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Meet Chuck Downing of Engage in Thinking

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Chuck Downing.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My partner, Dr. JoAnn Jurchan and I are career educators with common philosophies. We both worked in the Grossmont Union High School district for several years without knowing much about one another. I was part of the hiring team for JoAnn while I was Chair of the Teacher Education Department at Point Loma Nazarene University. We worked together there and at Azuza Pacific University’s San Diego Campus.

I retired from high school teaching in 2012. Knowing the Dr. Jurchan was expected to publish in her full-time faculty position at APU, I contacted her about collaborating on a book. She agreed.

The end product was “Tune Up Your Teaching & Turn On Student Learning.” It is designed as a resource for teachers, parents, and administrators. Part of our description of the book from our website provides the underlying purpose.

Neither a “cookbook,” nor a “one size fits all” solution, this book instead describes research-based methods that can be personally tailored by any teacher to her or his situation. Regardless of the tenure of your teaching experience, you will find both guidance and pearls that will help and motivate you to transform your teaching. Dr. Jurchan and Dr. Downing provide concrete examples of how to transform common activities from all core areas into hotbeds of thinking. To clarify critical points, the authors include “He Said. She Said” dialogs between one another, providing insight into their thought process. This is a map of the change process “with GPS coordinates included.”

As we were writing the book, we formed a partnership and launched “Engage In Thinking,” our consulting business.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Smooth is far from describing the road we’ve traveled.

The first bump in the road was working with our publisher. It ended up costing about 25% more than we’d anticipated for the book publishing process. We received minimal and non-productive support for advertising and promotion of our book.

Subsequent bumps include:

A failed Kickstarter campaign.

Lack of support and expected opportunities for book to be considered as a university course text.

Interest but no action from colleagues present and past.

Our miscalculation to title the book to represent the timelessness of the principles incorporated and not a current trend (Common Core, for example). The latter would have capitalized on “easy recognition.”

Ultimately, we’ve spent far more time in preparation and marketing than we have in working with teachers and administrators.

On the plus side, we have uploaded two Special Reports on Academia.edu.

“The #1 Reason Why Your Students Hate Science (and the #1 Way You Can Change That” focuses on how to reduce the fear of science in science classrooms. “Infusing (Critical) Thinking Into [Science] Lessons” is an update and expansion of an exclusively science-oriented paper to include the major public school disciplines. Dr. Downing is the primary author of both. Together, they have been viewed and/or downloaded nearly 2100 times.

“Teaching & Learning Content Through Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking (21st Century Skills)” is for teachers of all content areas and provides direction for the implementation activities and procedures in the classroom that emphasize Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking. It is one of three papers posted by Dr. Jurchan as primary or co-author.

Engage in Thinking – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Engage in Thinking provides in-service sessions for teachers, administrators, and parents. Each session focuses on a different aspect of our motto: “Developing Purposeful and Effective Creative Thinkers.”

Our publicity brochure begins with the following introductory paragraphs.

For years educators have mused about why teachers were continuing to burn out and the student achievement gap never seemed to shrink in spite of a series of “latest and greatest” cure-alls in education. Common conclusions reached by this musing include:

1) The focus on the basics about the teaching and learning process had faded with concerns about high test scores;

2) Teachers were faced with implementing new curriculum without necessary support;

3) Students were learning how to get the “right answer” but not being challenged or challenging themselves to know the why and how.

Professional development resources described here were co-authored by a pair of award-winning, nationally recognized teachers. They will provide your teachers with the knowledge and skills they need to become highly effective teachers!

Sessions are uniquely designed around chapters in our book, Tune Up Your Teaching & Turn On Student Learning. Participants move from a base level of understanding to confidence in adjusting their current practices to increase student engagement and learning.

Purpose of the Professional Development Sessions:

We stress that this is not a recipe book. Only once in the entire text is there a numbered list of steps to follow. This is the procedure that we recommend for using Tune Up Your Teaching & Turn On Student Learning most effectively.

Goals for All Sessions are Threefold:

1. Realize conceptual understanding is prerequisite to effective, relevant, and productive application of the principles we present.

2. Increase confidence and competence in instructional design leading to a more engaging and productive learning environment.

3. Act. Once you’re thinking and behavior become habitual, you need to become doers not hearers only by joining a Community of practice.

Commonalities to All Sessions

• Minimal and tightly focused direct instruction

• Adequate time to engage with others in productive dialog

• Specific direction for reflection on knowledge and practice

• Intentional opportunities for applying new understandings

• Modeling of theories advocated in the text

• Some form of immediately usable product resulting from the synthesis of content and process of each session

Direct instruction by Dr. Jurchan and me decrease over the course of each individual session and further decreases over subsequent sessions if more than one session is part of the package.

What makes our approach unique is the use of The Analogy as the springboard for discussion as well as the common thread throughout all the in-service sessions. The Analogy describes a benevolent queen and the frustration she feels when her subjects react to her well-intended help in exploring the world around them. As participants work with the content in both Tune Up Your Teaching & Turn On Student Learning and our in-service sessions, they discover parallels in their teaching styles and procedures to the actions of the benevolent queen and her Wise Advisor.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is living and working in such a way that at the end of each day you know you’ve done your best for those you work for and with.

Markers for this model of success are often delayed in their appearance. Students are often unaware of the impact made on them by their teachers and the learning experiences they shared while enrolled in the course. When a student contacts a teacher and tells the teacher how something he or she did influence them in their life, it is the academy award, the MVP, and the winning lottery ticket rolled into one package.

Here are some comments students made about the teaching style and methods we advocate.

From a college student: “Dr. Downing made biology one of my favorite classes. Overall, he is the best instructor I have ever had (and I’m a Junior). I really wish I needed another class that Dr. Downing teaches! I cannot say enough about how much I liked the creative projects, too. Other profs seriously need to study Dr. Downing and take some notes on how to give a good class like he does.”

Another college student: “The way the class was taught made it easier for me to understand difficult topics.”

A high school student: “Although it may be frustrating to not have the answer always in front of you, it is definitely more rewarding when you’ve struggled with a difficult problem and finally reach that ‘aha!’ moment. Not only do you remember what you learned much better, but you also learn how to think critically for yourself, which is ultimately one of the best things you can hope to achieve from school.”

Another high school student: “Although some assignments were hard, I knew you’d never give us something you knew we couldn’t do.”

A teacher: When I first started teaching Earth Science, I was told, “Students are ‘consumers.’ They don’t think and don’t want to think.

Give them a worksheet, and they will be compliant and get their work done.” Drs. Jurchan and Downing have reawakened my passion to bring out the best mysteries of the earth sciences and help students wonder and experience the awe in this field—to expand the galaxy of their life-long learning as they engage the majesty of how the Earth works, came to be, and fits into the universe.

Another teacher: When you read this book, you might find yourself constantly nodding in agreement or laughing in enjoyment! Dr. Jurchan and Dr. Downing truly understand what it means to be a professional, reflective educator, and they effectively share what they have learned in over seventy years (combined) in education. I hope that this book truly is, as they write, a catalyst for some trail blazing in education.

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Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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