A Book Study Solution for Busy Leaders

Erin Axelsen, Lorie Cristofaro, and Jill Geocaris

Ever laugh as you look at your calendar and wonder how you will fit your next vital meeting into an already packed week? As education leaders, it is a challenge to find time to fuel our passions and grow professionally, especially as we move up the education hierarchy and become more isolated from former colleagues. Despite our busy schedules, the three of us wanted to create a group that would focus on sustained professional growth in a collaborative setting with other school leaders. We started a leadership coaching cohort—a small group of school leaders in the Chicago area who met four times, over the course of the year, to hone our practices.

Toward the end of the first year of this endeavor, our group decided to embark on a summer book study. We knew this would be a challenge—it was hard enough to coordinate our schedules for our four leadership coaching meetings during the school year, and summer is when most educators take vacation. How might technology support our goal to grow our leadership skills? One of our group members was a big proponent of the Voxer app, which several of us were using to successfully and conveniently connect with leadership coaching partners during the school year. Voxer is a free app that allows you to quickly leave voice messages for another individual or group of individuals. The app notifies when someone is leaving you a message and gives you the option to listen live, much like a walkie talkie, or listen later. Since the app allows groups to be created, we chose it as the medium for our book discussions.

Example of Voxer Message Dashboard

We established group facilitators and assigned different books to groups of 5–6 leaders from our larger "Coaching for Leaders" group. Our Voxer book study resembled a live, in-person discussion about a book. The main difference is that it is a form of asynchronous communication where the conversation occurs over an extended period. You may not hear a group member reply to their question or ideas for several days. The participants must make sure that the conversation still feels like a discussion by responding to and building upon others' ideas rather than simply just recording one's own thoughts for others to listen to. The discussion often begins with a group's facilitator sharing a quote or reaction to the chapter being read by the group that week. Other members of the group then respond to that initial idea, add new ideas, or pose questions to the group.

One great advantage of Voxer is that you do not need to wait for the next "in-person" meeting to share an idea. When something comes to mind, you can grab your phone to share your idea or ask your question immediately. As a result, the role of facilitator tends to shift to the first person to respond after reading a chapter. The app records your voice message posts as they occur, so you cannot edit or delete them, unless you pay an additional fee for an upgrade on the app. In this sense, the in-app discussion is very much like a live conversation. Overall, the Voxer discussion structure allows for all the benefits of an in-person discussion group with the time flexibility for busy professional learners.

Not Just a Classroom Tool

Ninety percent of all adults conduct at least one self-directed learning project a year; our Voxer-enabled book study provided an opportunity for adult learners to engage in one of these self-directed experiences. Additionally, our book study aligned with Malcolm Knowles' theory of adult learning or "andragogy," which states that adults are most interested in learning when it has immediate relevance and impact in their work. Our readings and discussions connected to our daily work as school leaders, and each group member played a part in directing the path their learning took. Facilitators reflected and took feedback to refine the book study experience—for example, by letting group members select their books for next year.

In The Innovators Mindset, education leader George Couros says, "Innovation is not reserved for the few; it is something we will all need to embrace if we are to move forward." Educators need to not only embody this idea as they think about the use of technology in their classrooms and schools but also how they can use technology to grow professionally. Through our tech-enabled book study, we engaged in many of the goals of the 21st century education leadership outlined by Couros in the chart below, including "building relationships, connect with communities, collaborate, learn from anyone, openly reflect, tell powerful stories, develop personal learning opportunities, drive change and lead." We urge all to take a risk and think how they can leverage resources to meet their professional needs.

Erin Axelsen is an instructional coordinator at Wheaton Warrenville South High School in Wheaton, Ill. Lorie Cristofaro is assistant principal at Glenbard South High School in Glen Ellyn, Ill. Jill Geocaris is the innovative adult learning coordinator at Maine Township District 207 in Park Ridge, Ill.

ASCD Express, Vol. 14, No. 17. Copyright 2019 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.