Hi everyone, welcome back. Today too of the Inclusive Theatre Festival. Thank you all for being here. I am so excited to introduce a second speaker for the day. We have Simone Prasini joining us. Simone is a multi-hyphenate actor born in Lima, Peru, raised in Dallas, Texas, and currently based in Los Angeles. They hold a BFA in acting. Sorry, that was the live stream. As I was saying, Simone holds a BFA in acting and a minor in film production from DePaul University. Recent onscreen credits include Veil in the Pilot Wisdom, filmed at Chicago's Sin City Studios, and Gail in a Wedding to Diego, a queer rom-com shot in Portland, Oregon. Other than acting, Simone loves rock climbing, hiking, writing, poetry, creating music, and generally mosing around in nature. Simone's passion for inclusion in media prompted them to found Vibes Video, a production company centering BIPOC, LGBTQ, and near-diverse voices. They aimed to tell stories rooted in authenticity regardless of medium or genre.  We're so happy to have you here Simone, and welcome. It's all yours. Hi, everyone. My name is Simone Brazini. Like our lovely host just said, I am a multi- Simone, I don't think we can hear you very well right now. Could you repeat that maybe? Hi Simone. Can you hear us? Yeah, I think you're muted right now. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Okay, my Wi-Fi's back. Awesome. So as I was saying, my name is Simone Brazini. Like our host said, I am a multi-hyphenate creative. I am based in Los Angeles. I am primarily an actor, but I also write, direct, and create all different kinds of art. And I'm here today to talk to you about intersectionality in authentic storytelling. And I have a lovely presentation if we want to share the screen. Great.  So what is intersectionality? Intersectionality acknowledges that people and groups can experience multiple forms of discrimination and oppression simultaneously, and that these forms of discrimination are interconnected and cannot necessarily be understood or experienced in isolation from one another. The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in 1989. She used it to describe how Black women often face a unique set of challenges and experiences that weren't properly addressed by mainstream feminists or anti-racist movements. Overall, intersectionality recognizes that various aspects of a person's identity, such as race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, and more, intersect and interact to shape their experiences and social position. In addition to the multi-dimensional aspects of identity, other key points of intersectionality are interconnected systems, which emphasizes that systems of oppression, like I said, like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., are interconnected and cannot be fully understood in isolation. Discrimination is not just additive, but it can be multiplicative in its impact. Unique experiences. People with intersecting identities may face unique forms of discrimination and privilege that are not experienced by those with single, unidimensional identities, though I don't think anyone really has a single or my back. It keeps closing out. Yep, you're back. I'm sorry, we might be facing some internet problems with Simone, but they will be back. Does it seem like I'm like leaving because on my end, Baizoum just like closes and then opens again? Yeah, I think it just like, it shows that you just leave the meeting and then come back in. But that's okay. If you're good, you can keep going. Oh, we can't hear you, Simone. So where I was talking about was the social justice aspect of intersectionality. Can you hear me now? Yep, yep, we can. Okay, so the social justice intersectionality is often used as a framework for social justice activism and policy advocacy. It encourages a more inclusive and nuanced approach to addressing social inequities. To break it down, I'm going to use myself as an example. So I identify as non-binary, trans, queer, neurodiverse, and Latinx. So there are many times where maybe I'll be in a queer space, but I'll be the only non-binary or transmitted person there. And it can be difficult to connect or have a full experience because that intersection of my identity isn't fully recognized. And similarly, if not more, when I'm in like Latinx, but spaces that aren't queer at all, then my queer and trans identity make it very difficult to feel accepted in the Latinx space because that culture is very binary and patriarchal. Overall, intersectionality has been very influential in various academic fields and social justice movements, helping to raise awareness about the complex and multifaceted nature of discrimination and inequality. It's used as a tool for understanding how different forms of identity interact and impact people's lives and experiences. And in theater or writing film, you know, all creative mediums, it helps create art that all people can connect to. And it's something that's always there, you know, whether we think about it or not. We can go to the next slide. So what is authenticity? Oh, that was this slide. Okay, next one more. What is authenticity? So authenticity is a complex concept that refers to being true to yourself, your values and your beliefs. It involves living in a way that aligns with genuine character and not pretending to be someone or something that you're not. Authenticity is... Apologies for the issues to our audience. First of all, we'll be joining us soon. So some key aspects of authenticity include self-awareness. Authenticity starts with the deep understanding of oneself. Am I here? Yes. I think it's just going to keep doing that. I don't know why. Yeah, I'm so sorry. If it keeps happening, I'm not sure that... So self-awareness. Yeah, I think we just go keep going, yeah. All right, self-awareness. Authenticity starts with a deep understanding of oneself, including one's values, beliefs, emotions, and motivations. It requires self-reflection and introspection, which not only takes time and energy, but can also change and fluctuate as your life goes on. Consistency being authentic means consistently behaving and presenting yourself in a manner that reflects your true self across various situations and contexts. Although to relate this back to intersectionality, sometimes people do need to code switch or mask in order to stay safe. And I think recognizing that you're doing that in the moment is also authentic. So code switching and masking doesn't mean you aren't living authentically. It just means that there's more than one way to be authentic, given the given circumstances. Transparency. Authenticity involves being open and transparent about your thoughts, feelings, and intentions, especially to yourself. You don't need to be telling everyone your private thoughts or anything like that, but being transparent with yourself can be really valuable. Acceptance of imperfections. Acknowledging your flaws and imperfections and not trying to hide them. Like to zoom all the flaws and not trying to hide them. Authenticity means embracing the humanity and the complexities of our human character. Now that doesn't mean like you're never going to like not work on yourself. You just accept all your flaws and that's that. No, it just means that you are in a state of radical acceptance. And then you can make a conscious decision of no, no, I'm okay with that aspect of myself. Or you know what? This is something that I do want to change and improve and then take action from there. Self-expression. Authenticity encourages self-expression and the freedom to be who you are rather than conforming to social norms or expectations. And again, depending on your situation and environment, it may not always be safe to do so. And that doesn't mean you are being authentic, but maybe finding places where you can be yourself or choosing to express yourself when you know, it won't be dangerous, but maybe it can just feel scary. Okay, I switched to my phone's hotspot. So we'll see if that is better than the Wi-Fi. Okay, but I was on self-expression. So I was saying is that maybe you might not feel safe to self-express in some places and that doesn't mean you aren't being authentic, but maybe you can push yourself to find places where you can be yourself or choosing to self-express when it just feels a little bit uncomfortable, but you take that step because it's for you, which leads me to growth and change. Authenticity does not mean stagnation. You know, it allows for personal growth and change while you're staying true to yourself, you know, as you're evolving. It's also important to note that authenticity can be subjective and can vary from person to person. You know, what's considered authentic for one person may not be the same for another. You know, cultural, social, and personal factors all influence how authenticity is expressed and understood. But overall, in many contexts, being authentic is considered a positive quality. There's a power behind it. It leads to a sense of self-fulfillment, stronger relationships, and a more genuine and fulfilling life that informs the art that you do and create, as well as the art that you digest and experience and consume. However, achieving authenticity, if you can even achieve it, is a lifelong journey. It involves ongoing self-discovery and self-expression, and it can be scary and uncomfortable and emotional, but overall worth it. We can go to the next slide. So examples of authenticity and storytelling. I'll start with my own. So I recently wrote a feature film called My Name Is Blue that features a non-binary, neurodiverse, and Latinx protagonist. And it's not autobiographical, but I used a lot of my own past experiences, the intersectionality of my identities to create a character that is messy and authentic. And there were definitely moments in this that were difficult to write because I was taking for my own life, but I think it ultimately lent itself to creating a deep and heartfelt story. It's been three years in the making, but it's been received well, critically, and I'm pretty proud of it. In terms of more famous, recognized works, there's the TV shows Fleabag and Rami, the Oscar-winning movie Moonlight. In theaters, there's the classic The Raisin in the Sun, almost like all of August Wilson's plays, the Laramie project, the Broadway show Indecent. Now, all of these works were informed by real life experiences, mostly the writers lived experiences that helped shape the art they were creating. Now, I would love to go around and share all of you, share things that you've either personally created that were informed from your own lived experiences or something that you've seen recently that you just felt was very authentic. And you can either like raise the little zoom hand or you can just like unmute yourself and feel free to share. So just to recap everyone, we're sharing an example where we've seen authenticity in some kind of media. So if anybody has any examples of that, please feel free to raise your hand or just unmute and share. I could start us off. I saw Indecent for the first time when I was working on it last year at Northwestern. I was a sound op, but it was just such an incredible show. And for me, as someone who didn't know a lot about Jewish culture and Jewish history, it was just so wonderful to like see that intersection of Judaism and the LGBTQ community and what that looked like in that time. So it was just it was just super interesting to look at.  Yeah, that's such a great example because, you know, I said during that time, like it was really hard for those in the Jewish community and it was also really hard for people in the queer community. So if your identity intersected in both of those things and like that shapes your experience so much more, you know, and then in creating this stuff, the playwright, if you go. Oh, Simone, I think the themes are still so prep. So your audio cut out, but it came back. So it's fine. All good. Do you want to repeat the last thing that she said? Just so everybody can hear it? Yeah, just that even though we're in contemporary times, so this playwright wrote this story that is set in the early 1900s. But so many of those themes are still so prevalent today and that intersectionality and authenticity just helps bring out so many layers of a play that's set back then even though we're watching it in today's times. Is anybody else having anything that they like to share, something that they watched recently or even something that they created themselves? Yes, Millie. Hi, I'm just so I've been an acting class with Ashna actually, and we're currently working on this project called the New Heritage Project. And it's a little vague, I think intentionally, but it's it's asking us to create little like small pieces of movement or sound or speech that are about us and our heritage and who we are, whatever that means to us. So just something that I've been thinking about recently is like, what are the parts of myself that I want to share in my stories? And our teachers also very clear on like that there are parts of yourself that you don't have to share. So finding those those places of authenticity has been really interesting to explore, especially because this is where we're starting our exploration and acting in the class. So I've had a lot of fun with that in the past couple weeks. Great, I'm really, it's like such an awesome thing that your teacher has asked how to do. And I think it is really important that like authenticity does not mean you're just like telling everyone everything about yourself, like, you can absolutely have boundaries. And it's more just like the exploration that you have within yourself and then choosing what you want to share with others. Because regardless, it's all going to inform everything. But I think that's lovely. And I'm glad that you're getting to have that. Matt. Hi, yes. So something that I connected with recently in a class was a project called the Penelope Project. And it was sort of a multi group project that involved a university, a local theater, I believe it was in Wisconsin, and a long term care facility for elderly people. And it was sort of a kind of a devised project that used the story of Penelope and Odysseus from Greek mythology to kind of give these folks in this long term care home the opportunity to sort of tell stories. And within that framework sort of tell their own stories. And it involved sort of also kind of a side plot that involved memory loss, which is something that a lot of these people were struggling with. And I think it just was something that really touched me because there were so many people from so many different kind of backgrounds and people from this university and from this care home and from this local theater that kind of worked together and helped really talk to each of these people as individuals and talk to them about their lives and helped them sort of weave all of that into a story that they could share with their own community and with other people who came to see the piece who maybe had misconceptions or didn't often think about the lives and experiences of those elderly people living in a care home. And yeah, just it was a really cool example of sort of I think like collaborative art making and also authentic storytelling for a group of people who maybe don't have that opportunity often. Wow, thank you so much for sharing that. That sounds really awesome. And I think you know devised work absolutely whenever you're creating both as an ensemble you know and taking from your life that's always going to include authenticity. But I love how you share this because it also shows how authenticity can be empowering. You know for these people who usually probably aren't creating theater very often and have this really unique experience. I loved hearing about it. Thank you. Holly. Thank you. I used to work in a liberal arts college and I have seen four or five pieces self-written about people on their trans journeys and how they made that decision and how their reactions from friends and families kind of affected them. And I found each of them to be very different and very, very brave. Thank you. Yeah, I think that also highlights that even if people you know identify similarly with like the same quote unquote label all our stories are going to be super unique and individual and that's what authenticity is all about. So thank you for sharing that. Okay let's go on to the next slide. So bringing your full authentic self into your artwork. So showing up as your authentic self in your artwork can be challenging and deeply personal for a variety of reasons you know as people have already shared you know like vulnerability. Authenticity often involves revealing your true thoughts and emotions and experiences which can make you feel vulnerable you know sharing your genuine self can expose you to criticism or judgment that's like it feels like it's about you and then it can lead to a fear of rejection you know there's a fear that your authentic work may not be well received by the audience or the critics and this fear of rejection can be a barrier to expressing yourself honestly and you know especially like in larger contexts when money is involved you know if there's a producer you have to think it's just going to be commercially viable and when it's about yourself and you're being authentic that's even scarier and they're self-doubt and doubting your own authenticity and whether your true self is interesting or worthy of artistic expression is a common hurdle that a lot of artists go through and self-doubt can undermine your ability to be true to yourself and your work not to mention the social and cultural expectations you know societal and cultural norms and expectations can sometimes discourage authentic expression you're leading to self-censorship someone might feel pressure to conform to what is considered more acceptable or more commercially viable and then identity exploration being authentic in your art often involves exploring your own identity and values which can be deeply introspective and sometimes it can be an uncomfortable process because we haven't been to those places before and then personal exposure which we talked about sometimes we can be hesitant to share some of those more personal experiences because of privacy however despite these challenges many artists such as myself such as these amazing stories that we've heard by not creating authentic work is worth it and ultimately a magical way of creation because it provides genuine connection authentic art has the power to create a deep and genuine connection between the art and the audience and the artist you know viewers and participants can sense the authenticity of the work and it can evoke a strong emotional response that resonates on a personal level it has more emotional impact no authenticity in our often leads to a more profound emotional impact it can stir powerful feelings provoke thought and inspire reflection leaving an even more lasting impression on those who engage with it uniqueness authentic artwork is inherently unique because it reflects the individuality and originality of the artist it stands out always it offers a fresh perspective and it makes it memorable the special empowerment we just talked about this too creating and sharing authentic art can be an empowering experience for the creators it allows you to embrace your own voice your values your experiences and give a sense of control and self-affirmation catharsis many artists find that expressing their authentic selves in their work is a cathartic process it can help release pent up emotions heal from past traumas and find closure inspiration authentic art can inspire others to embrace their own authenticity it can serve as a model for self-acceptance and encourage others to explore their own unique perspectives and creativity innovation authenticity often drives artistic innovation when artists break free from societal norms and expectations they can create groundbreaking original and thought-provoking work that pushes the boundaries of art and culture resilience sharing authentic art can build resilience it requires artists to confront their fears and overcome self-doubt which can be transformative and empowering and speaking of transformation you know both the artist and the audience can experience personal transformation through authentic art it can change perspectives it can challenge beliefs and inspire personal growth so in essence the magic of authenticity in art lies in its ability to transcend the superficial and touch the core of the human experience you know that's the underlying connection between every human being we're all humans and has the power to bridge the gap between the artist's inner world and the external world creating those moments of connection and inspiration now I would love it if we could take about a minute or two for everybody to write down you know whether that's like actual pen and paper or just on your phone I would love it if you could each write down five things that you think make you you now it doesn't have to be things that like only apply to you and no one else because that would be very very hard but just like the first five things you can think of that's like hmm this is me so for me that would be queerness neurodiversity creativity fitness and mental health now it doesn't necessarily have to be labels or identity or anything like that it can be something that you like to do like really love animals you can just like write down animals you know or something that you like like a color maybe you know identity can be more personal have some more depth so if you are comfortable I would love for you to go there but really any five things that you the first five things that you can think of I'll give you guys a couple minutes to do that and then maybe we can share keep writing if you're still writing but I would love us to go around and share if you're comfortable sharing and I think we'll be able to see that maybe there's some overlap but my prediction is that no one will have all the same five things and that this is sort of what intersectionality is all about you know where we can come together and although we are all unique in individual you know it's how we can bring our full selves in a way that's that fulfills ourselves but also engages others and also connects you know whether you're a writer or producer or performer or director a behind-the-scenes person or just like someone who enjoys the arts I think we all benefit from being authentic with ourselves and our daily lives so if anyone is ready to share you can raise a little hand or unmute yourself yeah I can go first um I wrote queer faith science dogs and family so that I didn't hear any of it so if you mind sharing one more time or putting it in the chat because the audio is breaking up but I'm really sorry I'll write it I'll write it in the chat okay that's awesome yeah if anyone doesn't want to speak and just wants to write it in the chat I can read it for you too if that's something you're more comfortable with this is just any speaking I wrote down indigenous autistic artistic scientist I love it thank you thank you so much for sharing and then Monica this was queer faith science dogs family awesome this is awesome thank you so much I love hearing anyone else would like to share no pressure just making sure that we have the space for anyone who wants to either vocally share or write in the chat I wrote storyteller Jewish creative slash curious I couldn't pick on those sailor and family nice nice thank you so much we have Holly in the chat grow independent souist outward facing introvert reflective lover of Japanese traditional arts so cool thank you for sharing I wrote down teacher well just lost it teacher creativity children and mature woman thank you anybody else well so far no one has had all five and there's actually been only a tiny bit of overlap so I think that's really awesome showing just how different we all are yes Tessa and Ryan Korean Vietnamese gay introvert creative love it I love all the clearness in the room that is everyone then you can go ahead oh one more yes Kate mother educator wife woman of faith creative autism mama amazing thank you so much for sharing okay let's go ahead and move on to the next slide creative exercise thought you were done writing I should not okay after hearing what other people put down maybe you want to change yours maybe you want to add some or maybe you want to stay the same you know it's all about reflecting we're growing expanding now I would love it for you all to take three minutes to write creatively about something that intersects with the things that you wrote down you know it can be anything it is so this is super broad open babe it can be just like free writing like like a journal entry you know just whatever comes to your mind you can write some like premises if you are someone who really likes to come up with stories you can if you immediately are like inspired um just start to script like anything that you want to write even if it's just bullet points of more free writing words the things that don't necessarily connect just take three minutes whatever comes out comes out I'll do it too um so yeah three minutes from now go you can go ahead and write it has been about three minutes so if you want to go ahead and wrap up what you have written we can take about five minutes to share you can either like verbatim share what you wrote or you can just share what came up in a more broader sense when you thought about these five words that you chose um I'll wait word for word what I wrote because it was more of a free writing than a creative writing I wrote neurodiversity and queerness and mental health all seem to intertwine most queer people I know have some sort of neurodiverse identity and or mental health diagnosis but with creativity and fitness for me these aspects of my life that are aren't necessarily identity or diagnosis are the parts of my life that help me flourish when I see all aspects of myself I'm proud to be who I am I may have struggled in the past but my creative outlets and gym and rock climbing have all encouraged me to face my fears and embrace who I am um so if anyone wants to share what they discovered some thoughts anything that they wrote down feel free to raise your hand or unmute I can go um first I wrote down one of my five words was um they say and um for me I like my favorite was about how I feel like the words that I choose would be different like two years ago um from to what they are right now and I just like I was just thinking about how certain parts of your identity become salient when like depending on the context that you're in so because I'm not in like when I was in India for 18 years of my life I never thought about being brown the same way I do when I'm here in the US now so I think that's really interesting and um it's cool to see how with time the parts of you that feel the most authentic change and kind of like come up to the surface in different ways um yeah that's a little bit about mine if you're right thank you for sharing anyone else want to share this is claudia's disembodied voice on my writing and uh the writing was about being um embracing it's funny I'm trying to sum it up and I'm like should I just read it how about I'll say this the thing that I wrote was about embracing the fact that I am a talkative introvert and all the things in my home are supporting my access needs great thank you I really appreciate you sharing anybody else want to share great Ari for Mattia oh sorry no no worries or if you want to go first and then I can read sure um so one of the words I put down was storykeeper um and that's what I wrote about I'm a keeper of stories I am sentimental I worry that memories of something or someone will wash away and disappear I keep things that belong to relatives that past beloved toys old furniture my father's baby shoes my great grandmother's glasses photos of family members I don't even know pictures of my nephews this is how I feel the love and keep the love and remember thank you so much that was so beautiful I really love that thank you so much so Mattia wrote some of my words included curiosity slash willingness to listen and learn collaboration and compassion my writing pertain to the ways in which I strive to bring those to others but also I'm learning to bring them to myself lovely thank you nobody else feel called to share no worries if not then we shall move on to the next slide so this is a post exercise discussion so we're not done talking but uh there's not going to be any more like writing um but for this part I would love if we could just sort of go into a more in-depth discussion maybe about 10 minutes we'll see maybe I think more five minutes um I'm gonna ask us some questions to get us started but this is pretty open so feel free to talk about anything that feels relevant or you know ask everyone who's here your own questions if you have them but these are the questions that I have how often do you see all of yourself represented in media and do you want to see it would you want to watch something that's more intersectional and authentic and do you see any potential problems with authentic storytelling could it also be a trap um so those are just the questions that I'm posing you don't necessarily have to answer any of these um if just if it inspires a thought feel free to share that I'm gonna open it up to you all first and see if anyone has anything that they'd like to say from that yes Millie so something that I had just started thinking about with those questions is the like feeling I'm seeing people that are similar to you but have different experiences and I think that's what's super exciting to me about theater that I see people being their authentic selves in theater where I or stories where I see myself represented is that they're not me they don't have the same exact life story as me they don't have the same experiences as me but whoever is in that situation has something that I identify with and I think that finding those places of like similarity and relating to characters and relating to stories that you see told is super exciting and beneficial because you get to see other people's stories and how they engage in the world and you're not just seeing how you would respond to something or how you would go through the scenarios that's playing out yeah it helps us expand our minds you know you have that thread I can connect here but then it grows and expands and branches out which is like an awesome part of our anyone else anything that comes to their minds um this is Claudia's voice I was thinking about how representation isn't enough how often times we will be as marginalized people invited into stories that were not written by us and and then we're we're invited to represent a simulacrum of our experience so I I love that I am today seeing more people who look like me more people who in stories have a disabled experience more people who are black but also sometimes I can tell that the writer and the directors don't come from my community and so then I'm just seeing people telling stories that aren't authentic and it makes me more distanced yeah thank you for bringing that up I think yeah is it really could it be considered authenticity if it's just the actors you know reflecting that if it doesn't go deeper like on a deeper level like the writers like I think it's important that everyone involved in a project on all layers otherwise it's just performative and I don't think that's something that everyone can connect to as much if it weren't informed on every level so I really thank you for saying that Claudia anyone else have anything that they want to bring up I'll say something if no one else and I think this also relates back to intersectionality you know and how different aspects of our identities are informed in different ways you know there are some parts of our identity that we cannot even pretend to detach from like it's immediate and there are other parts of our identities that you know we can choose to share whether we want to or not and it reminds me of this story I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with the TV show Heartstopper but the TV show Heartstopper is about two young queer boys coming of age and one of the lead actors upon joining the show was out and gay and everyone was like yes representation and the other lead boy was not out and so people presumed you know to assume that he was straight and so it was getting a lot of backlash of like oh why is this queer character being played by a straight person and the actor was getting so much hate and so much backlash that they were essentially forced to out themselves and they did end up coming out um but they were barely 18 years old and you know this show that blew up overnight millions of followers and all of a sudden now in the public eye he's forced to come out and you know I don't I bring this up just to like just to think about just to bring something up about how authenticity you know we're all on our own journeys we all think about it at different points in times and how we shouldn't pressure people you know to come to terms especially with their identities and how it is a lifelong journey and how representation in media is a sort of a back and forth to give and take now if nothing is black or white uh you know nothing can be only one thing or the other uh and it is something that you know artists are still learning how to do but also audiences are still learning how to come to terms with um if anyone has anything they'd like to respond to that if that brought anything up for them uh please feel free to share I teach uh creative drama to kindergarten through fifth grade in evanston um and so i'm kind of looking at it as looking at all this about how it affects the young kids um we just went to see the third grades went to see a play at northwestern it was called Frida Libre about Frida Kahlo and um two things happened one is that they sent us a pre pre video to watch before we went and it was introduced by a young man who had been in our district all throughout his career a student career and also went to northwestern and now a professional actor and I was talking to the kids about this guy because he was so exciting to watch and one of the black boys in my room he just his eyes lit up and he was like what I could really do this I could do this too oh I love drama and uh I just gave me goosebumps um I know it's a different level that we're talking here but oh no so important but then another when we finished the play I had one group of kids write letters to the actors um just what they learned what they thought and one of the girls in my class is a Latina and she wanted to write to the actress playing Frida she knew her name she remembered her name from the the talkbacks and she wrote this beautiful letter about how she was so touched with this woman's performance and I knew that it deepened herself she was seeing that she was identifying with her and that's so I mean I know it's always been special but I was really reminded how terribly special it is for these children to see this happening um you know in tv movies plays books everything so yeah thank you for sharing that I think yes especially with kids you know growing up you know kids of all identities whether it is race or sexuality or disability you know at least like five ten years ago all we grew up seeing was just straight white cis able-bodied like north book it like that's all we saw and so you should have like there's the shame that comes around like oh like then this other part of me isn't normal because tv theater movies are such a big part of our culture uh but I love I love that these kids got to see that and I love all this new stuff that's coming out so that the next generation and so on and so forth can really start that authenticity can start from a younger age so that there is less shame and that we can't talk about it more um we can go on to the next slide I'm not sure we have time to go on to do a full discussion of the next slide but I just want to raise these points so we talked about watching more intersectional stories um and we talked about you know kids seeing themselves and also I just want to raise the point I think someone brought up earlier a little bit about watching stories that differ from us too you know because if we only ever watch stories that reflect that our own experiences we would never grow or appreciate others and so I think it's important to have that balance of seeing yourself represented on screen so that you know that you are worthy of everything and then also seeing other people so that we can learn and grow and expand as human beings um so I'm going to pose these questions I don't think we have time to answer them but just think about them as you go on with the rest of the day and it's how often do you watch content with people that have vastly different experiences from your own if you don't or not and has learning about other people today made you change your mind about that at all um so just things you know next time you go on Netflix and you click on something to watch whether you change what you watch or not just ask yourself what brought me to watch this are the people on the screen exactly like me what can I do to expand that if I want to you don't necessarily have to we can go to the next slide so closing remarks we all have unique identities we should spend time getting to know ourselves we haven't spent too much time doing that it can be scary and vulnerable but great things come from that you know especially all the works of art that we talked about today all our beautiful intersectional identities everyone is so different and so awesome and I love it and we're all brave and we all have stories worth telling even if we aren't necessarily writers we all have those stories worth telling so I really just want to thank you all for being here for bearing with technological difficulties at the beginning I really appreciate you all and I hope you have a great rest of your day thank you so much mom thank you for being here with us today and for all of those amazing exercises I personally really enjoyed them and I'm sure everybody did too um that's our second speaker for the day everyone uh Simone Vazzini thank you so much um we will be returning we we're gonna break for lunch now and we will be returning at around 2 p.m for a short and quick networking session um with our next presenter at 2 30 p.m so please start joining the call again at 2 p.m I will be ending the call for now and restarting it at that point of time um we have since invalid a wonderful performance collective coming to present at 2 30 p.m and I love all of us to be there but thank you so much everyone and I will see you in a little more than an hour thank you


Welcome to the California ISO. Today's presentation will provide an introduction to the organization known as the California Independent System Operator, which I will refer to as the ISO during this presentation. This is a high-level presentation. It covers a lot of ground about what the ISO does and some of its programs and processes, but if you would like to learn more, navigate to caiso.com. So let's take a look at the primary topics we'll touch on today. The first topic we will cover is what is the California ISO, where I will provide a little background in history that lays the foundation for what the ISO is today. In our next section entitled Governance Leadership and Coordination, we will discuss how the ISO is managed as an organization and how it interacts with other agencies. Following that, we will dive into what we do here at the ISO in the Reliability and Operations section. Reliability is the cornerstone of the ISO, so we'll discuss how we keep the high voltage grid up and running. The Operations section will focus on important factors that affect reliability, such as the mix and adequacy of generating resources and the analysis of changes in supply and demand. We will also talk about markets and planning, where you will learn about our day ahead and real-time markets and how the wholesale energy is priced. Planning refers to infrastructure planning and generator interconnection, which are basically the transmission wires that get the energy from where it's produced to where it's consumed. Extensive planning is needed to ensure that the grid system is not over or under built. Then we will talk about policy and some of the initiatives the ISO is leading in to help the energy industry maintain the balance between reliability, renewables and reasonable cost. The next item is how generators, transmission owners, developers and traders participate in the ISO market. Whether you own a generating resource, serve load, own a storage facility or a government representative, student or someone interested in the workings of the grid, there are ways that you can participate, provide input or get information from the ISO. The ISO is celebrating over two decades of reliability, transparency and innovations, while managing one of the world's largest electric grids. Since 1998, the ISO has been the steward of an electric system that now serves over 30 million consumers in California and millions more in a real-time market while overseeing a fair and open wholesale energy market. Our market produces about nine billion dollars in transactions each year. We are an ISO, but what does that mean? First, let's define ISO. In North America, an independent system operator or ISO is a federally regulated regional organization which coordinates, controls and monitors the operation of the high voltage electric power system. It also acts as a commodity marketplace for wholesale power. Similar to a stock exchange, ISO never actually owns or takes title to the energy that is bought and sold. The marketplace acts only as the platform to bring buyers and sellers of energy and energy services together. An ISO operates differently from the public utilities in a few key ways. We operate the high voltage transmission system that connects power plants to substations, but not the low voltage distribution lines that connects substations to homes and businesses. The distribution lines are operated by the utilities, utilities or merchants who own transmission and distribution lines are also responsible for repairing and maintaining their systems. The ISO does not own any transmission or generation assets. We are a profit-neutral, independent and we do not serve in-use retail consumers. Understand how to do business with the ISO using these materials and courses. The ISO is committed to providing our market participants and the public with a broad menu of high quality training courses on market functionality as well as individual market applications. These courses are organized into areas of focus or tracks that are designed to be an industry resource for market participants and the general public to learn about the electric grid and market and the ISO's role in the system. We are continuing to evolve our training programs and enhance our training materials to better meet the various levels of experience, technical needs and needs of our customers and to make it more user-friendly experience. We are creating more computer-based trainings and learning bursts to break down some of these complicated subjects into bite-size manageable pieces, so please keep an eye on this page to find updated content and learning opportunities. As you can see by this map in North America, there are several different energy regions and though they all have the same goal of maintaining reliability and market efficiency, they all run a little bit different. The California ISO is one of nine ISO's or regional transmission operators for multi-state grid operators in North America who participate together in the ISO RTO Council that is committed to work together to build a smarter and more efficient grid that is prepared to meet the North America market and consumer needs. Approximately two-thirds of the United States and more than half of Canada are served by independent grid operators. The California ISO resides in a regional area known as the Western Interconnection and is fifth largest of the ISO RTO's in terms of installed generation and miles of transmission lines and is third on the list in terms of population served. On the previous slide I mentioned the California ISO resides in the Western Interconnection which is represented here. The Eastern U.S. is the Eastern Interconnection. In addition to being an ISO we are a balancing authority or BA as well. A balancing authority area, BAA, is a combination or set of grid intertie points and resources while the balancing authority is responsible for matching generation and load as well as maintaining grid operation standards such as those related to electrical frequency. All electricity hums along at 60 Hertz and it is critical to maintain this frequency within narrow parameters or reliability will suffer. There are 38 separate BA's in the West each with the same core functions and preparing the system for the next day using resources within its boundaries as well as taking into account imports from neighboring BA's and matching changing supply with changing demand in real time. The California ISO is the largest of the BA's in this region handling an estimated 36% of electric load in the Western Interconnection. While all ISO's are BA's not all BA's are ISO's. And ISO typically has a competitive energy market which most BA's do not have. In fact there are only two BA's in the West that have a competitive energy market. The California ISO and the Alberta Electric System Operator in Canada. ISO's are responsible for reliably planning and operating the grid that encompasses utilities service territories. Some BA's have one or two utilities which may be investor-owned utilities or public utilities while other BA's may have many. Working within the interconnection enables us to enhance reliability by having greater situational awareness and access to larger resource pools, integrate and use renewable generation more efficiently and manage cost and maintaining continual communication between the BA's. Like many other ISO's the California ISO is a non-profit public benefit corporation. We are responsible for the constant and reliable flow of electricity for the health, safety and welfare of consumers. It is our resolve to maintain a fair, open and transparent wholesale electricity market and we accomplish that through our policies, planning and system enhancement initiatives. We have a comprehensive transmission planning process that identifies the need for system expansion or modification as well as clearing the way for zero or low carbon resources to access the grid. We are active and driving ambitious public, environmental and regional goals with more distributed and clean power resources. Distributed means resources such as battery storage and rooftop solar units that connect to the distribution grid. The ISO is a transmission and infrastructure planner and oversees a competitive wholesale power market. To be successful we must coordinate with several entities at various levels. The agencies that regulate us include the following. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC is the independent federal entity that regulates the wholesale markets and as such as jurisdiction over interstate electricity sales, wholesale electric rates, hydroelectric licensing, natural gas pricing and oil pipeline rates among other things. Pertinent FERC rules are codified in our tariffs so any wholesale exchange of electricity in our market comes under the purview of the FERC. The regulators also ensure the reliability of the bulk power system through mandatory reliability standards. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation or NERC is the international regulatory authority whose mission is to assure the reliability and security of the bulk power system in North America. NERC's major responsibilities include working with all stakeholders to develop standards for power system operation, monitoring and enforcing compliance with those standards and providing training resources as part of an accreditation program to ensure power system operators remain qualified and proficient. The Western Electricity Coordinating Council or WECC is a non-profit corporation responsible for coordinating and promoting bulk electric system reliability in the geographic area known as the Western Interconnection, which we talked about earlier. We are governed by a five-member board and these members are appointed by the Governor of California. Members serve staggered three-year terms. Our independent internal Department of Market Monitoring analyzes market trends and works with FERC enforcement to identify potential anti-competitive market behavior or market inefficiencies. They also review ISO market design initiatives to ensure that the market remains competitive. To provide transparency, the DMN produces regular reports that are available on our website. A reliability coordinator is an entity with the highest level of authority responsible for the reliable operation of the high-voltage system, complying with federal and regional grid operation standards, has a wide geographic view of the grid and has the authority to prevent or mitigate emergency conditions that may be beyond the operational awareness of the ISO and individual transmission operators. The RC also leads efforts to restore the grid system following a major event. Here is our organizational chart. You can see where our Board of Governors resides, as well as how our Department of Market Monitoring reports directly to them. There are also a couple of Board committees. The audit committee has the oversight of the ISO budget and financial operations, while the Market Surveillance Committee provides a Board with independent counsel regarding market efficiencies and design. The Western EIM governing body is ancillary to the Board of Governors and exercises delegated authority from the Board over EIM rules. The ISO is led by a President and CEO with finance and human resources departments reporting directly to that office. The divisions are all led by Vice Presidents. The Market and Infrastructure Development Division works on market design and development of grid infrastructure. Market Quality and Renewable Integration Division monitors market performance and integrating renewables. The Technology Division manages market and internet system applications, as well as all corporate applications. Our Operations Division has grid operators that runs the grid every second of every day, supports the auction market, and manages the process from bid to settlement. The General Counsel Division is our legal group that develops ISO tariff and interacts with FERC, NERC, WEK, and other agencies when it comes to filings, compliance, and regulations. Customer and State Affairs interacts with our market participants and stakeholders on everyday questions, policies, and works to resolve policy, operational, and general business issues. Regional and federal affairs engages with utilities, regulators, and industry stakeholders throughout the West on such topics as EIM and regional integration. Though we are not a state agency, we work with state agencies to support state policies, perform studies, facilitate a fair and transparent wholesale electricity market, and drive innovation. The Air Resources Board mission is to promote and protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through the effective and efficient reduction of air pollutants. One of their main duties is limiting greenhouse gas emissions through programs that use renewable energy credits or REX. Generators can purchase these REX to offset their air emissions and continue to operate their generation units. These emission limits can impact generators and may affect bid cost recovery. We consider all these requirements as we structure market design proposals. One focus of the Energy Commission is on Renewables Portfolio Standard. The agency also provides data, such as demand forecasts, that are used as inputs into the ISO's transmission planning process. The Water Resources Control Board is the lead on implementing once-through cooling rules. A number of generators in California use water, mostly seawater, to aid in the conversion process of condensing steam back into water. This process can have a detrimental effect on marine habitats and power plants must either retrofit or retire to reduce their water use by the end of 2029. The ISO works with the Public Utilities Commission on Resource Adequacy and Generation Procurement. Resource adequacy requires utilities to buy supply a year in advance that covers 100% of their demand forecast plus a 15% margin. Generation procurement is a longer-term process that looks at energy needs 10 years into the future. But we just don't work with regulatory agencies, oversight board, and state agencies. Critical to our success are stakeholders. Stakeholder input is essential to ISO planning processes and for the success of new initiatives from policy development to implementation. On our website under the Stay Informed tab, you will find information on our stakeholder processes. This page lists all of the initiatives we're working on and provides all of the papers and meeting schedules for those initiatives. We are committed to providing ample chances for stakeholder input into our market design, implementation, and infrastructure planning activities. The process shapes market design and policies through a series of proposals, meetings, and comment periods, including any changes to our tariff. A great deal of the documentation that we adhere to is defined by federal and regulatory standards. Our primary document is the tariff which outlines the rates, terms, and conditions under which the ISO operates. The tariff is modified and updated in collaboration with our stakeholders and approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. We also have business practice manuals or BPMs. BPMs provide detailed rules, procedures, and examples for the administration, operation, planning, and accounting requirements of the California ISO and the market that are consistent with the tariff. Adherence to the manuals is important for orderly operation of the ISO market. To view our tariff and associated filings in a more user-friendly way, you can visit our e-tariff viewer that offers convenient access to all ISO-related files that are part of the FERC's e-tariff system. So far, we've explained a little about who the ISO is and our history. So now, over the next few slides, we'll discuss what we do. The ISO is registered with NERC, has a BA, a transmission operator, transmission service provider, planning coordinator, and a market operator. Together, these roles are grouped into our core functions, which are infrastructure planning, reliability, and market operations. Let's take a look at each of these in a little more depth. As our industry moves into the future, we face challenges in competing priorities. Reliability is the foremost grid consideration, but it's not the only one. As more renewables are added into the power mix, as we expand our horizons, we face challenges related to electricity oversupply, that is having more electricity on the grid than what demand can use it. We also have a challenge as to the need for more technology flexibility. We must also be careful of not having enough resource fuel diversity to avoid under supply. The bottom line is that there are a lot of things we want to do, but there are cost, time, and impact considerations. Therefore, it's critical that we coordinate with several entities and stakeholders to plan the transmission needs of the ISO BA. At this time, our transmission planning process has the grid ready to support a 33% renewables portfolio standard by 2020. However, as a leader in the use of renewable resources, California has set the bar higher in Senate Bill 100, that is to achieve the goal of 60% RPS by 2030 and an additional 40% from zero carbon resources such as nuclear and large hydroelectric resources due by 2045. The ISO helps lead this effort by performing studies and approving projects. However, these plans may change and projects canceled or modified since the planning is done far in advance and may be affected by unforeseen factors. This holistic process allows for changes needed based on reliability, economics, and policy drivers. To keep an eye on how renewables progress, you can click on the monthly stats link on our website about us under news. There are about 26,000 circum miles of transmission in California that the ISO controls. Keeping up with political and technological advances requires a constant need to evaluate grid reliability needs and ensure that diverse areas are being provided an adequate supply of electricity. Transmission planning at the ISO actively engages stakeholder and public input and uses the best engineering analysis possible to determine short and long-term infrastructure needs. The transmission planning process has always used reliability and economic criteria for approving project needs and upgrades, but our process also now includes approving projects based on public policy such as the Renewables Portfolio Standard. In addition, the process is conducted in collaboration with all of our neighbors. This process has two phases for a project definition and evaluation, and if needed we hold a competitive solicitation for selected projects. In phase one, we are developing forward-looking assumptions. In phase two, we are performing analysis and identifying transmission needs. If approved by the ISO board, in phase three, we select proposals to build needed transmission projects. The ISO works closely with the public utilities and energy commissions in this process. We also have a robust generator interconnection process to help resources interconnect to the ISO grid. Our process provides compliance information as well as an assigned interconnection specialist to walk the developers through the entire process from beginning through commercial operations within seven years. Let's take a high-level look at this process. The generator interconnection process starts when a developer submits a request to interconnect. The desired commercial operation data is determined by the interconnection customer and later confirmed or not confirmed by our studies. The generator interconnection study process can take up to two years and developers need to follow the guidelines and keep track of the milestones that are required in order to get into our full network model build, which is typically six to nine months prior to the actual interconnection. As part of this process, participating transmission owners perform studies to identify reliability network upgrades while the ISO identifies deliverability network upgrades. After gaining approval to move forward, interconnection agreements are signed and then the new resource implementation process begins. Once this process is complete, the resource can begin participating in the market. The ISO has little to no leeway regarding timelines and it's important to keep all projects moving forward as many processes are linked and feed into one another. The ISO is responsible for the constant and reliable flow of electricity for the health, safety and welfare of consumers. Maintaining reliability is a balancing act that requires a lot of expertise and controlling many moving parts. What is reliability? In short, it is all about keeping the lights on. The major way to keep the lights on is through system operations. Our system operators are responsible for maintaining the reliability of the grid by balancing supply and demand using various resource types. Operators are located in our Folsom control room, but we have a completely redundant backup facility as well and the entire operation of the grid can be transferred between control rooms at any time. There are multiple redundancies on all systems, providing one of the highest levels of dependability in computer system operations. Electricity is produced, delivered and consumed nearly instantaneously and nearly the speed of light and operators must maintain grid frequency at 60 hertz as power can vibrate at different frequencies. In the US, electricity is generated and transmitted at 60 cycles per second. If it drifts outside a very narrow band of tolerance, it can damage all manner of electrical equipment. This is similar to driving down a highway and keeping your car at 60 miles per hour. Like a gas pedal on a car, to maintain 60 hertz, you either increase or decrease system generation as changes in load on the system lowers or increases the frequency. Because of its instantaneous nature, the ISO uses technology that takes the pulse of electric system every second and our highly skilled and trained system operators constantly monitor multiple bits of data so they can instantly react to fluctuating conditions such as weather changes and sudden supply shortfalls or surpluses. Greater diversity of resource type strengthens our ability to meet demand, however that creates another set of challenges when it comes to forecasting supply availability of variable energy resources such as wind and solar. So how do we know how much energy will be needed tomorrow, next week, next year? Through demand forecast, which are done in advance, sometimes up to two years in advance. The ISO wholesale market is comprised of distinct day ahead and real-time processes. The day ahead market enables parties with bilateral agreements to schedule their contracted supply and demand into the market at a minimum of 24 hours in advance. It also enables suppliers to offer excess supply in the form of energy or ancillary services such as reserves. The day ahead market includes several processes, one of them being an integrated forward market that provides a one-stop shop for trading and analyzing electricity bids, transmission capacity, and reserves. The real-time energy market has the hour ahead scheduling process which enables import and export resources to schedule their megawatts hourly. ISO market offers a full network model that analyzes generation and transmission schedules submitted a day in advance to better manage or avoid real-time bottlenecks. The full network model is a representation of the generation and transmission in the entire western interconnection. With this model, we are able to see where there might be constraints on the electric grid. The full network model automatically runs every 15 minutes to reevaluate the impacts of actual or potential system changes. The 15-minute market supports, among other things, renewable integration. This market allows variable energy resources to submit bids closer to the time it's needed for delivery. As an example, there may be an unexpected cloud cover that impacts solar generation or the wind may start to pick up earlier than anticipated and tweaks have to be made to the delivery schedules. The spot market, also known as the five-minute market, dispatches plants every five minutes. Only a scheduling coordinator is authorized to transact business directly with the ISO. A scheduling coordinator is an entity authorized by the ISO to buy and sell power in the ISO markets. Scheduling coordinators bid and schedule supply into the market or submit demand bids, and then based on the awards, energy flows across the transmission system and is distributed to the customers by local utilities. If an entity chooses not to become a scheduling coordinator, it would need to contract the services of a certified coordinator to participate on their behalf. There are a number of ways to participate in the market. Depending on resource capabilities, market participants can elect to bid into the energy and ancillary services market or sell other electricity products. Convergence bids, bids for virtual supply or virtual demand, are purely financial positions taken in the day-ahead market and liquidated in the real-time market. Acillary services help maintain the reliability of the grid. Regulation up and regulation down are capacity products designed to meet short-term changes in load, spinning reserve as potential energy that must be synchronized to the grid and available for dispatch within a 10-minute period, non-spinning reserve as potential energy that is not synchronized to the grid but whose energy can be synchronized and used within 10 minutes. Unit commitment is a way to ensure that the ISO procures enough capacity to meet the day-ahead forecast. Flexible ramping products provide additional upward and downward flexible ramping capability to account for uncertainty from demand and renewable forecasting errors in the real-time market. It ensures that some unloaded capacity is reserved for dispatch if needed. Transmission line capacity is kind of like a water pipe. It could only hold so much. Energy is like the water flowing through the pipes, but it flows through transmission lines instead. Let's walk through how energy procurement makes it to the market. Load-serving entities, which include investor-owned utilities and community choice associations, plan their own service territory needs several years ahead to lock in an reliable and cost-effective electricity supply to serve their customers. In the year prior to the actual date the energy is to flow, entities under the Public Utilities Commission jurisdiction must demonstrate that they have secured adequate supplies of energy, which now stands at 100% of demand plus a 15% margin. As the date gets closer and resource conditions become clearer and the months and days leading up to the actual energy delivery date, additional bilaterally contracted energy is procured as needed. The additional energy may be needed in real-time and is bought in our real-time market. So we've just touched on our day ahead and real-time markets. Now let's take a little deeper look. Let's look at the market timelines. We've just talked about both the day ahead and real-time markets and this diagram shows the relationship between the two. As you can see they're very similar. In the day ahead market bids are submitted, the market processes run, bids clear the market, and market results are published. There are a number of market applications involved in this process. When the day ahead market is published this triggers the opening of the real-time market. Bids are once again submitted along with base schedules from our Western Energy imbalance or EIM participants. Market processes run, bids clear, and dispatch orders are sent to generators. The market is then settled in our post-market processes. The Western Energy imbalance market or EIM is an extension of the ISO's real-time market to any balancing authority in the western area of North America. It provides a low-cost, low-risk option that balances load and resources automatically and economically. Full day ahead market members already participate in both the day ahead and real-time markets while energy imbalance market entities only participate in the real-time market. Participants are able to interact with other EIM members or with the ISO in both 15 and 5-minute increments. The ISO operates the only EIM in the west and uses advanced market systems to automatically award low-cost resources to reliably meet customer demand. We have several participants in the EIM market with more planned to join in the coming years. The blue balancing areas on the map are future participants. The grid management charge or GMC is the vehicle through which the ISO recovers all of its administrative operating and capital cost from the entities that use ISO services. The current GMC rate structure includes seven cost categories or buckets consisting of 17 separate charge codes. We follow up with a meeting in October to review and discuss our draft budget before finalizing it and requesting the Board of Governors approval in December. On the ISO's webpage at www.caiso.com there are a number of tabs along the top of the homepage that cover the gamut of ISO operations as well as reports, fact sheets, and other reader-friendly documents. Also on the homepage you can see that we published the current system demand as well as today's forecasted peak and if you select click for more it will take you to a page with graphs of the current days load and available resources as well as a myriad of other helpful and useful graphs and charts. On the today's outlook pages you can monitor real-time power conditions, see resources in use, emissions, prices, as well as real-time demand curves. For instance information under the supply tab shows the current use of resources by fuel type with renewables broken out into its fuel types such as wind, solar, and batteries. The data is pooled from multiple ISO platforms and is automatically updated every five minutes. Hovering over the line curves show the value at that data point. Much of this information is also available on our smartphone app ISO Today which is available from your favorite app store and is free. Besides grid and system conditions the app will automatically present alerts and warnings and also provides a calendar of all the events and meetings happening at the ISO. Today's outlook is the ISO's most visited public web page. With California in the vanguard and the transition to renewable energy many around the world are tracking the ISO's innovation, technology, and strategies for greening the grid. Transparency and engagement are at the heart of the ISO mission to inform, educate, and promote the clean, reliable electric system and efficient market of the future. This concludes our presentation. Thanks for your time. Have a great day.


Hi, my name is Tracy Takahama Spinoza and this is a video on your final project. This is pulling together all those different pieces of research to present something that looks like a complete project. And the big idea, her main message is that your final project is really more than just the sum of all of those different parts that you've been pulling together. We'll look at this through those different parts, understanding that checklist of information that needs to be included in the project, as well as look at some stylistic kinds of decisions that you might make and the ways that you can present your projects. So big takeaway from this video, hopefully, is that you realize that all of those pieces you've been pulling together since the beginning, you've done deep dives into understanding how to formulate good research questions, how to find literature, how to then apply this within an action research project within your classroom, how do you analyze this and how do you come up with conclusions. That's terrific, but the bigger idea is how when you present this as a project, how it looks much more complete as a whole as opposed to all of those loose parts altogether. And we want you, just global overview, to make sure that you're considering that as part of whatever presentation format you choose, that you're indicating what the problem is, you're telling us what previous research exists, what has already been done in the field, what did you do as far as an intervention was concerned, and what did you find as a result of that. And then probably the most interesting aspect of this is, now that you know this, where does this now point you? What are the new questions that you might have? So let's look at these pieces individually.  What are the problems out there that you want to resolve? Or what is it that you want to learn that would make you a better teacher? So that needs to be stated up front. And you'll recall, when we did this a couple of modules back, we asked you to start just by asking yourself, what do you want to know? And it's also very healthy to sort of, you know, remind yourself of that main guiding question throughout, you know, what is it that I really want to know? And if you can do that, you've got a north and you will continue to have something very consistent in the presentation of your project. We also shared with you some characteristics of great research questions, so how are they structured so that you can come up with the very best and most precise question possible. We asked you to do this in a couple of steps, right? After you've figured out that problem and you know this global topic that it fits under and you ask yourself, what do you want to know about that particular topic, then can you structure this in this very particular format of a research question format? And we had to do this in this format, how and to what extent does something, you know, influence or change or improve something else or modify something else, just to isolate two variables. So how does one thing influence another thing? How does extensive and precise written feedback help change a person's self-perception as a writer? How and to what extent does the influence of creative writing improve academic writing? How and to what extent does the use of how and why questions enhance critical thinking? Or how and to what extent can self-regulation skills be improved by, you know, X intervention in the class? So by structuring it in this way, you're able to then see the impact of one thing on another, which is really hard to do in classroom settings because there's all kinds of other variables that are always influential here. So what we're asking to do is isolating it in this way. You're able to make even very complex problems more refined. So how and to what extent does using up a scalable intervention from the physical to the psychological to the neurological improve diagnosis of whether or not a kid really has a reading problem or not, right? So we take the very complicated questions within education and we make them a bit more manageable by using this particular format. The second thing you have to include in your presentation of your project is to let us know what's already been done. And it seems that we spend a lot of time and a lot of people became very wary about their own topics or their areas of interest at this point, because they realize a lot has already been done in many of these different fields, you know, motivation and students or how does a teacher's home life affect their professional interactions with others, right? There's a lot of research on all of these different topics. The main idea of this particular section is to show you're not re-raking all the ground, you know what's been said out there. But what you're trying to do is build bigger and better things on the shoulder of those previous giants of scholars, right? So know what the literature is in the field that you're going to be researching. And we reminded you of this when we talked about how to do a literature of you, right? You know, once you've defined that subject and then you can go to different types of databases to look for information and to look for recommendations and to find out who the thought leaders really are in different areas of the field and maybe even follow up directly with some of them. We also talked about how you structure a formal literature review. Many of you are doing formal projects. Some of you are not doing such formal projects. But if you were to do this for a publication, for example, in the literature review, you have to explain the objective, the genres of writing, the general overview of all the things that are there and how you categorize the research that you actually found. So this is a very structured way to do it. But if you've done anything even near this, you've definitely completed the project because doing a formal literature review is quite complex, mainly because it can serve multiple purposes. Which is why we sort of have this fun quiz here, you know, is the literature review part of a dissertation or a thesis? Or could it be that research itself could a whole study just be on what does the literature say about something? Or can it be a methodology? You know, systematic literature review is a type of methodology. Or is it used to establish what's already known about a topic? The answer is that it's all of those things, which is why the literature review is really very challenging for a lot of people because you spend a lot of time fishing yourself out of the rabbit holes that you create because something seems interesting and go down one path or another. But it is an important thing to share in your final project that you let everybody know that you know what already exists about this and that you are going to use that information to scaffold your own new knowledge about the topic. Then we want you to be sure you include your general methodology. You know, what did you do? How did you approach this? For example, a systematic literature review of everything that there is to know about evaluation from the micro level student to teacher level, to the classroom level, to the school level, to the district level, to the state level, to an international level, and did you do a systematic literature review? Or did you have an intervention? Did you actually work with kids on a different type of strategy? Or did you use a rubric of comparison of observable behavior in order to determine root causes of learning problems? Lots of things you could do as interventions. But basically, in this part of the project, you're explaining the methodological approach you took to the action research. And when we talked about methodology and we talked about action research, we explained how there's a lot of information about choosing what is the right methodology for approaching research and education. All of these things are very good to have as a global overview of how research can and should be conducted in its most formal sense. But what's really important about action research is understanding its unique approach, is it's really fluid nature. It's very dynamic. Many of you found that in the course of applying an intervention or doing something slightly different, you realized you had to adjust other things. And that might not have been anticipated as part of your initial research question. That's OK. That's the whole and really fascinating and really cool part about action research is that you're meant to sort of adjust your interventions as you go based on the new information you have from your students. So if you found that something was working and it was working so great, you decided to double the number of times you were going to be doing it, that's fine. Or if you find that something was beginning to do harm and alienating some kids, well, then you stop it, right? The big idea with action research, though, is that you document all of those different processes and decisions. And we know globally there's just such great benefits to doing action research for the individual as well as for the institution where that person works. And so this is why we encourage teachers throughout your whole craziness of the day. On top of all of this, it's great if you can do reaction research and document the things that we do, because it really does make a big difference in the quality of the whole institution. And finally, a last big idea about action research is that it's continual. It's cyclical. Every single time you finally answer one of those research questions or resolve one of those problems, then new questions and new problems emerge. And that's the natural process of doing action research. And that's why it's a never ending battle within schools is that we're always continually perfecting our interventions as teachers. Then when you get to this analysis stage, we're explaining why something happened. You're explaining to others what you actually found. After you did that intervention, after you did something in the classroom setting, after you compared that literature, what do you think you found? And not only what you found, that's reporting, but why you think those things came together in the way they did. To do analysis, we reminded you a couple of weeks back that it's really important to look at this level of analysis as being far more than just reporting information at the level of understanding or applying it in an example setting, but actually getting to the level of analyzing the information and being able to synthesize multiple analysis so that you can make a judgment call and decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing and maybe even be able to create a totally new idea after that. And we talked a little bit about analysis in the context of critical thinking and its role there and making sure that you weren't just reporting information, but that you were actually getting to that level of analysis when you do share your project with others. And then when you finally get to the conclusions within your project, you're explaining, okay, now that I know all this new information, what do I do now? So in the conclusions, you talk about the things you expected to find and the things you didn't expect to find and how that now creates new problems or new questions for you. So vital element. Remember, in your conclusions, number one thing you have to do is answer the research question that you have laid out for yourself. You report those expected findings. You report the unexpected findings. You have a great discussion about what all of those things mean together.  If I were to do it all over again, I might have changed X or Y or done this earlier or done this later or done this with more kids or less kids. But you explain the limitations of what happened and then you recommend what you would hope people would do in the future with the information that you're providing. So that's it. Basically, in the next module, we'll talk about different ways and formats that you could present your findings. But that in sum is what we hope your overall project looks like. Please come with a lot of questions to the next class looking forward to seeing you soon.