Personal Learning for Professional Development: Understanding and Overcoming the "Immunity to Change"
Facillitator: Robert Kegan, Ph.D.
December 16, 2009, 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Why is it so difficult for us to bring about changes in ourselves which we genuinely intend? There are a host of usual answers: "lack of self-discipline"; "the incentives weren’t right"; "you can’t teach an old dog new tricks; "maybe I was not actually committed enough to the change in the first place!". But in too many instances the usual answers are not very good!
In this fast-moving, experiential, and interactive workshop, Harvard professor Robert Kegan will invite each of us to make use of our own experience to explore the concept of an "immunity to change" - and what we can do about it. Having spent a lifetime researching the process by which adults gradually develop greater capacities by making previously invisible dynamics observable and engage-able, Kegan and his colleague Lisa Lahey (How The Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work, Jossey-Bass, 2001; Immunity to Change, Harvard Business School Press, 2009), have designed this "new lab for personal learning" in order to incubate similar kinds of development in a briefer period of time.
The session you are about to experience has now been conducted throughout the US and Europe with all manner of professional groups: K-12 and university educators and administrators, CEOs and the CIA; bankers and firefighters; software engineers and management students; psychologists and psychiatrists; human resource officers, government leaders, international business consultants, state judges, attorneys, and physicians.
Participants should come expecting to have a good time while doing some hard and valuable introspective work. The process Kegan and Lahey have built emphasizes safety in the process of personal discovery. Participants are not required to make any of their work public, and are encouraged to set the pace that works best for them throughout the workshop.
Dr. Robert Kegan is the Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development, and Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Workshop Information
New Location: Continuing Education Conference Center, University of Minnesota, 1890 Buford Avenue, St Paul, 55108
CEUs: Continuing professional education clock hours for administrators and teachers are available for participants.
Fees: There is no registration fee for staff from ULA member school districts, all others pay $150 per workshop. ULA member school districts include: Minneapolis, Mounds View, North St Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale, Osseo Area Schools, Saint Paul, South Washington County, and Spring Lake Park. Requests for refunds must be made at least one week prior to the workshop date, otherwise fees will be forfeited.
Registration: Deadline - December 11, 2009
Partner District
Registration | Non-Partner District Registration
For more information: Contact Vanessa Abanu at 612-626-5123
"ULA continues to provide optimum professional development opportunities. This is a great program - very worthwhile, very well-paced, very energizing, and readily applicable to what we’re doing as educators."
-Richard Skinner
principal, Mounds View Public Schools
"ULA offers opportunities to impact each participant's will, skill, knowledge, and capacity relevant to equity leadership. In addition, each interaction creates a learning community with other educators, which strengthens this purposeful and useful pedagogical experience."
-Joyce Bell
assistant principal, Minneapolis Public Schools
"ULA's urban framework is important. We're a first-ring suburb, and we're facing many of the same challenges as urban schools. ULA brings together a nice blend of research and practice in an on-going dialog, not a one-shot deal. We can learn from others."
-Ellen Delaney
associate principal, Spring Lake Park Schools
"ULA provides the highest quality professional development for building administrators. Sessions and speakers on current educational topics and issues enabled me to continue to develop as a leader plus I was able to interact with other metropolitan principals around out demanding work."
-Gloria Kumagai
retired principal, Saint Paul Public School