Category: attention

313. Supporting Neurodiverse Students and Faculty

Posted in access, attention, disability, diversity, engagement, equity, higher education, inclusion, learning, motivation, pedagogy, social justice, teaching
November 1, 2023

Many discussions of inclusive teaching practices ignore the role of neurodiversity in higher ed. In this episode, Liz Norell joins us to discuss strategies that faculty and institutions can use to create a welcoming environment for neurodivergent students and faculty. Liz is a political scientist and the Associate Director of Instructional Support at the University of Mississippi’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: Many discussions of inclusive teaching practices ignore the role of neurodiversity in higher ed. In this episode, we discuss strategies that faculty and institutions can use to create a welcoming environment for neurodivergent students and faculty.

[MUSIC]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer…

Rebecca: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

[MUSIC]

John: Our guest today is Liz Norell. Liz is a political scientist and the Associate Director of Instructional Support at the University of Mississippi’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Welcome back, Liz.

Liz: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are:… Liz, are you drinking tea?

Liz: I am not. I am drinking some vitamin water, tropical mango flavor.

Rebecca: So there’s some stuff mixed with water. That’s tea, right?

Liz: Yes, sure.

John: And I am drinking Prince of Wales tea today.

Rebecca: Oh, I like that one. John. Haven’t had that in a while. And I have Awake today. It’s Monday… [LAUGHTER] when we’re recording.

Liz: That feels fair.

John: But it’s getting really boring. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: I know. [LAUGHTER]

John: We’ve invited you here today to discuss issues related to neurodiversity in higher education. Before we start, though, could you define neurodiversity? And how is this different from neurodivergence?

Liz: Sure. So I think these two terms get kind of conflated with one another a lot. And so I tried to be really explicit in talking about neurodiversity versus neurodivergence. And there are a lot of different perspectives on these two terms, and some of the baggage that they carry with them. But when I think about neurodiversity, I just think about a diversity of brains. And so any group that has more than one person is going to be neurodiverse. We all have different brains. But neurodivergence is a brain that works differently than how we typically think of brains working. And there are lots of diagnoses that get put under the umbrella of neurodivergent. Some of the most common ones are autism, ADHD, there’s Tourette’s. There’s lots of other ones, dyslexia, dyspraxia, OCD sometimes gets lumped in there, bipolar disorder will get lumped in there. So neurodivergence is just a brain that works differently than the way we typically think of brains working.

Rebecca: If we’re thinking about college student populations, and I know that this is partially a guess, because we don’t actually know, but how many do we think are neurodivergent?

Liz: The estimates that I’ve seen have been around like one in six, maybe, but I think that it’s probably closer to 30, or 35%, honestly. I think a third is probably a reasonably good estimate. It’s a large number. And I will say that a lot of those students either may not know that they have some sort of neurodivergence, or they may not ever tell us that they have a neurodivergence and we’ll talk more about that a little bit later, I think.

John: What proportion of neurodivergent students have accommodations through campus disability services?

Liz: Who knows? If we don’t know the denominator, it’s hard to know what proportion of people would be registering with accommodations. But I think there are certainly a lot more students who are registering with disability services with an official diagnosis, but there are some barriers to that. And the first one is that it’s really expensive and time consuming to get a diagnosis. So I should say, and I should start pretty early in our conversation by saying that I recently went through the diagnosis process to get a diagnosis of autism at age 45. And it took me a year from reaching out until I had the diagnosis. And I was able to navigate that, because I have some experience interacting with medical teams. I had good insurance, but it still took me a year to get an appointment, and to get the diagnosis. And so there are a lot of students who may not have the tools or the time or the resources to go through that, even if they suspect it. And I went 44 years of my life without even suspecting that I might be neurodivergent. I think there are a lot of barriers to that. And then once you have the diagnosis, it can be very intimidating to disclose that, to go through the campus accommodation process takes so much time and advocacy. And that comes from a population that’s already taxed in terms of their bandwidth and their resources and their just ability to get these things done. So I don’t think that thinking about the numbers of people who seek accommodations is even close to representing the population of students who might have these conditions.

John: It would seem that there’s a bit of an equity issue here in that students from wealthier households, students from continuing generation households, are much more likely to have the resources to go through the process of having the need for accommodations being documented.

Liz: That’s right. And I think this gets into some of the language around neurodivergent versus the neurotypical. A lot of people who are neurodivergent, who have some sort of condition or way of thinking or way of operating have been socialized to think that there’s something wrong with them, this kind of medical model of disability, instead of the more like social model of this is a socially constructed difference. And so to seek out a diagnosis requires a kind of self containment, I think, to recognize that this is not something wrong with me. A lot of people who have a neurodivergent brain probably feel like they should be able to act like a neurotypical person. So they don’t want accommodations because they feel like that is somehow making them less than their neurotypical students. And it’s this medical model that has infused so much of our talk about disability, and especially pernicious here where we know that there are real struggles that students have when they have these neurodivergent brains, that we are just not accommodating well in the classroom.

Rebecca: I do want to mention at this juncture, that we do have an Episode 221 – Disability in Higher Education with Kat Macfarlane that really talks in detail about the accommodation process. And so that’s a really great place to learn more about that process in high detail that was kind of the subject of most of that episode. Most of our college faculty generally haven’t been trained to address issues of neurodiversity. Can you talk about some of the common challenges our neurodivergent students face in classrooms?

Liz: Yes. And it’s absolutely the case that we have not been trained in this. And I think also many of my faculty colleagues, past and present, have this idea that an accommodation is somehow like special treatment that’s making a class easier for students, when we should, John, as you mentioned, be thinking about this as an equity issue. So accommodations are meant to provide equal opportunity for success. And if you’re bringing some of these conditions into the classroom, you’re already operating at a deficit. So what are those? Well, it can be things like being really easily overloaded by sensory information. So we see this a lot with autism and ADHD, where, as someone who now understands herself to be autistic, I think about this phrase, “the lights are too loud,” like, it just feels very harsh. And when people are talking over each other, I get very flooded very quickly. This has been the case my whole life. If there are unfamiliar foods or drinks, that can be really overloading and so background noise, people who are close to each other, uncomfortable seating, these are all things that can show up in our classrooms that can cause someone with a neurodivergent brain to go into a kind of overload. And that, of course, reduces their ability to pay attention and to learn and to retain information. Unclear communication is a huge challenge for people with neurodivergent brains, because it’s often the case that there’s some sort of like inability to recognize sarcasm, or the ability to get some nonverbal communication. Oftentimes, people with neurodivergent brains will interpret everything very literally. And so they miss out on some of the nuance. And for me, it’s been this like obsession with choosing the just right word, because I need it to be precise. And I can get really fixated on that sometimes, in a way that feels very pedantic. But that is really just me very much trying to communicate clearly. When there’s unclear terminology–write professionally, or be collegial, or work well with others–like I don’t know what any of that means. I have no idea. And there’s an assumption that there’s some shared social norms that may not be as visible to people with a neurodivergent brain. There’s a lot of, of course, well documented social aspects to neurodivergence. So just like not really knowing how to work with others in an effective way, or feeling like that sense of, I’m different. I’m broken, I’m not as good as… that I mentioned earlier, can carry over into social dynamics. And then the last one that I think is really important for us to think about in terms of higher ed is executive function. So executive function is that ability to kind of be a taskmaster of your own attention and brain. And so things like prioritizing work, time management, how to take notes, how to make decisions, how to cope with the ups and downs of life, due dates, all of those things like managing systems is really hard when you have a neurodivergent brain. And we often assume that our students have those skills. And so we don’t scaffold them. We don’t help them. We don’t point them to resources, and that can be really hard. So those are just like four big clusters: sensory overload, communication, social interaction, and executive function.

John: How can faculty anticipate or design with neurodivergence in mind, particularly when many students with disabilities choose not to self identify?

Liz: Just being aware of these things that I’ve just mentioned, is hugely helpful. And I think the hard work is really just awareness. So for example, I have heard lots of my colleagues and myself at earlier points in my career, lament about students who are distracted by their cell phones or their laptops, who seemed to need to go to the bathroom three times during a 50-minute class, or who otherwise seemed to be just kind of like disconnected from class. We see that as a sign of disrespect and as of not paying attention. But a neurodivergent brain often really struggles to sit still and make visual contact with another person or object. And so it’s often the case that our neurodivergent students can learn better if they are doing something, the more physical, the better. So for some of my students, it’s things like knitting in class or coloring or doodling. This is actually not them disengaging or not paying attention. It’s them doing something that allows them to focus their attention on what you’re saying. So I like to think about performance of attention, what we often think of as paying attention. So if a neurodivergent student is going to perform attention, they’re probably not actually listening to anything you’re saying, because they’re using all of their brainpower to do the things that you think mean they’re paying attention. With that said, this sort of notion that we have to reorient our thinking about what students are doing and what that means in terms of their engagement with us, I think being really clear about scaffolding what tasks are needed, providing clear deadlines. So Karen Costa, who is just brilliant, talks a lot about ADHD, and she is a person with ADHD. And she talks about the need for more structure, not less, that flexibility can be useful, but you need a lot of structure. And for people with neurodivergent brains, it can be really helpful to have lots of small deadlines that are low stakes with some grace around them, but like clear structure is really important… messaging to students, like, here’s how you do this class. So if that’s working in a group that’s giving specific roles, and asking the students to decide who’s going to be the note taker, and who’s going to be the recorder, and who’s going to be the crazy idea person, and who’s going to be the let’s bring it back to the text person. So just kind of delineating some specific roles, communicating clearly and in multiple modalities. So especially if you’re doing a lot of audio lecturing, or giving up directions, making sure that those are also available in writing. So students can come back to them later when they know that you said something, but they don’t remember what. And then just being really aware of that sensory environment in which you’re learning. So if that’s in a physical classroom, thinking about ways to give students permission to make themselves comfortable, if that’s getting up and walking around a little bit, and just sort of saying, like, I know that that helps some of you concentrate, fine with me if you do that. Telling them that they can get up and leave the room for a couple of minutes if they need a break. If they want to bring in things to play with, color or fidget, create whatever, that’s fine too. A lot of my students like to just sit on the floor. I mean, that sounds like a disaster for me and my middle-aged body, but when you’re 18, it’s like easy to get up off the floor, and so if you want to sit on the floor, sit on the floor, it’s cool, if that helps you be more comfortable. So I think it’s awareness and then just messaging to students that they can do what they need to do. And I just want to say one more thing about this. And that is, even if you are not neurodivergent, even if you are what people define as neurotypical, you can talk about students you’ve had, people you know, friends, family members, colleagues, you know people who are neurodivergent, talk about some of the ways that they have given themselves permission to make their environments work for them. So that you’re messaging to students that you understand and that you support those kinds of self-advocacy efforts. So you don’t have to do all of that on the first day of school, [LAUGHTER], first day of class. It’s a lot, but I often include something on my syllabus that says you may have accommodations or you may not, but if there’s something that I can do to make this class easier for you to participate in meaningfully and be successful in, according to your own goals, then I will do it, as long as it’s something within my power to do. So. You don’t need formal accommodations to ask me to do something to help you.

Rebecca: One of the things that I heard you mention and often come up a lot in inclusive pedagogy and other spaces is the idea of scaffolding. Here, again, we have this assumption that everybody knows exactly what that is all the time. But part of that is really about helping students understand their priorities, perhaps within a class, and also how to manage their time related to certain kinds of tasks. Can you talk a little bit about that component of scaffolding and what that might actually look like in practice?

Liz: Yeah, it’s hard for me to tease that out without thinking about lots of other things too. Because, we, as faculty, are coming into the classroom with certain ideas about what should be important, and what students should want to do in order to be successful, whatever that means. And I have really had to learn over my teaching career to check myself on that, because my priorities are not the same as my students. I remember once I was grading a student’s final exam they had done, it was very, very early in my teaching career, I’m embarrassed to even say what they had done for their final, but it was it was multiple choice and I was grading it by hand, and I told them, they could just stick around. I would grade it real quick, and then give them their final grade, because I had done everything else before then. And I looked at the student who had come to class every day and had really meaningfully participated and said, “Your final grade as a C,” and I was so apologetic, like, “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. “And this student was like, “YES! I PASSED!” And it was a real moment for me of just like saying, “Okay, you cannot put your own values and goals onto students, because that was literally the student’s dream–was to get a C and not have to take the class again,” I think when we’re talking about students, it’s really having that very frank conversation, like, some of you are here because you are being required to take this class, and I know it wasn’t your choice, and I’m going to try to make it as the least awful it can be for you. And I’m going to ask you to try to invest at least enough time to give it a fair shot. But I don’t expect that everybody has the same goals and so let’s take a moment and reflect on what success for you looks like. And then what do you need to do over the course of the next 15 weeks, or whatever it might be, in order to make that goal. And so we sort of assume that our students’ goals are to get a good grade and to move on to whatever the next thing is. But maybe it’s not, maybe they’re just taking the class for fun, maybe they don’t care about the grade. Maybe they’re an adult learner who has a curiosity about something. After I graduated undergrad, I took an ethics class online–this was like 2001 or 2002 maybe, so it was very early days of online teaching and learning. And I took it through the community college just because I had never taken it, and I thought it might be interesting. It really wasn’t interesting for me. So I just like stopped paying attention. But I did not consider that a failure. Like I got a little bit of information. I also took a macroeconomics class, because I had never taken a macro class; I had taken micro. And it was all online, and I did all the work, but I didn’t turn in any assignments because I just didn’t care about those. I just wanted to learn it. So, I think having these conversations can be really helpful in students figuring out what it is that they want to get out of a class

John: Going to that point you made about structure. This is something we’re seeing an awful lot… certainly in the work on inclusive teaching, in Viji Sathy and Kelly Hogan’s book, as well as the work of Mary-Ann Winkelmes on transparency and learning and teaching. There seems to be a convergence that by providing students with structure and support, it can do a lot, it can benefit pretty much all students. In past discussions, when we spoke to those authors, much of the focus was on the benefits to first-gen students and to students who were historically minoritized. But it’s kind of nice to know that the same inclusive teaching strategies also addresses issues of neurodivergence.

Liz: I had an experience at my last job, where I just kept asking my dean, “Give me a set of rules and I will follow them.” And she would say, “Well, just use your best professional judgment.” And I don’t know what that means. I think people with certain kinds of neurodivergence just want you to tell them what to do and they will do it. Give me a set of very clear expectations, and I will meet them and this can work for everyone… just like clarity. And it doesn’t have to be punitive. I’m very fond of Cate Denial’s Pedagogy of Kindness. And this notion that like it should be kind, which can be as Sarah Rose Cavanagh says like a warm demander. I want you to have expectations of me, I want to know that you care about me. But just be really clear, because clarity is kind. And yes, it helps with all of those things. So the first generation students, the historically minoritized, the neurodivergent, lots of different kinds of people are benefited by this. And even the third generation middle class neurotypical student, also [LAUGHTER] benefits from clarity.

Rebecca: Imagine that, not spending all of our cognitive energy trying to figure out what people want.

Liz: Exactly. {LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: What are some of the challenges that neurodivergent faculty face in their careers? We’ve talked a lot about students, but we also know that faculty also exist.

Liz: We do. And we’re not all like cut from the same cookie cutter. I can tell you, just from my own experiences, that higher ed can be really hostile to those who are neurodivergent. I’ve had really great experiences, and I’ve had some really challenging ones. I think that it’s helpful when we’re aware of these things for students, because we often have the most power over their educational experience. But we also share power with our colleagues. And so knowing what some of these things are can help us understand the behaviors of our colleagues that we might have been inclined to read as subversive, or unprofessional, or lacking in collegiality. Those words get used a lot, for a lot of different kinds of identities and traits. Neurodivergence is certainly one of them. So as a woman who’s neurodivergent, that intersectionality means that I’m always on the lookout for that kind of language of like unprofessional and not collegial and you’re being difficult in some way. Well, or maybe I just don’t understand what it is that you’re asking of me. I also think we need to be really careful when we think about this idea of fit. So especially in hiring, we are looking for someone who will fit. But fit often means like me. And it can be very exclusionary to people who have some sort of neurodivergence, because they may not act the way that you do. But that’s actually a strength, I think. When you look at the different kinds of neurodivergent conditions, ADHD brains are so good at hyperfocus. They just don’t always do a good job of like, understanding time, right, there’s a kind of time blindness. But they’re so good at that. And autistic brains are so excited about the things that they’re excited about. And that energy is so captivating. And so these are not weaknesses, these are strengths that can really help us appreciate things in our work that we wouldn’t if we didn’t have those around. So when thinking about working with colleagues, all of the things that I said before, sensory overwhelm, communication, social interactions, and kind of executive function, we should be thinking about those things with our colleagues as well. So when I design a workshop, for example, in our Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, I’m thinking about, “Okay, how do I create a space where the chairs could be moved away from the rest of the group so that people can have a little bit of space and kind of get away from that? Can I dim the lights a little? Can I ask, make sure everybody’s using a microphone, but also let people know that if they want to put in their loop earplugs, as I do, you can do that to kind of limit some background noise. Can I make sure that everything I say is also written down somewhere so that people have something to refer to later? Can I talk about my own experiences in a way that normalizes other people doing the same?” All of those things can be used to make the environment more inviting for our colleagues. The last thing I want to say is that it is so exhausting, as a person with a disability of any kind to constantly having to advocating for yourself. So the more that non-disabled people can lend their support and their voices to advocating for easier pathways to accessibility, the less you’re taxing your disabled colleagues. So thinking about what can I do, that if I did it, would make it easier for a disabled colleague to come behind me and ask for the same?

John: Near the end of the summer you posted on the social media site formerly known as Twitter, something about a podcast and puzzles set of workshops. Have you started that? And could you talk a little bit about that?

Liz: Yes, so I’m really excited about this. And a lot of people who are not at the University of Mississippi are also excited about it. And I’m just trying to get the people on campus excited about it. So the idea here is that, and this was specifically created as a neurodivergent-friendly space. So faculty and staff can come to our center for an hour every other week. So this Wednesday will be our next one. And we play a pedagogy podcast. So we played an episode of this podcast, and we do a puzzle or some other kind of individual or parallel play is what it’s called. So I’m working on a puzzle. It’s in the next room, and I’m not done with it. And it’s driving me crazy, because I don’t like unfinished puzzles. But I have committed to not working on it, except when everybody else is here. But it’s a Funko Pop puzzle of Ted Lasso, so it’s really fun. And we’ve had two of these now, and it’s a small but mighty group who are into this, but the lights are low, it’s indirect, diffuse lighting, there’s lots of different kinds of seating, and one person comes and colors, a couple of people have come and done puzzles. But the idea is that it’s just a way to get together in a social space without the social expectation of small talk. So you can just come and show up and listen to a podcast and leave. If you want to stay and talk you can, you don’t have to, I am hoping that this becomes a movement of podcasts and puzzles. And I’m going to stick with it as long as it takes for me to make it so here, but we have probably like five or six people who have come to one of them. And I hope many more who will as it continues to spread. It’s kind of hard to describe in a website or an email, but I think once people come they see the brilliance of this… I say with all possible modesty. [LAUGHTER]

John: Have people actually finished a puzzle during the course of one of these meetings?

Liz: This Wednesday will be our third meeting. So I think the Funko Pop Ted Lasso crossover puzzle will finish this week, I hope. It’s going to drive me absolutely batty if it doesn’t, and then we’ll move on to another one.

Rebecca: That sounds like a lot of fun.

Liz: It is. And it’s a good way to kind of model why I think so many of our neurodivergent students would really thrive at a kind of way of learning that’s very different than what we’re used to in higher ed. And that’s probably why it’s hard for people to imagine why we’re doing this or what it looks like. But we have writing groups where people come into our room and do their own writing. And just that body doubling of having someone else there, while I’m trying to do something is enormously helpful. And so in this case, like I took two things that I love, that I never make time for because I feel guilty about all the other things I should be doing. So puzzles and listening to podcasts about teaching, and I just put them together. And I hope that more people will see ways to create these spaces that are perhaps a bit unconventional to higher ed. But that can open our imagination to the ways that we can model learning in different ways than the more traditional models that we’re used to seeing.

Rebecca: I like the analogy with the writing group, in that it’s really holding people accountable to do a particular thing, which is to attend to teaching in a different way, by listening to a podcast as opposed to a different kind of workshop or something and allowing them to do something with their hands.

Liz: I also have this very large bucket of fidget toys that I take to every workshop. And I say just borrow a fidget and just play with it and see how that changes your experience of the workshop. And if you find it to be soothing, imagine what normalizing this in your classes might do for your students. So my colleague who’s just a couple of doors down I have one of these little like pop balls that make like these really satisfying noises. And the first time I brought this to a workshop, she said, “Is that the sound I’ve been hearing?” I just play with it all the time.

John: Do you have any other advice for faculty and campuses who wish to better address neurodiversity?

Liz: There’s this phrase in the autism world and the disability world and I’ve been hearing it more and more and it is, “Nothing for us, without us.” And so I can tell you my perspective as someone who is neurodivergent, there’s so much expertise on your campus, and you should talk to those people. So that might be in the disabilities support services area. It might be students in your class, but just like have these conversations and find out, what can I do from my position, whatever it might be, that can make this place more welcoming to people who are neurodivergent? And I think when you’re asking that question, just like with anything else that we might be doing, then people are going to assume good intent. And they’re also going to be much more forgiving, if you make a stumble of some kind, whatever that might be. I don’t know. And so just talk to people, ask them. I feel like this is the most obvious advice that we give as faculty developers, but it’s ask your students, just ask them, they just want to be asked. And so if I was to give any advice that would be that just ask your students: “What can I do that would make this easier for you?”

Rebecca: I know, one thing that we talk a lot about on our campus is that access is really the doorway to belonging. If you don’t have access…

Liz: Yes.

Rebecca: …you’re not going to feel like you belong.

Liz: Just to know that someone is thinking about what you might need is enough to make them feel like they’re included, and that you’re listening when they tell you what they need, would be helpful.

Rebecca: So we always wrap up by asking: “What’s next?”

Liz: I have so many writing projects that I’m just sort of getting started with. So I just recently finished a manuscript on my book, The Present Professor, that I mentioned the last time we talked. And so that’s going through the publishing process and will eventually go out in the world, I assume, knock on wood. So I’m filling my time while I wait for progress there on, it seems like, about a dozen other writing projects, all of which are just kind of me thinking. I’ve been really interested lately in talking about the role of learning outcomes, and what we decide rises to the importance of a learning outcome. And if I may say this one controversial thing that I just keep saying to everyone I know, I don’t think you as a student should be able to fail a class for doing something or failing to do something that is not a learning outcome of the course. So if turning in something two days late means that I fail the assignment, then shouldn’t that be a learning outcome, timeliness? I don’t know. It just feels to me like, if we’re going to assess learning, then we should be assessing learning, and not all the other things that are performance of learning. So I’ve been thinking a lot about that and a whole bunch of other things. That’s what’s next, something, many things.

John: We had a similar conversation with Kevin Gannon, not too long ago who talked about…

Liz: …performative hardassery…

John: That was the technical term…

Rebecca: [LAUGHING]

John: …but it was…

Liz: Yes

John: …in terms of rigor, who distinguished between cognitive rigor and logistical rigor.

John: Well, thank you. It’s great talking to you and we look forward to more conversations in the future. And when your book gets closer to coming out, we’d be very happy to have you back on to talk about that as well as any other topic that comes up in between now and then.

Liz: Absolutely. I so appreciate the work you guys do, and I’m grateful and honored to be a part of it.

Rebecca: It was great talking to you. Thank you

[MUSIC]

John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

Ganesh: Editing assistance by Ganesh.

[MUSIC]

303. Higher Ed Then and Now

Posted in access, assessment, attention, authentic learning, cognitive science, diversity, edtech, engagement, equity, evidence-based practices, feedback, first-generation students, grading, higher education, inclusion, learning, pedagogy, retrieval practice, sleep, teaching
August 23, 2023

Teaching practices have gradually evolved as we’ve learned more about how humans learn. From one year to the next, these changes may appear small, but the cumulative effect is profound. In this episode, Todd Zakrajsek joins us to reflect back on the changes that have occurred in higher ed during our careers.

Todd is an Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of a Faculty Development Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the director of four Lilly conferences on evidence-based teaching and learning. Todd is the author of many superb books, and has published four books in the past four years. His most recent book is a fifth edition of Teaching at it’s Best, a book he co-authored with Linda Nilson.

Show Notes

  • Zakrajsek, T. and Nilson, L. B. (2023). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. 5th edition. Jossey-Bass.
  • Zakrajsek, T. D. (2022). The new science of learning: how to learn in harmony with your brain. Routledge.
  • Harrington, C., Bowen, J. A., & Zakrajsek, T. D. (2017). Dynamic lecturing: Research-based strategies to enhance lecture effectiveness. Routledge.
  • EdPuzzle
  • PlayPosit
  • ChatGPT
  • Wayback Machine

Transcript

John: Teaching practices have gradually evolved as we’ve learned more about how humans learn. From one year to the next, these changes may appear small, but the cumulative effect is profound. In this episode, we reflect back on the changes that have occurred in higher ed during our careers.

[MUSIC]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer…

Rebecca: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

[MUSIC]

John: Our guest today is Todd Zakrajsek, and I am with Todd here in Durham, North Carolina. Todd is an Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of a Faculty Development Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the director of four Lilly conferences on evidence-based teaching and learning. Todd is the author of many superb books, and has published four books in the past four years. His most recent book is a fifth edition of Teaching at it’s Best, a book he co-authored with Linda Nilson. Welcome back, Todd.

Todd: Well, thank you, John. Well, this is exciting. And Rebecca may be a long ways away, but I have never been arm’s length from a person who interviewed me for a podcast before.

Rebecca: Isn’t that cool?

John: And we’ve really done that before either at a conference or at Oswego,

Todd: I feel very special.

Rebecca: Well, we can celebrate with our teas. So, today’s teas are:… [LAUGHTER]

Todd: I’m drinking a peach mango that I got from some teas that John brought, which are fantastic.

Rebecca: John, how about you?

John: I am drinking a Tea Forte black currant tea, which I brought from Oswego, in a new mug that was given to me by Claire McNally, when she visited this area last week.

Todd: Love Claire, she’s fantastic.

John: And it has kangaroos on it.

Todd: Yeah.

Rebecca: And I can’t see it. Let me see it, John. Oh, that’s a cool mug.

Todd: It’s a good mug. I got a mug from her university. But I didn’t realize I should have brought it. So I feel bad about that. But it is a podcast. So I didn’t think about what it would look like.

John: That’s true, we generally don’t do a lot of visuals on here.

Rebecca: And I have a blue sapphire tea in my Tea Rex mug.

Todd: Well, that’s a nice mug,

John: We’ve invited you back to talk a little bit about how some of the changes you’ve observed in college teaching across your career have impacted how you teach today. When did your work in higher ed begin?

Todd: Actually, it started when I was a graduate student. So back in 1987. So there’s no reason to try to figure out how old I am. Now I’ve basically specifically dated myself here. I started teaching, I got to teach an introduction to statistics course. And I had so much fun that I taught again the following year. And by the time I left my graduate program, I had taught more courses in that program than any other graduate student had ever taught in the psychology department there. I really loved teaching right from the beginning, when from the beginning, very concerned about student learning, and just getting rolling.

Rebecca: What was it about the teaching, Todd, that really got you hooked?

Todd: Just watching the studentsis. it’s the same thing as it is today, when you have an individual who’s struggling with something, and suddenly they get it and you realize that they may eventually get it on their own, but you realize how much you’ve helped them to move that along very quickly. And facilitating the learning process, I just really love that. That doesn’t mean I was fantastic at it. But I really did love it.

Rebecca: Sometimes the things we love the most are things that we’re not great at to start with.

Todd: That’s true.

John: My experience was similar, actually, I started in 1980, with a course where I had a fellowship, so I didn’t have to teach. But there was a sudden shortage in the department. And they asked me to fill in. And I was planning to go on into research. But it was just so much fun teaching that I’ve never stopped.

Rebecca: I taught as a graduate student too, and taught the whole time I was there. But I started a little bit later in 2003.

Todd: Alright, so that was a couple of years later.

Rebecca: Just a couple.

Todd: Yeah, I had kind of a funny start, I will mention that when I first started that after the first semester of teaching, my students got almost all As and Bs. And the department chair called me in and he said, “I’m not going to have you teach any more courses.” And I said, “why not?” And he says, “Well, you give grades away like candy, we have to have better standards than that.” And I said, “Well, how are you basing that?” And he says, “Well, you know, we looked at the grade point averages.” And I said, “Well, how about if I bring in my final exam, and just walk through it, and then you can tell me how it could change to be more rigorous.” And so it was great. I showed it to him at the beginning. And like the bottom of the first page, the students had to calculate a statistical value, then I had them explain how they came about that number. But if they had used a different test how might it been inappropriately found and what the interpretation might have been, based on the fact that they had done it wrong with a different test. I thought it was important for them to understand how these things can change. The Chair said, “I can’t believe you have your students in the first class actually talk about various tests like that.” And I said, “Yeah, I did. Then we turned the page he says “You did nonparametric tests?” I said, “Well, yeah, we did parametric tests, but then I thought they should know the equivalent.” And he said, “We never do that.” And then he turned the last page and he said “You had them do a two-way ANOVA? You’re only supposed to go through one-way ANOVA.” I said, “Yeah, but we’d finished everything and we still had a week left. And I figured I might as well introduce the next concept to them. And so I showed them how to do a two-way ANOVA and they ended up with all As and Bs. So if you could help me in how to push their grades down and give them lower grades, I’m perfectly happy to do that.” And he then set me up with two courses the next semester, but it’s that reliance on the teaching evaluations is always funny.

Rebecca: Todd, it’s just funny, as we’ve gotten to know you through the podcast [LAUGHTER] it sounds so perfect that that was your first experience. [LAUGHTER]

Todd: Yeah, I’ve lived my entire career on the edge. [LAUGHTER]

John: And those sorts of arguments are still occurring in a lot of classes today about rigor and the need to keep grades lower.

Todd: Yeah.

John: They’re less severe than they were a few years ago.

Todd: Yes, but also looking at how well a person’s teaching based on student evaluations. I mean, we should be looking at authentic assessment. Some things have changed through the years, some things have not changed through the years.

Rebecca: Well, technology is one of those things that has changed.

Todd: Woosh, yeah.

Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit about what tech was like in the classroom when you first started and how it’s evolved a bit?

Todd: Yeah, I know you have some listeners who have been teaching for a very long time. So those of you have been teaching for like 30 to 40 years, just stop and think back about what it was like when we first started. For those of you who have been teaching like Rebecca since 2003, let’s just mention that technology back then was mostly pens and chalk and chalkboards. So back then, of course, there’s technology, there’s always technology, but we were using overhead projectors. This was long before the internet came along to really be used in the classes. LCD projectors were not out yet. Canvas, Blackboard, Sakai, all those learning management systems were not around. We didn’t have any of the ways to email individuals, you couldn’t email your students back then. And there was no ChatGPT to write your papers for you.

Rebecca: But there were calculators that could do all the work for you.

Todd: Yes, but this is the cool part. Back when I started teaching statistics, I’m glad you mentioned the calculators, huge debate back then was whether or not the students should calculate the statistical values by hand using the calculator, because computers had just come onto the scene and we could punch the data into a computer and have a computer run an ANOVA for you. Should you calculate it by hand? Should you run it to the computer? And there was a huge camp that said you should do it by hand or you will never understand a statistical value. And I said, “You know, we’ve got the technology there. Why don’t we have the students use the computer to do the mundane stuff, and we’ll have more time to talk about the theoretical and the important implications.” But even back then we were having the discussions about whether to use the technology at hand or not. Oh, and by the way, we are also hanging grades on doors. So we would figure out the grades, we’d tack it to the door, and then the students who want to know what their grades were for the class would swing by and look at the door.

John: And they were sorted alphabetically, to make it easier for people to find where they were in the grade list.

Todd: Yeah, it was great. We listed them according to their social security number, [LAUGHTER] which was a little different back then. And yeah, we actually did that back then. But as John pointed out, they were listed by number so nobody knew whose number went with whom, except, surprisingly, they were alphabetical on the door. So not only could you figure out Armstrong’s exam score, you’d get Armstrong’s social security number as well. Yeah, times have changed.

John: And it was also back in the day of dittos and mineos as well, which was the only way of disseminating information on paper.

Todd: This is so much fun. We’ll get to some real meat of this thing. But that walk down memory lane has some fun stuff too. The dittos…

Rebecca: I remember dittos, just for the record, okay.

Todd: Yes. So you probably remember, if you dittoed just before class, and you handed it out in class, the students would all pull the ditto up to their face, so they could smell the ditto fluid. And they got that smell. I was running dittos one time in the graduate student office, and I noticed when I looked down because it ran out of fluid, and I had to put some more fluid in, and I looked down and I noticed that the floor was kind of eaten away by this ditto fluid. And then… this is the best part… About a month later, I was digging for something in the closet and I found extra tiles and I thought they should put these tiles down to replace the ones that are all eaten and on the side of the box it said these tiles were long lasting and durable, reinforced with asbestos. So that ditto fluid was eating through asbestos tiles. That’s some strong stuff.

John: …to make it a little bit more friable so that it would disseminate in the air nicely.

Todd: Well, there had to be something to help the faculty members who were running all their own dittos to not mind doing it, and one way of doing this is to have them use ditto fluid, because I’ll tell you, you may not have liked it when you started, but by the end, it was all right. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: It’s funny that we’re taking this walk down memory lane, because on our campus, I was in our historic lecture classroom today in Sheldon Hall.

John: What are some of the other changes that have occurred and how have they influenced how we teach?

Todd: Yeah, so it’s interesting, I did the walk down memory lane and we were chatting about this stuff. It’s all fun, but thinking about how the changes have taken place. I think that’s really important. So there have been massive changes. I think that we tend to forget, it’s so easy to communicate with students now. Heck, people are texting now so that you can text back and forth with students. But think about how that has transcended or gone through time. There was a time when I would have to call and leave a message for a student on an answering machine, and then they would call back and we would try to find a time that we could talk on the phone. If we wanted to have a conversation. I could either leave a note for the student or I could call and leave a message that says least come see me after class. So even having a conversation with a student was difficult, then it became easier with email because you could start emailing back and forth. And now we have Zoom. And the equity in the way that this has changed, just think about the difference of this, if I’m leaving a message for a student, they may not even have an answering machine, if they’re living off campus with limited means back then. So even getting in touch with a student would be challenging. Now I can have a Zoom conversation with a student who doesn’t have to hire a babysitter, who doesn’t have to find reliable transportation, who doesn’t have to drive across town and burn gas, and to do all of those things that it would take to have a 15-minute conversation that in the past would have been really hard, and even four or five years ago would have been challenging. The grades, why in the world would a person have to leave… and I was teaching in very northern Michigan, there were days that the wind chill was 75 degrees below zero… and students would leave their dorm rooms and walk across campus to see a grade on the door. It’s actually physically dangerous. And now we have learning management systems, we could post things for students. Interlibrary loan used to take weeks to get a document that you can now go on and get. People can lament all of these technological changes at times, but we’re actually creating more and more equity within the higher education system as we make certain things easier. Not saying that we’re anywhere near an equitable system yet, but we’re moving in a really good direction. And a lot of those changes are helping us to get there.

Rebecca: I’m thinking about all the times when I get to go to the door or meet after class, it really assumes that students are a certain kind of student, they’re full time, they have time. And our students now are working [LAUGHTER], and where they’re juggling a lot of different schedules and things.

Todd: Yeah, and I mean, we want to be careful too. And I agree with you 100%. But they were juggling back then too. But some of the things we were doing, for instance, I taught a night class. Now I would probably suggest if I was going to teach a class from 7 to 10pm that I would teach it through zoom, because there’s a lot of reasons that it’s good to do. But I had students that I noticed in class, would very quickly at the end of class would start talking to other students and I couldn’t figure out what it was doing because a lot of buzzing and stuff. And what I found was that there were certain students who were uncomfortable, and we were in a very safe campus, but they were uncomfortable walking to their car at 10 o’clock at night. So I started saying to the students, “Hey, I’m gonna park a car… and when we showed up, there were quite a few cars there… but I’ll be under the second light, I drive a little red Chevette, not a Corvette, a Chevette, but I’ll have my car there. If you want to park near me, we can walk out together.” And there were students that were not paying attention to almost any of the class because they were fearful of how they were going to get to their car safely. When you think about Zoom and stuff, it’s even safety factors, I would never have a review session now like I used to at 8 to 9 pm the night before the exam because I’m exposing people to potentially dangerous situations. Now we’d have zoom sessions. But I could tell you 40 years ago, there was no even concept of what zoom would be and how it would work. Even Star Trek didn’t have stuff like that.

John: And there was also, besides the inequity associated with people who were working, many campuses had a lot of commuting students who could not easily get back to campus for office hours. Or if they were just taking classes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and your office hours was on a Tuesday, they’d have to come in that extra day, arranging childcare, or their work to be able to fit that into the schedule.

Todd: Yeah, it really did start to change that system. So we got a little bit more equity, and like you were saying too, the commuting students, the part-time students, the students taking distance courses. When I first started teaching, I was writing… oh my word, remember the correspondence courses? …and you mail away and get a packet of material, you take a test at a local library and, and they talk about distance education being not as good as on campus, but at least better than nothing. And now we’re finally getting to a system where we can stop assuming that those folks who are coming in for part-time courses and stuff are just getting something better than nothing. They’re actually getting something similar to full college courses, which some of those online courses are actually as good or better than college courses that are on campus. But all that’s changing with the technology. It’s crazy.

John: And there’s a lot of research that supports that in terms of the relative learning gains with online and face-to-face, as well as hybrid courses, which seemed to outperform others in a few meta studies that have been done. But those were options that just weren’t available back then. And the early online courses were often designed to be replicas of face-to-face classes, and they probably didn’t work quite as well. But we’ve learned since that, which brings us to the issue of research. During the time that you’ve been teaching, there’s been a lot of research on teaching and learning. While some of it was taking place, it wasn’t very widely disseminated to faculty.

Todd: Yeah, that is true, too. It’s so much easier to get technology out. It’s easier to gather data, it’s easier to write it up. It’s easier to edit it so all of those types of things that are happening now that couldn’t happen before. And as a result, we’re learning a lot more about how people learn, you know, the book I did on the New Science of Learning, looking at a lot of the ways that students learn. And part of it’s just the ease of getting to information. But also part of it’s just being able to investigate how people process information. I used to teach Introductory Psychology back then, we would talk about the stages of sleep. And nobody really knew, for instance, what REM sleep was about, we knew that you had to have it or else it caused some problems. Deep sleep we knew was important, we now have indications that deep sleep for consolidation is necessary for semantic memory. If your sleep is interrupted, you can get eight hours of sleep. But if you don’t get deep sleep, the information doesn’t get consolidated. Procedural memory, how to give shots and kick balls and do anything procedurally looks like it’s more solidified during REM sleep. So again, the different types of sleep are associated with us learning long term, different types of information. We never knew that before all this technology was running around. In fact, back then I gotta say, I remember from my intro psych class being told that you were born with a certain number of neurons, and as you live through life, neurons would die. And if you killed them by drinking or doing something like drugs or something, they were gone forever, and you would never get more. And if you broke a connection, it was broken forever. That’s just simply not true. But it’s what we thought back then. So technology has really allowed us to look better at how people learn, different ways of helping them to learn and different ways they can even study. By the way, before we move on, we now have this physiological demonstration that staying up all night and cramming the night before the test. Even though it gets you slightly higher grades on the test, we now know that because the information is not consolidated that it won’t be there a week later or two weeks later. So we’ve always told students, you shouldn’t do it, but now we can actually show them why it doesn’t work.

John: And the LMS itself has offered a lot of ways of giving more rapid feedback to students with some automated grading with some things to give them more low-stakes testing opportunities. And those were things that we just couldn’t easily do back when you started teaching.

Todd: No, John, that’s a really good one. And we know that one of the most consistent findings right now in all of learning and memory stuff is that the more often you do something, the easier it becomes, long-term potentiation. Which means the more frequently you retrieve information from your long-term memory, the easier it is to retrieve. And just like you’d mentioned, we can now do LMS systems that are set up so that you could do practice quizzes, you could do dozens or hundreds of practice quizzes and keep pulling that information out over and over and over again. That was just not possible before this. And so the LMS helps with that, it helps by giving feedback, really good feedback so that students know what they’re doing well, and what they’re not doing well. And it helps faculty members to design feedback specifically for certain types of projects, and so that I can more easily give more feedback without spending a lot more time on it. So LMSs have done a tremendous amount of work. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that you can have all of the LMS systems loaded with the content. So students can log in and get their information without leaving their house. If there’s fiscal challenges with your class, you can put in articles, the students may not have to buy a book, they could read the articles. And so we’ve got students who were able to come to classes because they can afford to be there. By the way, I remember being on a committee when I was a graduate student, and we were looking at financial aid and different financial systems. And I remembered asking the Chief Financial Officer, I said, “What increase in tuition does there need to be before you start to see students drop off because they can’t afford to be here?” And this was about 40 years ago, but he said $100 for a year, if they have to pay $100 this year more than last year, some students won’t come back. If we look at the price of textbooks now, textbooks can cost $400. So, a book like that is definitely going to make a difference between some students being able to take the class or not. So LMS systems make this possible.

John: And they also make it easier to share OER resources that don’t have any cost for students, or some less expensive adaptive learning platforms, giving all students that first-day access. I remember, not so long ago, when I was still using textbooks in some classes, students would wait several weeks before they got that book. And that put them at a severe disadvantage. And the people who were being put at a disadvantage. were generally the students who came in with the weakest backgrounds because they came from lower resourced school districts.

Todd: Yeah, if they had the resources, they would have the better background foundational material, but they’d be able to buy the books. And you mentioned OERs. So open educational resources are really another thing that are really valuable because back then, before the technology, you couldn’t produce something that would be readily available like throughout the world. And so this project that’s going on now where they’re doing introductory level books in all the different disciplines, you can get an OER introductory psychology textbook that students can log in and read. None of that was possible before the technology. So even the creation of OERs has changed so much.

Rebecca: Well, speaking of digital materials, libraries have changed significantly too over time from having completely physical collections and interlibrary loans and things that take a lot of time to having a lot of digital resources, which changes access to research and materials that you can populate into your classes, but also can aid students in the work that they’re doing. Can you talk a little bit about the change in libraries and how that’s impacted how you’ve taught?

Todd: Yeah, you know, libraries have been fascinating to watch over the last 40 years, because it used to be the biggest challenge librarians had before them was which books to put on the shelves because there was a finite amount of shelf space. And there were lots and lots of books. And so that was the big thing. We used to take out journals that weren’t used very much to make room for other journals. Through time, little by little, they started digitizing all that stuff. And I can remember chatting with librarians, one conversation I had was back around 2001. I said, gonna be interesting, because there’s gonna come a day where there’ll be no books in the library, and the Dean of Libraries said “Well, there’s always going to be books.” I said, “Not always, potentially.” But even if we reduce them, I said, “What is your foresight? How is the library going to change?” And so he had a couple of ideas. But what it basically boiled down to our conversation is, I always felt like a library was like the brain of the campus, it had the books, and it had all of the information that you could go and get. As the books left, and things were diversified in a way that you could find this stuff, you could get all the information right from your dorm room, or from your apartment, when the internet came along, you could get anything you needed, then the library was still a physical space that was in the middle of campus. And what it should become is a learning commons, a place where people go to share and to learn from one another. And I think that’s what’s really changed is individuals still just pile into libraries and use the space, but they use it in different ways. They go there to meet other individuals to work, which they did before. But they took away that aspect of going there for the book part. And it meant all of those shelves got emptied, and they started pushing them out. And you can go into libraries right now that have very few shelves. But they have webcams, they have smartboards, they have spaces where folks can plug in their computers and share with one another. They’ve got screens set up so that you can project and have students sitting around a table, they’ve got Google Glass set up, all of these types of things that bring students together to use technology to learn from one another.

John: And they have cafes to help support that to make it easier for people to gather.

Todd: Yeah, you could swing by and get a cup of tea.

Rebecca: It’s funny, even when I was in high school, my sister and I would rely on going to the library to have access to a computer so that we could even type of paper, because we didn’t have one at home. And that kind of place of having the technology started a long time ago, but it’s amped up quite a bit over the last 20 years.

Todd: Yeah, and I agree completely. And the computers that are there. I mean, even right now, with the books dissipating, there a’re still large numbers of computers. And oftentimes, they’ll even be an area in a library that’s carved out with really high-end computers. But it gives students an opportunity to go. We make this assumption that everybody has a computer and they don’t. But libraries give them that opportunity.

John: Yeah, for those students working on smartphones or Chromebooks, that gives them access to all the tools that students with $2000 or $3000 or $4,000 computers.

Todd: Yes, because smartphones can work for lots of things. But they’re a little tough to write a paper on

John: When I started teaching, and probably when you did too, the predominant mode of instruction, which actually still is often the predominant mode of instruction in many departments, was lecture. That’s changed quite a bit since then. Could you talk a little bit about the shift from lecture-based courses to courses that involve much more active learning activity?

Todd: Yeah, or they just involve a lot more of everything. The concept of flipped classrooms, which was almost impossible 30, 40 years ago, because you really couldn’t get the information to the students. Yes, it was kind of possible, but whoo, if it was hard now, it was really hard back then. But the ability to get information out to students that they can read it before they come to class. But coming back to the lectures… So I’m going to take this moment and those of you who know me know that I’m going to do this, is that we still have no evidence that lectures are bad, but there’s something that we need to really keep in mind. I think this is vital. I do think it’s important for us to be able to talk about buzz groups and jigsaws and fish bowls and lectures and Socratic lectures, discussion lectures, all those different methodologies out there so that we know what we’re talking about when we chat with one another. But I do think it’s time that we stop talking about lectures being more effective than one thing or fishbowls being more effective than something else and look at the components of what is valuable in a learning experience.

John: And a good reference for that is a book on Dynamic Lecturing, which you happen to be a co-author of.

Todd: That is true and in fact that there’s the Dynamic Lecturing. And then there’s a chunk in that about The New Science of Learning. And then there’s a whole chapter in that about Teaching at its Best, because that’s a good point, John, thank you.

Rebecca: It’s almost like you’re trying to slip it in everywhere you are.

Todd: Because the research… people keep talking about one methodology being better than another. Here it is, folks, you can be a hideous lecturer, you can be a phenomenal lecturer. And if you’re a hideous lecturer, you’re not going to learn anything. If you’re a phenomenal lecturer, students will learn from you but they won’t learn all the time, it depends on some student factors. I’ve actually been exposed to group work in flipped classrooms that were awful. And so that concept is we start thinking about and this is why it’s going to come back to the technology, we think about the elements that need to be there, that are necessary for learning to take place. I’m just going to do this, because it’s not the topic I’ll make it very brief, is let’s just go with three things. If you don’t have your attention, as a teacher, if my learners aren’t attending to what I’m saying, if they’re on their phone or thinking about bacon, then they can’t process what I’m presenting. And if you’re having a think-pair-share, if they’re not attending to the person they’re sitting next to, you have to have attention. Number two, they have to have some value. If I’m hearing somebody or I’m reading something, and this has no value to me, it’s really hard to get it into your long-term memory and to learn it. And number three, I have to have a clue of what’s happening, I got to understand some aspects. Now if we think about attention, value, and understanding, now we can flip back to the technology. This is why gaming works. Gaming draws the attention, it increases the value, because you want to win the game, and it has understanding. We have all played games. You open up the old board games, and now it’s digital, where you don’t have a clue what the game is. It’s like, if you advance a player four pieces and the opponent advances five pieces, you have to go back three spaces, unless it’s a Tuesday. When those instructions are that complicated, you don’t understand. So we can use technology to help with attention, we can use technology to help with the value of what’s going on. And we can use that technology to help with understanding. Those are things that were very difficult before. And they allow us to do things like a mini lecture and then shift over to an active learning exercise, and then say, take all this information and create a Zoom session tomorrow that will go over it again. So the technology has really helped us to be able to do all of these things to get at the core of learning, a topic I barely care about. [LAUGHTER]

John: That’s an important one, because people often see this as this binary issue where you lecture or you use active learning. And there are some really effective ways to combine them. And in fact, in that book on dynamic lecturing, it was suggested that lecture can be more important in introductory courses, when students don’t have as much of a knowledge base.

Todd: You’re absolutely right. Discovery learning is a really great way to learn if you’ve got a lot of time. I can just put you into a room with some other people and say, “Here’s some data, and here’s some things we need to know. Go.” And if you don’t have any foundational knowledge at all, it takes forever to figure it out, you go online, you know what to look for, I could do a five-minute lecture, and at the end of five minutes, set it up and say, “Now go and work with your neighbors. In fact, here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to have you each work in small groups in class, I’m going to open up a Padlet. At each table, I want you to go in and add your information or put it into the column that corresponds with your group number.” As an instructor, I can watch everything develop in front of me. While I’m in the room, I can look at my laptop and see it and walk over to a table and say, “looks like you’re struggling a little bit.” I’ve lectured, I put them into small groups, I’ve had them use technology, I’ve created a little bit of competition on who can come up with what and I’ve had a way for me to monitor it and give them feedback. That is so different than what teaching used to look like. So pulling it all together, that’s what we do.

Rebecca: The tools to be able to monitor have been really helpful in my own teaching and being able to get a better pulse on what’s going on and get a nice overview and then be more targeted in how to interact with small groups rather than just kind of wandering around more aimlessly like I think I did initially. [LAUGHTER]

Todd: Yeah, and this is all going to be great until we get our cognitive load headbands that I’m waiting to be developed. So anybody who’s listening, take this idea, run with it, you can make a bazillion dollars and then take me out to dinner or something. I want a headband and the headband has a light and it measures brainwave activity. And then as I’m teaching, if you start to be a little bit like it’s a little bit too much, you’re moving out of that zone of proximal development, the light turns from green to a yellow. And then when it hits red is like when you’re trying to put together an Ikea bookcase and someone comes by and says “What do you think of this?” and you say, “Errr, I’m working on an Ikea bookcase right now.” …that shutting down with that red light. I’m telling ya, that’s going to be the technology we’ll want next.

Rebecca: It would be so helpful. [LAUGHTER]

Todd: You can actually look and see somebody else’s zones of proximal development and their cognitive load. Whoof. Which by the way, there’s a little party game that they’ll do periodically at parties. It’s like if you’re a superhero, what would you want your superpower to be? And I was in a room one time and one person said they wanted to fly and somebody else said that they wanted to be invisible, which real quickly in my head, I’m thinking, what could you possibly gain that wasn’t illegal or creepy if you’re invisible. So aside from that, transporting and everything else, and they got to me, and I said, “I want to be able to see people’s zones of proximal development. If that were my superpower, I’d be the best teacher.”

John: I bet that went over really well at those parties. [LAUGHTER]

Todd: Yeah, my friends all said “You are amazingly smart and quite insightful.” They used different words, but that’s what I heard. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: They didn’t start with what is that? [LAUGHTER]

Todd: As soon as I start talking, most of my friends just shake their head and drink whatever beverage they have near them. [LAUGHTER] So yeah, it’s good times, good times. They’re all impressed. They don’t say it all the time, but I know they are.

Rebecca: I think one of the things that often happens with technology is that it allows us to get things quickly and move through things quickly. But sometimes, as you just noted, learning doesn’t happen quickly.

Todd: Yeah.

Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit about speed and the difference between maybe not having all the technology and all the things really quick versus maybe now where we have it at our fingertips, but do we always want it at that speed?

Todd: So there’s another study that I’m waiting to see. This is an easy study, folks, somebody can run this one quickly. We all know that students are listening to any recorded lectures or recorded material that they have to watch, 1.7 is about the best speed that we tend to see people listening. 2.0 is a little bit fast for some folks. 1.0 is like normal speed, that’s no good, too slow. So what I’m curious about is the space between words and between sentences that our brains, because they move so fast, we can listen faster than somebody can talk. And we have all this other stuff going on is I can be thinking and processing while you’re talking to me. But if I bumped that up to one seven, I think we close the gaps. And I hear it a lot faster. But what I don’t think is happening is the cognitive processing while I’m listening. The active listening component to it. So I think technology can create concerns in those directions. And students who do try to process material too fast… we’ll wait and see.

John: And that’s especially important in flipped classrooms where students do watch these videos outside. One of the things I’ve been doing with those, though, is embedding questions in the video so they can watch them as quickly as they want. But then they get these knowledge checks every few minutes. And then if they find they’re not able to answer it, they may go back and get their attention back and watch that portion again.

Todd: Yeah, I think that’s a really good way to go. EdPuzzle’s kind of a fun technology to use. I don’t know if that’s the one you used.

John: I’m using Playposit, which is a bit more expensive, it works beautifully. I love it, they did just double the price this year, though, it was bought by a new company.

Todd: This is the tricky spot now as the prices are going up. You know, inflation is a terrible thing to waste. Anytime somebody can raise prices now it’s like, “ooh, inflation”. So you know, prices double, inflation is 8% with runaway, now it’s back down around three. But when inflation was 8%, they doubled the price and say, “Hey, we’ve got to,” but yes, it’s some of them are expensive. There’s lots of things that are less expensive. Oftentimes we pay for functionality that help us but the freemiums kind of thing. So stuff that’s inexpensive. I just wanna let everybody out there know just about anything you want to do in class or can think about doing it, there’s a way to do it for either free, or probably under $100 a year, which I know $100 can be expensive for some people, it’s about eight bucks a month. And so things like Padlet that I think might be up around 140 now, so maybe $12 a month, can change how much time you spend doing things, and how much time for students. But yeah, I love the embedded questions to help slow things down.

Rebecca: I think that the cognitive load can happen really quickly if we’re piling lots of information in but not always providing the time to process and use that information in some way in the kind of activities that you were talking about. Or knowing when everybody’s red light is going off in the class.

Todd: Or when people try to do multiple things. I mean, now you’ve got the technology around. So if students are trying to listen to an assignment while they’re texting their friend and have a TV on, I mean, we’re living in an age where there is a lot going on, and people believe they can process lots of things. Evolution doesn’t happen quite that fast. And so I think we have to be careful with that one.

John: One other thing that’s happened is back when you and I both started teaching, the only way students generally communicated their learning was either on typed pages or on handwritten notes. Now we have many more types of media that students can use. And also we’ve seen a bit of an expansion of open pedagogy. How does that help students or how does that affect student learning?

Todd: Wow, that’s really changed a lot as well. Blue Books. Remember the blue books? I think they still sell blue books in the library. They may cost more than the I think it was eight cents when I started, but the concept of writing things down, you turn them into the faculty member, the faculty member would grade them and turn them back. One of the big things that I caught years and years ago was so much wasted cognitive energy in terms of what they produced. I’d read a paper from a student and think this is amazing, and no one will ever see it. It was written for me, I graded it. And now it’s done. I think the technology has changed so many things. One of the biggest things, I would encourage all the listeners, any faculty member out there is, whenever possible, create something that will take the students’ work, the things that they’re doing, and use it to make society better. It’s not that hard. There’s assignments that you can do on Wikipedia. Anybody who wants to complain about Wikipedia, if you don’t like it, I’m gonna go back to Tim Sawyer, who is a faculty member of mine, my very first time I ever did TA work. I was complaining about some students. And he said, “You can complain three times. And after you’ve complained three times, either stop talking,” he was a little bit ruder about that, “or do something about it… just shut up or do something.” And so I complained about Wikipedia for a while, that it wasn’t all that effective. And I thought, well, if I don’t like the page on cognitive load on Wikipedia, I could give an assignment of my cognitive Psych class to go on to Wikipedia and fix it. And so you can have Wikipedia assignments, there’s so many things you could do. Here’s one for you. If you’re doing one on communication, you could have your students go and take pictures or short videos somewhere on campus of something that’s meaningful to them, and then jot down why it’s meaningful, take that compilation of stuff and send it over to the office on campus that does publicity. What better way of drawing students to campus than to have all of these students that have said, I love sitting by the pond because… and in the past, we would have had students write a paper about someplace on campus that you think is effective, put it in the blue book, we would grade it, we turn it back to the students. And that is a waste of possibilities. And so I think we do have lots of ways that we can get the students involved in helping through technology,

John: One of our colleagues in SUNY, Kathleen Gradel, had an assignment for a first-year course, where the students went out, took pictures, geocoded it and added it to a map layer that was then shared with other first-year students about useful resources on campus and their favorite spots on campus, which is another great example of that type of authentic learning.

Todd: Yes, for the authentic learning, there are just so many possibilities because of the technology. If anyone doesn’t have ideas, ask deans, ask the provost, ask the president on your campus, like what kind of information would be helpful, either for the next round of accreditation or for just helping the campus and we can design those things. Another one I did was we took students to the museum. We’d go to the museum, almost any class could kind of find some way to tie museums in, and through the museum, not only would they write stuff that the folks at the museum who did curation would help use, but also just helping the students to see how issues from the museum, how artifacts and things can be used in their own life, to better understand.

Rebecca: When I first started teaching, community-based learning was popular, in fad at the time, and I think having the experience of being a student in a class like that, but then also a faculty member teaching classes like that has really informed the kinds of projects that I do. Maybe they’re not always community-based learning, but they’re often community oriented, whether it’s the campus or even the surrounding community that the campus is situated in to help students get connected. There’s so many nonprofits that need partners and love, there’s always a project that can be done. [LAUGHTER]

Todd: There is. And I used to be a director for a service learning component of the campus. And yeah, there’s just so much out there that we can do to help others.

Rebecca: And students always had such a strong connection. And they didn’t want to fail because other people were depending on them. And so there was a real investment in the work that they did on projects like that.

Todd: I will admit that I’ve never experienced it myself. I’ve never even heard of anybody that if the students are doing some kind of authentic learning, that their authentic learning is then used to help somebody else. I have never heard students say “What a waste of time” or “I hate that class,” or “those assignments are just busy work.” They’ve never used those terms.

John: One common sort of project is to create resources that could be shared with elementary or secondary school students in the disciplines. And again, they can see the intrinsic value of that.

Todd: Yeah. Students could write short manuals on how to learn and then pass that on to the first-year students. And so upper-division students could be helping the lower-division students because not everybody can get a copy of The New Science of Learning, third edition.

John: …available from… [LAUGHTER]

Todd: Available at… used to be Stylus. Since Stylus was sold to Routledge, now it’s available at Routledge. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: Given the historical background that we’ve walked through today, what if we think about the future? Where do you see technological changes or learning theory changes impacting the future of higher ed?

Todd: Yeah, we’re living at an interesting time. I like to point out to folks that when you go back to Socrates, Plato kind of time there was a thought that if you wrote something down, it would weaken the mind so we shouldn’t write things down. Luckily, some individuals wrote things down or we never would have known. We’ve gone through several iterations of those kinds of things. Samuel Johnson, I believe it was, who said “With the ready availability of books, teachers are no longer needed. If you want to learn something, you could go get a book on it.” Well, that was a couple of 100 years ago. And we still have faculty members, we have students writing things down, we’re reading, I don’t imagine how you could teach without writing things down and having books. The internet came along, as we were discussing earlier, while we were teaching, we watched the internet show up. And there were people who said, “Well, with the internet, there’s going to be no need for teachers anymore, because students can get whatever they want.” I can’t imagine teaching without the internet right now. So as we’ve gone through each of these iterations, there’s been this fear that maybe we’d be supplanted by some technology followed by “I don’t know how I’d work without that,” it’s a little trickier now, because with generative AI, we’re talking about not just something being available, but actually creating something. I don’t know what that’s going to look like. But there’s some real possibilities that the generative AI ChatGPT, could do things like help students who have writer’s block, get started. And that’s an individual that maybe could produce something really cool, but just can’t get started. I didn’t publish my first book until about seven or eight years ago, because I’m one of those individuals who has a terrible time from a blank screen. I just have a terrible time with that. And so now, I don’t use ChatGPT to actually write anything significant. But I will tell you that I will use it for the first paragraph. That’s all, just one paragraph. And then I completely rewrite that. And there’s no actually trace of it. But it’s something that gets me going.

John: So can we count on more than a book a year going forward? [LAUGHTER]

Todd: No, no, no, no, you can’t. So exhausting. But the concepts that will help students that can do that, I think that’s going to be helpful for them. So there’ll be a type of student who couldn’t have produced before, but now can. We are definitely going to run into some challenges, though, with students who are going to just use generative AI and use artificial intelligence to actually create and to hand something in instead of doing the work. So I do think we’re in a challenging time right now. And I wouldn’t make light of that. There’s actually something that I find fascinating from this. Right now, more than ever before, we can actually have artificial intelligence create something for us, especially in higher education, this hasn’t been done before. The tricky thing is that we were the ones to be able to make that possible, because we learned things. If we let a machine do that work for us, we’re not going to be put into the situation or our students coming along, will not be put into a situation where they’re intelligent enough to do the things that need to be done when they need to be done. And so I do think we’re facing a real dilemma right now. If my students, for instance, always do use some artificial intelligence to create a paper and hand it in, if I can’t catch it, they may end up with an A in that portion of the class. But there’s going to come a day when they’re going to have to write something or be able to read something and tell if it’s written well. And so I’m a little bit nervous, we’re entering a phase where by bypassing some cognitive processing that needs to be done, we may be limiting what we’re able to do in the future. Wrapping this up, though, I don’t want to be the person who says if you use a calculator, you’ll never understand this statistical test. So I don’t know where the balance is. But I do think we’re going to have to have decisions coming up that we’ve never had before.

John: Generative AI is drawing on that wealth of knowledge that has been produced. And for that to continue to grow in the future, we do need to have some new materials being created. So that is an interesting challenge, unless it goes beyond unless….

Todd: …unless it creates it. So that was one I thought about, by the way, sometimes you’re sitting around just thinking about stuff and it’s interesting. I was thinking how do I acquire new information. And the way I acquire new information is I go read articles, I read books, I read a ton of stuff. And then I say I think this is valuable, I don’t think that’s valuable. And then I put it together and say here’s what I’m thinking. And now I’m looking at this generative AI who goes out and scans the environment and pulls these things and then creates something new. It doesn’t have the cognitive processing that I have at this point, but…

John: it’s in the early stages.

Todd: We have some folks who are very concerned out there, especially in European countries that are starting to put some guardrails out, because at the point that it keeps grabbing stuff, and then generating and then it grabs the stuff it generated, then it’s going to be interesting. But as of right now, I just read another article, I think it was yesterday, that they’re going out and grabbing the most popular or most frequently written things and then putting it down as if that is right.

Rebecca: The way that you might prioritize as a human with an expertise in something, is going to be really different than a system that’s prioritizing based on popularity, [LAUGHTER] or like how current something is like when it was last published. That’s a really different value system that really changes priorities.

Todd: Yeah, and I think it changes how we teach. I think the way we teach is going to fundamentally shift because we’re going to have to work with students with all these things being available and explain to them and talk to them about the learning process and the value of the learning process. And keep in mind, this isn’t just about ChatGPT writing papers, everybody’s freaked out about that right now. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that you could get fresh, cleanly written papers that have not been plagiarized at all, we’d be able to do that for 20 years. There are paper mills, I can either write away or contact somebody and say, “Please write me a 10 page paper on Descarte, and they would write it, I could turn that in. What actually has happened recently is that everybody can do it, even those who can’t afford to have a paper written at $10 a page or whatever it’s costing. And so equity comes back again. [LAUGHTER] Now we’re an equal opportunity cheater. So we have to be careful with that. But I think the way we teach is going to change because all that information is going to be available, kind of like the internet on hyperspeed. And then what do you do with that? It’s going to be really intriguing. I think it’s an exciting time.

Rebecca: So Todd, this episode’s gonna come out right at the beginning of this semester. So you’re saying we need to be thinking about how to change our teaching. ChatGPT’s here, what are you doing for the Fall differently?

Todd: Well, I think the biggest thing is what we were just talking about, looking more at the learning process, which has been a big thing for me for the longest time, is explaining and talking through the learning process, I can hand you all this information, but if I hand it to you, you don’t learn. In fact, one of my favorite examples came from a friend of mine, and it was the gym, if you want to get in better shape, I could pay somebody to go do sit ups for me. And then I could somehow log in the book at the gym that 100 Sit ups were done, use the passive voice there, and somebody else did them for me, I’m not going to get in better shape unless I do the situps. So I have to do the work, I have to run, lift weights, do the situps in order for me to be able to gain. We need to just turn that into a cognitive process for our students to really gain cognitively they have to do the work. And so I think more than ever, it’s how do we convince students of that? And for the faculty members who say, “Well, that’d be great, but my students just want the grade.” If that’s the case, we have a bigger problem than whether or not some technology can write a paper for them.

John: So how do we convince students that it is important for them to acquire the skills that we hope they get out of college?

Todd: I think this is probably going to come down to the community building, it’s been there forever. If you really want your students to do the work, the best thing you can do in my view, and that’s why I’m gonna say, Rebecca, I don’t think a lot for the way I teach, has changed. You build a community, you build relationships, you talk to the students about importance of things, if you’re sincere about that, and they get that then yes, there’s going to be some students that are going to mess with the system, they have always been there. But you’re also going to get a lot of students who will say, “Yeah, that’s a good point.” And then they’ll do the work. I don’t teach as many undergraduates as I used to, I’m teaching more faculty than ever because of being the faculty developer. But there were years that I would have to tell my students don’t put more time than this in on your paper, you have other classes, you need to do the work in the other classes. Because, and I’m telling you, I am very proud of this, my students would spend a ton of time on this stuff for my class, because they didn’t want to let me down. And I would say you’ve already got an A, I’m proud of what you’re doing, please go work on your other classes. That kind of scenario happens when you build community. And I’m not saying it’s easy, I would never say it’s easy. And it’s not going to happen for everybody. But it is the foundation of good teaching.

Rebecca: So we always wrap up by asking, what’s next?

Todd: There’s just so much going on right now. I think that what’s next for me is I am still in that headspace of coming kind of back from the pandemic, anybody who says, “Yeah, but the pandemic’s all over,” wait for November, we won’t know, we’re going to see. But I still think that’s next is kind of thinking about how we teach and learn in this environment. So moving in that space, it’s probably not surprising. I’m working on the next book here. One of the things I want to do now is the last couple of books that I’ve done had been pretty heavy books. And now I want to write something that’s a little bit lighter. So it’s going to be more of a quick guide with more narrative and having some fun, I love telling stories. I love having fun with people. So I’m going to try to create a book that’s kind of like a science of learning and teaching at its best but really accessible and more of a story-based kind of way of looking at things.

Rebecca: Who is your audience for that book?

Todd: Anybody who will read it? [LAUGHTER] Anytime I write anything, I have to have the audience firmly in mind and think about who am I talking to. And I really believe there is a pretty big overlap with students and faculty who don’t know specific things. And I’m not saying this in a mean way toward any of my faculty colleagues at all. But there’s a lot of people who aren’t taught about things like long-term potentiation and deep sleep in terms of semantic memory, and looking at depth of processing and those types of things. So the same type of thing we can say to a student, we know you shouldn’t cram, but here’s why you shouldn’t cram… faculty learn a lot from that as well. And so my audience for this book is going to be faculty and students, students, because I think it’ll be more fun to read about how to learn in a narrative form like that. And faculty because it’s more fun to learn when you read in that kind of a format for some people. we’ll see.

John: And if faculty design their courses to take advantage of what we know about learning, it can facilitate more learning.

Todd: Wouldn’t that be cool? We could just keep rolling, rolling. What a great amount of work. I mean, a huge amount of work that faculty do. They’re hard working folks that are just cranking away all the time. Number one, making their life a little bit easier by helping to understand things would be great. And just having a little bit more fun would be fun, would be nice way to go to0.

Rebecca: Hey, anytime you can save time, so that we can have more play in our lives is better.

Todd: Yeah, just to do whatever you want to do.

John: Yeah, ending on a note of fun is probably a great way to end this.

Rebecca: Well. It’s always great talking to you, Todd. Thanks for chatting with us and going on the Wayback Machine.

Todd: Oh, you know, I love the Wayback Machine.

Rebecca: I love it too.

Todd: For those of you who don’t know about that, you should check out the Wayback Machine

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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

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301. A Return to Rigor?

Posted in attention, authentic learning, classroom community, engagement, equity, first-generation, higher education, inclusion, instructional communication, learning, motivation, pedagogy, teaching
August 9, 2023

Some faculty have advocated a return to “rigor” to address perceptions of growing student disengagement in our classes. In this episode, Kevin Gannon joins us to discuss an alternative approach that provides students with cognitive challenges in a supportive environment. Kevin is a history professor and the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence at Queen’s University of Charlotte. He is also the author of Radical Hope: a Teaching Manifesto, which is available from West Virginia University Press.

Show Notes

  • Gannon, Kevin (2020). Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press.
  • Gannon, Kevin (2023). “Why Calls for a ‘Return to Rigor’ Are Wrong.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. May 22.
  • Imad, M. (2022). Trauma‐informed education for wholeness: Strategies for faculty & advisors. New Directions for Student Services, 2022(177), 39-47.
  • Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed, New York (Herder & Herder) 1970.
  • Boucher, Ellen (2016). “It’s Time to Ditch Our Deadlines.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 22.
  • Vygotskii L.S. (1984). “Problemy detskoi (vozrastnoi psikhologii).” In Sobranie sochinenii v 6-ti tomakh, vol. 4, pp. 243–432. Moscow: Pedagogika
  • Cavanagh, S. R. (2023). Mind over Monsters: Supporting Youth Mental Health with Compassionate Challenge. Beacon Press.
  • Jack, Jordynn and Viji Sathy (2021). “It’s Time to Cancel the Word ‘Rigor.’” The Chronicle of Higher Education. September 24.

Show Transcript

John: Some faculty have advocated a return to “rigor” to address perceptions of growing student disengagement in our classes. In this episode, we discuss an alternative approach that provides students with cognitive challenges in a supportive environment.

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John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist….

John: ….and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer….

Rebecca: ….and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

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John: Our guest today is Kevin Gannon. Kevin is a history professor and the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence at Queen’s University of Charlotte. He is also the author of Radical Hope: a Teaching Manifesto, which is available from West Virginia University Press. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Thanks. Great to be back with you all.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are:…. Kevin, are you drinking tea?

Kevin: I am drinking Cheerwine because I’m in North Carolina now. And this is how we roll in this state. And it’s so damn hot outside, a hot beverage is the most unappetizing suggestion right now.

Rebecca: All right, we’ll let it slide. [LAUGHTER]

John: I would have been tempted to have Cheerwine because it does have that whole North Carolina flavor, which I had never heard of until I came down here, the first time in 1987. But it’s incredibly popular.

Rebecca: What is it?

Kevin: It’s a cherry soda, basically. You got to be ready for sugar. You got to get your pancreas in shape and then prepare to go, but it’s quite tasty.

John: It’s a very inexpensive and popular cherry soda.

Rebecca: Interesting. It sounds like medicine.

John: No, it’s more sugary than medicinal.

Rebecca: Okay.

John: …but Duke, some time before last year, removed all of the soda from the vending machines and every place where they serve beverages on campus. You only have choices of healthy drinks: water, fruit juices, iced tea, they have of course, because it is North Carolina.

Rebecca: Is it sweet tea then?

John: It is not sweet tea, it is unsweetened tea. So I have a Tea Forte black currant tea that came down with me in my new Duke University mug.

Rebecca: And I have an Irish Breakfast tea because it’s 90 degrees outside and I have a hot tea because… I don’t know why. [LAUGHTER]

John: And I would not be drinking tea if I were not sitting in a very nicely air conditioned classroom here at Duke. So we’ve invited you here today to discuss your May 22 Chronicle article where you address the arguments that some people have raised advocating a return to rigor as a solution to what seems to have been a substantial reduction in student engagement Since the start of the pandemic. What do you think is the source of the disengagement that faculty have been perceiving?

Kevin: Well, I think there’s a lot that goes into it. But I will say that I think it’s important for us to remember that there’s: A) no one cause or explanation for it, which leads to B) there’s no one solution that’s going to fix it all. And we know this, I think, but in the day-to-day practice or dealing with this room full of disengaged students, it’s hard to remember that sometimes. And so I think the root cause of this disengagement comes from the fact that we went through and are still dealing with the effects of rolling trauma on a global scale. And we can talk about trauma-informed pedagogy all we want, but it’s not going to erase the fact that trauma happened and for some of our students, and for some of us, continues to happen as well. And of course, what we saw as a result of that was the pandemic laid bare so many of the other things that were already in place that were unsustainable, and didn’t let us hide from those things anymore. So whether we’re talking about the so-called racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, or we’re talking about the ways in which people from different socio-economic groups experienced the pandemic and or healthcare as a result of that. And we’re in an age now of sort of creeping authoritarianism, pseudo-fascism, whatever you want to call it. I don’t think anybody could realistically expect folks to bring all of their cognitive energies to bear in a classroom with all of this going on in the background. It’s like trying to read a book while you’re in the spin cycle of a washing machine. There’s no way. And I think we can talk about creating spaces that are sanctuaries from that, but I don’t think that we alone can solve all of the things that are leading to disengagement. In fact, disengagement, the diversion of cognitive bandwidth, defense mechanisms, these are all things that are actually, I would argue, fairly healthy responses to everything that we’re seeing around us. And we need to have the sort of empathy and understanding of what many of our students and ourselves are going through to allow space for that to happen.

Rebecca: Yeah, sometimes it feels like there’s a request to just snap out of it.

Kevin: Right. One of the refrains I’ve had over and over is we’re not going to pedagogy our way out of like systemic collapse. And so I think Mays Imad actually put it very well, when she talks about learning as a sanctuary. Our classes can be a sanctuary from this, and that’s important. And we should be doing that work and we should be providing those spaces and curating those spaces and nurturing those spaces for ourselves and for our students, but to put all the pressure upon educators to get students “reconnected,” despite everything else that’s happening around us, I just think it’s unrealistic, and it sets us up for failure. And the same is true, I would argue, for K to 12. Teachers, during the pandemic, educators were expected to sort of fill in the gaps of all of the missing social services over and above “just education.” And I think that when we talk about this disconnection, there’s a danger of us moving into that space where we’re being expected to solve systemic problems, when we are not in a position where we’re able to do so. And in fact, we are suffering from the effects of those problems, in many ways the same as our students.

John: And at the same time, I know our campus at least, and I think, throughout the US, we’ve seen an increase in the diversity of our student bodies. There’s many more first-generation students coming into our classes, there’s many students from historically minoritized groups who simply were not generally attending, and those students often come in with less knowledge of, as you note in your article, the hidden curriculum of education. We have to help them learn that curriculum. And that brings us to that whole question of the push to rigor. In the article, you describe two approaches to adding more rigor, one is adding more logistic rigor, and the other is adding more cognitive rigor to classes. Could you talk a little bit about those?

Kevin: Sure. And so when we think about this idea of rigor in the way that we normally talk about as faculty members, I do think that there are these sorts of two camps that rigor falls into, I don’t think that we… and I’m speaking broadly here, and certainly implicating myself, in some of this… I don’t think we always do a great job specifying which one or the other we’re referring to. So it’s very easy for me as a faculty member to say, “I’m making a very rigorous class.” And maybe all of that is one type of this rigor as opposed to a balance. And so I think when we look at rigor, what it basically boils down to is there’s sort of two broad ways in which a course could be challenging, it could be difficult. One of those is what we talk about as faculty as the good stuff and what I call cognitive rigor, complex thinking, higher order thinking, the ability to critically interrogate information, the ability to step outside of one’s own perspective, all of the things that we know higher education should be doing. And then there’s the other kind. There’s, for lack of a better term, I call logistical rigor. And that’s where you see things like inflexible policies, volume of work, not necessarily difficult work, but so much of it that the sheer volume in itself is what makes the difficulty exist for students. The classic story, I keep saying it’s apocryphal, but when I tell this story at various workshops I do at other campuses, people always swear it happened to them. So I think it is real. But the apocryphal story of the big lecture class where the professor strolls out of the first day and says, “Look to your left, look to your right, only two of the three of you will be here by the end of the semester,” like that’s that sort of logistical rigor that I think we see a lot. The problem is, as I note in the article, we often mistake one for the other. We often say that our classes are rigorous. And we think in our faculty braids that they’re cognitively rigorous, but the way our students are experiencing them is actually through logistical rigor. And so if you look at some of the research, and I linked some of it in the article, what really surprised me as I dove into this, were the vastly different perceptions that students and faculty had about a rigorous class. There was an article that listed the top 10 features of a rigorous class according to students. The top five of those were what I would call logistical rigor, the number of pages that were assigned to be written during the semester, the reading load, the pace of the scale of work, none of the good cognitive rigor stuff came in until the bottom five on that student list, and the numbers there were significantly lower. And this is just one study, but there’s a pattern across when we look at student perceptions of rigorous courses, of difficult courses, it’s a pretty clear thread that students are experiencing difficulty as logistical rigor. And so when we as faculty say, “Well, we’re really after these cognitively rigorous courses and that’s what it’s all about.” Well, that’s not what our students are seeing, which leads me to wonder if that’s really what we’re doing. And my suspicion is, is that no, that we’re often creating these logistically rigorous course spaces, and thinking that it’s cognitively rigorous, and of course, those are two very different things.

Rebecca: Well, and I think sometimes that code word of rigor, and I intentionally use the word code here is that it’s often used to weed certain students out and then we wonder why particular disciplines aren’t diverse or don’t have new faces as a part of the fields and disciplines, as if having structure or support or scaffolding is somehow the antithesis of rigor.

Kevin: Right. And this is really the crux of it, and of course, everybody’s brains will first go to STEM courses because STEM fields have really been struggling with this. But as a humanities guy, there are humanities fields, including some sub-fields in my own discipline of history. I would argue philosophy wrestles with this as well, where rigor in this logistical sense is exactly as you put it, the sort of weeding out, its code for “Some of y’all should be here, and some of y’all shouldn’t, and by the end of the semester, we’re going to have that sorted.” And of course, is that what we want to be doing? Is this how we reproduce our disciplines? If your answer to that is “yes,” I would argue that you’re probably in the wrong line of work. So we need to be thinking, what is it that we’re actually doing? There’s a difference between saying “our uses of rigor are counterproductive” and “we should dumb everything down.” Those are two separate things and that’s not what I’m saying. But our uses of rigor are doing the very things that you point out, Rebecca, that we’re putting barriers in front of students, we’re closing off pathways and opportunities for them to engage in our discipline. And given this moment of where we’re at in higher education right now, I think that’s a horrible, horrible strategy. Rigor, it has become such a loaded concept, because it has become this stand in for weeding out or culling or all these other awful metaphors that we use in higher ed to talk about kind of thinning the herd, so to speak, and that language matters.

John: When you were talking about the difference in faculty and student perceptions of making courses more rigorous. It reminds me of the discussion that we often see about active learnin. When faculty are surveyed in terms of the extent to which they use active learning activities in the class and the proportion of time that they lecture. When students are surveyed on the same questions, we get a remarkably different picture, suggesting that faculty are doing a lot more lecturing, and a lot less active learning than they believe that they are. And it might be nice if we could get a little bit more dialogue going back and forth between students and faculty and getting perhaps more student feedback in general. But it does suggest that we’re seeing a disconnect between what students observe and what faculty think they’re doing in their classes.

Kevin: Right. And a lot of times will be talked about, “Well, I do X in my class,” like I know in my own case, there are a lot of occasions where what I say I’m doing is actually more aspirational than actual. I would love to be doing these things. And on a good day, these things are happening. And maybe they’re working. And I get that. There are some days in some classes where the stuff that we know is most effective and most desirable, just doesn’t work the way that we would hope or the way that we would want. But that doesn’t mean that we stop trying. I think there are plenty of opportunities in place for us to have that sort of dialogue you’re talking about with students to see: are the actual experiences of my students aligned with what I think they are? And this is why we do assessment. This is why we do, at least in a perfect world, student ratings of instruction, if this course was designed to get you from point A to point B, and I want to say that you got to point B, I need to be able to prove that. And I need to be able to describe what that experience was like for you as students. And so how do I bring student voice into this. So you could do informal midterm feedback, you cn do weekly reflection papers, you could do check ins with students. The faculty development world has, I’ve seen it referred to as the small group instructional diagnosis, which is a unwieldy term for a kind of guided reflective discussion for midterm feedback and input from students about how a course is going. I think there’s a lot of tools already there that, working together…. and this is the other hard part….working as colleagues, working outside of my old office and department, and with my faculty development people or with other academic support, can I bring these folks into the process where they could work with my students as well, and help me gather that data? Am I doing, in actuality, what I say that I’m doing? What is my students’ experience of this course? And is that in alignment with what I have designed the course to be?

Rebecca: We all hit barriers like time and things that cause us to slip into old habits occasionally. So those aspirational moves certainly occur for all of us. But I also think that that transparency piece about like, “Why are we doing this active learning thing?” or “Why are we slipping into this old habit that’s maybe not the most ideal?” …can actually be really healthy, because then students can also share that and have that dialogue going back and forth so that they know where they’re at in something and vice versa, like we know where we’re at in terms of the classroom.

Kevin: Well, and it’s an excellent model, too. I think modeling transparency with our students in any way that we can about the course design, about the content, about the ways in which we might be collectively engaging with that. All of that is to the good. We want students to understand that learning doesn’t just happen by accident. We want them to get into this place where they’re thinking metacognitively, and to me really the only effective way to do that is to have this sort of radical ethic of transparency. If a student says “Why are we doing x in this course?” If my syllabus has, here’s all the stuff that we’re going to do this semester, and I can’t come up with a good answer to that, that’s a problem. And so this helps, as you suggest, keep us in this place where we’re ensuring that what we’re doing is in alignment with our goals and our values as disciplinarians, in other words, as members of our discipline, as well as effective instructors and human beings. Does this stuff align with what my professed core values as an academic and as an educator are. The only way we’re able to do that, I think, is to be in this place of transparency to model what that looks like for our students.

John: One issue where the logistical question comes up is that during the pandemic, a lot of faculty relaxed deadlines, and sometimes dropped deadlines entirely. And that certainly provided students with the flexibility they needed. But one concern is that some students would end up getting further and further behind in the course. And there’s a lot of research that suggests that without some structure in terms of deadlines, and getting things done in reasonable periods, the quality of student learning tends to deteriorate. What sort of policies might give students some flexibility, but still make sure that they’re progressing through the course, so they can keep up with other activities that they’re supposed to be doing as the course progresses.

Kevin: And so this is the key issue. And so I think it’s important to establish that, when I suggest that rigor, at least as we sort of traditionally used it is actually failing us, is getting in the way of actual learning, I am not suggesting removing structure from a course. And I wish I could remember which of his writings it’s from but there’s this piece of one of the Paulo Freire books or essays that I’ve read, where he talks about what we would call learner-centered instruction. And he basically says if we’re in a rowboat, and I teach you to swim by throwing you overboard, that’s learner centered, but that’s not necessarily helping you learn how to swim in that moment. And his point is structure is a necessary part of what he would call a liberating pedagogy, that it’s not just throw people in and say, “Okay, go learn, you are the agents here.” And so I think it’s important to realize that you can do this work well and meaningfully only if there is a structure in place, but it has to be a structure that’s explicit, that’s decipherable for students. Back to your notion of the hidden curriculum, if it’s hidden, [LAUGHTER] and the students are running up against these sort of invisible barriers without being able to name what they are, that’s a problem. But if there’s structure in the course, where students are able to see “here’s what I’m accountable to, and here’s how I’m accountable to other students in the class,” then you’re in a place where you could do what we might call that desirable level of difficulty. And so I think there are ways to bring in structure and maybe more structure than what we had during the pandemic. Getting through what we got through was a victory in and of itself, and whatever we had to do to do it, we got through it at least relatively unscathed as higher education. I think that’s a really important win to acknowledge. But it doesn’t mean that we have to go all the way back the other way now. And so I’m a big fan of the sort of nuts and bolts level of policies that build in flexibility, but don’t get rid of structure entirely. And so Ellen Boucher wrote a great piece in The Chronicle back in 2016, and had the headline, “It’s Time to Ditch our Deadlines,” which is unfortunate, because that’s actually not what she argues. She advocates for a two-day grace period, no questions asked, for her students. And if you needed more time than that, then you had to have a conference with her and come up with a plan, like “Okay, I can’t get this paper to you on the due date. I’m going to take the two days.” While I need more than the two days we’re going to have a conference and as the instructor, I’m going to work with you and say “Here’s the game plan. Here’s your next step. Here’s what you’re going to be accountable for and when you’re going to be accountable for.” So I’m doing extensions, but I’m not just saying turn it in whenever. I’m not leaving students to figure out “Okay, what are my next steps? What are my next actions?” Because in the case of deadlines, we know that when students are failing to meet deadlines, as you mentioned, this stuff just snowballs, and it becomes worse, and then they just ghost us, because the whole thing has become so overwhelming that the avoidance reflex kicks in. And so something like Boucher suggests where right off the bat, here’s a two-day policy, if you need it, just tell me you’re taking it, I don’t need to hear about whatever stomach ailment you had, or I don’t need the graphic email describing your symptoms. Just tell me you’re taking the two days if you need more than that we got to talk first. And so that’s an example of a policy that has a structure there but still it explicitly packages in that type of flexibility. And I think that’s a good model for where we need to be, understanding that for different students life is happening in different ways. And yet, there’s still we can’t just say “Okay, turn things in whenever,” because as most of us design courses, stuff builds on each other, right? That’s the whole point of scaffolding and getting rid of deadlines entirely or not having that sort of structured accountability in place does prevent the type of things from happening that should be happening. And so I think finding ways to preserve structure but flexibility within that structure, which, I get is… as I listen to myself say that, part of me goes, “Well, that’s a really just kind of wishy-washy answer.” But I do think, in this case, that moderating it, there was a reason we got rid of so much structure during the pandemic, with this recognition that it was absolutely necessary for the way that everybody’s lives were unfolding and happening. That didn’t go away, like people’s lives still unfold and happen in very complex ways. And that’s true for our students and us. So we can’t just say, “Oh, we’re going to swing all the way back, 180 degrees to the other side, and have deadlines by God.” I just think that’s an incredibly counterproductive thing. And I think that the folks who have been trying that are the ones who’ve been seeing a lot of resistance, and not a lot of success in terms of their students meeting those things. And that’s where we hear some of this frustration that’s coming out in the discourse.

Rebecca: I think the other thing that sometimes rubs up a lot against rigor is this idea of relationships between students and other students and students and faculty in the classroom and that sense of belonging… somehow these are like diametrically opposed. It’s not like rigors over here and belonging is over here, and they can’t possibly happen in the same place.

Kevin: Yeah, and doesn’t that speak to what we’ve seen with the sort of debate such as it is over active learning? The conversation starts from an erroneous proposition that you could either do active learning or you could have a “real class,” like you could do this namby pamby arts and humanities, sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya and braid each other’s hair kind of stuff or you could do real learning and manly-man stuff. And I’m exaggerating, actually only slightly. [LAUGHTER] A lot of times the conversation about rigor and challenge starts from this erroneous sense of mutual exclusivity, that you can have a compassionate flexible pedagogy or you could be rigorous, but you cannot do both. When it actuality it’s and you have to have one to have the other. You cannot have a challenging learning experience where your students can actually meet those challenges if you don’t have a compassionate empathetic pedagogical space, because the whole point about rising to challenges is you can’t do it by yourself. This is what the Vygotski talks about the zone of proximal development, learning is social, you need other people around you, you need an instructor, you need classmates. Well, why is that? It’s because we help each other when it comes to the point of really challenging and pushing ourselves cognitively to get to that achievement of that goal, that desirably difficult goal. We cannot do that if students don’t feel that they belong in that space. We cannot ask students to take intellectual risks or to try something that they have never tried before, if they’re at a place where they don’t feel secure in doing so. Because we wouldn’t ask that of ourselves either, if we’re being honest. And so rather than posit: “you could be rigorous or you could be flexible and compassionate,” it’s “you can be flexible and compassionate and then you can be challenging.”

John: At Oswego this fall we’re going to be using for one of our reading groups, Sarah Rose Cavanagh’s book that you reference here, her newest book, which is Mind over Monsters, and you cite that basically as suggesting the importance of bringing both of those things together. And it’s an excellent book, by the way, which I would recommend to anyone interested in addressing some of these questions.

Kevin: Absolutely. It’s a brilliant book. And I think it’s a vital intervention in this very conversation that we’re having.

John: A term that you use in the book, which was a technical term I hadn’t quite seen used in this context, was that many faculty when they tried to introduce rigor, essentially are adding more “hard-assery”, I think was term that you uses rather than actually more cognitive challenge. Why is that happening? Why do people do this?,

Kevin: Yeah, and the phrase I use is performative hard-assery. [LAUGHTER]

John: Oh that;s right. Sorry, I forgot. [LAUGHTER]

Kevin: Well, I’m glad that that resonated, because I’m really proud of that phrase. But I really do think that that is where a lot of the rigor conversation is. My classes are hard, my students write, they read a bunch, they do all these things. And it’s like, “Do they? and what is the result of them doing those things?” It comes back to the student perception of rigor as the more pages I decide to read and write, students don’t talk about what they learned, and they talk about what they had to do. They don’t talk about what they became. They don’t talk about how it made them feel. They don’t talk about how they changed. They just talk about things they have to do. And I think that that’s a really important distinction when we think about the student experience in all of this. And I think it’s very easy for us to say, “Well, I’m doing my job because I’m assigning my students a ton of work, and it’s hard and I grade hard.” And again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be challenging. I think we should absolutely be challenging. But how are we structuring those challenges? Am I giving my students a challenge just sheerly through volume. Is my class just kind of a death march through this enormous swamp land of content that’s just going past them a mile a minute, or Is it challenging in the sense that they are taking the time to be deliberative thinkers, to be critical consumers of information, because those two things look a lot different. And again, especially coming at this sort of not quite post-pandemic stage that we’re at, is a very real desire to bring some structure back, but thinking about bringing that structure back in terms of just assigning more stuff, because from our own graduate school experience, that’s how we structured our very lives. And so if we think about structure, and again, I’m saying we very intentionally here, that’s the first place our mind goes to. And so I brought back structure, because I’ve assigned a whole bunch more work. And now I also get to complain about how students aren’t doing the work, because I’ve built in this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, it makes me feel good, it makes me feel like I’m “doing my job,” but am I? Are students learning? Is this advancing learning, because chances are, it’s probably not,

Rebecca: As you’re describing these two scenarios, the marching through the marsh, for example, I’m thinking of the really long checklist that accompanies it. And then in this other environment, this luxurious amount of time to contemplate something and wrestle with something and think through it, and how there needs to be space around that sometimes, to really have the time to process and understand what it is that we’re trying to grapple with.

Kevin: On a micro level, we think about this as instructors all the time, when we think about trying to foster an effective discussion in class. We know that asking a good question is the essential piece of having a good discussion. If I ask a complex question that requires a fair amount of cognitive heavy lifting, I need to give my students time, I can’t expect my students to answer it right off the bat. If it’s a good question, there’s going to be some silence afterwards, as students think about and chew on it a little bit before they decide how they want to respond. And it’s true on a course level too. Are we providing space for our students to do this work, to do this processing? Or is it just more, more, more, more, more, faster, faster, faster, faster, in the name of rigor, in the name of structure, in the name of challenging, but it’s really kind of the cognitive equivalent of trying to drink from a fire hose, like what’s really happening there?

Rebecca: Sometimes not much. [LAUGHTER]

Kevin: I have actually stood in front of a fire hose, not willingly, but I’ve been hit by a fire hose. And I can tell you, it’s not pleasant, it hurts and you’re really wet and miserable afterwards. And I would argue that those are not the things [LAUGHTER] we want associated with learning spaces. And yet, this is, a lot of times, where we, and again, speaking broadly, where we kind of lay it…this sort of, we’re gonna fire hose everything out, and it’s up to the student. And I’m exaggerating slightly for effect, but again, not very much.

John: If the solution to the student disengagement is not dumping more work on students and having more students fail along the way, as many people seem to see it, what can we do to get students a bit more engaged with the class? Because that’s been a complaint. I’ve heard from a lot of people at many institutions in the last year or so.

Kevin: So I think there’s two things I would use to answer that question. And the first I would say, engagement’s not going to be 100% all the time. And if we are thinking that it was somehow that way, magically, before COVID, we’re deluding ourselves. And so we have to give ourselves permission to fall short in that category, not every student is going to be engaged in everything at every time, no matter what we try to do, because that’s the world we live in, that surrounds the spaces we’re in. And so let’s be realistic in what it is that we’re after, how do we engage students in a meaningful and at least most of the time kind of way? And that’s where I think we can do a lot. And so there’s a couple approaches that I think hold a lot of promise. One is we do have to be challenging, we do have to provide challenge, people like to meet challenges. If students think they know something already, they’re going to hear it and “Oh, I already know this, I’m already checking out.” So we have to put in this level of difficulty, of mystery, of complexity, but we have to provide support in helping them meet those sorts of challenges. And we have to be clear and transparent about how we’re providing that support. The idea of a safety net under the trapeze artists, the trapeze artists who’s doing incredibly complex and really, really difficult things that they’ve practiced a lot to do, but they’ve had a net underneath them, just in case it didn’t go well. And at a much lower risk sort of way, that’s what we’re doing. I’m asking you to do difficult things, things that you have probably not been asked to do before. You may fall short of the goal, but that’s okay, because here’s the supports underneath you. This is a space where it’s okay for that to happen. And so depending on the type of class and the discipline you’re in, that might look a little different. But when people talk about desirable difficulties, in other words, challenges that people can actually meet, even if it takes a lot of effort, but there is a solution. And again, I reference Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, a lot in this. It takes a while to get there, but you get there and that’s what the important part is. So how do we create teaching and learning spaces where the challenge is centered, but the ways in which students are being supported in meeting those challenges are also at the center. Right now we’re very good at centering challenges. I would argue we’re less proficient at centering those other things. And so how do we support students in meeting those challenges of what should be a demanding education? And so Cavanaugh calls it, in her book compassionate challenge. I suggest in the article that the question we should have as our litmus test is: does this advance learning? Does this thing I’m doing advance learning in the sense of what are the goals? What are the outcomes that we’ve established for the course? Those sort of transformations, those promises, to use Ken Bain’s words, that we’ve made to students? Are we getting there? Do you know how we’re getting there? Are you able to assess as a learner yourself what’s working in getting you there? Those are the sorts of things that need to be at the center of the teaching and learning experience. And if we’re just doing challenge for challenges sake, or that sort of performative hard-assery shtick, our students are not going to be interested in having that conversation with us or with themselves even, about what’s working for them in terms of the strategies they’re adopting, and the things that they’re doing to meet the challenges that they’re faced with on our course.

Rebecca: Thinking about procrastination in relationship to what we’ve been talking about. And sometimes procrastination reads as lack of motivation, or a lack of engagement. And sometimes the reason for the procrastination is that there isn’t the deadline, or there isn’t the structure or there isn’t the milestones to move you along. How do you see the relationship of procrastination to rigor and this idea of engagement?

Kevin: That’s a great question. Because I think if we err too much on the side of the so-called logistical rigor, or it’s like just really hard, inflexible policies and strict deadlines and this high volume of stuff, we’re actually creating the circumstances that procrastination will become an epidemic among students, because what we’re giving is an unrealistic amount of work to do in the time that’s allotted. And it’s very easy to get from there to just sheer avoidance, I can’t do this, I don’t see a tangible way through this, I cannot see myself getting through this gauntlet. So eff it, basically, is how that works. And so I’m going to do other things, whether I’m doing this consciously, or subconsciously, or some mixture of both. That’s like the perfect storm. When it’s all extrinsic motivation and when it’s all insurmountable barriers, at least from the perspective of the student, that’s like the perfect storm for avoidance. And I’m someone who personally struggles with this all the time. My avoidance reflex is keenly developed over the 50 years of my life. [LAUGHTER] And I do not do well with unstructured time. And so getting back to this question of how do we find that balance, I think structure is important, not an overwhelming or a suffocating amount of structure. But there needs to be something in place to help our students fit themselves and their work and their lives into the framework of the course. We need to be able to give them the tools to do that without pre-determining every outcome or stifling every option. But I think thinking about what are the causes of procrastination, what are the effects of procrastination, because one of the things that when folks talk about student disconnection is this phenomenon that we’re seeing more and more of students just kind of ghosting, just dropping out, like they were in class for six weeks, and now they’re gone. And I think a lot of that is things have built up to the point where they seem so overwhelming that there’s no realistic solution in place. And a lot of that is exacerbated by that cycle of procrastination. And so by the time we get to the point where the student is feeling so overwhelmed that they just want to leave everything, which they do, it’s way too late. So we have to be intervening in the earlier part of that process where it’s procrastination that is creating the conditions that this sort of overwhelming volume is going to grow out of a little bit down the road if we’re not able to intervene. So I think thinking about procrastination is the way you frame it in these very explicit and sort of fraught of mind terms is a really important part of all of this.

John: Since I’m at Duke, I’ll mention a study that Dan Ariely had done a while back where he worked with one of his colleagues at MIT at the time, and they were giving students writing assignments where they had to write three papers over the course of the semester. In one class, they had fixed deadlines for submitting these papers that were evenly spaced. In the other section of the course, they were given the option of setting their own deadlines, which could be at any time during the semester. If they chose, they could set them all at the end of the term. And what happened was that students who had either fixed deadlines or who set the deadlines evenly over time ended up performing better than the students who chose to put the deadlines at the end. And I should also note, there was a one-percentage point penalty for each day they were late. So it was a small penalty, but it was a non-trivial penalty. So the logical thing is to put all the deadlines at the end and then try to get them done evenly. But the people who had deadlines later did the work later and did lower quality work. So those deadlines can be important as long as there’s some sort of incentive structure with it. And I think that has helped encourage me to not drop deadlines entirely. Usually I allow some scores to be dropped or allow some deadlines to be flexible, but warn students that if they don’t meet the deadlines they’re going to have trouble with these in-class activities that are going to be done based on the things they were supposed to have done before they come to class. But it’s a challenge. And I haven’t found a good balance

Kevin: That speaks to exactly the type of balance that we’ve been talking about. We don’t have to choose between strict, rigid, inflexible deadlines, or no deadlines, or complete student set deadlines, like the Elen Boucher piece that I referenced earlier. Here’s the structure, here are the deadlines. And then here’s the wiggle room that comes along with them. And so your desire to sort of have the deadlines but to balance them with flexibility in your classes, and to have students understand, this is why you need to have these things completed, or at least aiming for this particular juncture, because you’re going to need it in the next phase of the course, etc. This is all part of what we talked about supporting students to meet these challenges, this is the type of support. Support could be encouraged through our course design, as well as the actions that we’re taking on a day-to-day basis. And so again, I want to be really clear that I think rigor as we’re using it kind of higher education wide, has outlived its usefulness as a word. It has too much baggage, it has been wielded in exclusionary, inequitable, and sometimes very horrible ways. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t talk about challenge. And so I think like Cavanaugh does, and like a lot of other folks who have landed on this idea of thinking about ways that we can challenge our students. And the way to do so is to create structured environments where the structure facilitates rather than suffocate students as they endeavor to meet those challenges.

John: And at our teaching center, we’ve given hundreds of workshops over the years, but never once have we advocated rigor, or even used the term rigor in our framework we always refer to challenge and the benefits of that. And you cited a Chronicle article that was the basis of a podcast episode with Sathy and Jack. And we’ll include a link to that in the show notes.

Kevin: The headline was, “It’s Time to Cancel the Word ‘Rigor’” and playing on everybody’s sort of obsession with the boogeyman of cancel culture. And I think that that got in the way a little bit of folks engaging with the very real truth of the article was that, as Rebecca alluded to earlier, rigor has been wielded rather than used it’s been wielded like a cudgel, it’s been a barrier, it’s been exclusionary. And when we talk about rigor now, I think everything has a history, this is my own discipline talking here, I don’t think rigor with the amount of baggage it’s carrying, I just don’t think it can be constructively used when we’re talking about challenging students. And because students have experienced rigor, defined that way and referred to with that word, to the point where there’s that kind of baggage with it too where it’s sort of the pedagogical equivalent of hazing, as opposed to anything else. It helps us as educators ask ourselves, are my challenges cognitive or just logistical? Are my challenges supported for students? Or am I just sort of asking them to close their eyes and jump off the cliff and trust that no bad things are happening. And it helps me as an instructor hold myself accountable to ensure that again, I’m not doing the things that I would rather avoid and that I am doing the things that I tell students I’m doing to help support their learning. In the tradition of first-year student essays everywhere, look at the Webster’s definition of rigor, it talks about things like extreme inflexibility and rigidity. There are connotations, you know, rigor is for corpses. So I think that it’s a concept that has no usefulness for the questions that we’re trying to answer and the knots that we’re trying to untie at this particular moment in higher ed.

Rebecca: There’s a lot to think about. Thanks. [LAUGHTER] So we always wrap up by asking what’s next?

Kevin: Well, right now, I’ve actually thinking a lot about the course spaces in which some of these things that we’ve talked about play out all the time, and that’s the intro or survey courses. And I think the project that’s kicking around in my head right now, and I’m getting dangerously close to actually starting to write stuff, is thinking or rethinking the intro/survey course, sort of a critical interrogation. What are they supposed to be? What are they actually functioning as in reality? How large is the gap between those two things? And what are some ways in which people are creatively answering some of the problems that the survey course presents in terms of not just teaching but designing effective spaces as well as some of this comes out of my own field in history. We’re wrestling with again this death march through content. World history in two semesters, Plato to NATO in an academic year. Is that really what we’re after here? Or should we be doing something else? And so from my own discipline, I’ve developed an interest in thinking about this and thinking about the ways in which other fields and disciplines are wrestling with similar types of questions, which of course, then leads to the larger question of what is the point of these things? And are we doing the things that we say these courses should be doing? Because of that, thinking a lot about not just teaching and learning, but about first-year student success, about things like just and inclusive teaching, things like student-centered pedagogy, a lot of really interesting and fun things that are kind of swirling around. So the short answer, rather than that very long-winded one is I’ve researching survey and intro courses to see if there’s better ways that we might be doing it.

Rebecca: Sounds like a great project. Maybe you need a deadline so you get started on it. [LAUGHTER]

Kevin: Let’s not get carried away because I am going to take that two-day grace period, I can tell you that right now.

John: Well, thank you. It’s always great talking to you.

Kevin: Well, thanks for having me back. It’s a real treat to be with you two again.

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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

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289. The Cognition-Motivation Connection

Posted in attention, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, emotion, engagement, evidence-based practices, experiential learning, higher education, interleaved practice, learning, motivation, pedagogy, retrieval practice, spaced practice, teaching
May 17, 2023

Emotions can have both positive and negative impacts on learning. In this episode, Michelle Miller joins us to explore the relationships that exist between emotions and learning.

Michelle is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University.  She is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology and Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World. Michelle is also a co-editor, with James Lang, of the superb West Virginia University Press series on teaching and learning.

Show Notes

  • Miller, Michelle (2023). “Revisiting the cognition-motivation connection: What the latest research says about engaging students in the work of learning.”  March 3.
  • Miller, Michelle (2022). “Ungrading Light: 4 Simple Ways to Ease the Spotlight off Points.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. August 2.
  • Remind
  • Transparency in Teaching and Learning (TILT)
  • Sathy, V., & Hogan, K. A. (2022). Inclusive teaching: Strategies for promoting equity in the college classroom. West Virginia University Press.
  • Ariely, D., & Wertenbroch, K. (2002). Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Precommitment. Psychological Science, 13(3), 219–224.
  • Abel, M., & Bäuml, K. H. T. (2020). Would you like to learn more? Retrieval practice plus feedback can increase motivation to keep on studying. Cognition, 201, 104316.
  • McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (2020). Training learning strategies to promote self-regulation and transfer: The knowledge, belief, commitment, and planning framework. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(6), 1363-1381.
  • Miller, Michelle (2019). Attention Matters. Tea for Teaching Podcast. Episode 86. June 19.
  • Michelle Miller’s R3 Newsletter
  • Sarah Rose Cavanagh’s Once More, With Feeling substack
  • Cavanagh, S. R. (2016). The Spark of Learning: Energizing the college classroom with the science of emotion. West Virginia University Press.
  • Cavanagh, S. R. (2023). Mind over Monsters: Supporting Youth Mental Health with Compassionate Challenge. Beacon Press.

Transcript

John: Emotions can have both positive and negative impacts on learning. In this episode, we explore the relationships that exist between emotions and learning.

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John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer…

Rebecca: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

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John: Our guest today is Michelle Miller. Michelle is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. She is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology and Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World. Michelle is also a co-editor, with James Lang, of the superb West Virginia University Press series on teaching and learning. Welcome back, Michelle.

Michelle: Oh, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here today.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are:… Michelle, do you have some tea?

Michelle: Well, not exactly. I’ve started hydrating with fruity water today. So, I’ve got my water jug and I’m working on it.

John: And I have just a little bit of a peppermint-spearmint tea blend here. And the reason is just a little bit as this is our third podcast of the day today. So I didn’t have a chance in between them to go back to my office and get some new tea or some new hot water. So I do have a little bit to get us started here.

Rebecca: A tiny bit left from my pot of blue sapphire tea.

John: …which is much more colorful.

Rebecca: It is, but not in my cup, only in the pot.

John: We’ve invited you here to discuss your March 3 blog post, addressing the relationship between cognition and emotion. In general, how is cognition influenced by emotion,

Michelle: I’ve been interested in this connection for a while and watching the evolution from within my field of cognitive psychology and kind of moving away from the approach that I came up with when I was just starting out as a graduate student, which is I recall was this kind of oil and water conception of cognition and emotion that here on the one side, we’ve got thought processes, we’ve got memory, and so on. And on the other side [LAUGHTER], we’ve got the emotions and so on. And we’re just going to really work from in our subfield to try to get our arms around just these cognitive processes, and don’t worry about the rest of it. And now, I think that most cognitive psychology theorists in the field would say that, yeah, our cognitive processes are definitely shaped by and infused by what’s going on kind of over in the emotional processing systems of our mind and in our brain. And if I had to describe, just from my own perspective, what I see is a change over time and an evolution in our field, we’ve kind of gone from really talking about parts of the mind in this very compartmentalized modular way, where different parts do different things pretty much independently. And now you see more discussion of how these different parts have interplay with each other, how they give what I would think of as a sort of a soft input to other subsystems, or even set some constraints on what those other systems are doing without totally determining them. So I think we are moving into this more nuanced view of how those two things work together. So that, yeah, our emotions affect what we believe, they also serve as a way to almost elevate or suppress different aspects of what we’re processing so we might remember things in a particular way, or think about them in a particular way. And it’s neat to me too, as somebody in the field, because I look and I see clinical psychologists, the people in the area of psychology who work on how do we help people in therapy and help people with different disorders and challenges. They’ve known this for quite some time, but they’ve looked at it sort of in reverse. So if you’ve ever heard the school of thought known as cognitive therapy, or cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the core tenets of that approach is that the emotional side of how we function, our emotions, are affected by our cognition. So what we feel, even our mood states and so on, that’s fundamentally driven by things like what we believe. And so they’ve come up with these really exciting and powerful techniques for addressing beliefs that people have and thereby affecting their emotions. So we can take a cue from that and have this more nuanced view of the interplay. So back to cognitive psychology. I also come at this really philosophically as what we would call a functionalist, [LAUGHTER] that’s sort of a lens through which I see how we address questions in psychology. So when we say, “Well, why does the mind work in this particular way? Why does it have this component or why does it do this in this way?” I would look at and say, “Well, how does that help us survive? What’s the function for helping us really survive and thrive in our world?” And when we look at things like emotions, our emotions are there for very functional reasons. I believe our emotions exist in order to kind of move us towards things that help us in our survival and move us away from things that are going to be a threat to our survival. And also they serve in this way to kind of alert us to what’s relevant. So it’s almost like a relevance mechanism. So if something provokes an emotional response in us, that may be an old shortcut that our mind has to say, “Yes, this is something that’s important. This is something that maybe you want to remember and that you want to pay attention to.” So I see emotions as kind of a feel for relevance, and that’s something I’m sure we’ll get into in our conversation about teaching and learning. later. And all of this is a practical issue too. I tell the story sometimes about Minds Online, and writing that book, where I got to about midway through the book and literally had this crisis, I remembered it happening like in the middle of the night, there’s something huge that’s missing right around this point in the book. And that book, for those who have taken a look at it, it takes a very cognitive view of how we select and use technologies. But I came to this realization, we can’t really talk about how to maximize the effectiveness of those approaches, unless we also talk about why students are going to do them in the first place, and how we can get them motivated to do them. So, in that book, I ended up covering some very basic elementary foundational concepts in motivation and motivation theory with that idea of what are just the essentials that every teacher needs to know and how might that also get involved in how do we choose certain technologies? How do we set things up in a particular way, for example, in an online course to keep students moving and that keep them putting in that productive effort. And so that’s been around in the back of my mind for quite some time. But now I’m reading all these new articles and this wave of interesting new research that is finding yet more connections between those two sides of the mind. And so how to get students to engage in strategies that work from a cognitive perspective and how to direct that feel for relevance. And early on in my career, as I mentioned in that blog post, I look back and it seems so harsh now, like, well, how do we get students to be accountable. And now I’ve kind of shifted that along with many others towards really looking more at the support side of this and bringing in things like empathy for our students, I don’t think I’ve ever been one of those super punitive “look to your left, look to your right” kinds of teachers, nor have I ever really advised that to their faculty. But I’m realizing that in this really critical case that I’m looking at this relationship in new ways, and I’m excited to share that.

Rebecca: So there’s been a lot of discussion about student motivation and engagement…, a crisis in it. [LAUGHTER] A lot of faculty have reported students being less engaged or less motivated. How can we, as faculty, address some of the challenges that people are experiencing at this moment?

Michelle: And it is such a pressing question, and that’s another thing that’s just really been registering as I’ve had my antenna up about what are people talking about right now? What are they bringing into conferences, and so on? And first off, as a little bit of a skeptic, I have to say, “Well, I think that we still need some more information to nail down exactly what the extent and the nature of the engagement crisis is.” And I think all three of us are attuned to what I guess you can call the fallacy of “students these days.” [LAUGHTER] So as so many people have observed, it’s so tempting to have that filter on of like, “Well, back when I was a student, I was always intrinsically engaged in my classes, I didn’t miss assignments, and so on and there’s a downward trend.” So there’s something about that. I put on my skeptic filter when I see that. But that said, we do have these experiences. And I don’t think regardless, even if we look back and say, “Well, maybe this wasn’t really part of a bigger trend as we thought.” Even if that were to happen, are we gonna look back and say, “Well, we shouldn’t have worried so much about engaging our students, we can almost always stand to engage them more.” So with that big caveat, I think that we should also be really reflecting on and separating out, as much as it’s really possible to do so, disengagement from other related things like prioritizing. I don’t have the capacity to cover all that I need to as a student, and perhaps also as a family member, a parent, a worker, and so on. So here’s how I’m going to go at it, or even just straight up overwhelm, and I think we can look at that from our own perspective, too, and say, “Well, right.” I think we’ve also seen quite a few faculty professional development directors and others who work with other faculty to say, “Oh my gosh, I put up a half a dozen workshops, and I’m having trouble filling them. So we too, as a lot of our demands have converged over the last couple of years, and as we’ve coped with those stresses, we too. It’s not that we’re disengaged from what we’re doing, but we’re having to make some different choices out of necessity. We have the economic costs of college and that whole dynamic that’s going on as well. I’m no expert in that. But I think we all know that students today are working more jobs, succeeding at every single course and getting through as quickly as possible is an economic necessity and so on. So the stakes are very, very high for students, and students are dealing with that. And so that’s one also very important thing to think about when we’re looking at this. So with that, though, have students been more disengaged? I mean, my experience immediately coming back to in-person teaching, I found myself that students were really excited. At the risk of sounding very strange here, it was like a box of excited puppies: Oh my goodness, we’re all here in the classroom together. And I felt the same way in some ways too. But really directing that in some, again, productive ways is what we have to do as the leaders of our classes. Now to practical tips for what can we do. If there’s a disengagement, students are elsewhere, they’re not doing the work, or they’re all excited but they don’t know how to manage that. But here’s a couple things that I think are very practical. So I’m a big advocate these days for flexibility and approachability in what we do. So I wrote a piece last year titled, “Ungrading Light…” I think that was the catchphrase in the title… which talks about “Okay, without sort of throwing out grades and say, ‘Well, students have the wrong motivation when it’s all about the grades.’” If we’re still going to have grades, what are some positive ways to keep students really focused on the learning and engaged with the learning and not just like, checkpoint, checkpoint, how do I get through this? And I do think that even some basic changes to policy can help here. So things like I really have gotten very flexible on deadlines. The caution here that this is going to look very different for people with different course sizes, section sizes, different disciplines, what the learning objectives really are in your course. So I don’t want to imply that everybody just can do this in the same way. And as I also mentioned in the piece, things like very flexible deadline policies can present a professional risk for people who do not have the security of, for example, tenure, and people who are historically minoritized, and are going to elicit different kinds of reactions from students to play out on things like end-of-semester evaluations. So for example, faculty of color. So with those big cautions in mind, now, here’s been my experience is I communicate with students… I say, “I want to be approachable,” I want to really show them and not just tell them that if you come to me and say, “I was pulling double shifts all weekend, and I need to do this paper draft, and I know that, but I need another two days,” that I’m not going to come down on them in a harder, personal way. And if they do that, just not all the time, I will say, “Yeah,” and then my catchphrase right now is, “Take the time, you need to do your best work.” And that turns out actually to be really good for my motivation, too, because I would really rather read what they put together [LAUGHTER] with a little bit of more time, that’s all about I want to do something I can be proud of in this course, and actually walk away with great knowledge. It’s more geared towards that and less geared towards “Oh my gosh, didn’t come in until 11:58 when it’s due at midnight, and I sort of just checked that box again. So that is something as well and other ways to be approachable, that can also elicit more engagement. How do we know students are engaged? Well, when they reach out to us. And so, here again, different individuals have to decide their appropriate comfort level and parameters. But I have a syllabus statement that says here are all the different ways to get in touch with me. If you’ve got a long question, and we need to talk, I’ve got a scheduling program, you click a button, and boom, now you have access to my calendar, and you can get on my calendar the same way my colleagues can. And that’s good. If you have a really quick question like, “Oh my gosh, there’s one thing I need to do in order to finish this assignment and actually be successful, then you can text me or send me a message in a program such as Remind, which can kind of buffer so we’re not trading phone numbers. But, that immediacy, it has not really resulted in this giant pile up of lots of inappropriate communications, which is what I was always warned about when I was coming up as a teacher. But instead, students get the question answered and then they can kind of stay engaged with the flow of what they’re doing. So just basic ideas, but ones that I think can help move us back towards a more engaged setting where students are excited to be there and so am I. If I could add one other thing here, too, we can also take a page out of the transparency philosophy. So if you’re familiar with Transparency in Teaching and Learning, the TILT framework, it’s so powerful. And it’s all about giving more explicit directions to students, as well. What you may read as disengagement or not caring, might be “I don’t know where to start and now, I really am feeling either alienated, overwhelmed, or something in between.” And I think that’s another we can all relate to is, we’re a lot more likely to take the first step down the path and keep going if that first step is lit up, or maybe if the whole path is lit up. So taking that little bit of extra time to say “And here’s where to start and if you get stuck, here’s what to do.” That can also help.

John: I’ve been observing the same sort of issue that many people have reported of students not completing work. I’ve seen students being much more excited to be back in the classroom, and they tend to be fairly engaged in classroom activity. But what I’ve been seeing and what a lot of faculty have been saying is that students aren’t doing the work outside of class at the same rates that they used to do. And one of the concerns in terms of making your classes more flexible, in some cases, you can do that really well and I do allow that with many of the assignments. But in classes where the material builds from week to week, if students start getting behind early in the semester, they’re going to be struggling a lot more later. So I have different policies depending on whether they’re producing something, some type of educational project… a podcast or something similar… as they do in some of my classes, then they can have more time. And I give them as much time as they need to do that with multiple iterations. But with other things like reading the materials online, where there’s some embedded questions, and so forth, there, I do insist that they get it done by a certain time, because then when they come into class and they’re asked clicker questions, some of which they’re graded on, they’re not going to be successful in that if they haven’t done the basic reading. And that’s where I’m seeing a lack of engagement, outside of class. I’ve had many fewer students complete the readings before class, or even weeks after they were due, they’re still not completing some of those readings. And that’s the concern that I’m having. And I have to say that I’ve also observed some of this with faculty too, that attendance at professional development workshops have been a lot lower this year than in the last couple of years. And some of it may be because of burnout after the pandemic. And I should note that on my campus, we’re also transitioning to a new learning management system. And a lot of people have been struggling with that, which takes up a lot of their time, reducing the amount of time they have to learn other new things while they’re struggling to learn the new system. But this issue of engagement does seem to be impacting the amount of learning that I’m seeing, at least in my large intro classes, I’m not seeing it so much in my upper-level classes. But I’m wondering if some of this may be because we have students who’ve spent a year or two with remote learning in schools that often had very few resources to do that, well and students may have just gotten out of practice with doing a lot of work, because in many school systems, students were just passed on to the next grade level without necessarily learning very much in many classes.

Michelle: Yeah, I’ve seen this dynamic, actually even at my upper levels as well became rather glaring the first time that we went back to an in person symposium, it was the kind of capstone experience in this class was to bring some research to the symposium. It’s a wonderful experience, but it dawned on me partway through the semester to step back and just say, “Okay, how many of you have never done a presentation like this before?” And yeah, previously, most of the class would have had some experience either in an in-person research lab that they were in, or in a methods class or something like that. It was one of those head slapping moments, at least for me, feeling, “Of course, of course they don’t know.” And I try to come at it like, “Well, this is the time to do what I probably should have always done for what was previously a small group of students. But it’s still an important group of students who are sitting in the back going, ‘Oh, my gosh, I feel lost. I don’t want to even raise my hand. I don’t know what she’s talking about with the poster or participation or even things like what to wear.’” And so I did, I went back and dusted off and created a few stopgap materials. I found some things out on the web that actually demonstrated a poster presentation that was in progress and what to do and not to do. So it can be an opportunity to do more of that transparency and kind of scaffolding and bringing everybody up. But yeah, it can be shocking to stand back and say, “Okay, who has not actually done this thing that I kind of always assumed would be the case by this level,” regardless of what that is.

Rebecca: I’ve experienced this, even with graduate students, this lack of knowledge of certain kinds of academic experiences, in part because they were learning online or not doing things in person, and now they’re in in-person classes and having any in-person experiences. So I had the same experience, Michelle, but with graduate students, and needing to really build in some transparency there that maybe didn’t need to be there before because in their undergraduate experience, they were very likely to have had a similar experience.

John: And as you said, Michelle, giving students more structure and more support is something that we probably should be doing anyway. We just finished a reading group on Viji Sathy and Kelly Hogan’s book on inclusive teaching. And that’s the message at the heart of that book: that giving students support will help all students at least some and will especially help those students who come from backgrounds that provide less preparation for success in college. So to the extent to which we as faculty all learn that lesson, that giving students more support is useful, it’ll be a better environment.

Michelle: I agree and what seems implicit in that., how you’ve put that too is, instead of like, “Oh my gosh, another thing I have to cram into the semester” …for our motivation and our engagement is to say, this is part of one of the most noble pursuits that we can have as educators, to give it that meaningful frame. So yes, a hearty I agree with that book, in particular, and their framework. And for me, that helps me kind of say, like, “Okay, yeah, this is not just an extra add on, this is what we’re here for.” And if I’m trimming back a few extra articles, or chapters, and I have done that, to some extent, in favor of being able to go more deep and into content, and be more supportive in these positive ways, I think that’s a win.

Rebecca: I think one of the things that I’ve noticed or experienced recently with students is high engagement in class, high engagement in the subject matter, but we’ve had really interesting conversations about procrastination or not doing things outside of class, largely due to a lack of confidence, or striving for perfection that doesn’t exist. And there’s a lot of that emotion around that. And so a lot of my students have talked about that, or shared that with me, which I’m grateful that they’ve shared that with me. But that’s what’s preventing them from getting started.

Michelle: Absolutely. And I think folks who follow the research on procrastination out there, it’s not as much in my specialty area, but I do think it’s fascinating. And it’s another one of these touch points between what we believe, what we feel, what we’re motivated to do, and then in turn, what we remember and what we learn. So I think that for people who are interested in this whole topic of procrastination, why does it happen? What are some really good ways to talk about it, and address it, there’s new stuff coming out. And it’s a good thing to talk about with students as well, I think years back, it was almost a taboo subject. But now from what I hear you saying, you just bring it up with students, and we can all talk about it not as like, “Oh, that’s some terrible thing that other people, bad students, are doing. This is all of us, right? [LAUGHTER] We live in a world of abundance, but also abundant distractions, and so many things competing for our time. So I like this idea of opening up that line of communication, saying, “What do we all do to tackle this when it occurs?”

John: Dan Ariely had a paper a number of years ago, where he did an experiment in class, I think it was an economics class, actually, where students wrote papers. And he and some co authors had two sections of the class, where in one section, students had three papers with fixed due dates spread evenly through the semester. And in the other section, students were able to pick their own due dates. And there was a penalty in either case of one percentage point a day for each day the work was submitted late. And what was found in that study is that the students did best who either had fixed due dates, they had higher quality papers, and higher quality work, and so forth, they wrote more, and the quality of the work was much better when they had fixed due dates, or when they chose evenly spaced due dates. From an economist’s perspective, the rational thing to do would be to put all three due dates on the last day of class, because then you could still plan to do it evenly throughout the semester, but you would have no cost of doing that. So if something came up, you could postpone it. But what happened is the people who put all their due dates at the end of the semester ended up procrastinating, turning in work later, the papers were shorter, they were lower quality, and in general, they didn’t do quite as well. So that’s one study, I often will cite to students when we talk about due dates and deadlines, and so forth. But it’s an interesting study. And I haven’t seen anything else in economics journals, at least, related to that, but I’m sure there’s more that I haven’t seen in the literature.

Michelle: Fascinating stuff from across the disciplines.

John: One of the things you talk about in your blog post is that the strategies that students use for learning are not the strategies that evidence tells us are most effective. Students tend to use strategies that provide some short-term benefit, and seem to be easier, rather than the strategies that require them to struggle a little bit more with the content. One of the things you talk about are some ways that we could encourage students to adopt strategies that may not feel quite as good in the short run, but result in more learning. How can we motivate students to use evidence-based learning strategies?

Rebecca: …motivate them to struggle? [LAUGHTER]

Michelle: Right, but that is really what we’re talking about here. And I do want to go into this… big qualification here… I don’t think that students are just out there wanting to get the best grade and for the least effort necessarily, that’s just not a narrative about students that I buy into. So, I don’t think students are trying to do low-effort strategies. But, just like the rest of us, we don’t have a very good or accurate view always, a very empirical view, of what actually pays off in terms of learning. It’s pretty rare that we sit down and actually kind of do the math and say, “Well, I did this, I systematically changed the approach in this way, and here’s the outcome.” So we don’t come at it that way. So no wonder that over time, we end up with kind of a distorted view of what actually does work. So that’s a big piece of it. And it is true at the same time that these strategies we’re talking about… well, let’s take one, for example, of blocked study. Now this is a term that I also want to unpack a little bit too, it’s not super intuitive. So this has to do with the principle of interleaving, which I always say it doesn’t always apply in all studying, but to cases where you’re learning how to apply different problem solving strategies and you have to choose from several when you’re having to categorize and learn to discriminate among categories. So that is a subset of what students are sometimes learning. And the thing is, we have this great powerful line of research that shows that actually mixing it up in an unpredictable way, the different problem types or category types, means it’s going to be a lot more memorable when you actually work through those practice problems or practice sets. And if that’s the case, the unpredictability of like, well, something’s gonna pop up categorizing different painting styles, I have no idea [LAUGHTER] if it’s going to be a Renoir or a Monet, what could be next? It’s that unpredictability. So people sometimes confuse it with just like mixing up topics or having variety, but it really refers to the systematic principle. Now, when students are offered the opportunity to structure their own study, what do you know, they tend to go with blocked study, and again, it’s not because there’s some dispositional factor, they don’t want to do their homework or something like that. Really when you look at it intuitively, it’s like an illusion, block study feels so effective. I’m going to work through all of this one painter or all of this one way of solving a statistics problem. And then I’ll go into the next and our textbooks are organized that way, too. So students have seen that, and so that’s what they fall back on. And there’s some recent work that I’ve talked about in that blog post and in a few other places, that has really studied in a very granular fashion… it’s presented students with different alternatives, like here’s a blocked study schedule. Here’s an interleaved one. We don’t use the technical terms, we show them both options, and say, “Okay, let’s pretend you have a math test coming up. Which one of these do you want to do? And why?” And yeah, students, they gravitate towards the blocked one. And they say, I perceive that this is going to be easier, first of all, and that’s fine. We want to use the most efficient strategy. So they say, this is gonna look easy and also, it feels more effective. Because I feel like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve got it.” But as we all know, sometimes that’s a false sense of security. So that’s the example as it lays out in that one case, and I think that that is a larger kind of big dynamic, that we do have to be aware of what looks easy, what feels easy, what looks effective, what feels effective. Sometimes, your brain is kind of playing tricks on you. And that becomes very serious when it is the case that things like interleaved study are more effortful, but they’re going to pay off more for the time invested. Retrieval practice, which I and a lot of other folks in the space talk about so much, that’s another that it’s gonna require a different level of effort and engagement to close my book and say, “Alright, instead of rereading this chapter, what did I actually get out of it, or maybe I can seek out a quiz.” And to me, I also think it’s not just the effort involved, and research, by the way, it’s also showing students also to look at this and go, “that looks difficult.” It also kind of emotionally, I mean, I was feeling okay about this chapter, and now, I can’t really kid myself any more. So to the extent that students might be kind of saying, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” …like, we might all do this, this will kind of bust that unjustified optimism, and that doesn’t always feel great in the short term. So if that’s the case, I mean, we can set up these wonderful learning activities, and if students aren’t going to do them, then they’re not doing them or us any good or any benefit. So, that’s the case as well. And so if they have a sense of the value, and a lot of these strategies that maybe we can touch on, do have to do with exposing and revealing and convincing about the value, and finding ways to draw students into exactly those techniques. So just because these are difficult, I do want to make sure everybody doesn’t get this terrible impression of like, “Ah, studying is going to be this miserable slog, no pain, no gain,” …it’s more subtle than that. And they really do work, you really are gonna get so much more out of the time that you put in and for students who really are stretched really thin as we’ve touched on. That’s an important powerful message.

Rebecca: You mentioned a number of specific examples in your post, do oyu want to dive into some of those and share something like the snowball effect or self-determination theory, or some of your other really awesome examples?

Michelle: Oh, thank you, I appreciate that. And, after all, the big philosophy and approach matters, but let’s get down to the actual techniques. So I’ve referenced something called the “snowball effect,” and this is just my informal term, but really, the more you know, the more that you want to know. And the more that you know, because of the way memory works, the more you know about a particular domain or subject area, the easier it is to acquire new facts. And like I always throw out the example of folks we know who are just really committed to some hobby or area of interest, the sports fanatics and so on, they can run into a fact one time and boom, they’ve got it, they’ve maybe got it for life, and they don’t have to study [LAUGHTER] or do anything like that. And so there is that snowball, or rich get richer effect, just because of some factors about how memory is set up and how it works. From a very practical angle, like I ran into this really intriguing study. And it’s not one where we’ve got piles of research yet, but this really got me thinking. So they did a study where they had students through retrieval practice, learn some basic facts about an area that they picked. And they were able to systematically track that when students did learn this foundational information more solidly, then when they had the option, “Oh, would you like to know more about this subject?” …students were more likely to say yes. And that’s totally voluntary. And that’s the sort of thing that makes our hearts go pitter pat, as teachers we want students leaving and going, “Oh, my gosh, now I really want to read that next reading that Dr. Kane assigned, for example.” And like when you were talking about, students are coming into class, and we’re trying to get them into the next level of conceptual stuff and exciting things they can do, if they don’t have the facts, it’s gonna be really, really tough, so it also really points up the importance of doing that. And it also, I think, addresses one of these big myths about memory. And this is one that I’ve talked about in some of my recent workshops, and so on, and I mentioned in my last book, this big myth that if we do focus on having students concentrate on remembering foundational information, we’re going to turn them off of learning: “Oh, it’s going to be this sort of these nightmare of drills.” And, “sure, they’ll know it for the test, but they’ll walk out and they’ll never want to be engaged with the subject again. So it’s a big loss, [LAUGHTER] right?” And this is really calling that into question, saying that sometimes knowing some of these cool initial facts can start to set you down that path and then maybe someday, you will be that expert who can hear a fact one time in this area and we’ve got it. Why? Because we already know so much about it. So again, that whole Interplay there. There’s also the role of choice and autonomy. And this is one that I think a lot of really intuitive, committed, teachers really hit on early, even if they never really have some of the more formal terminology for it. So when there’s choice, not only are students more invested in what they’re doing, there’s possibly a role of curiosity here. So I talk about, in this blog post, this sham lottery study, it was one of these, where if you look at it on the face of it, you’re like, “What are they doing?” But as a psychologist, I’m like, “Ah, that’s really clever.” So basically, they had research participants going through this little pretend lottery of like, “Okay, you’re selecting out of this bucket of red balls, and so on. And what do you think it’s going to come up?” And the one twist that they put in there, is sometimes people chose which of these two little buckets, there are these little random drawings, that they were going to focus on? And then it’s like, okay, well, we can either just move on with the study, or you can see how it came out? Well, they want to know how it came out when they chose… even this incredibly arbitrary [LAUGHTER] low-stakes situation. So I think that’s also another kind of natural, emotional process, motivational process, that we can tie into… setting up curiosities or questions, but also having students say, “Well, which of these two projects do you want to do?” These days I offer options whenever I can. Would you like to write a term paper? The sort of formal paper? Or would you like to put together a slideshow that you can narrate and share? Big learning objectives are probably similar, but students can pick and I always present in practical terms, I say, “Well, if you are going to graduate school next year, and you need a writing sample for your portfolio, this is a great opportunity to do that orr if you’d like to stretch your skills with oral presentations, maybe because of the last few years, you haven’t gotten to do that as much, then you can choose this,” …but simply by having them make a choice, the research would predict that they are going to be more invested, and they’re going to be involved in these more effective things. So that’s one and oh, I’m really excited to see what’s coming out in this whole sub area of “Okay, we’ve done all the research we know that things like retrieval practice and interleaved study, all this engaged stuff. We know it works. We put it on a tip sheet, we gave it to students, nothing happened.” Uh oh.[LAUGHTER] Now what? So not just the like, “Okay, what should students be doing?” But “how do we get them to do those very things?” And, boy, if there was ever a time when we realize, yeah, my ability to just sort of exhort you and make you do things because I say so is limited, this is the time. Because I don’t get to go home with students [LAUGHTER] and say like, “Alright, that whole thing about quiz yourself. And so now you really have to do it.” So there’s this relatively new framework that’s come out too from some cognitive psychologists that I really admire, Mark McDaniels and his team. The knowledge, belief, commitment, and planning approach, KBCP. So this pulls in from some other research on intentional behavior change that’s also been perking along just all on its own for years and years. We know so much about how people set a course and decide to change their behaviors. And study skills are, after all, kind of an entrenched pattern of behavior for many students by the time they get to us. How do we go in and change it? And yeah, it’s absolutely not through my least favorite technique, which is put together a list of random tips and hope for the best. So they say, alright, knowledge is the first step. So just telling students like, “Hey, there’s all this research that shows that if you close the book and quiz yourself, you’re going to get more out of this. If you do the reading quiz that I set up for you, and do it as many times as you possibly can, that’s going to help you retain the foundational information.” I’ve told them, I’ve shared it with them, or something like interleaved study, if you’ve got different problem types, mix them up. But it doesn’t stop there. That’s only the first step. So the next step is belief. And that means changing beliefs, which means persuasion. So we kind of dust off a whole bunch of other things out of the psychologist’s toolkit. How do you persuade people? Well, you show, don’t tell. So this team proposes doing things like “Well, let’s run a head-to-head comparison, like a Pepsi Challenge, in class. Sure, your brain tells you that you learned a ton just from reviewing, but did you? Let’s try it.” And this takes some time. I mean, this is not easy. But this is one of the things they propose: commitment. So now that I’ve persuaded you that this is the way to study, now, what’s your next step? So getting your students to say, “Yeah, I actually authentically believe this. And I see how it’s going to help me and I’m going to try it.” And then of course planning. So instead of just like, “I will do this,” right? Those of us who are veterans of New Year’s resolutions of yor [LAUGHTER] know that that is not the way to go. So yeah, saying “Okay, but here’s what I’m going to actually do. So I’ve got a test coming up, I’m going to maybe set up a study schedule, instead of just cramming it all in the last minute, which is [LAUGHTER] a really good empirically grounded strategy. I’m going to find these practice quizzes, or maybe I’ll get together with a study group and do that. So here’s my plan.” And then if possible, circling back and say, “Well, did it work.?” And hey, if we’re right, then students will actually try it, they’ll say, “Wow, in less time, I knocked the top out of this test that I was really worried about.” And that is going to feed that virtuous cycle of going right back to those effective strategies. So KPCB, I love it too, because I’ve been doing something similar in the Attention Matters Project that I think I’ve talked about on some previous episodes as well, which is all about having students themselves come in and see how their attention is limited, learn about the effects of things like distraction on their learning. But we don’t stop there. We give them a few rudimentary tools as well, we say, “Okay, what is going to be your plan if things are dragging in class and your mom is texting you? That’s tough. How are you going to get through [LAUGHTER] that without then checking out of your class? What are you going to do if your neighbors are watching who knows what on their laptop or they’re texting and it’s bothering you? What is going to be your plan?” So getting students to really think ahead to those things, commit to doing them in a way that works for them, and puts that newfound knowledge into practice. So those are some of the things that I’m really experimenting with and excited about right now.

Rebecca: So in that approach, it seems really necessary to help set up a structure for students and then circle back and have a reflective piece so that maybe they will do that on their own next time.

Michelle: And there’s some exciting suggestions from research here, too. I mean, I know it’s easy sometimes as faculty, especially at the end of a long year, like this one, to say, “Ah, well, did it actually stick with them?” But there’s a couple of different projects out there that have kind of converging on this idea that once students really do see something like retrieval practice, active studying, and so on, and once they really experienced that, as part of the structure of one course, they absolutely will run with it. So they will go into the next class, whether in your discipline or not, and say, “Well, from now on, I’m actually going to have a study plan that’s set up in this particular way and I’m going to do this.” So I personally find that very, very encouraging that “Yeah, it takes some work to do this stuff, but the payoff, even if you personally don’t see it right in front of your eyes, the payoff is likely there.”

John: And so the more faculty you start doing these things too, the more likely it is that students will adopt new approaches. So spreading this more widely is helpful.

Michelle: Yes, yes, a hearty I agree to that statement. And I can test on my own campus, I’ve seen more faculty bringing in more structure, things like online reading quizzes, I have noticed that, so I guess that’s a counterpoint to the “Wow, my lived experience is telling me that there’s these issues in engagement. Maybe so, but my lived experience is also telling me that students are coming to me more ready to be proactive about their study, they need a little less persuasion to do things like reading quizzes, because they at least they’ve seen them before. So yeah, I think it absolutely can work that way you’re describing.

Rebecca: So we always wrap up by asking, what’s next?

Michelle: Wow, well, these days, I’m working a lot on my substack newsletter, it’s called the R3 Newsletter. And I think this is the mechanism by which we connected on some of these new topics. So I love that it’s already starting these great dialogues. And if you haven’t seen substack at all, it’s a bit of a blogging platform. And my substack is free, some subtasks are paid, but mine is definitely free. And so, for example, if you’re interested in this topic, I would definitely tell your listeners to check out Sarah Rose Cavanagh’s substack, as well, it’s called “Once More, with Feeling” and I also want to affirm that she is and her work are really at the forefront of this whole topic of motivation and emotion and particular in learning so a great other substack to follow it and buy her book, Spark of Learning is also just an absolute modern classic in this. So I decided to get in the fray since I saw these wonderful thinkers around me also doing this. And this has been a really good platform, and a way to structure for myself something that I felt needed a refresh, which was my reading of the literature that’s coming out. So what I do is twice a month, approximately, I’ve been putting out discussions of research that I’m reading. My little heuristic is anything that was published in approximately the last year, really privileging the new stuff. And I’ve historically just seen that then when I really get into the nitty gritty of the research and what it says and what it doesn’t and parsing that for folks, especially those who may be outside of social sciences, that’s where I get the most affirmation from folks and people saying, “Yeah, this was really helpful.” So I decided to run with that. And so that’s a big project ight now. I’ve been really happy with the reception and just working on that. I’ve been writing and thinking more about this topic of motivation and cognition. So as we mentioned at the top of our conversation, it’s one that goes back to kind of my initial ponderings, thrashing around as a beginning graduate student of like, “How does this all work?” Coming back to that, and really finding new ways that I can share that with my fellow faculty. So getting the word out there. I have a few new projects that I’m working on that tie back to that attention issue. So that’s another perpetual area of interest for me. So I have a few new writing and research projects that are going on with that and kind of in the development phase. And this summer, I am going to be catching up on a stack of books, just an epic number of these great books and works that are coming out. Seems like every week, there’s a new thing that goes on that list. So I look forward to a few weeks or more to really concentrate on that.

John: And we should note this is the second podcast that has come out of things we’ve seen posted on your substack blog.

Michelle: Oh, wonderful.

John: One other thing. Sarah Rose Cavanaugh has a new book coming out that we were fortunate enough to get a draft copy of and it should be out this summer: Mind over Monsters, if you’d like to see more about this topic.

Michelle: Oh, absolutely. Alright. It’s on the stack now.

Rebecca: That pile keeps growing.

Michelle: Yes, it does.

Rebecca: Better add on another week. [LAUGHTER]

John: We could all use an extra week or summer.

Rebecca: Right? Yeah.

John: Well, thank you. It’s always great talking to you, Michelle.

Michelle: Oh, my pleasure, you as well.

Rebecca: Thanks, Michelle.

[MUSIC]

John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

[MUSIC]

276. Teaching at its Best

Posted in active learning, assessment, attention, authentic learning, backward design, classroom community, clickers, cognitive science, collaborative learning, critical thinking, edtech, educational technology, engagement, equity, evidence-based practices, feedback, first-generation, first-year classes, grading, growth mindset, higher education, inclusion, learning, motivation, online learning, pedagogy, teaching
February 15, 2023

New faculty often start their faculty roles without training in teaching. In this episode Linda Nilson and Todd Zakrajsek join us to talk about the evolving roles and expectations of faculty and explore the new edition of a classic teaching guide.

Now Director Emeritus, Linda was the Founding Director of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation at Clemson University. Todd is an Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of the Faculty Development Fellowship in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Linda and Todd are each individually the authors of many superb books on teaching and learning and now have jointly authored a new edition of a classic guide for faculty.

Shownotes

  • Zakrajsek, T. and Nilson, L. B. (2023). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. 5th edition. Jossey-Bass.
  • Nilson, L. B., & Goodson, L. A. (2021). Online teaching at its best: Merging instructional design with teaching and learning research. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Nilson, Linda (2021). Infusing Critical Thinking Into Your Course: A Concrete, Practical Guide. Stylus.
  • McKeachie, W. J. (1978). Teaching tips: A guidebook for the beginning college teacher. DC Heath.
  • POD
  • Betts, K., Miller, M., Tokuhama-Espinosa, T., Shewokis, P., Anderson, A., Borja, C., Galoyan, T., Delaney, B., Eigenauer, J., & Dekker, S. (2019). International report: Neuromyths and evidence-based practices in higher education. Online Learning Consortium: Newburyport, MA.’
  • Padlet
  • Jamboard
  • Eric Mazur
  • Dan Levy
  • Teaching with Zoom – Dan Levy – Tea for Teaching podcast – May 26, 2021

Transcript

John: New faculty often start their faculty roles without training in teaching. In this episode we talk about the evolving roles and expectations of faculty and explore the new edition of a classic teaching guide.

[MUSIC]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer…

Rebecca: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

[MUSIC]

John: Our guests today are Linda Nilson and Todd Zakrajsek. Now Director Emeritus, Linda was the Founding Director of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation at Clemson University. Todd is an Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of the Faculty Development Fellowship in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Linda and Todd are each individually the authors of many superb books on teaching and learning and now jointly have authored another superb book. Welcome back, Linda and Todd.

Linda: Thank you very much.

Todd: Really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are: … Linda, are you drinking tea?

Linda: I’m drinking a tea called water. It’s rather dull, but I enjoy it.

Rebecca: It’s very pure.

Linda: Yes, very pure. Very pure.

Rebecca: How about you Todd?

Todd: Oh, I’ve got myself a Lemon Detox because I’ve spent most of my day getting all toxed and now I’m getting detoxed. [LAUGHTER] Wait a minute, that sounds bad. [LAUGHTER] But that will be all right. [LAUGHTER]

John: Especially at Family Medicine.

Todd: Well, we can fix it. [LAUGHTER] In general, life is good.

John: I am drinking pineapple green tea.

Rebecca: Oh, that’s a new one for you, John.

John: I’ve had it before, just not recently.

Rebecca: Okay. I’m back to the very old favorite, English afternoon. Because I stopped by the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and grabbed a cup before I came.

John: And we are recording together in the same room, which has been a fairly rare occurrence for the last several years. We’ve invited you here to discuss your joint endeavor on the fifth edition of Teaching at its Best: a Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, that Linda originally developed and now you’ve collaborated on this new edition. How did the collaboration on this edition come about?

Linda: Well, let me talk about that. Because it was pretty much my idea. Jossie-Bass contacted me and said “let’s put out a fifth edition” and I said “let’s not.” [LAUGHTER] I was not in the mood to do it. I’ve been retired six and a half years now and I’m loving it. I mean, I’m really loving it. And while retired, I was still writing the second edition of Online Teaching at its Best. And then I was writing a book, Infusing Critical Thinking Into Your Course, and I guess I had had it. I mean, I wanted to really make a change and I wanted to get specifically into working at an animal shelter. So I was all occupied with that. So I thought I remember Wilbert J. McKeachie, when he was doing Teaching Tips that he came to a certain point after I don’t know how many editions that he brought other people on to really do the revision work. And so I decided I’m going to do that. So Jossey-Bass said “Okay, fine.” They wanted three names. Okay, I gave him three names, but my first choice was Todd Zakrajsek, because 1. I knew he’d finish it. [LAUGHTER] I knew he’d finish it fast. I knew he do a great job. He knows the literature like the back of his hand, I wouldn’t have a worry in the world. And guess what? Todd accepted. Hip hip hurray. I was so happy. I couldn’t tell you.

Todd: Well, this is great because I said no when they asked me. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: Like any smart person would, right? [LAUGHTER]

Todd: Well, I did end up doing it, of course. But the reason I said no was I knew that book very well and I know Linda very well. And I said, “There is no way. I don’t know anybody who can step in and pick this thing up. She knows so much about so much that it’s just not possible.” And they said, “But she really wants you to do this.” So I went back and forth a couple times and I finally decided to do it. And I will tell you, Linda, because I haven’t mentioned this to you. The first three chapters, I had to go back and redo those when I got done with it, because I was so scared of the first three chapters [LAUGHTER] that it was really rough. And then finally it’s like, okay, I hit my rhythm and I walked into it with impostor syndrome a little bit, and I finally caught my footing, but it’s a good book to start with.

Linda: Thank you. Thank you very much. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, I know, the plot thickens, right? It becomes more interesting as you go from chapter to chapter, right. And before you know it, there’s a happy ending after all.

Rebecca: So Linda, Teaching at its Best has been around for a long time with a first edition published in 1998. Can you talk a little bit about how that first edition came about?

Linda: Yes, that was…I can’t believe… 1998. That’s 25 years ago. It’s almost scary how time flies. But anyway, the actual seed of the book came about in about 1994… 95. But I need to give you some background because I had been writing TA training books since like, the late 1970s when I was first given the task of putting together a TA training program. So back then, I was putting out weekly mimeos,[LAUGHTER] remember mimeograph machines. Some of you don’t know, what is she talking about? But anyway, that was technology then. But anyway, smetl great, though… it really did. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: That’s the second time today someone has made a reference about the smell of those.

Linda: Yeah, oh yeah.

John: The dittos are what I remember having the stronger smell

Todd: The ditto did, yeah. yeah, and I’ll tell you before we move on, when I was a graduate student, we had a ditto machine. I just have to say this, Linda, because you liked the smell and all there.

Linda: Yeah, Yeah.

Todd: But they had a ditto machine. And below the ditto machine, I noticed that the floor tiles were kind of eaten away by the ditto fluid. [LAUGHTER] And then here’s the best part is that one day I was rooting around in the closet looking for something and I found the extra tiles in a box and the side of the box said “reinforced with long-lasting asbestos.” [LAUGHTER] So the ditto fluid was eating through asbestos lined tile, but that’s how strong that stuff is. So yeah, we all enjoyed the smell of that stuff back in the day..

Linda: Yeah, yeah. I guess it’s a good thing for all of us they invented something else, like copying machines. So anyway, so I started doing that at UCLA. And then that turned into like a booklet of sorts. And then I was at UC Riverside, and I was writing books there. And I sort of revised it every couple of years. And I was also writing these with my master teaching fellows. So we were doing that. And then I came to Vanderbilt, and I decided, well, I’m going to do this, pretty much on my own, I’ll get some help from my master teaching fellows. But anyway, it turned into an actual book. I mean, it turned into a happy monster. And I was very pleased with it. Well, along about 94-95, my husband recommended that I turn it into a regular book, and talk to a publisher about it. So anyway, I said, “Oh, great idea. Great idea and just sort of didn’t think about it much. Then in 1996, he died. And I thought, “Well, how am I going to pull myself through?” I bet it would be a great idea and a great tribute to him if I took Teaching at its Best, the Vanderbilt edition, and turned that into a general book. And I decided to do that and kept my mind off of bad things. And it turned into Teaching at its Best, the first edition. That’s why I dedicated the book to him, by the way, because it really was his inspiration that got me to do it. And so anyway, tribute to him. So that’s where the first edition came from. I mean, it really grew out of tragedy. But it’s been a comedy ever since, right? [LAUGHTER] So anyway, it’s been a wonderful thing.

John: And it’s been a great resource.

Rebecca: It’s interesting that it pulled you through, but then has pulled many teachers through. [LAUGHTER]

Linda: And I’ve gotten such feedback from faculty members who said, “I saved their lunch,” you know, if they were really in big trouble, and some of them said, “I was in big trouble with my teaching and you got me tenure.” Yeah, like, right. But anyway, the book helped a lot of people. And I guess maybe something in me when I first published this book said, “Gee it would really be great to be the next Wilbert McKeachie, right, which is a very pretentious thing to think. But then they wanted the second edition, I was thinking, “Hey, maybe I’m on the road to something.” And then there was a third, and then there was the fourth. And it didn’t get any easier to write the subsequent editions really, it was just a matter of keeping up with the literature. And so right now, I’m off into another corner of the world. So I just didn’t want to immerse myself in that again.

John: So that brings us to the question of what is new in the fifth edition?

Todd: Well, that’s my question. I’ve known Linda for the longest time. By the way, I do want to mention before we go on, I can’t remember, Linda, if it’s been that long ago, but it might have been the second edition. When at POD, I said, “You need to do a second edition of this book” …or second or third. But I was using the book. I mean, I learned so much from it. So for the new edition. Number one, of course, the research has been updated only because the research is always changing. And it had been a few years. So that’s number one. In terms of changing the book, though, we only have a leeway of about 10,000 words. Now, for those out there listening 10,000 words sounds like a lot of words until you’ve got a 200,000 word book, it was about 190. And they said, you can’t go over 200 Because the book just gets too big then. So it is 10,000 words longer than it was in fact, I think it’s 10,003 words longer. So it’s right in there. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: So you snuck an extra 3 words in.

Todd: It could have been a squeeze to put three words in there. And it’s always hilarious because when they say there’s just a few too many words I just start hyphenating things so yeah, it kind of all works. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, just any words at all. So you can do “can you” as just a hyphenated word. It works. [LAUGHTER]K So is that terminology, the terminology does change and I find this fascinating. One of the things I love to write about books is learning. I mean, Linda, the same thing what as we write, we read a ton of stuff. And as we read stuff, we learn stuff. So this one in particular, for example, is that I grew up with PBL as problem based learning. And I had done workshops on it, I had worked on everything else, but I hadn’t looked at it for quite a while. And in this particular book, as I started looking at PBL, I couldn’t find anything on problem based learning. And it was fascinating because I was doing some digging, and then I called Claire Major, who was an early person who had a grant on problem based learning and everything I ran into was about 2002, it just started to drop off a little bit, and there was some, but it started to tail off. And when I talked to Claire, she says, “Oh, yeah, I used to do quite a bit about that, it was back around 2002-2003.” And now, and the reason I’m saying this is, every time I saw the letters PBL, it was project based learning. And project based learning sounds a lot like problem based learning, but they’re different concepts. And so anyway, going through and finding some of the terminology, so it was consistent with what’s being done right now has changed. There is now a chapter on inclusive teaching, because over the last three or four years, we finally realized that there’s a whole lot of individuals who haven’t been successful in higher education, partly because of the way we teach. And so I’ve been making an argument for a few years now that teaching and learning, the classroom situation has always really been based for fast-talking, risk-taking extroverts. And we’ve suddenly realized that if you’re not a fast-talking, risk-taking extrovert, you may not get a chance to participate, classroom and other things. So I looked at some different things with inclusive teaching. There’s a whole another chapter on that. And then just the language throughout, we talk a little differently now, just even over the last three or four years than we did five, six years ago, I was pretty surprised by that. But there’s some pretty significant changes in language. So the book has a slightly different tone in language, and those are the biggest changes. Oh, I should say, before we move on, one of the biggest other changes, and I did this one, Linda put a section in there that said learning styles had changed significantly from the previous edition. And so she had pointed out that there was no longer a section on learning styles. And I put the learning styles right back in there, I told Linda and she gasped just a little bit. And then I explained that I put it back in there, and then said exactly how terrible it was to basically teach according to learning styles, because it’s the myth that will not die. So that’s back in there.

Linda: People love it. I know. [LAUGHTER]

John: We have that issue all the time, students come in believing in them and say, “Well, I can’t learn from reading because I’m a visual learner.” And I say “Well, fortunately, you use your eyes to read,” and then I’ll get them some citations.

Todd: Well, I’ll tell you, and before we move on, these are the types of things we learned. I couldn’t figure out why the thing is so hard to die. What is it that’s really doing this because other myths we’ve been able to debunk. And part of the reason is licensing exams, when you are in pre-service and you want to become a teacher, the exams you take to become a teacher, a large portion of those exams, have learning styles questions on there. So you have to answer about visual learners and auditory learners and kinesthetic. And so until we get those out of teacher education programs, we’re teaching teachers to believe this. So anyway, there you go. Public service announcement. Be careful about meshing. And if you don’t know what meshing is, look it up and then stop it. [LAUGHTER]

John: We have had guests on the podcast who mentioned learning styles, and then we edit them out and explain to them later why we edit out any reference to that. And I think most of them were in education, either as instructors, or they’ve been working as secondary teachers. It is a pretty pervasive myth. In fact, Michelle Miller and Kristen Betts, together with some other people, did a survey. And that was the most commonly believed myth about teaching and learning. It was done through OLC a few years back, about three or four years ago. Yep,

Todd: Yeah, I saw that survey. Yes, it’s pretty amazing. Michelle’s an amazing person.

Rebecca: The experience of the pandemic has had a fairly large impact on how our classes are taught. Can you talk a little bit, Todd, about how this is reflected in this new edition?

Todd: Things have changed pretty significantly because of the pandemic. There’s a couple things going on. Again, the inclusive teaching and learning, which I’ve already commented on, is really different now. And it’s interesting, because it goes back to the 1960s. We’ve known that, for instance, African Americans tend to flunk at twice the rate of Caucasians, in large machine-scored multiple choice exams. So we know it’s not the teaching, and we know it’s not the grades, it has to be something else. And it turns out that it was you put students into groups and those differences start to disappear. So I mean, even more so the last couple of years, it’s a lot of engaged learning, active learning. I’m still going to pitch my stuff that I’ve been ranting and raving about for years. And there’s no data out there that says that lecturing is bad. What the data says is that if you add active and engaged learning to lecture, then you have much better outcomes than lecture alone. But we’re learning about those types of things in terms of active and engaged learning, how to pair it with and mix it with other strategies that work, looking at distance education in terms of systems and how we can use technology. So a quick example is I used to have a review session before exams. And oftentimes, it’s hard to find a place on campus to have that. And so you might be in a room off in one hall or the library or something. And if the exam was on Monday, I’d have the review session at like six o’clock, seven o’clock on a Sunday night. And there are students who couldn’t make it. I would simply say, you can get notes from someone else. And we’ve known for the longest time, if a student misses class, getting notes from somebody else doesn’t work. Well, now I do review sessions on Zoom, we don’t have to worry about finding a place to park, we don’t have to worry about some students finding babysitters, if they’re working, it’s recorded, so they get the exact same thing. So things like Zoom have really changed teaching in a sense that you can capture the essence in the experience of teaching and use it for others, and it has helped with some equity issues. You can’t do it all the time. And teaching over Zoom is different than face to face. But there are now ways of using different technologies and using different modalities to help to teach in ways that were not really used before the pandemic.

John: Speaking of that, during the pandemic, there was a period of rapid expansion in both the variety of edtech tools available and in terms of teaching modalities themselves. In the description of your book, it indicates that you address useful educational technology and what is a waste of time? Could you give us an example of both some useful technologies that could be used and some that are not so useful? And also perhaps a reaction to the spread of bichronous and HyFlex instruction?

Linda: Yeah, I’ll take this one. And I’m drawing a lot of stuff from another book that I co-authored, with Ludwika Goodman. We were writing about Online Teaching at its Best, okay. And she was an instructional designer. And I came from teaching and learning and we put our literature’s together. And we were talking about modalities a great deal, especially in the second edition with the pandemic. Well, one thing I found out, not only from reading, but also from watching this happen was that this Hyflex or bichronous, whatever you want to call it, is a bust, if there ever was a modality, that’s a bad idea it’s that one, even though administrators love it because students can choose whether to come to class and do the things they would do in class, or to attend class remotely? Well, yeah, it sounds like “oh, yeah, that could be good.” But the technological problems, and then the social problems, especially the in-class social problems are enormous. And in-class social problems, like small group work, how do you hear what’s going on in the classroom over this low roar of small groups? Okay, so how can you help? How can the students that are learning remotely, what can they do? Now, the way this was invented, by the way, was for a small graduate class, and then okay, like, makes sense, because you’re only dealing with six students in this room and six students who are remote. But other than that, it’s so bad, the logistics, the sound logistics, the coordination that the instructor has to maintain, the attempt at being fair to both groups, at bringing in both groups, when the groups can’t even hear each other well. Now, if we had Hollywood level equipment in our classrooms, we might be able to make this work a little better, but we don’t, and we’re never going to have that. So there are just a lot of technological and social reasons why HyFlex, that’s what I called it in Online Teaching at its Best, what it was called at the time is a complete bust. Now, not to be confused with hybrid or blended learning, which we found has worked exceedingly well. So bringing in some technology, but into a face-to-face environment and that being the base of the class. Now, remote’s nice, but you might not want to do remote all the time for all things. It’s not quite the next best thing to being there. But it’s something and as long as you don’t just stand there and stare at the camera and lecture for an hour. You’ll get complaints about that quickly. And particularly with students today when they really need to be actively involved, actively engaged. So yeah, sure, fine, talk for three minutes, maybe even push it for five, but then give them something to do and you really, really must in remote because otherwise, you’re just some talking head on television.

Todd: I agree completely. In fact, it was funny because I happen to have a digital copy of the book here. And so I typed in a ctrl F and I typed in HyFlex and there’s one comment to the preface that said there’s many different formats out there and then I will tell the listeners, if you’re expecting to learn about HyFlex, the word never shows up again in the book. [LAUGHTER] So, it’s not in there. I mean, you look at the literature that’s out there. And I think it’s fair to say that maybe there are people who can do it. I haven’t really seen it done well and I think Linda’s saying she hasn’t either. And it’s so difficult, especially for a book like this. That’s not what we’re all about. I mean, again, if it even works well, which I’d love to hear that it would be a very advanced book and that’s not what this is. So we do have a lot in there about technology in terms of edtech tools, though. There are those in there, I would just say real quickly, for instance, Padlet’s one of my favorites, I’ll throw that out there. I like Padlet a lot. But there are tools out there, if you want to do a gallery walk, which for instance, if you happen to be in a face-to-face course, you’d set up maybe four stations with big sheets of paper, you put your students into groups, and then they walk from sheet of paper to sheet of paper, and they move around the room. And they can do what’s called a gallery walk. You can do the same thing online with a jamboard, you can set up jamboards so that there’s different pages, and then each group is on a page. And then you just say it’s time to shift pages, they could shift pages. So I’ve done gallery walks, and it’s worked well. I’ve used Padlet for brainstorming. And one of the things I love about Padlet, I’ll have to say is if you are doing some digital teaching in a situation, you can watch what each group is developing on the page for all groups at the same time. I can’t hear all groups at the same time when I walk around the room. So there are certainly some technologies coming out that can really do things well. There’s also things that don’t work very well, though. And I think one of the things you want to keep in mind is just learning theory. Does the technology you’re using advance students, potentially, through learning theory? Does it help with repetition? Does it help with attention? Linda was just mentioning attention, if you lecture too long, you lose their attention. If you do something ridiculously simple or not… I was gonna say stupid, but that sounds rude. But if we do something as a small group that makes no sense, you don’t get their attention either. So using clickers, I have to say, I watched a faculty member one time because they were touted as a person who was very engaging. And this is at a medical school, so I really wanted to see this. And the person used clickers, but used it in a way that asked the students a question, they responded, and the instructor looked up at the board and said, “Here’s how you responded, let’s move on.” And then moved on to the next thing. And about five minutes later gave another question said, “How do you respond?” and they clicked the clicker, and then they moved on again. That had no value at all, and in fact, there was no actual interaction there. So afterwards, I say, can’t you just ask a rhetorical question and just move on? We got to be careful not to use technology just because it’s being used, it should advance the learning process.

John: However, clickers can be effective if it’s combined with peer discussion and some feedback and some just-in-time teaching. If it’s just used to get responses that are ignored, it really doesn’t align with any evidence-based practice or anything we know about teaching and learning. But those per discussions can be useful and there’s a lot of research that show that does result in longer-term knowledge retention when it’s used correctly, but often it’s not.

Todd: Right. And I think that’s a really good point. I’m glad you said that, because Eric Mazur, and his concept tests, for a large extent, that’s where active and engaged learning really took off. And that is a clicker questions. And they can be used as great tools. But again, if you’re using it for the right reason, which is what you just said, My comment is, there’s technology out there, that is a waste of time, and not a good thing to have, because it’s just not being used in a way that’s conducive to learning. So good point, that’s fair.

Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit about who the audience of the book is?

Linda: Sure. It’s actually for anybody who teaches students older than children, I suppose, because it isn’t really designed for teaching children. But other than that, it’s really for people who teach but don’t have the time to read a book. The nice thing about Teaching at its Best is you can go to the table of contents, you go to the index, you could find exactly what you need for your next class. And it’s very oriented towards how to, so it could be for beginners or for experienced people who simply haven’t tried something specific before, or want a twist on it, or just want some inspiration. Because there there are a lot of different teaching techniques in there. And they’re all oriented towards student engagement, every single one of them. But I wanted to comment too, on just how the job of instructor or professor has changed over the past, I don’t know, 40 years, I suppose. I know when I started teaching it was a completely different job. And I started teaching in 1975, when I was 12, of course, but no and I was young to start teaching because I was 25 and there I was 180 students in front of me. So oops, my goodness, what have I done? But that’s exactly what I wanted to do. But you’d go in there, you’d lecture and you’d walk out. You were in complete control of everything. Like, you might throw out a question and you might get a discussion going. But it wasn’t considered to be essential. In fact, there were two teaching techniques back then: there was lecture, and there was discussion. And nobody knew how to do discussion. Now, I had to find out a few things about it when I was doing TA training, because TAs were supposed to be running discussions. But there wasn’t a lot out there. Thank God for Wilbert McKeachie’s book Teaching Tips, because that was about the only source out there you could go to. So anyway, but now the job, I mean, oh, it’s mind boggling what faculty are now expected to do. And they are supposed to, like, learning outcomes. Okay, I love learning outcomes. They’re wonderful. But I didn’t have to do that when I started, I just had to talk about my subject, which I dearly loved. And so, that was nothing. But you’ve got learning outcomes. So you’ve got to be like, a course designer, you have to deal with a student’s mental health problems, right? It’s part of the job, and you’re expected to respond to them. You’re supposed to give them career counseling in careers that you might not know much about, and possibly for good reason, because you’re in your own career. It’s so time consuming, not to mention fair use, oh, yes, fair use has changed, fair use has changed radically. And when you’re dealing with anything online, the rules are totally different. And you’re highly restricted as to what you can use, what you could do. When you’re in a face-to-face classroom, it’s a little bit easier. So yeah, so you got to be a copyright lawyer to stay out of trouble. And then you get involved in accreditation, you get involved in that kind of assessment. So you have to all of a sudden be totally involved in what your program is doing, what your major is doing, where it’s headed. There’s just too much to do. And there are more and more committees and oh, there’s a lot of time wasted in committees. Of course, you’re supposed to publish at the same time and make presentations at conferences. It was like that back then, too. But now, the expectations are higher, and it’s on top of more time in teaching, and more courses. I was teaching four courses a year, and you can’t find that kind of job anymore.

Rebecca: So Linda, you’re saying the animal shelter is going really well now?

Linda: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Todd: That’s hilarious. Well, I want to point out too, and I think Linda’s said it very, very well is that we are expected to do things we never had to use before. Never worried about before. And I love the fair use is great, because when I first started teaching, and I’ve been teaching for 36 years, when I first started teaching, you’d videotape something off TV and show it in class and then put it on the shelf. And I knew people who showed the same video for 10 years. Right now you better be careful about showing the same video for 10 years. But these are things we need to know. I would say also, by the way, this is a really good book for administrators, anybody who would like to give guidance to faculty members, or better understand teaching and learning so that when promotion and tenure comes along, you get a sense of this. And so if you’re saying to the faculty, they should use a variety of teaching strategies. It’s not a bad idea to know a variety of teaching strategies. And so I think it’s good for administrators as well, and graduate students. But I want to take a second and tell you, one of the reviews of the book, I guess, came in just yesterday or the day before from Dan Levy. He’s a senior lecturer at Harvard University. And what he put was Teaching at it’s Best is an absolute gem. Whether you are new to teaching in higher education, or have been doing it for a while, you will find this book’s evidence-based advice on a wide range of teaching issues to be very helpful. The style is engaging and the breadth is impressive. If you want to teach at your best you should read Teaching at its Best. And I love what he put in there because it doesn’t matter if you’re a new teacher or you’ve been doing it for a while, this book’s got a lot of stuff in it.

John: And Dan has been a guest on our podcast, and he’s also an economist, which is another thing in his favor. [LAUGHTER]

Todd: That is good.

John: I do want to comment on lenders observation about how teaching has changed because I came in at a very similar type of experience. I was told by the chair of the department not to waste a lot of time on teaching and to focus primarily on research because that’s what’s most important, and that’s the only thing that’s really ultimately valued here or elsewhere in the job market. But then what happened is a few people started reading the literature on how we learn And then they started writing these books about it. [LAUGHTER] And these books encouraged us to do things like retrieval practice and low-stakes tests, and to provide lots of feedback to students. So those people…[LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: I don’t know any of them.

John: …but as a result of that many people started changing the way they teach in response to this. So some of it is you brought this on to all of us by sharing… [LAUGHTER]

Linda: I apologize.

Todd: Sorry about that.

Linda: I apologize.

Todd: We apologize and you know, I will say too is, so yeah, sorry. Sorry about doing that. But I’m glad you said that.

Linda: We made the job harder didn’t we?

Todd: We did, but you know to just be fair for Linda and I as well as I still remember a faculty member calling me, It must have been about 20 years ago, and I just started doing a little bit of Faculty Development, she was crying, she had given her first assignment in terms of a paper. And she said, I’m sitting here with a stack of papers, and I don’t know how to grade them. And it got me thinking a little bit, how many of the aspects of the job that we’re required to do, were we trained to do? And that’s the stuff that Linda was mentioning as well, is nobody taught me. I’m an industrial psychologist. And so nobody taught me the strategies for delivering information to a group of 200 people. Nobody taught me how to grade essay tests. Nobody taught me how to grade presentations, I didn’t know about fair use and how I could use things. I mean, you go through and list all of the things that you’re required to do. And then look at all the things you were trained to do. And this is tough. And that changed. So I have one quick one I’ll mention is I was hired as an adjunct faculty member before I got my first tenure-track job. And I was teaching 4-4. So I had four classes in the fall, four classes in the spring. And about halfway through the spring, I ran into the department chair, and I was interested to see if I was going to be able to come back and I said, “Hey, Mike, how am I doing?” And this was at Central Michigan University, a pretty good sized school. He said, “You were fantastic.” And I said, “Excellent. What have you heard?” He said, “absolutely nothing.” So when it comes to teaching, what I learned was: research, you had to do well, and teaching, you had to not do terribly. And that is what you were mentioning has changed is now you’re kind of expected to do teaching as well.

Rebecca: And there’s a lot more research in the area now too. So sometimes it’s hard to keep up on it. So books like this can be really helpful in providing a lot of that research in one place.

John: And both of you have written many good books that have guided many, many faculty in their careers, and eliminated that gap between what we’re trained to do and what we actually have to do.

Rebecca: So of course, we want to know when we can have this book in our hands.

Todd: Good news for this book, which is exciting because we really cranked away on this thing and it’s listed in Amazon as being due on April 25. But it actually went to press on January 23. So it’s already out and about three months ahead of schedule.

John: Excellent. We’re looking forward to it. I’ve had my copy on preorder since I saw a tweet about this. I think it was your tweet, Todd, a while back. And I’m very much looking forward to receiving a copy of it.

Todd: Excellent. We’re looking forward to people being able to benefit from copies of it.

Rebecca: So we always wrap up by asking what’s next.

Todd: It’s hard to tell what’s next because I’m exhausted from what’s been [LAUGHTER] ever moving forward, as I’m working on and just finishing a book right now that’s to help faculty in the first year of their teaching. So it’s basically off to a good start. It’s what specifically faculty should do in the first year of getting a teaching position. And aside from that, probably working on my next jigsaw puzzle, I like to do the great big jigsaw puzzles. And so I just finished one that had 33,600 pieces. It is five feet….

Rebecca: Did you say 33,000 pieces?

Todd: No, I said 33,600 pieces.It was the 600 that…

Rebecca: Oh, ok.

Todd: …was difficult. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: Yeah.

Todd: When the puzzle is done, it has standard sized pieces, and it is five feet by 20 feet. So I just enjoy massively putting something together. It’s very challenging. So quite frankly, for those about and listening to this is if you imagine 33,600 puzzle pieces, that’s about as many studies as Linda and I have read to put this book together. [LAUGHTER]

Linda: Nothing to it. [LAUGHTER]

Todd: So that’s it for me. [LAUGHTER] Linda, what are you up to these days?

Linda: Oh, well, I live in la la land. So I’m still doing workshops and webinars and things like that mostly on my books of various kinds, various teaching topics. But I think what I want to do is retake up pastels and charcoals. My father was a commercial artist. And so he got me into pastels and charcoals when I was in high school. Well and then I dropped it to go off to college. Well, I want to get back into it in addition to working at the animal shelter. I know. It’s la la land and I wish la la land on everybody that I like.[LAUGHTER] I hope you all go to la la land and enjoy being a four year old all over again, because that’s the way I feel. I adapted to retirement in about 24 hours. That’s pushing it… you know, it’s more like four. But anyway, I slept on it. [LAUGHTER] That was the end of it. But I know I eased into it. I eased into it. I was still writing. I was still doing, especially before the pandemic, a lot of speaking. So then the pandemic hit and it just turned into online everything. And now I’m back on the road again, to a certain extent. I love it. So anyway, it’s a nice balance. So yeah, I wish you all la la land too.

Todd: That’s great.

Rebecca: That’s something to aspire to.

Todd: Yeah, it is. But you know, since you mentioned the speaking things, I just have to do the quick plug here. Linda, I think you and I, years and years ago, were joking around at POD about who would be the first one to get to the 50 states and have done a presentation in every state. And so I gotta tell you, I’m not even sure where you’re at in the mix, but I am at 49 states. And if any of your listeners are in North Dakota, [LAUGHTER] I could certainly use a phone call from North Dakota.

Linda: Well, I want to go to Vermont. I have not been to Vermont…

Todd: Oh, you haven’t.

Linda: …to give a presentation. So I would enjoy that. But I’ll go to Hawaii. I’ll do anything in Hawaii for you. Absolutely anything. [LAUGHTER] I’ll do gardening, [LAUGHTER] I’ll do dishes, your laundry. I don’t care.

Todd: That is good. Yeah, Linda and I had this gig. It was a long, long time ago. And I don’t know, it must have been 20 years ago we talked about it even. And there was some rules too. You had to be invited. And there had to be some kind of an honorarium or just I mean, it didn’t have to be much, but the concept was you just couldn’t show up at a state and start talking. [LAUGHTER] Otherwise, we’d have both been done a long time ago. But yeah,

Linda: Yeah.

Todd: … it was fun. This is the way nerds have fun. [LAUGHTER]

John: Well, that’s a competition that’s benefited again, a lot of people over the years.

Rebecca: Well, thanks so much for joining us. It’s great to see both of you again, and we look forward to seeing your new book.

Linda: Thank you for this opportunity. It was a pleasure.

Todd: It was so much fun. Thank you

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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

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223. Remembering and Forgetting

Posted in attention, edtech, evidence-based practices, higher education, learning, memory, pedagogy, retrieval practice, teaching
January 19, 2022

Cognitive psychology research continues to provide insight into how memory works. In this episode, Michelle Miller joins us to discuss how this research can help us design more effective learning experiences for our students.

Michelle is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and a President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Miller’s academic background is in cognitive psychology research. Her research interests include memory, attention, and student success. Michelle is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, and has written about evidence-based pedagogy in scholarly as well as general interest publications. Her newest book, Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning and the Science of Memory in a Wired World will be released in early 2022 as part of the superb West Virginia University series on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Shownotes

  • Miller, M. D. (2014). Minds online: Teaching effectively with technology. Harvard University Press.
  • Miller, M. D. (2022). Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning and the Science of Memory in a Wired World. West Virginia University Press.
  • Carr, Nicholas (2008). “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.” The Atlantic. July/August.
  • Quizlet
  • Carl Wieman Science Center Initiative (2014). Two-stage Exams
  • Tea for Teaching Episode 36. Peer Instruction A discussion of John’s use of two-stage exams in his classes.
  • Studies on laptop use for note taking:
    • Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological science, 25(6), 1159-1168. (The study most cited by people opposed to laptop use.)
    • Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Educational Psychology Review, 31(3), 753-780.
    • Aguilar-Roca, N. M., Williams, A. E., & O’Dowd, D. K. (2012). The impact of laptop-free zones on student performance and attitudes in large lectures. Computers & Education, 59(4), 1300-1308.
    • Artz, Benjamin and Johnson, Marianne and Robson, Denise and Taengnoi, Sarinda, Note-Taking in the Digital Age: Evidence from Classroom Random Control Trials (September 13, 2017).
    • Bui, D. C., Myerson, J., & Hale, S. (2013). Note-taking with computers: Exploring alternative strategies for improved recall. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(2), 299.
    • Carter, S. P., Greenberg, K., & Walker, M. S. (2017). The impact of computer usage on academic performance: Evidence from a randomized trial at the United States Military Academy. Economics of Education Review, 56, 118-132.
    • Hembrooke, H., & Gay, G. (2003). The laptop and the lecture: The effects of multitasking in learning environments. Journal of computing in higher education, 15(1), 46-64.
    • Patterson, R. W., & Patterson, R. M. (2017). Computers and productivity: Evidence from laptop use in the college classroom. Economics of Education Review, 57, 66-79.
    • Ravizza, S. M., Uitvlugt, M. G., & Fenn, K. M. (2017). Logged in and zoned out: How laptop internet use relates to classroom learning. Psychological science, 28(2), 171-180.
    • Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24-31
  • Lang, James M. “The Distracted Classroom.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. March 13, 2017.
  • Lang, J. M. (2020). Distracted: Why students can’t focus and what you can do about it. Hachette UK.

Transcript

John: Cognitive psychology research continues to provide insight into how memory works. In this episode, we examine how this research can help us design more effective learning experiences for our students.

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John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane , an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer…

Rebecca: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

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John: Our guest today is Michelle Miller. Michelle is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and a President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Miller’s academic background is in cognitive psychology research. Her research interests include memory, attention, and student success. Michelle is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, and has written about evidence-based pedagogy in scholarly as well as general interest publications. Her newest book, Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning and the Science of Memory in a Wired World will be released in early 2022 as part of the superb West Virginia University series on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Welcome back, Michelle.

Michelle: Thanks. It’s great to be here.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are…Michelle, are you drinking tea?

Michelle: Well, nope. I’m on coffee.

John: It’s one of the most common forms of tea on the podcast.

Rebecca: So is water. John, how about you?

John: I am drinking Irish Breakfast tea.

Rebecca: Okay. All right, switching it up… switching it up.

John: The context for that is we recorded an earlier podcast today and I was drinking Prince of Wales tea. So, I did switch. Variety can be good.

Rebecca: I also made a new pot. And I have Chai now.

John: You don’t drink Chai very often.

Rebecca:No, I don’t. I drink it more around the holidays.

John: We do have some Christmas tea in the office if you ever drop by. [LAUGHTER] No one’s dropping by… everyone’s connecting remotely. But, we have lots of tea. So, we’ve invited you here to discuss Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology. Could you tell us a little bit about how this book project came about?

Michelle: It really came together in 2019, which of course now seems so incredibly long ago. But, in the context for how it came about, I’ve gotten to connect with so many faculty, instructional designers, and others in higher education over the issues we talk about in Minds Online, and all of the student success conversations. Of course, I’ve been kicking around lots of different ideas for a longer book project for quite some time. And this is one of those, it just came to me, almost in just one fell swoop one morning. I was just kind of playing around with some different ideas and thinking about research that was coming together in some areas of cognitive psychology, and also the ongoing conversations on issues such as using devices to take notes, say laptops in class, other things that were really on the minds of a lot of teachers. And so this idea of really looking at memory and how that is changing, perhaps in terms of its nature, but also in terms of its value in such a heavily technological age. And a lot of folks have researched and written about that. But really looking at it through this unique lens of teaching and learning and what we all should know about remembering and about our own memories in this technological age. So I put those ideas down and set them aside for a little while, but then was able to connect with James Lang, the sole series editor of the West Virginia University Press’ series in teaching and learning in higher education. And we got to talking about that particular idea. I think this is a great fit. And we were off and running. We began outlining the ideas, and they all did come together just really in a relatively short amount of time for a book project like this.

John: Just as a follow up to that I remember seeing a tweet from Jim Lang, where he mentioned that he liked your manuscript so much that you were invited to be a co-editor of the series going forward,

Michelle: What an honor, and if this book manuscript and all of its early forms [LAUGHTER], helped him come to that conclusion, I’m just even more pleased about it in so many ways, just from a personal standpoint. I think, like many academics,books are so close to my heart. Although today I work as an academic cognitive psychologist, it’s not a book discipline. We disseminate our research primarily in article form. So that was also just a real connection for me as well. So the ability to jump in and also become a serious co-editor as part of this process. I agree, it was really fortuitous from my point of view. It’s such an honor.

John: We’re glad to have you there, because that’s a tremendous series. We’ve interviewed many of the authors, and we’re looking forward to all the new books, including yours.

Michelle: Oh, that’s incredible to hear. And I agree. It’s a dream team. We really assembled so many people with unique perspectives and research and practical ideas, and who are really great writers. So again, what an honor to be able to participate in that.

Rebecca: One of the things that students, but maybe also some of our colleagues, sometimes bring up is the idea that in the age of digital technology, we don’t need to remember things because we can just look things up or set reminders. And that sometimes also comes up when we start talking about retrieval practice and the need to remember things. How do you respond to that argument?

Michelle: Well, there’s so many really compelling barriers or themes that come up time and again. As faculty, as we talk to students, those themes do tend to have lots of different parts to them. So, as far as students are concerned, increasingly, especially in the last few years, I’ve had myself fewer students, either implicitly or explicitly saying, “Why do we have to know this? Why do we have to memorize this? I don’t think that sitting for a test where I have to put down memorized knowledge is valuable.” I hear a little bit less of that myself. But I could definitely see how a student could look at it and say, “Well, why is it that I need to remember the cut off for statistical significance at that conventional level of alpha, as we say, in a statistics class? Why should I know how to define different variables? Why should I be able to define these key terms, say in a psychology of language class?” …which is something that I just finished up this semester. So, why do we need to know? I think that students themselves can be very moved by the simple practical components. And I think it’s a good thing that many of our students really are picturing themselves in their future professional lives, taking what they are learning, taking their skills that they’re acquiring in college, and putting that into practice in whatever their future passion, their future career, really is. And I think that they can see that if you’re constantly stopping and looking things up, if you’re kind of reassembling information that you might need for a given task or situation, reassembling kind of every time and then running from there, that’s going to slow you down. And I do think that students really want a sense of accomplishment. And I see more and more students getting excited about the prospect of acquiring really hard skills that are difficult to acquire, maybe memory and knowledge per se isn’t necessarily part of that, but I think it’s in the vicinity. And I think with students as well, what helps is again, either explicitly or implicitly getting across to them, that I’m also being selective, I’m not just kind of picking facts out of the book, and throwing them on an exam, just for the sake of being able to do so. Pretty much for anything that I want them to know cold, if they’ve got to have it down in a given course, there’s probably a justification for why that particular fact is going to be helpful or useful. And they’ve also been, I think, inspired by saying, “Well, yeah, professionals, they know this, and here’s how they can use this in a situation.” Now, what students don’t know, and what I’m unlikely to actually put out there, because it’s just a little bit too much, is this also emerging research in cognitive psychology that is actually linking having a solid knowledge base and the development of certain specific kinds of thinking skills. So without right off the bat getting too far into the nuts and bolts of that research, there is some promising new findings that are starting to link those two things, which I think conventionally, as teachers, we’ve been maybe socialized to believe that thinking skills and memory are these naturally opposed things in the mind, it’s one or the other, they’re kind of in a tug of war with each other, when in fact, both of those do work quite naturally together. So I also kind of in the back of my mind, am really increasingly starting to suspect and to believe that, for example, if they know more about, say, dependent and independent variables, if we’re doing a research methods class, in theory, at least, they should be able to do more of their own original thinking to extend that knowledge into say, designing their own studies or Interpreting studies they’re reading about in a more sophisticated way. So those are the things that I would put out there to students in response to that, yeah,quite reasonable question.

Rebecca: Michelle, I’m finding what you’re saying really interesting because I had students doing a lot of reflections at the end of projects this semester. And a lot of students explicitly said, “I need to memorize what some of these things are, because it’s slowing me down, and I can’t spend the time on the things I really want to be doing.” And in the case of the classes, I’m teaching are creative thinking, but that’s really exactly you’re talking about, they were feeling that same thing.

Michelle: Right. See that’s, that’s really validating to hear. And here again is that kind of our culture as higher education teachers in a very well meaning way, it’s like, “Okay, there’s creativity over here and then there’s memory and knowledge over there, and oh, no, we have to make this choice. They’re an active opposition.” But your students themselves seem to be coming upon the fact that yeah, when we do have more basic skills, basic knowledge at our disposal, sometimes that even frees us up to have more leftover for the creativity. That’s one way of thinking about it that I particularly like, and so, right, both of these things can definitely work together. And I think it brings up too what I’ve increasingly starting to describe as fluent practice, fluent application of what you know. I’m kind of getting this picture of yeah, I’m out there. I’m working with students if I’m a teacher. I’m out there in healthcare field. Or I’m writing something, if I’m a journalist, and I’m putting together my work right there on the fly, as your students are pointing out having to kind of stop and start and go: “Wait a minute, let me reassemble this knowledge.”

John: One thing I was thinking in terms of fluency concept is that if you’re going to be a scholar studying writings in another language, it would probably be a whole lot more effective if you didn’t have to look up each and every word as you read those things. Being fluent in the basic grammar of that language makes it a whole lot easier to interpret meaning from larger writings. And I think that holds in pretty much all disciplines.

Michelle: I agree. It’s a really compelling metaphor, isn’t it?

John: Most of the opposition to this concept, this bifurcation between memory and higher level learning, I’ve seen not so much from students, but from many faculty who reject the notion of retrieval practice on the grounds that they’re teaching higher level skills. And I’ve had more difficulty in trying to explain to some of our colleagues the importance of that fluency in the basic concepts to be able to reach those higher levels. And you described it really well, in many of your writings and on past podcasts too.

Michelle: I have had that similar experience. Going further back to the idea for this book, I’d say this is a real hot button issue. There’s really something there when an issue is this polarizing. And it really can be when you do start to talk about memory, and an even more polarizing word: “memorization.” It is very natural for faculty, I would say probably about half to three quarters, you’ll get an immediate negative reaction of pushback. And here’s the thing, it comes from a great place, I think, in all the experiences I’ve had. People will say, “Well, aren’t we harkening back to an outdated banking model of education that has been talked about for quite some time, like, ‘I’m the teacher, and I’ve got all this great knowledge, you’ve got nothing. And so the whole teaching enterprise is a matter of me kind of cracking open my brain, and you sit there passively while I pour it all into your brain.’” And, of course, that is the last thing that any really committed, engaged teacher in higher education is going to want to be doing. So I think that that is one of, again, the really good reasons why we react with skepticism when anybody brings us up. What do you students actually know? What do they actually remember? How are you reinforcing that? But, in so many different ways, I think that we can get around it, it doesn’t have to put us back into this outdated model of transfer of kind of the student got this big blank space in their head, and I’m just starting to fill it up. We don’t have to fall into that. So I think that a class or a course that emphasizes knowledge that emphasizes memory can be really engaging, and it can honor what students already know. But there are some things that we do have to change about our mindset and maybe some knowledge of our own that we have to add, in order for that to happen.

John: In the second chapter of the book, you describe some of the classic theories of memory that show up in a lot of textbooks that many educators once were exposed to and often still are exposed to. How well do those simple models hold up to evidence? And what are some examples of those simple models?

Michelle: So these models of memory… this is something that’s inspired me going way, way back when I started writing about these issues a little over 10 years ago. So, what are the disconnects between either common sense conceptions of memory that we might have, or as you said, things we’ve actually read in textbooks that seem very, very credible. And for the most part, it’s a matter of these things have been supplanted by continuing developments in the arena of memory. Now, one of the things that I love about writing about memory is that we have been researching this in cognitive psychology for a very long time. And we’ve had detailed systematic models that go back at least 50 years at this point. So it’s wonderful we have so much to tap into, but that does mean that, at this point, we have to sometimes say “Well, how have we changed these, expanded them, or made them more sophisticated?” So that’s kind of where the field has gone and where those disconnects can arise. So I think if I were to run down some of the biggest outdated ideas, or just wrong ideas, probably the biggest one is that three stops along an assembly line model. Sometimes this goes by the name, the modal model when we were talking about it in the literature, but it’s the one that if you took Psychology 101 at pretty much any point you saw in the textbook illustrated. So,the idea is that we first gather these brief sensory impressions, and that’s sort of the first step of memory, they stay in short-term memory. Sometimes you’ll see a little circle with an arrow where we’re rehearsing like we’re trying to remember the phone number before we dial the phone. And so we’re saying it to ourselves over and over. And then there’s the next step along the assembly line. It sort of travels along to long-term memory and gets dumped there, and then you can pick it back up. So this model was based on a lot of really good solid laboratory data, and it explained a lot of important patterns that scientists of the time were seeing in things like, “Well, why is it that people remember lists in a particular way? Or why is it that we can only remember so many digits that people are asking us to say back?” …and so on. But here’s the problem with that. First of all, we now know that there is a lot that goes on to determine what ends up permanently stored, and of course, the vast majority, we don’t store. So, things like meaning, things like interpretation, that short-term or immediate memory store, these days, many scientists, including myself, believe that we have quite a few specialized ones, and they work together in a sort of a coordinated fashion. So it isn’t just this one stop, and some of this is just inside baseball for memory researchers, right? But I think for teachers, the problem does come when we do oversimplify issues like “Well, okay, if short-term memory has a certain capacity”… like you’ll sometimes see the number seven plus or minus one or seven plus or minus two, “Well, if I put seven things on a slide then students will get it all, and as long as you just keep the number of things low, then you’re golden.” And it does not work that way. So things for example, that are very meaningful to students, that students can interpret, that students care about, you can have quite a few pieces of information. And as long as they kind of hang together in that way, and have some compelling thing that will cause them to stick, well, you’re much more likely to see permanent storage. And I think, too, it also leads us down this wrong path that in a way actually harks back to that banking or transfer idea of education, which encourages us to think of memory as a place. And you’ll see metaphors like, “Oh, it’s a filing cabinet.” “It’s a bucket.” And that implies, first, that if you want to remember something, you just sort of will yourself to remember it and you just put it there. And as long as that place isn’t too full, it’s great. And I think we all know [LAUGHTER] that it’s not as simple as just wanting to remember something that you’re going to be able to get it back. So I always encourage faculty don’t think of memory as a place to put things, think of it as something that your mind and your brain can do that serves other goals, that helps you do other things. So that’s one of the things that I would say about that. Now, here’s another misconception. And actually, there was a very large scale survey of adults in the United States, I talk about it quite a bit in the book, that simply asked them about some ideas about how memory works. And this one was accepted by a majority of adults who were surveyed, but memory researchers will uniformly reject it. And that is the idea that your mind is really more like a video camera. So it’s almost like we’ve taken a technological metaphor and put that in place of the filing cabinet metaphor of yor. So, the idea is that, well, we pick up things that are sort of around us or in front of us, if we see it, if we hear it, or if we see it multiple times or hear it multiple times, we just sort of store that away in a very literal form. And sometimes people will actually take this to an extreme and say, “Well, somewhere in your mind is this hidden reserve of all these things that you’ve experienced, and if you can just tap into it, you can sort of rewind the tape and find anything.” And nothing could be farther from the truth when it comes to what we currently know about memory. And so here again, for teachers, I think that that can lead us down the road of saying, “Well, if I just sort of make an announcement every day or write something on the board, and students eyes are pointed towards it, they’ll pick it up…” …and they may or may not. And for students themselves, it can lead them to think that well, even if I’m using a very passive or inefficient study strategy for acquiring knowledge, that will work. And I think we all know as well, for all kinds of different reasons, that that’s not the case simply sitting for a certain amount of time, reviewing notes, highlighting or rereading is unlikely to give much of a payoff in terms of memory. That’s because our minds, unlike video cameras, are constantly interpreting, sorting, sifting, even as we create those memories in the first place.

Rebecca: One of the things that you’ve hinted about is the idea that perhaps we don’t remember as much as we forget. [LAUGHTER]

Michelle: Yes. I don’t know what the ratio is. But it’s got to be [LAUGHTER] pretty substantial.

Rebecca: So can you talk a little bit about why our minds have evolved in this way for survival purposes?

Michelle: Right, and it’s good that you’re coupling this idea of forgetting with that idea of like, what’s adaptive for us? What’s actually beneficial in terms of our memories? So again, if we’re thinking of memory, not as just a sort of bucket that is in our heads, but it’s there to help us, a few things become more clear. And I think especially for those of us who are maybe more of the typical median age and life age for faculty, we’re constantly going, “Why did I forget this? Why can’t my brain just sort of retain everything?” And this is the thing, is that while we have to be careful about making these really specific sort of evolutionary arguments, there’s been a lot of criticism of that. I think that’s reasonable. But, I also think that it is quite sensible to say, “Our minds, our brains, are evolved for efficiency.” Our memories are not going to be able to do what we need them to do if they simply pick up everything indiscriminately. That would be a really bad system design. Among other things, it would make the retrieval side of memory a lot more error prone than it is. So back in Minds Online, I use this analogy of a gigantic closet. Well, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the biggest closet in the world if it’s sort of disorganized, and you can’t find what you need when you need it. So, our minds are very selective about what they take in. And, in educational situations, that makes us sit up and take notice, right? Because, okay, I’ve got this big, thick textbook of research methods or chemistry, you name it, and I’m going to need it in three years, maybe, when I’m graduated, my brain is going to be a little skeptical [LAUGHTER] in a sense about whether and how much of that I should acquire. So, we forget things, or fail to encode or acquire them in the first place, if they don’t clearly tap into survival, into goals, and so on. And again, without getting too literal minded about what did we evolve to remember in our ancestral environments, I think it’s also fairly clear that this is, for example, why our minds and brains pick up on things that are highly emotional. And for those of us who tack a little bit more towards anxiety, we’re acutely aware of this, because we often remember negative things. I have an example in the book, a little personalexample of how I got stung by a whole bunch of wasps when I was five years old, and didn’t even know what wasps were. And I remember a lot about that episode, not because I want to, but because my brain is trying to help me, trying to say, “Yeah, this was something that you do not want to repeat.” Now, fortunately, there’s also some positive sides to this. And you can say it also makes sense for our minds and our brains to retain things that gave us joy, gave us delight, that surprised us. Those are the things where we kind of go, “Yeah, that might be helpful for the future.” So even though I’ve got a really high bar for what I want to save, that might make it through. And I guess the other place where this could really come into play is in the area of cues. So as I’ve written about, in a lot of my work, we also have to remember that our minds are trying to be efficient in bringing back what we need to know in the right context. And we see this in a lot of areas of cognition of things we know or things we can do, we can kind of blank out on them if we’re not in the right setting. And here again, it can be very frustrating if, for example, we’re sitting in an exam and going, “Oh, my gosh, I’m trying to bring this fact back. And I know I know it, but I’ll remember it later with the right cues are there. That’s really frustrating. But another case of where our brain is trying to do its job the best way it can. And so we are highly reliant on those cues to be able to retrieve. So I think having a grasp of some of those, really can start to make the pieces click into place, and make some, sometimes frustrating, sometimes strange, quirks of the mind start to make a little bit more sense.

Rebecca: So Michelle, is that why I can remember someone in my class’s name when they’re in my class, but not when I see him on the street?

Michelle: Right, and you could also see other classical memory phenomena at play, just in thast case of students’ names and students’ faces. So when I have a new class, a new crop of students comes in, that is going to kind of overwrite, in a way, my previous [LAUGHTER] students as well. So you get these sort of interference effects. And that’s another thing that can cause forgetting or cause failure to remember is, is lack of distinctiveness, sometimes, too. When I’ve got the 10 semesters’ worth of students to remember, it gets a little bit harder to pick out the particular one. And that’s another phenomenon that I talk about a little bit in the book.

John:One of the things you talk about in the book is the argument that so often appears in discussions about whether the use of technology enhances or erodes memory. Maybe we could start with some of the arguments against the use of technology. In what way may the use of things like smartphones and automatic reminders and other things, perhaps, do some harm in terms of our memory?

Michelle: Right. So if you’ve followed at all on the kind of popular press, the books, the articles that come out about the cognitive impacts of technology, I think it’s safe to say that it leads with the negative, even up to the point there’s a famous article that just led with “Is Google making us stupid?” [LAUGHTER] There’s a lot to that claim. But, clearly, that is implying that when Google is all around us, and perhaps when we’re relying on things, that that is going to be destructive to our inborn memory abilities. And that’s a pretty concerning narrative. And you know, in the book, I talk about another large scale study that was done in the United States, asking adults: What are some of your concerns about technology? And there are all kinds of different social and emotional and all kinds of issues people cited, but top among them was they were worried about the cognitive impact. So this is one where we have to look and say, “Alright, is there anything supporting this?” Now, in part, there are. So, there was an interesting line of research that came out, and folks still continuing to look into this, some have even termed it the “Google effect” on memory… not to call out just one particular form [LAUGHTER] of technology. But that’s one they were focusing on. And this has to do with what happens when we believe like really, really believe, that we will be able to get to some fact in the future. And there were these really neat, very clever experimental procedures done to kind of convince people as they were doing, for example, a trivia task, learning some really unusual facts that they wouldn’t have known before. They led people to believe, in some cases, that these were all going to be stored in an online folder, and they’d be able to find them and other people were led to believe that that was not going to be the case, that they were not going to be able to get back to them. And perhaps, unsurprisingly to some of us, when people think they’ll be able to get it back, they’re less likely, if you give them a surprise test [LAUGHTER]to see if they remember it on their own, they’re less likely to do that. So even without realizing it, there’s that brain being efficient theme again. If it’s stored out there, I’m not going to store it on my own. And I think there are some other interesting effects in terms of what’s starting to be known as cognitive offloading. So, if I’m going to put it over here, I’m not going to carry it, so to speak, in my brain. Use of turn by turn GPS… [LAUGHTER] so what many of us, including myself, rely on to get from place to place? Well, it does turn out that if you are more reliant on GPS for a given region, you’re going to be less likely to develop a sophisticated mental model of that. So those are definitely some of the negatives. Now there’s that line. And then another kind of line that comes down on the: “Wow, this has a negative impact on memory,” in general is, of course, distraction. Now, oftentimes, as I’ve written about and talked about a lot, you can’t separate out memory and attention. Those two things are incredibly intertwined in cognition. And what do mobile devices do better than anything in the world, they distract us. For example, there’s another line of research that looks at what happens when people are taking pictures during some kind of experience they’re having. And there’s some evidence here as well, that something about getting engaged in just the attention demanding aspects of picture taking, detract from your forming memories right there on the fly. And it probably does come down to attention in that case. So, if you’re responding to notifications, if you’re fiddling with the settings on your camera, if you’re doing that, no surprise, you won’t form the memories in the first place, and since memory is not a video camera, if you’re not forming the memories in the first place, they’re gone, you really only get that one chance. So that’s some of the negative stuff. But that’s not the only side of the story.

Rebecca:You are going to tell us about the good stuff, too, right?

Michelle:Well, I think that that’s really important. And so I think that this balance, especially when we’re talking about what we’re going to base our teaching on, and what information we’re going to share with students, it is really important to capture that. So, what does not seem to be supported, if you really look at the more anti-technology, the more alarmist strain of public debate and discussion about this, it’s that these effects are not global. It’s not that having a smartphone, having access to online searches is just across the board, decreasing my ability to store information on my own in my brain, it really is very localized. So it’s not like if I walked out of that study on storing information on Google, and now I permanently have this decrement. I think it’s quite questionable. We definitely need more research, and I don’t think a strong case can be made right now that technology is decreasing attentional abilities across the board either. So again, in the moment, if I let my technology interfere with class, or with a field trip I’m on or something like that, oh, yes, that’s going to be a problem in terms of memory. But if I put it away, then I should be able to rebound. So there is that. And I think, too, you’d mentioned the issue of reminders, right? So am I picking up on correctly, that you had mentioned that using things like calendar alerts, and so on might have some negative effects.

John: Actually, the negative effect for me is that now I no longer have an excuse for missing meetings. I can’t say I forgot it, because people know it’s in my calendar because they put it there. [LAUGHTER] So, that is a negative effect for me. [LAUGHTER]

Michelle: Okay, well, you know what I think the next book might have to be on the social aspects of memory in organizations, but okay, so you’re using your calendar alerts to organize and to say, “What do I need to do next?” You might even be carrying lists… alerts. If you really want to get fancy with it, you can even set alerts that go off at a given context. So here’s the thing… I think here too, well, what we’re talking about really is this other form of memory called prospective memory. And I’m always saying hey, don’t forget in the long term,short term, all these other forms of memory, that prospective memory is also there. And prospective memory, to me is fascinating. It is the form of memory that is not for something that we learned in the past or did in the past, it’s following through on an intention for the future. So, “I have to answer this email by the end of the day today” or “Oh, yeah, the meeting time has been changed, and I need to be sure to get to that.” Or even other things like taking medication at a certain time or stopping off to do an errand on the way home, all classic prospective memory tasks. Well, here’s the thing, basically, human prospective memory, our inborn capability to do this, the technical term is garbage. We are really, really bad at this. And it probably does come down to that our brains are there to react right in the moment. We don’t have anything really like a timer that goes off in our brains, we’re responding to the cues that are in front of us. And especially when we’re distracted, or when we’re deviating from a set routine, something that we always do, those intentions are incredibly fragile, and we just forget them. And so I think in this case, I think we all just ought to fold to just say, “We need to use the technology to do this.” So, digital memory is brilliant at this, right? It knows what time it is, and it doesn’t care what’s going on around you at any given moment. If you set the alert, the alert will go off. And especially when we can develop habits to refer to these, I think that’s a very positive thing. And it’s something that serves us very, very well. So while it might not fit into what most of us think of really classically as learning, per se, it’s an important thing that we deal with every single day. And so to be aware that our memories are incredibly fallible in this way, but there’s a technological fix. I think that’s using technology and digital memory for what it’s really good for, to buttress us in that way. And I think this is an emerging story. I don’t believe right now we have any research that would show that there’s going to be any kind of a decrement, or a problem that occurs, since most of us are so poor at this to begin with, I feel like, hey, even if we got a little bit worse, I’m not even sure if we would notice, like you I’ve got to rely on the calendar. If it’s in the calendar, I’ll be there. If it’s not, nope, I won’t.

Rebecca: And those calendar reminders and things are really good at getting your attention. So we might have to be intentional about how we actually set those alerts and things for, right?

Michelle: Right, right. And really, it’s about active management and being in charge of our tech. And that’s where I think all of us should be if we are using technology, if we do want to rely on it to be really deliberate and ruthless about “Okay, I’m not going to let just every application send me alerts because it feels like it…. A store’s having a sale or maybe even I don’t want to have my text or emails alerting me, particularly during particular times. But here’s what I do want to come through.” I think that that’s a recipe for success.

John: And both iOS and Android operating systems have gotten better about allowing different types of messages during different times . With iOS, I know, you have these new focus modes where you can choose what comes through during certain portions of the day or during certain activities. And Android has very similar capabilities now, so we can fine tune those things quite a bit more depending on what we’re doing. So we can choose to turn off all alerts sometimes or to allow some alerts to come through that are essential. And during other times, we could allow more if that’s appropriate.

Michelle: I think that’s a great point. And maybe there are some times when the phone just to be powered off. And it’s up to us to really have that insight and frankly, that metacognitive ability, to be able to do that. I think that that’s exactly what I would want for my students. And that’s exactly what I would share with them in the times when I do get to talk to them. And I wanted to bring up maybe one other positive when it comes to education, especially those of us who are teaching and are educators. Let’s not forget that technology has opened up incredible ways to take advantage of retrieval practice. So that retrieval practice, of course, when students are effortfully bringing information back into mind, what we now know is this is incredibly efficient way to build knowledge that’s solid and to build it in less time. Well, we always want to be judicious about the technology we bring into our classrooms, I think we all now know that we don’t just want to bring it in for its own sake. But quizzing programs, applications that students can use on their own. I found that many of my students are independently putting together Quizlets and using those. Well, that’s really hard to do with strictly pencil and paper, low tech tools. So that’s another way that technology can really reinforce and strengthen memory, if we let it and if we use it in the right way.

Rebecca: That’s a really great example of how to use some of this cognitive science research in the classroom. Are there other examples that you have of how we can continue to help students build their memory in a classroom setting or in our teaching practice?

Michelle: Oh, well, I would love to share with you this is a very fresh example, because I just did this last night. It’s another technique that I talk a lot about, because I’m really fired up about it. And this is the… I’ll just call it the two-stage exam… and it’s something that I have completely borrowed out of the repertoires of many innovative STEM teachers. So this is kind of the tradition and the practice that it comes out of, but I’ve been using it in my psychology classroom, and it’s just got many, many benefits. So in the two-stage exam, what you do is… well, like last night, which was a final exam, I actually figured out the logistics of how to pull this off in a final exam, because my students really wanted to do it, having had a great experience on the midterm. So, here’s how it works. You have your traditional, no notes, closed book, pencil and paper exam. But here’s the thing, we know that those exams are not just a way to assess knowledge. They’re also, in and of themselves, this great way to reinforce knowledge, but we so often just walk away from them, or we quote, unquote, go over the exam, which is just kind ofme reading the questions and saying, “Well, this is the right one…” and then maybe students come back and argue. And so it can even just devolve and be about the points and not about the learning. So what we do is, say for the midterm exam, the class period immediately after when we took the test is set aside for, I call it the post-test discussion activity. What I do is I give students tests back to them, and I have some different ways of making sure that there’s no funny business with those tests. And those tests are ungraded at that point. I’ve not looked at them. So I randomly assign students to groups, about three to five is ideal. And they sit with their peers, and I let them do this open book at this point, you don’t have to, but I do. They get a new blank copy of that same exact exam. And they fill the whole thing out, again, as a group, really talking about the different questions and coming to some consensus. And I give them a little incentive, I say anything over 90% that the group earns on this exam is added as extra credit to everybody’s exam in that group. So it won’t completely change your grade, but it does give some incentive to really focus. Now, here’s the tie to memory. We know too, that another quirk of how retrieval practice works is that, when I have answered a question, and maybe I’ve gotten it wrong, that’s a point where it creates this very fertile, very receptive, window for re-studying that information. And that makes a lot of sense, right? We’re curious, we want to know, and then sitting with a peer and having them say, “Well, actually, I came to this conclusion, and here’s why…” …you lead to substantive discussion, you take advantage of that receptive window for learning, and a side benefit that I was not expecting too, but I will put out there. Students report to me informally, that this radically reduces their testing anxiety. There’s something about just knowing you get another shot in a way, you get a little bit of resolution to say, “Oh, wait a minute, I did better than I thought, or I got this wrong but now I really understand why.” So I also pitch it to them as hey, I care about the learning… the points, you know, we have points, I do give grades, but I really want everybody to understand on their own terms, what this exam was all about, rather than just kind of closing the book and walking away from it. So that’s something that I think, on many different levels, can reinforce memory. And I think too, it also does bring about what can be a complementary relationship between: “alright, here’s what I wanted you to know, out of your own brain when you were sitting for this exam, but yeah, it’s true that you can look it all back up, and let’s go back to… we can search the net, we can search our notes, we can use that to then hopefully reinforce what the knowledge base is that we have. So, it’s a great technique, I’d say, I always encourage folks, if they do want to know all those little ins and outs of how to pull it off at different kinds of classes, give me a shout, get in touch, because I think it’s really wonderful.

John: It’s something I’ve used for a few years, and it’s worked really, really well. And I think Carl Wieman’s website has quite a bit of information on that and we do have a past podcast on that too. It’s a really good practice, and students have loved it.

Michelle: Right, and it’s a wonderful thing when we can find something that students appreciate, that they see is very fair and very supportive of their learning, that leads to a dynamic discussion and tracks so well with all this memory research and theory.

Rebecca: You’ve been teaching a seminar class on technology, mind and brain. And so what insights have your students brought to this idea in this class?

Michelle: Oh, it’s just been such a privilege to be able to teach this course. I’ve taught it in lots of iterations over the years, and I’ll be jumping into that next semester as well. And I definitely use those insights in writing this current book. So most of the students in this course are… we have to put quotes around this now… but traditional college age, so they are kind of younger people and so it’s, I think, a good kind of reality check for me to kind of balance that against those popular media depictions of today’s younger people, the Gen Z students. And on the one hand, when you do look at those stereotypical conceptions, technology is always there. They’ve got the cell phone. I mean, how many times have we seen kind of that stock photo of the young person [LAUGHTER] and they’ve got their tattoos and they’ve got their cell phone, and they’re kind of glued to it. I think that broadly speaking, all of my conversations with students, yes, they do care a lot about the technology in their lives. And they see how pervasive that it is, and one of the exercises I have them do kind of informally is just a one day technology diary. So when did you first use technology? How did it come to bear in your life throughout your day, and probably like many of their faculty members as well, their use of their cell phone does start as soon as their eyes crack open, reach under the pillow or to the bedside stand or wherever it is, and it starts there, and then you’re off and running for the rest of the day. So that is there. However, what is also very, very clear from my conversations with students is they are not just uncritically accepting that technology is part of life, just like the air we breathe. They question it, and they want to question it. I have perhaps a selective sample there in students signed up for this course. But that is something that I see time and again, that they are there to ask, “Well, what is the research actually tell us? This is what my teachers told me. This is what I’ve heard people say, but what’s actually out there in terms of what it’s doing to my mind, what it’s doing to my brain?” So they’re skeptical the technology, but they’re also skeptical of the narratives that they hear. And they do want to know, what’s the empirical evidence for these different claims? There’s also an exercise that we do, where if we’re online we do it on a whiteboard, or we might actually physically move around a classroom, I ask them, “Well, how much do you even like your technology?” And they’ve thought about that, too. And they can say, “Yeah, I accept it as kind of a necessary evil in my life, but I don’t like it. I got rid of my Instagram, I don’t like to have my cell phone on me all the time” to others who say, “Oh, I love it. I love being on Discord with my friends, I love gaming, I can’t imagine life without my phone, I love my profiles,” and so on. So, there’s also that range of attitudes, acceptance in different ways that students are using technology. Now, one thing they do have in common, too, though, they want to know how can I put this to use in my life? So some of these things we were talking about before of: How can I be in charge of this? What really should I be doing? What are some different suggestions, hacks, apps that I might want to install, apps that I might want to de-install off of my phone to fit my purposes. And I will say too, especially the last time that I taught this class, one of the options that they have for a term project is an adaptation of a type of project that we do a lot in psychology and also in health science, where people really track a behavior that they’re engaged in with the idea of better insights about what leads us to that behavior, and maybe changing it. So students have the option of choosing something… that might be social media, it might be their overall screen time, something that they say, “I really want to moderate this, this feels a little out of control in my life,” or “I’m wondering what would happen if I did this less.” And so I’ve seen students designed for themselves. Usually, they just take a few weeks to do for the project, although they might carry it on further. I’ve seen all kinds of different variations on this. Everything from totally getting off all social media to having a tech fast on the weekend for students with families who are concerned about their family time. I asked them to say “Well, did it do what you’d hoped you wanted to do? Did you feel more clear headed? Was your mood any better? Did you have more time? Did you feel more focused when you were doing your schoolwork?” So students have really, really enjoyed doing those. They really appreciate the factuallybased judgment free zone that’s tailored to them personally, they really appreciate that. And they appreciate having some techniques, because we bring those in as well, just basic behavior change techniques, if you want to do something less, here’s how to do that, and here’s how to know if you’re succeeding. So those are some of the great things that I, again, have been so privileged to have a window into through teaching this course.

John: Are there any other suggestions you have for faculty in terms of how to use technology effectively to enhance learning?

Michelle: To kind of pivot back to that idea… In the book, I do take on this very specific question, one that really generated a surprising amount of controversy, to my mind, the question of whether students should be taking notes on laptops in their classrooms. And here, just to kind of summarize, there have been some real questions about replication of some of the key findings of one of the major studies that came out on that topic, the one that you see cited again, and again, from people who say, “No, taking notes by hand is superior.” Well, there’s some questions about that. So, I would really encourage faculty to dive into that question more and to look at some of the more recent research if they’re actually going to set their in-class policies based on that research. Now, there are lots of other things that they might look at to say, “Well, what should be allowed in a classroom? Should we have a strict no-technology policy, covering phones and so on as well?” First, the downside of that is you can’t do something like run quizzes, and so on. I tend to tilt more towards options, and a little bit more flexibility for students, I tend to have a somewhat more lenient and open technology policy in my own classroom, because I do want to give options for students to do things like quizzes, and being able to take notes on laptops, I think, for some students is a really good thing. That said, there are downsides as well. And I always like to have options for students who don’t want to pull out their phone, or, believe it or not, who don’t carry devices with them. So there are ways to do things like engage in in-class quizzes or quiz games that don’t entail those. So that’s something that I would advise faculty to really, really think through. James Lang’s work, his Distracted Students series in the Chronicle of Higher Education and his recent book on the subject also gives a different perspective on how to design appropriate things like policies for different situations, different kinds of classes, and so on. So I would say that, I would encourage them to anytime you feel you have that sort of teachable moment or receptive window to talk to students about their technology, to encourage them to do things like clean up their notifications, see if they might want to use calendar alerts to help stay on top of their classwork and so on, to take advantage of that. So those are some of the specific things that I would say for faculty, but it is something that I think we should all be thinking about. And when we come back to just the issue of memory, I would say be reflecting on what are the key pieces of information that do lead to that fluent practice. So,when you’re putting those backs on the study guide, or saying, “Here’s what I want students to know,” step back for a minute, ask yourself: Why? Should it belong in that kind of pantheon of remembered knowledge? But, at the same time, don’t think that memory, or even memorization, is something to shy away from. I think we could stand up proudly, and I think our students will support us if we presented in the right way to say, “Yeah, part of what you’re doing in my courses is you are memorizing, that’s not all you’re doing. And in fact, this will help you advance towards becoming that accomplished person in this discipline, or perhaps even a future professional in this discipline.”

Rebecca: Such great advice, Michelle. Thank you so much for all of this food for thought.

Michelle: Oh, thank you as well.

Rebecca: We always wrap up, though, by asking what’s next?

Michelle: Well, okay, well, now that this book is off to the printer, [LAUGHTER] off to the press, of course I’m looking at what topics in cognitive psychology and applications of cognitive psychology to dive into next. And I keep coming back to the topic of attention. So, I guess, stay tuned for more projects that specifically focus on that. So, looking at that, also looking at ways to bring these into classrooms that really support students through this incredibly challenging time that we have, I think that we are undergoing a much needed transformation. And I definitely count myself there as well in looking at how to better support students not just academically, but also emotionally and make our classrooms more places for safe and joyful learning for all students. So, engaging in that conversation as well and keeping an eye on what the next few semesters are going to look like not just at my institution and in my classes, but really in higher education in general. So that’s the point I’m at and always looking forward to connecting with faculty, instructional designers, and others across the field.

John: Well, thank you, Michelle. It’s always great talking to you and we’ve learned a lot from you over the years.

Michelle: Oh, you all as well. Thank you so much for all you do.

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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com.Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

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187. Talking Tech

Posted in attention, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, edtech, engagement, evidence-based practices, feedback, higher education, learning, mobile, motivation, multitasking, pedagogy, retrieval practice, spaced practice, teaching
May 12, 2021

Student use of mobile technology can enrich student learning experiences, but can also interfere with the focused attention that is essential for learning. In this episode, Michelle Miller examine how we can talk to students about technology in ways that will help them become more efficient in their learning and professional lives.

Michelle is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and a President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Miller’s academic background is in cognitive psychology research. Her research interests include memory, attention and student success in the early college career.

Michelle is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, and has written about evidence-based pedagogy in scholarly as well as general interest publications. She’s currently working on her newest book, Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: What the Science of Memory Tells us about Teaching and Learning in a Wired World, scheduled as part of the West Virginia University series on teaching and learning.

Shownotes

Transcript

John: Student use of mobile technology can enrich student learning experiences, but can also interfere with the focused attention that is essential for learning. In this episode, we examine how we can talk to students about technology in ways that will help them become more efficient in their learning and professional lives.

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John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer.

Rebecca: Together, we run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.

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John: Our guest today is Michelle Miller. Michelle is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and a President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Miller’s academic background is in cognitive psychology research. Her research interests include memory, attention, and student success in the early college career. Michelle is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, and has written about evidence-based pedagogy in scholarly as well as general interest publications. She’s currently working on her newest book, Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: What the Science of Memory Tells us about Teaching and Learning in a Wired World, scheduled as part of the West Virginia University series on teaching and learning. Welcome back, Michelle.

Michelle: Hi, it’s great to be here.

Rebecca: So good to have you back. Today’s teas are…. Michelle, are you drinking any tea?

Michelle: Well, I’m still on coffee. We have a three hour time difference this time of the year. And so I figure I’m entitled.

Rebecca: How about you, John?

John: I am drinking ginger peach green tea.

Rebecca: And I have golden monkey today.

John: …for a change.

Rebecca: It’s expensive. I only drink it on special occasions. I was like, we’re gonna get to talk to Michelle, today. I’m gonna make fancy tea.

Michelle: Well, coffee is the fanciest tea of all.

John: We’ve invited you here to talk a little bit about how to talk to students about technology and why perhaps you might consider talking to students about technology. You teach a course on mind, brain and technology, and you’ve also created the Attention Matters projects that we’ve discussed on an earlier podcast. Could you tell us a little bit about the mind, brain and technology class that you teach?

Michelle: Right. So this has been such an incredible privilege I’ve had, on and off. for several years. Now, back a long time ago, when I first applied for and was competing for the President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellowship honor and award here at Northern Arizona University, one of the things that we got to do as part of our application packet was to envision a dream course. And this was, gosh, around a decade ago that I did this. So the landscape of the research and technology itself was very different. But this is the course that I came up with to say if I could teach one thing, brand new, build it from the ground up, this is what I would do: something that would connect psychology, especially empirical research-oriented psychology, the role of emerging technologies in our lives and the incursions they’ve made into all of our lives, and blend that with some real practical advice and things that would be engaging to college students today at a variety of levels. And so it went in my packet. I was so fortunate to win the award and be chosen for it. And then I came knocking on the doors, and I said, but remember, there was this dream course, I actually was very literal minded. So I said, “Well, I get to teach this now, right?” And my department said “Well, oh, okay, yes, we can work that out.” And it originally was taught as a senior capstone, and it’s been taught in that form, again. Another time it had an incarnation as a freshman seminar, a first-year seminar, and right now I’m teaching it as a fairly large general elective upper division elective, primarily serving our psychology majors and our minors. And so this is a course that I’ve been able to dip in and out of throughout the years. And I actually quote one of the first cohort of students, I got some really choice quotes that I included in my last book, Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology. And this semester, I actually have students reading some early drafts of the book I’m writing right now. And so it’s really been interwoven throughout my professional evolution over the last 10 years.

Rebecca: It’s pretty cool that you got to ultimately teach the class and it’s been going on for so long.

Michelle: Indeed, it is, indeed it is.

John: What do your students think about the role of technology in social media, in their lives, as well as in educational environment?

Michelle: Well, right from the get go, when I got to first design this class, and actually be sitting with a cohort of students every week, and bringing up a new topic, we divided it up into: there’s technologies for learning; there’s the effects of technology on aspects of thinking, like cognition, and so on; there’s several weeks on social media, which we’re right in the middle of right now. So there’s lots of different kind of articulation points where different students can come in with opinions. And so it does really cover that really broad area. So right from the beginning, I was so struck by the thoughtful and sometimes unexpected things that students would say… unexpected meaning kind of counter to what are some real stereotypes about… first of all, that all college students are a traditional age in this kind of lifestyle where you live in a dorm and party on the weekends. And I think most of us know that today’s college students do not fit that mold, and they’re not all that age. But, even students who are in this younger age bracket, to have them really say… like one of the early exercises we do in the course, I asked them to sort themselves on a continuum. We did it on a whiteboard this time via video conference, but in a physical classroom, they’d actually stand on different ends of this… place yourself physically on this continuum: Do you love technology, you want it everywhere, can’t imagine life without it… you hate it, you want to go low tech. And students are really spread across that spectrum. And so many of them have thought… they’ve said, “You know, I noticed I feel a certain way after I’m on Instagram for a certain amount of time,” or “I’ve tried electronic textbooks and I personally prefer paper.” …that’s actually consistent with some of the surveys that have been done with college students as well. So they are varied, they’re rich, and they are very counter to the stereotype that younger people just want technology everywhere in their lives.

Rebecca: What is one of the biggest misconceptions about technology that your students bring up in class that you address?

Michelle: Well, there’s a complex of sort of some interrelated ones that dial into my specialty area, which is cognitive psychology. So naturally, I noticed those really prominently myself. And so those ideas that using technology is going to reduce attention span, it’s reducing even your ability to think. And then there’s a sort of a related set of issues around what has been in the past a very controversial and headline dominating issue, which is the issue of taking notes by hand versus on a laptop computer in class. And that research, in particular, not to go through all of it, but, while the original study that sparked that debate was well designed, the interpretation of it has been just stretched until it screams. That study doesn’t talk about the distraction issue, there’s a lot of things that aren’t addressed in it. But students have come away, they’ve heard this kind of very superficial version of that, by which laptops are bad, and they also have kind of picked up a folk belief that if you handwrite something, it sort of drives it into your memory automatically. And it does not work that way. In fact, if you read the original study, one of the things that they say is that in as much as laptop note taking can be less memorable, whatever you’re taking notes on, It’s because you’re less likely to paraphrase, synthesize, and compress down what you’re hearing. And yet we have other people, they’ve heard these people in the culture say, “Oh, well, if you want to remember something, sit down and copy it, get out that pen and paper,” and that’s not really an effective study strategy. So they’re a little surprised and they say, “Oh, wait a minute, there’s some nuance to that study, and maybe some others that didn’t replicate it.” That study wasn’t talking about distraction on a laptop, it was just strictly speaking about this one aspect of how memory encoding works. Attention span… I probably talked about it on an earlier podcast… This is not a concept that attention scientists usually use. And so right off the bat, that’s a little suspect. And there’s not really good solid evidence that fundamentally, attention is changing. So they’ve absorbed some of those things. And so they’re really delighted to really dig more into those. So I might assign them an editorial or something that ran in a popular magazine or a blog. And then we look at the original research they’re talking about, and we pick up on the discrepancies. It’s not that Mueller and Oppenheimer was badly designed, it’s just they were looking at some effects that don’t always hold up with replication. And that speaks to this idea that the effect size is maybe not that large. Not that, again, anything was wrong with their data, it’s just you have this now you see it, now you don’t quality with some of these effects. And that kind of tells you that maybe this isn’t the hugely overriding consideration. And subsequent studies too have talked about this storage function of notes. It’s neat to think that you remember as a function of note taking without having to go back and study. But in reality, that’s what we do with notes, we go back and we study them. And so here’s this big elephant in the room like, well, are they taking good notes? And if they’re not taking good notes that capture key points, that they are going to want to go back and study actively, then picking up a little bit here or there because it was more memorable during note taking is not as big an issue. So that’s a big like, “Okay, what have you heard? Let’s look at the original research.”

Rebecca: Having the opportunity to talk about these things with students is exciting. And I’m sure the students are really into it, because it connects to their direct lives. And diving into the research makes a lot of sense in the context in which you’re teaching your course within psychology. So it seems like a natural fit there. How might other academic fields adopt some of the ability to talk about these things in their own classes where maybe cognitive science is not or psychology is not, the fundamental underpinning of what they’re doing?

Michelle: That’s, I think, something that I think is really exciting and why I am so excited to be able to share with your Tea for Teaching audience is I’ve really come to believe that that maybe there is something that is more versatile here beyond just the psychology frame and just a senior capstone in psychology. And I think that this is where faculty creativity can come in. I think the fundamental things that I think are so promising… Well, first of all, this is just a topic that is really under discussed, and it’s under discussed in a serious way. It’s not like students have not ever heard anybody critique technology. They’ve heard that. They’ve heard, “Oh, it messes with their sleep that it messes with their social relationships.” They’ve heard a lot of this, but it’s kind of swept under the rug in a way or even treated as “what serious person would ever think about these sorts of things?” So, that said, this is something that, and it’s something that students are doing all the time, even pre-pandemic. Most students do use technology of one form or another and are on one or more social media platforms. And so this is in and out of their lives all day long. So I can only think that there are critical frames and key concepts within a variety of disciplines that could map onto this, even if a faculty member doesn’t have the opportunity, or the interest, to say develop a whole course. Well, perhaps this could be a vehicle for discussing, for example, experimental design. How do you set up a study to really get at things like “What are the impacts of heavy cellphone use?” You do have certain individuals who self select to use technology in a particular way. And that’s something that you see crop up again and again in the research literature. Or if we’re talking about our own personal relationships, classes that have a focus on health can perhaps use one of these sub areas as a springboard for discussion. And so this is just really what I found, is that students who might otherwise be very quiet or, when things are framed in a purely very divorced from reality academic way, they may hang back, but who doesn’t get hooked into a discussion of some of the impacts of technology on our life. So I think it can be a vehicle for those things. And I think that it might be a little bit of a stretch in, say, a physical sciences class where we’re really discussing empirical context. But even there, it can be folded into discussions of effective studying very well, as long as we don’t just have that, again, very superficial tech’s bad, just get rid of it all and do everything on note cards. There’s a lot more to it than that.

John: Students are going to be interacting with technology, not only in their classes, but in their future careers. So having them think about those issues can be a really useful thing to learn, no matter what discipline they’re studying,

Rebecca: It seems like a good hook. It’s something that everyone can relate to, in some context. I was doing an exercise in my own class not too long ago about storytelling, and how brands present stories around what they’re presenting to people. And I use Spotify and Pandora as the examples. I’ve never seen a class so excited, [LAUGHTER] because it was talking about this technology platform that they can connect to. So I can imagine, when you bring up social media or other things that they feel really connected to, it immediately is a hook to talk about anything more complex.

Michelle: Absolutely. And that’s precisely the kind of dynamic that I’ve seen. And if I could throw out a kind of a discipline-specific example, there’s a concept that I really started weaving in more of over the last few iterations of the class. And this is a concept from psychological sciences research and quantitative analysis that really can be very slippery. But it’s a big, big part of contemporary ways that we analyze data. And it’s a concept of mediators and moderators. And so it’s jargony… and essentially mediators, when you have a correlation between two things, and you want to know, does A cause B? Or is there something else in the middle does A cause B causes C, and we have these great techniques for untangling those relationships. And moderators, on the other hand, is the relationship or is the correlation stronger in the presence of a particular variable or for, say, a particular group of people than others? And so yeah, you read that in a textbook and you go, “oh….” and yet, it’s one of the things that we really… I mean, experimental design, and how we can interpret our data is just radically more sophisticated when we can just not say, “Well, these two things happen together, but for whom is this relationship stronger,” and so on? So there are a lot of studies on the effects of technology that have one or more of these involved. And yeah, it just clicks for students when they see it play out in this relatable domain. So, for example, we have a study that I incorporate really early in the course. It’s got a word in the title, “Technoference” in relationships. So it’s a study of your perception that your partner in an intimate relationship uses their phone…. and when you’re talking to them… [LAUGHTER I think, will have a little bit of recognition if we’re in a relationship. That’s part of contemporary relationships, right? And they look at overall well being and how that relates to being in a relationship where your partner’s on the phone all the time. Now, it’s not a perfect study. And that’s part of what we look at. It was only among women who were in opposite sex relationships, and there’s a lot of self report and all that stuff. But you can say that “Okay, now they have a mediator. It’s not that the phone itself is degrading your life’s wellbeing but here’s this chain of causality of when your partner’s using your phone all the time when you’re talking, then you’re not as happy in your relationship. There’s conflict and then your overall wellbeing in your life goes down.” And then, in that context, you go, “Oh, Okay, I get it. Here’s what a mediator is.” And then we can talk about moderators, we can say, “Well, what about individuals who are in same sex relationships? What about men? What about couples who have been together for 25 years versus those who just got together six months ago?” Oh, okay. Now we understand moderators. So yeah, similar to you, Rebecca, I’m just saying, once you bring in some of these things, is not just dropping in sort of pop culture, it’s really taking a substantive look at these things. But yeah, then you springboard into concepts that are otherwise just really abstract.

Rebecca: Do you have some examples of things about learning related to technology that we might be able to slip into any discipline’s classes? …some of the stuff about attention, or good study strategies, or anything that’s maybe mediated through technology, but would relate to anybody.

Michelle: Definitely, the relationship between attention and memory and learning. Now, like I always say, when I’m talking about these topics, memory is not the only important aspect of learning. Learning is not all about memorization. But we now know that when you remember more, we have a broader knowledge base in an area, you’re better able to think critically and think in some sophisticated ways in that area. So that’s all good stuff. So that’s one piece of it. And in order to acquire any new memories, pretty much, for practical purposes, you have to be paying attention. And this is what devices and technologies have been so well engineered at this point to take away from us. So yeah, when you talk about a life skill, you’re going to need this for the rest of your life, no matter what you do. We have to think about, alright, how do we kind of shepherd and be stewards of our own attention. And I think, from a teaching perspective, too, it’s not that we have to constantly entertain students to grab their attention back from whatever it’s wandering off on, or similar that we just have to stand up there and be like, “Well, you have to pay attention… unbroken for an hour and 15 minutes… and all violations will be punished.” There’s different paths between those, but just to share with students that “Yeah, using phones is probably not changing the way our attentional systems work.” They work the way they have for many, many millennia. However, there’s a lot more competition for that now. So having them think about what are their strategies going to be. For some students, they come up with very creative cold turkey types of situations or types of strategies. I had one student say that I put my phone in a dropbox outside at night when I’m studying, and if I want to use it I have to go out there, which may not seem like a big deal, but in Flagstaff, it could easily be three degrees Fahrenheit and ice falling out of the sky, it’s cold out here. So we have students who say, “Well, you know what, I’m gonna be a little bit more subtle. I’m going to use one browser for my classwork and one browser for fun and social media.” And it’s just a little subtle cue that kind of tells you, “okay, we’re in work mode, or we’re not in work mode.” It’s not as much prescribing the answers as getting students themselves involved in saying, “Well, here’s how I’m going to manage this.” So those are some of the things that we would share. And when it comes to learning strategies at work, I’m always going to be evangelizing retrieval practice in one form or another. Lots of ways that that can look… everything from a Kahoot! quiz to sitting and talking with your roommate to try to bat back and forth what you remembered. Lots of different things you can do but, it shows too, there’s a link between you have to put in some active effort for your brain to pick up on that information and store it away in memory if it’s going to. So yeah, there’s sort of a complex of interrelated principles and take homes, there.

Rebecca: The one thing that I was immediately thinking about when you said about phones being really good at taking away your attention. I immediately thought as a designer, what a great example of how to get someone’s attention? [LAUGHTER]

Michelle: Yeah.

Rebecca: …not only to think about how to manage attention and think about what you’re paying attention to, but how do designers actually manipulate that? [LAUGHTER]

Michelle: See… perfect. There’s a cross-disciplinary connection.

John: The importance of attention is a topic that I think all students recognize is a problem. But I don’t think they fully understand quite how much of a problem it can be. Or at least my perception is there’s still a lot of misperceptions about the ability of students to multitask effectively. And I know that’s something that you address a bit in your classes.

Michelle: I do. And a related project that we’ve discussed on some other podcasts is the Attention matters project and I’m happy to report that project is still just perking along like crazy. We still have lots of faculty who are involved with it. So to kind of give a little background on it. Attention Matters was a concept that came out of a great conversation I had with my very smart and dedicated colleague, John Doherty, who’s an instructional designer and a librarian here at Northern Arizona University. And I had been going around and trying to teach a little, almost guest lecture, roadshow for interested faculty to spread these ideas to students of how to study effectively and how to have a plan for not getting distracted in the middle of class and stuff like that. And we talked about it. And we put together an online module that can serve so many more students. This semester, I have several really smart research assistants, undergraduate research assistants, who are in this module, moderating it and helping it run. And for those who know what MOOCs are (massive open online courses), it’s a little bit like that, except it’s specific to our institution. And so, in this, it’s a way of reaching out to students, they oftentimes will earn a little bit of extra credit in their classes for faculty who really want to spread these ideas to their students. They work through these modules that do touch on some of these key ideas about… as far as multitasking, we tend to be very overconfident. You can’t learn by osmosis, you do need that directed attention. Instead of highlighting and passively hoping things soak in, get in there and do retrieval practice. There’s also a little piece of Attention Matters, by the way, that talks about driving safety, which was not really something we set out to do. But I feel like it’s, again, a relatable everyday example that people can say, “Oh, my gosh, I was in a bike accident by a distracted driver,” or “I’m very careful about this.” And students are very adamant, and have strong views that do funnel back to that idea of: if you let it, devices and distraction of all kind can really take over and create some serious consequences. So, that’s yet another way that we’ve been working to bring these ideas to students throughout the years. And yet another thing that’s given us a fascinating window into what students are already doing to cope with these things, and some of their unexpected attitudes and ideas about them.

Rebecca: The thing that a lot of folks are doing is they’re teaching remotely or trying to jazz things up in synchronous online classes is trying to play with the idea of gamification in their classes, which certainly comes from technology, and often from video games and then some experience around that. Can you talk a little bit about how faculty might use gamification in their classes? Or also how that works on students?

Michelle: Yeah, games and gamification has been such a topic for so long in how can we use technology for education? I know it’s funny, when I was doing research for Minds online, I actually went to a Musee Mecanique in San Francisco, as a sort of a background research. It’s this amazing Museum, that’s just whatever the technologies of the time were, and it goes back like 100 years, all these different games, physical games you can play there.

Rebecca: It’s a cool Museum,

Michelle: Oh, you’ve been there.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Michelle: Oh, my gosh.

John: I was too.

Michelle: People have used photography in games and gamification. They’ve used all these different ways of using tech to play. So this is not a modern concept. And so we’ve seen lots of attempts throughout the years to also harness it for learning… some more successful than others. It’s such a deep theme in those connections between mind-brain-learning technology. And so students, here too, they get pretty excited about it. And that’s a good thing for faculty who are looking to use games and gamification. Now it’s another where I think drilling a little bit below the surface is really beneficial. It’s pretty clear to me, from the research and literature so far, that what makes games effective, and what makes them so compelling, you know, elicits the time, effort and attention that you need for learning, it’s not the superficial stuff about the experiences, not the music, and it’s not just calling it a game. It’s not necessarily tacking points onto something, although points and scorekeeping is usually a part of most compelling games, for sure. But there’s deeper things about getting really rapid feedback, there’s the opportunity for friendly competition. And that’s something that I’ve really seen this year, because I’ve also been using quite a few quizzes and polls and things like that in my courses, too, that are remote, is that you don’t have to attach a grade to the game to get some students really into the idea of competition, while other students, there, it’s more anxiety provoking, or it’s just too much because they’re already in so many high-stakes competitive exams, where they can play for fun. And so those are some of the aspects that are important when people are thinking about selecting a game, setting up a game, bringing gamification in some way. It doesn’t have to all be cheesy, let’s make everything look like a video game. But really, that idea too, that mistakes are part of it. While we’re playing a Kahoot and you get an answer wrong, whatever, we’re doing something else in five seconds, and it’s not a big issue like a test question is. So there’s definitely that. And I would say, too, that students here as well, they can be a great source for insight. So talk to your students. Say “What aspects of this game are more appealing? less appealing?” and so on. And games and game culture too, this is something that I really get a sense that they’ve never had a serious, let alone academic, conversation about the role of gaming in their lives. Yet for many students, that’s an important part of their identity. It’s what they do to relax. It’s what they do to socialize now, quite frequently, especially with distancing happening. So, as weird as it might sound, let’s take games seriously. Let’s take games seriously as an important aspect of students’ lives. Let’s take it seriously as a road to learning. And let’s just keep exploring that because the more research that gets done, the more effective and beneficial features we find associated with games.

John: And the most popular games are those that students can work through. And no matter what their prior knowledge with that type of game, as you said, provides them feedback. And that feedback is targeted so that they can use that to improve and the level of the games are set so that it’s neither so challenging that they give up and get discouraged, but not so easy that they don’t have the sense of challenge. And that seems like a really good way of perhaps thinking about how we should design our classes in general, whether we include explicit gamification aspects or not, creating an environment that encourages students to actively want to engage with the material, and where they can see progress and see how they’re advancing. That is, in general, something that I think is a really important thing for us to contemplate at least in course design.

Michelle: Agree 100%, agree 100%. And that’s exactly what makes games compelling. What is about social media that makes people return to it again, and again, and again, hundreds of times in a day? And what features can we extract and adapt in the service of learning?

Rebecca: One of the things we talked about with Ken Bain last week was an example about the arts and how that might change someone’s thinking… an experience with a piece of artwork. So, I used that kind of example, to inspire a little activity with my students this morning. And I asked them, “Can you talk about a piece of artwork that has influenced your thinking?” And I gave them some categories. And I’m teaching an interaction motion design class, but I included visual art, but games were one of my categories. And some of the students put some really interesting examples about how certain games have gotten them to really contemplate interesting ethical questions, relationship questions, really interesting stuff. And they wrote really thoughtful responses. I had them basically write the name of the game and just a sentence about how it impacted their thinking. But there were some really thoughtful responses. And it was really almost surprising to me how deep some of those quick summaries of their experiences had been with games.

Michelle: Yeah, that’s perfect. And without the conversation, you wouldn’t have that window.

John: For many years, we’ve all heard lots of arguments from faculty about whether technology should be or should not be used in classes. The pandemic, to a large extent, has shut those down completely. And that’s been, for many of us, quite a bit of a relief not to have to deal with those arguments all the time. However, as we begin to move back into a more traditional onsite teaching environment where more instruction is taking place in regular classrooms again, what are some of the things that people may have learned about interacting with technology effectively during the pandemic, that may perhaps lead to improvements in how we teach our classes regularly?

Michelle: That is such a meaty question, and I think it’s one we’re going to see so much just rapid development of reactions. it ties into the whole question right now of what does instruction look like post-pandemic or whatever the next stage of the pandemic is? But yeah, what a good time to think about this. And you know, I can look at it too through the lens of faculty experience, I was kind of fortunate to have had my Zoom baptism completely by accident earlier in spring of 2020. Because I had set up this idea of having a lot of guest speakers in one class, and I got a huge response, which is wonderful, but I needed to bring them in. And I had always kind of said, “Well, if I’m going to Zoom, I’m going to kind of sidestep that. I’m going to let somebody else drive.” And I had to get over that really fast. And so I do think that it illustrates the value of some targeted, not totally strategically planned, practice with technology tools. And that’s just the kind of bedrock cognitive processes that, when you have something like being able to just run Zoom, or Collaborate or something like that, or have an online poll, your ability to do that while monitoring a classroom or answering questions, you got to have the practice in first, and our students are the same way. So we can think about, alright, whatever we’re going to have students interacting with or using or if it’s us that are using something, having that practice upfront and expecting that, once we’re on the other side of the learning curve, it looks very, very different. So that is one big part of it. On a much more conceptual or abstract level. I think that, this whole year, we’ve really needed to look at the students and their goals and why they’re there in the class in the first place, wnd why are they taking the course. That’s something I’ve written about in some of the shorter articles I’ve put out this year. I think the pandemic teaching was distinctive for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that you just can’t keep persisting with “Okay, I’m the learning cop here and I’m going to make sure everybody does things because I’m watching you.” At the end of the day. I found if my students… I hope they’re not, but yeah, they are in Zoom, they could be doing other things… they may be minimally attentive, and that is not good for their learning. And I do a lot of things to have a lot of different shifts in gears to bring in gamification. I’ve done a lot of things to do that. But ultimately, if the student wants to check out, they can check out to an extent. And I’m not saying I’m okay with that, but I think that we are going to be meeting students much more in the middle, instead of having a more adversarial relationship to their learning, I’m here to enforce what you have to know. I mean, we have to collaborate to have something like remote teaching the way we’re doing it, to have that work at all, there has to be more of a collaborative approach to it. So I know that that’s a very top-level conceptual type of answer. But I think that in a lot of things, we’re going to be saying, “Well, you know, what, if this is something that helps some students, and if I’ve talked to students about why they’re here, and they’re purpose driven, ‘I am here to actually learn and take something from this class because I need it for the next class.’” Well, that’s a great basis to springboard off of, instead of “how do I write the policy in my syllabus that will prevent any kind of behavior I see as undesirable.” And you know, so many people were already moving away from that, which I think is incredibly fortunate given what we’ve been through in the last year. But this may be, if not a tipping point, something else that pushes us more in that direction of saying, “Well, what are the policies there to do?” Yes, students have to pay attention to learn. And that is very, very clear during remote pandemic teaching, as well as everywhere else. But let’s maybe take some different approaches and have a different philosophy of how we get there.

Rebecca: One of the things that I also hear you hinting at Michelle is that during the pandemic, we’ve all had a lot to manage, we’ve had a lot of cognitive load. And so we have to prioritize, and we have to decide what’s going to win our attention. And so students have the same problem all the time, just like we have the same problem all the time, we’re just more aware of it now. They have multiple classes to balance, they might have family concerns, they might have jobs, and at some point, they’re making choices about what they’re going to attend to, and what they can’t attend to. And I think sometimes we always hope and wish that they’re attending to whatever we’re putting out in front of them. But that might not be the best choice for them at a given moment, based on the other things that are going on in our lives. And we just often don’t think of our students in that kind of holistic point of view.

Michelle: Oh, absolutely. That’s such an eloquent example of this way of thinking, and the things that we have learned and the shift in mindset that we may be on the cusp of. And that’s another thing that really underlies the approach to talking to students about technology that I’ve really come to adopt, which is the same-side instead of opposite-sides stance. Like you said, we do struggle with some common things. I’m caricaturing a little bit, but I think we’re playing off of an older mindset where it’s us, we’re were older, we’re in this position of authority, and here’s how we like to do things. And here’s this young generation, and they think, very alien to us, and they want to do something else, and we’re going to make them come over to our side… saying, look, we all get distracted. In class, I’m frequently saying, “Well, yeah, here’s something unpleasant that happened to me on social media,” even if I don’t tell them all the details. [LAUGHTER] The point is, yeah, I get misunderstandings and hurt feelings on social media, too. I end up in the social comparison that tends to be so toxic on places like Instagram. I get really, really distracted and sidetracked because I’m using the same computer for 20 different things all at once. And so let’s work together to see how we can address those challenges. And yeah, so I think that what you’re describing is, I think, a very healthy way forward.

John: Now that faculty have had a chance to get more insight into students lives, perhaps now faculty will be more understanding of those things in the future, because the classroom environment is somewhat separated from all that it was much easier to ignore those things and maybe faculty will be more likely to treat students as human beings, perhaps in the future.

Rebecca: Are you implying that the classroom is real life?

John: Well, maybe it may more closely resemble that as we move back into more traditional classroom settings.

Michelle: Yes, and I’m all for that.

John: We always end with the question, and it’s particularly relevant now, “What’s next?”

Michelle: As you mentioned at the top of our interview together, I am in the very final stages of completing the Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology book. So I’m really excited to having that book be coming out in the not too distant future. And I’m really throwing myself into a brand new professional role, which is as the Co-editor of the Teaching and Learning Series with West Virginia University Press. Now, this series has just drawn so many dynamic thinkers with so many practical and also evidence-based ideas that we can all use in teaching and learning and so it was a tremendous honor to be invited to take that role on and I’ll be working with the other editor of the series who founded the series and launched it all, Dr. James Lang, who has just been tremendously influential in the area of bringing evidence-based effective pedagogical strategies to so many people in higher education. He’s been this tremendous leader in that area. His writing is also amazing. So what an honor to get to work with him and with West Virginia University Press. Stepping into that role has taken up a lot and it’s been wonderful already. So that is, for the most part, what’s next for me.

John: And I think we could say the same about your writing based on your earlier book, as well as recent comments that Jim Lang made on Twitter about how much he enjoyed the clarity of your writing and your exposition in this new book and how much he’s looking forward to that being released.

Michelle: Oh, thank you, that’s so nice to say and being able to teach students and to talk to students for so many years about these issues was the inspiration that gave me ideas to work with. So, it all comes around.

Rebecca: Well, thanks, as always for joining us, Michelle, and sharing some of your insights and some of the work that you’ve been doing.

Michelle: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

John: Thank you, Michelle. And we’re looking forward to talking to you about this book as it gets closer to coming out.

Michelle: Absolutely.

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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

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186. Super Courses

Posted in active learning, attention, authentic learning, engagement, growth mindset, higher education, learning, motivation, pedagogy, self-regulated learning, syllabi, teaching
May 5, 2021

Students often see our classes as boxes that they need to check in order to graduate. By reframing our courses around fascinating big questions that students can connect with, we can help our students recognize the value of these learning experiences. In this episode, Ken Bain joins us to explore examples of courses that do this well.

Ken is an award winning teacher, the founder of the teaching centers at Northwestern, New York, and Vanderbilt Universities. He is the author of two very influential prior books, What the Best College Teachers Do and What the Best College Students Do. His newest, Super Courses, was released in March 2021

Shownotes

  • Bain, K. (2004). What the Best College Teachers Do. Harvard University Press.
  • Bain, K. (2012). What the Best College Students Do. Harvard University Press.
  • Bain, K. (2021). Super Courses: The Future of Teaching and Learning. Princeton University Press.
  • Andrew David Kaugman, Books Behind Bars
  • Deci, E. L. (1972). Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic reinforcement, and inequity. Journal of personality and social psychology, 22(1), 113.
  • Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (2001). Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in education: Reconsidered once again. Review of educational research, 71(1), 1-27.
  • Perusall
  • Hypothes.is

Transcript

John: Students often see our classes as boxes that they need to check in order to graduate. By reframing our courses around fascinating big questions that students can connect with, we can help our students recognize the value of these learning experiences. In this episode, we explore examples of courses that do this well.

[MUSIC]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer.

Rebecca: Together, we run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.

[MUSIC]

Rebecca: Our guest today is Ken Bain. Ken is an award winning teacher, the founder of the teaching centers at Northwestern, New York, and Vanderbilt Universities. He is the author of two very influential prior books, What the Best College Teachers Do and What the Best College Students Do. His newest, Super Courses, was released in March 2021. Welcome, Ken.

Ken: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

John: We’re really glad to talk to you. You visited Oswego a few years back and people are still talking about your visit.

Ken: Oh, wonderful. I had a wonderful visit.

John: Our teas today are… Are you drinking tea?

Ken: No, my doctor won’t let me do that, and I haven’t had a good cup of tea in… oh my goodness… many, many years.

Rebecca: Oh, that would make me so sad.

Ken: Yes, indeed, it does. Me too. I can’t drink tea… anything that has caffeine in it.

Rebecca: Ah, total bummer.

Ken: Yes, it is. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: I have about the strongest caffeinated Irish breakfast tea you can have. [LAUGHTER]

Ken: Oh, my goodness. Well, the last cup of coffee that I had was in 2002. I remember the date. That’s because it….

Rebecca: Oh, no…

Ken: …a traumatic experience, to go cold turkey.

John: Actually, that’s how I started drinking more tea. I had to cut out caffeine, so I started drinking herbal tea.

Ken: Well, I do drink herbal tea from time to time. I just don’t happen to have a cup right now.

John: I am drinking Tea Forte black currant tea today.

Ken: Oh, wonderful.

John: It’s really good.

Rebecca: So we’ve invited you here today to discuss Super Courses. Could you tell us a little bit about the origin of this book project?

Ken: Well, my wife and longtime collaborator, Marsha Marshall Bain, suggested that we do a course around the Invitational syllabus, as we’ve come to call it, what we used to call the promising syllabus. And we began collecting those syllabi from around the world and began looking at them. And in the midst of that endeavor. Peter Dougherty, who is the longtime director of the Princeton University Press, contacted us one day and said, “Would you come down to Princeton, and I’ll buy you lunch?” So that sounded like a great invitation. And we went down. And he asked us what we were working on. And I told him and he said, “Oh, you’re looking for super courses.” And that triggered a whole avalanche Of reconsiderations of what we were doing, and we shifted the Invitational project over to the super course project, and began looking for courses that offered what we had been calling a natural critical learning environment. And we began that project back in, I guess, late 2007.

John: Maybe before we talk about your new book, you can talk just a little bit about the concept of an Invitational syllabus, since that was the origin of this project.

Ken: Oh, sure. It’s the idea of inviting your students into the class, rather than requiring them to come. And rather than focusing upon topics, it focuses upon big and enticing questions, so that the Invitational syllabus begins with an intriguing question, an important question, a beautiful question that students find so enticing, that they say, “I want to be a part of that.” And it becomes a self-motivating experience. So that’s part of what we meant by a natural critical learning environment, is the creation of that self-motivating experience where students would pursue things, not because someone was threatening them with a bad grade, or because they were just looking for credit, but because they became deeply interested in the question.

Rebecca: Can you expand a little bit upon the idea of the natural critical learning environment beyond just the Invitational syllabus?

Ken: Sure, we now have identified, oh, I guess, about 20 some odd elements of what we call a natural critical learning environment. And the first and most foundational of those elements is that it’s organized around those intriguing questions. And its intention is to foster what the literature calls deep learning, that is learning in which students think about implications and applications of what they’re learning and the possibilities of what they’re learning. It’s learning where students look behind the words on a page and think about all of those implications and applications and possibilities and how things are connected to each other. So that’s the foundational element and the chief goal of the natural critical learning environment is to create an atmosphere where students can, and will likely, pursue that deep approach to learning and they develop what we call deep intentions to learn. But, how do they do that? How do we get them to that point? So, what is the natural critical learning environment? Well, it’s an environment where they can try, they can come up short, and get feedback, and try again, without penalty, without any kind of situation where they are punished for coming up short. In other words, if you think about it, it’s the kind of learning environment that we expect, as scientists and as scholars. We try out things, and if they don’t work, if the data doesn’t confirm our hypothesis, we modify it and try again. And we’d be terribly insulted if our first effort out of the box was… and people would say, “That’s nonsense. That’s crazy. Go away.” We try things, get feedback, and try again, and so that’s what the natural critical learning environment does. It’s also an environment where students can work with each other. People learn in community arrangements, where they work with each other to grapple with the problems. And they learn… and this is another key element of the natural critical learning environment… they learn by doing. Sometimes that means learn by teaching. And by teaching, we don’t mean necessarily that they stand in front of a mirror and deliver lectures. In fact, the teaching that they develop often doesn’t even include lectures, it includes a way of fostering very deep learning on the part of other people by creating dialogues, creating exchanges around big questions that move students toward a deeper understanding and a deeper application.

John: Going back to that question of the big questions, because that’s an important part of the approach. I think you talk about that both at the level of the course as a whole in the Invitational syllabus, but also when you’re devising individual components of your course. Could you elaborate a little bit on what faculty should think about when trying to select those questions?

Ken: Yeah. And it’s more than selecting them. It’s framing them, and framing them in a way that will intrigue students. Now, some of the best super courses we came across were questions that sometimes began with questions that were much larger than the course and much larger than the discipline. But in the course of students pursuing those big questions, they discover that “Well, I need to learn chemistry to answer this question,” or “I need to learn history,” or maybe “I need to learn both,” because many of the super courses were multi-disciplinary, built around a big and complex and interesting fascinating question. And then the students would devise ways of trying to answer that question. And the professor would build an environment where they could progressively tackle those questions. They can run from the very simple to the very complex, one of my favorites, and one that I’ve talked about so much, and actually written about, going all the way back 10, 15 years ago, is one that we do mention, briefly, in this new book, but it’s joined by other really exciting examples. First, that old example, it comes from 2006. And there was a professor at Princeton at the time, he was a political historian and political scientist, and who wanted the students to examine the impact of that period we call reconstruction, in period from roughly 1865 to 1877, and to ask themselves, what kind of impact did that period have on subsequent political and social developments and political institutions? Now, as a historian, that’s a very intriguing question to me. [LAUGHTER] But I don’t think you will find many undergraduates who are just dying to pursue that question. So she didn’t ask that question initially. Instead, she built a course around a question that she knew was already on the minds of her students. Now you think about what was on the minds of students in the fall of 20006? …A big question. When I ask American teachers these days, they often can’t remember. [LAUGHTER] I recently did a workshop in China, and in far southwestern China, and they got it immediately. They remembered. But, the question was, basically, “What in the world happened with that disaster we call Katrina?” Now, there’s a lot of evidence that that question became the dominant question in American politics in 2006, 2008, and helped determine the outcome of the election in 2008. You look at Mr. Bush’s numbers of approval, they fell off the cliff after Katrina. So what caused that disaster? So she organized a course, she called “Disaster: Katrina and American Politics.” And students signed up immediately. It became an extraordinarily popular course. Well, how do you get from there to an examination of political history? Well, it happened on the first day. She went into the class, and the first question she asked her students was, “When did the disaster begin? Did it begin in August of 2005, when the storm surge hit New Orleans? Or did it begin in 1866 with the beginning of reconstruction in the Crescent City?” And with that question, she transformed their interest into her interest, and it became the driving push of the whole course. But let me give you another broader example of the book, A guy by the name of Andrew David Kaufman, who teaches at the University of Virginia, about a dozen years ago, organized a program he calls Books Behind Bars. His field is Russian literature, late 19th and early 20th century Russian literature. And that literature is quite famous for asking big questions, questions about: “What’s my purpose in life? What’s my destiny in life?” So what he does in this course, is the help students go into a maximum security correctional facility for young people, people the same age as the UVA students in the course. When they go into that prison, and they help those other young people confront those questions, by reading Tolstoy, by reading Turgenev, raising the questions, and then struggling with them in a class that they do for them once a week, ensure they learn Russian literature, by teaching Russian literature, and not by lecture, but by creating an environment, a natural critical learning environment, where their students, the residents in the correctional facility, will learn just as deeply as they will. And it’s a transformative experience, for both sides, and it changes lives, and it’s self motivating. That makes sense?

Rebecca: Yeah, these are really powerful examples. And I love that both of them have really strong ledes with the course title.

Ken: Yeah. And if you’ll notice also that both have appeal to a sense of altruism. And we discovered that many of these super courses do just that, even in fields like physics and engineering. They do things to help other people. One of our favorites is a course that some high school girls in a high school in northwest Los Angeles, developed for themselves. And the only help they had was they were invited into this program and invited to come up with a project. And they live in a relatively poor neighborhood. They said, “Well, the biggest problem in our neighborhood is homelessness. And we see the homeless out on the street and in the park and under interstate 5 that runs near the high school. And what we want to do is we want to create a portable tent that is solar powered, so they will have heat and the cooking facilities and light and so on and so forth in their tent.” Now to do that, they had to learn engineering. So they organized their own courses, they organized their own sequence of topics that they would pursue. Now they have some guidance. The teachers over there kind of giving them hints or answering questions: “Should we pursue this next?” But they learned everything from electrical engineering to programming, and lots of things in between. But they also learned just the basics of being an engineer. That’s transformative. They created it, and therefore they took ownership of it. Now, the super courses, and the super institutions that we studied, immerse a lot of what they do in the research on human motivation, research pioneered by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. And they argue, in their well documented research papers, that human beings have three basic needs and that if you meet those psychological needs three basic psychological needs… we have physical needs that go beyond these… the three basic psychological needs. And if you meet those psychological needs, people are just naturally motivated to try to learn. You don’t have to stimulate it, it just occurs naturally. And the problem is often that the way we set up schooling for people doesn’t meet those needs, it actually counters those needs. And so we get classes full of uninterested students, students who are signing off and not really becoming involved. And to address that situation, many of these courses deliberately use Deci and Ryan’s work to build an environment, where, what shall I say, where people are just naturally driven to do what they need to do. Those three needs, by the way, are: a need for autonomy, that is, we like to be in charge of our own lives. We don’t like teachers being in control of our learning. We want teachers to help us with it, that’s different, but not to control that. And beyond autonomy, there’s also a sense of competence. So people, if they feel like if they don’t know something, they can learn it. And they feel that what Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset, that mindset that says, “I may not know this, yet, but I can learn it. I may not know calculus, yet, but I can learn it.” While the person with the fixed mindset says, “I’m not a writing person,” “I’m not a computer person,” “I’m not a whatever person,” and they give up. And they don’t try to learn and to push the envelope. And then finally, it’s the sense of relatedness, people like to be part of a broader effort, and an effort in the super courses that’s often larger than the classes itself, larger than the discipline… that they take on these large projects, because they believe that it can make a difference for themselves, and for other people whose lives they will affect.

John: One of the things that’s challenging, though, for a lot of faculty, is that we do have to assign grades for all of this. So we know ultimately, students are going to get these grades. And that tends to lead to more of a reliance on extrinsic motivation. What can faculty do to provide that sort of encouragement and to help create a growth mindset when students are going to struggle with some of the material at first?

Ken: Yeah, it’s to give them lots of opportunities to try, fail, receive feedback, and try again. Now, that seems really daunting to many faculty members. They say, “Now look, I have to two hundred students, I can’t do that, for all of the students.” But there are ways of doing that. And that’s one of the things that we explore in the book. It is difficult to describe, so I won’t attempt to do so in the conversations here. But, the courses develop ways for students to give feedback to each other. Sometimes they have students make an argument about their own learning, and then have each other to assess that argument and make an argument. And that second part that I mentioned, is really an important part of the natural critical learning environment, that it’s an environment where people deliberately learn to give themselves and each other feedback. So they set up the whole system of marks around that idea that students were going to give each other feedback on how well they’re doing. And they’re going to give themselves feedback. And that they learn to assess their own efforts and work through those. Often, in the course of the term, credit is often given for participating. That is, if you do the work, you get credit for. And only at the end, do you approach anything like a summative judgment that we usually call a final grade. One of the things that we do in the book is to explore the history of grading. And we do that to help people see that grading is, for one, a fairly recent invention in education. The idea of putting a number or a letter on someone else’s thinking, that didn’t emerge until fairly late and really didn’t become entrenched until the late 19th to the early 20th century, and that changed everything. So I want people to see this in that kind of context, that there’s nothing natural or automatic about having the traditional approach to grading. And so what people have done in the super courses, is find ways of saying “Okay, now you’ve joined a community, you’re going to be helping each other to learn and you have responsibilities toward that community and to help each other to assess each other, to give each other feedback… substantive feedback, not scores, substantive feedback to one another. And we’ll try to give you feedback as well, maybe as a group, maybe individually in smaller classes, but to give you that opportunity of trying, coming up short, and being able to try again, without that affecting your overall final grade. And then the final grade is based upon an accumulation of lots of things, and perhaps a final project, a final paper, a final presentation, or something of that sort, rather than just simply accumulating, you get 10% on this and 15% on this and 40% on this aspect of the grading.

John: How can we help students embrace the concept though, of productive failure, that process of trying something, making mistakes, and then learning from that experience. Because that’s something that many of our students don’t naturally come to, because many of them haven’t seen it before up to the point when we have them in class.

Ken: Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the keys is to provide them with very dramatic and enchanting learning environments, at the very beginning of their experience, so that the students say to themselves, “This is going to be different.” Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about… my favorite example of this category. It came from a program that was offered, again, in a secondary school. It is called city term. And it brought students from around the world together right outside of New York City, and they use New York City as their classroom. And the first Saturday in the program, they’re invited to go on a scavenger hunt. And they’re given a list of items that they might look for in New York City. One of them, for example, that they often use was: find the first wooden escalator. So students go off in groups, and there’s a teacher that goes with them, but the teacher doesn’t interfere, and just keep them safe. And beyond that the students go wherever they want to. It’s a wild and exciting adventure. And then at the end of the day, they end up in Central Park on a picnic, and they discuss with each other. “How did you find that escalator at Macy’s? What questions did you begin to ask yourself? Who did you talk to? How did you reason through the process?” And by sharing ideas with each other, what they’re actually doing is learning good research techniques. That’s a wild way of learning good research techniques, to say the least. But it’s something that the students will always remember. And they will latch on to that. And they will latch on to the course now, because that first experience was something that was quite dramatic to them. Now, we don’t all have the opportunity to use New York City as our laboratory or our classroom, and to take students on a scavenger hunt. But we can imagine creating a first assignment, and I’m reluctant to use that word “assignment,” because we found often that these courses don’t talk about assignments, they talk about opportunities, and invitations to students. It’s so exciting that it begins to break down all of their sort of stereotypes in their mind about what’s going to happen in a class. So in Andrew Kaufman’s Books Behind Bars course, they’re first asked to apply for the course. So they have to explain why they want to be in the course, and then helps to begin to break down barriers. And then the first day in the class, he begins to break down the barriers by first telling them about a three minute story about a young man who read a little short story by a guy by the name of Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy, and as we called him in the West, and about halfway through the story… in other words, about a minute and a half end of the story, the students began to realize that it’s a story about Gandhi. And it’s a story about an important transformation in Gandhi’s life as a result of reading a piece of literature. And so Professor Kaufman says to his student, “We want you to think about a point in your life, when a piece of art, maybe a piece of literature, maybe a painting, maybe a song, but some piece of art had a deep impact upon you and your thinking.” And the students began to discuss with each other. And they began to realize first, that this isn’t going to be a course where the teacher just talks to them and they take notes and then later take a test on whether or not they can recall the notes that they took. But it’s going to be a class that they will dominate, that they will do most of the talking and most of the thinking, and by creating a different kind of environment, you then can move to ultimately getting them to think about such questions as how are you going to assess yourself? How do you know whether or not you’re making progress, and whether or not you’re learning and you’re learning deeply. And the key point here is helping students to learn what it means to learn deeply, that learning deeply is not the traditional strategic learning… “oh, I learn this for the test. I’ll make an A on the test and I’ll make an A in the class.” No. it’s self-driven learning, where you begin to look behind the scenes, where you intend to look for ways in which this course can transform you and transform your thinking.

John: So essentially, I think what you’re saying is we need to help encourage students to develop more reflection on their work and on their learning process.

Ken: Yeah, I think so. I think that’s the key is getting students to think about their own learning, and help them with categories that will enable them to think deeply about their own learning… categories like deep learning, versus strategic learning, or surface learning. The strategic learner just wants to make straight As [LAUGHTER] and they’ll do whatever is necessary to make those straight As. The surface learner just wants to learn enough to pass the course, to be able to perform on an exam or write a paper or whatever it is that’s required of them. But neither one of those two leads to deep intentions, that I deeply want to understand how calculus works, and how it can help me in understanding the world in which I live, and how this applies to me, and my field and how it applies to my major, even though I’m not a mathematician, and how I can change the way in which I think. So developing those deep intentions. and fostering that deep development of intentions, becomes extremely important.

Rebecca: One of the things that you were just mentioning in terms of the strategic learners and the surface learners is how much many of our courses are probably structured with them in mind, rather than a deep learner in mind, and that we perpetuate these kinds of learners rather than deep learners based on our class structures.

Ken: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think we began to break away from that, by the way in which we frame the questions we raise. You think about the example of Kaufman’s course. Or let’s take an example from physics. Eric Mazur, at Harvard, has pioneered a lot of the elements of the natural critical learning environment and super course. And the students in his course do not learn physics, by listening to lecture, boring or otherwise. They learn physics by doing physics. They do three big projects. And each semester of the course… it’s a two-semester course, some students take only one semester… but in either semester, they do three big projects and they’re massive projects. And they work with a team. Each student’s is in a team of about five or six students. And they work together to try to attack a problem. And each of the projects has a back story. For example, you’ve been contacted by a charity that was created in Venezuela, by a well known philanthropist and musician, who became quite convinced that music, and symphonic music in particular (being part of a symphony orchestra), is a transformative experience that can help very poor people rise out of their poverty, and to develop a different mindset that enables them to conquer some of the economic circumstances they face. It’s a program that now has about a million students worldwide who are engaged in it. But it has a problem, namely that some of the students are so poor, that they cannot afford to buy real instruments. Now, you’ve been studying waves and music is made up of waves. So, your team has been invited to create new kinds of instruments that can be made from things that you find in the junkyard. Now that new instrument has to be able to be tuned over to different octaves, has to stay in tune for a specific amount of time, but by creating these new kinds of instruments, you can help the young children. Now, that’s a compelling project. They learn physics and the physics of waves actually doing the project and demonstrating that they can do it. Another project is more fun than anything else. Do you remember the old Rube Goldberg cartoons?

John: I do. I don’t know if Rebecca does. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: I know what they are. [LAUGHTER]

Ken: Ok. There was this guy. He was an engineer and he was also a cartoonist from San Francisco. He used to draw these cartoons, where you would attempt to do something very simple, like crack an egg, by a very elaborate piece of machinery, where balls would roll down ramps and would trigger gates that would open up other gates that would cause other balls to fall, and so on, and so forth. So it’s a very elaborate, unnecessary project. So on the Rube Goldberg project, so students are invited to create a Rube Goldberg type device to crack an egg… [LAUGHTER] something you can do very simply by knocking the egg against the edge of your kitchen counter, or your kitchen table. But no, you had to create this very elaborate project. Well, to do that, all of Rube Goldberg drawings and inventions were based on physics. That ball rolling down a ramp at this angle will acquire this speed, and it would open this door and would result in this hammer hitting this hammer that would cause this ball to roll down this ramp… and that would, etc, etc, etc. So you had to know the physics in order to create these absurd projects. But there’s a lot of fun in that. A lot of fun. And the first project they do, I think, is one was just strictly on fun. They build a racing car, and then race each other, like many of them did when they were back in the fifth grade. And they have great fun in doing that. Another one is one where they have to design a lock that other people can’t open. And they get points for 1. being able to keep other people out of their safe, and for being able to crack the lock of other peoples’ safes. So a lot of wild times. Now there’s a textbook that stands behind all of this. And the textbook is written by the professor. And it lays out everything that he might otherwise have said to them in lecture, and more. Now, how do you get students to read that textbook, 1. by creating these enticing projects, but another way you do it is by making reading of the textbook into a social experience. So Mazur and his colleagues created a program which is now available to everyone, called Perusall. And, using Perusall, students can read material together. So in the sense that, “Okay, we’ve got an assignment, we need to read to chapter two. We’re all reading it together, you’re reading it on your computer, I’m reading it on my computer. And as I read along, I may have questions. So I’ll highlight that text, I’ll raise the question.” It’s like writing in the margin, but everybody can see what you wrote. He organizes the groups into groups of 15 or 20 students apiece, and they can read each other’s comments and they can respond to each other’s comments. And to participate in the class, to be a participant in the class, what it means is that they will keep up with offering the comments to each other, and their comments on the text itself, making comments on what’s written there, to raise questions. to answer a question, so on and so forth. And what they found is that reading completion goes from 40 something percent at best, all the way up to 95 to 100% completion.

John: I’ve been using Hypothesis in my classes for the last three years, and nd it’s a very similar type too…

Ken: Yeah, there are several others out there.

John: And students really enjoy that, too. They enjoy seeing what other people are raising questions about. They enjoy answering questions for each other and posing questions to each other, and It seems to make the reading process much more engageing when it becomes this social activity.

Ken: Exactly. Well, that’s the whole idea. And then of course, behind that is this set of really intriguing, interesting, fascinating projects. And there’s a course at an engineering school in Massachussetts that offer a course, for a long time. They no longer offer the course unfortunately, but they offered it for over a decade, I think it’s called the “history of stuff.” [LAUGHTER] And the first day of class, the students go in and they see on the front table stuff. It’s the kind of stuff you might find by going down the aisles of Walmart [LAUGHTER] and picking things off the shelf, just a wild assortment of things. And they’re invited to come down and pick out one of those items. And then to begin to explore it, explore its history. Why was it created? What was it created out of? What materials? What kind of implications does its creation have for society? Does it just clutter up society and create a backlog of unrecyclable material that creates environmental problems of one type or another? Or exactly what is it? Students had a great deal of fun just exploring stuff. And the course ended up by looking at some of the history of technology through the lens of a well known American patriot, Paul Revere. But Paul Revere was also an expert in metals. And so they explore engineering of metals through the eyes of Paul Revere. And it becomes a way of mixing disciplines in a way that makes each discipline more intriguing and more interesting. Rather than “Oh, you study this, then you study that, you make no connection between the two.” Say, one more example?

John: Oh, sure.

Ken: There was a course we looked at in southwest China, and we went to the school, Southwest Jiaotong University, in Chengdu, and it was a course organized by a young woman who teaches physical education. And first day of class, the students are invited to think about what kinds of sports they enjoy doing. is in rock climbing. Is it soccer? Is it basketball? What is it? Now, can you imagine creating an exercise device that will make you a better soccer player, or rock climber, or whatever it is that you want to do… your favorite sport? And then the whole class goes to a sports equipment store, and they began to look at the equipment that’s already there. And then began to think about, “Okay, how can I create something better?” Now, as part of the team, it’s not just this PE teacher, but it’s also other people. Ah, you need someone from biology perhaps, to help them think about… “Well, what kind of exercising do the human muscles need? What kind of social environment do you need to create here?” So, you need other experts. And if you want to make this a product that can go on the market, maybe you need a marketing professor, who can help you devise a marketing plan of the new product that you’re creating. I told this story to my broker several years ago, and his response to me, was: “In Communist China?” And I said, “Yes, they have a market economy just like we do. And they’re interested in marketing and learning marketing. And they have marketing professors, just like we do.” And so they creates this environment where students learn by doing. And they learn by mixing disciplines, rather than keeping them apart. Much more interesting.

Rebecca: I love the move towards more interdisciplinary work….

Ken: Yeah.

Rebecca: …something that I feel really connected to, but it really gets people I think, more excited about different disciplines when they’re more intertwined, because we understand how they’re related to one another.

Ken: Yeah, exactly. So if you’re going to study the human brain, for example, how do you make it interdisciplinary? One of the professors, we studied taught in the medical school and taught medical students about the brain. But she was asked to create a course for undergraduates. This was at Vanderbilt. And so the course on the brain for undergraduates mixed every discipline you can imagine, together, because, as she argued, everything is connected to the brain. So you might be studying music, if that’s your interest, or whatever your interest might be. You might be studying ethics, if that’s your interest, and then you’re encouraged to think about what part of the brain handles ethical questions? What part of the brain helps you to appreciate and understand music? What part of the brain helps you to do this or to do that? So they’re studying all the aspects of the brain, but they’re also studying all these other disciplines, from Holocaust studies to a wide variety of other things, and raising deep ethical questions along the way. And she offered this course for 10 years, and it was a transformative experience for most of her students, the overwhelming majority of them, breaking down stereotypes and prejudices and helping them to also think more deeply about how their brain operates.

Rebecca: Sounds like there’s a lot of classes I should sign up for.

Ken: Exactly. I thought at one point, I was talking to some high school students about where they want to go to school. And I said, “Well, it’d be wonderful if you could go to a school that would mix all these super courses together. Because they’re strung out all over the world.” Maybe there’s a way of doing that virtually I don’t know.

John: Or maybe, as a result of your book, and other similar work, perhaps more faculty will start doing this type of thing and more of their courses.

Ken: Yeah, and perhaps, in designing a curriculum that includes professors from a wide variety of different disciplines, and students from each of those disciplines, working together in small groups, to tackle problems of physics, and then later tackle problems of the brain or tackle problems of history, or tackle problems of well, you name it… and have a opportunity to sort of tour super courses around the world. That would be a wild experience.

John: I still remember examples that you used here when you spoke at Oswego. And I remember examples when I first read your first book on what the best college teachers do, a while back, in large part because you weave in narratives, along with the theory and the reasoning behind these concepts. And I think the use of narrative helps makes the story much more interesting and helps raise curiosity and makes things much more memorable. Is that something faculty should strive to do in their own classes?

Ken: Yes, I think so. And the professor, I was just mentioning at Vanderbilt, I think, did that and created a course that was part history and part neuroanatomy and part philosophy and part literature and part music, but they’re all around narratives of one kind or another. Yeah, I think so. I think creating that narrative. Human beings love stories. And if we began to understand things, in terms of stories, then it becomes much more memorable to us. And we remember what we learn. And if you think about learning, it contains at least these three major aspects: we’ve got to encounter new ideas and procedures, and so forth, but we’ve got to encounter new material, there’s the encountering part. And the second is the making sense of it part where we relate it to other things that we’ve learned. And then the third aspect of it is retaining it long term. So we remember what we remembered, what we learned. And I think encountering all of this in stories, makes it much more memorable. But I think what the super courses do is they have students read stories to learn physics or history or other kinds of things. But they don’t tell them those stories orally, for the most part, they do not use lecture, to do that first aspect, that is of introducing the material. Usually, that’s all that happens in the classes, you’re introduced to the material and lecture, and you never get around, you never have time in class, for those second aspects of the “making sense”part of and the things that you might do to retain it. So super courses are built in a way that they spend their time working on those other aspects. Because the first one, the one of conveying the new information and ideas to the students, that can be done with reading, with films with other ways. But the part of struggling with meaning, with the teacher and with each other, that’s much more complex, and that requires a different kind of approach. And that’s what the super courses offer.

John: This project began with a collection of syllabi, and we should probably note that those syllabi do make it into the book as an appendix. So, not only do you have the stories of how these classes work, but it provides faculty with examples of how these things are implemented. In an Invitational syllabus.

Ken: We took excerpts from some of the syllabi, not all of them. But from a few, to give people illustrations of what we’re doing: one from math, one from the sciences, and one from the humanities.

Rebecca: We always end by asking, what’s next?

Ken: [LAUGHTER] Good question. Well, I have on my agenda, and I’ve been working on, a book aimed at parents. And the working title of the book sort of summarizes the whole idea of the book. Although the working title is 11 words long, andt hat is way too long. But we’ve got to find a way to achieve the same thing with a shorter title, but it’s: How to Help Your Kids Get the Best Out of School. Now we chose those words carefully, because the first task is defining what we mean by the best. And, in part, it means learning to learn deeply. So how do you help your kids to do that? And we chose one of many words we might have used for kids. We said “kids,” ‘cause it’ss short and to the point. We’re trying to shorten bold type as much as possible. And I’m working on that with a colleague, Mindy Maris, and we have a due date with Harvard press of 2022. So, that’s coming up rapidly. So we’ve got a lot of work to do over the next year and a half. But we’ve already done quite a bit of work in organizing that, and so forth. So that’s the next major project.

Rebecca: That sounds like an exciting addition to the collection that you’ve already have out, and rounds out the offerings.

Ken: And then somewhere in the far distant future I play out entirely, I would love to take all the we’ve learned and how to understand the best in any field. And that was a process in itself. How do you define the best and how do you collect evidence that something is better. I’d love to do a book that might be entitled: What do the Best Coaches Do? [LAUGHTER] and describe good coaches in a wide variety of different sports. But that would be my swan song, if I ever get around to it.

Rebecca: Thanks so much for joining us today and sharing some insight into your newest book. I know that a lot of our listeners will be looking forward to reading it soon.

Ken: Well, I look forward to hearing feedback from your listeners. And as we said, toward the end of the book, we hope that at some point, every reader will say “I wouldn’t do it that way. I’d do it this way.” But when they say that, we hope that they will base that judgment on strong evidence that that presents, whatever alternatives they come up, presents a better learning environment than the one we describe in the book. But, we hope this idea of a super course, is something that is organic, it continues to grow. And five years from now, somebody will summarize something about super courses today, meaning the super courses, 2027 or 2030. And may describe a much different book than the one that Marsha and I wrote. But it’s an organic process. And we’re looking forward to the conversation w e hope that the book stimulates.

John: Well, thank you. It was great talking to you again, and we’re looking forward to sharing this with our listeners.

Ken: Thank you.

Rebecca: Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.

Ken: Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. Anytime.

[MUSIC]

John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

[MUSIC]

162. Bichronous Learning

Posted in asynchronous, attention, bichronous, classroom community, higher education, learning, online learning, pedagogy, synchronous, teaching
November 18, 2020

When we talk about online learning we often focus on asynchronous learning. In this episode, Jessica Kruger joins us to discuss the creation of rich online learning experiences that include a combination of synchronous and asynchronous components. Jessica is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, and the Interim Coordinator for Teaching Innovation and Excellence for the School of Public Health and Health Professions at the University at Buffalo.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: When we talk about online learning we often focus on asynchronous learning. In this episode, we discuss the creation of rich online learning experiences that include a combination of synchronous and asynchronous components.

[MUSIC]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer.

Rebecca: Together, we run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.

[MUSIC]

Rebecca: Our guest today is Jessica Kruger, a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, and the Interim Coordinator for Teaching Innovation and Excellence for the School of Public Health and Health Professions at the University at Buffalo. Welcome back, Jessica.

Jessica: Glad to be back.

John: It’s great to have you here again. It’s been a while.

Jessica: It has. I’m so excited to be back and drinking tea with the both of you.

John: Speaking of tea, today’s teas are:

Jessica: I’m enjoying green tea with ginseng.

Rebecca: That sounds good. I have Big Red Sun again.
Bichronous online learning, which you experimented with this past semester. Could you first start by describing what bichronous online learning is?

Jessica: Yes, there was a recent paper, it really put a name to this type of learning. And it is basically a blend of both asynchronous and synchronous online learning. This is where students can participate in anytime, anywhere, and doing that asynchronous part of the course. But then they can also participate in real-time activities in the synchronous sessions. And so this actually can be varied, whether you have a predominantly asynchronous or predominantly synchronous course. So, it allows some flexibility.

Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit about how bichronous learning is different from blended, hybrid or hyflex learning that we’ve become so familiar with during COVID-19.

Jessica: There are many terms that are being used for the types of modalities of courses. The blended and hybrid approach, this is where that course in combination has a face-to-face and an asynchronous online delivery. And then that blended synchronous is a combination of face-to-face and synchronous components with online students in the course. And then of course, there’s hyflex, and this is designed as a model where students have options to be online or on-campus. And so this is a little bit different than all of these types, because it’s blending synchronous and asynchronous, but both online. And the neat part about this is that blend could

John: One thing I think people may wonder is, how is this different than a hybrid course where there are some synchronous activities and some asynchronous activities? What’s the difference in the approach that makes it this new category?

Jessica: I think it’s the approach because it’s not and/or it’s kind of this sliding scale of what you’re doing synchronously versus asynchronously. Traditionally hybrid and blended have been face to face, whereas this is focused more online. And maybe we’re splitting hairs creating a new term for it. But I think it does kind of create this new category that we can begin to think about and further explore. Is this model conducive to specific learners? We don’t know. I think there’s a lot of opportunity to begin researching and exploring these differences.

John: And this whole mode of synchronous online is really something that just exploded recently. That’s an area that we really haven’t looked at very much in the past, or most faculty hadn’t really explored very much in the past, that, for many, has become the dominant mode of instruction. So, thinking about it in this way, I think, could be really helpful. What would be an example of a structure that would use that approach,

Jessica: The bichronous approach? Let me tell you a little bit about my courses. Thi semester, I’m teaching a variety of courses in a variety of different levels. And I accidentally stumbled on doing this because it felt right. I really didn’t want my students to be all asynchronous. I wanted to meet them. I wanted them to be able to have time to ask questions, and for us to do some active learning online. And so how I decided to format my course was that students would have asynchronous components to where they would go through some videos, some readings, but once a week, they would come and join a 30-minute class session. During that class session, there’s a short intro talking about what they’re exploring this week. We also discuss a little bit about the assessments and the upcoming assessments, we answer any questions, and then we move right into active learning. And that’s where they get put into breakout rooms, they get to talk to each other, work on problems, think about solutions. We come back together, debrief for a short period of time, and we’re done. The neat part about that is, because my classes tend to be larger, I offer choice in the section in which they come to. So, students can choose to come to one of two sessions that are offered on that day. And those sessions are actually offered within the class time that’s listed in the course schedule. So, let’s say you’re busy, you have to work that day, or something else came up. I also offer an alternative assessment each week. So whether you’re Zoomed out, or you got called into work, you can still earn those participation points. This allows for flexibility and choice for the students.

Rebecca: Can you talk about some of the advantages of bichronous online learning and how that synchronous component complements the asynchronous component for students?

Jessica: I think it’s so nice to be able to get to talk to students, especially in this virtual environment. And sometimes it’s as simple as clarifying what you wrote in text. And so a lot of times when we start off class, there’s minor questions about the upcoming assessment such as, “What did you mean by this part of this assignment?” And I can easily clarify that and give some examples. Also, by whatever questions students are asking, I can kind of tailor our synchronous sessions so that we can talk through some of those challenging concepts. I think it also brings together a community. Students get to talk with other students. They’re all going through the same struggles right now, or similar struggles. And so having that time where they get to go into breakout rooms, talk about a topic, say something about their day, I think it really creates that community that we’re looking for online. And hey, when I go to the breakout rooms and say, ‘Hello,” they almost always have their cameras on for each other, which I think is a pretty cool thing.

Rebecca: I think Jessica, I was mentioning before we started recording that I’m also doing the bichronous online learning, I just didn’t know it had a name. And I’m finding that students really enjoy that synchronous time, and they request more time with each other. That’s the piece of it that they really love, is interacting and formulating community with each other and around the topic of the class.

Jessica: And I think that’s so important, especially as we’re all isolated due to COVID, that they have that time to talk out these assignments or to talk through these problems. And yeah, just as you said, the students always want more time. The 30 minutes doesn’t seem to be enough for them.

John: Did students know in advance when they signed up for the course that they would be synchronous meetings, as well as the asynchronous component.

Jessica: The course was actually listed in the course catalog as recorded and live sessions. And so at the beginning, they were actually pretty happy that they didn’t have to come for an hour and 15 minutes twice a week. Instead, they got to come for a shorter period of time and earn those same points and get that same information.

Rebecca: It’s interesting that my class also was listed that it was a synchronous time slot, it was listed as a hybrid. But it really was more of an online synchronous class with these synchronous components. And because I teach a studio class, the normal contact hours are six hours a week, which I couldn’t imagine us doing. It would be terrible. So we did the same thing. We were always meeting at the beginning of the week. And then I do small group meetings with students at other times during our regular class time during the week, and students have requested more time together, even if it’s just… we call it accountability club, where they’re just working during the class time on class things in a breakout room together, even if they’re not talking to each other.

Jessica: I love that idea. That sounds like a great way to get students to interact even outside of the typical class time.

John: It sounds as if these courses could be set up on a continuum where some of them are primarily synchronous with some asynchronous components. Or they could be primarily asynchronous with some optional or flexible, synchronous components. Is that correct?

Jessica: You know, that’s a great way to look at it. I’ve had a really nice conversation with some of my colleagues who have put so much time and effort into putting their courses online and making them quality, that they’re really kind of sad to see that in the future, hopefully, we’ll get to come back together and be in person, but you really don’t want all that effort and content to go to waste. So thinking about it as providing some extra flexibility might be a nice way to rationalize all that time that we’ve all put into our courses,

John: Like so many other things. It’s not necessarily a binary choice, that there’s a whole continuum on which people can select an option that works best for their specific courses.

Jessica: Yeah, and I think that is really what’s at the core of this model, is that it is really something that can flow one way or another. And I’m even thinking in the future, how can we continue to bolster this or give students more choice when it comes to their learning? We know that the choice is really important. And I think this way of kind of creating courses could be a way of the future.

Rebecca: I’m wondering if the synchronous component is particularly valuable in these online courses for students right now because it does provide that immediacy with one another but also instructor presence. So, we all actually feel like “Hey, there are humans behind the name and things that are in this online environment” …and help us formulate an understanding that we are all a learning community and a classroom community in a way that maybe is more difficult to get your head around in something that’s entirely asynchronous.

Jessica: I think that’s a good point. And I don’t require my students to turn on their cameras when we’re in person, but I do think they get a sense of who I am, and more than they would in just videos. We can have a conversation. And there’s some times I’m asking them to put information in the Zoom chat or reply. But, as I’ve gone through these courses, I’ve noticed more students are willing to unmute and talk out loud, even in these big courses. And that shows me that they’re beginning to be more comfortable not only with their peers, but with me and how I run these courses, which I think is a really good sign that we can create that community, even online.

John: Could you tell us a little bit more about the specific courses you’re teaching and the size of the courses as well as a little bit more about the division of your activities between what you do synchronously and what you do in an asynchronous modality?

Jessica: Sure. So I, ironically, teach a course called stress and population health. And this is a very salient topic nowadays, as you can imagine. This is an undergraduate course, and I have 125 students within it. During a typical week, I will have readings posted in our learning management system. I like to do a few videos, and I have the luxury of being able to be in front of a green screen for some of those videos. So, students do get a little bit of who I am and the wacky things I do while I’m giving them some lecture material. Along with that there’s some outside information that I like to pull in, whether it’s current news articles, or whatnot. But they have a substantial portion of what they’re doing that is basically asynchronous. When they come during our synchronous session, we start off with “How are you?” I usually have a wacky sort of “how are you?” question that’s themed around whatever the holidays are. I had them rate their mood based on candy and other silly scales, just to kind of have an icebreaker. And then, as we talk a little bit about the content, we then do some breakout sessions. So, today, we were talking about a new report that came out about stress in America. So, they had to look through this report and begin to talk about how this report relates to community stress and how we would assess the stress levels of what’s happening within various communities using some kind of higher level data versus that individual self assessment. And so they’re really applying the content when we’re together. And my other course I teach is a 88-person course… I know, real small. And this class is on models and methods in public health. And so, again, they have videos and readings to go through. In that course, we actually create an OER textbook, which is a fun activity. But, when we come together, we’re applying the models, they’re working together as a team to fit different problems, almost case studies together, or they’re doing something like a scavenger hunt. I’ve even done something like Kahoot!, which has been a lot of fun and students are now requesting we have more Kahoots! It does work virtually, which is kind of neat, except I can’t give them the prizes that I typically would in class. My last course that I teach is a 40-person course on incarceration and public health. And this class is a little bit different because we have more discussion. So, when we’re together, it is purely discussion based. And students do a really good job at interacting with each other. And so sometimes we stay together, sometimes we break into groups, where my TA is helping to run some of the discussion. But, that one works a little bit differently than my two larger courses, and it’s an upper-level course. So, I feel like we can really get into the meat of the conversation.

John: You mentioned that you do provide multiple times. And a nice thing about the Kahoot! is that, while they may have fun doing it synchronously, there’s also the option of posting it online so students could try it later if they weren’t able to attend one of the synchronous sessions. I’ve been doing that in my classes too, and students have really enjoyed it.

Jessica: Yeah, it’s a great way to fit in the alternative assessment or assignment that, if you miss class and aren’t there to hear some of the explanations on Kahoot!, I end up having students actually look up the correct answers and telling me why, as a way to have a little bit of deeper learning with that game.

Rebecca: How have students responded to the format overall?

Jessica: Oh, they absolutely love it. In kind of a midterm assessment that I put out, I asked about how do you like this model, and they said, “It’s great. I love that I can come in 30 minutes. We’re in, we’re out, we’re done.” But it’s also I think, created more of a connection, I have students reaching out asking for advice on “What do I do? Should I go to grad school? How do I do some of these life skills?” …and that shows me that they are making that connection to me as a faculty member, which is exactly what we want in these courses, especially these larger courses. And students will tell you, “I have courses where I sit through hour lectures, and it’s really hard for me to stay focused,” whereas in this, they’re continually doing something new, and they’re doing it in a short amount of time that has ultimately a high impact, because they’re getting their questions answered, they’re doing some active learning, they’re working together, and they’re getting to form a relationship with their instructor,

John: What are some limitations of bichronous learning, compared to, say, a fully online class?

Jessica: I think it takes some time to think about what activities you want to do live. With a totally asynchronous class, I think some of the alignment with the course objectives and the assessments become a little bit easier, because you have your roadmap, you know that this discussion board is going to align with this objective. Whereas this, it can be a little challenging to figure out: one, how to stay creative. You don’t want every session to be boring or the same sort of thing. Also, from an instructor standpoint, I’m repeating the same class. And in the model, it doesn’t mean that you have to repeat the same class. I do that personally, because I want smaller groups. And so, some days, it’s like Groundhog Day, when I’m doing the same class back to back. But, you know what? The second time, it’s always better. So, [LAUGHTER] it’s a good way to continually improve my teaching, and really reflect on how I’m displaying information or teaching the content.

Rebecca: If a faculty member was interested in incorporating something like this in the spring, what should their next steps be? It sounds like one thing is making sure that there’s some sort of time slot established for the class. But, beyond that, what else should they be thinking about?

Jessica: Yeah, I think the university modality’s important, making sure you’re transparent with your students about what they’ve signed up for. It’s never fun to find out that you signed up for a class and it’s going to be presented in a little bit of a different way. Second, I think it’s really figuring out what works best for you and your content. So, what content is going to be asynchronous? What content is going to be synchronous? And how are you going to establish some sort of rhythm or schedule for your students? And is this going to be… you only come one time once a week and you only have that choice? Or no choice in this case? Or are you going to make it with some choice? Are you going to offer multiple sessions? Are you comfortable with offering an alternative assignment for students? The reason why I came up with the alternative assessment is because I have students who are in different countries in different time zones, along with people in the active duty military, and they’re not always able to make it to the synchronous session. So I wanted to give them an opportunity to make up those points and to make it fair for students who… life happens. And the nice part about it is, it actually reduced my time in working through students’ challenges such as Internet outages. One day, we had a huge outage in Buffalo… well, you know, no problem… join the next day’s session, and you’re good to go, or do the alternative assessment. And so figuring out what your teaching philosophy is around the flexibility and choice, I think is kind of that next step, and then go for it. It’s a lot of fun to really get to meet and talk with your students so that you can explore this new way of teaching and engage your students in a different way.

John: For those students who, because of their work schedules need to take courses in an asynchronous manner, might this modality serve as a deterrent for those students?

Jessica: Most definitely, I think students who sign up for an asynchronous course are expecting an asynchronous course, I think this is just a different way to think about our delivery model, whether that be having the option of that synchronous session, or moving to a bichronous model to where you’re kind of in between the two and allowing some flexibility and some choice for the students. Or maybe it’s just a way for you to try something a little bit different each week, whether it’s one day synchronous, and the next day asynchronous. I think testing out these different models are important as we’re moving through this new online world.

John: We always end by asking what’s next? Which is the question we’re always t hinking about this year?

Jessica: That’s for sure. I’m interested in actually doing some research on students’ perception of this modality of learning. It’s so new that I think we need to begin by understanding what do students think about it and does it affect their overall performance in a course? And, from an instructor standpoint, what is it like at the end? We’re still figuring this all out. There is some research that’s being planned around asking faculty about how they’re rationalizing or thinking about this topic. Rebecca, you and I both are teaching this way. But, I’m sure it looks very different from both of our standpoints. And so I’m really excited to see where this research goes and hoping to be part of it.

John: It’s wonderful talking to you again, and we’re looking forward to having you back on the podcast again, with whatever your next venture is. I should also note, you mentioned that you have been doing this OER project. We have a podcast we recorded with you on your first iteration of that, and we’ll share a link to that in the show notes.

Jessica: Excellent. I’ll also share our newly published paper on some of the results around that.

Rebecca: Excellent. That sounds exciting. Thanks so much for sharing a new way of thinking about the spring. Hopefully it sparks some ideas for faculty as they move into what’s probably going to be another tough semester,

Jessica: That’s for sure. Hang in there, everyone.

[MUSIC]

John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts, and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

[MUSIC]

158. Distracted

Posted in attention, classroom community, classroom management, emotion, engagement, evidence-based practices, higher education, learning, pedagogy, teaching
October 21, 2020

It is easy to become distracted when materials or experiences seem irrelevant, unobtainable, or uninteresting. In this episode, James Lang joins us to explore strategies to build and strengthen student attention to improve learning outcomes. James is a professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University and is also the editor of the West Virginia University Press series,Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and the author of numerous articles and books on teaching and learning, including Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning and Teaching and Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: It is easy to become distracted when materials or experiences seem irrelevant, unobtainable, or uninteresting. In this episode, we explore strategies to build and strengthen student attention to improve learning outcomes.

[MUSIC]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer.

Rebecca: Together, we run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.

[MUSIC]

Rebecca: Our guest today is James Lang. James is a professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University and is also the editor of the West Virginia University Press series,Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and the author of numerous articles and books on teaching and learning, including Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning and Teaching and Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It. Welcome, Jim.

Jim: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

John: Good to see you again.

Jim: Yes.

John: Our teas today are:

Jim: I’m actually a tea aficionado. I get my tea from David’s Teas, which is a Canadian company. They, I think, have suffered a lot during the pandemic and closed most of their stores, but they still have a great online presence. And my favorite is Nepal Black.

Rebecca: Oh, that sounds good.

Jim: Yeah, it’s a great black tea. And I have many David’s Teas, though. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: I almost forgot about David’s Teas. I need to cycle back to that.

Jim: Yeah, it’s great stuff.

Rebecca: I’m on my last cup of a big pot of English Breakfast tea.

Jim: I love English breakfast. I love Earl Grey. You know, all the greens. I just love tea.

Rebecca: You’re in the right place, then.

Jim: [LAUGHTER] Yeah, exactly.

John: And, you may remember the collection of teas we had in our workshop.

Jim: Oh, I totally remember. Yes, that was like tea Nirvana in your center.

John: It’s sitting there kind of empty right now. But, we’re hoping we’ll be back there soon.

Jim: Yeah.

Rebecca: The collection of teas is lonely. [LAUGHTER]

John: Although every now and then some get pilfered from the office. And I’m drinking one of them right now. A blueberry green tea.

Rebecca: That sounds good.

Jim: Yeah.

John: We’ve invited you here to discuss your upcoming book, Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It, which I’m really looking forward to receiving when it comes out in October, I believe. Perhaps we could start by talking about the role of attention in learning. Why should we focus so much on attention?

Jim: So, in the book, I argue that we need to think about attention as actually the kind of foundational step for all learning; no learning happens without attention. So, I actually think it’s a value that we need to be more willing to kind of fold into our pedagogical thinking. If you look at the research on how people learn, almost all of it will tell you that the first thing that has to happen is the learner has to attend to whatever the content might be. And I also believe that it’s important for us to make attention a value in the way we form community in the classroom. We should be attending not only to the course content, but to one another. So, we’ve talked a lot in recent decades about the importance of having a learning community in the classroom, about having relationships between us and our students, and the students having relationships with one another. All of those things depend upon the attention that we pay to one another. So, to me, there’s a kind of cognitive aspect to this. But, there’s also a kind of ethical aspect to it. We owe that attention to one another, we need to be able to pay attention to the students and to the specific students in our room and not just sort of a generic idea of a student, we want students to listen to one another. When students are airing their ideas in the classroom, we as teachers want to be able to listen to them, but we want students to be able to listen to them as well. So, I think we really do need to pay more attention to attention in our pedagogical thinking. So, that’s kind of what the book is about. The kind of overarching point of it really is to get away from this thinking that attention is sort of the norm or that this is something we can just take for granted in the classroom. And that we should expect students just to be able to sit and pay attention, because that’s the normal modus operandi in the classroom. And instead, to recognize that attention is an achievement. It’s something that we have to work at. And as a result, faculty members have to think about how do they support student attention in the classroom. How are they deliberately cultivating it? And how are they deliberately sustaining it, both to the classroom content and to the other human beings in the room?

Rebecca: Like other kind of pedagogical approaches, it seems like talking about attention with your students might be a good thing to start off the semester, and explain what attention actually is. Do you have any recommendations for thinking through that with students?

Jim: Absolutely. There are great resources out there that can help us educate our students about attention and about distraction. And we have to start with those kinds of conversations about how we make the classroom a place where attention is a primary value. And again, this doesn’t mean like attention, where it’s just sort of me laser focused in on the teacher and being attentive like that for 50 or 75 minutes. We’re not built that way. That’s not how attention works. But we want to do our best to kind of continually renew the attention that we pay to one another. And I think that has to start with an explicit conversation with our students. And to say that “Look, you know, it’s important for me to hear your ideas. So, when you come in here, if you’re doing other things, then the contributions that you would make to this classroom, which I know are important, are going to get lost. And when your fellow students are speaking, I want us all to be paying attention and listening to what that student has to say.” So, I think we have to start with those kinds of conversations. And maybe not in the first day… I think there’s a lot we can do on the first day to try to engage students and set the tone for the course… but, sometime in that first week, to really have a conversation with students to say it’s important for us to pay attention to one another in the classroom. Here are the guidelines I’ve developed t do that and I welcome your input on those guidelines. And then, by the end of this week, we’re going to come to an agreement on these are the rules that we all will follow together in order to make sure that we are fulfilling our obligations to one another, in terms of building a community and paying attention to one another, and paying attention to one other’s ideas.

Rebecca: If we build the value of attention into our course, what does that look like,over the course of the semester? We talked a little bit about a discussion, setting some boundaries or some rules, but, how does that play out over the course of the semester?

Jim: Well, so two things. So, first of all, I do argue in the book, actually, that I think there’s value in having an explicit kind of guideline for how we will deal with both attention and distraction in the classroom. And that includes what we’re going to do with our technologies, but it’s not limited to that, and to develop some explicit guidelines that are shared with students that they’re invited to comment on that, then they actually will sign and say, you know, “I agree to sort of abide by this policy,” and then to revisit it, to come back to it in the middle of the semester, for example, at a midterm evaluations and say, “How are we doing with the guidelines? Do we need to update these? Or do we feel like everyone is kind of on board or are people slipping away? What can I do to help get everyone back and make sure that we’re still paying attention to one other? …because attention fatigues over time, that happens in an individual class session, but also happens over the semester, right? So, we’re going to get to a point of this semester, at which we’re all tired, we’re finding it harder and harder to pay attention to one another because there’s lots of stuff going on, and for the students, all their midterms and getting toward the end of the semester. So, it needs to be addressed initially, and it needs to be revisited. Now, from the teacher’s side, there’s a lot of things that we can do to kind of say, “Look, I’m doing everything I can to help support your attention in the classroom here.” And all those are kind of explicit pedagogical practices that we can take. And in the book, I talk about two creative ways of thinking about this, to think like a playwright and to think like a poet playwrights have long experiences of trying to guide people through experiences that unfold over time. So, a playwright has to think about “how do I maintain the attention of an audience for an hour, two, or three hours, sitting in a dark room, where the audience is supposed to be looking just at this stage and following the story?” How do they do that? They vary the structure, right? There are acts and scenes and intermissions, there’s rising and falling action, there are stories unfolding. Not only that, but like you go to the symphony or whatever, right? It’s the same thing, you’re going to have movements, you’re going to have pauses in the action, you’re going to have a movement that ends quietly, but then begins with a bang. The people that have had to think about “how do I pull the attention of an audience over time? …we can learn a lot from that. So, I think teachers need to think a little bit more like that, to think about the classroom experience as something that unfolds over time, and therefore needs to have a structure and variety to it. Right? So, that, essentially, I argue in the book for thinking about your classroom experiences, as kind of a modular one, where you’re going to have an opening activity that takes 10 minutes, and then there’s going to be something that goes on for 20 minutes, and then you’ll have a finishing thing. And not only to make those changes, because change renews attention, right? We know that from the research, change can renew attention. So, you have the changes. But then you also have the fact that these things are different. So, that like I’m doing something passive, like I’m listening to a mini lecture, but then I stop and do something. And then maybe I get that another passive experience. So, that’s the first thing is to think a little bit more like how we’re varying the structure of the classroom experience. And by thinking like a poet, what I mean by that is that one of the things that poetry and literature can do for us, it helps us see the world anew, right? Like, it takes everyday experiences and objects and things that we’re familiar with, and it shows them to us in a new light. So, we wake up to them or say, “Wow, like, I never thought about a peach like that, right? Like, that’s amazing.” There’s this incredibly beautiful and complex thing” or like a still life painting is trying to do the same thing for us, right? …to show the world back to us, in all its wonders and complexities and intrigue. And I think we need to do that as well. We need to think about like, what are the opportunities that we have to show students the amazing, wondrous, mysterious aspects of our discipline that can awaken their attention to what we’re trying to teach. So, in the book, I argue for a what I call signature attention activities, which might be something that you would do, you know, once a day, once a week, a few times a semester, but that are really kind of like creative pedagogical things that get students re-energized and re-engaged. And recognizing, like this everyday thing they might be experiencing, actually is an incredible, amazing thing that deserves their interest and engagement. So, thinking like a playwright, thinking like a poet… to me, those are two kinds of ways to try and develop new approaches to cultivating and sustaining student attention.

John: So, in terms of thinking like a playwright, would it make sense to break up each class period into a narrative or into a storyline where you have those modules that you talk about, but perhaps do something at the beginning to activate attention to provoke curiosity?

Jim: Absolutely. I mean, there’s lots of things that you can do, I think, at the beginning to kind of get them engaged. You can tell a great story, you can pose a problem or a question, but you have to do something other than just kind of “Okay, here we go. Here are the four concepts that we’re going to talk about today.” I think, if you really want people’s attention. Here you can expand it to other creative arts as well. When you pick up a novel, The first two pages, a novelist knows, they’ve got to draw you in in those first two pages, you’re going to put the book down, right? A television show, think about how many television shows, films, they begin with something that really is designed to capture your attention and draw you in and keep you engaged for the rest of that experience. We’re drawn to stories, we’re drawn to questions and problems. But, if we can think about foregrounding those, that’s a way of getting us engaged before we then go through and are doing the sort of harder cognitive work of whatever that classroom might be.

Rebecca: You mentioned some signature pedagogies to implement throughout the semester to focus our attention. In the spirit of small teaching, is there one that’s small and easy that faculty who maybe are under stress during a semester can implement right now.

Jim: The example I give it, the book… I’ll start with the one that kind of originally got me thinking about this. There was a faculty member actually across town for me at Holy Cross, an art historian, who since passed away. But she had her students go to the Worcester Art History Museum, and every week, they had to go to the museum and look at the same painting and write a different one- to two-page essay about that same painting over the course of the entire semester. They do 13 short essays about the same painting. And that, to me, is a great example of creative thinking about like, this is how you make attention a value. You know, you start and you look at it in a very surface oriented way. And then you just have to keep looking and looking and looking. And the more you look, the deeper you get into it. And the more you start to see all the sort of incredible stuff in there. So, I kind of encourage people to think about what is the thing in your discipline that’s like that painting that like you can go back to, or that you can develop some kind of strategy that’s going to get students to see it anew for the first time. So, one that is a little bit more kind of every day, I observed a theologian on my campus, who had her students engaged in an activity that was modeled on study of the Torah, the scholars studying the Torah use, which is she had the students get in pairs. And I was able to observe this class, they sat across from one another. And they were instructed to read out loud to each other the first few paragraphs of Genesis, but after every sentence, they were supposed to stop and say, “Okay, what do I see here?” Like, “What does this remind me of? What word is strange here? What do I notice here that connects to other things that we’ve talked about in the class?” And this went on for like 20 minutes. And some people only got like two paragraphs in like a 20-minute exercise of doing this. But, it was incredible to listen to what they came up with. And I stayed in the class and listened to some students afterwards. One student said, “I’m from an evangelical background, I’ve read these passages so many times, but I’ve never thought about some of the things that we talked about today.” And so it was a way to kind of reawaken them to something that was very familiar and that she could have got up there and given a lecture on things in the first book of Genesis, but the students uncovered it themselves, and were able to do that. So, I actually kind of talked through a process that was developed by someone at the teaching center at Brown University, which is trying to model like, very close looking at something in your discipline. And you start by just sort of doing that, “what is it?” Like, “What is here? Let’s really get in and describe it as much as possible.” And then the second thing we do is we say, “Okay, so what? Why is it important? What matters about it? What does it connect to in terms of other things that we know or are learning?” And the last thing is sort of “Where can we go from here?” Like, what questions does this raise that we can then go and think further about, or for example, that I might go and write a paper about or do some research about?” So, the careful look at it, then the thinking about how it connects outside of that thing to other things? And then the “Okay, now let’s go further, I’m going to develop my own kind of way of thinking about and understanding this thing.” You know, John Dewey, a long time ago, had students doing object analysis, where they would analyze like everyday things in their homes, or like that they encounter on an everyday basis, and trace those everyday things: “Who made it? What is the production of it, say about like, our economy and our world?” And you know, you can do that with anything, and almost any discipline, right? Like this t-shirt I’m wearing, right? Who made that t-shirt? That has huge implications for, like economics and politics and trade and inviting that kind of activity into the classroom seems to me like something that can help students see the discipline in a new way, and then re-engage their attention to show them this course actually has relevance and connections to things outside of the box of this classroom.

John: When in the classroom, one possible source of distraction, which I know you’ve written about before in the Chronicle and other places, is mobile devices. When we’re in a classroom environment, how can we help students use their mobile devices more effectively.

Jim: So, I think we have to be explicit about them. So, when we have those conversations at the beginning of the semester, I actually recommend in the book, an open source PowerPoint presentation that anyone can get and use. It was developed by a psychology instructor at the University of Toronto, which kind of shows students some of the issues that we face when we’re using our devices in the classroom. And of course, when students are using their devices off task in the classroom, it impacts their own learning, of course. We all know that. But, the bigger challenge is the way that impacts the students around them. And there is some pretty good research that shows that if a student is off task on a device, other students are drawn to that device, and that steals their attention away from whatever might be going on in the classroom. So, I think we have to talk to students about that, We have to say, “Look, you know, your device use is not just a personal choice that you’re making that has no broader implications. It does have broader implications, it has the potential to kind of tamp down the overall level of attention in this classroom.” And again, I think when we make that appeal, we need to do it on community grounds, right? Like, we owe each other our attention in this space. And we are all going to benefit from people’s contributions and those contributions are going to be richer, if we’re paying attention to one another, if we’re thinking together about the ideas. So, I’m not in favor, actually, of sort of full technology bans. I’m also not in favor of saying we should never have a technology ban. I argue in the book for a context-driven policy, which suggests that there may be times when we say no one needs their devices, right now, we’re going to talk about what this means. And you don’t need to take notes on that by hand or by device. There are other times when I may be lecturing, and you can use your devices, or you can take your notes by hand. There are times when we’re going to be having a discussion, you know, you can write down something if you’re so moved, but otherwise, I’d rather have us focus on one another here. We’re gonna be doing an activity and everyone’s going to go to the board, so you don’t need your devices for that. I’m segmenting off sections of the board here, and I want everyone to brainstorm a list of these five things. To me, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to say, we’re never gonna use technology in here, or there’s just an open technology policy, which we can use any time. It depends on what’s going on. And I think if we take that approach, that also helps us be better planners, because we have to think about “Okay, well, what is going to be happening in the first 20 minutes, and would that benefit from technology use? Or couldn’t some students benefit from that?” If so, okay, then great, I’m gonna be explicit about that. But, there may be these other times where it’s gonna do nothing but interfere. And at those times, I want to be able to say, you don’t need your device right now.

Rebecca: I think that makes perfect sense. Right now, I’m teaching synchronously online. So, I’m exploring some different ways of using technology and different ways that pure distraction might play out in a screen environment. Do you have any thoughts about how we can help students attend to each other more so in an online environment? Sometimes it’s a little more obvious, I think, in a physical environment of how to set things up, and maybe not as obvious in an online environment.

Jim: It’s definitely not as obvious whether people are distracted in their online environments, right? Because they can have their phone right next to the laptop. And I’m sure we have all done this in our zoom meetings, department meetings, or whatever committee meetings where things get a little slow, you pop over and you do something else for a little while, and then you come back in. And again, I think, even an online class, we can be explicit about that, when you’re stopping out like that you’re pausing your own thinking, and that’s going to lead to a sort of a less rich conversation for us all. When students have their cameras on, it’s a little bit easier to see obvious sources of distractions. But, of course, I think we do need to give students the option to not have those cameras on for a variety of reasons. To me, because I think about, as I’ve been doing workshops …and a lot of the faculty workshops that I do on other campuses, of course, have switched virtual… what I’ve seen a lot is that the people will actively engage with the chat room. So, when the chat room is there and is explicitly encouraged, that can be a way that keeps people engaged. In some ways, it’s not quite ideal, because people can also get off track in the chat room. I’ve definitely seen that happen as well. But, trying to find regular ways to make sure that people are engaged in parallel activities, or something that’s kind of supporting whatever it is that’s going on. You can still use polling, you can use chat rooms, you can use breakout rooms, you just have to think about the same thing that you think about in the classroom. How am I continuing to provide sort of variety and shifting from one kind of activity to the next. People always talk about like, well, you lose students attention over the course of a 50- or 75-minute lecture, you lose people’s attention over 50- or 75-minute discussion too. Anything that you do for a long period of time, your attention is going to fatigue. So, to me, there is no like one pedagogical technique online or in face to face that’s like this is going to keep people’s attention, guaranteed, for everyone in the room for this amount of time. That’s just not realistic expectations. So, we just have to think about how we are providing that kind of variety, giving people opportunities to actively engage. And kind of what I encourage people to do is what I did during the two years while I was researching the book, and what I’ve been doing over the last six months in my online environments, is just look at like when do people pay attention? When do people get off track? We can learn from those moments. That’s what I’m essentially trying to argue to faculty as well. And what I hope the book will do is get people together on campuses and say, “Okay, let’s just think about this collectively. When do our students drift off? And like, why is that happening? When do our students get really engaged? Why is that happening? And how can we take the sort of engagement moments and maximize what’s happening there, and take the distraction moments and use those as an opportunity to develop creative new approaches?” So, for the online classes, I just encourage people to think about what have their experiences been in your Zoom meetings and your webinars and things that you’ve done when you’re a participant. What’s helped you, and what’s brought you back, and what sent you away? I’ll just say one last thing about it. To me, in the Zoom context, or like a synchronous online class is one of the lines of research I follow in the book, is the use of names, we all perk up at the use of our names. So, if John was drifting right now, and I said, “John, what do you think?”, he’s gonna “What?” If he was drifting, he’s suddenly back in the room, right? So like, even if you don’t have cameras on, you can still be saying, “I’m regularly gonna invite people to post in the chat or to see if they have comments. And I’ll do that by calling your names.” Just even saying that it’s going to get people “Okay, you know what, I need to be kind of attentive here.” But once I actually say, “Hey, Rebecca, what do you think? You know, boom, you are like right there. So, there are simple things like that, that we can do that help. There’s no sure fire solution online or face to face, we just have to keep trying these different approaches.

Rebecca: One of the things I really love is the fact that there are names.

Jim: Yes, I know. Right? Exactly.

Rebecca: That’s amazing. [LAUGHTER]

Jim: Yeah, the first couple weeks in class, it’s hard to do that sometimes. Right? Because you’re still learning everyone’s names.

Rebecca: Yeah. What I noticed about what you were just saying, though, is using this object-based learning or close-look approach on ourselves or within the teaching arena. So this area that we want to study teaching…

Jim: Right.

Rebecca: …you’re actually offering up the suggestion that we do the same thing that we’re suggesting that our students should do within our disciplines.

Jim: Yeah, that’s true, actually, you’re taking a look at the classroom, but through this other lens. We look at it through all kinds of lenses. But, I think if you look at it through the lens of attention and distraction, to me, that’s like an avenue toward creative new thinking. And that’s kind of ultimately what we want here. This is basically the same approach I tried to take in Cheating Lessons, which is to look at like the issue of academic integrity, where does it happen and why? And then say, “Okay, once we understand that, what can we do differently? And how can we use that problem to improve education in general?” And that’s kind of what I’m trying to do here with attention to distraction? How can we use the problem of distraction to help us become better teachers in general?

John: Does your book also address issues of how we can help our students maintain focused attention when they were engaged in out-of-class activities?

Jim: This is a really challenging issue. So, one of the things I’d hoped to find in doing the research for the book was that strategies that people have touted as improving our general attentional capacities, that there are some of those that work. And the truth is, there doesn’t seem to be as much of that as we would like, especially evidence-based strategies that can sort of improve people’s attentional capacities. So, the one that’s been the most thoroughly researched in education in recent years has been mindfulness. So, if we practice mindfulness, to what extent can that actually improve our ability to pay attention? And there is some research that supports that, but it supports it if you are really all in on it, like you’ve got to be doing mindfulness on a daily basis for a significant chunk of time. And you’ve got to be really willing to make that commitment to mindfulness. When you do that, it can help. But we don’t have the ability to do that with our students, for the most part. And most of the experiments that you see being done in this area are like three- to five-minute little mindfulness activities in the classroom. I’m a fan of those, I think those can be really great and helping in the moment. We can help sort of in acute… like we can improve our attentional spins in an acute way. But, in terms of like developing strategies that are going to help students actually improve their attentional capacities in the long term, and outside of the classroom, I’m not sure we have anything yet that has proven to do that. Well, we do have one thing, but again, it’s nothing we should be doing in the classroom, it’s physical exercise, like physical activity improves your blood flow to your brain. And that improves all kinds of your cognitive functioning. But again, we can tell our students to do that, but it’s not like something we can enforce or get our students to do in the classroom. But, I look at some of the research in a great book on distraction called The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazaley and Larry Rosen, and they do a pretty good job of looking at like brain games and drugs and mindfulness and nature exposure. And their conclusion is, so far, we really only know one thing that is evidence based to improve people’s cognitive control, and it’s physical exercise. Everything else, we’re still not sure yet, like we’re exploring. There may be some positive studies here, but, we don’t really have enough to make it prescriptive yet.

Rebecca: Seems to me like something that could be useful to students outside of classes, just having them be aware of attention.

Jim: Absolutely.

Rebecca: …and what being attentive looks like, so that they can self monitor, if they so wish.

Jim: Absolutely. We can give them the sort of tools and instruction they need, and we can give ourselves the same. As the result of doing all this research, I’ve kind of realized that, in my own work life, there are things that I can do with my email and my Twitter feed open, like responding to emails and doing sort of committee work, that kind of stuff. But, if I want to write, I have to close everything out. And you know, since the whole pandemic thing, the weather has been better, I got in my backyard, I close everything out, and I just have Word open, and I do that for 45 minutes and then I get myself a 15-minute break, right? I take a walk around, I look at Twitter, that kind of thing. So, we need to do the same kind of look at our own attentional patterns and like habits and distractions. And we can encourage students to do that. We can help them understand how to do that. It’s up to them ultimately, of course, to decide whether or not they’re going to put those ideas into practice. We can also model for it in the classroom, though, and that’s another reason why I argue that there may be times when it’s a good idea to say to students “All devices away at this point for 20 minutes here, we are going to just brainstorm. We are going to think with nothing but our brains and the book or the problem, or whatever it might be, and the whiteboards, and let’s just try to come up with something. One of the things I suggest in the book is that devices and distractions are around us all the time. That’s our normal way of being. And we want to be able to prepare students for that world. That’s why I argue that we shouldn’t ban technology. We’re gonna be working with technology, like we need to know how to work productively with it. At the same time, it may be that there’s good reason to think that the classroom sometimes is an escape from all that, that the classroom is like an attention retreat, where we can go, put away all that stuff, and use our brains in a different way. And it may be that the more technology sort of intersects with our lives on an everyday, 24-hour, basis, that those spaces are really valuable, actually, and that they give students a taste of what it’s like to put things away and just focus our collective brains on something and see what emerges from that. And if we can give them the opportunity to do that in the classroom, then they may recognize, “Oh, you know, actually, this was really valuable. And there may be times when I want to do it myself outside of the classroom with a few peers, or even just by myself.

Rebecca: I certainly have had students in the past have experienced really stressful times, say like, they’re all in on a particular class or something, because it’s an escape, and it’s a place where they can focus and they put all their attention there. And I think a lot of students are doing that right now, during the pandemic, as well. I have a lot of students that are really focused right now on some of their schoolwork, because they’re stressed by other things that are going on around them.

Jim: Yeah, my last Chronicle column was a review of a book called Lost in Thought, by Zena Hitz. And one of the things she argues and that is that we need to recapture the value of just sort of getting lost in our own thoughts and engaging with ideas and the great thinkers and problems of the past and present. And part of the argument she makes is that when we do that, we have an opportunity to get away from our material circumstances, right? …like the world that we’re living in. And that kind of escape can be really valuable. It’s valuable, both for sort of mental health purposes, like, you know, you step away, and you get to sort of engage with something fascinating and intriguing, and get into kind of like a flow state or a thinking state. But, it’s also valuable, because it can give you a new perspective, like, that’s the moment which you might come up with, like a really creative idea. And I bet almost everybody listening to this podcast right now has had moments where they’re like in the shower, on a walk in the woods, riding their bike, whatever, and something suddenly hits them, and then a problem that they’ve been wrestling with opens up. What’s going on there is you are away from the other stuff. In those moments, that’s where the ideas sometimes emerge. So again, sometimes ideas emerge because you’re online, and you’re seeing all kinds of different stuff. And that’s great. But we want to have these other opportunities as well. And so the classroom should be able to provide a little bit of that for students as well.

Rebecca: I found that some students also respond really well to hearing examples from us of our experiences with attention or lack of focus and how we’ve wrestled with those things. I know that this morning, my class was talking about being tired or having anxiety, and I just expressed that I was also experiencing that as well. And all of a sudden, like we were all in the same place, we were all attentive to each other because we had this kind of common experience.

Jim: Yeah, one of the other major points I hope people take away from the book is just empathy, to recognize that attention is hard. And it’s especially hard in a time like this, when there’s so much going on in the world around us. When we have the pandemic, we’ve got an upcoming election, we’ve got Black Lives Matter. We have all kinds of things that are making us concerned or unhappy or frustrated or anxious. And so those things steal away our attention. And we have to be empathetic to ourselves. First, we have to recognize that our own attention is suffering right now. And then we have to bring that empathy to our students as well. A student who’s drifting away in the classroom. Sure, that can be because they’re looking at their Instagram, but maybe they’re looking at their Instagram, because they’re so stressed out. And this is kind of an easy thing that they do that gives them a quick little relief from everything else that they’re worrying about. Or maybe they’re drifting away in the classroom because they had a terrible night’s sleep, and they’re up with a sick relative. I mean, attention is drawn away, not just by our devices, but by all kinds of things. The more that we recognize that and the more that we are empathetic with our students, the more we can work with them to develop solutions.

John: You mentioned the importance of attention by both students and by faculty. We’ve talked mostly about students’ attention. Do you have any suggestions for faculty on how we can be more effective in maintaining attention to our students and their needs at any given time.

Jim: It’s just the basic stuff that we all think about in terms of the responsibilities that we have to build community in the classroom are essentially the ones I’m arguing for in the book as well. Names are important, knowing individual names, I argue in the book also for an activity like values affirmations in which students get to tell you what matters to them at the beginning of the semester. So, we can do our icebreaker activities in which hometown major, you know, all that kind of stuff. But, to get more substantive, and to get to know the students a little bit better. Invite them to tell you what matters to them what they’re good at, and to be able to kind of then keep those things in your mind and use them in the conversations that you have with students or in the feedback that you give to students. Giving individual feedback, thinking about how we’re doing that, using students’ names, and knowing a little bit about the assets that they bring into the classroom, I think there’s been a lot of good research on the ways that we can help foster community in the classroom. And to me, those are the things that are going to help foster attention as well. Attention is reciprocal. If I pay attention to you, you’re more likely to pay attention to me. If we’re sitting at a coffee shop together, and we’re there to meet and discuss something, and you pick up your phone, that’s the moment in which I’m going to pick up my phone as well. Whereas if neither of us does that, if none of us makes that initial move, we’re probably more likely to continue the conversation with one another and pay attention to each other. So, when our attention is drawn away from the students, when we’re not giving them our full attention, they’re not going to give us their full attention either.

John: Is there anything else from your book that you’d like to share with our listeners,

Jim: The only other thing that I talk about in the book that might be worth mentioning is the role that assessment can play in attention. And I do believe there is a role for assessment to play in supporting attention. And what I argue here is that your great students are going to try to pay attention to everything that happens in class. Your students that are struggling, that may have a harder time managing their academic work, those students actually can benefit from assessments which help them recognize this is a moment where I really should be paying attention in this class. And if an assessment is well designed, and it’s going to promote learning, then I think we’re only doing them a favor by helping students recognize “This is an important thing here, this matters.” And that can be low stakes. But, even low stakes can get some students over the threshold of “I’m going to sit here and check out” or “I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing here. So, I’m not going to say anything, I’m gonna hide in the back.” The students saying “Okay, actually, this counts a little bit. So, I better try and trying is going to help them.” So like, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking about the role that our assessments can play in pointing students toward the activities that are going to help them learn. So, I argue for that in the book as well, that assessments do have a role to play in this process.

John: And it’s not just low-stakes assessments, I’ve been amazed at how much attention and enjoyment students get out of using things like Kahoot!, which is entirely anonymous, but just that feedback they’re getting on how well they’re doing and that somewhat competitive atmosphere with it, where there’s no harm if they make mistakes, but they become really excited about how they do on those.

Jim: Yeah, “I want to see if I got it, right,” like “I’m trying this, I want to see if I got it right.” Because that’s gonna tell me how I’m gonna do in the class. And so, those kinds of activities, I think, can be really helpful for engaging attention.

John: And it’s giving the students feedback, but also giving us feedback. So, we know where they’re struggling, so we can help address those needs.

Jim: Exactly.

Rebecca: I think projects are also another form of assessment that we didn’t discuss right here. But, I think even having small amounts of scaffolded projects where there’s something that like, is done and accomplished, and you can check it off, is another way of kind of feeling accomplishment, but also being aware that you’re focusing on the things that you’re supposed to be focusing on, to move forward in a larger scale project.

Jim: Exactly, and like a lot of this stuff, that scaffolding is good for all kinds of reasons. And one of those reasons is, as we just said, like I can go through, I can check it off, I know that this is important. So, I have to get it done before I can do the next thing. That’s going to keep their attention engaged throughout that process of doing a larger project.

John: And it reduces cognitive load…

Jim: Yeah.

John: …it reduces the amount of anxiety they have, and they’re getting guidance along the way. So, they don’t go off in a direction that it’s hard to recover from later.

Jim: Right. And anxiety and cognitive load are all connected with attention, [LAUGHTER] like anxiety, it steals our attention. When the cognitive load is too heavy, we lose our attention. So, all these things. You know, attention is like one of these things that, once you to start really thinking about it, it intersects with everything. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: That’s why it should be a value. [LAUGHTER]

Jim: Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah.

John: Yeah, well, I hope this gets the attention of a lot of our listeners [LAUGHTER]

Jim: Well done.

John: …so they can focus more attention.

Rebecca: We always end by asking, what’s next?

Jim: Well, I’m on sabbatical. So, I am writing a book. And for the first time, I’m kind of going back to my discipline. I’ve been doing sort of off-and-on research on George Orwell for a long time. My area Is 20th century and contemporary British literatures. So, I am using this sabbatical as an opportunity to try and get that book project going. And I hope to be able to have a book. or at least a good chunk of a book, by the end of my sabbatical. There also is a second edition of Small Teaching that we’re working on. And so that will be out at the end of 2021. So, that’s a second edition, which will have updated research, some updated recommendations for techniques, and, actually, there is going to be a chapter on building community. So they’ll be an additional chapter. And so I’m excited for that as well.

Rebecca: That’s like a lot of things to look forward to.

Jim: Yeah.

John: And living in the Orwellian world we’re in right, now… [LAUGHTER] I’m very much looking forward to that.

Jim: Yeah, definitely. There’s definitely a lot of relevance there. And that’s why I hope the book will get some attention. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: Nicely done. Thanks so much for joining us and sharing your expertise. And I know that I’m definitely looking forward to picking up your recent book, and I’m sure many of our listeners will too.

Jim: All right. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

John: Thank you.

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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

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