Learning is hard work. The most commonly used study techniques often provoke the illusion of knowing. David Parisian, a member of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at SUNY-Oswego joins us in this episode to discuss how he helps students overcome their misperceptions by introducing them to the science of learning.
Show Notes
- Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick. Harvard University Press.
- College Info Geek (Thomas Frank)
- edTPA
- Learning How to Learn: Powerful Mental Techniques to Help you Master Tough Subjects
- The Pomodoro Technique
- Mind Mapping – Tony Buzan
- The Learning Scientists
- Project Blend at SUNY-Oswego
Transcript
Rebecca: Learning is hard work. The most commonly used study techniques often provoke the illusion of knowing. In this episode, we discuss one faculty member’s success in helping students correct misperceptions by introducing them to the science of learning.
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.
John: Today our guest is Dr. David Parisian from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the State University of New York at Oswego.
Rebecca: Today our teas are…
John: Barry’s Irish tea.
David: I’m not drinking tea today.
Rebecca: No?
David: Nope, I’m trying to cut back. [LAUGHTER]
John: With some people, it’s an addiction.
Rebecca: I have a problem. I’m drinking Prince of Wales tea today. Could you tell us a little bit about what you teach and how you became interested in incorporating evidence-based practices in your classes?
David: Well, I teach a few different courses. When I’m on loan to the Computer Science Department for the CSC 103, which is “Computer Tools and Informational Literacy for Educators” and then in the teacher prep program, I do ADO 394, which is “Interdisciplinary Methods” and then EDU 303 and oversee the “Block One Practicum” students, and do the online EDU 430, which is taking concurrent with their student teaching.
Rebecca: What is the 303 and the last one you just mentioned?
David: 303 are the “Block One Practicums.” So, their first semester junior year, when they entered the the block sequence for education, they have to spend time in a classroom. So, Field Placement secures their placements and then they spend a semester observing and helping where they can, but they’re getting their feet wet of being in a classroom. And the EDU 430—the online course—is “Professionalism and Social Justice” and that’s an online course that they take concurrent with their student teaching. So, a lot of the modules that they’re based on actually helps them in preparation for the edTPA that they have to submit for certification.
Rebecca: So how does the evidence-based practices fit into these courses that you’ve been teaching?
David: Well, one of the things that happened is the CSC 103 is designed for freshmen or transfer students that come to us for teaching certifications. So, one of the things we look at ishellip; approach that class from how technology is integrated in education. And one of the thingshellip; there was the book-read we had a few years back by Peter Brown, Make It Stick, kind of reaffirmed my doctoral work as we went through it… and I created a little quiz… a little matched-pair quiz… so that if they had to learn effective means… “does repetition build memory or does retrieval build memory?” and taking the material from the book and organizing this quiz… and what I found out was that all my students failed. So when it came to the 12 Principles within the book that we were testing on, less than one percent passed… which meant that a lot of the students we see coming to us, even though they can come to college, don’t have the knowledge or foundation of what strategies are most effective to learning. And that, in a teacher preparation program, my thought was, “do I continue that propagation through the pipeline or do I try to stop this stop that flow of students who are not effective or aware of the most effective strategies as they go out to be teachers or do we want them to have those effective strategies so they can implement them once they start teaching?”
Rebecca: So you staged an intervention?
David: Yes, it really becomes an intervention at that point and it’s really interesting because they have so many misconceptions coming in. And what we try to do is… they change their relationship with how they view sleeping. We set it up within the course so they take Barbara Oakley’s MOOC Learning How to Learn. So, they’re taught how sleep flushes out the chemicals overnight that are built up in the brain. They talk about procrastination and the Pomodoro techniquehellip; the benefits of flashcards and how to integrate that in spaced practice… and that’s one of the interesting thingshellip; I was just talking students today because they’re preparing presentationshellip; but a hundred percent of the class knew about spaced practice but no one knew how to implement it, or what it might look like.
Rebecca: Right.
David: So we provide opportunities for them to explore those areas, whether it’s creating flashcards where they’re using a flashcard app or have them making flashcards to build in the spaced practice to know when to practice and how to interleave and all those components that research has shown to be most effective.
John: Many of our listeners are familiar with all of these, but could you go back and talk just a little bit about the Pomodoro Technique.
David: The Pomodoro Technique is really fascinating. What it is… is for those who procrastinate, you block out 25 minutes …and actually the Pomodoro Technique is based on a tomato kitchen timer… where you set it for 25 minutes and then at the end of 25 minutes, you take a five-minute break… and then you set the Pomodoro timer and you go through it again. And what happens is you can begin to measure your workload in terms of how many Pomodoros it’d take. For the students, what I notice is they start changing their perception of assignments from a product driven “what’s the end product?” to a process of “how to get to that end product?” So many have commented on that and you can get apps on your phone that are the Pomodoro Technique, that will set up a 25-minute block. There are apps that will stop any notifications for that time so you don’t have to be keep looking at their phone because that’s the distraction that I’ve noticed, is that people are attached to their devices and have to be aware of every beep and every notification and everything that comes as opposed to blocking time. So the Pomodoro Technique has been pretty effective and most students have implemented that in terms of working on their procrastination skills or adjusting… changing behaviors.
John: So why do students have these misperceptions?
David: Good question. I come from a K-12 environment. I was a secondary science teacher for 18 years. I was a district administrator for another 12. So, coming from the K-12 environment, what my message was to them is that you were taught by loving, caring educators who were passionate about what they did and did the best they could with what they had… based on the information. That might not have been entirely best practices of what we now know about neuroscience and how the brain learns and the effective study strategies on the materials from Make It Stick. So, I think they grew up with whatever progression they went through. One thing I did notice is that students who struggled… that worked hard in school but just got into collegehellip; still struggle with the workload. What surprised me was talking to some studentshellip; is the students who were the bright ones… the ones that got it quick in school… that went through high school with no challenges… come here and all of a sudden, they’re placed in a situation where now they have to study and do all those things and they don’t have the skill sets to study. Just coming up through, I think our assumption is we feel that students know how to study because they’re in college and really what’s taking place is students aren’t really taught how to study. I think the assumption that students know how to study probably backs all the way down into fifth, sixth grade. I think we had some earlier comments where we were talking about us being in school and teachers made us write flashcards. We didn’t understand why and they might not have understood why, but we made flashcards. Now, as that is an appropriate practice, or one that works that you know, that can be integrated into a spaced practice and it’s really just teaching them a little bit about neuroscience… how the brains learns… how that all we do is encode, consolidate, and retrieve… and how do you build those principles and practices using technology… using skillsets… managing their time and trying to put that into a package where they can begin to see it. Because once they see it, then they want to improve their studies so they may begin doing it… so they go to bed earlier, they get better sleep and they begin to change their behaviors. I didn’t expect that but it was an awesome sidebar from that.
John: Part of it is, as you said, they haven’t always had much practice or training in learning how to learn and partly that may be because many of the teachers didn’t have the same…
David: Exactly.
John: …people have been just doing the same things that seemed right for an awfully long time… and one of the problems, though, with some of the evidence-based practices is that it doesn’t feel quite as good… because when you try to work on retrieval practice, after you’ve been away from a topic for a while, it doesn’t feel as good as perhaps repeatedly rereading something until it looks so familiar that you think you understand it. So there is that fluency illusion that people get that feels really comfortable and when you do some low-stakes testing or when you do some attempts at retrieval, you realize you may not understand it quite as well and it doesn’t give you the same sort of reward immediately. So it takes some training, I would think, for students to be convinced that these methods really do work. It sounds like you’ve been able to achieve that in your classes.
David: One of the advantages is it’s a setup so that we use the class and the content within the class as a training mechanism. So, they’ll practice working on a flashcard app to learn the app and then create flashcards for the content. One of the things they do have to do because the modules I set up are in a worksheet form so the initial encoding part is our instructional part. The consolidate part is them now going into another class and applying it in another class and showing the evidence in mine. So that they’re forced to, not only just use it in mine, but now go into a Psych 100 or a LIT course or whatever they’re in to create flashcards, create mind maps, begin to incorporate that… and we map out, When are your tests,?” So, how far do you already have to back up. So it’s really just coaching them on how to utilize those strategies and to get them so they can begin to internalize that to meet with their success.
Rebecca: Do you find that the students are a little resistant at the beginning or do you think because you’re providing the evidence and the science behind… the reasons behind… why you might use a method, is that what’s helping?
David: Well I think it’s a combination of both. Part of it is they have to go through the MOOC… so it’s not me presenting the science. Then we have a series of videos. There’s a gentleman by the name of Thomas Frank, who has a series of videos on studying and using it, so he has a more modern twist to it, being late twenty-something or just through college so it’s a more animated video. And then I’m in class to give suggestions, those type of things, but once they saw that on the first day school, they take a quiz and fail it and then realize that they don’t know what they think they know, then they’re pretty open to “this is what we’re gonna do for the semester.”
Rebecca: Sounds pretty motivating.
John: It is a motivating technique, yeah.
David: Well, I had one student once say like, “first day in college and I’ve already failed a quiz.” I’m like, “rather fail it now then in 15 weeks.”
Rebecca: Yeah.
David: …that’s the poise. It’s really just redefining their tool sets and introducing new ones… and not everyone takes to everything. Like, mind mapping is a classic example. whether it’s Tony Buzan’s method, but I’m very mind map oriented, but a lot of students have a negative experience towards it and I said, “if you want to be a teacher you may never do a mind map but you will know how to do a mind map, because you may have a student that needs to know how to do it and you have to be able to teach it so even if it’s not for you and you don’t like it, you darn well better know how to be able to help someone else learn it.” It’s redefining a different role for the teacher as our candidates come through as be more knowledgeable base, more pragmatic, and more understanding on what effectively works because they can then share that information with their students.
Rebecca: So what do we do for all those students who aren’t in your class in their first year, right, who aren’t becoming teachers but they’re, you know, trying to exist in this system, who might also have the same exact struggles that your students have? What’s your recommendation?
David: Well again, Thomas Francas has great videos and whether it’s how to read a college textbook, how to take flashcards, how to do any of that. That’s one aspect– knowing that you need help is another aspect. We have the success tutors that that have those skill sets, are using the same information to help other students. So, I think there’s resources on campus to support that.
John: …and our Student Success specialists or I do are very familiar with all these techniques and they work with students that are struggling to help build that up.
David: Right, and I think looking at it from a instructor side of the house, just as people become familiar with the strategies… is making those known..making the strategies known. If you’re teaching an Economics course or teaching whatever, if you say there’s a set list of vocabulary or concepts that you need to know, you know, put them in flashcards, go to these links, it’s not like you have to prepare everything because you can’t make meaning for someone else… they have to make it on their own… but you have to provide those initial concepts or the information because the student has to be able to take it in, but telling them how to take it in or just pointing them to links can facilitate that process. I don’t think anyone really comes here with a desire to flunk out, you want to be successful, but some of the times, they get paralyzed by the paralysis of the whole situation.
John: Some of it can be done through course design too, so that they are designed to include some level of retrieval practice,
David: Absolutely.
John: … some amount of interleaved practice,
David: yeah
John: ….and some spaced practice.
David: Yup, yeah, absolutely. And those type of structures in the redesign isn’t that large of a jump to do for the professional side of the house. The biggest thing I can tell for any student, the simplest thing to do if you’re feeling that stressed is breathe. It’s kind of funny… whenever you’re upset, what do people tell you to do they tell you to breathe and just from a physiological standpoint, taking deep breaths… slow deep breaths… once you start breathing about six breaths a minute, there’s a branch of the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic system of our physiology that automatically slows the body down. So, when you’re taking a test, what do you do? Breathe slowly. If you get stressed out on it, draw a circle around every fifth question so that every fifth question, you’re just taking three deep breaths just to say, “this is all right, we can do this.” And you that will calm the physiology and reduce that stress response of seeing an exam… the fight, flight, or freeze… and we’ve all experienced those… with varying degrees of success. [LAUGHTER]
John: But we want to set up a system where students generally be successful.
David: Absolutely… Absolutely.
Rebecca: So you’ve talked about the Pomodoro Technique… you’ve talked about breathing… you’ve talked about flashcards. What are some other key things that instructors could help students think about as strategies to be successful?
John: Well, you mentioned sleep, too.
Rebecca: Sleeping’s good.
John: And that’s something students often have trouble with.
David: Well it was interesting because there was a presentation done once and one of my students… I commented that she would stay up till 2-3 in the morning texting her friends and then they got that part of the MOOC and talking about sleep and she’s the one that started to go to bed at a more reasonable hour to be able to sleep. I think if one hasn’t read Make It Stick… that’s a great book and I think for a lot of us on the professional side of the house… as instructors we’re like the great white shark of our content, we’re the rogue, we’re at the top of the food chain. But one of the things, I think, the book does is lays out for you this way in which people encode information, consolidate, and retrieve it and I think having that as a foundation and then, reaching out to the center here for like, “how would you design something? I’m struggling with this” and just say “I want to reach the students” because I think a lot of professors do want to make those connections with the students. I think there’s help and support on campus to help people in designing those strategies. Personally I start with trying to give the overview… try to give the gestalt of the course… “what’s the wholeness gonna look like” and then just lay out the clear objectives and then integrate and make the assignments, being those flashcards and studying and there’s just so many ways to communicate, I guess. Even taking Barbara Oakley’s MOOC Learning How to Learn and just learning some of the basis from the neuroscience, even from the students. Have students get together informally and go through it. It doesn’t really take a lot, all the information’s out there.
John: And if I recall, it’s offered every month isn’t it? It’s a four-week MOOC and it’s offered very regularly.
David: Well it’s a four week…, like every week now, I think. For those who aren’t aware of the MOOC through Coursera, a MOOC is a massively open online course, Coursera is a vendor for that and Barbara Oakley’s MOOC. I think last year i read in the New York Times where it was the most popular MOOC on the planet.
John: It is i believe still the most popular MOOC…
David: I know when I took it, I took it with two hundred and seventy-five thousand other people at the same time. That was a few years back. Integrating that type of information and layering it into a course just gives a different feel for the students. And as I tell them even though they’re freshmen and transfer, I said “if you’re going to be a teacher, down the road, some of your professional development is going to be delivered through these.” So, we’re just getting them ready orientating them. Well there’s just you know some really simple information that people can do to design, redesign, and be more effective, more engaging and have students be more successful.
Rebecca: I’ve had students respond very positively when you explain why you might do a particular technique or a method. At first it seems like “why are we doing this? why are we doing quizzes?” but if you explain why and how it helps they’re much less resistant and actually embrace the idea. I’ve had students ask for more quizzes because they’ve learned how it’s helpful…
David: That just reminds me of, in our lesson plan development, as the students are going through it… one of the parts of the lesson plan development I have after activating prior knowledge is setting the purpose… and setting the purpose is “so, why is this lesson important? why do you need to know it? How many courses have we ever been in that no one’s ever told us why we’re there and you’re absolutely correct. Once you say the why and give the explanation, it creates an association or connection with the student and that’s one of those underpinning things… as the more associations you can connect to them, then the more apt you’re gonna have their buy-in to engage you in the content.
Rebecca: I think a lot of times students see assessments like quizzes and tests as some sort of penalty…put you in the penalty box or whatever… and that’s a faculty member’s way of torture or something, but as soon as you say that the purpose of doing this is to help you recall information and to make sure that you have that foundational knowledge, you can continue building in these more advanced classes. They stop seeing it that way and it’s pretty amazing that it doesn’t take much of a conversation… it takes having the conversation.
John: And the more frequently you do that, the easier it is for them to get past that because high-stakes testing is stressful, but if you replace it with lower stakes testing and more regular testing, it’s easier for them to see that they’re learning from this experience and it doesn’t hurt them as much if they screw up… that it’s an opportunity for them to improve and continue…
Rebecca: However your students responded after your class like moving into these upper-level classes because you’ve been doing it long enough now that probably some of them are now in those advanced courses I would imagine.
David: Part of it is coming up through the pipeline and having viewed or patterned assessments or quizzes as the “gotcha” and getting hammered. Ken and Rita Dunne, one of the things they stressed that I always kind of stress is “high content, low threat.” So, whenever you can engage and have your material be of high content but a low threat, students are more apt to engage because they don’t have that fear reaction going on and I think it’s changing that patterning by having the conversations that these are beneficial for you. So, that’s my thought on the quizzes. Some of them continue that patterning and that’s one of the things where I try to keep it going for the semester in hopes that they’re gradually continuing to do those processes, those strategies to continue their learning. The one thing about teaching the freshmen… I’m probably one of the few faculty members that have this interesting purview because I see them as freshmen or transfers coming in, I’ll see them as their block one junior EDU 303 practicum. I’ll touch base with them again for the ADO students that take 394 as their block two, so I have them as a class and than in block 4 when they’re seniors going through the the end of the pipeline. So I can see their growth along the way from that and…
John: And ADO is adolescent
David: Yeah, the adolescent, yeah… and that one they’re constructing the lesson plans, they’re trying to see how this all fits together, trying to pull on multiple layers. We revisit Make it Stick because in all my courses that’s just part of it. So, they’ll read the book as a textbook in that section… so then they can begin to refresh like “Oh, I remember when we did this” and “how’s it going?” and then we have conversations on when they’ve been using it and how effective it’s been. I just keep trying and plugging away and stepping up to the plate…. every day you get to take a new swing
John: And the more people who do that in their classes and certainly the more people who are trained to do that at lower levels in elementary and secondary school, the better off students will be.
David: Yeah… especially nowadays when you you look at the various challenges in a k-12 environment. If you can begin to seed the ground with what works and just focus on that then we’ll be okay.
John: Do students go on and use these practices in other classes after they’ve been exposed to them in your intro level course?
David: Part of it, once they leave me is trying to continue that propagation based on the courses they’re in. Some of the strategies are more effective in some content areas than in others. Math is always a struggle in terms of looking at applying the flashcards while you can do color coding or dual coding where you’re including images or multicolored in the equations as you follow different variables through an equation sequence, those type of things. The other thing is that the strategies, and this might be one of the misconceptions students have, learning isn’t easy. Some people comment like “well if I just sit here I should get an A”…… but learning is messy… learning’s organic… learnings dynamic… and learning takes a lot of work and sometimes, depending on the student’s course load and what they’re taking… if you’re taking a 4-credit science course, you got three hours of lecture and a three hour lab somewhere in the week… having been a science major and having a lot of hours on a lab. So part of it is finding time to create the materials… the mind maps… the flashcards. Those students who have a better time management… work ethic, those are the underpinnings I think that makes this a successful student and that they put forth the time and schedule that to do all those things that are necessary, whether it’s creating a mind map or whether it’s creating flashcards or creating the time intervals for the spaced practice or when to do the spaced practice. I was talking to a friend who used flashcards and whenever she was grocery shopping for her family picked the longest line because it wasn’t about getting out of the grocery store fastest, it was about being in the line the longest as she pulled out her set of flashcards and reviewed them in the line at the grocery store. You can find intervals to do those type of things.
John: I always wondered why there were always more people in the longest lines. Maybe…Maybe they’ve been in your class [LAUGHTER].
Rebecca: Yeah… everybody’s doing flashcards.
David: Then again yeah, flashcards is just one aspect of that but you can integrate that from a quiz standpoint… from a retrieval…. and one thing that could be interesting is when you look at the research on flashcards, or how to create them, there isn’t the level of “how do you create” going down Bloom’s continuum of higher processing from a flashcard aspect. A lot of the information we see is low level…. vocabulary words, or those type of things… but how do you all of a sudden take two flashcards and compare them and say “compare and contrast these two concepts of something…” and so how do you get a bigger cognitive load going from using those… and the designing of flashcards… that’d be a great study for someone to do. I’lljust put that out for anyone who’d want to. [LAUGHTER]
John: You get to work with students a bit later in their academic careers that you worked with earlier. How do they respond when they come back in upper-level classes? What do they say about their experiences?
David: Usually, semesters later they forgot about me. [LAUGHTER]
Yeah, but one of the things we try and do at the end of the course is they have a five-minute presentation they have to do… and I give them the slides and so it’s like “how has this changed you?” and they go through and reflect on that. So, I give them a template of what the presentation is and it’s their five minutes of fame where they get to begin to find their teaching voice, and it’s the first time they’re in front of the class talking about it. So, you talk about how they how they did it. In terms of seeing them later on, the people who use flashcards and grew up continue using them and then you have various levels of people who took the buy-in to create those processes. The other thing is you try to encourage them to use it, so as they’re developing their mini unit you have them do the flashcards to go with the unit… you have them do the mind map. So, you have them go through it, and I think from that aspect, they recall fairly quickly what it is they needed to do to generate it… and then it reminds them like “oh, yeah.”
John: But, if we do this in more classes and we use them or we structure our classes so that students naturally adapt some of these practices, it’s going to help reinforce these things… and the more people are reminded of how important this is and how their usual practices may be really helpful in cramming for a test the next day but aren’t going to allow them to remember the things much past that day.
David: Right. In the real world you have to remember those things past that day.
Rebecca: A couple of the themes that you were mentioning most recently is about time management and the work ethic component fitting into this and so it seems like that’s the next discussion. How do you make sure that students know what is a good work ethic? Do they even know? Do these conversations happen? I’m not sure that they do.
David: You can see those students that have work ethic pretty quick …and I’m just trying to flashback through courses and images through my head of students… from a freshman those that are asking questions… those that are getting work done and turning things on time… those who are turning it in early… those who who show up to class earlier… and sitting there… they have a certain level of comfort within themselves… where they’ll ask a question. Truth be told, I didn’t feel comfortable asking a question in college till after seven years of college… not that it took me that long to get a bachelor’s degree… it wasn’t till after I did my student teaching a long time ago… and after I did my student teaching I learned how to study. I did the outlines before the chapter. The following semester I went for a neuroscience certification taking our geology courses. So, I outlined the chapters before I walked in there. I pre-taught myself the material. I laid out all my notes and stuff before the lecture… had the conversations because then it was internalized to me that this was important… and I think until someone gets that into their intrinsic fabric of themselves… where they want to take this as being important… and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I think that’s the big thing. People who are serious know to get the job done. They’ll do the work and they’ll do it to what they need to do… and if you give them criticism and feedback, they correct it.
Rebecca: I’m hearing a growth mindset described.
David: It is.
Rebecca: …you’re open to feedback… The the real challenge is how do you get students with the fixed mindset, who maybe don’t have that work ethic. or good time management skills. to get on board.
John: …and you mention that case about some students earlier who had done really well in high school and then suddenly struggle when they get here. Those, empirically, tend to be the students who have a fixed mindset… where they’ve been successful with the techniques they’ve used, but once they have to move into a new environment or they have to engage in more transfer than they had to earlier… suddenly face some struggle and it’s a shock to them and they often give up.
David: Well, and one of the interesting things, though, and this they’ll need to be reminded of, but within all of us we have growth and fixed mindsets.
JOHN. Yes.
David: So, I could have… I’m not picking on math but I’ll pick on that…. Most students… math is not a strong aspect, because really the only time you do math is in math class. No one asks you when you’re walking down a street to factor a quadratic equation, right?
John: Well, rarely… [LAUGHTER]
David: …rarely… but you consider a musician. They know with practice they get better. In sports, you know with practice you’ll get better. In math, if you practice you’ll get better. So, part of that is understanding the context of which it is. I may struggle in math but I might be a musician in the band, and so I know. So, you have to kind of transfer where they have been successful in showing them, in this part where they’re not being successful, how they can be. Because, if you can tap into a person’s growth mindset… and it could be in a K-12 environment. You have somebody I saw students riding their skateboards… phenomenal skateboarder… can do all these tricks… will spend hours learning a trick, right? That whole idea can be shifted to their studies as well. How long did it take you to learn this trick?
John: How many times did you fall you know along the way.
David: …and how many times did you fall? The culture is changing where, not only are we imparting the information to the students, but we’re also being their coach. We’re trying to nurture them. We look at them as adults coming here… without the parents for the first time. The baton we’re handed is actually trying to nurture them into the adult working life and understanding how we learn… how we process information… how we interact… the building of rapport. how do the rapport aspect is all part and parcel… I feel… what we need to do… or what we do… I know it’s what I do.
John: How did you integrate the MOOC into your class?
David: I build the class around modules that last two weeks. So, with the beginning of class, I took some of the material from the MOOC or what the topics were and then I created worksheets based around that. So, if it was procrastination then there’s articles that they were reading in, and picking up on, and getting their takeaways… So, that part was teaching the foundational aspects of of how these strategies work, and then giving them time to practice and doing them within the two weeks. The MOOC they can view offline. They can take the quizzes. The other thing I did, is with Barbara Oakley, she had Coursera set me up as an administrator for my course. So, then I could just upload my class list to it and then it would keep track of the quizzes…
John: Oh, nice.
David: …and then I could download the the grades or whatever. So, she was giving him the content on one side; we were building in related practiced and article support on the other side. Then the consolidation part… and I broke it down into it an encoding section of the worksheet, a consolidation, and a retrieval part basically patterning our learning process. So, watching videos and reading we’re encoding… applying the material was the consolidation… and then their reflection and the reflections based on making a video, responding to an interview question, or reflecting on their experience over the two weeks… and they were able to communicate those. So, part of it is just finding out what the MOOC is doing, getting materials that kind of pattern that (that’s where I brought in you know the Thomas Frank videos and other support materials).
John: The learning scientists also have some good ones.
David: Yeah, exactly, and I use a lot of the Learning Scientist’s material and McDaniel’s site deals with retrieval practice, so there’s a variety of things. We try to overlay the MOOC with Make it Stick and strategies there to create an environment that over the first four weeks they’re experiencing… they’re learning… and they’re beginning to apply… and then as we build out the other modules, we still keep repeating… For example this is module four we’re in and one of the things I’m training them in is advanced search strategies. What are the topics they’re going to be searching? Well, there’s eight setups within the lab so… elaboration… retrieval… spaced practice… those are the deep research things. So, each group has to now prepare a presentation, but they have to do the research. What’s the research that supports this? and what are strategies to help? So, now there’ll be eight presentations of the 8 strategies that they’ve learned. Trying to deepen and make touch points through the semester and keep reminding them… constantly reminding… constant… constant…[LAUGHTER]
John: So, what are you going to do next?
David: Well, next will be a continuation with the Computer Science…. Looking for more in-depth application across the content areas to help students… and then professionally, this summer, working with Educational Administration Department and their Project Blend Symposium. We’ll be doing the third installment of Resiliency and Leadership working with the Institute of HeartMath. So, outside of that, we’ll continue to work in those areas of heart-brain synchronicity and just working and having fun.
John: Thank you for joining us. It’s been a pleasure.
David: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you very much.
Rebecca: It’s always great to hear what you’re doing in your classes and the results and thanks for sharing that for everybody else.
David: Very good, thank you .
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.
20. New faculty transition
New faculty often come out of graduate programs that have trained them to be researchers but not teachers. The transition into full time teaching can be stressful and overwhelming for these colleagues. Maggie Schmuhl, a new faculty member in the Public Justice Department at SUNY-Oswego joins us to discuss how she has embraced evidence-based methods in her practice as a teacher.
Show Notes
- Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House Incorporated.
- Lang, J. M. (2016). Small teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning. John Wiley & Sons.
- LePore, Jill (2014). “The Surprising Origin Story of Wonder Woman.” The Smithsonian Magazine. October
- “12. The Active Learning Initiative at Cornell.” the 1/17/2018 Tea for Teaching podcast discussion with Doug McKee in which two-stage exams were discussed.
Transcript
Rebecca: Today, our guest is Dr. Maggie Schmuhl, a first-year faculty member in Public Justice at SUNY Oswego. Her research focuses on structural inequality, violence against women, and punishment. At SUNY Oswego, Maggie has taught American Criminal Courts and Judicial Process and Women in Crime. Welcome.
John: Welcome.
Maggie: Hello.
John: Today our teas are…
Maggie: I have a green tea that’s mint.
Rebecca: I’m also drinking green tea today, but mine is jasmine green tea.
John: I’m drinking a custom blend of peppermint, spearmint, and tarragon.
Rebecca: Ooh, yum.
Maggie: Fancy.
[LAUGHTER]
Rebecca: So, today we have a slightly different setup. We invited Maggie to come in and talk a little bit about the experience of a first-year faculty member and that transition from graduate school to teaching. Can you describe a little bit about what that transition’s been like? You’ve completed one full semester; you’re into your second semester. So, what’s that transition like? And what are some of the biggest hurdles?
Maggie: Yeah, the first year has been a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning curves and really just getting to know the university… getting to know the students… the department… and all of the intricacies of balancing research, balancing teaching, getting better at both of those things, and you know making time to explore a new place, a new city, it’s been good so far.
Rebecca: So in graduate school, was there a focus on teaching and developing curriculum, or was it more focused on research?
Maggie: Grad school was certainly more focused on research. It was about developing our research styles, our methodologies, our research interests. Teaching was not a major focus for a lot of reasons… but often teaching was a responsibility that we had, but not one that was explored as in-depth as our research. Since my first year in the program they have implemented third-year development seminars to talk about teaching, but for most of us, we had to really find our own way, we had to rely on upper cohort members to help guide us through our first time teaching, and we really had to spend our own time thinking about what kind of teachers we wanted to be, and how much effort we wanted to put into our teaching.
John: This is not uncommon in graduate programs. The faculty are focused on their research because they have to be if they want to keep their jobs. There are some programs that do more professional development, but they’re relatively rare… at least in my discipline.
Rebecca: I went to graduate school at Syracuse University and they actually had a development program for graduate students.
Maggie: Oh, that’s interesting.
Rebecca: So there was in the beginning, but then I also was in a fellowship program, where you actually put together teaching portfolios, and things, like you would if you were applying for teaching positions and things. That was part of the development and there was ongoing workshops.
Maggie: Yeah, so I think, for me, when I realized that I had a passion for teaching, I spent a lot of time seeking out professors that were engaged in wanting to make all of us into effective teachers… and so that drive, I think, that perhaps came from my desire to be a better teacher, helped me find better resources… within the program… within faculty… and I also served as the president of our doctoral association, and so when it came time to go on the job market, we sought out those faculty that were interested in helping us develop our teaching portfolios, and so we’d hold programs but a lot of it was student driven.
Rebecca: Did you find it challenging, when you were in graduate school. to balance that? When you have this interest and desire to explore teaching almost as a secondary research interest, right?
Maggie: Right.
Rebecca: How did that work? and what challenges did you face because of that? Because I’m sure you had colleagues in the same position who weren’t as interested in teaching and just didn’t spend that much time on it.
Maggie: Sure…. and I think the demands of grad school really keeps any particular person from excelling at teaching… and spending the time that it takes to implement and learn about effective practices for most of us. We’re trying to finish our dissertations. We’re trying to publish on research, and while all of that’s important, there’s kind of a piece of the puzzle that gets neglected, and often it was teaching.
John: …and so, you’re now at a four-year school and you’ve been really active in some of our workshops. We had a reading group last semester that focused on Small Teaching and you attended that workshop regularly… and read through that… and then you implemented some things. How did that go?
Maggie: Yes, I really enjoyed those Small Teaching reading group that we did,0 mostly because it gave me the time and in place to really explore what I wanted to be in the classroom and how I wanted my students to interact with me in the classroom. In that group, I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk with other faculty members who have this experience and have the kind of classrooms that I want to emulate and to get to learn. I really enjoyed the Small Teaching reading group. It gave me a place and a regular time to work into my schedule to sit down, talk about the kind of teacher I wanted to be, to listen to teachers with a lot more experience and how they develop their classroom, and implement these effective learning strategies to create a more productive learning environment, and to teach students and to challenge them to think critically about the world.
Rebecca: I think sometimes carving out time is one of the most difficult things, right? To think about teaching.
Maggie: Yeah.
Rebecca: So the fact that you said that the reading group provides this regular way of holding you accountable to think about these things…
Maggie: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think being a first semester faculty member I wanted to get involved in the campus community… to get to know other faculty members… to see how they’ve been successful in and outside of the classroom… and for me to try to broaden my perspectives on teaching… try to learn about the techniques that are important to facilitate learning… and to carry on to help students become valuable members in the justice system and whatever career paths they they choose.
John: Now a little bit of background on the reading group, we had a hundred and two faculty and staff members who participated in it, a large proportion were faculty. We met multiple times a week, and one of the things that happened there is people from different disciplines got a chance to talk about issues they’ve had in the classrooms, and how they’ve worked on it, and they got suggestions from other people in different departments. How did you find that experience getting to work with faculty from the sciences, from the humanities, from art and so forth?
Maggie: What I really liked about the diversity of the faculty there was… especially the math teachers. Every time they would talk about their experience in the classroom, I remember my own struggles and successes at learning something like math. And to think of a discipline that we wouldn’t normally consider has (or can) benefit (maybe) from a variety of teaching methods. I think that hearing their experiences throughout their teaching careers gives some important insight I can carry on to my own classes.
John: Could you tell us a little bit about the courses that you teach, how big they are and what the subjects are?
Maggie: Yes, so currently I teach… well, and last semester I also taught American Criminal Courts and Judicial Process. These classes ranged anywhere from fifteen students to about forty students, depending on the time of day and the enrollment. The other class that I currently teach this semester is Women and Crime, and that is about thirty-five students.
John: …and what techniques have you tried that were new to you?
Maggie: So, one of the challenges I had in my first semester here was teaching at an 8 a.m. section, and trying to…
[LAUGHTER]
John: There are no good solutions…
Maggie: Yeah…
Rebecca: Was it trying to teaching at 8 am or was it the students trying to take a class at 8 am?
Maggie: I think it was the students trying to take a class at 8 am… for sure. It’s hard…
John: It’s hard to stay up that late…
MAGIE: It is.
John: …they get tired and they need to get some sleep.
Maggie: Yes, that’s the end of their day, as opposed to the beginning of most of ours… and so, the 8:00 a.m. class… it was like pulling teeth trying to get them engaged and participating. In the first semester, I think I carried a lot of the same methods and practices that I had developed in grad school, and some of them… through the Small Teaching reading group, I found that I have names for all of that practice… like retrieval practices… and summarizing and recapping at the beginning of courses and at the end of a lecture… and holding small discussion groups. But, somehow none of that was quite enough to bring the 8 a.m. students back to thinking critically about the judicial system. Recently, in my current semester, I’ve started pairing up the students… and I can’t remember exactly what we called this, but pairing up the students to… after they’ve completed a mini pop quiz in class (which they all freak out about, but eventually I tell them that it’s not being graded). So, I’ve paired them up and they discussed their answers and then as a group they present their new answers and…
John: …a think-pair-share method.
Maggie: Yeah, a think-pair-share method. Yeah, so I’ve been implementing think-pair-share and a lot of the 8AM students, especially the ones that were falling asleep, they’re now forced to you know really think about this material right off the bat, and it’s helped keep them engaged throughout the rest of the course. I’ve really enjoyed taking that method and seeing them wake up a little bit more.
Rebecca: That’s great…
Maggie: Yeah.
Rebecca: …it’s not a super difficult thing to employ…
Maggie: It’s really easy.
Rebecca: …but it makes a huge difference.
Maggie: Right, Absolutely.
Rebecca: …and something that may work across all class periods, but sometimes you just have that particular class that’s got a slightly different personality…
Maggie: Right, yeah.
Rebecca: Sometimes due to the time or sometimes just the makeup of the group, that …employing different things in that situation… sometimes you have to troubleshoot like that.
Maggie: Yeah, absolutely and I think…often when you do have big personalities in the classroom, they’re so much fun… and they really they bring the other students into the discussion. But when you don’t have that, if you have students who are maybe a little more timid in the classroom, I think that think-pair-share is a good way to bring each and every one of our students into the discussion.
John: What were some of the other techniques that you may have tried?
Maggie: I’ve also implemented some low-stakes testing for my American Criminal Courts class and that has been going well so far. We’ll see how everything continues in this semester. I’m hoping that this will leave them more prepared for their midterm and their final exams by continually asking them… and then asking them questions from prior lectures… a lot of interleaving… also give them bonus questions on those quizzes to help them predict what we’re talking about next week, so I think there’s going to be a tangible difference in their grades when midterms roll around.
Rebecca: I was really surprised when I implemented more testing. You always hear conversations about test anxiety and nobody likes tests… nobody wants to take tests… and I’m in a discipline where tests are not that common. But I’ve been surprised historically, that the students maybe grumble at the beginning about it…
Maggie: Um-hmm.
Rebecca: …but over time they actually really appreciate it… and if you didn’t have one, like “what’s going on, why don’t we have one today?” They find it helpful and useful to keep them on point. How are students responding to this regular testing?
Maggie: I was actually really surprised when I got an evaluation last semester where a student asked if they could have more tests in the class. Because the format of the exams was four exams a semester, they were longer and they were, I think, looking for something that kept them accountable for the readings… something that kept them accountable for paying attention in class… and so far everyone has been… I don’t think they’re thrilled with it, but I think they understand the reason for having the tests… because I took time at the beginning of our class to talk about why having these low-stakes testings are important for their learning, but important also as they prepare for exams… and to really get this foundational information to build on in future classes.
John: …just simply reminding them that, making a mistake on a quiz that an infinitesimally small part of their grade is much better than making that mistake on a major exam…. and reminding them that this is, in large part, for formative purposes can really help, I think.
Maggie: Yeah, and for some students – who are perhaps a little more on the perfectionist side – I’ve had a couple of them pretty concerned when they miss a quiz but I tell them that I’ve dropped the lowest quiz score…maybe it’ll be the lowest two quiz scores… we’ll see how the semester goes… but to keep them accountable, but also to remind them that they’re human and things happens… they miss a quiz… they forget… and they have the opportunity to learn from that mistake, but to have not such a detrimental effect on their on their grade.
Rebecca: One thing that came up in our reading group frequently, was that faculty had much more success in their classes with this particular technique, if you took the time in class to talk to your students about why you’re doing it and how that’s helping their learning. I think that most faculty who’ve implemented it like you, and have spent the time to share that information with students, have found far more success than faculty who have just implemented the technique without explaining it .
Maggie: Yeah, and that’s one thing I’d really took from the reading group too, is that if we explain to students why the things that they typically hate are actually important and are beneficial to them, there’s a lot more buy-in from them.
John: It’s helpful in general, because students have habits of learning that we know aren’t as effective as they could be, and they tend to resist things like testing for learning. They much prefer rereading things or highlighting things, and after the second re-reading the evidence is pretty clear that there is virtually no increase in the amount that they’ll remember later… but it doesn’t feel that way. When they take a test on something and they get things wrong, it doesn’t feel as good. So, it’s important to help set it up and prime them so that they understand that this is really useful for them.
Rebecca: …and I think when you take class time to talk about evidence-based practices, not just on the first day, but a few times throughout the semester, those same students who are struggling with other parts of learning will speak up and ask more questions. I had a student today who just called me over and was asking like “I’m having a really hard time figuring out how to structure my files, so I don’t lose stuff.” Just a basic organizational thing… but in my field that’s quite detrimental, actually, if you can’t figure out how to do it. …and so, it’s kind of funny. Now they see you as a resource of someone who can help me learn better, not just in this class, but in other classes too…
Maggie: Yeah.
Rebecca: …which is kind of a nice feeling sometimes.
Maggie: Yeah, and I’ve also found that even beyond pedagogical discussions with students, that some of these concepts actually can apply to a lot of the content that we’ve learned. So, in my Women in Crime classroom we’re talking about labeling theory, and what it does to a person when they think they’ve reached the limit of their identity, if they’ve….
John: …issues of stereotype threat.
Maggie: Yeah, right. Exactly. If they fit the stereotype, how do they… can they learn to move beyond that… and so I talk to them about how, when they’re journaling I write all of my comments to reflect the work that they’ve done, and not the person that they are. …and so, I had them to think back about some of those comments that I do make and I tell them that this was purposeful on my end… Because I want them to know that they can do better in some cases… and in other cases that work has reflected some of their best effort… and that’s a good thing, right? And that their effort is just as important as, perhaps more important as, who they are as a person.
John: So it helps build a growth mindset ..
Maggie: Yeah.
John: …of the sort that Carol Dweck talks about. and that’s really helpful, because if they can learn that they can learn and improve their work, they become much more effective.
Rebecca: One of the things that I’ve found, implementing some of these techniques (especially in the first couple of tries), is that, when it doesn’t feel good to learn, right? [LAUGHTER]… we sometimes have this illusion that we know something, but we don’t actually know it. The students can get a little downtrodden, right? … a little down on themselves… and so then you have to remember to monitor for that a little bit…. which I’ve learned over time, and then you got to kind of just stop and allow for an opportunity to show success. So, for example, in my classes, I started breaking my first project assignment into very small pieces, so everything was low stakes. But, I could see that at some point they just maxed out, and they’re “I can’t do any of this, like I don’t know any of this.” I was like “well, actually you do know most of it, you’re just panicking for no reason.” So, we stopped one day, and we just did we just did a brand new little thing that demonstrated to them that they could actually do the entire project that we’d been doing… in two hours, despite the fact that we’ve spent three weeks on it… and yes, there was a couple little hurdles that they had, but the hurdles they had were minor, and they could do it. I think to allow for that growth mindset… yes, you need them to fail and realize that they can do better, but then also allow for some opportunities where they get some real success too. It seems like you’re interested in this growth mindset idea, so have you been experimenting with any of these sorts of things in your classes?
Maggie: When I started doing the mini pop quizzes, because not only do I throw in a mini pop quiz occasionally, but I also have them doing low stakes quizzing over the weekends on Blackboard. So, I think they start to get a little overwhelmed. We were able to do this on our quiz, when we had everything in front of us, but now that we don’t have anything in front of us, you know, I can see it in their faces. They’re freaking out. They’re upset with themselves, because they knew that they had this information somewhere, they just hadn’t had the time to actually recall it without their notes. I think that, hopefully, the more we do this, the more they’ll take their quizzes maybe a little more seriously and try to really push themselves to do it without without their notes.
Rebecca: So, actually trying to recall the information as opposed to look it up.
Maggie: Right, yeah, right.
Rebecca: Yeah, sometimes students do things out of convenience and meeting a deadline as opposed to valuing the …
Maggie: Sure.
Rebecca: …learning and the more we demonstrate to them that we value that they’ve learned, the better. This semester, I just… for some reason my class is just full of anxiety in a way that maybe even last semester it wasn’t… I didn’t change anything… it’s the same thing… but I spent the time, I felt it…. this big ball of anxiety is not going to move forward… because the anxiety is getting in the way of learning now…. to just stop and recognize that you’re observing something… and then make a change…. this is what the syllabus says, but I’m feeling this and I see this. Do you guys agree? Yeah, great! How about we do this instead? Does that make sense to everyone? And then all of a sudden… buy-in again.
Maggie: Right, yeah. They feel like they have the ability to structure the class themselves right? ..that it’s not just you sitting there saying “This is what we’re doing.” You’re asking them: “If we change this, will this be better for our class?” I think that’s cool, and does keep them invested in the class itself.
Rebecca: What other kinds of supports do you feel a new faculty member needs in place to be successful as a teacher?
Maggie: So, I think that for me, because in grad school I sought out different faculty members and helped create some of the programs that I thought were missing… I think for those faculty members who haven’t put as much emphasis on their teaching, perhaps to reach out to them and maybe have a friend bring them along to activities and in workshops at the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching holds.
John: …and it’s not surprising though that some people, when they first start teaching would not put that much weight on teaching because they’ve just come from an R1 institution, where their focus is often entirely, or nearly entirely, on research … and most people start by teaching the way they’ve learned …and the way they’ve learned is often just simply lectures and exams…
Maggie: Yeah.
John: One of the things I’ve observed as a chair of our recruitment committee (for the last couple of decades) is that, in economics at least, a very large proportion of faculty have no background in teaching while they’re in grad school. In our last search, we had, I think, three or four people who had actually some knowledge of effective teaching practices… and actually three of them made it to our top five list of candidates, but they were by far the exception… and it’s a tough adjustment …and it takes a while, especially when you have to start your research very quickly in order to meet tenure requirements …it’s a difficult adjustment.
Maggie: Yeah.
Rebecca: I think the first semester, in general, is a tough adjustment. You’re at a new institution… there’s institutional memory that you’re not privy to… there’s all kinds of acronyms that you don’t understand. It takes a lot of time to figure out who this student population is… and you might not think that between institutions the students change very much, but man they’re really different… and you have to adjust your teaching to the population that you’re dealing with. As a designer, I would always jump on my soapbox to say you have to design for your audience, and I don’t think designing your classroom experiences is any different.
Maggie: I’d say in grad school, most of the courses I took were very heavy with reading…. and a lot of discussion based classes. But a lot of students don’t have the time to do the kind of reading we did… and that’s why it was grad school and this is undergrad…. and for them who are just learning… and I think we talked about this in the Small Teaching reading group… that we have the ability to make connections across different concepts and how they interrelate to each other, but the students aren’t there yet …and so, when you’re going from one institution where you have gauged where these students are and what kind of connections they’re able to make, because you know a little bit more about their experience, and then you move to a new university and those experiences… some of them are similar, but a lot of them are vastly different… and to gauge where they’re able to make these connections and how much I have to draw out those connections certainly changes on that university.
Rebecca: It isn’t just university, it’s sometimes like semester to semester….
Maggie: Sure.
Rebecca: …or group to group. You almost need to build in a way in your classes to figure out… some sort of little survey or something… like, who are these people? what do they already know?
Maggie: Yeah, yeah.
Rebecca: So that you can make those connections… so that you have a better understanding of what your class’s mental model looks like versus your own.
John: …and there’s a number of ways of doing it… some people will give a pretest at the beginning… just asking what people had, or some general questions about the discipline or their prior knowledge. Others will use clickers and other things throughout the term to assess knowledge before moving on. …and, as you said, just asking students to reflect on what they know and perhaps write it down or at least bring it to the discussion, is another good way to help determine the level, so you can do more just-in-time teaching and deal with what students come in with rather than what you think they should come in with.
Rebecca: What’s your favorite way of handling that John, in your classes?
John: It varies a lot by class. I use clickers regularly in actually nearly all of my classes. I don’t use it in the seminar class I’m teaching, but I’m using them in my econometrics class which is, I think, about 35 to 40 students, somewhere in that range… and I use it in my large class where I have somewhere between 360 and 420 students every fall… and it’s a good way of getting that sort of information. I’ve also sometimes used pre-tests on basic math skills or other things in my large intro class. Sometimes in a smaller class I’ll just ask them what classes they’ve had in the past. When I’m teaching econometrics, for example, I have some students who are math majors who’ve already had multivariable calculus and three or four stat classes. Other students come in who took, sometime in the last three or four years, a very basic stat class… and they come in with very different backgrounds and very different information. Some of the people in the class are math majors who just want to pick up a course and they haven’t had that many economic classes and so finding out what they know helps me determine how much emphasis I need to focus. One of the problems though is that students have such diverse that it’s difficult, but the more we can get them working together with peer instruction, the more they can help each other fill in those gaps.
Rebecca: I think one of the things that I like about what you were saying is that students, in some of those methods, it’s revealed what other students know too, so that they can see that “I have a different mental model, but it matches up with some other people, and here’s some other students and they have this other kind of information.” I find it helpful, and I think the students find it helpful to recognize that people come with different expertise and that we can lean on those expertise at different times. Do you have any strategies that you’ve been using to figure out who’s in the room yet or is that something that you’re still kind of experimenting with?
Maggie: It’s something that I’m still experimenting with. Last semester, I did a pretest and it was helpful for gauging what they knew about criminal justice, but not necessarily what they knew about courts and how those concepts in criminal justice relate to the court system… and this semester I did not do a pretest, but another thing that, I think has been an interesting way to see what they know when they know it is I’ve had them write down for a minute the important things we’ve talked about last class and then I go around the room and every person has to say at least one thing… and everything they know about that thing… but it has to be different from the other person and so that challenges them… and of course the people in the very back corner of the class are freaking out because they’re afraid everything’s gonna be said… but then it turns out that we only get to half of the topics that we actually discussed in the class. So, I think that giving them the opportunity to actually see what they know, I think is important for them in the classroom moving forward.
Rebecca: Yeah, a lot of students don’t have good metacognitive skills, in general. They have no idea what they know. So, if you take the time to get them to even stop and think about what they know, it’s more time than they probably spent on it…
Maggie: Right. Yeah.
Rebecca: …giving them the time and demonstrating that you think it’s valuable for them to spend time thinking about what they know… by you even spending two or three minutes in class on it… all of a sudden lets them know that that’s something that’s valuable.
John: …and actually I’m going to be trying something new this semester to help build on those skills with something that Doug McKee talked about in an earlier podcast, which is the use of two-stage exams. I’m giving an exam in my econometrics class next week next Wednesday and then they’ll all take it individually. Then I will grade them, and then the next class they’re going to work on subset of the questions in small groups… and then they’ll submit group responses which will be weighted as a portion of their overall score. So, basically, they get the opportunity to improve their scores on some of the more challenging questions by sharing their knowledge and in places where that’s been done they found some fairly significant learning gains from leveraging the knowledge of their peers.
Rebecca: Sounds very similar to Maggie’s strategy for some of her quizzes.
Maggie: Yeah. that’s exactly what the mini pop quiz that I’ve been implementing… that they can try to figure out their answers on their own, but then they can really talk with another student… see where their strengths are where… perhaps the other students strengths are and builds from there.
Rebecca: I think what’s nice about pointing out those two examples is that both emphasize peer instruction… but ones in a high-stakes situation… ones in a low-stakes situation. The fact that there’s kind of two graded parts in the in the two-stage exam is a way to demonstrate a way of doing it in a higher stakes situation and then a nice low stakes situation where they try it on their own but then they can collaborate before they’re ever graded is a different scenario and a different level of pressure, etc.
John: …and adding one more level complexity to mine… it’s actually a little lower stakes than it might sound because, while they have three exams (I’ve told them this at the beginning of the term but I’ll have to remind them after they get their test scores back), I have a series of exams that are progressively cumulative, and if they do better on the second exam it will replace the first; if they do better on the third exam it will replace either of the first two… because they’re tested on all the material again. So, they get another chance. It does make the subsequent exams a little bit higher stakes if they didn’t do well, but they have the opportunity to make mistakes, learn from that, and improve their scores.
Rebecca: Great.
John: …and thanks to Doug for the suggestion about the the two-stage exams!
Now, you’re also going to be trying something new next year. Oswego is introducing some new signature courses for students in their first year. You, very graciously, were one of the new faculty who chose to participate in that. Could you tell us a little bit about the course that you’re going to be doing?
Maggie: There’s a group of faculty who have been asked to teach very small seminar like courses that are really aimed at engaging students in their very first year… their very first semester at Oswego and with the intent to get them connected to the University and to get them really excited about their coursework and uncover some of their interests. The class that I’ll be teaching is called the Injustice League. It’s on crime, inequalities, and injustice in comic books… and so, in the class we’re going to read a lot of comic books and some graphic novels… and we will have the chance to talk about how those comic books reflect inequalities that exist in society… how they reinforce some of those inequalities… and how comic books are used today to deliver how comic books are used today to facilitate discussions on race, gender, class inequalities.
John: That sounds like a lot of fun
Maggie:Yeah, it’s gonna be…
Rebecca: Yeah, can I sign up?
John: I wish I could take many of these class but that one in particular sounded really interesting.
Maggie: Yeah, it’s gonna be fun, I think, for students who perhaps don’t have an interest in comic books… or those who do, they can share their interests and we can learn a lot of things about the worlds on our way.
Rebecca: What I like about that is using something that’s more popular media and then using it as a tool to apply critical lenses…
Maggie: Yes
Rebecca: …and really getting students to think critically. We don’t have to always think so abstractly to think critically…
Maggie: Sure.
Rebecca: …a comic book is a nice tangible thing that you can look at and analyze and evaluate.
Maggie: Yeah, and apply to other discussions that we have going on in society. So if it’s examining gender and equality, and the way female superheroes are portrayed in their dress, and how we, as a society, have developed gendered expectations of women and of women of color and all of those intersecting identities.
John: …and Wonder Woman was developed in large part to help correct some of those gender imbalances, right? …it was developed by a psychologist who wanted to help provide a better gender…
Rebecca: Have you seen what she wears?
John: Well, there was that, too… and and there were some other issues there, but that was the rationale…
Rebecca: Yeah, of course, it was a male psychologist.
John: It was, but…
[LAUGHTER]
…in any case…. Okay, never mind.
Rebecca: I was just having a conversation with another one of our colleagues the other day about some of the topics that are really intangible like race, gender, and inequality. There are things that we talk about, but they’re abstract or conceptual, and so sometimes students have a really hard time getting their finger on it and finding a doorway in. So, I like the idea of the comic book as a really specific physical object… a really tangible space to enter into those discussions rather than thinking up in the air….
Maggie: Yeah.
Rebecca: …where it’s not always easy to digest that if you don’t have a good mental model of what you’re talking about.
John: …and it may also make it easier for students to separate themselves from those issues, because of course they don’t have any biased views themselves… but when they start seeing it perhaps in the comic books it might be help them identify it more generally in society and in themselves and in the world around them.
Maggie: Yeah, it helps them uncover where their biases do lie.
John: Right, but they’re implicit biases in part because they’re not aware of them so…
Maggie: Right. Yeah, they discover where these gendered expectations that they have been surrounded by throughout their growth as children and adolescents… and in why those expectations are problematic, and through comic books they can actually see it. We can actually point to why wealth inequality can create a superhero or it can create a villain.
John: …and it’s also perhaps less threatening that way, because it’s a comic book. It’s not their life directly, but it’s a nice lens by which they can start seeing these issues better.
Maggie: Absolutely.
Rebecca: Sounds like you had a lot of exciting teaching things on the horizon, what else are you gonna do next?
Maggie: I would like to develop a class that looks at punishment and the historical development of punishment and how sexism and racism in society have influenced that development in our society. …and I think for classes, we’re talking about really tough subjects that it’s important for them to be engaged and to feel comfortable having these conversations, because they are so necessary… and through these techniques, I think it gives them a level of comfort in the classroom to be themselves and to understand their positionality in society and how their experiences have impacted the way they view these social issues, and how they can resist against some of those preconceived ideas.
John: Excellent.
Rebecca: Right.
John: …and I think this could be a great topic for a future podcast…
Rebecca: Yeah, we’ll follow up on that
John: …when your class is underway.
Rebecca: Absolutely. Definitely. Well, thank you so much for joining us Maggie and sharing your perspective. I think a lot of faculty can relate and have had similar struggles and also similar successes, but it’s really nice to see your journey. So, thanks for sharing it with us today.
Maggie: Thanks.
John: Thanks a lot. It’s great having you here at Oswego.
Maggie: Thank you. It’s good being here.