, then you come back and you say, how did it go? (5:10) What did work? (5:10) What didn’t work? (5:11) And how do we move forward from that? (5:18) I love that you use the term incubation.

(5:20) We hadn’t thought of it in that way. (5:21) But the connection to creativity is like it’s apt. (5:25) And I think because we were using a framework, it’s actually from some folks out of Brown (5:31) University called the Building Better PL framework.

(5:34) And essentially, it’s like what you’re describing the incubation where it’s like (5:38) you give they suggest doing like one training session. (5:41) So let’s say it’s on creativity. (5:42) You teach the general topic.

(5:44) Maybe you give them some time to try to implement it on their own. (5:47) But something they really endorse in that framework is doing follow up sessions, maybe (5:51) even some coaching as available. (5:53) And then you come back and maybe there’s a task that the teachers have to do and bring (5:57) back to another PL learning situation.

(5:59) We were pleased to see that a lot of the studies in this corpus did that type of it’s, I guess, (6:06) incubation where it’s kind of getting PL in different formats over time to really embed (6:11) and give teachers opportunities to struggle with it. (6:14) Because I think a lot of the things we try to teach are pretty complex, right? (6:18) You can’t just learn creativity in one hour. (6:20) You can’t learn differentiation in one hour.

(6:22) So I think having those built in scaffolds almost to let them think through and struggle (6:27) is really important. (6:28) Right. (6:29) And I like that word that you’re using, struggling, because it’s something that we’ve talked a (6:33) lot about on the podcast is you have to go through like it’s going to be hard learning (6:37) something new, right? (6:38) As teachers, we feel like we know what we’re doing in the classroom.

(6:42) But when you introduce a new element, say differentiated learning or creativity, you’re (6:46) going to have some sort of struggle there. (6:48) And it’s not going to be as easy as, oh, you’ve given me a concept that on a slide and now (6:53) I’m going to go implement it into my classroom. (6:55) But now I’ve got it.

(6:56) If you’ve been given the strategies and tools, you take those away with you. (7:00) And then all of a sudden, like you’re working through that complexity and ambiguity. (7:04) And then you’re really able to go back and say, I totally failed on this.

(7:09) But this is one glimmer that I had. (7:12) Yeah. (7:12) And now I want to build on that.

(7:14) And then going back and the continuous learning over the course of time. (7:19) Yeah. (7:19) And like safe spaces to kind of fail, like is something I’m hearing you say, which I think (7:23) is true.

(7:24) I think, you know, often teacher mindsets is like a challenge for people leading professional (7:29) learning. (7:30) Actually, at the poster day, I had multiple practitioners coming up and asking me, like, (7:33) how do you get people to buy in? (7:34) It’s so hard because teachers are overworked and they don’t want to be there. (7:38) But I think it’s because teachers have gotten used to professional learning just being (7:42) these one-shot things that they don’t feel are helpful to their practice.

(7:47) But if we design it so it is more helpful being like they get those resources and they (7:51) get time to really develop the skills. (7:53) I think and research shows it’s not just me thinking, but research shows that that (7:58) gets more buy-in from teachers, which is huge to see change. (8:01) So, yeah.

(8:02) Well, we are so grateful for your time today. (8:05) Thank you so much. (8:06) And we look forward to seeing your names on some upcoming publications.

(8:09) Yes. (8:10) Fingers crossed. (8:10) We’re excited to get to share this work.

(8:12) So thank you for the opportunity. (8:14) Thank you so much for joining us. (8:15) My name is Dr. Matthew Warwood.

(8:17) And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. (8:20) This episode was produced by Cindy Burnett and Matthew Worwood. (8:24) Our podcast assistant is Anne Fernando and our editor is Sheikh Ahmed.