Category: inclusion

398. Multicampus AI Initiative

Posted in active learning, artificial intelligence, higher education, inclusion, learning, pedagogy, peer review, professional development, teaching, writing
June 18, 2025

Faculty are faced with the need to adjust instructional strategies in response to AI. In this episode,  Racheal Fest and Stephanie Pritchard join us to discuss a professional development initiative for faculty involving six campuses.

Racheal is a Pedagogy Specialist at the Faculty Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at the State University of New York at Oneonta. She also teaches writing courses in the English Department. Stephanie is the Coordinator of the Writing Center, the Coordinator of Writing and Ethical Practice, and an instructor for classes in poetry and English composition here at SUNY Oswego. Racheal is the Principal Investigator and Stephanie is one of the campus coordinators on a SUNY multi-campus grant focused on faculty development related to AI.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: Faculty are faced with the need to adjust instructional strategies in response to AI. In this episode, we discuss a professional development initiative for faculty involving six campuses.

[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 Racheal Fest and Stephanie Pritchard. Racheal is a Pedagogy Specialist at the Faculty Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at the State University of New York at Oneonta. She also teaches writing courses in the English Department. Stephanie is the Coordinator of the Writing Center, the Coordinator of Writing and Ethical Practice, and an instructor for classes in poetry and English composition here at SUNY Oswego. Racheal is the Principal Investigator and Stephanie is one of the campus coordinators on a SUNY multi-campus grant focused on faculty development related to AI. Welcome Racheal and welcome back Stephanie. It’s been a while.

Racheal: Thanks for having us.

Stephanie: We’re very happy to be here.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are:… Racheal, are you drinking any tea today?

Racheal: Yes, I actually came prepared with two teas. I’m a big tea drinker, and I’m starting with an organic loose leaf orange pekoe, and then that will be my allotment of caffeine for the day. And then I’ll be drinking an herbal tea, which is a honey turmeric chai.

Rebecca: Both of those sound delightful, but maybe you’re slightly an overachiever in the tea category. How about you, Stephanie?

Stephanie: I am drinking my go to Earl Grey tea, and then perhaps this afternoon, will indulge in some blueberry green tea.

Rebecca: I knew that Earl Grey was gonna be involved.

John: We do have, by the way, I think, four different varieties of Earl Grey tea at the teaching center, and I think Stephanie has tried each of those at one point or another.

Rebecca: How about you, John?

John: I have a spring cherry green tea. Now that it really is spring here, we haven’t had snow for over a week.

Rebecca: At least today, it feels like spring. We’ll see what the dice rolls tomorrow. I have Chai today.

John: We’ve invited you here to discuss this multi-campus grant funded AI professional development program that you’ve been working on all year. Can you provide an overview of the program?

Racheal: So, this program is called Teaching with AI: A Cross-Campus Community of Practice, and essentially we brought together faculty from six SUNY campuses, including regional comprehensives, technology schools, and community colleges, and we asked them to design learning activities that integrate AI into the classroom in ways that are critical, active, and inclusive.

Rebecca: So you mentioned that there’s six campuses involved. Can you talk about how many faculty are participating?

Racheal: We have about 66 faculty participants at this time, and the majority of them are funded by our IITG funding. But we were able to get some additional funding at Oneonta and Oswego as well. And Oswego, as Stephanie and John, you can attest, had a really big and enthusiastic cohort.

Rebecca: For those that aren’t familiar, can you describe what an IITG grant is?

Racheal: The IITG grants are innovative instruction technology grants. They’re awarded across the SUNY system, and they’re peer reviewed through a competitive process that is used to distribute funds, especially focused on educational technology, and often OER (open educational resources).

Stephanie: We are participating with six other SUNY campuses, and those campuses are Alfred, Morrisville, Oneonta, Orange, Oswego, which is my campus, and Schenectady.

John: Could you talk a little bit about what the participants in this program have been asked to do as part of their work in the program.

Stephanie: Our project began in January, and we started with a webinar from Anna Mills, who is an advocate for AI literacy and also for OER or open educational resources. She teaches writing at the College of Marin, and we made her webinar available to all of the participants in our grant. But we also had some interest from SUNY, so we advertised the webinar through SUNY’s Center for Professional Development, and we had a very large group of participants attend Anna Mills’s talk, which really focused on thinking about AI, how it’s affecting the different assignments that we’re giving in our courses in all sorts of different ways in higher education. She also spoke about some strategies that teachers should consider as they are really working to either adapt AI into their courses or sort of try to manage how AI is affecting the classes that they teach.

Racheal: And I’ll just add that one thing I really love about Anna is she is focused on critical AI literacy, and that was a big piece of our project, as we’ll talk about as we develop the details, but she has been a voice that is kind of guiding conversations about evaluative engagement with AI and not only ways to integrate and use it in the classroom, but also ways to think about how to protect learning objectives now that these tools are widely available.

Stephanie: So we started our project by listening to Anna Mills, like I mentioned. It was very well attended, and that was in early January. After that, each of our campuses had a day-long kickoff event where participants in each of our cohorts gathered in person on the various campuses, and we led them through a series of structured activities and introduced them to the grant objectives and deliverables. We also shared with them the Brightspace shell that we had created specifically to help guide our cohorts through this process.

John: And I’ll add that in the initial meetings, one of the things that was really helpful in getting everyone there, besides requiring people to be there as part of the process, there was also lunch available, which made it a little bit nicer, and it created a very nice environment for people to begin their work together.

Stephanie: It was a very nice way to pull everyone together on our different campuses, introduce them to one another, and also sort of see what level of knowledge or engagement our different participants had at the very beginning of the project. We had participants on our campus who were doing all sorts of different things. Some had already been integrating AI into their courses in various ways. Others were experimenting with ChatGPT for the very first time during that day-long kickoff event. So it was really interesting and kind of energetic and wonderful to see all of these different people in a room learn what they were doing and also learn about what they wanted to do and what goals they wanted to achieve with the project.

John: And I’ll also note that some of the faculty were there mostly to learn how to keep students from using it as an alternative to learning. Once they started seeing, over the course of that day, ways in which they could use it and perhaps have their students use it productively, t here was a pretty significant shift in their attitude towards AI use over just the course of that very first day, which has continued over the project.

Racheal: That’s a great point, John, we saw that here at Oneonta as well, and I think that we have a number of faculty on our campus who are quite enthusiastic about AI and have been adopting it, and some of the other diversity that we saw in the room that I thought was really interesting. There were folks who were more skeptical about AI or more invested in kind of protecting learning objectives, and I did want to make sure that the experience helped them to think about those problems and questions, because those are so pervasive. And then there were faculty who also have been adopting really enthusiastically in different ways, so creating a space for both of those groups to kind of learn together and hash out different positions, even while maintaining those different positions, because I think AI’s integration, it really varies across disciplines, and I think that that richness and diversity was a really valuable and important part of this project.

Rebecca: So beyond that first kickoff day, what were some of the other things that faculty have been required to do as part of the project?

Racheal: So after the kickoff, we moved on to a series of monthly meetings that we had planned, and those meetings were designed to continue the conversation and also to offer pedagogy support around designing learning activities. So in addition to thinking about AI integration, we were also offering that pedagogy support of thinking about backward design, thinking about how to begin with course objectives, how to design an activity that is active and inclusive for students, and then how to think about feedback and assessment. So we’ll talk a little bit about the rubric that we use. I mean, we did use it to assess faculty deliverables, but it was more of a tool to guide the conversations about what a strong learning activity could look like in a range of contexts. So that rubric kind of guided our monthly meetings. We were focusing on having an AI policy in your syllabus, developing at least one course objective related to AI. And then we were focusing on designing the learning activity and finally offering feedback and assessment on the learning activity. And we’re wrapping up those monthly meetings in April. Some campuses have already hosted them. Mine is actually this Friday coming up, and at that April meeting, we were giving folks a chance to share and give each other feedback on drafts of their assignments and learning activities before they submit those final drafts.

Stephanie: One of the things that we tried really hard to do in those monthly meetings was to model effective ways of teaching to everyone who was participating in our program. So in addition to the things that Racheal mentioned, like backwards design, we also spend a good chunk of time focusing on the TILT approach. For example, they had an option, they could do an in class learning activity with AI or they could have their students submit something in an out of class way. So we spent some time talking about what those assignments could look like, and why that level of transparency in your expectations as a teacher matters, and why that’s really important. We also spent time, as Racheal said, talking about feedback and all of the different ways that we give feedback to our students, whether it just be a grade or written feedback or verbal feedback, using a rubric or not, using peer feedback as a successful strategy. So we really tried, during these monthly meetings and through our Brightspace shell, to really model what effective teaching looks like, in hopes that our participants would take that and then apply it to the projects that they were developing.

Racheal: And another important piece that pairs with that, I think, Stephanie, we also tried to be really responsive to the different needs and contexts that our faculty were bringing. If you were planning an in class learning activity, for example, you’re not going to grade that or provide written feedback, and we certainly weren’t expecting that. We wanted to allow for a range of approaches, so we talked about strategies for giving feedback during class or through conversation. We tried to ensure that a range of different approaches to learning activities and assignments were represented in the conversation.

John: And just following up a little bit on that, one of the reasons we focused on the TILT framework is because, in the current environment, students may choose to use AI as an alternative to learning material, and we’d like them to be aware of why we’re asking them to do specific things, because if they understand that they’re developing skills or tools that are going to be useful for them later, it’s more likely that they’ll actually engage in it actively themselves, rather than trying to skip the actual learning by using AI. So we’ve encouraged faculty not only to do it in these activities, but also to integrate the TILT approach into all their teaching and learning activities.

Rebecca: For those that aren’t familiar, TILT stands for Transparency in Learning and Teaching. We do have a previous episode on that, that we’ll put in the show notes.

John: And we’ll share a link both to that and to Mary-Ann Winklemes’s website, which describes this as well. And just as one more aside related to this, if you’re not sure of how to create a TILT assignment, you could always feed an assignment into AI and ask it to put it into a TILT framework. And that works especially well if you also share your course learning objectives with the tool as well.

Rebecca: One of the things that I’ve heard all three of you mention is this Brightspace course that you set up for faculty. Can you talk a little bit about this?

Stephanie: So we spent some time as a leadership team developing the Brightspace shell. We knew that we wanted a common place for all of these materials to live, especially the support materials, as our participants were working their way through our different months, or our different modules. So we worked with members of the leadership team to develop this Brightspace shell that could kind of serve as a common place for us all to come together. In that shell, in addition to uploading our monthly materials that would focus on a different piece as we moved through that rubric that Racheal was talking about earlier, we also established clear guidelines for all of our participants so that they could understand what their requirements were as they moved through the program, which we’ll talk more about in a little bit. But that Brightspace shell also offered opportunities for our participants to talk to one another. One of the things that we required our participants to do was engage with one another in what we called our community of practice discussions. So our participants were required to engage with a small group of their colleagues from different campuses. This was a little bit interesting, because Oswego and Oneonta had larger cohorts than some of our other participating campuses. At Oswego, we were lucky enough to receive some additional funding and support from our Chief Technology Officer, Sean Moriarty, which we really appreciated. And I know that Oneonta had some extra funding as well. Is that right, Rachael?

Racheal: That’s right. We had initially requested funding for 10 faculty to receive stipends of $600 each, but our Faculty Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship was able to provide additional stipends for, I think for us, it was six more members to participate in the program. And I think for you, you were able to double that number.

Stephanie: So, Oswego ended up with 24 participants total, which was about 14 more than what we had initially planned for. So in the community of practice discussions, it was a little bit heavier with membership from Oswego and Oneonta, but we were still able to design these discussions based off of what our participants requested. So some wanted the opportunity to speak with people from other campuses who were in similar disciplines as themselves, and some wanted to be in groups with people who were from totally different disciplines to sort of learn what other people were doing.

Racheal: I think we’re bringing out here the two tracks that ran parallel throughout the course of this experience. On the one hand, we had our in-person cohort meetings on each of the six campuses, and that allowed people to connect across departments from a range of disciplines with folks on their own campus. And then we had this second element that Stephanie has been talking about, that was the cross-campus community of practice element, and those were virtual meetings with three or four faculty members per group. And we asked those cross-campus groups to meet for a minimum of two times and then to post their takeaways to the discussion area in Brightspace. That way we could track and see what our faculty were talking about. We could take a look and answer questions that might have come up. And we also, as a leadership team, responded to those discussions on Brightspace, and we really saw the groups talking about a range of topics. One of the reasons that we wanted to connect faculty across campuses and not just run these cohorts on individual campuses, is that we’re seeing faculty bring a lot of different approaches and attitudes to AI, and a lot of that is place specific. A lot of it is related to institutional cultures or resources, and so the ability for faculty to meet from across the system and to share what their institutions are doing to support professional development related to AI, as well as to share what different departments or what conversations around AI might be happening in those different spaces. We wanted to create space for people to come together and have those conversations.

Stephanie: It was also really interesting, because participants in the cross-campus groups, in addition to having these other conversations about AI and pedagogy, began to really work well together as a unit as they worked on the deliverables for this project. So they worked together to share their ideas for their learning activity, their learning objective, their syllabus statement. And then as we got deeper into the project, they started to share drafts with one another and to ask each other, is this meeting the criteria for the grant? Are we making a learning activity that’s critical and active and inclusive? Do you have feedback for me? So as we talked about earlier, we had the meetings on each of our individual campuses with our campus groups, but it was really nice that the cross-campus groups were engaging with one another beyond what we had initially imagined, which I thought was really a nice bonus from this.

Racheal: I completely agree, and to try to facilitate some of that conversation as a leadership team, we didn’t want to impose structure on these meetings, but we also wanted to provide some resources for getting those conversations started. So we created on Brightspace question banks that faculty could choose to draw from to guide those conversations. And so with those suggested structures, I think we were able to leave room for that creative exchange. And each group was able to kind of determine how they wanted to use that cross-campus group time.

Stephanie: We also had, in addition to the cross-campus group discussion boards, we also made additional discussion boards that were optional, so participants could choose whether or not they wanted to participate in a board called community conversation, which was very informal, just a way for people to share their thoughts or ask questions to one another. And again, this was not required, but we did have participants posting there, engaging with one another in that way. Then we also had another discussion board that we called news and tools, which was basically the opportunity for participants to share new tools that they had stumbled across, or post things related to things that were happening as new AI tools were developed and came out. As we know they’re changing so rapidly. Things are coming out every single day, so participants had the opportunity to share that information with each other as well, and I think it was nice to give them the opportunity to participate in more than just one forum, because, as Racheal said, we had several members who were very engaged in the project, and I think valued other spaces to collaborate.

John: What are some of the examples of learning activities under development by faculty?

Stephanie: So, materials for this project are not due for another two weeks or so, but we have had several participants submit their materials already, getting things all squared away before the madness of final exams week here. So we did have a few faculty who were thinking about engaging with AI tools as part of the brainstorming process. So for example, one of our participants here gave an assignment where students were asked to use Perplexity, which is a free AI tool that also can access the web and provide suggested sources. He’s asking his students to use Perplexity to help them continue brainstorming for an assignment that they’re working on in the class. So students already have some general ideas of what they want to do, and he’s asking them to engage with Perplexity to deepen their brainstorming. So for example, ask Perplexity to provide some suggested sources to the topic that they’re considering, and then evaluate the sources that Perplexity is suggesting. He also asks them to prompt Perplexity, to give them a counter argument to what they’re exploring. So those are some examples. T hat would be an example of a learning activity. It’s something that he’s going to have them do in class. And the nice thing about his prompt is that he gave his students four different sample prompts that they could take and then put into the tool, but they would have to fill out the details of their particular brainstorming. So that’s one example from our campus. Racheal, would you like to give one example from yours, and then I can do another one?

Racheal: Absolutely, that sounds great. I’ll share an example from Oneonta, while saying as well that the leadership team will be taking a look at the examples across campus once folks are uploading them, as Stephanie has said, but we haven’t done that yet, so we only have the knowledge of folks we’ve been working with on our own campuses. So one faculty member in sociology here has been developing a project that I think is really interesting and exciting. He’s going to be teaching a course in the fall that has a unit focused on conspiracy theories and thinking specifically about how to debunk or counter conspiracy theories. And so he has identified an AI chatbot called DebunkBot, which has been developed, I think, out of Cornell. And he’s going to ask students to identify a conspiracy theory of their choice, engage with DebunkBot to see how the AI counters that conspiracy theory with factual information, and then they’re going to evaluate those AI outputs. And I think within the conversations he’s having with students, too, is the question of, do facts work against conspiracy theories? There are various opinions on that, so not only evaluating DebunkBot’s outputs, but also thinking about it as a tool to counter conspiracy theories. What are its strengths and weaknesses? And what I really like about this project is, I think that it exemplifies that critical element that we’ve been emphasizing through this project. By critical, we really mean evaluative. We are asking that all of these learning activities and assignments take up that AI literacy task of helping students evaluate AI outputs and evaluate AI as software.

Stephanie: Tagging on to the evaluative piece, one of our colleagues here is working on an assignment that asks students to sort of reverse write a paper. So she’s giving her students a prompt and asking an AI tool of their choice, probably ChatGPT I imagine… one of the components of our grant that we really emphasized was trying to make these assignments or learning activities as inclusive as possible. So we’re thinking about access, who has access to this technology. And since ChatGPT doesn’t require users to make an account, there is a free version, a lot of faculty are leaning toward those sorts of tools for this. So anyway, one of our faculty here is asking her students to have ChatGPT generate an essay on one of the books that they’re reading for the course, and students are then going to look at the essay and evaluate the output that ChatGPT has created. So they’re going to look at things like whether or not the material is accurate, if there are hallucinations, if it is in fact doing what it was asked to do. So I think they’re being asked to analyze, “So how is the quality of ChatGPT analysis?” And this faculty member also has a series of follow up prompting questions to have the students continue to engage with this essay that was generated and see if they can make it better, or see if that’s it, if it’s as good as it’s going to get, and if there are still holes in the analysis or with the argument. As a writing teacher, I thought that that was a really cool way to look at what this technology can do, really consider its limitations as well, and think about how are we going to do writing, teach writing as we keep going, as more students rely on these sorts of tools.

Racheal: I love that you were emphasizing the inclusivity piece there, Stephanie, which has come up in our conversation where you were mentioning especially how you emphasize TILT on Oswego’s campus. On Oneonta’s campus, we talked a little bit about UDL, universal design for learning, but those were frameworks that we wanted to keep in the mix as part of the conversation, we didn’t necessarily have time in our progression to really dive deeper focus. So we set some basic guidelines for inclusive activities that we encouraged everyone to meet. And those were, as you said, making sure that whatever AI tools you’re asking students to use they have equal access to. So that would look different on different campuses as well. Here at Oneonta, we’re a Microsoft campus, and that means that we have Co-Pilot for all students over 18. And if you’re thinking about, when you’re introducing students to AI tools, not only making sure that everyone can access it, but also making sure that you’re thinking and talking about who might have access to paid versions, because students are sometimes subscribing to ChatGPT at that higher level, and just making those conversations about what tools you’re using part of the conversation. The other inclusive piece that we really emphasized was just that providing instructions to make sure that you’re aware that people… students, specifically… are bringing different levels of knowledge of technology to the classroom. Some students are using AI all the time, others have never used it and don’t want to. I think we’ve had those conversations in our group. So just being aware of the diversity of student capabilities as part of that inclusivity and accessibility piece was really important to us too.

Stephanie: Just to kind of tag on, I thought it was really interesting that, as we talk about access and who has access to a paid tool versus a free tool, I’m sure you have seen, I know John and I have spoken about this a little bit that, right now ChatGPT has a free trial of their paid version that they’re marketing specifically to students. So it’s ongoing from now until the end of May, which I thought was really interesting. And I know that they’re not the only tool that has done that. Is that, right, John?

John: Gemini and Claude have also done it, and one of them I forgot, which one actually is extending it until next year. So there’s a little bit of competition going on to get more students using their particular models, because student use does make up a remarkably large share of the use of all the AI tools now, for reasons that perhaps are not always as positive as we’d like.

Stephanie: I think it will be really interesting to see how that continues to develop as we move forward. They’re doing this two month free trial. Now. What does that mean for the beginning of the fall semester and beyond that?

John: One thing we should also note is that this podcast is coming out in June. We’re recording this in late April, which is why snow was as recent as last week, and why many of the references are towards the last stages of the semester. This is a rare occasion for us to be this far ahead in our recording. We often record things a week or two before their released, but we’ve happened to be able to get a lot of podcasts scheduled within a fairly short period of time. Along the lines of the assignment that Racheal mentioned in evaluating sources, Mike Caulfield has been developing a prompt for SIFT, which is his approach for analyzing the veracity of online claims, and as of last night, he’s developed an expanded version of that prompt, and we’ll share a link to that in the show notes as well, because we can use AI tools to try, not only to create false information, we can also use it to try to verify claims.

Rebecca: One of the things I’ve heard you all talk about quite a bit, and I’d like to hear a little bit more about, is the rubric that you were using to evaluate the assignments and things that faculty were creating.

Racheal: Yeah, the rubric that we developed, as I mentioned earlier, we really thought of this more as a tool to guide our conversations, rather than as an assessment piece. But we’ve run at SUNY Oneonta, similar cohorts devoted to different learning activities and aims in the past, and we knew from those experiences that being really clear about what the deliverables are and what elements we’re privileging and would like to see, that’s going to help faculty design learning activities that then can move as we’d like to move them, to our public facing repository. So we focused on three categories of evaluation on the rubric. First, we were asking folks to develop an AI policy for their syllabus. That was a big part of this project, too. As we are thinking about helping faculty and students navigate the emergence of AI, students are coming into a range of classes that all have different expectations for them. So some faculty might be saying, “if you use AI at all, you are cheating.” Others might say, “I want you to use AI. You have to use it. And here are some of the ways that I’ll be evaluating your use of it.” So just thinking about how we as a leadership team could support students by encouraging AI policies through this experience was important to us, and those policies would capture a wide variety of approaches to AI in the classroom. Some policies that we’ve seen have given guidelines assignment to assignment, where some assignments require AI use, some ask students not to use it. We’ve seen policies that outline the specific ways students might use AI throughout the semester, and we’ve also seen policies that said you can’t use AI except in these very specific ways that I ask you to on this learning activity. So we’ve really seen a range there. And the rubric begins with that AI policy element and with the course objective. So one of the elements that we’re collecting as part of the deliverable with the learning activity is the syllabus with an AI policy and a learning objective.

Stephanie: And I think it’s important to emphasize as well that regardless of how faculty feel about AI, like whether they’re embracing it or they’re saying, “I really would prefer you not use AI in this course.” It’s really important for us to be transparent with our students about what the rules are. As Racheal said, our students are generally taking five different courses or more with five different faculty who have a whole bunch of different feelings about this. So some people might think I don’t want them to use AI in my course, so I’m just going to not put anything on my syllabus. It’s so important for our students that we are transparent, regardless of how we feel about it.

Racheal: Yes, and that was one of our aims with including that syllabus element. So the second rubric element focused on the learning activity itself. And again, that had the critical, active, and inclusive piece. I think we’ve done a good job talking about how we define critical as evaluative, and how we define inclusive as tool access and instructions. And I guess I can just briefly define active as students are using the tools themselves. So we’re not just asking you to demo AI in a lecture. We’re saying, “Get students in there evaluating outputs for that AI literacy piece.” And I do think it’s important to mention here that we had many conversations about students who want to opt out of AI tool use, students who might have environmental reasons for not wanting to use the tools or other ethical reasons, and we did talk about strategies for that, including alternatives that would allow students to maybe engage with an output that the instructor created from AI or alternative assignments that aren’t actually asking them to engage with AI, but might be asking them to evaluate AI in a broader conceptual way. So those alternatives did come up for us. And Stephanie, maybe you could talk about that last rubric piece, the assessment and feedback element.

Stephanie: Sure. So we thought that it was important for our faculty, as they are designing this assignment, to really think about how this assignment or learning activity would be assessed. How are they going to give feedback to their students as they experiment with these tools, as they evaluate these tools, and what does that assessment piece mean? So we have some participants who are just doing one assignment or one learning activity, so they have to just think about that one piece. But we’ve had several participants in this project who have become inspired by the one part and have decided to make lots of changes to their assignments or their learning activities, and then think about what assessment means for them and for their students. So as we talked about earlier, the feedback piece is very important, as our students are critically and actively engaging with these tools, because we have to guide them through what they are learning. If we are really focusing on AI literacy and helping our students understand or begin to understand how these tools might impact, not only the work they’re doing in the classroom, but their future jobs. Every career is going to look a little bit different. Some are really going to be embracing these tools and expecting our students to understand how to use them, where others perhaps not so much. An example, I teach creative writing courses. Right now. In those courses, I am not emphasizing AI use because, for many of my students, they’re looking to submit their work to different journals, and most creative journals at this time are not accepting AI-generated work. So it’s important to acknowledge that, and it’s also important to focus on why we’re going to continue to do things the way that we’ve done them a little bit for the past, right? But other courses, if I’m teaching English composition, and I’m teaching them different ways that they can outline or draft or brainstorm, how they can use AI to get feedback on their own work and their own writing. Those are important skills that will come in handy for them later on, as we talk about things like efficiency and making more polished drafts and getting feedback before you turn something in. Those skills will come in handy more so for those students than for some of the creative writers.

John: We have a student advisory board for our teaching center, and they met last week, and one of the things that came up was the topic of AI, and two concerns that students discussed pretty actively was that a lot of faculty have not made clear yet what their expectations are about whether AI use is allowed, when it is allowed, and so forth, and they noted that it was more rare than the norm for people to actually have made those policies. We’ve obviously been encouraging faculty to do that for a couple of years now, but it hasn’t made it out to all of our classes yet. But our institution will be requiring an AI policy statement in the syllabi beginning next fall. So this transparency issue and being clear about your expectations is really important. The other thing they were concerned about is being falsely accused of AI use, and this is something that is very concerning for students, and we have a lot of cases where some faculty are just completely ignoring AI, and others are assuming that AI is being used by all students all the time, and accusing students of using it without any real proof in many cases, and it’s a somewhat troubling environment.

Racheal: Yeah, I think that’s such a good point, John, about the range of approaches that students are taking to AI, as well as the different assumptions that faculty members are bringing. And I think that there’s sort of a spectrum of assumptions, where, on the one hand, you have the idea that AI should be completely left out of the classroom and any use of it is cheating. On the other end of the spectrum you have we should embrace AI and use it for everything in the classroom, and if we’re not teaching that, we’re being irresponsible. So we are seeing very polarized views on our campuses, and I think that a professional development opportunity like the one we’ve been running needs to respect and honor and speak to both of those positions, while also making the conversation a little bit more nuanced. And I think one of the ways that we’ve done that is to show that bringing AI into the classroom actually addresses the problem of students using it for cheating and plagiarism, because students are: A) aware that the faculty member knows about and is actively engaged with those tools, so they might be less likely to just copy and paste, which is the use that most people do regard as cheating or plagiarism. And in addition, it not only shows that faculty members are engaged with and knowledgeable about these tools, but in my experience, students are really hungry for guidance from faculty on how to engage with them in an ethical and informed way. So we’re helping them build those AI literacy skills by confronting and talking about these tools in our classes. And to me, that might lead to them using the tools more in specific ways that we’re guiding them to, but it can also lead to them using them less in situations where we want to protect those learning objectives. Like Stephanie, I teach in the writing classroom, and I have been devoting this semester to engaging with and thinking about AI, but that has meant we have plenty of writing and activities where I’m asking them not to use it, and then we have activities where I’m asking them to use it in specific, guided, critical ways. And so I think that that more nuanced approach than we need to totally keep it out or we need to totally embrace it, that’s the area that a lot of our faculty are working in, and I think it serves our students really well.

John: And Stephanie and I have also, in a series of workshops here, encouraged faculty to co-develop their AI policy statements with students, so that students are involved in that conversation, and if they help develop the guidelines for the class, they’re much more likely to abide by them and to buy into them.

Stephanie: To piggyback off of that as well, in our cohort, especially, I mentioned earlier that we had a range of experience levels with AI tools. And what’s been really interesting is that for participants who are trying these tools for the first time, they’re having some important realizations about what these tools are or are not capable of, and I think that’s really important. If we are teaching and we’re saying, here is my AI policy, and here’s why, if we are familiar with what the AI tools can do, I personally feel that our students are going to be more receptive to that. If we are making assumptions about what the AI tools can do, or how well they can complete a task, but we don’t really know, then how are we going to recognize an AI’s work when we come across it? So for example, this is a dated example, but I think it works still really well, in a writing classroom, for a little while after ChatGPT came out, the solution to avoiding AI-generated work was to ask students to write reflectively, because they’ll be writing from their own personal experience, and an AI tool can’t replicate that. And I remember leading a workshop, and I showed an example of a reflective essay that was generated by AI, and this was like two years ago. All I had to do was prompt it a little bit. I asked it in a revision of the reflection to include a sad story about how the tool had a childhood dog that they really loved, and that relationship with their dog is the reason that they wanted to pursue veterinary studies. And it generated this beautiful reflective essay that you would have never known from anything else. As I continued to prompt it, I asked it to include volunteer activity, and it made up a name of an animal hospital… at the time that didn’t exist, but now it would, because AI tools have gotten so much better. So it’s just really interesting as we think of what the limitations are, and how there are not as many limitations in so many different fields. That is, of course, not the case for all fields, but the tools continue to evolve so quickly. So I think it’s important for us to recognize what those limitations and capabilities are, and then if we know, I feel that our students are more likely to trust our judgment, and then believe us when we say, “Yes, perhaps you could use AI for this, but let’s not because I want you to develop this skill that will help you as you continue taking more classes here, or as you graduate and start looking for a job.”

Rebecca: We’ve talked a bit throughout the conversation about how faculty have engaged with the program over the course of the year so far, in creating assignments and in the discussion boards, et cetera. Is there any additional things that you want to share about how faculty have responded to participating in this program.

Racheal: I think that some of the feedback we’ve received is that it’s been really nice to have institutional support to help faculty do work that they felt the need to do in their classes. Faculty want to respond to AI’s emergence, and oftentimes we know faculty are overworked. There’s so much to do, and so being able to get that institutional recognition through a stipend to say “this is important, and we’re offering support for developing these activities.” We’ve heard faculty report that they’re happy that the opportunity is available to do things that they’ve already wanted to be doing, but here they can see the institution supporting that.

Stephanie: I agree, and it’s also been very helpful as we have these conversations with our participants to think about effective practices on the whole with AI. So for example, there has been conversation everywhere about using AI tools to grade student work and to assess student work. So we’ve had opportunities to have those sorts of conversations about why, perhaps, it’s not in our best interest as teachers to use AI to give feedback to student writing, for example. And it’s been nice to hear what other people are doing, like Racheal said, with that support aspect, but also the conversations allow us to sort of come across those topics that might just be neglected otherwise.

Racheal: And I’ll just jump in, Stephanie, because your comments about using AI to assess and grade has also been an important part of our conversations at Oneonta. And again, we’re seeing really polarized views, where some people are saying, “I would never do that.” Some people are saying, “I’m already doing that in these specific ways.” And we’ve talked there, for example, about the Student AI Bill of Rights, which circulates online. And one of the elements of that AI bill of rights for students is that students should have the right to know when faculty are using AI for feedback or other forms of engagement, and so I agree that this has been a really great place to have those conversations which might be taking place informally or in departments, but in this interdisciplinary setting, people are able to talk about those issues and share their views.

John: So we always end by asking, and this is something particularly appropriate with AI, what’s next?

Racheal: As we’re wrapping up this project, we are looking to move the learning activities that our faculty will be submitting to Brightspace into an open access repository that my colleague Ed Beck here at SUNY Oneonta is helping to develop, not only for our grant, but for another IITG-funded project out of Albany that is generating some K-12 resources. So we are creating that repository space via SUNY Create and after we collect our faculty learning activities on Brightspace, we’ll be guiding them to move revised versions of those activities into the repository. So we also have our presentation at CIT, which is the Conference on Instructional Technology that SUNY convenes every year across the system, we will be presenting at CIT on this project, and by that time, we will have more information on the website and how to access it, so that faculty, not only across SUNY, but across the internet, will be able to view the learning activities that we’ve been talking about today.

John: And we should mention that SUNY Create is basically an instance of a system-wide license for Reclaim Hosting’s domain of your own.

Racheal: And after CIT, we’re hoping to extend this work, maybe in new ways. We’re thinking about ways to bring campuses together for communities of practice. And one thing that’s been really important to me about this project has been the value of working with colleagues in educational development, whether we’re talking about faculty or staff at all of our six campuses, all of whom have brought different skills, knowledge, expertise, passion to this project. We’ve had leadership team members who work in the social sciences and have brought that qualitative research and assessment knowledge to the project. We have created pre- and post-assessment surveys that are helping us collect data on the success of the project, and we couldn’t have done that without Deepa Deshpande, who’s at SUNY Alfred. We also have leadership team members who are bringing expertise in the classroom, that includes Stephanie, John, and Laura Pierie, who is with us from Morrisville, and having that faculty insight from a range of disciplines has really grounded the project in the needs of our participants. We’ve also had Dana Salkowski and David Wolf join us from community colleges, and having their input as directors and leaders in teaching and learning has been really crucial to helping us think about how our project could serve faculty at all of our different campuses that we’ve been working with. So I think that it’s been a really amazing group effort, and I’m so grateful for the leadership work of that entire team. I think together, we’ve been able to really support faculty in some of this work, and I’m excited to think about the collaborations that we might be able to pursue going into next year.

Rebecca: Well, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been a great conversation, and it’s a great project to share with others that they might want to implement something similar on their campuses.

John: Thank you. It’s been great working with both of you and I’m looking forward to future collaborations.

Stephanie: It’s been wonderful chatting with you all.

Racheal: Thank you for having us, and it’s been wonderful talking with you today.

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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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396. Title II

Posted in access, accessibility, accommodation, disability, edtech, educational technology, equity, higher education, inclusion, instructional communication, online learning
June 4, 2025

While the Americans with Disabilities Act has long required digital content to be accessible, specific technical requirements were recently defined in updates to Title II of the ADA. In this episode, Mark Greenfield joins us to discuss the new regulations and what that means for public colleges and universities as the April 2026 deadline approaches.

Mark retired as the University at Buffalo’s Web Accessibility Officer after 35 years of service at the institution. He continues to consult on digital accessibility and serves as a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (or ACM) U.S. Technology Committee, which educates and informs Congress, the Administration and courts about digital technology developments and how they may impact public policy in the US.

Transcript

John: While the Americans with Disabilities Act has long required digital content to be accessible, specific technical requirements were recently defined in updates to Title II of the ADA. In this episode, we discuss the new regulations and what that means for public colleges and universities as the April 2026 deadline approaches.

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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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Rebecca: Our guest today is Mark Greenfield. Mark retired as the University at Buffalo’s Web Accessibility Officer after 35 years of service at the institution. He continues to consult on digital accessibility and serves as a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (or ACM) U.S. Technology Committee, which educates and informs Congress, the Administration and courts about digital technology developments and how they may impact public policy in the US. Welcome, Mark.

Mark: Thanks for having me.

John: Thank you for joining us. Today’s teas are:… Mark, are you drinking any tea?

Mark: I am drinking tea. It is a Blackberry sage.

Rebecca: That sounds nice. I have just some decaffeinated breakfast tea, thanks to John making me some hot water. [LAUGHTER]

John: I have a peppermint, spearmint, and tarragon tea today. I’ve already had a lot of caffeine today.

Rebecca: So Mark, we’ve invited you here today to discuss new regulations in the U.S. related to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and digital accessibility. In order to ground our conversation today, though, can you share a definition of digital accessibility?

Mark: Sure. So when we’re talking about digital accessibility, the goal is to make sure that everything we’re doing online works for people with disabilities. And it’s interesting, as I kind of explain, over the last few years, what I do for a living, how many people don’t know that that’s a thing, when, in fact, not only is it a thing, it’s a very important thing. And I like to also use the words digital accessibility rather than web accessibility, for a couple of reasons. One is that with web accessibility, you’re talking about a very specific technology where, with how technology has changed over the years, it really is much more than just websites. The other reason I like to use the word digital rather than web is that it lets people know that this just isn’t the purview of web developers. It actually impacts anybody who’s creating content online. So when I have a lot of conversations with faculty, if I talk about web accessibility, they’re assuming this is IT, and IT compliant, without realizing the impact that a faculty member has when it comes to making sure that their materials are accessible.

John: You mentioned that digital accessibility requires that the needs of people with disabilities be met, but are those the only people that benefit from digital accessibility?

Mark: So there is a lot of myths around how many people are impacted when it comes to digital accessibility. Most people, in their mind, automatically default to somebody who is blind or somebody who is deaf, when in fact, there’s a number of different indices on how many people have a disability. The number I use is 20%; about 20% of the population has a disability that impacts their ability to use technology. And when you’re thinking about the different kinds of disabilities, it’s visual disabilities, people who are both blind and have low vision and are colorblind. I think the number is 8% of the male population is color blind, so if you’re using color to provide information and using red and green as your color combination, somebody’s not going to be able to differentiate that. Then beyond visual disabilities, you have auditory disabilities, people who are deaf or hard of hearing, motor disability, somebody who can’t use a keyboard or can’t use a mouse, and also cognitive disabilities. And this is something I think is important for educators when you think about dyslexia and other types of learning disabilities, this falls into the realm of digital accessibility. But the other thing to remember is that, even though we’re talking specifically about people with disabilities, almost everything you do related to digital accessibility, improves the user experience for everyone. What can be frustrating for the general population can be a barrier for somebody with a disability. I’ve always been a huge advocate of user-centered design usability, and there’s a direct correlation to accessibility with that. And my message to web developers always has been, when you’re addressing accessibility issues, you are improving the overall experience for everyone.

Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit as we’re kind of framing this idea of digital accessibility, what some of the specific skills are related to digital accessibility, especially for content creators?

Mark: Sure. So there are a lot of things that make a website or a document accessible. Some of it does get complicated, but much of it is very simple to do, and something that I think everybody should just build into their workflow, whether you’re creating a web page or creating a document. So some of those include: color contrast, so the difference between the color of the text and the color of the background, there are specific contrast ratios you should be thinking about, but understanding to make that contrast workable for people who have low vision, and think about using your cell phone out in the sun. That would help in that situation as well. Related to colors, making sure that you don’t use color to convey information. I see a lot of schedules where an available time slot is green and an unavailable time slot is red, red/green is the most common color blind combination. So if somebody can’t see that difference because you’re relying solely on color to reflect that information. So another thing that everybody should think about is what I call semantic markup. And what semantics mean is that you’re describing the function of the information rather than what it looks like. So think about a heading. What you don’t want to do, whether you’re in Microsoft Word or using Google Docs or making a web page, is take your heading, make it a larger font and bold it, because that’s just addressing what it looks like, but not what the function of that content actually is. So when it comes to headings, when it comes to lists, when it comes to links, those are all things that can be marked up in a way that assistive technology understands what that is and will work properly with that. Again, very easy to do. Another thing is with images, making sure that you have provided alternate text, which allows a screen reader or other assistive device to be able to know the content of what’s in that image. Again, very easy to do. Another thing related to that is with videos, making sure that they’re captioned. Again, the tools are such now that you can do captioning much quicker than you could even five years ago. So really, no reason not to caption all your videos. And one of the things when I talk with faculty about captioning is that this really can be part of Universal Design for Learning. When I was working at the University of Buffalo, we had a large international student population, and they benefited from having captions on the videos, because they could understand the content much better. Making sure that when you are using a form, whether it’s a PDF form or whether it’s a web-based form, that you have labels for the input, again, important for assistive technology to understand how that form is working. I also want to make sure that when it comes to web pages, that your content will work with just a keyboard, not relying on the mouse. This is a skill that I recommend everybody learn. It takes about five minutes to learn how to navigate a web page using just the keyboard. Push your mouse to the side, and there are just a handful of keys you need to learn to be able to navigate a web page. This is very important for two reasons. One is most automated testing tools cannot determine whether the keyboard is working correctly or not. The second is that when it does not work correctly, that can be a complete barrier for somebody with a disability. One of the examples I use is that there was some administrative software at the University of Buffalo that we used, once you were into the software, it was fairly accessible, the problem was to log into it with your name and password, required the use of a mouse. So anybody who needed to use a mouse, it was a complete barrier; that tool was unusable. So really a good skill for everybody to learn.

Rebecca: You used assistive technology a lot in your last description, can you just describe what that is for folks that might not be familiar?

Mark: Sure, so assistive technology is developed specifically for people with disabilities. The most common assistive technology are screen readers, and there’s a variety of screen readers. Many of them are free. In fact, I recommend that people use free screen readers. On the Windows side. NVDA is a free screen reader, which is really powerful; on the Macintosh side, VoiceOver is included on both the iPhone and on a Mac, so again, very easy to learn how to use those. Those work for people who are blind. And one of the things about screen readers is that there are people who use those who can see but have other disabilities. So it’s not just somebody who has a visual disability. Another type of assistive technology is known as a mouth stick. So this is somebody who does not have use of their hands, but can still use a keyboard by just putting the stick in their mouth and then pressing on the keys instead of using their hands to do that. More sophisticated assistive technology is something like a Braille keyboard. So there are keyboards that allow you to type and get feedback using just Braille. So pretty advanced technology. And one of the things we’re starting to see is, I’m wearing AirPods right now, and those AirPods can be used as a hearing device as assistive listening, and that’s one of the things I’m happy to see is that a lot of mainstream devices now can be used as assistive technology.

John: The history of legislation related to disabilities is fairly recent, beginning with the Americans with Disability Act (or the ADA) that was enacted in 1990. At the international level. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006. In it is the explicit claim that accessibility is a human right. The first version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines was released in 1999 with a 2.0 version adopted by the International Standards Organization in 2012. More recently, laws have been updated throughout the world to more explicitly address issues of digital accessibility. As one example, can you talk about the recent updates to Title II of the ADA in the US?

Mark: Sure, so Title II of the American with Disabilities Act had rules established last April, and this was, in my opinion, a really important event in the history of how the web and disability come together. The important thing to remember about the American with Disabilities Act is that is a civil rights law. So that should be the message. This is about human rights and about civil rights. As you mentioned, the ADA was adopted in 1990, which predates the web. So the web went public in 1993. I was fortunate enough that I was there like a week after that it went public, and guessed that the web might be a thing. I taught myself how to program and away I went. But it’s always been case law, rather than regulations from the government about what does disability actually mean. And it was a long process. The real start to the current regulations was in 2010. That rule making was then dropped in 2016, picked back up and finally adopted last year. So this has been a long time coming, and one of the things to remember about the ADA Title II is that now we have a specific technical standard that we can reference. And for the ADA Title II, it is WCAG, which is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1, level AA, and we can talk more about what all that means if we want to talk more about what all that means. But anyways, this was the first time that there was a specific technical standard that people could reference. There was an interesting case with Domino’s Pizza. This was like four or five years ago. Domino’s was sued because somebody who was blind could not order a pizza online, so they took Domino’s to court, and one of Domino’s defenses was, “Tell me what it means to be accessible, and I’ll make it accessible. There’s no standard. How do I know if I’m making it accessible or not?” For me, that was an interesting argument. However, eventually that case did go to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court chose not to hear it, so Domino’s didn’t win on that argument, but it raised a really legitimate point: that having a technical standard would be so helpful, and this is why the ADA Title II regulations are so important. A couple other things about the ADA Title II regulations. This is specifically for state and local government. That is what Title II is. And all public colleges and universities fall under Title II. Private colleges, however, are not part of Title II, and some people who work at private colleges may think, “I’m off the hook. I don’t need to do this,” when, in fact, that is not the case at all. For anything outside of state and local government, it’s business as usual. That means that you still absolutely can be sued in court, if you have accessibility issues, but they’re not going to use the WCAG standard necessarily as the measuring stick. It’s going to be up to the court to decide what are we going to use as a measuring stick. In fact, there was just a case in Louisiana in February where the state of Louisiana said we don’t have to do this until next April. And the courts are saying, “Oh, yes, you do. This is still in effect, even though the deadline for Title II isn’t until next year.”

Rebecca: So, Mark, you’re talking a little bit about the laws in the U.S., but this isn’t just a U.S.-specific thing. Can you talk a little bit about what’s been happening globally, in a general sense?

Mark: Yes. So, globally, there has been a tremendous increase in legislation specific to Web and Digital Accessibility. In the European Union, they’re actually a little bit ahead of the United States, because their accessibility laws deadline is this June, and pretty similar in terms of what the expectations are technically, but they’re again a year ahead of where the United States is. Ontario, same thing. Ontario has had a pretty strong accessibility law in place for quite a while. So, in many ways, the US is catching up to this. One of the things that is nice about the WCAG standards is that they are internationally recognized. So almost every law that you see specifically references the WCAG standard, which I think makes it much easier for consistency, to understand what is expected when it comes to web and digital accessibility.

John: How do the changes in Title II impact our educational system, specifically higher ed, in terms of its effect on institutions, students, and faculty and staff?

Mark: So, Title II regulations are actually a major change with the way that colleges and universities need to think about Web and Digital Accessibility. And that major change is that the ADA Title II regulations move to a model of full accessibility, rather than accommodations. For anybody who is familiar with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, that is an accommodation model. If someone has a disability, it is very specific to their situation. This person is blind, is trying to access this information, and we’re going to create an accommodation that will help that specific person. The expectation with Title II is that everything is fully accessible from the get go. So this, for institutions is a major change philosophically in terms of how you need to think about meeting your accessibility goals… huge, huge change. For faculty and staff at a university, I think the Title II regulations bring the importance of this to the forefront. I am a longtime advocate for accessibility beyond legal requirements. In fact, I would do everything that I normally do when it comes to creating a website if there was no law, because it just is best practice and usability and all of those kinds of things. But with law, that gets people’s attention, and I think with the Title II regulations, this is getting people’s attention because you are breaking federal law if you are not making your sites accessible if you’re a public university. So I think that changes things for faculty and staff, where there’s a level of seriousness now and a level of training that’s needed that perhaps wasn’t there before. When it comes to students, I think this is an opportunity for students to learn about accessibility and why that matters. One of the questions I get is that, technically, students posting information onto a class website or a class activity within their learning management system, that needs to be accessible. And a lot of administrators, faculty and staff, are kind of pushing back against that, saying, “How are we going to make that happen?” Well, the answer is, you train students how to do it. It’s not that hard to do the basics. Every student I’ve ever talked to has been fascinated by the fact that you can make things accessible for people with disabilities. There’s a level of empathy there that perhaps isn’t there with people in my generation. So I think this is a great opportunity to train students on what accessibility means and give them the basic tools to make their content accessible.

Rebecca: I’ve heard some conversations with decision makers across higher ed about whether or not these regulations will be enforced because of current executive orders related to DEI, the dismantling of the Department of Education and the reduction of the federal workforce. What is your sense of the stability of the law and the momentum of the work on digital accessibility in higher education?

Mark: So that is a great question, and my answer may change an hour from now [LAUGHTER] than what it is right now. That’s fair. [LAUGHTER] It is very, very fluid. That being sai, one thing about the Title II regulations is that the current administration cannot legally just throw those out. They were established in April of 2024. I believe it’s 180 days have to go by, and then it’s kind of written in stone at that point. So the current administration can’t say, “Never mind. We’re going to just ignore these.” That’s legally not what they can do. Now, whether they do that anyways, we’ll see what happens. So that’s one thing to think about. The second thing to think about is that much of what happens in the courts around accessibility are private lawsuits. That has nothing to do with the Department of Justice and how they prioritize Title II. Anybody can bring a lawsuit against you at any time, and now you’re in the court system, and it has nothing to do with the administrative branch of the government, so you are always exposed to a lawsuit, and that’s where most of this activity happens. The other thing to keep in mind is that most states also have laws around accessibility. For those who are in New York state, there are pretty strong laws around web and digital accessibility. So even at the federal level, you may not think you need to worry about this, but at the state level, you absolutely do. As far as the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, I’m actually pretty good friends with a lot of people who currently and formerly work there, unfortunately. What has happened with the OCR is that the central team still exists, and again, I’m saying this in April of 2025, but that team still exists, but it’s been drastically cut in size. And the big question is, how quickly can they respond to complaints? Because they have like 10,000 complaints on the docket, not just for accessibility issues, but beyond accessibility issues. So how quickly can they respond to those, that’s open to anybody, who knows what’s going to happen with that. So I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think it would be misinformed to think that you don’t have to worry about this, however, because, who knows? The bottom line is that, as I mentioned before, we should be doing accessibility work, regardless of the law, there is tremendous value there. So one of the things I do as a consultant is when I come on campus and I meet with senior leadership, is I talk to them about how important is web and digital accessibility to everything that happens on your campus. It used to be that we would talk a lot about mission and vision statements, which always included the words diversity and inclusion, which web accessibility fits right in with that. That’s a piece that I’m concerned about right now, is whether we can connect accessibility to DEI initiatives. One of the interesting things for me when I was at the University at Buffalo, as the Web Accessibility Officer, I reported to the Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and that was something I told the administration I wanted to do, because it sends a much different message about why we’re doing this when it’s part of diversity, equity, inclusion, rather than being part of the IT office, where now it’s an IT compliance issue. Now would I take that same strategy right now? Probably not, because of some of the challenges around DEI. I am hoping that people push back on this a little bit, because the ADA is federal law. So to me, there’s a complete disconnect between what’s happening around DEI nationally and what the law actually is. Now, how courts interpret that, how the current administration interprets that, is anybody’s guess. I understand why some people are gun shy about talking about DEI and then adding A into that as well, but I think that there are federal laws around this, and I think there is solid ground for continuing to do this work. So who knows what’s going to happen again? It’s a very fluid situation. It’s an unfortunate situation, because last year, after waiting for 15 years, we finally got these Title II regulations, and now a lot of that work is being questioned about how this is going to move forward.

Rebecca: I think, as you mentioned before, about the global context, too, that underscores the idea that it doesn’t really matter what the current political climate is, that globally, there’s an initiative in this direction, and we’re likely to continue seeing it. We’re gonna get behind if we’re not doing it here.

Mark: Absolutely.

John: Now, when faculty and staff and others creating digital content are creating new material, if you start from the ground up and are not retrofitting accessibility onto older work. It’s pretty easy to create accessible content, but there are areas, though, in some disciplines, where it’s a little bit more challenging for faculty. That includes areas where there’s discipline-specific notation, such as chemistry, math, or music, or limitations to machine-generated captions for content that is sung or in multiple languages or spoken by non-native speakers. How should institutions handle content with these more complex challenges?

Mark: This is a very, very important topic. I recently read a statistic that people with disabilities constitute 10% of our national workforce, but only 2% of STEM professionals. So that disconnect tells me that this is really an area that we need to think more about and to address. And as you mentioned, basic accessibility is relatively simple to implement, but there are places where accessibility can be a challenge, whether you’re talking about chemistry notations and math formulas and those kinds of things. What I recommend that campuses do is that they really work hard to create awareness among those faculty members in those disciplines to understand what some of these additional challenges are, and then providing the support and resources to help them meet those challenges. The good news is that these challenges are not new. So there are a variety of tools that are being created to help with math formulas and scientific notation and others. So I think it’s really important that the faculty understand, 1. we’re going to have to take that extra step, and 2. that a campus provides those resources. And related to that, I think it’s important that at least one person on a campus really is paying attention to these additional types of tools. And they’re improving every year, and I think it’s important to stay up with how those improvements are happening, and have somebody play point on campus so they can connect the dots with the vendors who provide these tools and the faculty members who need them. There’s also a lot of good information out there on how to make, for example, STEM materials, accessible. So if you Google that, a lot of places will come up. I have done some work with the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials, the AEM, and they have a lot of great resources. They’re very much involved with Universal Design for Learning… bring the accessibility component into that. So that is a place where you can get a lot of great resources about how to make these more challenging educational materials accessible.

Rebecca: One of the other areas that I know often raise challenges for faculty, but other folks in higher ed, are third party content like learning materials, content platforms and services, PDFs of articles with complex charts and graphs are often a concern. What role does higher ed institutions need to play in moving the accessibility needle in these other spaces, with these third party vendors.

Mark: Third party vendors and procurement is the most challenging aspect when it comes to your digital accessibility program. The phrase that the Office of Civil Rights always uses is we’re going to look at your program, services, and activities. When you think about a campus’s program services and activities, they are almost always happening on third-party products, whether it’s your learning management system, whether it’s your student information system, your alumni system, on and on that list goes. But the reality is that it’s third-party products where the rubber hits the road. So this is really, really important. One of the challenges with the ADA Title II rules is that they don’t apply to vendors. Those are private companies. They don’t need to legally make their products accessible. So what does higher ed need to do to kind of help fix this situation? One is to recognize the buying power, the collective buying power of 4500 colleges and universities across the country, and start to put the appropriate level of pressure onto the vendors. As I say that, the approach I try to take with vendors is rather than it being adversarial, let’s think about this as a win-win opportunity. I happen to know the heads of accessibility at many of the major educational technology companies, and they want us to complain, because in these big organizations, it’s up to the product manager to determine how accessible a given product is, not up to the Accessibility Officer for that company. So we need to put pressure on vendors, and I think there is opportunity for us to do that collectively, rather than individually. This is something I have been talking about with a number of people nationally, about how do we become more efficient in terms of how we approach vendors? And two things to think about: one is testing can be challenging to determine whether a vendor’s product is actually accessible or not. So rather than 4500 colleges doing their own testing, is there a way to combine that and just kind of share best practices, share results? Good idea in principle, but in practice, many times lawyers get involved with this and they’re concerned about legal risk if I, as Mark Greenfield, representing the University of Buffalo, say product X is not accessible, the people at product X don’t agree with that, so we’re going to take you to court and question that. So unfortunately, the lawyers have been involved with that, but there are ways around that, which we continue to work on. And then the second thing, again, is the collective buying power. I have been pleasantly surprised over the last couple of years about how serious publishers and the major educational technology vendors are taking accessibility. They are making progress with being honest and objective about what the shortcomings are, and putting resources to address those shortcomings. So I think it is really important that we continue to do that kind of work. One of the things I was disappointed with with the new ADA regulations is that they only applied to Title II, which is state and local government. I wish they would have also addressed Title III, which is the private entities, the vendors would fall under Title III. For a whole bunch of reasons, it would have been nice for them to address both of those at the same time, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. So I think we really need to be an advocate about why this matters, and kind of use our collective buying power to encourage vendors to push them kind of in the right direction.

John: The focus on improving the accessibility work on many campuses have focused on faculty and staff but had not addressed students in most campuses, probably. What role do our institutions need to play in moving the accessibility needle in these other spaces for classwork from students or from student clubs and organizations, for example?

Mark: I would love to see college campuses be much more proactive when it comes to training students about the importance of accessibility, why it matters, and just very quick and easy things that anybody can do to make their content more accessible. I remember 20 years ago, I taught a general education course at the University of Buffalo, it was called UB 101, where we basically gave them the components: this is how you kind of survive in college in your first year, and what all the various offices do, and some other advice and guidance. I would love to see any campus that has a course like that, you know what? Spend the day, spend an hour talking about accessibility, what that is and why it matters, and show them the basics on how to do it. Again, my experience has been students are very happy to take those steps to make something accessible, and I think they would just eat that right up. And I think it’s a good service. I am a little disappointed that here we are in 2025, 30 years after the web was invented, and 35 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, and yet we have made little progress when it comes to the accessibility of higher education websites and documents, and that’s very frustrating to me. I think one of the ways to start to improve this is let’s start to work with students and have them understand, and not just computer science students. There is a group called Teach Access, which is working with computer science faculty to make sure they’re incorporating accessibility in their teaching. But I think it needs to go much farther than just Teach Access and computer science majors to everyone on campus. And again, this is not that hard to do. A real quick story for you. One of the favorite projects I have worked on in my entire career was working with a group of third graders to make a blind athlete’s website accessible. It was a fascinating project. The athlete’s name was Rachael Scdoris. She runs in the Iditarod, and she was legally blind. Through the ADA, she actually sued the Iditarod to have a spotter 1000 feet in front of her, so she had some sense of where she was going in the middle of Alaska. She won that lawsuit. When my daughter was in second grade, as a class project, they followed the Iditarod, and my daughter chose Rachael Scdoris to follow. She was young and blonde, and my daughter identified with her, so when I found out she was blind, I went to her website and found out that it was completely inaccessible. So I didn’t contact Racha el directly. I contacted her agent and told him, you know, this probably isn’t the best look, because Rachael is actually pretty vocal about accessibility and disability. And at first I said, “You know what? Maybe I’ll fix this for you.” But then I had a better idea, let’s train my daughter and some of her classmates how to do this. So I took a group of third graders, taught them how to code websites, this is back in 2006, 2007 and they recreated Rachael’s website and it was perfectly accessible, including captioning the videos that were on her website. So when people tell me that this is too hard, I tell them, “No, it’s not. I had a whole group of third graders who could do it.” The bigger lesson from that was when I asked the third graders, “Why does this matter?” It was all about empathy. “Of course, we’re going to do this to help as many people as we can.” So instilling that mindset in the students, I think, would be a big step forward to help us address why we are still kind of challenged by making everything accessible.

Rebecca: I mean, we are institutions of learning.

Mark: Exactly.

Rebecca: We’re well positioned to educate an entire generation on how to do this work.

Mark: And when you think about how important the web and digital is now compared to a generation ago, I think COVID actually brought this to the forefront when we moved everything online. Now, all of a sudden, everybody’s really paying attention to what happens online and accessibility as well. But as you think about the program services and activities, more and more of those are moving online all the time. So it makes the importance of Web and Digital Accessibility all the greater. And there is an opportunity to train the next generation to really just be aware of and understand what this is all about.

Rebecca: It’s really easy for folks to get hung up on the legal obligations, especially as we’ve kind of framed the conversation around Title II. But can you talk a little bit more about the value of digital accessibility and why we should be doing it anyways?

Mark: So again, one of the misconceptions is that it’s a small part of the population that has a disability, when, in fact, it’s 20% of the population, and that is just people with permanent disabilities. We’re not talking about somebody with a temporary disability. So for example, if you broke your arm and couldn’t use a mouse anymore, or a situational disability, whether you’re in a library watching a video where you can’t have the sound up, or those kinds of things. So there’s a lot of value, just in terms of the percentage of people, but beyond that, one of my goals is to get people to think about accessibility, not as a cost center, but as a strategic investment. Forrester Research a few years ago, did a study on the ROI, the return on investment, of both usability and accessibility together. So this was not just about accessibility, but usability and accessibility are definitely joined at the hip, and really you can think about those very similarly, but the ROI they found was 100 to one. For every dollar invested in usability and accessibility returned $100 of value. So think about it that way, the value beyond. Again, I was talking before about students who maybe English is their second language, and the value of having captions on a video. So there’s just a lot of opportunity there. And the thing is that it’s really not hard to do the basics of accessibility, and if you start with that mindset, it is relatively easy to do. Another message for my web development friends is don’t try to make everything as fancy as possible. Simpler is better. So, as an example, without getting too technical here, there are a variety of ways that you can add alternative text to an image. The simplest way and the best way is to use the alt text within the image tag within HTML, instead of trying to get fancy with ARIA and other fancy programming, which you can kind of accomplish the same thing, but you’re much better off keeping it simpler, because, even as we speak in 2025, the way that web browsers, assistive technology, and the operating system all interact varies tremendously, and ARIA doesn’t always work. So you can get a combination of things where it’s not working on NVDA, where it does work in voiceover because you’re using ARIA. So again, a message I have to developers is, try to keep things as simple as possible. This is a usability thing as well. There’s not a day that goes by that my wife doesn’t hear me say, “What’s wrong? This website’s awful because of usability issues,” and that’s, quite frankly, still the case with higher education. Part of my consulting business is doing audits, not just accessibility audits, but doing just general accessibility and usability audits. And I have yet to find a college or university where I can’t write a 20-page report about the usability issues that a site has, and a lot of that has to do with people just trying to be too complicated.

John: We always end with the question: “What’s next?”

Mark: Fascinating question when it comes to technology, and technology changes so fast. So I’m going to tell this story. Again, I’ve been doing IT work for 45 years. Gordon Moore was the CEO of Intel and Moore’s law is that computing technology doubles every 18 months. He said that back in the early 1960s, we’re here in 2025 that is still the case. The challenge is that it’s difficult for us as humans to get our arms around exponential change. I like to share the story of the inventor of the game of chess. So an inventor comes up with this new game called chess. He takes it to the Emperor, shares this game with the Emperor. Emperor loves the game. The inventor says, “Here’s what I want for a reward on the first square of the chess board, I want one grain of rice, on the second I want two grains of rice, on the third square I want four grains of rice, eight grains, 16, exponentially. We’re going to grow that until we’ve done all 64 squares of the chess board. I ask people, “How big of a pile of rice do you have after you’ve filled all 64 squares?” People are amazed that that pile of rice is bigger than Mount Everest. When I started working at the University of Buffalo, 1987, we wanted to buy a Cray II supercomputer, biggest, baddest computer on the planet. Cost, I believe, $17 million in 1987 dollars. We even, as a research university, couldn’t afford it, so we rented time at Calspan down the street at $10,000 an hour. Anybody who has a second generation Apple iPhone or newer has more computing horsepower in their hand than a Cray II supercomputer. That’s what exponential change is. So in your mind, you’re saying, “That’s great. Over the last 30 years or 40 years, we’ve made that much progress. In another 40 years, we’re going to also make that much progress.” That is not exponential thinking. In the next three or four years, we’re going to make that much progress again. So to loop this back to kind of where technology is going and where accessibility is going and what’s next, one of the things I’m paying attention to is voice technology. I gave a talk at an international voice conference a few years ago and talked about how voice could improve accessibility, and it’s really interesting about what the application of voice technology can do, because it can free us from the interface of having to use a computer and a mouse, where now you don’t have to worry about a lot of the disabilities that come into play right now. So the future is multimodal, multi-surface interfaces, which can take into every combination of things and really address accessibility. I was very encouraged that at this voice conference, people are taking accessibility very seriously and trying to build some tools into the voice interface. Related to that is artificial intelligence, and many people are predicting that ultimately the user interface for AI is going to be voice. Now I go back to watching a Space Odyssey and thinking about HAL, and that interface with HAL was a voice interface, so I can see a lot of that coming, and there is real opportunity to address accessibility issues with that. We need to take caution in terms of how quickly we use AI to improve accessibility. One of the big controversies in the accessibility world now is the use of accessibility overlays, which are products and tools where they tell you a single line of code can be installed on your website and immediately address all of your accessibility issues. In the last couple of years, they’ve been talking about AI as the driver of that, the reality is they don’t work. And I am very disappointed in most of the overlay companies who are, quite frankly, telling lies about what these products can do. And for anybody who’s thinking about using an overlay, or currently using an overlay, know that that that can get you sued. There are actually a number of court cases right now specifically addressing the use of overlays on websites, so be very cautious about that. Also, a lot of talk now about how artificial intelligence can be used to remediate documents and remediate websites. I think there is a lot of opportunity there, but it is too early to have that working the way it should be working. For example, in Microsoft Word right now, AI will generate alternative text for you. My experience has been that’s good, maybe one out of 10 times. So you really need to pay attention to that. There’s an old quote. It’s known as Amara’s law, and it says we tend to overestimate the effect of technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. And I think that is the case with AI, where everybody’s kind of running out to say AI is going to fix everything today. Not the case. But I am very encouraged down the road about what AI can do. And let me just kind of close this with, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a book in this talk. I have a tendency to mention lots of books, and a book I would recommend everybody learns is called Haben: the Deaf Blind Woman who Conquered Harvard Law. It’s written by a woman by the name of Haben Girma. I’ve actually interacted with her a few times online. She is just awesome and such a passionate advocate for people with disabilities. People are amazed that she could graduate from Harvard Law School being deaf blind, but she did, and she is a huge advocate for that. If you get the opportunity to hear her speak, she always is talking about how there is an opportunity for innovation when it comes and she’s encouraging all of the technology people to really think about innovation and how we can use technology to improve people’s lives. And that certainly is something I hope we see again, even as educational institutions going forward, how can we provide that platform for this innovation?

Rebecca: Yeah, that’s a great book. Thanks for recommending it. Thanks so much for joining us today. It was great to talk about accessibility, a topic I never get sick of talking about.

Mark: Thanks for having me.

John: And it’s a topic that all institutions need to be addressing to a much greater extent as we approach that deadline. So thank you again.

Mark: 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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395. UDL 3.0

Posted in accessibility, classroom community, design thinking, engagement, equity, evidence-based practices, higher education, inclusion, learning, pedagogy, teaching, universal design
May 28, 2025

The Universal Design for Learning (or UDL) framework is based on research on how students learn. In this episode, Tom Tobin, Lillian Nave, and Jennifer Pusateri join us to discuss the most recent evolution of the UDL guidelines.

Tom is a founding member of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of the forthcoming book, UDL at Scale: Adopting Universal Design for Learning across Higher Education, as well as Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education and several other works related to teaching and learning. Lillian is the Faculty and Educational Development Specialist for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Student Success at Appalachian State University’s Hickory Campus, a senior lecturer in first-year seminar, and the host of the ThinkUDL podcast. Jennifer is the Senior Universal Design Consultant at The University of Kentucky and has served as the co-chair of the international UDL in Higher Education Network. She is a member of the CAST National Faculty and is the author of Transform Your Teaching with Universal Design for Learning: Six Steps to Jumpstart Your Practice. Tom, Lillian, and Jennifer often serve as keynote speakers on UDL and other issues.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: The Universal Design for Learning (or UDL) framework is based on research on how students learn. In this episode, we discuss the most recent evolution of the UDL guidelines.

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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 guests today are Tom Tobin, Lillian Nave, and Jennifer Pusateri. Tom is a founding member of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of the forthcoming book, UDL at Scale: Adopting Universal Design for Learning across Higher Education, as well as Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education and several other works related to teaching and learning. Lillian is the Faculty and Educational Development Specialist for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Student Success at Appalachian State University’s Hickory Campus, a senior lecturer in first-year seminar, and the host of the ThinkUDL podcast. Jennifer is the Senior Universal Design Consultant at The University of Kentucky and has served as the co-chair of the international UDL in Higher Education Network. She is a member of the CAST National Faculty and is the author of Transform Your Teaching with Universal Design for Learning: Six Steps to Jumpstart Your Practice. Tom, Lillian, and Jennifer often serve as keynote speakers on UDL and other issues. Welcome Jennifer, and welcome back, Tom and Lillian.

Tom: Thanks a bunch, glad to be here.

Lillian: Very glad to be, again, with you all.

Jennifer: Yeah, excited. My pleasure.

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

Tom: I am, I am coming to you with some peak leaf cold brew iced tea when all you want is just the tea. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: Love it. Lillian?

Lillian: I would like you to notice I’m drinking in my Tea for Teaching podcast mug that John gifted me at a conference, and I brought my organic hibiscus or hibiscus, depending on if you’re from the south or not, my hibiscus tea bags.

Rebecca: And how about you, Jennifer?

Jennifer: So, I’m not a tea drinker, guys. I drink a coffee in the morning, and then the rest of the day I am team water. So I’ve got my emotional support water cup with me here today.

Rebecca: I do like to always point out that water is the foundation of tea. [LAUGHTER]

Jennifer: That is true.

John: And I am drinking a pure peppermint tea because it’s been a long day filled with caffeine up to this point.

Rebecca: And I have my last cup of London Strand. I’m at the end. It’s very sad.

John: You may have to head back there again.

Rebecca: I may.

John: So we’ve invited you here today to discuss the UDL 3.0 guidelines that were released on July 30, 2024. But before we discuss the changes that have occurred, could you describe what the UDL framework is and what remains the same?

Jennifer: I’ll give it a shot. So the framework of UDL is essentially a collection of, gosh, I think there’s over 1200 different studies that have kind of been boiled down into these nine categories, and those categories are organized in a grid format. So you can kind of look at it in lots of different ways, but essentially this framework, the UDL framework, tells you what research says works in teaching, and it tells you about that in nine different areas. So three of those have to do with engagement. Three have to do with representation, or how things are presented, and the other three have to do with action and expression, kind of how people are taking action with and showing what they’ve learned. So that’s how the framework of UDL works, and it’s been updated many times. There was an update that I remember in 2013. There was another one in 2018, but the move from the 2013 to the 2018 version, the words didn’t really change, but the order of some of the guidelines changed around a little bit. So this is the first time in quite a while, and this new version, the 3.0 version that came out here in the summer of ‘24 this is the first time we’ve seen some changes to the actual words inside of the guideline themselves. And there’s actually quite a lot that’s the same. I don’t think anything was removed, per se. Some things were combined. So they took two that might have been similar and combined them into one consideration, which is what we call the bullet points that you see if you’re looking at the framework of UDL. So many were left the same. And then we also had some brand new ones, and those are really scattered across the framework, and a lot of them are bringing into focus some other things we hadn’t really talked much about in UDL. So I’m excited to learn a little bit more about that from my colleagues today, but I always love to talk about the framework of UDL, so I’m here for it. And for a webinar that Lillian and Tom and I did last week, we put together a crosswalk document that will show you what things stayed the same, what things are new, and maybe some things where it’s been changed, but it’s close. So we have a whole document laid out for that, and we will be happy to put that in the show notes.

Rebecca: Always like a good resource around here, that’s for sure. So as Jennifer just noted, both the current and earlier versions of the UDL guidelines include things related to multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression, but there were some revisions to the language about how these are described. The earlier guidelines asked faculty to provide each of these, and the current guidelines remove the word “provide,” and have shifted the focus to learner agency. Can you talk a little bit about what motivated this change and what are some ways of building learner agency into course design?

Tom: Rebecca, this is an excellent question, because one of the reasons why we moved into a new version number with universal design for learning is that, in earlier versions, we assumed a command environment where the instructor had all the skill, the authority, the deference and the learners were just there to sort of bask in the glory of the knowledge of the instructor. And that’s not necessarily the case. I mean, if you’re teaching elementary school students, you act in loco parentis. At the same time, in higher education, we’re working with adult learners, and they are their own folks. They’re there for their own reasons, and we don’t have any legal obligation to treat them in a power dynamic. So when we think about the shift to learner agency, there was, for many years, a call among practitioners to say the designers and instructors are not the only people with power here, and the designers and instructors are not the only people who are engaged in the learning process. So it’s not, “Hey, we design it and then you lucky people get to experience it,” but we should be making space to help learners understand their own learning process and then build up into agency. So the goal is not to create expert learners, but now they’ve actually shifted that language into learner agency, or agentic learners. In colleges and universities, a lot of our learners already have some experience under their belts, so there is much less of a need for an expectation to establish a command environment, like I was saying a minute ago. Now, that actually lets us design better for the goal of agentic learning for Universal Design for Learning, since we are in the business of preparing our learners to join us as professionals in our fields. And if you want to take a look into one of the new guidelines, you’d watch for language in the 3.0 version that talks about co-creating, and we can apply that broadly where it doesn’t yet appear. So Jennifer talked earlier about there are three big principles of universal design for learning. So design multiple ways to get engaged, to represent information, and to take action and express yourself. Each of those three big principles is further divided into nine guidelines. And each of those nine guidelines has several considerations underneath it, specific practices that people can do. The new consideration 8.3, “foster collaboration, interdependence, and collective learning,” it explicitly talks about learners creating their own learning conditions. But one of the older considerations, 2.1, which is “clarify vocabulary, symbols, and language structures,” it doesn’t yet do that. So if you want, listeners, you can search for research on social construction of learning, with colleges and universities in your search terms, and you can kind of address that gap. Similarly in how we design is there’s an assumption in Universal Design for Learning that learners’ brains are still developing. The UDL came out of the K-12 environment, and if you think of maybe a mom and her grade-school-age son, they’re sitting at home, they’re both working on their homework, she’s in college, so she’s on her laptop; he’s in grade school, so he’s got a pencil and a piece of paper. and we need to support developing executive and emotional aspects of learners in K-12 environments. But for college, we kind of have to shift our focus from developing brains toward social-emotional elements, and we see some of this in some of the newer UDL considerations. So the research that’s cited for consideration 3.2, it’s one of the old ones, that’s “highlight and explore patterns, critical features, big ideas, and relationships,” right now, the research that is cited for that doesn’t contain any higher education examples, so we’ve got about 15 years worth of studies like Jen was talking about earlier. And to address this, we can kind of move beyond the simple neurobiology argument of UDL toward a more social constructivist mode of practice. So we’ll design options specifically so that we can help reduce cognitive load, dissonance, and environmentally interfering conditions for our learners. So watch out in the new 3.0 guidelines for language that talks about emotions, self-regulation, and review the research page of those considerations to see what sources were used to develop them, and you can supplement your search with keywords from those considerations, plus college, university or adult learning in your research databases. So there’s a lot to unpack in the new guidelines.

John: The new guidelines also emphasize issues related to individual identity and building on the strength of the diversity in our classes. Some faculty, though, especially in STEM fields, are somewhat resistant to that. They’ll say, “When I’m teaching students how to work with differential equations, identity doesn’t matter.” How can we convince faculty that perhaps they should at least consider the diversity of students in their class and build on that diversity?

Lillian: Well, I’ll take that one, John, and let’s not give, and you’re not doing this, give the STEM professors a bad name or anything. But I do hear this a lot in a lot of my conversations with faculty, and I think it’s just not really broadening enough… broadening our definition of what identity is. It’s really not just the things that we can see, but recognizing that all of the students in our classroom are different, and identity can take many forms, and that’s the reality that we have in our classrooms. More and more students are coming to college than have ever gone before from different backgrounds: We have first-generation students, English language learners, college prep students, and students who’ve had really no college prep, so neurodivergent students, students with disabilities, etc. So it’s really a matter of understanding who’s in your classroom and taking down barriers to learning for all of those students. So all of your students are going to have some strengths. Some are going to be really stem focused. They’re going to have a great math background. They’re going to be ready to go into your physics lab with really no problems. And other students might come in with a lot of other maybe verbal strengths, reading comprehension, a lot of vocabulary, but need a little bit more structure and background with some of the math as they move into your physics lab, okay? So we’ve got lots of challenges and opportunities for all of them. What does that look like? Well, I can use the example of my daughter, who was a typical college student and would have shown up in many of those STEM classes, because she was a STEM major, and she was kind of the typical, you know, most college students now are young women… [LAUGHTER] that’s the majority… are girls. And by the way, she gives me full permission to share this story. And thinking of all of you college lecturers and professors out there, how many of you have had a student named Emma? Probably 100% of them. So she’s in your class, but what you don’t realize is that there are lots of things that are part of one student’s identity that you don’t know are making it harder or are barriers. So being a girl in a STEM class is sometimes just a little bit awkward, when even though they’re the most of the students, they are less represented in STEM classes. So when she was in a physics class, she was in the minority. No big deal. But when you keep adding on a few other things, like the fact that, as a left hander, she really couldn’t write as fast as everybody else, and so she needed a little electronic iPad to work on there. That’s number two. And then the fact that she’s neurodivergent in two ways, with ADHD, anxiety, that made it a little bit more hesitant for her to go up and ask questions when she was feeling far behind. And then add on to that, a chronic condition. So she has to get immunotherapy and go to a clinic. That means she has to leave campus. She has to get those set up even before the semester starts. So, too bad it conflicted with her physics class because she didn’t know which section she was going to be in. So all of those things are things that created barriers for her, and I’m not saying that the faculty member needs to know all those things, you don’t, but those are the kinds of things that are part of your students’ identities. So if you can make sure that you have accessible slides, that if a student has to miss for no fault of their own, they can get that information, then you’re doing a service to your students. In fact, you’re just making it accessible for your students who can’t be there. If you’re making sure that everybody knows, really well organized, what the material is, and that they can go back and look at things that were building up to that particular date, if you have to miss, then those are just other ways that you are supplying the information to all of your students, no matter their identity, if they have a lot of background or a little bit of background, etc. So that’s the kind of thing that we’re talking about. And it’s not just accessibility, but it’s just thinking about you’re going to have students that are coming at your material from a different direction, and they are going to be better served by a variety of ways to get to the end point, not just the one way that you’re the most comfortable with. Because every student is different. Every faculty member is different. My favorite saying that I use all the time is we really don’t want the same students to be uncomfortable all of the time, but we want all of the students to be uncomfortable some of the time, and so if we can spread that out, we get all of the students into that learning zone where they risk just a little, but they’re not always in that risky fight or flight mode, then we’re better serving our students. So that’s what I say about identity for our students, it does matter just because everybody’s different.

Rebecca: Sounds like we also need to think about as faculty also sometimes having that experience of being uncomfortable like that goes… [LAUGHTER]

Lillian: Yes, exactly.

Rebecca: …not all the same faculty need to be uncomfortable all of the time. So building on what you were just talking about, Lillian, and what Tom was mentioning before about the social aspects that are now in UDL. Can you talk a little bit about some of the ways in which our courses can more effectively foster a sense of belonging?

Lillian: Yes, yeah, so I’ll go all in on these two questions right now. So we’re all in this learning together, and all of our students and faculty have a relationship, whether you realize it or not, it might be a terrible relationship where students are afraid to come into class because they’ll get called on and they’re anxious about it, and they’re like dreading two o’clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s a relationship that you may or may not know, but it also could be a very warm and inviting relationship. I know that I’m going to go into class and there’s going to be something interesting and exciting and feel like they’re valued or ready to learn something new. So anyway, everybody’s got some sort of relationship. But how can we leverage, really, the design of the course into learning together and making it really a social learning opportunity? There’s lots of different ways to do that. So you can do that in person, online or hybrid. For example, if you have even a large in-person class, a way that all of the learners can really understand that they’re in the same place, they’re all learning together, is if you were to use, like an in-person or synchronous poll, and it can be completely anonymous, and then the faculty member could really determine, like, where are we as a class? There’s no points associated with it. It’s completely anonymous. So, could throw out a concept and see where people are, maybe on a continuum. Or how confident are you in this theory? Do you think you could solve this problem? And then the students could be like, “Oh, it’s not just me. About the third of the class thinks we need to review this again.” That’s just one way that everybody in the classroom is understanding their learning together. And it doesn’t have to be like, throw everybody in a group. You don’t have to do that, although that’s also helpful, but that’s just like, one of those things. In an online class. I love using a Q & A forum, so this is different, but this is understanding or seeing how somebody else in the class may solve a problem differently than you, but you want all of your students to attack this problem, and you don’t want it to be a discussion board where the first person answers, and then everybody else says, “Yeah. I was thinking that too.” Instead, this is something where everybody has to come up with their own answer, or way they would solve the problem or their thoughts on it, but they don’t get to see anybody else’s until they’ve answered. You have to wait 15 minutes after you answer to see if anybody else has and there’s some great mechanisms to do that. And that could be in smaller groups, it could be in the whole class, but we really do learn a lot and have a much more rich and more nuanced understanding the material when we see that other people are learning that, like I can read a passage and get something out of it, Jen can read the same passage and see something completely differently. Tom will see it a whole ‘nother way and pick up different things, and I’m a much better learner when I see that rich and nuanced perspective of my classmates. So there we all are learning together. So you can design for group learning, whether it’s hybrid, in-person, online, if you give also really good roles for any group work you want them to do. Don’t just throw them in the group and say, “have at it.” Is there going to be someone who’s the convener, who’s going to be sending out the emails? What are the roles? Is there an editor in the group, or what are they supposed to be doing? And also, what sort of document are they creating? Is it accessible, so that all of those students can really find what they need to do. So giving really good instructions on those things can help people learn together. And finally, I think the last thing is, have fun: games, quizzes, review days, trying things out together, making it sort of fun in learning is another way, I think, that we can bring that sense of community into the learning process.

John: One of the things you mentioned was doing some sort of a poll at the beginning of class, or gathering information about the identities of your students. One useful resource for that is the “Who’s in Class” form that was put together by Tracie Addy, Khadijah Mitchell, and Derek Dube, and we’ll share a link to that in the show notes, as well as an article they wrote about that. One of the other things in the new guidelines is that there’s an increased focus on addressing biases in the use of language and symbols, as well as biases related to modes of expression and communication. What are some of the ways in which these biases may appear, and how can we address them in our classes?

Tom: This is actually one of the big shifts in Universal Design for Learning 3.0, is that there’s an increasing awareness of and a need to create space for the intersectional identities or characteristics that learners and instructors bring into learning spaces. So those kinds of biases can be often unintentional ones. So for example, physical assumptions. When I’m giving a webinar and I say, “as you can see on the screen,” well maybe everybody can’t actually see what’s on the screen, so I’ve taken to doing visual description, or just using ableist language. When we think about something that’s really difficult, we say it was crazy or it was insane, and those are small but telling, unknowing ways of saying, “Yeah, if you fall into one of these categories, maybe this is not for you, or you don’t belong here.” Our colleague, Ann Gagne has a wonderful approach to addressing some of these biases, is using very neutral language in very charged or meaningful ways. So if you had a challenging day and someone asks you, “Hey, how did things go?” You can say “it was bananas,” and Ann, in a recent webinar, she used that kind of language, and she talked about one of her colleagues just saying giraffes. It was like a herd of giraffes, and it’s evocative, yes, ableist less so. When Jen and Lillian and I held a webinar for the Professional and Organizational Development Network Accessibility and Disability special interest group, or the POD A and D SIG for short, recently, we each got to talk about one of the new Universal Design for Learning considerations. The one that I was facilitating with some colleagues was 6.5: “challenge, exclusionary practices.” And this gets to your question, John. We can kind of examine power dynamics now within universal design for learning in a way that it wasn’t explicitly included before. So when we’re thinking about power imbalance, the people who teach in higher education, we are not ourselves a homogeneous group. We experience and express privilege and power in varying ways. So the same inclusive practices that white male instructors like me might use in order to lower barriers and smooth the way for learners, those might result in pushback and mistrust when they’re implemented by younger colleagues, women in the classroom, people of color who are at the front of a classroom. So we should acknowledge the privilege and standing that are needed in order to implement many of the UDL considerations. And when we design for variability, we should do so thinking about the variability, not only of our learners, but of the instructors who are going to be in communication and community with them. So when we’re thinking about biases, we can think along lots of different vectors: we can think about socioeconomic, we can think about gendered bias. There’s lots of those that listeners, you are probably familiar with. And when we think about Universal Design for Learning, just as we’re thinking about the variability of the learners, we also should start thinking about, “Okay, who has the privilege to be able to do these things and facilitate them well in the classroom. So that’s one piece where I’m hoping to see more research come out. We’ve actually got a number of different researchers who are working on these kinds of questions as their doctoral work over the last couple of years and into the future in the next two or three years. So I’m excited to see some of this research come out.

John: We should note, Tom, that you wrote an article with Chavella Pittman on this issue a while back in The Chronicle, and we had a podcast discussing that as well, and we’ll share links to both of those in the show notes. So, when talking about agency and power dynamics, the new guidelines seem to provide a bit more focus on the development of student goal setting, executive function, and metacognition, while also recognizing the individual, institutional, and systemic barriers to learning. What are some ways of incorporating this into the design of our courses?

Jennifer: Yeah, well, John, one of the biggest changes that we saw in the framework of UDL from the 2.2 to the 3.0 was moving executive functioning, which was a part of the previous version, but it was only one of the nine guidelines. So in this iteration, they have expanded that to be the entire bottom row, and so that’s including several different pieces of executive functioning. And that whole row now is labeled as executive function. So one piece of that would be emotional capacity. That would be things like emotional regulation or motivation, even inhibition and metacognition are part of that emotional capacity piece. It also includes the building knowledge guideline, and that used to be called comprehension, but is now renamed to building knowledge, and that piece is really going to be talking a lot about the information processing and the working memory piece that is part of this umbrella term, executive function. And then the last is strategy development, and that’s the one where we get into those, what people typically think of as executive functioning, goal setting, planning, organization, time management, that kind of stuff, all falls under that category as well. And I’m really glad that this is the way they have restructured this, because I’ll be honest, I ran into a lot of questions from folks in higher ed and K-12 as well, because previously there were two guidelines. One was executive function, and then the other one was self-regulation. And so I had a lot of people saying, well, aren’t those kind of the same thing? And I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit… well, that’s not true. I do want to go down a rabbit hole… but I’m going to refrain from going down said rabbit hole. But it’s really interesting to me that now we’ve kind of acknowledged that, “Okay, yeah, the self-regulation part is a piece of executive function.” I think that’s why they went through and renamed some of these on the bottom row. And these are really important. We’re noticing, at least at my university, and I would guess at others as well, that we have quite a few more neurodivergent students than we used to have, and some estimates would say even up to a third of our students could be considered as neurodivergent. And for neurodivergent students, that executive functioning row, that bottom row of the new 3.0 guidelines, is a game changer, because a lot of the pieces that we forget to mention in higher ed kind of that hidden curriculum that we might talk about, or that hidden structure, those things are made explicit through that bottom row of the guidelines. So, for example, if we wanted to think about strategy development, we could be looking at something like walking students through what journal of articles or academic articles look like in your field and how you read those. So, I’ll use myself as an example. I did not know until my PhD program that you don’t just start at the beginning and read all the way through an article to the very end, like front to back. In my mind, that made sense, because that’s how we read everything else. But as it turns out, my professors in my education department were telling me, “Well, there’s kind of a different way you can go about this. You can start with the abstract, read through that, see if it’s still within the realm of what you want to know. Then you can kind of skip to the discussion part at the end. Read through that a little bit, figure out if that’s what you need to know. And then, if you’re still interested and still want to use this article, then you can read some of the other pieces.” Well, I had no idea. Like no one had ever said that. So why would I know that? So when we can pull those kinds of things out and make them clear and explicit to our students, transparent is another word that we might use for that, and that reminds me of the work of Mary-Ann Winklemes in transparency, in learning and teaching, TILT. You may have heard of TILT Higher Ed or transparent assignment design, and those are really all kind of doing the same things. We’re taking the guesswork out of our teaching and learning, and that’s, of course, going to help our neurodivergent students, but that’s going to help a lot of students as well, first-gen students, international students. And if we’re able to do that and make those things really clear, then we’re going to help a lot of students. We could look at another example, if we’re thinking about the, and this is in the building knowledge guideline, so 3.2 is highlight and explore patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships. There are lots of ways that you can do this, but one way I really appreciate, because I kind of lean toward visuals, is having a concept map, or some visual way of connecting the information to the other information, like connecting it and helping me to orient myself within both the thing that we’re learning about, but like, what am I learning about there, in relation to the whole course? So being able to kind of see those relationships laid out in a visual way is also going to be really useful. And then Lillian actually talked already a little bit about this idea of group work and how we might set that up. And there are several considerations that talk about this kind of idea of, like, working together in some way. And one of the ones I really like a lot in the emotional capacity guideline is talking about cultivating empathy and restorative practices. And one way, of course, we can do that, and Lillian actually kind of mentioned a little bit about this as well, is helping students to reflect on, like, what is actually helpful for me when I’m in a group setting? Like, what kinds of things make me feel comfortable enough to share my thoughts and ideas? What kinds of things get in the way of that? Like, what are some of the barriers that I encounter in a group setting? And having students actually work through that, kind of process that information and process their own metacognitive view of themselves working in a group before we get into a group. And if we can do that first and reflect individually, then we can come together as a group, and now we can start to build this trust framework, this sense of belonging, because I can now share those things. I can say, “Gosh, when I’m in a group, I don’t always talk first like, I’m just not usually that person. But if someone is like, ‘Jennifer, what do you think about that?’ And they ask me, then I’m going to contribute to the conversation.” So things like that really helped me in a group setting. And if I can say that to my group, now they can understand, perhaps, why I’m not jumping into the conversation immediately, and that builds that empathy. And then we can also figure out what are some things that I can make sure I don’t do so that I’m supporting my other group members as well. So I’ve actually got a really good group contract activity kit that I put together for one of our workshops at the University of Kentucky, and I would be happy to put a link to that in the show notes as well. And this actually has kind of that breakdown. First, there’s an individual reflection, then you get together in your groups, and you do a group discussion with your reflection, and also you put together a contract, and it kind of walks professors through how they could go about doing something like that. So I will make sure I get that in the show notes.

Rebecca: That sounds awesome. As we’re thinking about changing times, we also can think a little bit about generative AI and how that might support the UDL framework in its new form.

Tom: It’s a wonderful question, and I had the pleasure at the Online Learning Consortium OLC conference of being on a panel on UDL and AI with the two of you. So I’m going to not actually recycle some of the ideas we talked about there, but I’ve got some new ones. I want to talk about a lopsided house and listeners. I’m going to describe this for you. There will also be a visual that we’ll put into the show notes. I was recently talking with Marcus Popetz. He’s the person who runs Harmonize, the geek company, and we’re going to be putting together a webinar later on, on universal design for learning and artificial intelligence resistant assessments. And if that sounds like I have my wooden shoe ready to throw into the cogs of the machine, quite the opposite. So the lopsided house is an idea that I’m currently playing with. Imagine a rectangular diagram so time moves from left to right. On the bottom, there are learners who are beginners, people who don’t know yet, and they’re just starting to learn a concept or a skill or something we can teach them. In the middle are proficient learners, people who have enough to actually start doing the things in our field. And then over at the other end of time is practitioners. These are learners who are para-professionals. They’ve got the skills, and they probably their next step will be becoming colleagues of ours. Now in that rectangle, draw a diagonal line from the very bottom of beginner all the way over to the very top of practitioner. And what you’ve just done is you’ve created an artificial intelligence tool use diagram that matches up with what we might call designed UDL. So when someone is a beginner, we want to, as designers and instructors, provide them with and there’s that provide word that UDL doesn’t use anymore. We want to provide optimized choices for learners in their learning experiences, and we want to do a lot of that, and we want to be a little heavy-handed with it, right? We’re the experts, and we kind of know how to guide people through those beginnings. Also, at that beginning stage, there’s very little use of tools. We’re helping people to understand the foundational ideas, get them practice, even if it’s the long way around or the manual way to do things. For example, I teach writing courses, and my freshman writers, I want them to create paragraphs that have a thesis statement and details evidence and examples that then help to support that thesis. This is not the time to let them loose on Claude or Copilot or ChatGPT. This is the time to say, “Please don’t use those tools, because I want you to learn the foundations.” Now move forward in time, and it’s about half and half. As people get more proficient as learners, we take away some of that designed UDL, we actually give them more agency. And here’s where you can draw another triangle on top of that, it’s kind of a lopsided house, where as we reduce the amount of designed universal design for learning opportunities, we start increasing where we’re asking the learners themselves to learn more about their learning process and be agentic, to take control of and show where they want to go with their learning. And when you’re more proficient, you can use tools to start working on things like giving study questions to generate off of a reading. A bad use of artificial intelligence… I’m here with Stacy Truex when she says “You can’t ask it to do something you don’t know how to do yet.” So give me a summary of the reading… bad idea. Give me some study questions from the reading and then quiz yourself on the reading that you’ve done…very good idea in terms of asking proficient learners to use artificial intelligence tools. And then when we move all the way over to sort of the end of the timeline, where people who are our learners become more like practitioners. They become paraprofessional. That’s when we really ramp up the tool use. That’s when we let them loose and we say, “Hey, artificial intelligence tools, that can help you skip the foundational steps… Now you know, now you have enough skill and knowledge to skip those steps so that you can focus on higher-order complex thinking.” And this is also the point in people’s learning careers where we want to have the least amount of designed UDL. We’re not guiding them anymore. We want them at that point to have the greatest amount of agentic, universal design for learning knowledge. And when we’re thinking about examples here, I’m thinking about study question generation, but also creating alternative formats of things. “Hey, this document is only a PDF, can you make a read it out loud to me version of that?” Artificial intelligence tools are really good at making alternative versions of existing content and materials. And the same thing when we’re thinking about as instructors or designers, because we have that expertise, artificial intelligence tools can help us to create multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representing information very quickly. You want a question bank that is tied to each of your learning objectives and segments things into question pools of three questions or more. Bang, couple of minutes, and it’s there, and then you can review it from your expert perspective. Creating quizzes, everything kind of speeds up when we’re using artificial intelligence. The key though is, in order to use those tools well, we’ve got to know what we’re talking about first, whether we’re learners, designers, or instructors. So I want to leave that sort of as a provocative thing to hang into the conversation. But AI is going to help us with universal design for learning in lots of different ways.

Rebecca: One of the things that you just underscored in your lopsided house, but also a little bit earlier, is how you might use UDL in the way that you’re designing a class as an instructor a bit differently depending on the expertise of the students in the class. You pointed that out in the difference between maybe K-12 and college, but then again, between this like beginner and expert. Can you talk a little bit more about the different ways that instructors might engage with UDL in really thinking about the expertise of the students in the room when we’re kind of thinking about level?

Tom: Yes, and I’ll be really quick here, and I want to open it up. I know Jen has done work on this as well. When we’re thinking about the students, we’ve been actually engaging in a little bit of a heresy in our conversation today, and that is, strictly speaking, Universal Design for Learning is what we do when we design learning engagements before we ever know who’s going to be in our learning spaces. So whether it’s a classroom or it’s a librarian working with students, or it’s a mental health counselor or academic counselor helping students navigate systems, the design part is what we do before day one of the class, before anybody ever walks through the door and says, “Can you help me?” Then, when we start noticing patterns among our learners over time, we can take that into account. We’re starting to see many more learners who are first-generation college learners, or students who don’t speak English as their first language at home. Or we’re seeing a lot more folks who identify as neurodivergent. Those attributes are things that we can now plug into universal design spaces, but technically speaking, we don’t know who the learners are yet, so we have to assume that there’s going to be wide variability among their characteristics. That’s what UDL is all about. It goes really well with pattern recognition and what we in K-12 call differentiated instruction. I want to make a pause here and see if Jen and Lillian can take this further too, because it’s a cool question.

Jennifer: So, I do a lot of work, both in higher ed and in K-12, and in both of those areas, one of the things I tell people is that UDL is for when a human brain is in a learning situation, and that doesn’t necessarily matter if that’s for preschoolers or if that’s for undergrads, or if that’s for postdocs, if that’s for elderly, it doesn’t matter. If you’re in a learning situation, the framework of UDL should help you to be able to meet the variability, and support the variability, of your learners. So that’s one piece. Having said that, I don’t remember, Tom if you went a lot into this, but I know we talked about this the other day in our webinar. You know, currently the UDL framework is still a little K-12 heavy, and actually we’ve actually got a project going, and I’m gonna throw that in here real quick while I’m thinking about it. So if you’ve ever gone in and looked at the CAST studio guidelines website, and you’ve drilled down to one specific consideration, so let’s say options for choice and autonomy is a good example. And you’ve gone to that little page where it tells you a little bit about this is what this means and here are some sort of generalized ways you could think about doing that in a teaching situation. There’s also a place on that page where you can look at the research that was used to put that consideration in place. Because, as I’m sure everyone knows, in the field of education, we don’t just base our educational and teaching decisions on one study. We’re basing this on a body of research that is built up over time, so that we know, over time, we’ve seen that giving students choice and autonomy is going to help with engagement. Engagement, right? So that’s what this list of all of these different pieces of research and studies are about, and most of those are focused on K-12. So we were really wanting to put together a version of the research per guideline, and even getting down to the consideration level, or the bullet-point level, if you will, that also has some research for higher ed folks in it as well. So we have put together a Google form, and we will get that in the show notes as well. But I can just throw out this quick Bitly, if you’d like. It’s Bitly, that’s, B, I T, dot, l, y, slash, UDL, dash, H, E, which stands for higher ed, H E, dash research. And so basically, we’re wanting you to think about, do you have some like, go to research that you share with people a lot that aligns with UDL? And if so, if that’s higher ed focused, we would like to know what that is, so we can start to build up our own body of research around the guidelines that really is focused in on higher ed a little bit more. So having said that, there’s a lot of ways that you can do this, that you can build UDL in. When I think about our undergrads, Tom talked a little bit about executive functioning earlier, and for the most part, yes, we’re done cognitively developing when we enter college, but we do know that there’s still some parts of your brain that are cooking up to age 25 for most and up to even 30 and 32 for others, and that’s our executive functions. So with our younger students, for sure, but honestly, with almost all of our students, really focusing in on the executive functions piece is a good place to start, because we can just go ahead and assume that our students are going to struggle with executive function. Part of it is because of their age, but also we know that this is one of the most anxious groups of students we’ve ever seen in higher ed, and anxiety, stress, trauma, all of those things compromise our executive functions. So we can assume today that you will have students in your class that are going to struggle with executive functioning. And so I think that’s a really good place to start. And some people like to start with the top row instead, because this top row is really kind of your entry point into thinking about UDL, and it would be changing kind of the concrete things in your class. So thinking about, yes, they have a paper textbook, but can I also provide some kind of a digital format for that as well, or is this something I can maybe give to them in a visual that might make sense in that way? So you’re kind of thinking about those concrete pieces of teaching, learning, and the materials and all the things, and that’s also a really good place to start, is looking at that top row. And I’ve actually seen somebody put together a version of the guidelines where they put a little welcome mat above that and said, This is your welcome mat into the UDL framework is starting at the top and going down from there. And that’s my thoughts on that.

Lillian: In addition to the differences that UDL can be used in K-12, and then also the difference between a freshman seminar, which is what I teach, and what you might use in a senior level or grad course, is thinking about UDL can be used and should be used everywhere, because we’re dealing with people, and people are different, and everyone is unique. And so what it might also look like is thinking about it in workforce development. So not just are you providing multiple ways for your students to learn, but if you have a company, are you providing multiple ways for your learners that are in your company to move forward, to learn new skills, but also to do the things that they’re doing? So do they have options for working off hours or in remote settings? Or do you have a human- centered approach to doing whatever it is that you’re doing, so that there might be quiet spaces, or just the way that everybody can work to their strengths, so that you don’t push aside talent that you can really use, and that the people who are working for you or working in this job or in part of a company are the ones that know themselves best, and so can they offer or select specific requirements or ideas that might help them the most. And the more that we can be flexible, but still have the same end point, like we want to figure out what the goal is, but there can be multiple ways to get to that goal. Does that mean if you’ve got a project, and somebody can do that project, whether they’re in the office or not, and do a really great job, does it matter that they have to be in the office for 40 hours at the time that you’re there, just those sort of lessons we learned during the pandemic. Let’s not forget them, but that it can be something that’s really useful in the world. And think about how we teach our students. So if we’re going to teach a student to create a document, why not tell them also about how to be accessible, so that when they’re in the working world, they know to put alt text in a picture because they’re going to put it on the web, they know how to do headings in a document, so that somebody who needs a screen reader or is blind can figure out what’s going on, because your company wants to reach all those people. So just thinking about the ways that, if we’re learning it in higher ed, then that is actually going to be a really marketable skill to take on into the workforce. So it doesn’t start or stop in the education world, it just is for all humans, because we all learn and we’re all different.

John: It’s a good note to close on, and we always end with the question: “What’s next?”

Tom: Well, my what’s next Universal Design for Learning is now moving from individual micro level applications to at-scale barrier-lowering across entire institutions.

Jennifer: Well, I am in the process of shopping a book around, and my book is going to be focused on neurodivergent learners in higher ed and what we can do to support them. And if we’re going to be honest, it’s mostly about UDL, but I’m also talking about other things as well, but it’s a book that needs to be written, and because it’s a book I wish my professors had when I was an undergrad with undiagnosed ADHD. So this is something that I’m hopefully going to be moving forward on very soon.

Lillian: And what’s next for me? I’m not writing a book, but I’m still podcasting, so I like to listen to everyone’s stories and try to get those out about how UDL really is changing the world for the better, and the more I can hear from folks who are implementing UDL, the better off I think we all will be. So that’s always it seems to be, what my next thing is, is the next podcast and the next guest. And other than that, you know, world domination. No, no, not that. Just UDL.

John: And I haven’t missed any of your podcasts since you started. In fact, I heard about the podcast at the OLC conference a number of years before, when someone was talking about planning this podcast.

Lillian: Excellent.

John: I very much enjoy your podcast.

Lillian: Thank you.

Rebecca: Well,thank you so much for joining us. It’s always a delight to talk to all of you and to always talk about one of my favorite topics.

Tom: Thanks for having us and listeners, we’d like to hear your stories too, so comment and you can find us on the socials, and we would love to hear from you as well.

Jennifer: Yeah, thanks for having us.

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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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394. Pacific Oaks’ Approach to AI

Posted in diversity, edtech, educational technology, equity, faculty learning community, first-generation, higher education, inclusion, learning, pedagogy, professional development, teaching
May 21, 2025

Generative AI tools are challenging traditional models of college instruction. In this episode, Camille Huggins, Yolanda Carlos, and Orlando Saiz join us to discuss how Pacific Oaks College is working to use these tools to more effectively support student learning. Camille, Yolanda, and Orlando were participants in an AI Institute offered at Pacific Oaks College this year.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: Generative AI tools are challenging traditional models of college instruction. In this episode, we examine how one college is responding to more effectively support student 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 guests today are faculty and administrators at Pacific Oaks College. Since we have several guests participating today, we’ll have each of our guests introduce themselves, describe their role at the institution, and state what type of tea they are drinking.

Camille: My name is Camille Huggins. I am a core faculty at the Pacific Oaks College for the last five years, and I’m Caribbean, so I like that strong Lipton yellow label tea. It has a lot of caffeine to it, it’s a good little balance with the lemon. New Yorkers, we love a lemon, no milk, so that’s what I’m doing today.

Yolanda: Sounds good. Camille, my name is Yolanda Carlos. I’m core faculty at Pacific Oaks College. I’m over at the BA and MA Early Childhood Education degree program, and I love Earl Grey with a bit of milk.

Orlando: My name is Orlando Saiz. I’m an administrative faculty and Director of Research at Pacific Oaks College in the EdD Early Childhood Education program. I normally drink coffee, but today I’m having the loose-leaf spearmint tea.

John: Very nice.

Rebecca: Yeah, some yummy tea choices for sure. John, are you drinking any tea today?

John: I am drinking a ginger peach green tea today.

Rebecca: Nice, John. I’ve switched things up, John, I have chai today.

John: That’s been a while.

Rebecca: I know, I know.

John: We’ve invited you here today to discuss the AI initiatives that you’ve been working on at Pacific Oaks, located in Pasadena, California, where it’s much warmer than it is here today. So first though, could you tell us a little bit about Pacific Oaks College and its institutional mission?

Yolanda: Sure, I’d be happy to. So yes, you’re right. The weather here in Pasadena, year round, is beautiful, and the Pasadena Children’s School began in Pasadena, California in 1945. It was started by six local families as a children’s school, which believed that each individual possessed an inner light worth nurturing. It later became a teacher training institution founded on Quaker values of community, equality, and peace, which would offer a progressive education that would help the world heal. Pacific Oaks College was established in 1958. The mission of the college is to train future professionals to be of service and positively impact their communities, to help, and not harm them. Presently, the college is focused on building competent professionals who are culturally aware, respectful of the communities they serve, open and willing advocates focused on justice, fairness, and prepared to advance or lead in their profession.

Rebecca: Our institution has a somewhat similar history in that it started off as a teacher prep institution as well. That’s kind of fun to hear a related story. Can you talk a little bit about the student population at Pacific Oaks?

Camille: So we have a majority is online. 80% of our school is online right now. So we have a combination of asynchronous, synchronous courses. We still have some on the ground students, because we transitioned from on the ground to online during the pandemic. So around 2022, 2023 it became that perhaps this works better, because our students were more interested in doing online courses than on the ground courses. Our typical student body… we are a Hispanic-serving institution…. are Latino middle-aged women in their 30s to 40s. They are working, they have children, they’re married. So sometimes English is not their first language. They have maybe went to school. If they went to our bachelor’s program, they may have had some remedial courses or whatever. But if they are in our master’s degree courses, which is a lot of our courses, they would have gone to college, but they’ve maybe had a gap between bachelor’s and master’s about eight to 10 years. So the academic acumen is the issue when they first get to school. So we have to spend a lot of time really trying to hone in on their learning abilities and basically help them get themselves to match what the rigor of the program is. But yeah, we love these kind of women. They are in the trenches. They are not into lofty ideas. They’re into really learning the skill sets that they are basically trying to gain because of our programming, which is marriage and family therapy and social work and education. It’s a very professions-based kind of school, so they spend a lot of time really getting skill sets, being practical. They’re very practical in understanding what they need to know, and we really help them with their skill sets.

John: In November of 2022, ChatGPT appeared right before finals at the end of the fall semester, and it resulted in some fairly significant effects on higher ed, how did faculty at your institution respond?

Yolanda: Some instructors embraced ChatGPT initially quite readily, and others even used AI apps for assignments to enhance them. Other faculty were hesitant and wanted more information. P.O. is a smaller higher ed institution, and with that being said, we have the ability to be nimble and to add changes to our assignments as needed and to keep up with best practices. P.O. is part of The Community Solution (the TCS) system. It’s a centralized infrastructure and culture that supports six higher ed education institutions. In the spring of 2023, TCS provided a conference space for our system faculty to showcase AI, living out the mission of embracing a culture of learning. So faculty across the institutions presented and all worked collaboratively in experiencing AI in a variety of modalities at our central location in Chicago.

Camille: So I think, how did we embrace it Is that, for the students, we kind of looked at it as a plagiarism kind of situation… so punitive, this is going to stop them from learning blah, blah, blah. And as we got into the AI Institute for the AACU we discovered that this can really help the students. We said our student body is first-generation women, mostly Spanish-speaking, different languages, and so forth. So AI can help them with writing. AI can help them getting their thoughts in order. A lot of times, these students ask, “How do you want this assignment to go? How do you want this assignment to look?” And I thought, AI can help them in that avenue as well. The more you saw a lot of these applications come in ChatGPT starts it off, but then you got Deep Seek, you got Claude. You have a lot of different platforms. You realize that this can really be used to help them educationally. So for us, as faculty, we maybe have been using it secretly. I started using it just to do emails, you know, “write this nicer, put my thoughts and write it nicer,” but we started to not look at it as a negative, but this can be the mechanism of the future. It’s like autocorrect. I can barely spell, but autocorrect makes me look as though I’m passing national spelling bees.

Orlando: I’m relatively new to the institution, so I wasn’t around in 2022, I was working at a different institution, but right away, I was invited to join the AI committee at our school, and I found it very interesting the tools that were available that I was completely unaware of, and just to see how there’s certain programs and GPTs where they can serve as a tutorial and be of service to students, faculty, it’s just amazing. I’m very much looking forward to what the future holds.

Rebecca: So you’ve kind of given us a little bit of a base for how folks were initially responding to AI. Can you talk a little bit about ways that faculty are now using AI to support the educational mission, whether that’s in curriculum or educational activities or other uses?

Yolanda: Recently, I’ve been focused on the basic logistics in application of AI, student use to complete assignments or to create assignments. And so, for example, there is in one class a poem they have to develop. And with that, I used an AI tool for them to download, a free use, to put in their poem, and this AI app creates a video with music, with words and with pictures, and it brings to life their poem. And the students were really excited about that. It really helped to bring that assignment to the next level and then at the institutional level, our Pacific Oaks college AI team has been working on developing the institutional policy for AI usage, for students, faculty, and our community, for example, we believe that it’s important for students to submit their assignments and documents in a format that can be screened for AI usage by the systems that are made available to faculties for screening Word documents. For example, we use Turnitin. We want students to be able to generate and create their own content and use AI as a support for developing ideas, not writing their papers for them. So as an institution, we’ve been engaged in critical discussions and in planning around the use of AI in the classroom, and then also distinguishing the human element, or the connection, versus automated AI machinery, tools, and apps. We encourage the using of AI for brainstorming, creating ideas. This should always be followed by student-created content, rather than the use of AI tools and prompting to create or develop assignments.

Camille: To add to that, I’m the chair of the Faculty Council for our college. On a macro level, we basically engaged in a lot of conversations. We’ve had a lot of staff meetings with the adjunct faculty as well as regular faculty, about AI and how to engage with it for ourselves, as well as for our students. Another thing we did was, as Yolanda said, we are part of a larger system of six universities, we invited the larger system to come in and do a two-day training on UDL (universal design for learning) and then AI. And we’ve been looking at making collaborative initiatives between the UDL and the AI systems to basically incorporate it in our classes as well. Another thing we’re doing is working on a policy, it’s a working policy, as Yolanda situated, but also we have not really introduced it to our students. So that’s our next part of our journey is basically how to appropriately engage students and basically give them a demonstration. I think students really benefit from a demonstration. They definitely, when in online schools, they really benefit from one one-on-one personal interaction via Zoom. They really like it. So that’s what we’ve been working on as well.

Orlando: Just to add to that, in advising doctoral research students, some of my students are using AI platforms to organize their sources. They can engage in mind mapping, and I think it’s a helpful tool for the literature search, even though I don’t think it’s a good idea for them to fully rely on that. I think a good mixture of human capacity versus AI platforms and tools to complement each other are important.

John: Let’s go back to the use of AI to support UDL. Could you talk a little bit more about how AI tools are being used to support a universal design for learning approach in the course?

Camille: So UDL has a lot of different facets to it, audio, visual. What I’ve really been looking at is the growth mindset piece, because what we’ve noticed with some of our students, I’ve been doing some one one-on-one. We’re gearing up to do focus groups with them. We got a small grant to basically implement UDL in the entire college. And so what I noticed with our particular students is that they don’t want to necessarily identify as having a learning disability. That’s just not their thing. But what they talked about, in a very roundabout way, was the lack of confidence, the lack of really being scared to look for assistance. So I was thinking that we need to implement a growth mindset kind of component into our teaching modes, as well as, and AI can help with that, because it can help give you courage to ask questions. You can ask AI to look at how we can integrate: “I’m having difficulty understanding this assignment, I’m having difficulty understanding this article. Can you break it down for me so that you can make more sense?” So integrating an AI component with the UDL will help enhance their learning abilities. So that’s what we’ve been kind of structuring. And I heard from the students that they really were having issues with just self confidence, which makes a lot of sense based on the fact that they haven’t been in school in years, and everything is just moving at lightning space as far as learning acumen. So that is one way.

John: One of the things you mentioned earlier was that students come in with fairly differentiated backgrounds in terms of their prior knowledge, and they have to get up to speed. Have they been using AI to help fill some of the gaps they may have had in their prior learning experiences.

Camille: I’ve noticed it in their assignments, yes, but what I’m learning is also they just put in the assignment, but they don’t put in the reading material. So the assignments come across very superficial and not necessarily depth of critical thinking or any kind of reflection of the reading. So the AI won’t even put in references in it, so the references won’t match what’s in the coursework. So getting them to not use it in the underhanded way… You’re using AI, I have no problem with you using it, but it has to be used to assist you, not do the work for you, and that has been the bridge that we’re trying to cross.

Rebecca: You mentioned the large percentage of your coursework being online, and I know that faculty, in a lot of our conversations around AI, have been really concerned about using AI in online environments, because it’s a little bit harder to distinguish the human from machine-generated. Can you talk a little bit more about ways that you’re helping students move in the direction of the assisting and not doing it for them, so where it’s not an academic integrity issue?

Yolanda: So, what I’ve been using is what’s called the AI sandwich. I’ve been working with students to help them understand how they can use AI like, for example, if they have a topic, but it’s really broad, to helping them brainstorm using AI to narrow down their topic or to develop ideas for topics, and to help them to create and understand how to develop a good, concise thesis statement for their topic. And then, with that being said, the next step is how to gather their data, so using AI to create questions for interviews, for surveys, and then methods for data collection for their action research project. But with that being said, then I go into the humanization of AI, and I shift the focus to our model for P.O. It’s the head, heart, and hands model. I talk to them about, when we’re completing assignments, it’s not just to complete the assignment, but it’s to gain that knowledge, not just to regurgitate it, but to have that passion, because then it’s in the heart. So it’s the knowledge in the head, the passion in the heart, then our practices, our hands, that comes forth in our practices, and that sets us apart from others, and that’s something that AI cannot do for us. That’s something that we as the human, that’s how we humanize the use of AI, but the human-to-human, I talk to them about how AI has helped you generate these questions, these surveys, but you’re going to be conducting these interviews, you’re going to be writing the anecdotal records. You’re going to be taking the raw notes and submitting those, perhaps maybe taking voice recordings or video, but then we can take AI to help organize those for them, so that then they can maybe create their outline, and then they can submit their papers. How I do it is they submit it in chunks, and then I review and we’re in revision state, and I provide feedback. The feedback I provide is using a tool called VoiceThread where I provide specific assignment feedback using what’s called VoiceThreads, where they can see me, they can hear me, and if they need to, they can also see the wording as well. So it touches upon all learning modalities.

John: I have used VoiceThread in the past, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I had to drop it because my classes were large, and just listening to all the audio responses took far too many hours.

Camille: I know Orlando, you did some AI stuff. You’ve been doing it in your doctoral program.

Orlando: Yes, just thinking about most of the students that I teach are at the doctoral level, and most of them are engaging in doctoral research. So if you consider that traditional approaches versus futuristic or current approaches, most of the material that students are engaging in at that level is meant to be challenging. They need to learn research and it’s important to learn statistics and different methodologies. So I’m super open to new tools that they can use, but it’s difficult to substitute AI tools with general educational tasks that are meant to help students advance and to gain a wealth of skills. But some of the newer tools that I’m becoming aware of, and that I’ve noticed could be helpful as a tutorial for statistics and for research methods, even research design. There’s one called Julius AI, where you could drop your data in there and it can spit out a result. If it doesn’t spit out the right prompt for you, you can re-prompt it until it gives you what you want. I’ve tried it with simple data that I’ve had, running a correlation. It gives you everything you need. So I mean, if students are struggling with conceptualization or just to have the right terminology, because it is important to verbalize your research in a way that’s accurate and specific. So I think the AI tools could truly help for that, as well as general organizational tools. NVivo is another research tool that students are using. I’ve used it in the past as well. It is fueled by machine learning now, so creating those hand-coded or manual themes that was done in the past is probably going to fall a little bit by the wayside, but I still think there’s some value for students to learn the traditional way and to mind the author’s recommendations from grounded theory and from phenomenology. I think there’s some real value in that, and they could really showcase the ideas that they have. My exposure to AI is relatively new, and it started when I began teaching here at Pacific Oaks and I joined the AI committee. My doctoral program is very new. This is an inaugural class, and previous development of the doctoral research manual included a passage for plagiarism, to guard against plagiarism. After reading some material, particularly AI for Teachers, by Jose Antonio Bowen. I noticed the finding in there that faculty generally do not do well recognizing AI passages versus AI itself. So I thought this is something that I need to step up, and it has to do with academic integrity. So I wrote a follow-up passage to that where students’ work will be detected for AI passages. It doesn’t say how many passages or the percentage, but I think it’s going to be important for students to understand that they can’t just copy and paste their whole doctoral dissertation and that be acceptable, and there has to be some systems in place to guard against that.

Rebecca: So you’ve mentioned using Turnitin and tools like that to detect AI. Can you talk a little bit about ways that you’re managing false accusations or false positives on AI use?

Camille: So I don’t really trust Turnitin. Let me just put it out there as a misnomer. I feel as though sometimes they see as plagiarism, and when I actually look at the paperwork, it’s like they use the same word the 10 million times and it’s been picked up. So I don’t know if I don’t trust Turnitin or I don’t know how to use it properly. We put it out there like that, and so I don’t really rely on it as much, especially for those who English is not their first language. What I’m looking for is execution of how they write. When I did my PhD, I wished there was a ChatGPT back then, I had to hire an editor who was from another country, and that scared me. I was like, I’m paying you, and I was born in America and speak English, and I’m paying you… she was like from Ukraine or Russia… to edit my paperwork. So because of that, I had to learn how to write. Something about that was not sitting well with me. So I had to learn how to write. And I felt as though ChatGPT and one of these things can help you to learn how to write. In Spanish, the adjective comes after the actual noun, whereas in English, it comes before. And so I thought that this would help them. If, in fact, they can learn how to write, I can overlook plagiarism. What I can’t overlook is them not using the readings and the learning resources that I provide for them. I grade on how they write, and that’s really good, but I also grade on use of learning resources, and I think that that was more important to me than the other thing. Another thing is a lot of them don’t know how to use it properly, so they don’t even see the attachment upload document to put in their articles. So that tells you that maybe sometimes they’re just cutting and pastes. And if you’ve never noticed in ChatGPT, they’ll say the same thing different ways, and it’s up to you to pick up on which way to say it. So me catching them there has been very helpful. Orlando’s correct. Sometimes you can’t tell, but then that’s good, because then you’re learning how it’s supposed to be written in the first place, and then ChatGPT also has a lot of spaces in between, so I’m teaching them not to cut and paste. I want to teach them how to use it in a sense that it can craft a paragraph for you, as opposed to you just cutting and pasting. So catching them in that area has been helpful to me. But again, I will say I don’t know much about Turnitin. I don’t trust your plagiarism readability. So I go in that direction.

Yolanda: I agree Camille. They also have a disclaimer in there, so it kind of is a little bit on the nebulous side. And typically, when I go in and I look, because I think that’s a humanization of anything that we’re going to be using, it still requires us to take that step, to go in, to look at, and to make sense of the meaning of what has been submitted. And then I agree with you. We’re looking for content. Do they really understand this content, and can they apply what they’ve learned? Are they applying this in a real case scenario. But when I’m looking at Turnitin, it flags references, and that tends to be the large chunk of it. When I can see that it’s flagged references. And I’m looking to see, are they in seventh APA edition? Yeah, they are. It’s flagging them because they have submitted this in the revision before this. And so those are things to keep in mind as well. Nothing’s perfect, but it’s learning how to use the tools that we do have available to us that’s important.

John: So you’ve all talked a little bit about how students are using AI, and Camille mentioned how she’s used it to help shape emails. Are many faculty using AI to help develop curriculum, to help develop learning activities, to create various scenarios or other ways in supporting their instruction.

Camille: It has really helped me, and I think other people are doing it too. I’m in the social work department. My other faculty have not caught on as much as I have, but it really helps me with case studies, because my classes are more applied. It helped me develop case studies that make sense. They have better characterizations, like they’ll sit there and say, identify mental health symptoms and then identify environmental stressors. And I was like, “Yeah, I never thought about creating it in that way.” So I think that has been very helpful. It has helped me create quizzes, exams in a lot of ways. So I’m in love. I’ve subscribed to ChatGPT as well as Claude. I’ve been trying out Deep Seek and you know, the platforms can go on and on and on. We were just told that there’s an AI for curriculum development that’s specific for lesson plans and so forth. So I’m going to look into that as well if there’s a free trial. So I’m into it big time, my colleagues, not quite yet, I don’t think. And I’m also a writer, so it helps me with contextualizing ideas and in figuring out what’s out there right now, and so I can look at different articles. I think Deep Seek is pretty good when it comes to accuracy and references, because I check it constantly against what’s in there and what’s outside. But I love it, and I think this AI Institute really opened my eyes to the vast applications that are out there that I think we all should know and not get overwhelmed by. It’s like Bitcoin. You don’t know what’s going on, but I’m really excited about it.

Orlando: Yeah, for myself, I tend to use Copilot. I think it’s helpful, since it’s kind of integrated into the browser that I use, and it’s helpful to summarize long passages, to bullet point them. But also, as a writer, I use it if I’m struggling to find a source. I’ll just drop a prompt in there, and it’ll help me to generate a few more sources that I wasn’t aware of. But at first I was a little resistant. I was just unaware of how it worked and how it operates. But I’m starting to learn more and more, and I do still have a concern about privacy, so I won’t drop students’ whole papers in there, just because it’s not my work. It’s something that I’m not in charge of, and is not my property. So I’d rather just kind of use it in a broader sense, just to kind of quicken my pace in the work that I do.

Camille: I just want to put it that a student told me about ChatGPT. That’s how I first learned about this whole thing in the first place. And I always say I talk to young people because they know and keeping up with them. I’m 53 and I officially have no idea what’s hot anymore, what’s happening. I’ll have to admit it, but this student was like, “Why aren’t you using ChatGPT?” and I’m like, “What are you talking about?” And when it came I was like, “Whoa, this is just next place to go.” So I’m open to it, because the young people know about it, and I’m glad that they have it, because it makes life easier. But you have to know how to prompt. I think that was the biggest thing. Learning how to prompt it and yield it to what you need is what been the biggest challenge.

Yolanda: For me, I have mainly used the app. So initially I discussed how I used one for a poem, and it was Lumen5. It’s an animated avatar video program that they download for free, and they’re able to create this beautiful video with the poem that they developed and they created. What’s really cool about it is that they get excited about an assignment that before was just something that they just went through and they just jumped through the hoops. Well, now with that Lumen5, it’s just kind of has brought things to the next level, and I also use ITSE standards for educators. It’s how to use AI and AI tools for educational purposes. So that’s something that I do and use, and I’m stretching and finding new apps at different times, and then having students go in. I use it as kind of like a pilot program. I’ll pull it in, and I’ll say, “Well, this time, we’re going to use this.” And I’ll say, “it’s not mandatory. Those that you want to use it can use it. Those that don’t want to use it can use the regular standard assignment.” And it’s amazing to see that the majority of them choose to use the AI tool.

Camille: It also creates flyers, if you do that. And it has helped me with ethics applications. So, yeah, it’s a part of my life. It’s on all my laptops [LAUGHTER] and my computers. It’s kind of embarrassing now, but people say, “Oh, you’re leaning on it too much. And if you lean on it too much, it becomes they take over your ability.” But I’m directing this. I’m still involved. I’m the creative director of what I will use and what I won’t use, and I’m still a part of the equation. They haven’t taken me over, have they?. This is the kind of philosophical questions you ask yourself.

Yolanda: Amen, that’s the humanization of AI.

Rebecca: I think one of the things that I’ve heard you all talk about today is that the AI Institute gave you some concentrated time to practice and explore and learn, and kind of set that time aside so that you had the time to do that. I think often it’s one of those add-ons, like in my free time that none of us have, that we might explore these things. So it seems like that dedicated time was a really valuable and important investment for each of you to really integrate it into your work.

Camille: Yeah, we had a staff meeting because, you know, again, our Senior Vice-President of Academic Affairs, he’s really interested in it to kind of go, how can it be used for our professional use? And I remember my colleague and I, we created a case note: “How to Write a Case Note through AI.” And I think that just was, like, blown away. The other faculty were like, “Wow.” If you know anything about social work, you could write it as a SOAP note, which is a subjective objective assessment plan. You can use it as a DAP note, which is a diagnostic assessment plan. So we used it as a demonstration about all the different ways you can write case notes. Now there are AI systems to help with case notes in social work agencies which Is like: you put the paperwork in, put the information in, and they will create yourself an intervention plan. So I think that’s the good thing about Pacific Oaks College, because we’re such a profession-based kind of college, you’re teaching Marriage and Family Therapy. It’s one of the biggest marriage and family therapy schools on the West Coast. And then social work we just got basically a couple of years ago, using AI to help with you as a professional, I think has been great. So doing it with the teachers was the first thing, faculty, and now we’re going to try to see if we can do it with the students.

John: So you all participated in the institute. What proportion of the faculty participated in the institute? And do you still have some faculty who are resistant to trying AI?

Camille: For the Institute, it was seven of us. Three of us showed up today, but the seven of us. One, the Dea,n has moved on to another position, but everyone else has maintained. has stayed. More and more people are interested because of the fact that we’ve been doing staff meetings. And I was very surprised, because when I set up the TCS, which is the system-wide AI and UDL classes, it was like three hours of their time Monday and Tuesday, and everyone showed up. Everyone showed up. Everyone’s interested. And every time we do it, they’re like, “Wow.” Every time you see in the chat, “This is mind blowing.” So I think they’re interested. But we haven’t done anything formal to basically quantify how interested they’ve been and how involved they’ve been, but we’ve shown to them, AI is here to stay, it is valuable, and it can be used by anyone.

Yolanda: I believe we have developed a survey tool that we’re going to be sending out to faculty. So that’s something that we’re going to be looking at, gathering the data of their familiarity with the use of AI. And then I think we’re going to do a pre- and then a post-, and then we’ll probably then follow up on that, because that will denote the need.

Orlando: I think, as well, at other larger institutions, that have decided on a specific platform to use, as far as AI, and how to integrate that into the school’s existing tools. We’re still in the process of deciding about that. I know some of the schools, they use a paid version of ChatGPT or CoPilot. We’re still in the phase of selecting the best platform, but I know there’s some good options out there, and I think it really will add to and cause us to progress in our programming.

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

Yolanda: So preparing for the unknown. What I would say, first is we need to focus on relationships, the ability to connect with others, so that they can collaborate and work in teams together, because this is the 21st century workforce need. Second is helping our students with resiliency, I also like to call it flexibility, because the one thing that is constant in life is change. That’s the one thing that we can depend on, is change. And resiliency is the ability to push through obstacles and to have the confidence to act on the new knowledge that they have to create the change they want to see in the world. And then lastly, this is a P.O. core value is reflection. All of our assignments generally have a reflection piece that’s weaved in there for them to reflect upon. So I always tell them it’s important to stay humble enough to reflect upon changes that need to be made, and then the courage to act on the next steps that need to take place.

Camille: What’s next? Institutionally speaking, what I like is the fact, though we are a part of a system which is TCS and the six universities, the wisdom of the President was that he didn’t want a uniform AI platform for each school. He thought that we have a law school, we have a medical school, they’re going to need different kind of AI platforms than us. So we have been given the authority to autonomously pick our own AI platform that will work best for our particular students. We are keeping our students heavily in mind. We want to make sure that AI is used ethically and with integrity, but while being helpful to them. So we’re rolling out a policy that’s going to help them in that sort of way. We are also redoing our plagiarism handbook and basically incorporating AI and making sure that that kind of meets and it’s more seamless. We are definitely trying to pick a platform that kind of works for education, marriage and family, and social work, three different distinct professions, but yet very similar in a lot of ways. We’re also working on an AI manual, to some degree, to basically figure out how all the different components that come with AI, rethinking it and reshaping it. We have not done a review of our faculty manual in about 10 years, so that’s also being incorporated. We’re in the midst of change at Pacific Oaks, so AI came perfectly so they can be instituted in our paperwork and our regulations.

Orlando: As an institution, I think we’ll continue to serve as possibly thought leaders for the topic of AI. A lot of us are integrating it into our work, and I can see that continuing in the future. I think we all have a great idea about responsible use of AI, and I think that will definitely continue. Personally, I’m working on writing another book chapter. Most of my materials have been on doctoral researchers. So this new chapter is about doctoral research agency, where it’s based on a lot of material I’ve been looking into. Part of that should be focused on helping students to adapt and prepare for the future. As Yolanda noted, I think the skills of adaptation and integration are important, and AI could definitely help with that process. And yes, overall, just using AI to help prepare students for the future, whether it’s in the job market or for personal enhancement. I think that’s all important, and we could definitely motivate students in that way and help them to navigate that process.

Rebecca: Well, thanks for joining us. It’s nice to have a little case study of how a particular institution is working through AI.

John: And this is an issue that all campuses are facing. So it’s great to hear how you’ve been addressing it. Thank you.

Yolanda: Thank you for having us.

Orlando: Thank you.

Camille: Thank you so much. I hope that we were informative. We’re trying to move to cutting edge while keeping our tradition and our principles.

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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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393. Culturally Responsive Teaching

Posted in authentic learning, classroom community, diversity, engagement, equity, higher education, inclusion, instructional communication, learning, pedagogy, race, teaching
May 14, 2025

Faculty often struggle to reduce equity gaps and to foster a sense of belonging and inclusion in their classes. In this episode, Courtney Plotts joins us to discuss course design strategies to increase transparency and to allow students to express and share their own cultural identities as part of an inclusive class community.

Show Notes

  • Council for At-Risk Student Education and Professional Standards
  • Neuroculture
  • Plotts, Courtney (2023). Learning and Online Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Officers: A Handbook for an Emerging Profession. DBC Publishing.
  • Plotts, Courtney (2022). Cultural Intentions: An Evidenced-based Framework for Applications of Cultural Responsiveness in Education. DBC Publishing.
  • Plotts, Courtney (2020). The Space Between: Identifying Cultural Canyons in Online Spaces and the use of LatinX Culture to Bridge the Divide. DBC Publishing.
  • Plotts, Courtney (2020). The Space Between: Identifying Cultural Canyons in Online Spaces and the Use of Black Cultural Attributes to Bridge the Divide. Independently published.

 

Transcript

John: Faculty often struggle to reduce equity gaps and to foster a sense of belonging and inclusion in their classes. In this episode, we explore course design strategies to increase transparency and to allow students to express and share their own cultural identities as part of an inclusive class community.

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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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Rebecca: Our guest today is Courtney Plotts. Courtney is a psychologist who is currently working as a consultant on culturally responsive teaching and community building. She has worked as a K12 public school teacher, as a faculty member in higher ed, and as the National Chair of the Council for At-Risk Student Education and Professional Standards. Courtney is the founder of Neuroculture, and is the author of 4 books that address strategies to bridge cultural divides. She also regularly serves as a keynote speaker on issues related to culturally responsive teaching. Welcome Courtney.

Courtney: Hi. Thanks for having me, so happy to be here.

John: Thanks for joining us. Our teas today are:… Courtney, are you drinking tea?

Courtney: I am. Here’s my mug. I know people won’t be able to see it, but it just says a bunch of thank yous. And I am a green tea drinker. It’s almost done now, but I’m a green tea drinker. How about you all?

Rebecca: Today I have London Strand, John.

John: Another newish one for you.

Rebecca: Yeah, I got that one when I was traveling last year.

John: And I have a green tea. I have ginger peach green tea today.

Courtney: Yeah, now, do you all put stuff in your tea? Are you like sugar, honey? Are you just a naturalist or what type of tea drinker?

Rebecca: Absolutely nothing. You can’t put anything in it.

Courtney: Yes, me too. Me too. Okay.

John: Generally, I am too, although sometimes I put honey in it, but not recently.

Courtney: Awesome.

Rebecca: I don’t think we’ve ever had that conversation before.

Courtney: It’s a very important conversation. That’s a very important conversation to have, because always hear people say, “How do you drink it without anything in it?” I’m like, “just like this.”

John: And our British colleagues generally put cream in their tea. And we have discussed it actually before, when we had some people from the Saratoga area…

Rebecca: Oh, that’s right.

John: …who were talking about Saratoga Tea and Honey, which we do have several varieties of honey from there that we keep in the conference room that we use.

Rebecca: Alright, so we invited you here today to discuss cultural responsive teaching in the current political and social environment. To set the stage for this discussion, can you define culturally responsive teaching?

Courtney: Sure. I think what most people know it as a pretty general premise of these kind of buzz words of openness and intentionality and thoughtfulness and those type of words. But for me, I’m a school psychologist by trade, so for me, how I look at culturally responsive teaching is measuring acculturative stress levels among a student population and then tailoring the teaching to those methods, and that’s how I look at a little bit more scientific. I think that’s one of the challenges historically, is that when you say culturally responsive teaching, it’s so broad sometimes that it’s hard to kind of wrap your mind around what that means for you in your classroom.

John: In higher ed, our student bodies in the last decade or two have become substantially more diverse, but faculty diversity hasn’t quite kept up with this, and one of the reasons for this is that college completion rates are substantially lower for first-gen students and students from historically minoritized populations, limiting the diversity of student bodies in graduate programs. What role can culturally responsive teaching play in reducing the equity gaps that we observe in higher education given this difference in the diversity of faculty and the diversity of student bodies.

Courtney: Yeah, I appreciate that question. I think that, historically, there’s always been this argument about culturally responsive teaching, where it’s content versus delivery. So people will say something like, “well, we need to have more diverse authors, and we need to have more diverse… just kind of more representation.” Where I look at it is the delivery. Is your delivery diverse enough to meet the needs of the people in front of you? And we know historically, our learning structure is very Eurocentric. It’s transactional. It’s completion based. It’s not really relation based the scaffolding is an end to a mean, not a means to an end. So to kind of shift it, it’s really looking at is the teaching that you’re doing reflective of the people in front of you? And that’s the question. And it comes down to the relationship of cognition and culture. And it’s something that’s not looked at a lot very often. It’s always funny when people push back on that, because they’ll say, one has nothing to do with the other. And I’ll say something like, “Well, then why don’t you just start speaking another language right now?” Because if you haven’t been exposed to that, and that’s not part of your culture, then you’re not going to speak another language, and you’d have to teach yourself how to do that. So it impacts the learning environment. I think that’s a shift in discussion that we need to start having, because there are some bodies of knowledge that require certain things. So if you’re a nursing student, you’re going to have to pass that state exam. Those things cannot necessarily be changed. There’s going to be a certain amount of things that have to happen in order for you to get a nursing license. But how that information is delivered to be able to reach that goal is a different conversation. I think just equipping faculty with that information and then the actual teaching skills. What teaching skill is best for what population? When I say population, I don’t mean necessarily racial populations. It could be military to civilian. It could be rural to urban. Maybe you’ve only taught in rural New York and I drop you in Las Vegas. That’s a different population, because the culture of that area is different. So just kind of thinking outside the box that way.

Rebecca: Much of your work focuses on building community and relationships, as you’re just talking about in classrooms. What are some strategies that faculty can use to create stronger and more inclusive communities in higher education?

Courtney: Yeah, I’m about prevention methods. No one needs to be putting out more fires, so any fires that we can prevent are helpful. I think one of the biggest things is thinking about the culture that you make around broader statements. So a lot of times, faculty try to be helpful in the culture of their classroom, and they’ll say something like, “Here’s a syllabus, but I’m willing to be flexible.” But what flexible means to me as an instructor could mean something very different to John and very different to you. So having that discussion up front, “Hey, I’m going to be flexible, but take two, three minutes, talk about that as a group. How do you view flexibility from me?” Because you only have one group that is a fairly general consensus where it’s like, “Hey, a couple days after the due date, I’m okay with that,” but we all know, when we’ve been teaching for a long time, as we all have, that we can say that, but then we have the student who’s eight weeks in and thinks flexibility is starting over from week one in week 8, when it’s a 16-week course. So having those conversations, I think, and really building out the understanding of the academic community that you’re trying to build is critical. Number two is really thinking about the kind of altruistic behaviors that you want to manifest in your classroom. So whether that’s someone being supportive of another student, whether that’s someone showing up in a caretaking role. When you look at how you build community, and you read a lot about it, it’s very again, transactional, where there are all these behaviors that are happening behind the scenes, and we need to bring those behaviors to the forefront. So there are people caring for one another, there are people supporting one another, there are people advocating for one another. All of us have had the one student, and it usually happens once a semester. They’re the student who will ask all the questions on behalf of the class. So they’re more of like an inquirer. They’re seeking this information, and they’re not afraid to ask the questions, right? And they’re doing that on behalf of 26, sometimes 100 and something, other people, because there’s some Facebook group we know nothing about. So really bringing those pieces to the forefront and helping that behavior not necessarily have to be a separate space, and it’s fine that it is, if that’s working for everybody, but as an instructor, we would like to see that stuff in our own spaces. We should be able to see, “Wow, they’re helping, and they’re advocating, and they’re doing these things.” Additionally, I think that looking at a grading component or non-grading component, depending on how you view that, is really kind of assessing your community. Are your students showing things like civility? Are they supporting other minimized voices, no matter what that voice is, whether it’s someone talking about mental health and it’s a business class, or someone’s talking about autism and it’s a language arts class or any of those things, is really looking at those pieces, because there’s certain things that we do want to see from our students, and particularly in face to face, that kind of happens naturally, because people make their groups and they kind of make their friends or their acquaintances or their besties or whatever they do, and in online is a lot more difficult that way. So it’s like, what are we doing to help support those other relationships? And kind of have that same thing happen, just in an online space, in any medium, whether it’s video chat, however they’re communicating.

John: Going back a little bit to the earlier discussion of the cultural background of faculty and the students in our class. Faculty often ignore that, and we’re bringing, though, our own cultural background into the classrooms. And when instructors design activities, they often do it based on their own experiences, without taking into account the students in the physical or virtual room. What is lost when faculty don’t take students’ cultural backgrounds into account in designing learning experiences?

Courtney: Yeah, I think there’s a whole other cognitive piece that we’re missing in the learning. I think that’s a big piece of it. I think that when people naturally show resistance, usually other people show resistance too. So people can sense again, it’s not necessarily about cultural specific, it could be anything, like, “Hey, can I use your stapler?” But you’re kind of looking at me like you don’t want me to use your stapler, right? [LAUGHTER] So I can tell that like that’s not necessarily the goings on here. So the more that we can help faculty identify these things, I think the learning becomes better. And I’m saying this because I’ve heard this from faculty. If I do keynotes or people talk to me about their concern about culturally responsive teaching, they’ll say something like, “Well, I don’t want to get it wrong,” or “I don’t want people to think that I am stereotyping them.” And that’s the challenge, because of the way we did it. The way we did it, puts a lot of onus on people to get it right, get it right every time, and when you make a mistake, it’s a high penalty, and that’s because we’ve been looking at kind of those outside factors, instead of the intellectual piece of it, which is if we were to measure and get some numbers across the board at an institution and get a score about the levels of acculturated stress, then we can start determining the best teaching practices for that body of students, and we can do a college as a whole, or we can scale it to an individual. But overall, I think what’s lost is that there’s a whole other just swath of knowledge and connection with the content that’s lost. And I heard and I can’t remember… I wish I could remember who said it, and lots of people have said it… but I can’t remember the original person who said it, but someone was talking about the slave trade, and they said enslaved people came empty-handed, not empty headed. And I think that just the cultural piece alone of that, it’s like, “Well, just because I’m here and I’m a freshman, doesn’t mean I don’t know things.” And just as humans, it’s not even the teacher student, it’s we’re all individuals. And I’ve had experiences that can make your life richer. You’ve had experiences that can make my life richer. You’ve had experiences I will never understand, and I’ve had experiences that you can never understand. But we can both try. We can both try. And I think that that’s what gets lost in, that it’s like, if I can’t, not me personally, but anyone, can’t kind of get a handle on the olive branch, then how do we move forward? How do we build relationships? How do I feel that I can get to where you are if I don’t even feel like you care that I’m here, as just basic hospitality. [LAUGHTER] So I think those are some of the interesting components of that.

Rebecca: One of the things that you pointed to, or it seems like you’re pointing to, is this idea of transparency, or making things really explicit to students, especially around the syllabus, or some culture around how the classroom might work. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Courtney: Yeah, I think since before COVID and now, uncertainty has just kind of been at a steady, all-time high, and everyone is exhausted from guessing, because what COVID did and what the current political climate has done for the last, I would say, 10 years, but definitely the last five, definitely now, is everyone’s guessing, and guessing is exhausting. I compare it to like living with an alcoholic. It’s like, today you’re gonna come home and this person is the best parent in the world, the next day you’re angry because there’s peanut butter on the counter, the next day you’re raging because there’s socks on the floor, the next day you act like nothing happened. That cognitively is exhausting. So we keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result from students, and I think that’s part of the culture, is the culture of transparency. And I say this with all due respect, it’s just a cultural phenomenon, and I don’t know why this resonates with me so much. It’s just like me, personally, I don’t know that’ll resonate with all the listeners, but I’m 46 and so the people that I am teaching have grown up with a culture where people celebrate on television that they’re not your father. You see what I’m saying, like in TV shows, there are people that literally celebrate not being related to you, where in education, we do the total opposite. We’re trying to build relationships, we’re trying to nurture, we’re trying to develop. And so anything that is not clear, that’s so clear, where, literally, I’ve had students tell me, like, ”Oh, I still don’t know who my dad is,” or “I don’t know who my mom is,” or “I’m raised by what they would call, like a pseudo family,” or something, like nothing is clear, the things that most people are clear on, like, our students have had these really kind of obtuse experiences. And so sometimes you just have to spell this stuff out. And I think that’s just a basic relationship builder is transparency, and that’s just a cultural shift. And I just couldn’t imagine, in my own life, watching television and seeing a parent of mine on television and someone celebrating that they don’t have to deal with me. And it’s like, that’s a cultural thing. And I’m not saying it’s happened to every single student. I’m saying that’s what’s in the ethos of television. It’s a phenomenon. And so when you’re talking about transparency, it’s not that that person’s being transparent, that they’re happy that that person’s being transparent. My point is that it’s just there’s so much fake. The things that you think should be foundational just aren’t. And so again, just going back to that piece is like when we were in school, you just show up, shut up, do the work, and leave. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to work with a professor. It’s not like that anymore. So we have to work harder as instructors to build relationships, and we have to start with foundational things that build relationships, and transparency is one of those. And that’s just how I look at it.

John: So, what are some effective ways of building those relationships with students, in addition to transparency?

Courtney: Yeah, I think just like anything else, like listening to people and really just doing the things that make things clear, as clear as we can make them, I think it comes with, on the academic side, just making sure that what we say we stick to. And again, that’s part of that flexibility piece. These are things that I might change throughout the course. These are things that could change. List them out. I think that really taking the time, and this isn’t my own original idea, lots of people say this, really taking the time to get to know your students. And we have to be honest about the name thing, too. It’s a lot, especially as we get older, to memorize people’s names. It takes a lot of work. And it’s like, some people are going to be able to do that, and some people aren’t. Some of our faculty start to get dementia in their 50s. So it’s like, we have to be honest about like, it’s like, this pressure, like, “Okay, you have 250 students, and you have to know all their names. I’m going to try my best.” Again, for some people that have their mnemonic devices, they know the students. They know the names but it’s like, I trust people, and people know when you’re trying, and I’m gonna try and keep trying, and I’m gonna keep trying to get it right, but it’s like, we set up this thing where it’s like, everybody has to get everything right all the time. That’s just not humanly possible, but the effort 100% of the time is. And so I think that that’s, again, part of that transparency piece is just really saying to yourself, like, “Am I giving my best today?” And being honest with your students when you said, “You know what? I don’t know that I have it to give today. So we might have to do a flipped classroom.” Right? Or we might have to change something in this dynamic, because that’s the relationship piece. That’s the relationship piece. So maybe you were planning to lecture today, but now they’re going to work in groups, or maybe you’re planning to work on groups, but you know what? There’s really some information that you learned at a conference, and you really want to share it with your students. And I really just think it’s the consistency piece. And I think that helps faculty too, because so many faculty that I’ve talked to over the years, it’s like they give and give and give and give and give and they’re burned out too. There’s so many people writing about faculty burnout. Well, part of that is because we never teach faculty in orientation healthy boundaries. Do you even know your own boundaries with students? Because there are some things that I can and will do that would never work for either of you, and vice versa. But it’s like, “Oh, no, I have to be like John,” or have to… you know? It’s just like, “No.” It’s like, “Hey, John, that’s great. I’m gonna try that. That works for me,” or, “Hey, you know what? That wouldn’t work for me,” like we have different personalities. So it’s like really understanding our boundaries as faculty helps students, because we can be our authentic selves when we do that. And I think that that’s just something that’s overlooked, especially for new faculty that are coming on board, because I think they have a tendency to serve and serve and serve and serve and serve, and they’re on all the things that now you’re talking to students at 12:30 at night, and when you have so many students, you have a huge class size, that’s impossible, and we’re setting ourselves up for failure. So we need healthy faculty so we can build healthier students.

Rebecca: Sometimes in in-person classes, it feels easier maybe to build relationships, because you might have that casual time before or after class to get to know students, or you’re walking around class, and can kind of get to know students during that time. And we all know from maybe COVID and being online that you have to be much more intentional in online environments to build relationships, because those happenstance opportunities [LAUGHTER] don’t happen. Can you talk about some of the ways we can be intentional about the clarity piece and about building those relationships in these online, specifically asynchronous, environments?

Courtney: Sure, sure. So I think asynchronous, I think everyone has kind of a different understanding of what asynchronous means, because there’s lots of asynchronous courses where people still offer a video time, like time to video chat or send a video message. So we say, “Oh, it’s totally async,” but you usually end up meeting with a student in video. It usually ends up, at some point, for some reason, there’s usually some meeting. And so I think the question is, “What can you do beforehand?” And this is, again, just my opinion. I think we’re doing enough profiling of the students who are choosing async on the personality side to know how to develop some of those things, right? I think that people are choosing async, and some of them are choosing it because they’re like, “Now I’m going to use ChatGPT, I’m going to cut and paste. We’re going to be done here. I don’t really need the relationship. I’m just going to move on point A to point B. Boom, boom, boom.” And then I think that there’s some students who really thrive in that environment, but it’s more of a one-on-one or small group setting. And then I think there are people who are async, who just need what they need, and can fully move in those spaces and feel very connected. And I think we need more research on the personality pieces that go behind that to know how to develop that. I think right now we’re kind of at a disadvantage, because the scales are starting to tip where we’re just now starting to get faculty that have almost, and I say almost, gone through their whole education in a virtual space. We’re just starting to get some of those virtual high schoolers that are now faculty members. So we don’t know enough about what’s on that profiling side for that. But I would say it’s just the offer in the async of something if it’s needed. I think that’s the thing. I think, really showing pieces of community, really showing, and when I say expectations, having any type of surveys that you can get, any type of data from your students, so you can tweak as you go along. I found when I teach asynchronous courses, that’s the most helpful for me is I’ll send out some surveys just to kind of see what people want. And I built this class, but these people might need something different. So I changed this assignment, and that assignment, I changed that up, and I say, “Hey, I changed it based on your feedback. Here we go.” Because there’s no way to know. There’s no way to know. And it’s getting to the point, as you all know, and as the listeners know that, especially in higher ed, education is getting more tailored, and that’s just going to continue as AI continues to evolve, as our students needs continue to become more clear and specific, and they’re expecting a lot. They’re expecting a lot. So it just comes down to how we see ourselves and how we see all of that developing.

John: There’s a lot of research that inclusive teaching techniques, active learning, and many other things, benefit all students, but especially benefit students who have been historically marginalized. Yet we’re now in a political environment which is not very favorable to education in general, but is especially attacking DEI\initiatives. What are some strategies that faculty and institutions can use in this environment to provide educational experiences that allow all students to be successful?

Courtney: Yeah, I love that, John, that’s a great question. So I think the challenge right now, and I’m sure it’s happening at your college, everywhere I know it’s happening at the college that I’m at right now, is that everybody’s trying to figure out what to do next, and a lot of it is just people are reviewing policy. People are reviewing language of courses and just thinking through like, “Okay, how does this tie to funding?” And this, that, and the other. So that’s a big piece of it, but what I’ve always advocated for, for students, before the new political climate, just in general, is looking at what barriers can we take from faculty to make the job easier and the learning more meaningful for students, because if it’s not those two things, it’s really not beneficial. And so, for instance, one of the biggest pushbacks that I hear about culturally responsive teaching is, and it happens in almost every training, we’re going along, we’re doing the things, we’re learning, we’re growing, and then someone raises their hand say, “Hey, this is great, but I have 250 students, especially if you’re talking about race and ethnicity. How would I know what ethnicity they are? How would I know?” And that’s because we set it up all wrong. So, for instance, think of a case study. Most people who are in higher ed know what a case study is. So there’s a case study. So we write something and we say something like, Zach is a 32-year-old living in Michigan. He’s married to his husband. They do this, they go here, and this is the outcome. What’s happening. And the truth is that demographic information, unless you’re specifically teaching for that person for a reason, means nothing. So take it out and let your students fill it in, because that is the diversity. They will choose who goes in the case study. So anything that’s demographic, you just leave blank and you hand it to them and you say, “Okay, I’m going to put you in groups. We’re going to do some case studies. This is the information you need to fill in: name, ethnicity, age, marital status, orientation, however detailed or not detailed you want to get.” And then you talk about the case study, because that’s what’s going to pivot the content. Because if the end result is about something like law, because you’re trying to teach students a specific statute or something, how it’s going to be interpreted through the lens of that demographic information is going to look different in each group. So not only is it going to look different, but that other piece is going to look different as well, maybe how the statute is applied, or new questions are going to be raised. And you know what? For the students who don’t need that piece of diversity and say, “That’s not for me. I’m fine. Whatever. I don’t care who it is.” That’s fine. But for the students who need it, not only do they have control of it, it’s not something we’re doing, they have control of it, and they’re going to share out. And nobody knows. So it helps with the attention, because nobody knows who it is. But if we all say it’s Jack, he’s 33, he lives wherever, he’s married to his husband, like, by the time we’re the second group in, what else do we have to talk about? It’s Jack. It’s the same guy. It was the same guy in second grade. It’s the same guy in sixth grade, it’s the same guy in 10th grade, it’s the same guy in 12th grade, same guy in undergrad, same guy in grad. So it’s like, that’s how we do it, instead of choosing one case study, and especially if we’re not from that ethnic group. I happen to be biracial. My dad’s black, my mom’s white. But if I was choosing something like, “Oh, I’m going to do a case study, and the person’s going to be Filipino, and this is going to be their experience. I don’t know that that’s their experience. I don’t know that.” But if my student fills that in, they’re the ones, and this goes back to that other question you were asking John about like, what’s missing when we don’t kind of think these things through. It’s what is that other piece? The student is going to give us that information. I’m going to learn something as an instructor. My students are going to learn something. They might even have questions. It’s a whole different thing. So really thinking about things like that, I think it’s just an easy and powerful way to kind of really change a classroom dynamic when you’re talking about type of work.

Rebecca: A lot of times we use the word easy to imply something that maybe isn’t exactly as easy as we say it is. But in this case, it’s less work for the instructor, right? [LAUGHTER] And you’re giving agency to the students.

Courtney: Absolutely, and 250 of them at once, if that’s the assignment and it goes out that week, there’s 250 students. And what I do, just to support the listener, what I do is I actually give a list, because sometimes when our students… I shouldn’t say students… people, in general, when you’re exhausted, it’s hard to be creative. [LAUGHTER] I mean, it’s like “Oooh, if I haven’t slept in a couple days, my depression is kicking up, like I feel like being so creative. it really doesn’t work like that. So, what I do is I give them a list of possibilities, and they can use that list or not. So I give different names, different ethnicities, different ages, kids’ names, and just to try to help the conversation. And sometimes they pick those, and sometimes they don’t. They’re like,” Oh no. So and so is from Nigeria. And we picked this name because we didn’t know, and this is now the capital, we didn’t know that either, and we didn’t know that this was happening. And there they do it like this, but that would never fly in America.” Or “they do it in America like this, but it would never fly in Nigeria.” It’s like, you’re not going to get that with what we’re doing. So yeah, anything that’s easier, that’s my thing. This path of least resistance, and the faculty aren’t wrong, because it’s like, how would you, even with a 16-week time frame, how would you possibly begin to be able to address each student’s need in that way? It’s impossible. Even with a TA, even with a million dollars, you can’t do it. There’s no time. And it’s like, we have to look at ways where, again, we’re embedding it in the actual learning process, instead of something that’s topical.

Rebecca: One of the things that you mentioned earlier was the use of AI, a little bit from both sides. You gave the example of students maybe using AI in online environments to get away with something, but you also pointed to maybe some potential of AI. Can you talk a bit about whether or not AI has a role in making a more culturally inclusive environment in our classrooms. Are those tools that we can use as faculty to help with that end?

Courtney: Yeah, I think it depends on who’s using it and how it’s being used. I think accessibility wise, if we can help our students all have access to it, that’s good, but I think what faculty aren’t prepared for is really the anticipated rejection of AI. So for instance, I’m just using my own personal example. I’ve gone to job interviews where I’ve been the only person sitting in the room, and I’m waiting to go somewhere, and someone will come out, and they’re calling my name and they’re looking right past me, but I’m the only person that’s there. I anticipate that, because a lot of people, when they hear me, they don’t necessarily think that I sound the way I should look, or for whatever reason. The mistakes that AI can make can have an impact and a fallout. So the question is, let’s say you’re using AI in the classroom, and you’re asking your students to develop an image, and I don’t care what, you pick any variable. Maybe your student is dyslexic, maybe it’s a visual component. Maybe it’s just making some assumptions that are stereotypical of AI. Students aren’t anticipating rejection in that arena because they created spaces where they’re accepted. So when you’re in a classroom, you’re like, “Hey, do this,” and there’s 20 something people, and everyone else likes their image, but my image is very derogatory towards me, what’s the policy about how are we rectifying? Are we letting students know, “Listen, we’re fully aware that we’re asking you to use this, but we have an alternative assignment” because we can’t guarantee that you’re going to have the same experience as the person to your left.” No matter what it is, like, I’m left-handed, so everyone in the pictures is right-handed. It could be anything, but it’s like, we don’t think of that fallout, because using Word is not going to do that, but you asking someone to take their own image and making an avatar of themselves could absolutely do that. And again, when you’re talking about things like racism, prejudice, and stereotyping, some of that stuff is expected in certain places, like people are prepared for it. It doesn’t make it right. It just means it’s true. But with AI, the question I have for faculty is, are you prepared for that? Do you have the relationship enough where that student doesn’t take that personally, that it’s coming from you? You are the one who asked them to use this. There was no caveat about this was going to happen. And what do we do when the student has done that image five or six times, now they’re on the 10th or 11th time, and it’s getting worse every time, it’s not getting better. So I think it’s that anticipated rejection we really have to think through as far as policy, as far as what we’re actually asking students to do. Student choice with AI, I think, is huge. I think that we have to know the technology enough to offer choices that provide safety in what we’re asking them to do. I think that’s critical.

John: Are there some ways that instructors can use AI to help create a more culturally inclusive environment in their classes?

Courtney: Yeah, I think so. Definitely with students with learning disabilities or learning differences or exceptionalities, I know that a lot of students have diagnosed or undiagnosed processing disorders, so really trying to pull content together. They know what they want to say, but they have trouble pulling it together. And again, I think that all comes with clarity. I’m teaching right now. I teach full time. And one of the things that I talked with about my students is really talking about, really what the intellectual capital is. Because 15 years ago, if you used the tech, that’s what made you different. But because the tech is getting so good, it’s really going to come back to, and I know people don’t like when I say this, it’s really going to come back to the reading, the skimming and actually knowing the content. And I just had that discussion with my students last week. I said, look, “It’s not the AI use that bothers me, it’s, do you even know if it’s right or wrong when you’re looking at it?” And in some cases, not all, for sure, but if you haven’t read the text, if you haven’t read the research, there’s no way you’re going to know that. There’s absolutely no way you’re going to be able to recognize, “Oh, that’s an error, that is not correct,” because you’re trusting the tech. And once you trust the tech, it controls you. So it’s like, my thing is, well, yeah, some of that might be right, but what are the processes worth teaching students to check those pieces? And that’s my concern, is that there’s already a gap in reading, and so if that gap stays, who controls that intellectual capital? How are we teaching students to value intellectual capital that’s not generated, that’s it’s actually what you know, what you can produce. And even if you’re using generative AI, do you have enough intellectual capital to sit through to get it right? And that’s where I’m trying to help my students is like, you don’t need to love reading and read everything, but you got to have a plan for fact checking. And I think that’s just fundamental. The technology is not going away, and we also need to be comfortable with it enough where we’re going to stop creating assignments that can just use AI to complete the assignment. So for instance, a lot of people, and again, I’m not against it… I teach school psych, We have to write reports all the time… you can write a report with generative AI, and it could be a book report, a psych report, any type of report. But again, do you know? What is your plan? And we created writing assignments, the students turn it in, now, what? Okay, did they learn anything? So we have to flip that where we’re using the AI so much that the next task that we give them, they can’t use it, because now it’s time to actually use your brain, it’s time to think. So, and getting to the point where we’re getting away from brainstorming, and we’re going to have to go to fact storming, because the AI can help brainstorm and brainstorm all day. But how do we get to the fact storming where we’re checking what we’re actually looking at?

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

Courtney: Yeah, I think it comes down to just thinking through AI. I think it comes through thinking through policy. I think it comes through thinking about the protection of students with how are we handling anticipated rejection (or unanticipated) and I think it really calls us as higher ed to really think about how we’re designing courses and assignments that use the student as the proxy for learning, not the tech, like the tech should not be the student’s proxy for learning. It should be the student is learning in conjunction with the use of technology, no matter what it is, whether it’s AI or anything. And I think it’s going to take a lot of work. It’s going to take a lot of thoughtfulness, a lot of discussions for the faculty listening. Everybody’s got a lot on the plate. Everybody’s burnt out. This isn’t a one-person show. This isn’t one person overhauling their whole class to do all the things. It takes time. And no matter where you are on the continuum of AI, if it’s not AI, it’s going to be something else, like, wherever you are is okay. I think sometimes there’s pressure to feel like, “Oh, well, everyone’s doing this, so I have to, like, run over here.” But if it’s not going to work for you, it’s not going to work. So until you’re ready for that, it’s not going to work. So be okay where you are, manage what you can, make some new friends, read some new articles, do something, and you’ll get there. But it doesn’t have to be today. And I think just because tech moves fast, there’s kind of an expectation that people move fast, and people usually don’t move fast, definitely not as fast as tech. And you know that if you work in higher ed, so there you go.

John: Well, thank you for joining us.

Courtney: I appreciate you. Thanks again for having me.

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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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392. Teacher by Teacher

Posted in access, classroom community, engagement, equity, higher education, inclusion, instructional communication, learning, pedagogy, race, racism, teaching
May 7, 2025

During the past decade, public confidence in education has been declining. In this episode, SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. joins us to discuss his new book that provides a compelling narrative of the value of education in transforming lives.

Chancellor King  has a long history of involvement with education. After graduating from Harvard, he acquired a Master’s degree from Teacher’s College at Columbia University and taught high school social studies. He later co-founded Roxbury Preparatory Charter School and served as a co-Director for five years. Under his leadership, students in this school attained the highest scores of any urban middle school in the state and closed the racial achievement gap. After acquiring his doctoral degree from Columbia and a law degree from Yale, Dr. King served as New York State’s Education Commissioner from 2011 to 2014. He left NY for a while to work in the Obama administration as Deputy Secretary of Education from 2015 to 2016 and joined Obama’s Cabinet as Secretary of Education from 2016 to 2017. Following his work in the Obama Administration, Dr. King continued to advocate for increased educational equity and access as President and CEO of the Education Trust. He now serves as Chancellor of the State University of New York. We’re interviewing Dr. King in his role as the author of his new book and not in his role as the SUNY Chancellor.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: During the past decade, public confidence in education has been declining. In this episode, we discuss a new book that provides a compelling narrative of the value of education in transforming 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: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

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Rebecca: Our guest today is the State University of New York Chancellor, John B. King Jr. He has a long history of involvement with education. After graduating from Harvard, Dr. King acquired a Master’s degree from Teacher’s College at Columbia University and taught high school social studies. He later co-founded Roxbury Preparatory Charter School and served as a co-Director for five years. Under his leadership, students in this school attained the highest scores of any urban middle school in the state and closed the racial achievement gap. After acquiring his doctoral degree from Columbia and a law degree from Yale, he served as New York State’s Education Commissioner from 2011 to 2014. Dr. King left NY for a while to work in the Obama administration as Deputy Secretary of Education from 2015 to 2016 and joined Obama’s Cabinet as Secretary of Education from 2016 to 2017. Following his work in the Obama Administration, Dr. King continued to advocate for increased educational equity and access as President and CEO of the Education Trust. He now serves as Chancellor of the State University of New York. We’re interviewing Dr. King in his role as the author of his new book and not in his role as the SUNY Chancellor. Welcome, Chancellor King.

Chancellor King: Thanks so much.

John: It’s great to talk to you again. Today’s teas are:… Chancellor King, are you drinking tea by any chance?

Chancellor King: No, I just have water today, unfortunately, I’m visiting SUNY Purchase, and I don’t have access to my usual supply of tea.

Rebecca: What a disappointment. [LAUGHTER]

Chancellor King: Sorry about that.

John: Next time.

Rebecca: John, I have constant comment today.

John: …which is appropriate for a podcaster, and I am drinking a pure peppermint tea today.

Rebecca: Always a good refresher at the end.

Chancellor King: I’m jealous. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: So we invited you here today to talk about your new book, Teacher by Teacher: The People who Change our Lives, which provides a powerful testimonial to the power of education to transform lives. In the introduction, you note that you are fortunate to have teachers and mentors who help guide you through critical turning points in your life. Can you talk about what led you to write this particular book?

Chancellor King: Sure, I’ve thought about it off and on over the years, and “you should write a book,” is the thing that people sometimes say to you, you know, but I hadn’t really committed to it until the Washington Post did a story about my family history, and that prompted a book agent to reach out to the journalist to ask if he wanted to do a book about our family history, and he was doing another book project and said, “No, I don’t really want to do it right now, but you should call John and see if he wants to do a book.” And that got me started on this journey, and I really saw it as an opportunity to talk about the role that teachers have played in my life, and to really take on this thing that we do in our culture, where if somebody has persevered through difficult circumstances, we make the story about them and not about the people who supported them. And I really wanted to shift that and say all the opportunities that I’ve had, the extraordinary opportunities I’ve had, all trace back to teachers who intervened at the right moment in my life. I was very, very lucky to have these amazing teachers, and I wanted to tell their story, and to tell the story of the many amazing teachers I’ve gotten to work with over my career.

John: And at a time when there’s so many public questions about the quality of education, I think this is extremely well timed. As your book illustrates, you’ve been involved with education all of your life, basically, and you note in your book that education helped to define your family and shape your family’s identity. Can you tell us a little bit about this?

Chancellor King: Sure. So on my mother’s side, my mother has a classic Nuyorican story. She was born in Ponce in Puerto Rico, came to New York City as a kid, maybe about five or so, with her brother and my grandmother, who was a single mom who decided to come to New York City to create opportunity for her kids. She went to work in a garment factory, and my mother learned English in the New York City public school, was the first in her family to go to college, went to Hunter in the CUNY system, and really got to live exactly the dream that my grandmother had, and because of my grandmother’s hard work and faith, I have the life that I have today. She made that investment, she made those sacrifices, so that my mother could go to college. My mother became a teacher and a guidance counselor, and it’s really an extraordinary story about what public higher education makes possible, what Hunter made possible in my mother’s life? My father grew up in a very segregated New York City just after the turn of the 20th century, the grandson of enslaved people, and he found a path through education, becoming a teacher and later the first black principal in Brooklyn and senior administrator in New York City Schools. And his life could have gone a lot of different directions, being born in 1908 in New York City, but school provided this path for him, and part of the reason he knew to take that path is that my grandmother, his mother, had been one of the first graduates of what is now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, an HBCU on the eastern shore of Maryland, and she was very unique in being an African-American woman with a college degree in that early period. And that made her path possible, and that helped shape my father’s path, and so education has just been so central to my family’s whole story.

Rebecca: As I read your book, I really appreciated hearing your story, but also I think it reflects a lot of our students’ stories, and think it’s helpful to have these stories out there so that others can see themselves in the stories. One of the things that you talk about is your growing responsibility that you had to take on as your father slid into dementia. Can you talk a little bit about the role school played in your life during this period when you were taking over many of these adult roles, like paying bills, buying groceries at such a young age?

Chancellor King: So when I was little, my mom was really the main care provider in our home. My parents were very far apart in age. My father was 66 when I was born, my mother was 40, and my father was very distant, not very active with me. I don’t remember, for example, ever playing catch with my father. And so my mother was my anchor, and she passed away from a heart attack when I was eight, and there are no words to describe how devastating and painful that moment was. And then it was just me and my father, and he was distant then, but got more and more distant, and now I know it to have been Alzheimer’s, but at the time, I didn’t know why he was acting the way he was. But over the four years there was just the two of us, he got more and more erratic. Some nights he’d be sad, other nights angry, sometimes even violent, and I didn’t know why. I can remember one night, he woke me up two in the morning, told me it was time to go to school, and I was arguing with him, saying, “No, Dad, it’s not time to go to school.” And he was pulling me on the stairs. I was clinging to the banister, and I didn’t know why. Eventually he gave up and we both went back to sleep, but that was what home was like, just this incredibly unstable and scary place, but school was amazing. School was this place that was safe and consistent and nurturing. And I was very fortunate during that period to have Mr. Osterweil, who was my teacher in fourth, fifth, sixth grade, he looped with us, and then a number of teachers, but in particular Miss D, who was my seventh grade social studies teacher. And Mr. Osterweil and Ms D, really saved my life during that period. It gave me a sense of hope and purpose, and as my father got more and more sick, as you said, I had to figure out how to just keep our household going. Bills started to come, marked late, cancellation, those kinds of things, and I realized I needed to do something about that. So my father’s name is same as mine. John B. King, Sr. I’m John B. King, Jr. So I started signing checks and sending them in to try to make sure that the power stayed on. My father had stopped going to the store, but I knew where he had kept cash in the house for years, and so I snuck in and got some money there and started going to the store myself to get food in our house as a survival strategy, was just trying to figure out, like, how to keep things going with a deep sense of hopelessness about life at home, but school was the place where I could channel a sense of optimism.

John: And in this part of the book, you talk about some of the teachers that had that effect on you, of giving you that sense of optimism. And one of the things I thought of when we were reading this is that we had a reading group this semester on 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People, by David Yeager, and one of the things he emphasizes is that a really effective way to motivate adolescents is to let them know that you have high expectations for them, that you believe that they’re capable of achieving those expectations, and to provide the support that they need while treating them with respect. Would it be fair to say that those teachers you mentioned, Mr. Osterweil and Miss D and some other teachers shared this approach to teaching?

Chancellor King: Oh, absolutely. When I think about Mr. Osterweil’s class, it was rigorous. We read The New York Times every day starting in the fourth grade. We learned the leader and capital of every country in the world. We did productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare, in elementary school, we did a production of Alice in Wonderland. I was the rose, a big red belt petal sticking out of my head. We went to the museum and the ballet and Mr. Osterweil was that kind of teacher who’s curious about you, you know, he’s curious about what you as an eight year old or a nine year old or a ten year old, what you think about the world. And he would have these very serious discussions with us, where he really was so interested in our take on things. And we talked about hard subjects. We were in the midst of the Cold War, he created this academically challenging, enriching, but also loving environment. You’d finish a book, he’d be there with the next, you’d finish a math problem, you’d have the next one that was a little bit harder. He was always pushing, but in a spirit of love and care, and he didn’t know what was going on for me at home. Maybe he had suspicions, but he didn’t know, but he knew to create an environment that was incredibly nurturing. And I’m still in touch with Mr. Osterweil. He’s just extraordinary human and Miss D was a different kind of teacher. She was my seventh grade social studies teacher. She was a former actress, or maybe she was still acting at the time, a huge personality, but again, sort of expected a lot of us. And at that point, my father was very sick, and I would often sit in class and worry about how he was doing, what was happening at home, how we’d be able to just keep going. But in Miss D’s class, I remember when we did a project where we had to do an Aztec newscast, and in that moment, the most important thing in the world to me was to be the best Aztec sportscaster there had ever been, and that was because of the environment she created. And so I think those points from Yeager are exactly right and are very consistent with findings about the research on retention, completion, some of the research even around how to combat stereotype threat, you know, it always comes back to that mix of high expectations and communicating the confidence that students can do it.

Rebecca: One of the things that you also talk about in your book is that you lived in Long Island with your brother after the death of your father, and then you applied and were accepted at Phillips Academy in Andover. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience there and how that affected your interest in racial and socioeconomic inequality?

Chancellor King: So when I went to live with my brother, I was 12, and he was 24. My dad had passed, and I was insistent that I wanted to go live with my brother, in part because when my dad was very sick, quite frequently, I would go spend a weekend with my brother, and it was super fun. We’d go to the movies, we’d go bowling, we’d eat out every meal. It was very exciting and fun. Turns out that it’s tough for a 24-year-old to raise a 12-year-old, and he was struggling himself with sort of who he was gonna be. And he drank a lot, and he partied a lot, and he was a little bit rudderless, and it was very unstable, and he had these different difficult relationships, and pretty quickly I realized living with him was not healthy. And so then I had to figure out what to do. And I had a friend from elementary school, from PS 276, who had gone to Groton with a scholarship through Prep for Prep or Oliver, one of those programs that helps kids from New York City go to New England boarding schools. And he was having a good experience. He told me about it, and I thought, “Okay, well, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to figure out how to get to one of these boarding schools.” So a cousin helped me with the application, and I ended up at Andover. And I could not have been more out of place. As context for folks, Andover is where George H.W. Bush went, where George W. Bush and Jeb Bush went. It is everything you imagi ne of a highly selective, very expensive, very fancy New England private school. And I was a kid from Brooklyn who hadn’t really had a stable home life since I was eight, and I just really struggled with the non-academic parts of campus life, and I really struggled with navigating the issues of race and class on campus, and it was just very clear that the campus wasn’t working very hard to create a sense of belonging for students of color like me and. And there were these multiple moments where I just felt so out of place and so conscious of the ways in which I was not… I don’t know if welcome is quite the right word… but not the priority for the institution. Students like me were not how the institution thought of itself. I describe in the book an argument in a history class with a teacher about the Rhodes Scholarship, and I was making a point about Cecil Rhodes and what he meant in the world, and the teacher was very dismissive of my argument, and it felt like this unwillingness on his part, to think about how race and history interconnect with our lives and our choices, and that was sort of emblematic of just the tension that I experienced there, and I got in a lot of trouble, I idn’t follow any of the rules, and I got kicked out. And I always say to people, “I’m the first US Secretary of Education to be kicked out of high school,” but it was not the right place for me at the time.

John: And you recovered from that, though, and you moved on to Harvard after graduating. And there you’ve described working on a number of projects in the Mission Hill community. Can you talk a little bit about some of your experiences there?

Chancellor King: Yeah, I was fortunate that after I got kicked out, I went to live with my aunty and uncle, and they really helped me get my life on track. But when I got to Harvard, I felt out of place a little bit, and also definitely imposter syndrome, like I had to write two essays for my college application, the regular essay, and “Why’d you get kicked out” essay that you have to write if you’ve been expelled from a school. And so I remember as a freshman just feeling like, is somebody gonna tap me on the shoulder and say, we made a mistake, that other essay fell under the table. We didn’t see it. You’re not supposed to be here. And so I was struggling a little bit. And when I first got there to find my place, and I went to like, a volunteer fair, and they were recruiting people to teach civics in local elementary and middle schools. And I was like, “Oh, that’ll be fun. That’ll be interesting,” because I cared about civics and government and politics. I was interested in that, and I liked the idea of community service. So I signed up to do it, and it changed my whole trajectory. I ended up teaching civics and then teaching conflict resolution in schools. I ended up running a summer camp in a public housing development in Boston, where we lived for the summer, as well as worked with the students and families. Then that turned into helping to run the after-school program, and I spent probably more of my time, frankly, in Boston than in Cambridge, doing public service work and engaging with the community. And that led me to really conclude I wanted to be an educator, because I so love doing for other kids what teachers had done for me.

Rebecca: So when you graduated Harvard, then you went to Columbia University Teachers College, you decided then to begin your first year of teaching in Puerto Rico. Can you talk about being a first-time teacher?

Chancellor King: Yeah, so it’s really hard. I always say to people that I’ve had a lot of hard, complicated jobs, but the hardest job I have ever had was first-year teaching, because you don’t have files to fall back on. You don’t have the lived experience to fall back on. You want to do a good job. Every day is just very stressful. You’re planning. It’s the first time you’re teaching each lesson, and you’re planning every night, you’re doing grading every night. And like it’s overwhelming. First-year teaching is very, very hard. I just have a special place in my heart for first-year teachers. And I was doing it in a context where I’d moved to Puerto Rico, I was teaching at a school that was a private school, largely serving the students who were children of the elite. And my theory of going to Puerto Rico was I was going to have this cultural experience. I was going to really get to know the island more. Obviously, I visited as a little kid, and I wanted to have that experience. I wanted to work on my Spanish. I underestimated how overwhelming first-year teaching would be and how all-consuming it would be. I also underestimated how difficult I would find it to teach in a school where there was so little focus on social consciousness for the students. There were certainly some students who were there on scholarship, but the vast majority of students were there because their parents had tremendous resources, and they were largely going to college in the United States when they graduated, the mainland United States, and they were being prepared to be the next generation of leaders, but without a sense of consciousness about the complicated colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, without a deep awareness of issues of race and class and how they play out in Puerto Rico, and there definitely are color line issues in Puerto Rico, but that was not discussed. And I really struggled with, as a social studies teacher who would bring into my class a lot of complicated issues of the history of slavery and abolitionist movement and the Civil War and Reconstruction and the dismantling of Reconstruction, the emergence of the KKK. You know, we were having these intense conversations about race and American history, but yet not really engaging around the issues just under the surface in life in Puerto Rico. So that was very difficult, alongside the frustrations of just navigating first-year teaching and an environment where there really wasn’t much support. I don’t recall anyone ever observing my class and giving me any feedback, and so that’s a challenge, I think, for a lot of first-year teachers, they don’t get the kind of induction support they should. And it’s true for higher ed too, frankly, right? That oftentimes higher ed faculty do not get the experience of a lot of feedback and support around pedagogy early in their career. So it was very hard, and I decided that I wanted to be in a school that had a clearer civic mission, and I wanted to reconnect with a community of friends that had stayed in Boston. And so I decided to leave Puerto Rico and teach in Boston.

John: And you mentioned that higher ed may face similar problems. I think the problem may be even worse in higher ed, because at least when you begin working in secondary ed, you’ve had some teacher training courses. People in higher ed, when they go to teach, have generally had little or no training, with the exception of a few graduate programs that provide it, and there is gradually some progress there, but I think we still have quite a ways to go in higher ed. You mentioned coming back to Boston, and one of your next roles was to work with Roxbury Prep. Could you talk a little bit about your work there and what made this institution so very successful?

Chancellor King: Yeah. So as a high school teacher, one of the things that I saw in Boston was that many of my students were coming so poorly prepared, just behind, kids coming into ninth grade with fifth grade reading skills, fifth grade math skills, and really struggling to get caught up enough to be in a position to have real choices about what to do after high school. So starting a middle school, I hoped to be able to build a stronger foundation for students. I also had been frustrated in the schools where I’d worked as a teacher about the lack of support around teaching and learning, and so I really wanted to create a school that centered excellence in teaching and learning. So, Roxbury Prep, we did a few things that I think were really important structurally: we had three and a half weeks of teacher professional development before the school year would even begin, time for folks to plan to look at student work. Now there’s tradeoffs: less summer for everybody, but we built into the fabric of the school this idea that you would work very diligently as a community of teachers on the art and science of teaching, and that was very helpful. We had a longer school day that made a huge difference for our students, just more time for students who were coming to us in middle school, quite a bit behind, but we were able to have more time for academics, but also time for enrichment activities because of our longer day, but on Fridays, we ended at the same time as the district so that we could create a couple of hours for teacher development time. And so every week, we were watching videos of instruction. We were looking at student work together. We were meeting in grade-level teams to talk about students who were struggling and what supports they needed, or meeting in departments to talk about instructional practice. And that routine of careful attention to quality teaching, I think, helped us to get really strong academic results for students. We also were very focused on culture, and building a culture, as you described about the Yeager work, building a culture of high expectations with love and that communication of belief in students. And we were very small, we really spent a lot of time on picking the right teachers to be a part of the community, and then really invested in developing people, and it was amazing. It was incredibly satisfying work. I’m still in touch with a lot of our students and the teachers who worked with me then, and as you mentioned the intro, you know, we got really outstanding academic results and sent students on to really great opportunities afterwards, and that led me to think about policy, because there were a lot of questions where I was thinking, how do we scale some of what’s working well?

Rebecca: That’s such a great transition into the next thing we wanted to ask you about, [LAUGHTER] which is, how does one transition from being in a school into policy making? So can you talk a little bit about your experiences in the New York State Education Department, some of the challenges that you faced, and maybe some of the big successes as well?

Chancellor King: Yeah, so after five years of leading Roxbury Prep, I was thinking about what’s next, and how could I kind of have a bridge to policy, and I decided to go to law school. At that point, I was working on my dissertation, and I decided to go to law school with the thought that there’s [LAUGHTER] a lot of lawyers in public policy. And I had the experience when I was first-year teacher, the summer after my first year of teaching, I interned at the US Education Department in the Secretary’s office, and I worked for the person who was the advisor to the Secretary on teaching, who had been a teacher of the year, but she was often the only teacher in the room, everybody else was lawyers, and so I had this sense that law school could be a helpful set of skills and bridge to public policy. And that ended up happening. I ran a network of schools. I became Deputy Commissioner, and then Commissioner, and as Commissioner, you really are thinking about scale, 700 school districts in New York State. We had a huge infusion of funding from the U.S. Education Department early in the Obama Administration to do work on strengthening the standards for teaching and learning, helping struggling schools in high-needs communities, turn around their performance, building better data systems. So it was a great opportunity to have those resources and to think about scale work. One frustration was we had a very ambitious agenda in the state, and the Obama Administration had a very ambitious agenda for ways to accelerate progress in schools. And I think in some ways that ambition got out ahead of the capacity building and implementing something like the Common Core became very difficult because the work was focused on changing teaching practice, but simultaneously, there were changes to the assessment. Simultaneously there were changes to how teachers were going to be evaluated. It was a lot on the system, and I think I learned a lot about the need to build buy-in on major change initiatives, and to pace the work so that the people doing the work are full partners in it. And I don’t think we did that well enough at the federal level or in New York State. And so there were a lot of good things that we created: incredible curricular materials, the expeditionary learning, English language arts curriculum, which is still to this day, generating outstanding results in many schools around the country. So that was exciting. A number of really creative new schools were launched, like the P-Tech schools that were launched around New York State, where students graduate with a high school diploma, an associate’s degree, first in line for jobs with employer partners in technology and healthcare, in advanced manufacturing, such interesting work, but the politics were very intense, and there were ways in which, if we had sequenced the work differently, I think we could have managed those politics more effectively.

John: So one of the challenges, I suspect, is that when you’re working with a four-year administration, there’s an incentive to try to get things through quickly, which can result in those types of challenges, because, you know, if you don’t get them in the next administration may not share those values and beliefs, so it’s quite understandable. Your next move was to the U.S. Department of Education, where you had some really impactful programs that you had worked on. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Chancellor King: Yeah, so it’s funny, you know, I did a lot of work with the U.S. Education Department when I was Commissioner, and got to know Arne Duncan, who is my predecessor as Secretary, really well. And Arnie called me one day, and he said, Do you want to come down to DC and be my Deputy? I’d really like you to do that. And I said to him, “Look, I love what I’m doing in New York, but I’m a huge fan of President Obama and you and the work that you’re doing, and I’m very torn. Will you promise me that you will stay to the end of the Administration, because if I’m going to move my family to DC, I want to know that I’m going to be working with you?” And he said, “Oh, absolutely, 100% I’m going to be there to the very last day, turn out the lights at the end.” And I said, “Okay, alright.” So after I ultimately decided I would do it and I came down to be his deputy. And then a few months later, he comes into my office, and he says, “I need to talk to you about something.” And he said, “Yeah, I remember when I said I was going to stay till the end. Well, actually, I’m going back to Chicago.” And it was totally understandable. It was important for his family. So an incredible outcome in that the President asked me to be Secretary, and what a privilege to serve in President Obama’s Cabinet and to be a part of such an impactful administration, and to get to work on really critical education issues. A couple of things that I’m very proud of that I did a lot of work on: one is cracking down on predatory for-profit colleges that were stealing from students, stealing their Pell grant money, their GI Bill money, providing students, often, with a substandard education. Often students would not complete, and yet they were in debt to these institutions… just really awful. And we put in place very stringent rules. We shut down some of the worst actors, built a process to cancel the debt for the students who were taken advantage of by these institutions. Now, of course, a lot of that work was undermined, to your earlier point about what happens when administrations change, a lot of that work was undermined during the first Trump administration, where they brought in to oversee higher ed policy, literally, the people who we had been investigating days earlier. That’s who they put in charge from that predatory for-profit college industry. The Biden administration then had to go back and redo some of the work that we had done in the Obama administration, and we’ll see where things go next on that front. But I was proud that we were standing up for students and protecting students. We also had an initiative called My Brother’s Keeper, which was President Obama’s initiative focused on, particularly, boys and young men of color and the challenges they face. And as part of that work, we launched an effort to address really what had been a huge public policy mistake in the mid-90s, which was in ‘94 the federal government banned access to Pell grants for folks who are incarcerated. And this is incredibly dumb public policy, because people who get any educational programming while incarcerated are substantially less likely to return to prison. And for folks who graduate with a degree while incarcerated, the recidivism rate can be in the single digit. So it’s a terrible idea to take away educational programming in prison, but it was part of the period of tough on crime and policies of mass incarceration, and we knew that, but we needed to fix it. We didn’t think we could get Congress to do it. We just did not see a path in Congress. So we used our experimental authority under the Higher Education Act to create a program called Second Chance Pell that would allow 65 colleges and universities on a pilot basis to use Pell grants for students who are incarcerated. And what that did was create extraordinary opportunities for those campuses, but also a proof point where we could bring governors, members of Congress, state legislators, to see these programs, talk to students who are participating, and show that, in fact, these programs are transformational and ought to be how we think about criminal justice reform. And after I left the administration, I was leading a civil rights organization, and we continued with the civil rights community, the criminal justice reform community, to work on these issues, and ultimately we were able to persuade Congress to change the law to repeal that ban, and now Pell Grants are broadly available to students who are incarcerated. And I talk in the book about going to graduation in prisons are just so incredibly moving, because you see not only how people are changing their lives, but how they are changed by the experience of education, and they will describeseeing the world differently, the different relationships they’re able to have with their family members, their kids, and themselves because of what they’ve learned through their higher ed work. It’s incredibly inspiring work, and I’m really proud to have been a part of that movement, really.

Rebecca: We’ve talked a bit about the impactful work that the federal government can do… has done… but there’s been a decline in public support for higher education over the last decade. What can we do to rebuild political support for higher education, especially in this time.

Chancellor King: We have to acknowledge that there’s less faith in institutions generally, and so higher ed has been caught up in what I think is a broader cultural phenomenon of less faith in institutions. That said I think we gotta do a better job of delivering and storytelling. Why I say we need to do a better job on delivering is if you went to one of those predatory for-profit colleges and you left there no degree, no job prospects, deeply in debt, you’re going to be pretty resentful of higher ed. And everybody you know is going to be pretty resentful of higher ed . If you went to a private nonprofit or a public college, and you didn’t finish, but you have debt, no degree, feel stuck, you’re not going to feel very good about higher ed institutions. And so one thing that we need to do is we need to make sure that the students who start have the support to finish, and that when folks finish, they see the economic benefit. That’s one of the reasons I’m committed to the idea of internships for all undergraduates, because I think it’s really important that students are able to, when they leave college, realize the intended economic benefit of college. Of course, we’re preparing citizens and we’re preparing folks to be well-rounded adults, to lead fulfilling lives, and we want to make sure they’re able to support themselves. And so delivering on the promise of higher education and getting better at delivering is a part of the work. But then the other is storytelling. I don’t think people realize how impactful higher education is in every aspect of American life, that I don’t think people realize that when they’re looking at their phone, that there are hundreds, if not thousands of things that are happening inside of their phone that were made possible by research that was done on higher ed campuses. Or when people go to the doctor and they’re getting their treatment. I’m not sure they realize that the reason that treatment is even available is because of research that was done on higher ed campuses. And so I think there’s some storytelling we need to do. I was struck that last week when Harvard decided to push back on the demands of the administration to really violate principles of academic freedom, one of the things they did was they changed their whole websites and that now when you go on the Harvard website, it really walks you through Alzheimer’s research, cancer research, research that helps our military members be safer. There are just so many things that research is making possible. And I thought that was really smart on their part, and I think that is something we as a sector need to do a much better job.

John: Yes, the change in the Harvard website is really impressive, and it’s a case, I think, that we all need to make in our own ways too. And your book actually helps in this way too, by showing the impact that education had on your life as well. You conclude the book with a discussion of tracing your ancestry to enslaved people owned by Thomas Griffith on a farm in Maryland that was still owned by Griffith’s direct descendants. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience of visiting that family?

Chancellor King: Yeah, well, I’d mentioned earlier that my grandmother graduated from University of Maryland Eastern Shore, 1894, and UMES reached out and asked me to give the commencement. And it took a while, different events for me to do the commencement, but during that period, as I was preparing for the commencement, I decided to do some family research to try to flesh out the speech. And I worked with a woman who did genealogy-type projects at the Schomburg, the part of the New York City Public Library that works on African-American history. And one night, she sends an email to me and my family. We’re sitting on the couch watching TV, and we get this email, and it says, “I’ve discovered the place where your great-grandfather was enslaved. And by the way, it’s less than 25 miles from where you live. Ir’s in Gaithersburg, Maryland.” I was living at the time in Silver Spring, Maryland. And “Oh, by the way, the property is still owned,” as you said, “by the direct line descendents of the family that enslaved your family. And, oh, by the way, the cabin that your great-grandfather lived in as an enslaved person with his family is still standing on the ground.” And you know, it took your breath away, right? Because, as an African American, you know that there’s this tie to the institution of slavery, but to think that you’d be able to be in the place, that was very jarring. And then this conversation followed like, so now, what do we do with this information and like, do you call ahead? Do you send a note? Like, how do you introduce yourself [LAUGHTER] to this family and you have this complicated history? And it happened that my cousin was in town, maybe the next weekend, to visit the new Smithsonian, the African-American History and Culture Museum, and they have a cabin in there exhibit that they brought there, that cabin for enslaved people. And that prompted my cousin to say, “You know, I got to go see this place.” So she literally went there with her husband. She knocked on the door and she said, “Our people were enslaved here,” and that opened up this whole relationship and journey that we’ve had with the Beckers, the family, two sisters, who are descended from the Griffith’s and it’s been a fascinating journey. One, it’s there’s something quite profound about standing inside that cabin and appreciating, really, the cruelty of the institution of slavery. The cabin is not 30 feet from the main house. So you have this profound sense that these were two families living together in the same physical space, one owning the other. Certainly in our family, we also have the profound sense of gratitude for the journey of our family, the fact that in my family, we went in three generations from enslaved in that cabin to serving the Cabinet of the first black President. Incredible story about what’s possible in America. We also have had a journey in just getting to know the Beckers and talking about this history and realizing that even though they grew up amongst the artifacts of the institution of slavery, called that cabin the quarters, they had not spent a lot of time thinking about what the institution of slavery was and meant, and we’ve had some really difficult conversations around that, but I think we’ve learned, they’ve learned, from those conversations, and it’s made me even more committed that our schools, higher ed institutions, have to grapple with the truth of our history, the complex truth, the pain and the progress and that, to me, is just essential to the health of our democracy.

John: And we’re seeing a lot of pushback on that right now, which is really, really troubling.

Chancellor King: Yes, horrifying. I mean, some of the things you’re reading of people taking down the Harriet Tubman poster, taking books out of the library, it’s chilling.

John: Changing the history curriculum in many states so that mentions of slavery are being removed and so much else.

Chancellor King: Yes, during the confirmation hearings for Secretary McMahon, Chris Murphy asked her, do you think teaching African-American history would violate the President’s executive order against diversity, equity, inclusion? And she couldn’t give an answer. She said, “I’d have to look back at it.” I mean, that was shocking to me. And to be clear, I think it’s 100% crystal clear that teaching African American history is 100% consistent with the law, so I was shocked by that exchange.

Rebecca: …and consistent with the history of our nation.

Chancellor King: Yeah, it has the benefit of being the truth, right? [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: This has been really fascinating, and I think folks will really enjoy reading your book to really see the impact education can have through the many stories of teachers that you’ve shared and various aspects of our education system in the U.S., we always wrap up by asking, what’s next? The big, daunting question [LAUGHTER] of what’s next?

Chancellor King: Yes, yes. President Obama would always say, he’d always quote Dr. King, and the line that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” And I truly believe that. And I know there are things happening today that can feel like sliding backwards, but I am nonetheless optimistic that in the long run, we will continue America’s history of progress toward expanding the circle of opportunity. And so these are setbacks, but they are temporary, and we have to continue to build, and educators have the opportunity to do that every day with their students, the opportunity to build towards a future that is more just, more sustainable, and we just can’t be deterred from that by the awful backsliding that we’re seeing. We have to just double down on our efforts to invest in a better future.

John: And it’s encouraging to see the proteststhroughout the country right now.

Chancellor King: Yes, people standing up for the rule of law, for due process, for academic freedom, for the important services that government provides. for our public servants. There are half as many people today working at the U.S. Education Department as there were on January 20. And my heart aches for colleagues who I know were so committed to being of service to the country, who many of whom are former teachers, principals, faculty members at higher ed institutions, student affairs people in higher ed institutions. they came to the department so that they could contribute, and they’ve been treated so horribly, and that’s true across so many areas of government where people have been tossed aside who only want to serve. I’m so glad people are standing up for them.

Rebecca: Well, we appreciate you spending time with us and sharing your story and sharing pieces of your book with us today. Thanks.

Chancellor King: Thanks for that opportunity, always great to talk with you.

John: Great talking to 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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389. Inclusive Math Instruction

Posted in access, classroom community, diversity, engagement, equity, first-generation, growth mindset, higher education, inclusion, learning, math ed, pedagogy, race, reflective practice, STEM education, teaching, Uncategorized
April 16, 2025

Undergraduate math courses, as traditionally taught, often serve as barriers to entry into many STEM disciplines. In this episode, Aris Winger joins us to discuss strategies that can increase student success and reduce equity gaps in student outcomes in these classes.

Aris is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Georgia Gwinnett College. His current areas of interest include equity in mathematics education, culturally responsive teaching, and social justice mathematics. He is a co-author of the book series Advocating for Students of Color in Mathematics and is the Executive Director of the National Association of Mathematicians.

Transcript

John: Undergraduate math courses, as traditionally taught, often serve as barriers to entry into many STEM disciplines. In this episode, we explore strategies that can increase student success and reduce equity gaps in student outcomes in these classes.

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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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Rebecca: Our guest today is Aris Winger. Aris is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Georgia Gwinnett College. His current areas of interest include equity in mathematics education, culturally responsive teaching, and social justice mathematics. He is a co-author of the book series Advocating for Students of Color in Mathematics and is the Executive Director of the National Association of Mathematicians. Welcome Aris.

Aris: Thank you for having me.

John: It’s great to see you again. You were here not too long ago to do some workshops on our campus. Today’s teas are:… Aris, are you drinking any tea?

Aris: Oh, I am not drinking tea. I’m drinking water. Yeah, my family is a big tea drinking family, but I’m just a water drinker.

Rebecca: That’s okay, water is the foundation of tea.

Aris: Yeah, that’s right. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: I’m drinking Blue Sapphire today, John.

John: Back to an old favorite.

Rebecca: It is, yeah.

John: And I am drinking Lady Grey.

Rebecca: Oh, nice, I had that not too long ago.

Aris: Excellent.

Rebecca: So in most colleges and universities, passing rates in math classes are lower than most other disciplines, and we’ve invited you here today to discuss strategies that would allow more students to be successful in the study of math. First, though, can you tell us a little bit about your own educational journey?

Aris: So yes, I was valued in math from my earliest mathematical memory, and so my earliest mathematical memory was with my mother, who was showing me the future. I remember going up to her and, like, “Mom, look, two plus three is five.” She was like, “soon you’ll notice that two and she put an x 3 is six.” I was like, “What’s that?” She’s like, “You’ll see.” And then from there, like, early on, I was doing two-digit multiplications faster than other people. And then the teachers around me were like, “Oh, you’re good, you’re fast, you can do this.” And so I say, “Oh, I guess I can.” And so I started to develop sort of a math identity. That is to say that it became part of me to be, quote, good at math. And I kept that for a long time. And when life got rough for me, when I was younger, I could always go to math and be safe at math, because I felt an identity. I felt good there, I felt valuable in mathematics. And so it just became a deep part of my identity. So that meant that I was going to major in math. That meant that I was going to be a mathematics professor the whole nine. So I continue to go back and look at that story to see my through line. And I’ve had to change the story, by the way. It used to be, in this journey that I’ve had, I’ve had to change the story also, because the story used to be, “Oh, I’m just smarter than other people,” when, in fact, the story really was that I’ve been trained. And really making this understanding that not that drinking the Kool Aid, that somehow I’m ordained to have a mathematical brain, I’ve been trained, and I deserve to say that I was trained, because I put in a lot of work. And so if a surgeon can say they were trained, a mathematician can say that they were trained also, and so for 10 years, from 1995 to 2005 I got a bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in mathematics. That 10 years was training.

John: A very large share of students that we see in college say “I’ve never been good at math”. Why do so many students come in struggling with math or believing that they’re not capable of being successful in math?

Aris: Yeah, well, it’s because they’ve had mathematical experiences that weren’t optimal for them. And so there’s a narrative that I want to interrogate, and I’m thankful for this opportunity to speak out, an interrogation of a narrative that we have to call into question. And so it is this notion that somehow math has done something to us and math has done nothing to us. So when someone says that they hate math, they’re not talking about the body of knowledge that’s the greatest body of knowledge in history of the human experience. They’re not talking about that. They’re talking about a human relational experience they’ve had in the culture of mathematics that humans have built about how we do math, particularly in the western context. And so whenever someone today says, “Oh, I hate math,” then I just say, lots of my colleagues say, “Oh, I’m sorry that happened to you.” I just say, “Who was it? What grade? Tell me what happened.” And then often they will say, “Oh, it’s this person, here’s what they said to me,” or “here’s why I didn’t like this class.” Lots of times they also say it was when the letter showed up. And so for me, what helps me is that I try to return to the innocence of the person that is talking to me. So when someone says that, I’m thinking about a kid sitting in the chair and then all of a sudden, they’ve been doing percentages, they’ve been doing proportions, and then all of a sudden someone writes an X up on the board and says, I want to know what X is. And for some reason, it blows this person away, like I have no idea what’s going on. And that person starts to, maybe for the first time, feel unsure, feel like they don’t belong. Now, there are all these feelings that are showing up that never got attended to. And we know in this discipline, the way that it is taught, that that cascades, because then this builds on the next thing, which builds on the next thing, and then all of a sudden you find yourself, “Whoa, I gotta get out of this thing.” Now, the tragedy that we have in our society is that we have lots and lots of our young people who are getting out of the discipline of mathematics, and it’s the most important, [LAUGHTER] right? And so that’s the tragedy, that’s the crisis, that we have so many people leaving our discipline. And so I want to be clear, that doesn’t mean that everyone needs to be a math major. That means that the world that I dream of is one in which we’re all connected and thriving quantitatively. What does that mean? That means that we are allowing ourselves, or we have the permission, to ask quantitative questions like, “Why does that cost that much?” and “is that the right percentage rate for my mortgage?” and “why don’t I want that payday loan?” Right now we have so many silent people quantitatively, because the predominant space in which we think quantitatively is in school, and so in school, school mathematics, systematically, is about some other narratives that we continue to uphold, like speed and correctness, and it doesn’t allow for the imagination to grow. So the answer to your question is that these experiences, when we see the people today in our colleges, they are, in terms of math, they are an extension of a past experience that is over a decade long. And so I want to return all of our kids back to that, in a sense, to “Wait, you know, you’ve had a math experience that has been difficult.” And for me, one of my goals is to create a new narrative for those people who come into my class, and not just for them. And so if I can get a young person or old person, whoever’s in my class, to think differently about math, then maybe they get their cousin to think differently about math and their little sister. And because, again, you never know who’s watching and who’s going to see how you interact and how that impacts them.

Rebecca: You’ve talked about our individual experiences with math and how much they vary, and they vary across elementary and secondary school districts as well. What can college math instructors do to help address these inequities in prior knowledge?

Aris: The first thing I would think of is that each college instructor needs to look at each of their people as an individual. And so for me, for so long, I would go to my pre-calculus class or college algebra and say, “Okay, I’m teaching that group,” and that was 11 years ago. And today I go in and I’m saying, “Oh, I’ve got Sammy, I’ve got Mark, I’ve got Jamal, I’ve got Lisa, I’ve got Tiana, right? I’ve got this group of people, and I’m teaching this subject today. Given who I have in my class, what should I be doing today? And how should I do it today?” And so there is a returning, or perhaps introducing, for the first time, a humanity of the people who are in my class. And so that’s the first thing. Just acknowledge that you’re teaching a group of human individuals Now, from there, there’s an acknowledgement that you yourself come from a culture, come from an experience, and that that’s going to impact the way that you teach. And so then, now, at this point, how is it that we can develop a good relationship between yourself and the people who you’re going to be engaging with for the next 14, 15, 16, weeks in this discipline, and then thinking about also this balance between your relationship with those people and the content, and which one comes first. And so for so long, it’s like, “Oh, I gotta get through this. I gotta get through this. I gotta get through this topic, this topic, this topic, this topic.” And the thing that keeps me up at night is that, in our discipline, there’s a crucial question that’s lacking in our discipline still, and it is the question I think we have to ask ourselves, is, “How do my students feel?” Somehow, the question of how my students feel when I give back assignment and it’s marked up with red, or if Pearson MyMathLab says that, “No, that’s incorrect,” and they’ve been working on it, or if they’re in ALEKS and they’ve been working on a topic for 35 minutes, and ALEKS says, “You know what, I think you should move on.” How that makes them feel? Or maybe a policy that I have of no late homework, even though they have two jobs, all of that. How is it that what I do in a space where I have all the control, how does it make my students feel? And then to rectify that with how I want them to feel learning the greatest discipline in the history. Now we know how I want them to feel. I want them to feel curious. I want them to feel empowered. I hold knowledge that I’m trying to convey and explore, for them to be super powerful, super engaged and literate quantitatively. And so I want all these positive emotions, and yet all these negative emotions are happening. And so part of my job as a professional, I see, is to try and ease that tension, to have them try and learn it, but also for them to feel joy, to feel curiosity, to feel great about themselves, right? And so I was at the joint math meetings, and I was giving a talk, and at the end, I was talking about feedback forms, that you’ve got to get feedback from your students in order to understand what’s going on with them, because you don’t understand what’s going down, that was the bold claim I was making as a teacher. A person in the audience at the end said “I wanted to push back.” Now I love pushback, because lots of great things come out of pushback, just like I want to push back. And I was like, “Okay, great.” And then he says, well, sometimes you shouldn’t listen to their feedback, because I had a student, and we were in class, it was a class of five, and we went through the whole semester, and I could tell they hated the entire experience, but then they came up to me a semester after this semester, came up to me and said, “I hated every moment of your class, but I learned all the material.” And then he said, “that’s the reason why we should ignore our students’ feedback.” And then I responded to him. But then afterwards, after the talk was over, I went out, and he pulled me aside. It’s like, “See I did my job.” And I said, “But wait, so this person got all the content from you, but this person hated every moment in this class, and you think you did your job,” and to anybody who’s listening, that if students got all the content but hated every moment of it, then we haven’t done our job. And that, I want to imagine us doing mathematics and them getting content in connection to the greatest discipline and being who they are, loving every moment. And that’s the dream, and that’s hard, because when you get back a C minus, how can we have someone have joy and get a C minus? And these are hard questions. I don’t claim to have the answers to these, but again, this is tension, but we have to continue to dream, because we have in our hands, we have in our expertise, this great discipline that we have to continue to pass on to people, but pass on to people in joyous ways.

John: Given the diversity in what students come into our class knowing, though, it’s hard to come up with a method of instruction that provides sufficient support for all students while still helping them learn more. How can you build that…

Aris: No, no, what you just said is false. Now, it might be true that we have not been able to do it yet. So what you just said, I respectfully disagree. I think that what you said is true if we continue to do what we’ve been doing, there’s no doubt about that. And so that’s what I mean about dreaming. And so I’ve come on to this podcast to dream with you. And so when you dream, you can’t say stuff like that, because then there’s no openness to be like, “Okay, wait, how can we do something else?” I agree with you that if we keep doing what we’re doing, then… and so let’s unpack that. That means that I go in front of somebody, I go in front of a class, and this happens to all of us. It’s a great problem. You go in front of the class and mathematics, the way it is built now, says that, “Oh, you must have prerequisite knowledge.” And so that means that we think of math in school as a body of knowledge, more than a natural human activity. And this tension, we have to make sure we elucidate and make clear that we can think of math as a body of knowledge, or we can think of it as a place where people get to play. Now, in one of those with the natural human activity, everybody just needs to come, explore, think about mathematic questions. This is the math circles space where you just play. You make it an introductory question, and it’s set up so that there are multiple entry points, and you just go after it, and then you have someone who’s facilitating, who’s valuing every single contribution. Notice I didn’t say answer, every single contribution. Or you can think of our discipline as this compendium of knowledge, where, over the last, however, many centuries since the dawn of humanity, we’ve been collecting all of these mathematical facts into one big thing that, again, is the biggest dossier of human knowledge that humans have. But if you think about it that way, exclusively, then when you come into pre-calculus, then when I look at you, then I’m thinking, “Do you know enough college algebra?” And if I do that, then I’m being exclusionary from the jump. The first day of class, we’re being exclusionary subconsciously, to all of our students, to some of them, right?

John: You interrupted me in the middle of the question. The next part I was going to ask, I think, would get to the points that you’re making, that we want all of our students to be successful in developing their knowledge, but given their differences in backgrounds, what are some strategies we can use, perhaps to leverage peers in class, or in other ways, to help provide that sort of support for all of our students, no matter where their starting point is?

Aris: I think that’s a great question, and it’s true that given if–then statement, if the if I call in the question, I will not hear the then. So yeah, that’s why I interrupted you. So what we have to do is, again, we have to change the narrative of what a teacher thinks. And so now, and I’m about to get into trouble, stepping all the way back, the challenge with our students in mathematics is really a challenge with our professors. And so this means that there are lots of us who are superbly comfortable, who have lifetime jobs with tenure, who have been successful in quotes. What does that mean? That the way they think about success has been, “Oh, I’ve had five to 10 students come back and say, ‘That was a great experience. I have students who are going to graduate school. I have students who are doing research.’” And so the revelation for me was, wait, I’ve had hundreds of students, and I’ve gotten dozens of feedback, [LAUGHTER] and I’m using the dozens of people… like you only hear from the people who are doing great, because the people who don’t like you aren’t going to tell you to your face, right? And so I’ve had biased feedback and like, “Well, wait, what happened to this person, this person, this person, the person I don’t even remember, was I really serving them?” And I actually don’t know the answer to that. And so there’s something about each of us as professors completely being rigorous about how we teach and critical of the way we teach, so that we continue to use new methods. And so this is happening in our discipline, where lots and lots of people are now doing active learning, lots and lots of people are doing less lecture. And so this is not a critique on lecture. It might be a critique on lecture with five people, or it might be a critique on lecture with 300 people. But again, like if you’re lecturing to 300 people for however long, how do our students feel? Later today, I’m doing some stuff with Math for America, and last year, when I did some stuff with them, I had a person and I’m gonna ask whether this is similar for them tonight, who has 35 students in 45 minutes, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And that person has said, “Well, I can’t do anything but lecture, I’ve got to get the content out.” And this is in the context, of course, in K through 12, where you might have your state forcing you to make sure you do well in the course tests. And so they’re under so much pressure. But again, as we imagine, I’ve seen people do active learning with 35 people in 45 minutes, and so that’s something that you just have to try. So the first thing I want to say is that, what have you been doing? Have you gotten the feedback that it’s working? What are the grades look like in this system and continue to try new things. And so you’re not going to do stuff overnight. The thing that I don’t want to see is that you’re doing the same thing you’ve been doing the last 25 years. That we can’t have. And so I am making a call of action to our professoriate to try something new, be bold, and what better time to do it is when you can’t be fired. We have a lot of anti-tenured, tenured people, in the sense that a big part of the point of getting tenure is to then explore, say what you feel, to not be put in a box. And then that’s sometimes when we become the most conservative. I do want to shout out, though, our lecturers and vital faculty, the visiting, the instructors, the tenure track, the assistant professors, and so forth, that are also thinking about these things, who don’t have the job security, who may not have the ability to be creative in the classroom also, because then they might be judged for it, or say, you know, “You can’t do it that way and don’t have that job security, also.”

Rebecca: As someone outside of mathematics, it seems to me like there’s a role for faculty in other disciplines to play here as well, because there’s a lot of fear mongering around math, I think, from other disciplines and things, maybe from their own mathematical experiences. But I know, as a designer, I’m constantly helping students try to find some relevance to the math so they’re not so scared of it, because I think it’s really important for their work in just about every discipline.

Aris: Yeah, I think there’s a big disconnect between mathematics and all the other disciplines. And again, to your point, I think it’s because everyone has their own walk with mathematics, and oftentimes it’s not a positive. So that means sometimes we get advisors outside of math who are saying, “Oh no, no, don’t take that. You don’t need that extra math class.” Or we get people who are just like, “Well, let’s just get you through math as quickly as possible,” or whatever. For me, that just means we need to be having more conversations like, “What does it look like?” I’m dreaming again. What does it look like for a designer to sit down with a math professor, or the two departments to sit and talk together and say, “Okay, well, what do you want mathematically for our students? What do you want design-wise, for our students? How do these things intersect?” And so we’ve been in a silo, mathematicians for a while. People just leave us alone. And now we see what’s happening. Math departments are closing. People are losing majors because now we thought that we could just do our own thing, serve, have our majors, but now people are really starting to ask the question, “Well, wait, the way that you’re teaching. It doesn’t feel like it’s so relevant.” For too long, we’ve asked, “Well, how am I supposed to use the quadratic equation in real life?” And actually, I don’t think we properly responded to that, because I think the proper response is that, “Oh, solving the quadratic equation is useful in cognitive agility in this way, this way, this way. And in addition to that, you’re right, [LAUGHTER] right?” Yeah, that like “Doing this exercise is helpful in these ways, and you probably won’t see it in the future.” And so that’s why we made quantitative reasoning, that’s why we have these other courses. But that took us a very long time to do that, to actually respond to people, like my school didn’t even have a quantitative reasoning class until finally, we looked at all the DFW rates and it was just like, “Well, we have to do something else.” Now, what happened there was this movement from college algebra to college algebra and quantitative reasoning didn’t have to happen, but it was a “Wait, we’re not moving on college algebra. At some point we think college algebra has to be this. And therefore, if you want these people to succeed, then we have to create this whole other space for them.” Again, as I dream, I would imagine that mathematicians as teachers would say, “Well, wait, maybe we could teach it differently,” but we didn’t do that. But I think lots of times, mathematicians and math faculty are movable objects like “No, it has to be taught this way.” And then very few people outside the discipline can come up to it and say, “Well, no, can’t you change?” And them saying, “You can’t change, because it has to be like this. We’re the experts.” But when I also think about other disciplines, I get jealous. Yeah. I mean, because, like, other disciplines get to talk about the great ideas and the systems that I’m in that I see we don’t get to talk about the great ideas. The notion of infinity is one of the great ideas that mathematics brings to the world. And so when I think about Calculus II and sequences and series, and people are going to start to groan when they listen to this, that we fail to see that we’re talking about how infinity operates, one of the many ways that infinity operates, and it’s an absolutely brilliant idea that very few people talk about because we’re too busy talking about ratio tests, and then you just get bogged down in what tests are we using, or does this have a limit? And you just forget that the notion of adding up an infinite list and getting a finite number is like so unbelievably profound. But political science gets to talk about justice, U.S. history gets to talk about the Constitution, and philosophy gets to talk about God, and over here, we have just as deep things, but we’re so tied up in procedures and making sure that you have the right minus sign. Do you see the difference that I’m bringing up? That in literature, people get to read Toni Morrison, and I’m not saying that I’m jealous that they have better things. I’m saying we have just as good things. But why is it that we are bogged down in this minutia, but they’re not critiquing Toni Morrison’s grammar. They’re just reading Toni Morrison and becoming better humans. Where is the becoming better humans in Calc I, where’s the becoming better humans in algebra? And that’s the open space that I dream of in our classes.

John: I’m hoping going forward, that we will still see students studying the Constitution in history classes. [LAUGHTER]

Aris: That’s right.

John: That may be changing in the current environment. [LAUGHTER]

Aris: I shouldn;t be laughing.. I don’t want to laugh, but I also don’t want to cry. That’s right. [LAUGHTER]

John: Sometimes we have to.

Aris: That’s right.

John: But as you’ve noted, students often come in with this fixed mindset, and they often have not had that much success in their experiences before they get to us. Should there be, perhaps, more effort in society to transform K-12 math instruction so that we don’t lose so many people from a discipline that’s so important?

Aris: I agree with that, and I think we also have to be careful. So I have no time for figure pointing, because what I’ve seen when I do professional developments all the way K through 50, whatever it is, right? As I just go, yeah, that I always see the pointing back. And so when you go to the ninth grade, it’s like, well, eighth grade, and then eighth grade it’s like, well, it’s Elementary, and then Elementary, it’s like, well, it’s the parents, and then it’s like, it’s the reverse induction, right? You just go back, well, then maybe we shouldn’t have kids at all, right? …if you want to just keep doing that. And so I think we’re all in this. And so there are two things, you come to a young person, you come to a student who’s had a bad math experience, and they’re a sophomore, and it’s the first day of class, and so you know they’ve had a bad math experience, and so you can’t send them back into K-12. They can’t go back. And so we can say, “Oh, this might be… and I have said this earlier, that this is a response of a bad math experience they had earlier.” And yes, we need to fix that. But this person’s in front of me today, and so I don’t want us to be confused that, “Oh, that this person is a lost cause.” The responsibilities on me now to create a better mathematical experience for this person and to help them as much as reasonable, and we can need to, as we were saying earlier, have conversations with K through 12. So what are real, fundamental conversations between math faculty and K through 12 faculty. And so what’s nice particularly about Oswego is that you all have the opportunity to make real connections to the K through 12 places, to schools that may feed into Oswego, and sit down with the faculty and say, “Oh, what’s happening?” I’ve seen this happen out west at Sonoma State, where they have relationships with K through 12 schools, and they’re having those types of conversations. Now, those conversations aren’t easy, because there’s status that you have to disrupt about in the space and that you just have to deal with, but once you break that stuff down, become one in community, then you can start to have real conversations about, “Oh, wait, you’re teaching this, but we’re teaching this. And so when did they end up learning this? And oh, do you really have to teach that?” Yeah, and you just have good conversations.

Rebecca: As we’ve been talking today, was thinking about an early experience I had in my teaching career where my previous institution I was invited as the non-math faculty member to join an assessment retreat and spent an entire week out of town with the math faculty, who I really didn’t know very well, and we had a great time, and found all kinds of connections between our disciplines. And for me, I think that was a really important opportunity. So I thought it was a really wonderful opportunity to collaborate across disciplines and to get a better understanding of what the faculty in that department were doing, what some of their objectives were, but also I shared what some of the art and design students, some of the struggles that they have, and I thought it was a really rewarding opportunity, and I actually had forgotten about it until this conversation. [LAUGHTER]

Aris: That is fantastic. That’s fantastic.

Rebecca: But it sounds right along the lines of what you’re advocating for as a way to share and disrupt and move things forward.

Aris: Absolutely, absolutely.

John: From society’s perspective, the rate of return to higher education, despite the popular perception, is pretty much at the highest we’ve ever seen, and that’s especially true in STEM fields. And yet, students of color, though, have been seriously underrepresented in STEM fields, perhaps partly because of underrepresentation in faculty and in their prior interactions. What strategies could be used to help reduce some of those inequities in terms of the mix of students who are entering into STEM fields?

Aris: Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of things. So this is an individual and a systemic issue. So individually, I think you have to go all the way back and say, “Well, what does it mean to be of color? What does it mean to be a student of color? What does it mean to be a person of color?” And again, the challenge is that people don’t even want to ask that question. Like, student of color or person of color, came into the vernacular at some point, and we just didn’t stop and say, “Well, wait, what does that mean?” And so when I say that I am black in the United States of America, people who are listening, what does that mean to you? If you’re listening to this five weeks from when we record and I say that I’m black, what does that mean to you? What do you think that means to me? Now I want to be clear. The reason why I ask is because when Lakeisha comes to your class, and Lakeisha is a young black woman, and you haven’t even thought about what it means to be black, then are you going to try and convince me that you’re prepared to teach Lakeisha? Do I want my daughter in your class? And the reason why I bring this up is because it means everything to me to be black, it means everything to me, and you haven’t even thought about what it is. So now I’m coming to your classroom, and there’s something fundamentally important to me, and I look at you and I already know the signs that it doesn’t mean anything to you. And so then you are already positioned to me as someone who doesn’t even care about me. And now let me step all the way back. Everybody’s nice, everybody’s a good person. Everybody’s loves their family, loves the country. Everybody’s nice, nice, nice, nice. I’m not talking about nice. I’m talking about love, actually. I’m talking about realizing the nature of the place in which we live, the United States of America, which is again a place of ultimate brilliance, but a place that also has had significant struggles, tragedy and terrorism amongst people of color and black people in particular, right? We can be both, brilliant and have terroristic backgrounds. And so for me, that’s the first thing on an individual level when we think about again, when I said earlier that we have to think about our students individually, that is tied to, “Wait, that person is black in America, that might mean A, B, C, D, and E.” Now it could mean that. It might not mean that, but sociology is a thing. Sociology is real, and the studies show that, about marginalization, how people feel. Stereotype threat, microaggressions, those things are real things. And so that means, again, we need to be educated about what that might mean. But let me take 17 seconds… that for me to be black means two things at least. It means that, again, I come from a miraculous people. I come from a group of people who have been terrorized and stigmatized for centuries in this country, and somehow, our most profound voices, our most powerful voices, are ones that are trying to teach love and justice for everybody. That’s a miracle, like somehow, like in the face of all of that ugliness, our leaders come out talking about love and justice for every single individual. Being black also means that I’m part of a social constructed category where I am not getting things that other people are getting because of skin color, and that’s personally, and that means systemically. And so both of those things are happening, are a part of who you see in me. But what that means is, when you look at someone else who is of color, then you might say, “Oh, that person’s walking around in this society, and they might be experiencing stuff just because of the color of their skin.” And again, coming back to that fundamental question, “How might that make them feel? How might they be struggling today to learn some of the stuff that I’m saying.” And most importantly, how is it that in these four walls for this hour and 15 minutes, in a space that I fully control, how is it that I can make this space different, different from what the rest of the world has told them their whole life? So that’s the personal one. Now, systemically, I’ve been thinking a lot about mentorship, and so if we have 17 students of color, 17 marginalized students in whatever category, whether it’s women in STEM also, 17 students at my institution who are part of a category, a social category, they might be black, they might be whatever, then the question for me becomes, how is it that we get them the right mentors, and that means that focused attention by someone who is ahead of them on the road for their goals, someone who is going to sit with them and look in their eyes and have them convinced that, at least for that hour of that meeting, that no one else in the world as important as they are to that person, someone who is going to awaken something within them, all potential that they didn’t even realize they had. And so when you have good mentors, then you provide pathways for people that they didn’t even think were possible. Now, of course, the challenge is, how is it that we need to train good mentors? We need to get them out there. Right now, we are not trained to be good mentors, particularly across identities, particularly across racial identities and cultural backgrounds. And so my immediate hope is that we would get mentors to people about what it means to be a STEM professional, because what mentorship also does is it gives people who are trying to get into STEM, STEM identities. It opens the doors for them to be like, “Oh, I can do this.” For 25 years, I’ve heard young people say, I saw this person, I interacted with this person, and I realized that I can do this, particularly when Ketanji became a Supreme Court justice. I just remember the very next day, a 16-year old black girl said, “Now that this has happened, a whole world has opened up for me.” I just want that to sit with the listener, that this person will never meet Ketanji. They simply need to just see her become a Supreme Court justice, and now a whole world is opened up for them. Now that’s just from 1000s of miles away. If we can somehow get mentors to each of our young people who are trying to do this, then it gives them, like this personal connection too. It makes it even powerful.

Rebecca: Some of the change that you’re talking about, the dreams that we’re dreaming together, definitely are some of the long game… [LAUGHTER]

Aris: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes.

Rebecca: What are some of the short game moves that we can make to get to that longer game?

Aris: Yeah, so then I think it depends on who I’m talking to. So then if I’m talking to someone who’s seasoned, who’s comfortable, who is going about their life, and it’s easy, again, as we said before, I want you to say, “Well, I want to do something bold and different.” And again, I guess the first thing I would say to you is, “I want you to send your students the feedback.” We can do this in multiple ways. I want you to have some real conversations with and get some real feedback from your students about how things are going with you and whether you are doing your due diligence and uplifting people in the discipline of math. If you are new or you have little power or you’re just moving up the ranks, there’s something about also looking at your practices, but being able to get a critical mass, like just joining other people. I think this is true for the older faculty too, but just joining communities and listening to how other people teach and how other people operate in their craft, they continue to just be educated. So again, that’s on the individual level. On the systemic level, I’m looking at our leaders. So then I’m talking to department heads. I’m talking to deans and to presidents and provosts about doing more than just not rocking the boat. And so when we have young people, when we have these disparities in STEM across racial lines, that’s on you, leader. So I’m really trying to push leaders to just say, “Okay, wait, not under my watch.” 17 years from now, I want you to be able to say, “Maybe things have not change, but here are the three things that I tried and they failed, and even in the failure here the 15 things we learned,” that the too many leaders who would just come into position and just try to keep things still and when in fact, your job may be to shake things up so that more people can thrive. So I just met so many leaders that have just been like, “Let me just come and steer the boat,” when, in fact, you may need a whole new boat. You may need to be on a new river. Yeah, so I’ll say that, in that delineation, I mean on the individual level, you’ve got younger faculty, older faculty, and then they might be doing things, but then at the systemic level, our leaders need more courage. They just need more courage. And so the challenge that I have, and it goes back to what we said earlier, is that in order to get courage, you have to be compelled. There has to be a compelling reason for a leader to say, “You know what, I’m going to do the thing, and y’all are not going to like me. We’re going to make classes unified at the 1000 level for math, because this is what our students deserve. And I don’t care what you think about, because the data says that having classes that are completely different from professor to professor makes students suffer, and therefore we must unify. Let’s get to work on it together. And if you don’t like it, okay, we can talk about that too, but this is what we’re doing.” And so that person who does that is compelled by the suffering of our students. The lack of access for our students is the driving factor. There must be something that compels leaders to change, otherwise they won’t.

Rebecca: I wanted to follow up on the feedback forms because you’ve mentioned that throughout our conversation today, and for someone who’s like, “Yes, I will do this,” what would be in said feedback form?

Aris: Oh, thank you for saying that. It would be questions that if they got the answers to, it would shake them and make them really uncomfortable. The thing that I want to say, that I should have said from the beginning, is that it’s comfortable or outstanding, you only get to be one. It’s comfortable or outstanding, you only get to be one of those. And so when I created my feedback forms, and I started filling them, and I started putting in the questions, like, oh, wait, if I actually heard the real answer to this, I’m not going to feel good. And then part of me said, Well, that means it needs to go on there. And so what does that look like? That means like, “Am I doing a good job? Am I giving you everything you need? What do you want me to change?” That one’s not so bad, but it’s just like, “Did I say anything that bothered you? How is my language?” It’s just stuff that like, are you having good time, right? So that’s about me, and so how can I just be better? But then the thing that was transformational for me is when you ask anonymously, people about their lives, and just say, “What’s your biggest challenge today? What are you going through right now? What excites you the most? What do you do when you’re not in school?” So feedback forms do so much if you are authentically digging into them and asking questions that might push you out of your comfort zone, because it’ll change you forever. Because when someone says that all your math problems are binary in terms of gender, and it leaves me out, then it changes the way that I teach forever. Forever. One sentence changes the way I teach forever. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s tons of feedback forms out there, so you can go and investigate those. But for me, it’s “Okay. How am I doing?” And “Who are you as a person?” I have colleagues who give them out after tests also who have, like, logistical and utilitarian reasons for giving them out. But for me, as you might imagine from what I’ve said so far, I’m trying to figure out, am I doing a good job in humanizing you, and who are you as a human.

John: Is this something perhaps that people should do at the start of the semester, just to gather some information about who the students are in the class as well as during the class?

Aris: Yeah, you’re giving them out a lot. Yeah.

John: And you mentioned anonymity. I’ve gone back and forth on that in terms of gathering information about students. Students are likely to be more open when the forms are anonymous. On the other hand, if there’s specific concerns for specific students, there’s some benefit of knowing who the students are. And I’ve sometimes done a mix of those things, where I’ve had some things which were just anonymous and others where students let me know at the beginning of the term, in particular, if they have any special concerns or needs or any challenges they faced in classes in the past.

Aris: I appreciate that, yeah. And so I definitel moved the anonymous route. And then I will say that some of you wrote some things that I think you and I need to talk about personally, and I hope you know who you are, and say, yeah. And then I don’t know if I get any more specific than that, because of anonymity reasons, but yeah, so I try to open the door that way. But yeah, I like your idea of mixing them for sure.

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

Aris: Oh, just the same old, same old. And that’s enough, [LAUGHTER] right? So, yeah, I wake up every morning with a mission, and I’m thankful for that. I’m overwhelmed by that, that I am trying to serve people. And first, it starts with my own daughter, my wife, and then I get to then interact with people who are trying to change their lives forever. When you’re in college, when you’re in the educational process, when I’m teaching in K through 12, those young people in particular don’t have the vision yet to understand the path that they’re on. But in particular college, even though some of those people have been forced to go to college, they are there and they’re trying to change the trajectory of their whole life, and to play a role in that is a gift, and I have to treat that with care. And so I wake up every morning just trying to figure out how in the world can I help that person on their educational journey. And that’s all I want to do. And so I’m in a sweet spot where I can do that every day and make a living. So I’m superbly thankful for that. So for me, in general, I’m always trying to make quantitative spaces better for everybody, because better quantitative spaces lead to better quality of lives. And so across so many different levels, if you see me, I’m either with my family, or I’m playing pickleball, or I’m trying to make quantitative spaces better for people for better quality of lives.

Rebecca: …sounds like a good balance.

Aris: Yeah, that’s right. [LAUGHTER] That’s right.

John: Well, thank you. It’s great talking to you again. And again, we really enjoyed your work here back in January during your visit.

Aris: It’s a pleasure. Thank you.

Rebecca: Thank you so much for your thought-provoking ideas.

Aris: Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

[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.

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384. Writing Together

Posted in collaborative writing, higher education, inclusion, learning, pedagogy, professional development, teaching, writing
March 12, 2025

Writing is often perceived as a solitary activity, but this may lead to a sense of isolation. In this episode, Rachael Cayley, Fiona Coll, and Dan Newman join us to discuss the benefits of writing in community.

Rachael is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Centre for Academic Communication at the University of Toronto. Before joining the University of Toronto, she worked as an editor at Oxford University Press. Fiona is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education & Practice and at the Graduate Centre for Academic Communication. Fiona had earlier been one of our colleagues at SUNY-Oswego. Dan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and the Director of Graduate Writing Support in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, also at the University of Toronto. Rachael, Fiona, and Dan  are the editors of Writing Together: Building Social Writing Opportunities for Graduate Students, which was recently released by the University of Michigan Press.



Show Notes

Transcript

John: Writing is often perceived as a solitary activity, but this may lead to a sense of isolation. In this episode, we discuss the benefits of writing in community.

[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]

Rebecca: Our guests today are Rachael Cayley, Fiona Coll, and Dan Newman. Rachael is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Centre for Academic Communication at the University of Toronto. Before joining the University of Toronto, she worked as an editor at Oxford University Press. Fiona is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education & Practice and at the Graduate Centre for Academic Communication. Fiona had earlier been one of our colleagues at SUNY-Oswego. Dan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and the Director of Graduate Writing Support in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, also at the University of Toronto. Rachael, Fiona, and Dan are the editors of Writing Together: Building Social Writing Opportunities for Graduate Students, which was recently released by the University of Michigan Press. Welcome back, Fiona and welcome, Rachael and Dan.

Fiona: Thank you for having us.

John: Our teas today are:… Rachael, are you drinking tea?

Rachel: I am. I’m drinking something called Christmas in Paris, which is a mix of chocolate, peppermint, lavender and vanilla.

John: That sounds wonderful. And Fiona?

Fiona: I am drinking a classic. I am drinking Murchie’s Cream of Earl Grey.

John: Nice. And Dan?

Danl: I am not drinking tea. I am drinking water in a mug. It’s weak tea. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: There’s one in every bunch. Dan.

John: …at least one. [LAUGHTER] … very weak tea.

Rebecca: Very weak. [LAUGHTER] In honor of talking to Fiona, and it’s been a while, I have gone to my very old favorite, which is English afternoon tea.

John: Very good. And I’m drinking a new tea. It’s a three mint tea, which is peppermint, spearmint, and field mint. And I don’t quite know what field mint is, but it tastes okay. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: We’ll have to look into that, John.

John: Yes.

Fiona: You and your adventurous taste buds, John.

Rebecca: Stay tuned for more on field mint in the future. [LAUGHTER] We’ve invited you here today to discuss Writing Together. Can you talk a little bit about the origins of the book?

Danl: Sure. I’ll get us started. We’ve been working together, Rachael, Fiona, and I, in different capacities for a long time, and we’ve all ended up working in graduate writing support and teaching. And so we’ve been chatting about this, and we started off with some anecdotes, and the way I’ve been reconstructing the history of this project is starting with a conversation when we were talking about noticeably skewed gender ratios in a lot of our writing support activities, particularly those that were kind of group based, so like writing boot camps or feedback groups or peer review groups, and these groups, anecdotally, seemed to us to be very tilted towards more women than men participating, which wasn’t true for some of the more instructional things that we were doing. And we started discussing this as something interesting and neat and potentially something to look into. And then we decided it might be more interesting to shift the conversation away from gender per se towards the question of sociality. What is it about social writing that makes it more or less interesting to different people? And that got us more interested in the pedagogical implications of this and how we can foster sociality to help graduate students become better writers, become happier writers, move through their programs, but also just generally, learn the ropes of research and writing in general.

John: In your introduction to this work, you argue that writing together is useful, both as a form of graduate student pedagogy, but also for professional development purposes. Could you talk a little bit about this argument?

Danl: Yeah, fundamentally, I think the argument is that good graduate pedagogy should also be good professional development, and that encouraging social writing is an important way of realizing that ideal. And a lot of grad programs have professional development activities. And I think grad programs, in general, from what I can see, are getting better at this, but generally, these tend to be framed as separate from writing, especially separate from dissertation writing, which for a lot of grad students is kind of the main task. But dissertation writing is not just a way to complete your program, it’s also kind of a student’s, in a lot of cases, the first major entry into professional research writing. And so the idea that we could sort of approach both holistically is kind of what we’re getting at with that idea of good pedagogy is also good professional development. When I started working with grad students closely, I was struck by a disconnect between how they view writing and how my faculty peers and I write, and I’m simplifying horribly here and generalizing. But anyway, students would talk about withdrawing to their apartments for months trying to perfect a thesis chapter before showing it to anyone. And meanwhile, my colleagues and academic friends and I are sending each other emails saying, like, “Does this paragraph make sense? Here’s a really rough draft. What do you think of this?” Basically asking for feedback constantly. And again, not everyone does this, but this is my experience. Why are so many of our students not taking advantage of their communities, I guess is one of the questions behind this, too, and I think part of the answer, at least, is that they’re not taught to. And I see this as an opportunity for graduate pedagogy and programs and maybe writing together more like their profs do, could help them professionalize even as it helps them navigate their grad school experience.

Fiona: Another angle, maybe, to dig into a tiny bit is just the idea that writing is something that can be taught. I think one of the trickiest parts about that transition to grad school is that strange set of assumptions by which grad students are made to feel as though they should already know how to write things they’ve never written before. So grad students arrive and are sort of faced with these quite major writing deliverables that are different in scale and in scope than anything they’ve written before. And they somehow absorb this sense that if they don’t know how to do it, or struggle in any way, that there’s something wrong with them, that they don’t belong, or there’s some sort of grievous lack or problem. And so to treat writing as something that is a lifelong pursuit in many ways, but more specifically, that there are a set of skills that are unique or uniquely developed in graduate school around research writing, that there should be no shame in needing to learn these and that that learning process at the graduate level becomes richer and more sustained when it’s done in, and as part of, the development of a community, a disciplinary community. Rachael Cayley has a wonderful line that I steal as often as I can when talking with graduate students, which is when graduate students write a dissertation, they’re actually producing two things. Yes, they’re writing the dissertation itself, but they’re also developing themselves as researchers, so they change over the course of writing that giant piece of work, and there are skills and strategies, there are things to learn all along the way.

Rebecca: The focus of this collection of essays is on experiences in which sociality is an integral component of the process. What are the primary benefits of building this social component into graduate writing processes?

Rachel: I think the benefits of sociality in writing are similar to the benefits of sociality more generally. We are social beings who struggle with too much isolation, who naturally learn well in community with peers and have trouble keeping intentions when we’re not making them with other people. And I think you can hear in those three things that they would be particularly acute for writing, which is often institutionally organized and coded as a solitary activity, as Dan said. Even though many faculty have realized that that’s not the best model, students certainly think that that’s how they ought to be doing it. But we know that graduate students do much better when they’re not alone, when a day of writing is a day that has engagement in it. We know also that peer learning around not just writing, but also writing productivity and processes can be really, really helpful. By working with others, they can learn that everyone feels isolated, that everyone thinks their writing is uniquely terrible, that everyone thinks they’re probably not cut out for this, based on their writing difficulties. So to learn that their range of productivity challenges are within the sort of normal range is really helpful. And we know that setting public accountability goals is intensely useful, especially during the period of thesis writing that requires a degree of consistent self discipline that I think exceeds the bounds of what most people naturally have. And so given that we are social in that way, and writing particularly brings out the worst of us in our capacities to go looking for the sociality that we naturally need. We thought it was so important to make it central.

John: So by building more sociality into the process, does this provide a more inclusive environment, so that people won’t feel as isolated, and perhaps we won’t lose as many people in graduate studies, as we often do in many departments?

Fiona: I think the answer is absolutely, there’s an inclusivity piece to this puzzle. There’s an equity piece to this puzzle in many ways. As you’ve noted, there’s those feelings of isolation or those feelings of alienation are not evenly distributed across all demographics who arrive at grad school. And so there’s just a fundamental gain by creating places or spaces where that sense of loneliness or alienation can be dissolved away. There’s also a hidden curriculum piece here, again, as with all kinds of hidden curricula, it’s not an intentional obfuscation of how to learn to write, what it means to write in a disciplinary way, but these are all things that become invisible so quickly to the members of those disciplines that [LAUGHTER] it’s hard to remember what it felt like to not know the things you know. And so these writing groups are a fantastic place to explore and reveal and make explicit those expectations. There’s also some fascinating research that’s been done on the link between confidence in academic writing skills and that sense of disciplinary belonging. That connection is especially important for students who belong to historically underrepresented demographics in grad school, and indeed, several of the programs that we’ve included in this book collection feature writing groups that are organized not necessarily around disciplines or around levels of development, but are organized around identity or interest groups. And indeed, the University of Toronto, to give one example, has a writing accountability group that is co-led with our accessibility services organization. And so there are ways that these groups can be really specifically attuned to the needs of particular students, particular groups, in positive and inclusive and equity raising ways.

Rebecca: There’s a number of contributors to this volume. Can you talk a little bit about how you selected your contributors?

Rachel: Yeah, the most noteworthy part of the selection process was just the significant enthusiasm for this project. And we ended up with 14 chapters, but we started with more than 50 proposals, and we thought that enthusiasm probably stemmed from two things. First of all, just excitement about social writing opportunities, like we were really happy to learn that so many people were eager to talk about these. I think there was also some interest generated by the unusual nature of this call, which derives from the unusual nature of this book series. So the book series of which this is the first volume is a partnership between the Consortium on Graduate Communication and the University of Michigan Press. And this series, overall, seeks to provide practitioners with ideas that bridge the gap between theory and practice, so really meet practitioners where they are in terms of how they’re actually doing the work. As we said in our call for proposals, we were looking for “how we” accounts so not looking to tell people how to do things, but really asking people how they did them so others could learn from them. And I think there is a real hunger for people to talk about our pedagogical work in ways that are outside the bounds of traditional scholarly research publishing. And I think this book gave people a really easy, direct opportunity to talk about what they’re doing in the classroom, the things that they really love doing. So I think that led to some of the enthusiasm as well. So our actual selection process was enjoyable because we had so many great submissions, and also, of course, difficult for the same reason, ultimately, we chose these 14 because they offered us a wide spectrum of different types of initiatives across North American institutions, so we largely chose them so that we had different models that people could read about when deciding how they wanted to learn from this book.

Fiona: I will just add that one of the things I really appreciated about the 14 chapters that we did include is that they point towards just how collaborative the construction of these programs is. So often, these programs emerged out of an obvious student need in some way, and students sort of have driven the development of these programs in many ways, in ways that I find inspiring and really, really encouraging. So no matter the exact origin of the program or the way that the program is run, this sort of combination of writing experts or teachers of some kind, the grad students who are looking for that support, and then everybody else who’s involved in bringing these things to life, it’s people working together to write together.

Danl: And in some cases, it’s actually graduate students who are taking the initiative without support from the institution, which is encouraging to see. And that’s the kind of thing that I’m hoping other programs can generate, as well, models that students can use to do these things on their own.

John: And in this volume, you have quite a wide variety of diverse examples of writing experiences. Could you each share just a few examples of the experiences that are discussed in this volume?

Danl: Sure, I’m going to start. I’m going to talk about peer reviewing, which is something that a lot of the contributors talk about as part of their programs, but it’s also one of my favorite activities. It’s not revolutionary or anything. I think people have been doing peer reviews for a long time. I do them a lot, partly because it is a great way for students to get feedback and to give feedback to,o which I’ll talk about in a second. If framed correctly, it’s a good way to have students practice showing their writing to other people in a way that can be less intimidating than, say, sending it to your professor, your supervisor, advisor. So I do use it as practice for that which makes social writing easier to do in the future, ideally. I’m particularly interested, though, in the way that giving and getting feedback teaches people to become better writers, particularly giving feedback. Obviously, getting feedback is a great way to learn how to write better, but I found from working these groups where we do a lot of feedback, that the students who are most effective in giving really relevant feedback, it feeds back on their own writing in ways that are interesting. I feel like that’s something I would love to study more somehow.

Fiona: I will offer another example of a social writing initiative that I run here at the University of Toronto, and it’s called Mondays We Write!, and it is another example of just how rich and sort of widely ranging the sorts of conversations we have about writing can be in these social circumstances. So in many ways, Mondays We Write! is a very straightforward writing accountability exercise. So from nine until 12 every morning, I hop on Zoom and students are encouraged to come and drop in essentially any Monday they want, for as long as they want. The structure of the morning is such that I often start with some small piece of teaching, let’s say, some tip or some concept or some principle that I encourage students to work into their writing for the day if it fits with where they’re at, then students give a sense of what they’d like to work on that morning, and we embark on a series of sort of quiet writing intervals, where we’re all on Zoom together, but working on individual things, enforced breaks, which are good and healthy for all kinds of reasons. In those breaks, we have quick conversations if needed, we do some troubleshooting, and the morning continues. And what happens is that the students who attend regularly start to gain more and more confidence in their own ability to navigate: A. their own writing processes, but also B. their ability to give helpful feedback or ideas to their peers and to watch that sort of community building is what it is, that sort of building of trust, sharing of knowledge and experience and resources, often in disciplinary-specific ways, is tremendous. The other kind of cool aspect of this Mondays We Write! is that, because it’s on Zoom, if there is a student who’s running into a particular issue that’s a little more specific to their own situation than it is relevant to the group as a whole, that student and I can pop out into a breakout room and have a one-on-one conversation in the actual moment when they’re feeling that writing struggle. And so it’s this lovely model of sort of how sociability can enable a sort of writing practice to develop. But then our structure allows for these sort of dipping in and out of individual challenges as they come.

Danl: Something Fiona said really struck me, and it’s very related to what I just said before about peer review, but also to the question about pedagogy and professional development. This kind of feedback that you’re observing, how students become better at giving feedback, that clearly is part of a professional development for an academic who will eventually be giving feedback to their students, and is just such a great example, I think, of what it looks like in practice for good pedagogy to also be good professionalization.

Fiona: And I think it holds true for those who go on to professions other than academia. Most people are going to be in a position of needing to give feedback, often on communication related deliverables of some kind, especially in my world, which is heavily skewed towards engineering these days. And so you know that feedback process is tricky. Despite our sophisticated ways of being in the world, figuring out how to be constructive is much harder than it sounds. And so to offer students an opportunity to practice, to learn how to do this in a genuinely productive, constructive way is pretty fantastic.

Rachel: Then you’ll see that we’ve all chosen to talk about initiatives we’re doing ourselves, rather than choose favorites from the book, because we love all the chapters in the book and all the different things that they’re doing. I wanted to talk briefly about a sort of minimalist program that I run called the Doctoral Completion Cohort. It’s for people in their final year from any discipline, and it’s really simple. All I’m asking them to do is to come for half an hour on Monday mornings and check in. And so we start each week together. These are people who are really pressed to finish, like this is their core activity. And I usually give a short presentation on some emergent topic to do with productivity or revision, the things they’re thinking about most, and then the focus is with them finding co-writing times with each other, not running through me. So it’s designed to build that skill of reaching out to people and saying, I like to write on Tuesday mornings. Is anyone else free? Some of them are doing them in person, at different places. Some of them are running them on Zoom. Some people are in different time zones, so they’re using WhatsApp and from different countries, so they take on that part of the responsibility. And I’m just there to provide a Quercus or Canvas site that provides a lot of resources and a venue for them to make those connections. But it’s creating some of that sense that part of what you have to do if you want to have social writing opportunities is reach out to people and ask them to write with you.

Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit about the kinds of assessment that have been involved in these kinds of social writing opportunities and the kind of feedback that students have provided about this kind of work?

Fiona: For sure, we asked all the contributors to this volume to provide us with three important things in their very short, very readable chapters. The first, of course, was details about exactly what motivated the program that they described. We asked them to explain, of course, the model of facilitation that they used. And the third thing was, we asked them to explain how they evaluated or assessed each of their programs, because we know how important it is to be able to evaluate in some way or assess what’s working or what’s not working in any program, but especially one that deals with skills of such complexity as are involved in writing, but also as a kind of argument, an argument in favor of the value of this sort of work. And so one of the fascinating things that emerged out of this book collection was a sense that there were two distinct assessment modes or directions that didn’t always point in an aligned fashion, let’s say, and one of those threads of assessment was from a kind of pedagogical perspective. So of course, everyone running these programs was interested in how it was working for students, how students could themselves understand the developments or changes that were happening. And everyone is interested in iterating and improving these, improving the reach, improving the effectiveness of these programs. But a second line of assessment or evaluation was essentially proving the worth of these slightly odd in some way shaped programs to administrators or the sources of funding, and often those two are not exactly aligned, as I said, in the sense that to explain what happens in these complex exchanges, these really rich, productive exchanges that contribute not only to the writing skill development of a student, but to the sort of flourishing of that student in their disciplinary identities, that growing sense of belonging to a discipline, that increasing sense of confidence, that ability to sort of think on the page in more and more successful ways for the student, that is not an easy thing to convey In a spreadsheet. And so several of our chapters described that tension. Now what students have reported really consistently across the board, across these 14 chapters, is inevitably a sense of surprise at how powerful these communal or community-based social writing experiences were. So students just really describe feeling kind of relief, feeling a sense of camaraderie that they didn’t know could exist around the writing experience, just feeling that their learning was richer and they felt more motivated. And so we know that many students respond very positively to this sort of structured sense of community building. And one thing I’ll add is that one of the ways of evaluating or assessing these social writing initiatives is, of course, to have students reflect in qualitative ways back on their writing experience as they go. Many of our programs in the book do so at various points in the program. So there’s a gradual over time awareness of how things are developing for students, and in fact, enabling students themselves to recognize what’s changing about their relationship to writing is an incredibly powerful kind of assessment to be able to make.

John: In most graduate programs, individuals tend to write on their own. I know in economics, when I first started, quite a while back, co-authored papers were downgraded a bit in rankings. Today, most research in most disciplines tend to have two or more authors. And so I think this idea of having people share writing experiences together puts people in a much better preparation for the types of careers that they’re likely to be having later on. In this book, you’re focusing primarily on graduate programs in writing. But is this something that, perhaps, should be done in all graduate programs to some extent?

Danl: Should, is a tricky word. I think there are undeniable differences in how even something as capacious as writing together might look in economics versus sociology versus philosophy or math. I mean, some fields really do tend to work around more of a single author mode, and I think that’s true of the fields that Rachael, Fiona, and I grew up in in the humanities. I know people in math typically write their papers alone, whereas social scientists and a lot of STEM fields co-author together. And so I think one of the things that has come out of this book is trying to develop a broader understanding of what sociality means, as opposed to say collaborative writing, which is a type of sociality, or co-authorship, which is a type of sociality, but we’re trying to think of ways that are adaptable to different disciplinary practices. So writing in the same room as someone is a kind of diffuse type of sociality, and it can be deployed intentionally in ways that can be helpful. Even writing on Zoom with a group, which Fiona does and I do as well, is sociality, even if we’re each working on our own thing and not talking. Just for myself, I get a huge amount of momentum just from the false impression that all these students are looking at me when I’m writing. I better not look at the news, because they’ll judge me. But I think thinking about the ways in which writing together obtains in different contexts is something that we should think about when you’re developing programs, even when, for example, if you’re a faculty advisor for students, what will writing together look like for us or for the student in my lab, or whatever? I will say just as I’m wrapping up, that the introduction for the book, Writing Together, was the first time I’ve actually written together with other writers, and I’ve published two and three author papers before, but we separated the task of writing. In this case, we really wrote together, and it was great. It’s very unusual for our fields, but I don’t think it could be the norm, or certainly I don’t think it should be the norm.

Rachel: And certainly most graduate students who are writing with their supervisors are still writing alone. They’re being sent off to write the first draft often, and then they’re being corrected in some way, but it isn’t particularly social, often, and so we’re still trying to encourage even the ones who are very much in co-author situations that they might wish to find social writing opportunities that don’t necessarily even have to be with those co-authors. Although, as Dan said, it’s lovely when you can have both, but even when you can’t, you can still find a time to write with other people, your own writing, and develop a lot of richness from that.

Fiona: And I would argue that one of the real benefits of these social writing programs that we describe in the book is how they open up conversations about the writing process. So they help to share a language about the writing process and its stages and its iterations. They help to show what the process looks like. There’s a sort of writing-process literacy that I think is worth opening up and sharing much more widely across programs, especially across graduate programs, and that kind of fluency with ideas, or greater familiarity that with different stages of the writing process can absolutely inform the sorts of literal co-writing or co-authorship scenarios that, John, you point to that are becoming, I think, more and more common, even outside those traditional STEM fields where co-authorship is as prevalent as it is. So I will take a stand [LAUGHTER] and say, I do you think that most graduate programs would be doing a beautiful service to their students to think about opening up and sort of making this writing based awareness a valued and valuable part of that training experience.

Danl: I think there’s also very real ways in which, if students are getting support from their communities, it can change the nature of the support they get from their advisors, who might not have to deal with some of the really rough first stuff. And also when we’re talking about the peer review, I think one of the most striking benefits I’ve seen, which I think relates to what Fiona was just saying, is students realize that the kind of writing that they do that looks so different from the writing that they read when they read an article or a book, they realize that other people’s writing also looks like this. So I think that’s part of the writing process literacy that you’re talking about is really “Okay. I’m not just really bad at this. No one’s good at this.” And maybe talking about good and bad in terms of drafts is not the right language.

Rebecca: Sounds like there’s a little bit of an added benefit too, in both the examples that you’re pointing to, for those that are facilitating to also have some writing time, [LAUGHTER] some accountability for the facilitator too. [LAUGHTER]

Danl: It’s the only time I write. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: Now we all know. [LAUGHTER]

John: I know when I was in grad school, I spent an awful lot of time digging up sources, working with the data, and would write only when I had to, when I had to get a draft in. It was something I tended to avoid. This type of process where there’s this sociality, it’s essentially a form of commitment device. You’re making a commitment to work with other people at these times, and it’s much more likely that people will devote more time to writing when they have that sort of an experience, I think.

Fiona: I think you’re absolutely right. It is 100% a commitment device, these sort of regular accountability groups, for sure. And I often joke that one of the superpowers that graduate students often arrive at grad school with is the ability to write to an immediate deadline [LAUGHTER] in the full adrenaline charged way that that has happened and that that remains a useful skill to have access to, but it is also worth expanding that writing toolkit to include other kinds of writing and to even just learn to even feel what it feels like to write without a deadline is sort of revelatory to students. They say things like, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I was able to write even though nothing is due.” [LAUGHTER] But it goes to your point exactly, right? These are learnable skills and writing is a practice. It’s a practice that you need to build stamina around. It’s a practice that improves and changes and evolves depending on what else you’re doing, what kind of writing you’re working on, but that it is worth developing a sort of sustainable relationship with it, a sustainable and sustained relationship with your own writing process, because you need all sorts of versions of that writing process to be with you as you move through a program.

Rebecca: …just sitting here thinking like, “oh, writing isn’t always an emergency?” [LAUGHTER]

John: We should try that sometime. Yeah. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: One of the tools that you shared in the book is the writing initiative planning prompts table. Can you talk a little bit about what this resource is and how it works?

Rachel: Sure, as I said earlier, we didn’t want the book to be a “how to”, but more of a “how we.” But after we finished it, and so we had these 14 chapters and our own intro, we wanted to think of some way that we could actually leverage all that to help people think about what it is that they were going to do. And so that’s why we meant by having a chart full of prompts. So as Fiona said a moment ago, we asked each group of authors to organize their chapters around rationale, organization, and evaluation. So we wanted each chapter to have roughly that layout, so we’re finding out from each group: Why did you do this? How did you do it, and what did people think about it? How did you evaluate it afterwards? And so we put together this chart of prompts that asks questions of people. So it doesn’t say, this is how you ought to do it, it says: Why are you doing this? So questions like, will your group be formed by convenience or by theme, or by discipline or by stage of study? We saw examples of all of those things in the book, and it’s just an example of a question that people can think, is this just going to be convenience, right? It’s just going to be the people who can come at that time. Or maybe you want it to be more disciplinary and then have some more writing feedback involved in that, or you’re going to actually put out a call for people with a particular identity, so it’s more of an affinity group style to writing groups. So just by asking these series of questions, how much space do you have? Who’s going to run these groups? How do you feel about food? Those kinds of questions that are really important. One of the things that comes up in a lot of the chapters is hospitality matters when thinking about writing groups. And so our goal with this chart, which is available to anybody on this book site, and we’ll put all these links in your show notes, but people can just go and download that PDF and look at all those different questions and use it to either think about creating a writing initiative that they might not have already in their institution, or just think about how they’re doing it by going through this series of questions you might refine or slightly alter whatever it is that people are already doing.

John: In this collection, you have quite a wide variety of different ways in which people write together. Would you suggest that we should build more ways of having people work together on their writing, however, that’s done?

Danl: Just in the same way that I guess we’ve been trying to expand what we mean by writing together, the definition of sociality, or how we understand that. I think something I find myself saying a lot to graduate students is that a lot of things that they don’t think of as writing is writing. And so one of the slogans I find myself repeating is “it’s all writing.” So meeting one of your friends from your program and talking about what you’re working on can become part of the writing process, and it’s also part of writing together.

Rebecca: So we talked a bit about the number of chapters and contributors. Can you talk a little bit about the variety of examples that are available, just so people get a sense of the scope of what’s covered?

Fiona: Sure, these chapters cover writing groups with these highly social dimensions to them that are small, some as small as four or five students per group, some that are enormous. One of the chapters describes a writing initiative that, in fact, has grown to be a part of the entire institutional culture. We have groups that are disciplinarily organized, sometimes by the students in those disciplines. So we have a chapter, for example, by a group of students from a single discipline who were interested in developing their own cross-institutional connections, and made a writing program part of that sort of inter-institution set of connections. We have one chapter that is about a writing program that focuses on the experience of multilingual students. We have a chapter that describes a completely accidental development of a social writing phenomenon. So we really did choose these to be as idea inducing, as sparky as possible by showing just how different the shapes can take, just how different the sizes can be, just how different the facilitation models can be, and just how easily or ambitiously these can take shape and form in whatever writing context a person is in.

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

Rachel: Well, when we thought about this question, we thought we would answer it by talking about what we are doing together next, and our next joint project is to work on the issue of supervisory writing feedback for graduate students. So no matter how much writing facilitation or writing instruction we provide, our graduate students are very focused on this complex dyad between them and their supervisor. So the feedback they’re getting, the feedback they’re not getting, what their supervisor thinks of their writing, how the process is going, what the logistics are of that process. All of those things are always very present for graduate students and engaging in the sophisticated task of writing this high-stakes document that is by definition, in a new genre for them is incredibly demanding, and many supervisors are not able to meet that moment with the kind of writing feedback that those students need. And so in addition to the work we do with students to help them understand the dynamic and help them be better at getting feedback, we also thought it would be interesting to try to work a little more upstream with supervisors, to help them with some of the information and perspective that they might need to be able to provide better writing feedback. Many supervisors approach this task with a great deal of trepidation, because it is so time consuming and because novice academic writers are difficult to work with when you don’t have a lot of skill in that area. So we started with a faculty-facing workshop here at U of T through our Healthy Research Teams Initiative, and we’re interested in now building on that workshop to see if there’s other ways that we can try to support this relationship from the supervisor side.

Rebecca: Well, thanks so much for joining us. This has been a really great conversation and lots of things for folks to be thinking about in terms of bringing their writers together.

John: And it’s a great resource for anyone who’s considering building more sociality into their writing program.

Fiona: Thank you so, so much for having us. It’s an absolute delight to converse with you, as always.

Rachel: Thank you.

Danl: Thanks so much.

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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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382. The Demographic Cliff

Posted in diversity, equity, first-generation, higher education, inclusion, teaching, Uncategorized
February 26, 2025

The number of high school graduates in the U.S. is expected to decline for several years. In this episode, Peter Ghazarian joins us to discuss the experiences of higher ed institutions in Korea and Japan, which have recently experienced similar reductions in college enrollments. Peter is an Associate Professor of Higher Education Leadership in the School of Education at SUNY Oswego. He has worked in international education in the US, UK, Germany, and Korea. Peter’s work focuses on higher education, leadership, public policy, multiculturalism, and human migration. He is the author of a very recent article on higher education and an aging population in the U.S.

Show Notes

  • Ghazarian, P. G., Bhandari, B., & Chen, S. (2023). ” It can be chaos here”: International Student Experiences of US Higher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education, 15(1). 33-34.
  • Ghazarian, P. G. (2025). Higher education and an aging population in the USA: learning from the experiences of Korea and Japan. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 1-7.
  • Grawe, N. D. (2018). Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education. United States: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • School of Ocean Futures, Arizona State University

Transcript

John: The number of high school graduates in the U.S. is expected to decline for several years. In this episode, we discuss the experiences of higher ed institutions in Korea and Japan, which have recently experienced similar reductions in college enrollments.

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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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Rebecca: Our guest today is Peter Ghazarian. Peter is an Associate Professor of Higher Education Leadership in the School of Education at SUNY Oswego. He has worked in international education in the US, UK, Germany, and Korea. Peter’s work focuses on higher education, leadership, public policy, multiculturalism, and human migration. He is the author of a very recent article on higher education and an aging population in the U.S. Welcome back, Peter.

Peter: I’m very glad to be here. Thank you.

John: Today’s teas are… Peter? Are you drinking tea?

Peter: I am drinking tea. I’ve got a spearmint tea here

Rebecca: That sounds nice and refreshing. I have a Lady Grey today, John.

John: And I have a ginger peach green tea today.

Peter: I love a good ginger tea. I’m always in favor of that.

Rebecca: We invited you here today, Peter, to discuss your article, “Higher education and an aging population in the USA: learning from the experiences of Korea and Japan,” which was first published on January 5 of this year. Fertility rates have been declining in all the industrialized nations, and the number of high school graduates is expected to reach a peak in 2025 followed by a gradual decline. Have some US regions already been experiencing this decline in college-age populations in response to internal migration patterns?

Peter: Yes. So we hear all the time about this demographic cliff that’s coming, that’s going to have a profound impact on higher education in the United States. And for quite a bit of time, I just felt like it may just be scare mongering, because I hadn’t really looked at the data directly myself, and it almost seemed as though it might just be an excuse for structural change in higher education, a way to justify changes people already wanted. But then I decided to dig a little bit deeper, and I saw that there is some pretty profound change coming, especially in particular regions of the US. So in the northeast and in the midwest in particular, we’re seeing a lot of internal migration to the south and to the west, and a lot of urbanization that is kind of hollowing out rural areas that play host to a lot of these smaller, tuition-dependent higher education institutions that really put them in a vulnerable position.

John: So, in this study, you’re comparing the US experience with that of Korea and Japan. Could you talk about why you selected Korea and Japan as a basis for comparison?

Peter: Sure, absolutely. So there were really two major reasons why I decided to go with Korea and Japan. One is that they’ve already experienced this phenomenon. It’s been going on there already, and so it’s an opportunity to kind of peek into the future of what it might look like further down along the line, and the types of things we might want to prepare for before this is upon us. And then the other reason is just because I spent so much time there, a good 7, 8, 9 years in Korea working in higher education, and I realized that a lot of the things I was hearing here kind of echoed what I was hearing at faculty meetings and in press releases at my former institutions, since it kind of tickled something inside me like, wait a minute, I’ve heard this before, and it inspired me to go and look back at exactly what had been going on.

Rebecca: You kind of mentioned that Korea and Japan have been dealing with these issues for a bit of time. What was their experience like? Were those institutions closing? merging?

Peter: Well, I mean, they’re still dealing with it now. They haven’t really solved the issue of a very low birth rate, and the impact that it’s had on higher education has primarily been a push towards mergers, and that, I think, has been facilitated by a number of environmental characteristics in those places that is helpful and conducive to the merger of higher education institutions, just because they’re much more dense in terms of the population distribution. There isn’t nearly as much land as there is here, and very large populations, and so even with population decline or population aging in certain areas, there’s still a relatively large number of people within a certain range around particular institutions. And so mergers become much more feasible, because if there isn’t enough to support two institutions, if we bring them together and make one, we should be able to get by. And so, yeah, I would say mergers by far have been the most common response in both Korea and Japan. Though Korea has had its fair share of closures as well.

John: In your paper, you talk a little bit about the types of mergers that were occurring in Korea and Japan. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Peter: Yeah, so I mentioned earlier that there were some characteristics that help to allow these mergers to go forward, and one of them is some of the patterns that we see in ownership of the higher education institutions in Korea and Japan, because there was such a boom in higher education not so long ago, like in the past 50 years, a lot of these institutions are actually owned by similar groups or similar individuals or families, and so they would successfully establish a four-year institution and then want to open a polytechnic or a trade school of some kind, or what we would call a community college, but there would be called a junior college, and that made it very easy. If the same group of people own both institutions and they realize both are struggling, well, we’ll cut out some of the overhead costs by merging these together. And there was also some policies in place from the government that sort of pushed these institutions to do this as well, because the governments in both Korea and Japan wanted to preserve a certain amount of stability in their higher education systems to prevent what people might perceive as collapse, and so there was a kind of gradual, gentle pressure to merge institutions over time that seemed to be helpful towards getting this done.

Rebecca: So what are some of the factors that affected the likelihood of institutions in Korea or Japan to survive these demographic shifts?

Peter: I would say that the major sort of elements that played into whether or not an institution could survive were: their location, rural institutions were particularly vulnerable; their size, smaller institutions struggled more; and then their focus, comprehensive four-year institutions tended to fare better unless they were both rural and very small, those institutions were very vulnerable. It was like a combination of those things. If you were rural and remote, you’re in trouble. If you’re rural and very small, you’re in trouble. The other was the focus, four-year institutions tended to be all right. They tended to do okay, because what we started to see in Korea and Japan is that as there were fewer and fewer people applying for admission, it was easier to get a position at a four-year institution, and that a lot of these two-year institutions were almost overflow in the past, where they would take on students who had wanted to go to a four-year institution but weren’t able to get admission, and so they settled for a two-year option before moving into the workforce. But now, because there weren’t as many students applying, institutions were more willing to take on these students who otherwise may have gone to a two-year institution, which left two-year institutions really struggling to get a sufficient number of students to be able to support themselves.

John: And as you noted with internal migration decisions in the US, with people moving to the south and west and moving away from rural areas, we’re already seeing some colleges being hit. What are some of the ways in which US colleges have dealt with this, or perhaps failed to deal with this?

Peter: I would say that the institutions tend to take three different sort of outlooks to this issue or this problem of demographic cliff that they see coming. Some institutions are trying to really cut back to reduce costs, and they use it to justify changes they make at their institutions, which can be unsettling to faculty. I’ve seen, for example, programs merge or programs close where even tenured faculty have lost their positions as a result of this sort of hard-nosed approach that’s being adopted by some administrations, and then it’s justified through the need for cost cutting in anticipation of these changes that are going to be coming to the institution. Another approach is a sort of like plug your ears and whistle. Some institutions have just really been kind of hoping for the best in the long run, and this might have an impact on others, but it’s not going to have an impact on us, and they’re just kind of going forward with business as usual. And if the reputation of the institution is strong enough, then they are likely to come out all right in the end, because while there might be some displacement in terms of who had gone there before and who goes there now, in the end, their situation isn’t going to change that much from what they’ve experienced in the past. And so it’s understandable why they would kind of take this sort of rose colored glasses approach to the situation. And then finally, we’re starting to see some institutions who realize that they’re going to need to change, but they’re not exactly sure how. And so they’re kind of preparing themselves to be able to change. They’re communicating out to faculty, to staff, and to administrators, that there are challenges coming at us, and we’re going to need to be able to make some changes to how we do things. And so they’re starting to instigate, for example, new thinking about how programs should change and how the structure of the institution might need to change, and really encouraging, internally, people to prepare themselves for doing something different so that they can survive in a new environment. And so I would say that’s sort of the third approach, the getting ready approach. The first is really all about cutting, the second is, “Just forget about it. It’ll be okay,” and the third kind of priming the pump, if you will, for future change that is going to need to happen in higher education institutions.

Rebecca: You noted there are some landscape differences between the US and Korea and Japan in terms of population density and literally the amount of land in different spaces. But can you talk about what we can learn from the experiences in Korea and Japan and ways that we might move forward here?

Peter: So I came into this thinking that there would be clear takeaways, but instead it left me feeling a little nervous about the situation in the United States, because in Korea and Japan, you had a highly interested government that was pretty deeply involved in maintaining the stability of higher education, whereas in the United States, the government is much more remotely involved. They’re not really directly getting into the nitty gritty of the provision of higher education within the country, they’re only really indirectly a part of what’s going on. And the good will that we see between higher education in Korea and Japan and the government doesn’t really exist here to that same extent. And so we don’t have someone looking after us…

Rebecca: …like a safety net…. [LAUGHTER]

Peter: …yeah, a safety net. And so the government in Korea and Japan, they created policies to make mergers more smooth, and they would use Ministry of Education reviews of higher education institutions to make adjustments to quotas for students at institutions to reduce the impact of demographic decline across the board, so that was more shared, but also so that institutions that scored lower on ministry reviews of their institution, or institutions they believed to have a lower quality were kind of cut off over time from this pool of students, so that there was a gradual change as time went on. But we don’t really have that here. It’s much more… it’s a free market, and people go where they want to go, and that can be really destructive, and it can bring a lot of change from one year to the next year, where institutions expect something, and then all of a sudden they just don’t have enough students to keep going on. And so the other sort of element of it is that there’s a positive public opinion of higher education in Korea and Japan, the sense that it’s a public good that we need, that we can’t live without, and I feel like people are questioning that here in the United States, and so we don’t have that same level of public goodwill to rely on as well. The one exception to that that I have is that there’s a strong connection between alumni and the institutions that come from here in the United States. So we do see some cases where alumni are sort of riding into the rescue, like Sweet Briar College, where alumni came together and donated to keep the institution open, to prevent it from closing. And so we do see some of that grassroots support coming from people who have a personal connection to the institutions. But I would say that that’s going to be the exception, rather than the rule. It’s just, I mean, alumni, you can only ask so much.

Rebecca: Yeah, that’s great news. When I was reading your article, I was like, “Oh, yeah, okay…”

John: One way of addressing this, and many institutions have been, is that we’ve had a lot of underserved populations in the US, people from low income communities, people who are first-generation college students and students from historically underrepresented groups have much lower college attendance rates, and this is a period of time when the rate of return to higher education is the highest we’ve ever seen in the US. But there may also be some political issues there, because in order to bring in some groups from lower income households, it does require larger amounts of subsidies, and we’re not seeing that same sort of increase. In this political climate, do you see that as being very likely as perhaps a way of expanding the reach of higher education and perhaps improving our rates of intergenerational income mobility?

Peter: Yeah, I would say one of the unique sort of opportunities available to us here in the United States is the fact that we have these large pools of people who maybe traditionally haven’t taken part in higher education, and as a result of which we can kind of cater to bringing in new people into higher ed, bringing in first-generation students, and it’s good for institutions because they can better respond to the fact that they don’t have as many applicants as they had in the past, or they don’t have as many students as they had in the past, and it allows them to support themselves. And it’s good for the students, because, as you mentioned, it opens doors economically to new sort of opportunities available within the US economy and different lifestyles within different social classes. And so I would say that, yeah, absolutely, that there is this unique opportunity here in the United States, but there are certainly challenges. The programs that are designed to help us with retention and to making adjustments to the way that we do things in higher education to be more responsive to the needs of students who are coming from a first-generation background are the very programs that are under threat now with the change that we’ve seen politically within the United States. And so this lifeline that we had is at real risk now because all of the effort that we’ve put into making higher education a more open and welcoming place to people coming from backgrounds that traditionally didn’t take part in higher education may feel less welcome as a result of a lot of these programs being shut down. In fact, I’m working on a study now on the impact of DEI programs having been made illegal in the state of Texas, and how that’s impacted the student experience there. And so I’m very interested to see what sort of results we get from that study. But I have a feeling that it’s not going to be all good news.

Rebecca: One of the other areas for potential enrollment growth that’s been discussed quite a bit in the US is the admission of more international students. There’s a lot of desire for international students to get US education, but you note that the political climate has become less welcoming. What’s the future of this looking like right now?

Peter: And this wasn’t true, not just in the US, but also Korea and Japan sought to attract more international students. They saw it as a potential way to respond to declining numbers of domestic students and provide support to institutions, and some institutions were quite successful in being able to draw international students. I wouldn’t say that higher education across the board really succeeded in Korea and Japan, but there were some key institutions that really excelled at this, and it became a niche for them that allowed them to sort of weather the storm. Here in the United States, I would say that we’ve always been a top choice destination for international students around the world. And so it’s pretty clear that we could rely on this, or it was pretty clear we could rely on this in the past, but what we’ve seen is that there was kind of an unfortunate mix of developments that occurred within the country that have made us less attractive as a destination. The first of which that comes to mind would be just COVID-19 really tarnished the image of the United States, just in the response and in a sense of sort of chaos that students felt while they were here in the United States. That they communicated back home, a sense of lawlessness, almost in the country, that this is a place where people don’t follow the rules and where there isn’t sort of a clear, organized response to issues or problems as they emerge, and that was very bad [LAUGHTER] for U.S. higher education, just because that type of damage to a country’s image is very difficult to come back from. It lingers. It’s almost generational change when people shift in their view of a particular country, and so that plays into decisions around where to go to study. And then the other you sort of alluded to is political change, and I don’t think it’s as simple as just a shift in administration, but we’ve witnessed in the public discourse a real change in how people talk and think about people who are coming to the United States from other countries, and people feel that, they feel that they hear it in the discourse. And you know when you’re not welcome, you know you’re visiting someone’s house, and you hear them talking about you in the kitchen, and they’re not saying nice things, unless you really, really want to be there, you’re just less likely to stick around. And I think that that has really contributed as well to this decline we’re seeing in the numbers of international students who have come to the United States. And so again, there’s always going to be institutions that because due to their reputation or due to their location, are still going to draw on a large number of students. But it’s not going to be a safety net for institutions who are most vulnerable to this decline, places that are located in rural areas or who are specialized in a particular academic area, or institutions that are very small, these are the places that are the least likely to attract international students, and so it’s just not a good solution, or it’s not the solution that many had hoped that it would be, at least at this time.

John: One other thing you talk about in your paper a little bit is shifting the focus of the course offerings and the focus of the programs offered by institutions. Can you talk a little bit about how that’s been done in Korea and Japan, and whether institutions here are already starting to do this a bit, and perhaps, might that be a way of maintaining the relevance and the strength of a larger proportion of higher ed institutions?

Peter: I think institutions are still trying to figure out how they can change the curriculum to make them fit into the society that we live in. And we see pressure on institutions coming from the labor market and then from this new discourse around accountability for institutions in terms of student outcomes in the labor market. And it makes me a little nervous, to be honest. I’m not sure that it’s necessarily a good thing, and in Korea, at least, I don’t know about this as much in Japan, but in Korea, we saw things like funding for our departments being tied to the percentage of students who were full-time employed with benefits a certain amount of time after graduation, and that funding levels for departments would shift to the point that even positions could go away. If you cannot provide successful employment outcomes for students, then the justification for that program or for those positions might go away. And so that created a lot of discomfort among faculty and among administrators who really felt the squeeze in terms of everything we do has to be targeted in some way to a particular job, and we need to be preparing students in some way for work. Everything we do has to be focused on getting students ready for work. And I think that that’s disruptive and not helpful for higher education. I think that those things are absolutely very important, but that they fly in the face of the mission of a lot of higher education institutions, and that there’s a real danger of losing touch with the original purpose of these institutions. And so I would say that I think I much more appreciate the efforts to just prepare people for change without necessarily knowing which direction we’re going to be headed, because otherwise, some of this is [LAUGHTER] quite disruptive and it’s destructive as well. It makes me a little bit nervous.

Rebecca: Given your experience, what role do you see faculty playing in shaping the future change that needs to come?

Peter: Well, in some places, we are seeing faculty taking a more proactive role in creating new programs and to creating even new schools. So I don’t know if you’ve heard much about, I believe it’s Arizona State University, they have, like a School of Ocean Futures and some pretty new sort of ways of organizing what the programs that are available at the institution with a clear focus on the future. So that they’re hopeful that students that come out of these programs are able to find a place in the future world, at least as they envision it. And so I think faculty members who sort of take the lead in this work and help to sort of reorganize higher education around what might be needed in the future, they have a role to play there if they’re able to do that. But in a lot of cases, faculty members are very resistant to any sort of change, and so, in fact, they’ve kind of become antagonists to any of this work. And I understand that. Higher education looked a certain way for a very long time, and that’s what people sort of envision it’s going to continue to look like in the future, and they are cynical about any sort of changes that others are trying to impose on higher education, and maybe rightly so.

John: And one of the ways, I think that we’ve seen that in the wider universe of colleges and universities is gutting some of the traditional liberal arts departments and majors. We’ve seen some schools give up music departments or give up art departments, or art history, or sometimes seriously cutting back on history or math and other areas. I gather that that’s something you probably would not advocate for as part of this transition to the future.

Peter: Liberal arts institutions are the greatest threat is the reality of it. So the institutions that we’ve seen closing in the Northeast in particular have been small liberal arts institutions, and so I am very much in favor of the mission of these liberal arts institutions, personally. But if people aren’t going because that’s not what they’re looking for in higher education, then the problem we have isn’t with the programs we’re offering. There’s a program with what people perceive as being valuable in the society and how social values have changed over time, that people aren’t interested in learning about music and they’re not interested in learning art, and that’s, to me, is terrifying, [LAUGHTER] but it’s the reality of what we’re seeing in terms of demand is that people want this very clear economic benefit as a result of attending higher education, and if they don’t see a clear one-to-one correlation, that they tend to be more dismissive of it as something that’s not necessary or something that they don’t need, which creates a lot of this pressure, and it’s used to justify things like gutting out some of these programs like you mentioned. I think higher education has grown dangerously sort of disconnected from public life, and that people see higher education institutions as something that’s very removed and something that’s stuck in the past and something that isn’t really tied to sort of public opinion and the public discourse, and that puts us in such a dangerous position, and so that really, really makes me worry about the future for higher education, because there isn’t a clear vision about where do we fit in the society of the future, what role do we play? And we’re becoming increasingly vestigial, almost, in the way that people talk about and think about higher education, in a way that leaves me very worried.

Rebecca: That seems like the critical difference too, that you identified in your study, really between the differences between Korea and Japan too, right? Is that really how it played out?

Peter: And even at a personal level, I could feel the difference working in higher education as a faculty member in South Korea. In society, I was awarded a certain amount of respect from anybody who learned that I was a professor or a faculty member, and people would seek out my opinion or seek out my participation in programs in a way that I just don’t see here in the United States. In a way, when people learn I’m a professor in the United States, their response is very different from in Korea, and that was sort of a warning bell for me in terms of, this is how they see higher education here. It’s very different from what I had experienced in other settings.

John: And on that cheery note… [LAUGHTER] you had mentioned the shift out of the Midwest and the Northeast into other regions of the country. So what types of differences do you see between the experience of the Midwest and the New England region in terms of the response to these shifts?

Peter: So I would say that the sort of the major difference that we see between the Northeast and the Midwest is that in the northeast, there were more successful mergers, and that has to do with the fact that there is less distance between institutions in the northeast, it is a little bit more densely populated, and so oftentimes the institutions that were having trouble were able to reach out to neighboring institutions, especially smaller institutions, would reach out to larger neighboring institutions, and they were able to come to some sort of agreement where they would merge. There’s one exception to this in the Northeast, where two similarly sized institutions, neither of which were struggling, this was Berklee College of Music and then the Boston Conservatory, they just spoke with each other and decided we should share these overhead costs that we’re dealing with, and we’ll become one music institution within Boston, and otherwise, it tended to be smaller institutions that were struggling reaching out to larger neighbors and getting some help and becoming a part of that larger neighbor. And oftentimes they would fill in sort of an area of relative weakness within that larger institution. Something that comes to mind, for example, is Wheelock College joining Boston University and becoming sort of the specialized college in education and human services within Boston University. And so there were some pretty happy stories there about mergers working out. It was more remote, small liberal arts institutions in the Northeast that were the most likely to close, and that contrasted a little with the eastern Midwest, where a lot of the times we saw religious affiliated institutions were the ones that were struggling. There were quite a few Christian colleges that weren’t able to find a way forward. And in terms of the mergers that we saw, they tended to be highly specialized institutions that were sort of gobbled up by neighbors that didn’t have a program or any offerings in that area, and saw it as an opportunity to expand out what they offered at their institutions. So the stories were pretty similar, but there were some differences in terms of the success rate of mergers and the types of institutions that were struggling in those different regions.

Rebecca: Well, with all that good news today, we always end by asking, what’s next?

Peter: This was a very, sort of a zoomed out look at what’s going on here in the United States. And I think that there’s some real value in taking a closer look at the stories of these institutions, those that do end up closing and then those that are able to make it through. And so I’m hoping to do a series of comparative case studies looking at institutions around the Northeast. There’s even one that’s quite close to us here in Aurora, New York. I think it’s Well’s and so I’m hoping to take a closer look at some of these institutions and their stories but haven’t decided the exact sort of focus I want to take. But part of me wants to look at the impact on the local economies of places that do close. What’s the sort of impact that we’re seeing on the people that live around the places where these institutions used to be located, and the places that do succeed, what role did their relationships to their local community play in their ability to kind of make it through and so I’m still in the brainstorming phase there, but this is something I’ve been thinking about doing.

John: Well, thank you. This has been such a cheery conversation, but it’s one that all institutions have to address, because we are going to be coming up to some really challenging times, and if higher ed institutions are to survive, they’re going to have to be a little bit creative and maybe more flexible in terms of addressing the changing environment in which we’re living.
But studies such as this, though, can perhaps give us more information about what paths have been successful. So thank you, and we’re looking forward to hearing your future studies.

Peter: Thank you, and thanks for having me on.

Rebecca: Yeah, thanks for the zoomed out look. I think that’s helpful for everyone to get a good grasp on what the landscape really looks like and how it does compare to some other places.

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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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381. Transition to College

Posted in engagement, first-generation, higher education, inclusion, learning, motivation, pedagogy, teaching
February 19, 2025

Many students experience challenges transitioning from high school to college. In this episode, Beckie Supiano joins us to discuss changes in the K-12 environment that impact student preparation for college. Beckie is a senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education. She began her work at The Chronicle as an intern in 2008 and is a co-author, with Beth McMurtrie of The Chronicle’s Teaching Newsletter.

Transcript

John: Many students experience challenges transitioning from high school to college. In this episode, we discuss changes in the K-12 environment that impact student preparation for college.

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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 Beckie Supiano, a senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education. She began her work at The Chronicle as an intern in 2008 and is a co-author, with Beth McMurtrie of The Chronicle’s Teaching Newsletter. Beckie’s insightful articles have been a regular source of inspiration for us as faculty and many of our past podcasts were the result of things we’ve read in your articles. Welcome.

Beckie: Thanks so much for having me.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are:… Beckie, are you drinking any tea with us today?

Beckie: You know, I’m not really a tea drinker. I have finished my morning pot of coffee, and I’ve switched over to sparkling water over here.

Rebecca: I would say probably many of our listeners are right on team Beckie. How about you, John?

John: I am drinking a ginger peach black tea today.

Rebecca: I’m back to drinking that candy cane tea that I’ve been drinking lately. It’s really a nice blend of black and herbal mint.

John: Interesting, although that may not work so well once we hit the summer, you may want to finish it up by then. It just may seem a bit non seasonal

Rebecca: at the rate I’ve been drinking it, it may happen.

John: So we’ve invited you here today to discuss your recent article: “Some Assembly Still Required: How K-12 reforms and recent disruptions created Gen Z’s baffling habits.” College faculty have, as long as there have been records, complained that the K-12 system left a lot of students unprepared for college, but the gap between high school preparation and college expectations seem to have gotten quite a bit worse in recent years. What are some of the changes in student experiences and in the K-12 environment that have made this transition more difficult for both the students and for the faculty who will be teaching them?

Beckie: I’ll mention this article is part of a series that my colleague, Beth McMurtrie and I and another colleague have been writing for really about the past year, called “Teaching Gen Z,” which was really our attempt to describe and untangle a lot of what professors have been noticing with this group of traditional age students. And so we got to a point where we sort of thought, “Oh gosh, you know, we really do need to go look at what’s been going on in K-12.” I hear you, these complaints that “students are coming in unprepared” and “something must be up with schools” are long standing, but there are some things that really do seem to have changed that are important, and obviously that’s what the article is trying to make sense of here. I will say it’s like, “Oh, something must be going on before these students get to college.” And I think one thing I’d like to underscore is it doesn’t seem to be just one something, and I think that’s part of what makes this very complicated, but also what makes it really interesting. A lot of my article looks at the test-based accountability movement and some of its unintended consequences in terms of what is and isn’t focused on in a lot of schools, and how that sets students’ expectations for what education really is. But there are other things too. There’s been a really significant drop in reading for pleasure, which turns out to be a very important thing in terms of students’ reading ability, also the teacher shortage and what that’s meant for who’s in front of classrooms and what they’re doing. And the rise of technology to supplement classroom instruction is related with that last point on the teacher shortage, too. And then, of course, we have the pandemic, which exacerbated lots of existing trends and created some new challenges. And everyone’s still trying to make sense of how that’s all played out, unfortunately, and what some of the longer-term impacts are. And then there’s really the role that schools play in society, and how many things they’re really being asked to do beyond simply educating our country’s children. So what that means, just to take sort of one piece of it that professors are very interested in, students are not getting as much practice reading books or longer articles inside or outside of school, and so professors are noticing that students are having a harder time doing the kind of reading they’re expected to in college. And if you sort of look at what’s going on… again, both in and outside of school before students get there… you can kind of get a little bit of a better handle on why it might be that way.

Rebecca: One of the things that you talk about in your article is the No Child Left Behind Act and just legislation in general that’s intentions are to help our education and our society, but there are sometimes some intended consequences. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Beckie: Yeah, absolutely. So, No Child Left Behind, the federal law signed in 2002 was intended to raise the floor on student performance in school, which I think most people could agree is a good goal. It was a bipartisan effort, and the idea here was that there are groups of students, especially sub-populations, who would be more at risk, students who are members of minority groups or low-income students or in special education programs, and before it was sort of easy to mask if those students were not being well served by school, if they weren’t performing well, and the law was really designed to make it harder to have students kind of passed along through school without getting the education they were supposed to. But what happened is there needs to be some sort of way to evaluate are schools actually educating these students, and the way that that was done is standardized tests. And just like so many things, once you introduce a way to evaluate performance and make it a high-pressure thing where everyone has a lot at stake, everyone’s going to focus on how to look good in that evaluation. And part of what you see is that some of the things that schools might do to try to improve test scores in the short term might be misaligned with things you might do if your goal were longer-term learning. And there are lots of examples of that, and a lot of it’s become more clear now.

John: So, along with the No Child Left Behind Act there was this increase in standardized tests. How did the introduction of these standardized tests affect the way in which classes are taught? One of the examples you mentioned is how 10th graders were taught the Pythagorean theorem. How did that change in response to some of the standardized testing, as well as the breadth and depth of coverage on many other topics.

Beckie: Yeah, so that example about the Pythagorean theorem is one specific example from a test of 10th graders in Massachusetts that a professor I spoke with at Harvard, Dan Koretz, mentioned in our interview that I thought was just such a nice example. So basically, you can reverse engineer these tests to figure out how to help students perform well on them. So in this instance, this example that he gave me, the Princeton Review, figured out like, oh, there’s this pattern where this particular test, for this group of students in this state regularly asked a question on the Pythagorean theorem. And because students cannot use calculators on this test and the Pythagorean Theorem requires using square roots, they’re really only a few kinds of questions this could possibly be, like, if you memorize a few sets of ratios, you can pretty much get the question right, whether or not you understand algebra, and really, whether or not you understand the Pythagorean Theorem. It’s just a sort of test strategy that you could use to perform well on this item, and that’s a problem for a few reasons. I mean one, it means that the item can’t really tell us if students understand math, because they don’t have to [LAUGHTER] to get this question right. So this item, which is one of a small sample of questions used to test: “Do you understand algebra generally?” can’t really be effective at answering that question for us. But a related problem is that if you know that certain material is going to be tested on and again, if there’s a lot of pressure to shore up student performance, there’s all the incentive in the world to really focus on those aspects of a subject in your preparation for students. So lots of practice on specific parts of math, specific reading skills, lots of short passages of reading and writing, because that’s what students would be evaluated on. And so you see this reallocation that certain subjects are emphasized to the detriment of others. And then within subjects like math and reading that were really emphasized, only certain pieces of those subjects would really get attention, which could lead to nice looking test scores, but would also lead to students not having the full preparation they would need to build on those skills in future work, including at college.

Rebecca: When we’re talking about standardized testing, other systematic assessment rubrics also became increasingly common in high schools and colleges. And in your interview, one of the faculty members that you interviewed, Ethan Hutt, suggests that this has made it more difficult for students to create more interesting writing assignments. Is the increased prevalence of rubrics also an outgrowth of the nature of standardized testing?

Beckie: Yeah, so I think that’s a really good example. A rubric can be helpful if students are supposed to come up with a certain type of answer when they’re answering a question on a test. Writing can be kind of formulaic at any level, but there’s some variation in how formulaic it is, and students have been kind of conditioned to write to spec, right? I hear from professors all the time, just interviewing them in our day-in, day-out, coverage of teaching that students really seem to think they are being asked to come up with the answer, the right answer, the answer the professor has already thought of and is walking around with and expecting to hear back, even if students are being asked to share an opinion or talk about their personal experience, something that presumably the professor can’t really have a predetermined answer for. And you can kind of see how this all connects. And so what Hutt was saying is students just feel really lost when they’re asked to just write an essay on a topic. They expect a lot more granular instructions of exactly what to do to deliver the kind of product that the professor wants and will give a good grade to, and when he’ll tell them, like, “I don’t really have that, that’s not really what I do,” they don’t believe it. They think he just won’t tell them. And I’ve heard similar things from other professors as well. I think it’s long been the case that college students are asked to work at a higher level, that they have more freedom to kind of spread their wings and try things out. But it seems like professors are noticing that this group of students, rather than kind of enjoying that and running with it, feels kind of stuck or anxious or just doesn’t know how to proceed without a lot more explicit direction.

John: And that’s put a lot more pressure on college faculty also to use rubrics with assignments, which, again, can limit creativity in students’ writing. We’d like to have students develop some creativity and be able to analyze material, but if we are requiring them only to focus on a narrow subset of their disciplines, might that do some harm to their ability to be productive members of society in a world where they’re not going to be just completing assignments designed to a rubric, or where they’re not going to be getting standardized tests, but they have to deal with real-world problems.

Beckie: Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of concern about all of what you just said on the part of faculty, and it’s hard to figure out how to communicate to students what you really are trying to get them to do, and it’s hard for these reasons, and it’s hard because of generative AI. There’s a lot going on here that’s working against trying to convince students to think critically and do their own creative work, and kind of to find their voice. And that seems to be something that is a heavier lift for everyone involved, sure.

Rebecca: Along those same lines, at the college level, university level, we’re expecting students to be independent and have autonomy and really take those reins. Are there things happening in the K-12 system that are reducing student autonomy? Is that in response to the high-stakes testing and rubrics and all the standardization?

Beckie: Yeah, it’s an interesting question. I think, in terms of how to go about completing the work that does seem to be in play. And some of it, I think, is just also about the way you think about education, and what it’s for. The testing regime is performative, like you’re getting a test and you’re performing on it, and your performance is really important. That’s really different from other ways of thinking about education as being a process. And I think many people in higher education and gosh, you know, many people in K-12 too, would understand that the process thing is important. We’re supposed to be lifelong learners. This is how you go about learning anything. A lot of times, people will talk to me with illustrations of like, “How do you learn to play a sport or a musical instrument?” This is sort of how humans learn. We have better and better handle on that from research on learning, but it’s tough, I think, to get students to shift gears. And this is, I think, interrelated to something that professors also experience, where students are very grade motivated, and I think it’s easy for professors to be exasperated by that, but especially at a place with a selective admissions process like, oh gosh, you know, students have been really strongly conditioned to think about their grades, or they probably wouldn’t be in your classroom at all. And it’s hard to turn that off.

John: And much of this seems to be related to the changes in incentives that K-12 instructors and administrators face because the funding they receive may be tied to the success of students on these standardized exams, but by narrowing what students are studying, or narrowing the range of topics addressed to those things that can be captured in multiple-choice exams and standardized tests, one of the things you’re suggesting, I think, in the article, is that students are missing out on some of the wider explorations and a wider breadth of learning that perhaps might have been more common in the absence of some of the standardization. Is that correct?

Beckie: Yeah, it’s interesting. Some of the education scholars I spoke to emphasize that before all of this, if you go back pre-2002, and there were even some earlier efforts in this direction before that, you just probably had a more uneven landscape. Like a really good teacher could do some things that would be harder to get away with now. But also that isn’t to say that’s always what happened. Teaching was probably a little more uneven before, which is interesting to think about. But this narrowing, I think, is interesting. One of the things that came up again in my reporting here, I also looked a bit at the Common Core, which is designed to help students be college and career ready. Again, like really good intentions there, but there’s this idea that, okay, most of us out in the working world, most of the reading and writing we do is shorter things. It’s emails and memos and reading an article that’s kind of shorter. It’s not sit down and read this book and then write a term paper, and that’s not what most people are doing. But it seems now that there are some things about reading whole books that change the way people read. Their reading ability is different if they only read like snippets of things and don’t have to think about like, “What is this author’s argument in some sort of a context beyond just some little passage?” And another example that came up is history, if you’re reading in history, like as a subject, and then in college as a discipline that, in addition to giving you access to a different disciplinary understanding of the world, would also enhance your reading ability in ways that just doing reading drills won’t. The reading drills can maybe bring up that floor, but there’s some ceiling there that students aren’t getting the ability to work toward, and it’s interesting just thinking about how these things are interconnected. Another dimension that came up in my reporting was students reading for pleasure. And if you think about it, oh, it makes sense. If you just read more of anything, you learn more stuff, and you can make connections between the things you learn when you’re reading this book just because you’re interested in whatever to other things you’re learning at school and elsewhere, and to just take that piece away has a lot more consequences than maybe would be apparent if you’re just thinking about the basic things that everyone needs to know.

Rebecca: One of the things that came up in your article, but we’re also just observing in our landscape is not just short-form reading, but there’s a plethora of videos available, podcasts available, AI available. For example, even on The Chronicle website, [LAUGHTER], now there’s an AI tool to get information fast. It’s great. It’s helpful to be able to get information in a lot of different modalities. There’s real strength in the ability to get information in multiple modalities. There’s benefits to that, as well as maybe some detriments to not always using all the modalities available.

Beckie: I think it’s interesting, and it’s hard for professors to figure out how much reading and writing, per se, really matter as a way to get information or a way to convey what you know. But I think, for most of them, it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t something important about those skills in particular,

John: I remember when I went to high school sometime last century, a while back, but it was really common for us to be asked in English classes and in social science classes to read multiple books in the semester or in the course of the academic year, but with the introduction of the Common Core standards that you’ve mentioned, the focus on that is a bit different. One of the things you suggest is that the Common Core focus is more on close-reading skills, which encourages practice with close-reading skills. How might that be harming students’ ability or interest in engaging with larger texts.

Beckie: When I talked to a professor, James S. Kim, who studies reading and the development of that, one of the things that came up was that there was a sort of virtuous cycle with reading, like, if you read more, you get better at it, and reading at length is just different. I mean, I think close reading is an important skill, but you can work on that while you’re reading something longer, and the reverse kind of isn’t true. And I think part of what’s emerging is that there are so many different things going on with reading, and focusing just on close reading doesn’t enable students to be able to be well prepared to do all the things they need to do with it when they get to college. Reading in college does work differently. It’s supposed to. You read differently in different courses, and that’s always been a hump for students, but it again, seems to have changed. One of the education professors I interviewed for my story was describing how her students in like, not a first-year course, didn’t read the directions correctly on an assignment, and she had to kind of go back and do that with them. And her argument, this is Julie Cohen at UVA, her argument is that this illustrates to her that it’s the teacher shortage, that someone who’s gone through the right preparation to be a classroom teacher would have covered this in high school, and students just aren’t getting enough practice with it before they get to college. That’s her read on the situation. But we’ve heard this from other professors too, that some of this is even just like a simple reading comprehension issue.

Rebecca: One of the things that we haven’t quite touched on yet is the introduction of smartphones and apps. We talked a little bit about AI and video and things and how they’ve predominated our media landscape, but what about the access to smartphones and high school students and earlier having access to these.

Beckie: There’s obviously a lot of debate around this, and I’m not sure that anyone has it all completely figured out, But there are real concerns about attention and certainly time you’re spending scrolling on your phone is time you’re not spending reading for pleasure. That seems kind of obvious. Some of this is about what’s going on outside of school. And then one of the professors I talked to, Morgan Polikoff, at USC, was saying that he thinks a sort of underappreciated dimension of this is that there’s this idea now that younger students don’t read, won’t read, and sort of a hesitation to expect it of them, right? Like, oh, we have just used something that students are going to participate in. And so his argument is that there’s sort of this acceptance of like, oh, students won’t do this, so let’s not even try to make them.

Rebecca: I wonder if that’s tied to whether or not we have role models that are doing that. I’m thinking about my own daughter, who’s in second grade. We’ve instituted family reading time mostly because we want to read, so she has her own sets of books so that she’s reading, but that’s because we’re all spending time reading. And if that’s not a culture in a space where a kid is, where people aren’t reading all the time and they are on their phones, then the expectation might be to be on a phone.

Beckie: I think it’s an interesting question. There’s obviously, like, more than one way you can be using your phone, and I think a lot of us do a lot of reading [LAUGHTER] on our phones too, but from the outside, it’s not always even clear if that is actually what you’re doing. And when I talked to James Kim, he did talk about that, what parents are doing matters here too. Are you talking about school and even if you are reading, is that visible to kids? And we know a lot of adults aren’t reading either.

John: And smartphone apps are designed to get attention, there’s a large financial incentive for the developers of those apps to build apps that capture attention, and so it’s a tough competition, from a student’s perspective, between something that provides this immediate gratification and interesting content, or learning something in more depth, which may be a little bit more tedious, which was a challenge that wasn’t faced in much earlier cohorts.

Beckie: Yeah, I mean, I’ve definitely talked to some students who are aware of that problem. I did another story for this series about students struggling to work independently and just needing more support to do ambitious work in a course, like a big paper or project. And that’s something that came up talking with students about their own habits. It is hard. And I think it’s hard even for those of us who are past that part of our lives, that distraction is real. And I think there are a lot of people who don’t really have the option of just putting the phone in a drawer for large stretches of the day, because they have to be reachable. And if you’re reachable, you’re reachable. It’s definitely a hard thing for students, and I think one that I think a lot of us can sympathize with.

Rebecca: One of the conversations that I had recently with a colleague, and we were having with some kids, where the kids were like, “Well, can you just Google that for me, if you don’t know the answer, like, just look it up.” Yeah, we used to have to, like, look in an encyclopedia, go check out a book from the library, [LAUGHTER] and just like the difference in how quickly you can get an answer to a question versus having to work a little bit to get an answer to even basic questions about whatever.

Beckie: It’s really interesting. And then I think the challenge is then easier to get an answer, but harder to know if it’s a good answer, right?

Rebecca: Yeah.

Beckie: I mean, I think that’s hard for, again, lots of folks who are long past being a student and just figuring out, okay, you can search for something, but how do you evaluate the answers you’re seeing?

John: So, generative AI and hallucinations provide students with some serious challenges there, too, in interpreting or examining the accuracy of information that’s being provided.

Rebecca: There’s a long thread on blue sky recently about hallucinations related to summaries and searches about some basic science topics. So if a kid’s like looking up a basic answer to something it could be completely inaccurate. It would be a topic that would be somewhat simple to answer, but the answer that they’re getting because they’re looking at the AI summaries are just completely inaccurate.

John: Although it has been getting better…

Rebecca: Yeah, It’s getting better, but…

John:… to be fair.

Rebecca: Again, these were searches that just happened in the past.

John: So one of the other things you talk about is the impact that the pandemic has had on student preparation for college. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Beckie: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s hard to tease out exactly what’s gone on here, just from covering pandemic teaching while it was going on, I think there was a long period of just everyone kind of wishing very hard that things would go back to normal this time, like, okay, next semester, we’re gonna be back to normal. Okay, next semester, [LAUGHTER] we’re gonna be back to normal, and I can sympathize, again, with why people had that expectation, but there are some things that really do seem to have shifted. One question is, did students just not get whatever they were supposed to learn during the period of emergency remote instruction, which, of course, looked different at different schools, like, how long did that last for and how did it work, and how much instruction were students really getting during that time, and how much were they actually expected to do their work? And as time goes by, the students coming into college who have been younger and younger whenever that happened, and have had more time to kind of regroup from that and catch up in various ways. But other things change too, and part of what seems to have changed is expectations. For a while there, students in high school were given a little more ability to push back on expectations, to say, like, “We really can’t do this. You’re asking too much,” and to be listened to in a way that they probably wouldn’t normally be. And I think, even for folks who think that was the right way to proceed during that time, it’s been hard to come back from, like, this idea that deadlines and grades and you really do have to do this stuff, just haven’t come back. And someone else I spoke with, Elena Silva at New America think tank, was describing that even just the question of, like, “Why are we here at all in the first place?” I mean, before you kind of close physical schools for a stretch of time, I think for many students, it wouldn’t really occur to them, like, “Oh, why are we here at all? What could we be doing instead?” And then she pointed out, a lot of the rest of us never quite went back to working the way we normally did, but students have kind of been expected to do that, and there’s a little more pushback and like, “What is this all for?” And it’s something I hear so much, again, from my higher ed sources, from professors, from faculty developers, like giving students that “why,” that reason, is just so important. They seem to need it more now. Getting some buy-in from them that, like, this isn’t just some busy work you’re being forced to do to like kill time, but we’re actually trying to give you something valuable, and being able to really articulate what that is, is not a silver bullet, but it does seem to be a necessary first step in a lot of cases.

Rebecca: How has the pandemic affected student preparation for college?

Beckie: I think that it’s really such a mixed bag. I talked to Tim Renick, who has all this great data from higher education in Georgia looking at entry-level courses there, and he said, like, “Oh, we really saw, like, this immediate pandemic era hit in student performance in these intro courses, but we seem to have worked through that.” Like students have kind of bounced back to normal on that front. But I do think there’s more to it than just “did you kind of get the content that you can build on in this next course?”…all these other things around, like how to function as a student, the independent work, and the sort of understanding of why you’re there, and the ability to kind of forge ahead with that. Those things do seem to have taken a hit. The other article I wrote for this series about students working independently, described that, like a lot of professors, years out from pandemic teaching, have found that if they really want students to deliver some big project or paper or deliverable, if you will, from their course. If they really see that as important, they have to create more time and space for students to work on it, give them more feedback, maybe give them more class time. It seems like students are having a harder time doing work on their own outside of class, and professors have to decide, like, if they really want that work to happen, they might have to sort of change the way it gets done, including where, including it might have to happen more when the professor is available to students in class.

John: Along with the changes in the way students were learning during the pandemic, there were also some pretty substantial learning losses that were shared fairly unequally across the population. All the students who were in elementary or high school during that period ended up being quite a bit behind the usual rate of progression. International standardized test scores like the PISA have been steadily declining, but there was a precipitous drop during the pandemic where students are about anywhere from six months to a year behind in terms of where they would have been in terms of math scores and reading scores, but those gaps are pretty unequally shared. There’s a pretty high variance in that, which again, presents some problems. What sort of things might college faculty do in addressing those learning losses and also the disparity in those losses that occurred across our student populations?

Beckie: I think this is a huge challenge. And again, it’s something that predates the pandemic, but was magnified by it. I mean, students are not getting the same kind of preparation for college. A lot depends on where you went to school and what resources you have available in your school and at home, and that’s long been true, but it’s, I think, kind of easy to pretend that it isn’t, that students are coming in and they’re all kind of expected to sort of do the same thing wherever they’re coming from. I hear a lot of debate among faculty about whether it’s on them to help students do things like learn how to study, learn how to read the directions. Know that you can’t just sit there with your textbook and a highlighter at the library, and then do well on your STEM exam in college. And on the one hand, professors are in their role because of their subject matter expertise… that’s very important to them, and in a lot of courses, making sure that students have a handle on certain material for specific reasons for the future is really the name of the game, and I can understand why people really center that. But I’m hearing a lot of other professors say, like, “Well, if students come in and they don’t know how to do something, even if it’s something kind of basic we all think they should be able to do, we have to teach them now, like they can’t do the work of the course if they don’t know how to study, or they don’t know how to read the way we expect them to read, or they don’t know how to write the way we expect them to write. And even if that doesn’t seem like it’s within the parameters of your job, if students haven’t gotten this somewhere else by the time they get to you, they’re not gonna be able to do well in your course without it, then you do have some responsibility to help them figure that out, and it’s really a lot to ask of professors. It’s not like there’s extra time for that, and also it’s not something that professors necessarily know how to teach students. They don’t have the same kind of training as a K-12 teacher. Some professors really don’t have much training at all in teaching, and it’s really complicated to figure out why people are missing something that they’re missing, and what they need to kind of get there, and if you’re seeing different kinds of misunderstandings or mistakes or gaps than in the past, like that does really put a lot more work on faculty. But what’s going to happen if they don’t try? Like, what’s going to happen to those students?

John: The No Child Left Behind Act was put together to try to make sure that the quality of education was raised for all students so that we weren’t losing more students along the way. And it’s resulted in some changes that probably help students at the bottom a little bit more, but it also may limit the range of topics that students learn and the depth of topics. But in terms of colleges, one of the things that we encourage faculty to do in terms of creating an inclusive teaching environment is to provide more structure on assignments, to use rubrics to make expectations more transparent. That has been shown to reduce some of those equity gaps in outcomes, but it might also tend to reduce the time that students spend on developing critical thinking skills. So that’s a trade off that I think is at the heart of some of this discussion, both in K-12 and also in college discussions. We want to make sure that all students have equal opportunities, but perhaps some of the strategies we’re using to do that might limit learning for all students to those things that we’re focusing on in our rubrics or a test. Do you see any way of resolving that, other than continually experimenting to come up with the best balance?

Beckie: Yeah, I don’t think I have the answer there. It’s hard, and I think it’s hard to ask anyone teaching, meet students where they are and then get them where they’re supposed to be. That’s a tall order, always, and it seems especially hard now. It reminds me a bit of the pandemic era debate on how much flexibility to give students and how much structure, which kind of cuts similarly, like, Okay, it’s a crisis. Students need flexibility. They don’t have time, they can’t meet these deadlines. And then it kind of turns out as time goes on, like, oh, the same students whose lives beyond the classroom really require them to have flexibility also really need structure, because they haven’t gotten the same opportunities to figure out how to build it for themselves. And so how do you support both of those things? It’s hard, and I think like figuring out how to create more equitable conditions, I don’t think you can create equitable conditions, given the very different background students are coming from. But to move toward that and also really support learning is hard, and I think there are things that professors are doing to try to help students that end up not helping all of them or not working out as intended. And yeah, I think there is constant experimentation with that. I think it’s kind of hard to overstate how difficult all of this is if you really care about it and try hard to make it better, as many of the people I talk to in my job are oriented to.

Rebecca: As you were asking your question, John, I was thinking, it’s not just like critical thinking, it’s like creativity, there’s just a lot of space there, I don’t know if balance is the right word either, right if we can find a balance, it’s just like, how do you keep all of those things in the kitchen [LAUGHTER] while you’re cooking as ingredients? So we always wrap up by asking, what’s next?

Beckie: Yeah, that’s a hard question, isn’t it? One of the thoughts I had as I was working on this K-12 story is just how hard it is to remember what it was like for there to be this bipartisan education effort. Consensus is too strong, but like, just sort of this shared understanding, even of like, what are the problems and how might they be tackled? That feels just very unfamiliar right now, [LAUGHTER] even though I was there writing about some of this as it was happening. So that’s just sort of wild to think about. I think for colleges and professors, what’s next, I think, is partly just recognizing there does seem to be something that isn’t just a short-term shift in play here, and just kind of accepting that, I guess, and figuring out some way to try to hold things together in light of that. There’s sort of this crisis approach that everyone was in for a while, and that’s faded. But. It does seem that student work habits and expectations really have changed, and figuring out how to move forward with that is going to continue to be important. Again, one thing I have been thinking about is, is there some shift in what happens in class, and what does that look like? I’ve talked to a lot of individual professors who are rethinking that, both because of these student preparation issues and also because of AI and the possibility that students will turn in work that they haven’t really done work on themselves, would obviously be enormously complicated to expect students to be in class more during college, but that’s one of the things I’ve started wondering about. I mean, this sort of expectation that you spend a couple hours on your own doing this independent work for every hour you’re in the room seems like it’s kind of broken down. And so what do you do with that? I think there’s an answer there for professors, and then there’s the much harder kind of system level answer to that.

John: Well, thank you. It’s been great talking to you. And we’d also like to put in a plug for The Chronicle’s podcast. Could you talk just a little bit about that?

Beckie: Sure, The Chronicle has a fairly new podcast called College Matters, which is hosted by my colleague Jack Stripling, and it’s a great way for people inside and outside of higher ed to kind of follow along with some of the big issues of the day. Jack features Chronicle journalists and also some of the people we write about, expert sources, policy makers, folks who work on campuses. And it’s a really fun listen, because he’s a really good interviewer, and I would encourage folks to check that out.

Rebecca: Well, thanks so much for joining us. I know that you’ll continue being an inspiration for our podcast and always a good read.

Beckie: Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

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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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