NEA (MLT/WLT)

# Discovery context synthesis: MLT/WLT listening deployment Briefing for question generation. This is a synthesis of context carried from the current NEA engagement, not a verbatim call transcript. Use it to generate discovery questions for a two-hour workshop that will scope a conversational listening deployment for the next cycle of NEA's Minority Leadership Training and Women's Leadership Training seminars, the December WEST and January EAST editions. Generate questions that surface intent, constraints, and decisions, and that account for the differences from the conference noted below. ## The engagement and what we are scoping We are NEA's data and insight partner. We are currently in the field on the Conference on Racial and Social Justice, where we are deploying a conversational listening campaign. This workshop scopes the same kind of deployment for the leadership training seminars in the next cycle. The output is a roadmap and the inputs needed to price a separate follow-on contract. The conference in June is the live test that informs how this rolls out at the seminars. ## The model we are extending from the conference work - A single journal-style landing page houses the whole experience in one place, so participants never hunt for another tool. It shows their progress and lets them return at any time. - The experience opens with a trusted host welcome video, with a read-or-skip option for accessibility and different learning styles. The video does the heavy lifting: context, the deeper why, what to expect, and the prompt for consent. - The arc is three parts: a pre-event entry that captures intention, in-event reflection blocks, and a post-event entry that revisits intention against experience. - Participants respond in any modality, video, audio, or text, even when a question is posed by video. - The approach is consent-first. Anonymity and a clear, human consent step come before any questions, with an explicit ongoing buy-in to keep the conversation going across the event. ## Theory of change spine The measurement framework is awareness, capacity, and action, with an affective and community layer. - Awareness is growth in critical consciousness, a change in how someone thinks about systems of oppression and power. Pre-question: what a participant hopes to learn, asked without leading. - Capacity is the skills and practices needed to do the work. It is hard to name cold, so a short human definition is front-loaded before the question is asked. - Action is harder to ask before the content, because people often cannot name it yet. It is better captured after the work, as what someone will now do. - The affective and community layer captures the felt, embodied experience and the sense of belonging. Often a scale or rating paired with an open-ended why, so we get quantitative and qualitative together. ## Question-design principles to honor - Single-barreled. One idea per question. - Non-leading. No assumptions baked in, for example asking what someone is excited about presumes excitement. - Front-load short definitions where a term is technical, especially capacity. - On facilitation, surface the qualities of strong facilitation that moved people along the continuum, rather than scoring facilitators good or bad. - Pair scales with open-ended follow-ups to serve both qualitative and quantitative needs. - Protect against fatigue. Fewer, well-placed touchpoints beat constant prompts. ## What makes the seminars different from the conference Generate questions that surface each of these, because a generic instrument will miss them. - Two editions, WEST in December and EAST in January, that do not share participants. WEST can soft-launch the instruments and EAST can absorb fast adjustments, so the workshop must decide how much to change between them versus holding them identical for clean comparison. - Two participant populations. Affiliate-selected and affiliate-funded emerging leaders arrive already nominated as leadership material. Self-funded participants were not identified by any NEA entity and are essentially self-nominating. These likely deserve separate treatment in the data and in archetype work. - A heavier leadership-development emphasis than the conference. Consent-based identification of emerging member-leaders, readiness and interest for deeper organizing roles, and participant archetypes are central here, not peripheral. - Returning participants. Some attend repeatedly, including trainings designed partly for newer members, and the team wants to understand why. - Cross-convening tracking. Participants also move through the leadership pathways cohort, the National Leadership Summit, and the conference, so the same person can recur. Following someone across convenings raises specific consent expectations. - The three published objectives of the seminars: foundational leadership skills, tools to understand the impact of racial inequities in education, and strategies for coalition building around racial, social, and economic equity. These map onto awareness, capacity, and action and should anchor the question sets. - A smaller, more contained, cohort-based and residential format, so the daily rhythm and the natural reflection moments differ from a large conference. ## Constraints and open logistics to probe - Platform integration. What runs the seminar logistics and agenda, whether it can push notifications or host a hyperlink to the landing page, and what is already captured about participants such as demographics, identity, or prior consent. - Mandated language. Whether there is required disclaimer or privacy language, like the standard slide presenters must include, and where it should live so the experience stays light. - Incentives. There is interest in a recognition or raffle mechanic to lift participation, which must be reconciled with consent-first and keeping responses genuine rather than reward-driven, and must not touch anonymity. - Timing. Design needs to lock in the fall to be ready for a December launch. Confirm the actual WEST and EAST dates first, since they set every downstream deadline. The prior cycle ran WEST in early December and EAST in late January. - Scope. This is a separate contract from the current SOW, whose illustrative period and "all convenings" language do not clearly cover the next seminar cycle. ## Stakeholder dynamics to keep in mind - A quantitatively oriented program lead wants both qualitative and quantitative data, facilitator evaluation, and a participation incentive. The methodology move is to honor the quant need while reframing facilitation around qualities rather than good-or-bad scoring, and to keep incentives from compromising genuine responses. - Methodology and facilitation partners are involved; the content and equity lens is led by a partner for whom the technical data work is not the focus. - A trusted host voice is needed for the seminars, the equivalent of the host who opened the conference experience. The workshop should identify who that is and whether they will record a welcome. - There is appetite to platform and thank the staff and teams behind the seminars, for example with short section intros from the team that selected content, without adding labor to people already stretched. ## What the workshop must produce - A shared definition of success anchored to awareness, capacity, and action. - A first touchpoint map across the seminar arc for both editions. - A decision on how to treat the two participant populations. - A short list of decisions and dependencies that scope and price the separate contract. - Named owners and first deadlines for the inputs needed from NEA before design can start.