Episode 142: Theory Can Only Take You So Far with Patrick Mongrain of EdChanger Pro

Patrick Mongrain spent ten years teaching middle school history and leadership, and another ten working as as a district-level instructional coach and restorative justice specialist before moving on to professional development. Over the years he’s come to believe that teachers are incredible, but he also created a Moneyball-inspired data collection system to improve their outcomes. It’s worked so well he created the EdChanger Pro app and wrote a book about his findings called Theory Can Only Take You So Far.

In our discussion, we get into Patrick’s career and how he came to create EdChanger Pro. We also get into the importance of instructional practice and how effective teaching involves focusing on the “how.” If you love teachers as much as Patrick and I do, you’re gonna love this episode.

 

Topics Discussed:

  • The influence of Socrates on Patrick’s work

  • The importance of balancing tension between home and work

  • Approaching teaching as a constructivist

Resources mentioned:

Related episodes and blog posts:

 
 
 
 

Read the transcript for this episode:

Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.

Patrick Mongrain taught middle school history and leadership for 10 years, and has spent another 10 years as a district level instructional coach and restorative justice specialist in this current position within the professional learning department. He divides his time evenly between teaching in classrooms, supporting school leaders and building systems and working on district wide improvement. Patrick believes teachers are incredible, and to truly support them, we must move beyond quick fixes and do the hard work of building and sustaining systems. In this spirit, he has created a coherent instructional framework that applies a money ball approach, leveraging data and analytics on key performance indicators. He's written a book theory can only take you so far and developed a data collection app called Ed changer Pro that brings the system to life. Welcome Patrick. So nice to have you here. 


Patrick Mongrain  

Thanks, Lily, thanks for having me 


Lily Jones  

Absolutely. So can you tell us about your journey as an educator?


Patrick Mongrain  

Oh, yeah, big question to start with. I so I've been in education for 20 years, and I guess my story, like I would tell is, I think, like when I started education, I was a really mediocre teacher, and I taught history and then moved into leadership and avid later in my career and my 10 years of teaching. And, you know, I remember being a young educator and looking all of the amazing teachers around me at them, and seeing all the great things they were doing, and just like wanting to be like that. And that's how I would kind of explain my journey. I started early, trying to gather as many like activities and strategies as I could, projects that I have my students do, and then like, things just got a little more chaotic for me, like I was trying to do too much, and so I learned pretty on. I think the importance of instructional practice. The thing that made those teachers great was how they taught, not what they taught. And then so I taught for 10 years, and then I have had various outside of the classroom roles in the last 10 years. I was a PBIS coach, then just a general district instructional coach. I was a restorative justice specialist for four years, and then now I'm I work in the professional learning department, awesome. And right now I've kind of a unique job. I spend like, a third of my time at the district office, a third of my time working with principals on building systems, and about a third of my time, like actually teaching lessons in classrooms, sometimes doing some coaching.


Lily Jones  

That seems like a cool mix to getting to a little bit of it all.


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, yeah. I The, the way that I like to put it is, I really get to see, you know, the incredible things happening at all levels. Because there's, there is amazing things happening everywhere, in classrooms, buildings, at the district office. 


Lily Jones  

Yeah, so you said thinking about those teachers that you were admiring or being inspired by early on, that it was really about how they taught, not what they taught. And so I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, I think that, you know, I've got a few stories, but I'll stick with the classroom story. I've got some funny, like, kind of Pinterest fail, type of stories from my life, but the idea of how practice is critical. I remember, as you know, my third or fourth year teaching, I got invited to go to a Socratic seminar training. Missed two days of work and went to this training. And the guy's name was Oscar Graybill, and the training was amazing. I think we read an article about the science of learning, and then we had a Socratic seminar. And I was like, This is so awesome. I'm doing this next, next Tuesday in my class, right? And so Tuesday, I circle my kids up and giving them an investigative question, and they had no training, and I had never practiced before. And you can imagine what seventh grade students did when I threw them in a circle and said, talk right now, I, you know, I have to give my students credits. I think, like, four or five of the conversations were amazing, but I do remember in one class, just the awkwardness of kids staring at each other, not knowing what to do, and me prompting them and and then so I learned right, like you start the circle off with maybe a circle game or a fun get to know you question, and then, you know, learn more that if I trained my students on depth of knowledge or cost as levels of thinking, they would start asking higher level questions. Or, you know, positive feedback and corrective feedback I would give during the seminars created more opportunities, right? And so I really learned, like, you know, that first circle that was super awkward was really my fault, right? And then once I learned how to implement that strategy, they were some of the most amazing experience in my life. In fact, I say all the time, you know, if when I would just like stop talking and ask a good question and get out of the way and listen to my students. Like they'd say the most amazing things.


Lily Jones  

Yeah, that's a great example. And I totally resonate with that as being a beginning teacher and almost overly focused on the what, you know, I remember planning out all my lessons and making sure I had the content right. And, you know, being so into that part, which I still am, being a great. Killer developer, but the how is actually kind of where the magic happens. If it's a dance, yeah, like, I see you moving, you know, where it's like, you need both, right? But you need to also focus on the how.


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, yeah, all three of the I think there's maybe three variables, I think about at least where, you know, you have to have a an asset focused mindset, or whatever it may be. You have to have good strategies and activities curriculum, but the how, like, I think I love how you said it, how the that's how the magic happens. That's it really, that's really true,


Lily Jones  

and you can have all this great content, and if it's not implemented in a way that really lands with students, then it doesn't really matter. Yeah, we need that to be able to actually make it come to life, right? 100% Yeah. So I know that you said a lot of your work and your current role is focused on systems. And can you talk to us a little bit about that? Why systems?


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, I think I often, the quote that I use all of the time is systems equals hope. And the way that I phrase it is is that, you know, when I was a teacher, I never just went to the word hope gets thrown around in education, I think these days, and so does the word systems, by the way. And thinking about hope, I know as a teacher, I never went to my classroom and just hoped my kids would be good, or hoped they would learn right. They learned when I had a system and a plan, if I just hoped, I'd be disappointed if I had a system and a plan, I had my best days. And so I think systems are critical. I'll kind of explain that more, but actually was listening to now I'm going to forget her name one of your podcasts this morning. Ray, hug her. Hug her, and am Ipronounced that wrong? You deserve it. Yeah. And I loved her a lot of the things she said. But another quote that I say often is because she was talking about teacher wellness, which is why I listened to it. I think my work is really about teacher wellness. And, you know, I use the quote here. It's like self care is working in a system you feel confident in. So like, if you she was talking about how we as teachers have to go get a massage or go get drinks with our friends and all of those things. And I agree with that fully. But I also know that if, if I'm struggling at work, if I try to go get a massage or go have drinks with my friends, sometimes I get home and I'm even more stressed out because, you know, I just spent a lot of time doing those things, and I'm still stressed out, right? In fact, the sorry, I'm telling you maybe too many stories, but I tell is, is during COVID, you know, our system was in chaos, and everybody talked about self care. And for me, self care was I bought a pool table and put it in my garage, and me and one of my buddies would play pool from we put the kids to bed, and we play pool from like 9pm to 2am like four or five nights a week. That was my self care, and it was amazing. But then I woke up the next day, stressed, tired from staying up late, right? And so really that self care was almost just a respite, and then I went back and think I was actually worse off because I was tired the next day. The balance there having a system is what really self care is, yeah.


Lily Jones  

 Yes, yeah. I appreciate that. It makes me think of too. Like, yes, systems for educators, absolutely. And also we have, like, a school system that often is not sustainable for teachers, which, like, self care won't save us, right? Like, sometimes we need to structurally make changes to support educators and anyone working in the school building in and self care sometimes can almost be, like, used as an excuse to not do that, like, Oh, if we just have some time to do yoga, then you can have a whole day with no prep periods, or whatever that might be. And so I think thinking about the whole system within a classroom, but also within a school and even bigger, can be important for self care too.


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, yeah. I think the way, when you and I can't remember who exactly said it, but when you and Ray were talking, you know, you said something about you both kept mentioning sustainable and effective strategies, and also, like, we can't over, like, overhaul the entire system, but we need kind of some simple, minor tweaks. And that's kind of, I think that's the, really, the foundation of my work, is that we need to build a classroom systems. Kids spend 80% of the time in the classrooms. I think it's the most critical part of school, our instructional practice, like I mentioned earlier. But also, again, that word systems gets thrown around in education. What does that even mean? And so, like the first part of my work is I've, and it's not, it's not brain surgery, right? But I've created what I think is a really efficient and coherent instructional system. And it just, it consists of eight practices, which is kind of a lot, and I think it's. Founded in my background in MTSS and restorative justice, but it starts with community and relationships, practices, intentionally, planning routine and teaching expectations, those things are kind of the foundation. And then informed supervision. And while I'm supervising, I can really do three things. I can offer positive feedback, corrective feedback, or an opportunity to respond or ask a question, and then thinking the MTSS background, the eighth practice is teaching moves for targeted support, kind of that tier two in the classroom. And so again, going back to that quote, systems equal hope, the way that I look at it is is that that coherence and that clarity and efficiency of just like focusing on those eight practices creates what I would call like a logical next step in any situation. That's what gives me hope, knowing that when something goes wrong, I know what to do. So like, if my classroom feels contentious, I slow down and build community. If it feels cold, I increase positive feedback. If it's chaotic, I install routines. All those things kind of work together to create a system if, if I've got strong routines, but no positive feedback, my classroom might be orderly, but feel cold, right? So then I know increased positive feedback, and that warms things up. So building that system kind of creates hope, and knowing that there's a logical next step in any situation.


Lily Jones  

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that framing of it, and I can imagine too, that having that system or this framework to refer back to, it provides some sense of like security, like when things are feeling out of control, which we all know happens in the classroom, sometimes having some way to think about it, you know, rather than just like, I'm overwhelmed, having the structure to be able to think through like, is it this? Is it this? Like, could I try this can be really helpful. 


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, yeah. Creates comfort. I love it. 


Lily Jones  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, tell us about Ed changer, pro, what is it? Why did you develop it?


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, so I the, I guess again, I kind of speak in quotes. Sometimes. I think it helps me remember main ideas, but I think it resonates with people as well. But the quote I use there is repeating is not the same as creating overarching and so the way I think of that is like if I'm a teacher and you give me a lesson plan and say, Go teach it, and I just repeat what you say. It feels so much different than a lesson plan that I created, right? And I think the same goes with coaching. If a teacher comes to my class at the district office and I teach them about instructional practice and say, Go do that like one that might not even apply to their students. Two, it really like strips away their personality and creativity and their ability to be autonomous. And so, like, I've developed this system. And where it started was early in my coaching, somebody told me, you know, here's every most people know about, the Gottman study, or PBIS recommends a four to one positive to negative interaction ratio. And somebody said, like, well, you can just sit and Tally PPP N and talk to a teacher about their data. And so I started doing that, and it led to, like, the best coaching moments, where I was, like, working with the teacher instead of just telling them what to do. And I noticed how that just changed, that created profound change in their practice. And the teachers really liked it too. And so I was like, Well, why can't, why can't do that for everything, right? So I went and gathered kind of data points for all eight of those practices that I just mentioned. Relationships in a classroom. You should have 80 to 85 to 95% in the Maintain phase by the end of the honeymoon period for four to six weeks into the school year. And you can measure that right by tallying who is established, who's maintained and who's repair routines. You need to have 80 to 90% of your students engaged. So you can tally that just by looking at a kid engaged, disengaged, engaged or disengaged. So I created data points. Data points for all of those practices. So I can do that with teachers. Instead of me going into their classroom and observing and saying like, do this or do this or whatever, right and just telling them what to do, I can take data on them and then sit next to them with some resources and say like, Okay, you had 72% of your kids engaged today, what's let's look at these, this resource, and you choose something to try to get up that to that 80% or 90% and that creates just really great conversations. And so, so I was doing that with teachers on my paper monitoring forms, and one day I just had the idea, I had, there's an app that you keep stats with in kids baseball and I'm on the baseball field keeping stats for my son's baseball team. And I was like, this is exactly the same as what I do in the classroom, but on paper, like I can create, I can do this on an app. And so I built this app where basically. Play again. PM, positive negative interactions. You just tap peer N. The app calculates the ratio so you might be one to one, and then it emails you like three high quality resources and your data point, and it says you are one to one today, optimal is four to one. Here's some resources to look through to increase your or to be at a more optimal ratio. So the way, again, repeating is not the same as creating. That allows teachers to create, you know, makes them agents of their own learning. And the way I would put it is, is it really acknowledges teachers as the experts they are right like it gives them that data, and then they can decide what's best for their students, versus traditional coaching, somebody just kind of telling them what to do. 


Lily Jones  

Yeah, interesting. It reminds me of, like, making learning visible in some ways. You know, all these practices that we might use with students, of like, Hey, look at how you showed your understanding here. And then, what can we learn from it and having, like, a constructivist vibe to it too. Of like, hey, what can you tell me about this data? Rather than you saying, like, oh, it's eight out of 10 as just the end all be all, like the data is important, and also what you do with it, and having the options, and I appreciate the choice and the options again, like, modeled after students too, right? Like, what we do with students in the classroom, ideally give them choice, like, that's just good practice. 


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, I love the I'd never have made the constructivist connection, but I think that's a really great way to put it. They're constructing their own learning through the resources and, yeah, and it's really, it has to be growth oriented. You know, four to one is what PBIS says. The Gottman study says five to one, I've seen different ratios, but some classes like a one to one, positive to negative interaction ratio is the right thing. So teacher might get that one to one and be like, well, that works for my kids, right? So they're the experts. They get to make those decisions. Yeah.


Lily Jones  

Yeah, great. And so these, this is mostly for coaches or admin who are observing the classroom?


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, works best as a coaching app, although I have had some teachers like use it themselves and just tally themselves. It's, I mean, again, just holding your phone and tapping PM, like a clicker, is pretty easy. Or sometimes, actually the the routine. So intentionally planning routines measures engagement, so engaged or disengaged. And so how that works is it gives you a grid, and each little box is a student, and you tap on the student, and then tap on engaged, tap on student two. So I like I will look at a student for two seconds, engaged. Tap on the next student, look at them for two seconds, disengaged. Go through the class a couple times. You get that percentage. And so it's kind of for a teacher to step back and take three or four minutes and just go through their class on their phone, engaged or disengaged. It actually, I think it sometimes allows them to step back and maybe even step out of that overwhelm, or step out of the chaos, or take a break and focus on something different. I think it, you know, is good for a mindset as well. So I have had teachers that monitor themselves.


Lily Jones  

Yeah, interesting. I remember when I was coaching teachers would be so hyper focused, sometimes on the kids who were disengaged, that they wouldn't realize that, like, oh, 90% of the kids actually are engaged, because it was so concerning, right to them, that this one student or two students, or however, many were disengaged. So I appreciate that too. Of like, sometimes we need a reframe of just looking at the data more objectively and finding a way forward. Yeah,


Patrick Mongrain  

that's a really great point. I have those conversations with teachers all the time. I feel where they're like, those two kids. And I was like, Well, you had 26 students doing exactly what they were supposed to the entire time. Like, give yourself a pat on the back, right? Yeah. Love that. Yeah, absolutely.


Lily Jones  

And so I know You've also written a book. Can you tell us about that?


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, it's so my book is in publishing. I was kind of hoping it would be released this summer. I'm not sure on that timeline right now, but the title is, theory can only take you so far. And the idea is, is that you know, you go to a conference and anything that you learn is just theory until you implement it. In fact, oftentimes I feel like we're telling teachers, like, just change your mindset or learn all this learning theory. But like, and their response is like, Well, how do I even do that? Right? So it really is the it really it's like the story of this system that I explained first couple chapters talk about the status of our education system, which is basically the way I see it is, is all of by the way, everything I do, I think, is founded on the idea that teachers are incredible and they're doing so many amazing things. I see that everywhere, but also what I see everywhere is like this feeling of crisis and our systems. I think the our system is definitely disjointed, and now I think, honestly, that's a credit to education. Educators, I think that we see all of the I think they're more visible diverse learning needs of our students, and we're trying to meet them, and we're trying a new thing and trying another new thing slowly turns into like a new initiative every three to six months, and initiative fatigue, right? So it comes with the best intentions, but we've also created this disjointed system, and so, like I say, to get out of the chaos, we have to just slow down and start building and maintaining those systems. And then each chapter is talks about one of my practices, and how it's set up is, is, there's, you know, every, every, I think the way I put it is, is, you know, a lot of what I read on instructional practice is, like, really textbooky, and it's just a list of things to do. And sometimes I have a hard time with like, a 500 page textbook, right? And so it's, it's about probably three hour listen or read, is the way that I see it. And also, a lot of the things that I read, or what I would call kind of ivory tower, like, mean, I don't know. I hate to say it, but, like, our evaluation system with in Washington, it's got 30 indicators on a four point rubric, and nobody even knows what it says, right? It seems typical, yeah, so, like, because it was created by somebody in, you know, I don't know. I probably shouldn't say too much. Maybe edit this out, but by somebody in university, right? Not somebody in a classroom, sure. And so, you know, to make it less textbooky, I start each chapter with a quote and then also with a story about myself and my teaching. And honestly, a lot of them is like how I learned this practice painfully by failing, like my Socratic seminar story. So it starts off, I think, kind of engaging, and then, and then it's really just the like, now, here's how to do this. So it's a pretty quick read, maybe 15 pages a chapter, funny, sad, whatever, hard story, and then 10 pages on how to do it.


Lily Jones  

That sounds like a great, super useful format for educators too. And I also appreciate that, like you can get through it pretty quickly and use it to refer back to again and again too.


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I guess the last thing I would say is it's kind of one of my foundational beliefs, as well as that every teacher deserves, like great coaching and great professional learning. And sometimes, like, I know, I was lucky enough in leadership roles to get, like, sent to conferences and go to all this, PD, and you know, sometimes it's only available to a select few really good coaching or professional learning. And so like, within my book, you know, I have all of my resources at the end of each chapter links to them, and then also, like the app tallies all of that data. And that's easy and seamless, but I put, like, my old paper monitoring forms in the book, so really, and all of those are available on my Google Drive hub online that's public, and so, like, all of those resources are free. You know, you can sit and tally on a paper and still have the same result as the app. Now the app is going to make it easier. But again, I really think that you know, whether you're in a small district or a district you know that doesn't have the money or time to invest in great PD or coaching, this gives those people an opportunity as well,


Lily Jones  

absolutely. And so thinking about your book, I would love to hear kind of what you learned through the process. How was the actual process of writing a book?


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, it's ongoing. I learned that like, you know, I don't know if it'll ever end. I mean, hopefully it's published and available at some point, but always evolving. I think the biggest thing I've learned in the last year of like, you know, writing the book and then creating the app and now kind of doing this stuff to marketing, is, you know, I say a lot, teachers often learn things painfully. And this is even, even though that was a quote in my book I wrote a year ago, like I've continued to learn painfully in the last year. So that's, I mean, you know, just sometimes, if I would have known all of the time and energy I was going to have to put into this, I may not have even done it right. Like, I just jumped in with two feet, and it's been hard, and there's a lot of ups and downs I put a lot of work in, but then, you know, I think that's kind of where we're also, you see some really great reward or value, right? I also feel really good about what I've done. So, yeah, yeah,


Lily Jones  

it's a huge accomplishment. And I think humans often learn things painfully, right? Like, that's a human experience. We often learn the most through painful experiences, and that the feelings can coexist too, right? Like it can be painful, and also something that you could have great pride in, and that it feels, hopefully, very exciting to see come out into the world.


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, yeah. And the, well, the the other podcast of yours I listened to was the the only way out is through. Oh yeah, kind of reminds me of that i. Idea, yeah, yeah,


Lily Jones  

absolutely. And like, it's sometimes it's better not to know exactly what it'll be like, right? Because exactly like you said, you might have been like, No, I'm not into that. Like it's gonna take too long, or it's gonna be too much. And so diving in and learning, learning through the process, I'm sure you also got like, so much clarity about your particular approach through the messy process of writing it.


Patrick Mongrain  

Oh yeah, for sure, for sure that think you made the point confronting perfectionism in that podcast. Yes. Again, I I'll just be like, walking down the street somewhere or whatever, out on a run, and I'll have, like, an idea for something that I should have said in one chapter, right? Sure, it'll never be perfect, but some point it's got to be good enough. 


Lily Jones  

So relatable. And so thinking about these interesting things you've been doing outside of the classroom, you know, while also still working in a school system, creating a change your pro writing this book, can you give advice to educators who might be listening, who want to do something beyond the classroom, maybe in addition to teaching or instead of,


Patrick Mongrain  

Yes, yeah, you know, it's the thinking back to that the teacher wellness podcast, you know, probably all of the time I've put in on top of, you know, coaching five sports teams for My kids in the last year, and having practice every night and doing my job, which is, you know, can be, can be intense as well, right? In fact, the the very first podcast I was on with a buddy of mine, Nick Davies, he one of his questions he asked was about balance, and how do you achieve balance? And so the the advice I would give teachers is that I think that balance is really, really important, but also sometimes, like, the way that I see it is, is balance isn't always staying centered, right? The story that I would tell is, there's a one of my favorite books is Tuesdays with Morrie. I won't dive into the book because it's for time, but there's one part in the book where Mitch, who's the younger mentee, is talking to Morrie, and he asks him about something about life. And Morrie says, Well, life is like a tug of war. There's this constant tension, pulling back and forth, and Mitch says, like, something like, do you mean like a wrestling match? And Morrie was like, yeah, exactly. And then Mitch just, like, stops and goes, well, who wins? And Morrie says, Love wins. Love always wins. And like, that was a profound line in my life, thinking that, you know, tug of war, if you're balanced, everything's right in the middle, right? But you know where that tension of back and forth, I think that's where like, love and greatness happen. So like, I run, I'm not a runner, but I run, and I'm older, if I run too fast, I get hurt, right? But also, if I want to be great and increase my mile time, I have to run fast. So like life somehow creates that balance, but the greatness happens in the tension. And I think love also happens in the tension. So finding that not necessarily balance, but managing that swaying back and forth in the tensions to create as much love and joy as you can is the the advice I would give,


Lily Jones  

yeah, that's a cool way of putting it. And I think, yeah, it's not like thinking about balance can feel unrealistic sometimes too, right? Like having this way of back and forth and leaning into the values too, you know, is and the passion is what really helps us navigate those times,


Patrick Mongrain  

yeah, yeah, yeah, life's boring if you just stand in the middle all the time,


Lily Jones  

absolutely, like balance could be incredibly boring, right? Yeah,


Patrick Mongrain  

all right, yeah, yeah, yeah,


Lily Jones  

absolutely So, Patrick, it's been so nice talking with you. Can you tell folks how they can connect with


Patrick Mongrain  

you? Um, yeah, I guess my Well, Ed, changer YouTube is all of my free webinars. So check those out. I've been doing LinkedIn for like, the last week. So Patrick mongrain, on LinkedIn or, I mean, I would always respond like an email just to my personal, personal email. P mongrain, 60 five@comcast.net always available there the edge changer pro app is available on the App Store, so I'd love if people purchase that obviously, or checked it out. And yeah, I just think that, you know, these conversations are kind of my favorite part of doing all of this. I mean, I've learned a lot just listening to your podcast and talking to you today, right? So much fun. So I'm always you know interested in those conversations.


Lily Jones  

Wonderful. Thank you so much.


Patrick Mongrain  

Yeah, thanks, Lily.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai



Lily Jones