Not That Kind of Doctor - The First Year Teaching in Higher Education

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02/28/2023 Added

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The First Year Teaching in Higher Education - Ph.D. discussions with Nicholas Husbye and Guy Trainin. www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor and https://mediahub.unl.edu/channels/42980

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[00:00:00.000](upbeat music)
[00:00:09.031]So, interesting.
[00:00:11.490]All right.
[00:00:13.170]How's your teaching going?
[00:00:16.800]I'm having an easy semester with teaching,
[00:00:19.110]so it's been delightful to work with teachers
[00:00:23.700]and to really try to form instruction
[00:00:27.481]around professional development,
[00:00:31.260]which is very different than teaching undergraduates
[00:00:33.480]or even graduates who are pre-service teachers,
[00:00:35.940]where there's a certain set of goals,
[00:00:40.053]very clear goals that we have for them.
[00:00:43.980]What do you need to know when you start teaching?
[00:00:46.680]Whereas with practicing teachers,
[00:00:48.510]especially in the class I teach, it's more open-ended,
[00:00:51.450]asking them what they need and then elevating and going
[00:00:55.500]to the next level wherever they're at.
[00:00:57.840]So that's my teaching.
[00:00:58.950]How is your teaching going?
[00:01:00.600]I mean,
[00:01:02.244](laughs)
[00:01:04.140]kind of depends on the day. Right?
[00:01:06.093]That is true, that is true.
[00:01:09.383]I mean, I gotta say I'm loving my classes this semester.
[00:01:12.870]My undergrads are super smart.
[00:01:14.370]My doctoral students are super smart.
[00:01:16.050]They're all just super smart, things are happening.
[00:01:18.930]But it's been a busy semester.
[00:01:21.847]It's been a busy semester.
[00:01:25.410]It's going good, it's going better than last semester,
[00:01:28.564](laughs) which is good.
[00:01:29.670]Always good.
[00:01:31.014]So that's kind of what we're interested in today
[00:01:34.609]on this episode of "Not That Kind of Doctor,"
[00:01:38.310]where we're going to be exploring the ways
[00:01:41.370]that our teaching shifts and changes
[00:01:45.510]and how moving from that first semester
[00:01:48.799]to that second semester kind of feels like night and day.
[00:01:53.820]So my name's Nick Husbye.
[00:01:55.860]I'm an associate professor of elementary literacy education
[00:01:59.130]here at University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:02:01.770]I'm Guy Trainin, I'm a professor of education, same place.
[00:02:06.001]I'm Emily Fisher, I'm an assistant professor of practice
[00:02:09.570]and the clinic coordinator of the Schmoker Reading Center.
[00:02:13.890]Very fancy, does it feel good to say that?
[00:02:15.960]It does, it does feel good to say that.
[00:02:18.377]'Cause this time last year you were dissertating hard.
[00:02:22.680]Yes, yes.
[00:02:24.060]And on the job market.
[00:02:25.770]Which is always stressful.
[00:02:26.760]Yes, it was a stressful time.
[00:02:28.770]If you want tips and tricks,
[00:02:30.360]go see our previous video.
[00:02:32.970]Plug, did I do that right?
[00:02:35.130]Question mark?
[00:02:35.970]It works.
[00:02:36.840]I don't know, this branding thing,
[00:02:38.940]I don't know if I'm good at it at all.
[00:02:41.610]Well, you gave me some good tips and tricks.
[00:02:44.010]Okay, so see?
[00:02:45.249]Evidence, right there.
[00:02:46.500]And then I've given my other friends who are on the job
[00:02:50.790]market tips and tricks as well.
[00:02:53.020]Oh look, paying it forward.
[00:02:54.840]Yes. Yes.
[00:02:55.673]I love this, this makes me happy.
[00:02:57.930]So Emily, talk to to us about
[00:03:01.168]what was your first semester like teaching
[00:03:03.240]as you shifted from being a doctoral student
[00:03:08.430]into being the instructor of record on your own?
[00:03:12.600]Yeah,
[00:03:14.270]it was, well,
[00:03:15.899]I got to be an instructor of record when I was a GTA.
[00:03:19.650]So I had been an instructor of record before,
[00:03:22.607]which was nice, but this was different
[00:03:25.916]because I was basically taking a course and redesigning it.
[00:03:33.180]And so the course I teach
[00:03:35.310]is teaching struggling readers
[00:03:38.452]or readers who have disabilities or reading delays,
[00:03:43.050]and figuring out how I design a course, the lecture course,
[00:03:47.430]which is two credit hours, to align well with the practicum,
[00:03:51.900]which is the reading center.
[00:03:53.640]And then at the reading center,
[00:03:57.300]children who are struggling with reading,
[00:03:59.310]their families apply for them to come for tutoring
[00:04:02.169]twice a week for an hour.
[00:04:04.230]So one of the biggest challenges I had was
[00:04:07.800]how do I make those two things align?
[00:04:10.650]Because whatever we're learning in the lecture course
[00:04:13.530]should be able to be directly applied
[00:04:16.860]to what they're doing in tutoring.
[00:04:19.380]And I feel like in theory it sounds easy,
[00:04:23.180]but it's a lot more challenging in practice.
[00:04:25.950]I don't know if it even sounds easy.
[00:04:27.990]It sounds complicated.
[00:04:28.868]The minute we have to do something that aligns
[00:04:32.280]to a whole host of other people, it gets difficult
[00:04:35.070]because we control our actions
[00:04:37.530]and we can prep as much as we want.
[00:04:39.630]But it's much harder for us to see
[00:04:41.550]what other people are doing.
[00:04:43.950]And even if we communicate,
[00:04:46.410]I don't know how they're perceiving it.
[00:04:48.150]And so there's a lot of trust
[00:04:50.670]that has to be built over time.
[00:04:52.560]And you were somewhat familiar with the situation.
[00:04:54.750]But still you were starting something new.
[00:04:57.428]And then, what made sense in my head,
[00:04:59.526]I then had to communicate with the other,
[00:05:02.940]so our reading center director was also,
[00:05:05.520]we were collaborating on the course together.
[00:05:07.440]So I didn't have to do it all on my own,
[00:05:10.530]but I would say I'm like point person.
[00:05:12.360]And then also we had an adjunct instructor
[00:05:15.860]teaching another course of it.
[00:05:17.760]So coordinating with all these other instructors
[00:05:20.280]and then also making sure
[00:05:21.420]that we're aligned for our undergrads.
[00:05:23.070]It's kind of like the gears of a clock.
[00:05:25.470]They all have to work in harmony together,
[00:05:27.900]and it's sometimes hard to make them work together
[00:05:32.040]and then also help my students, my undergraduates,
[00:05:34.905]to see how they work together.
[00:05:37.575]That was a big challenge.
[00:05:41.100]And so as you were dealing with that challenge,
[00:05:45.540]how much work did you do in advance?
[00:05:47.340]How did you prepare for something that complicated?
[00:05:51.360]Well, when I was thinking about structuring the class,
[00:05:55.200]so I think that's one of the biggest differences
[00:05:57.180]between working in K-12 education
[00:06:01.945]and higher education,
[00:06:03.450]is not just the organization of the class,
[00:06:06.330]but how do you structure it.
[00:06:08.670]And so, when I was thinking about how to structure it,
[00:06:11.610]I had to think about how can I teach lecture
[00:06:14.730]where my undergrads come to a once a week lecture
[00:06:20.130]and then they have tutoring twice a week.
[00:06:22.440]So how do I make it work where I can't have any
[00:06:25.680]of my undergrads receiving different information?
[00:06:28.860]Like they all need the same information that week
[00:06:31.440]in lecture, but they might be coming Monday, Tuesday,
[00:06:33.750]Wednesday or Thursday, and they're tutoring on Monday
[00:06:37.170]and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday always.
[00:06:39.360]So how we structured it,
[00:06:41.610]how I structured it was did some introductory things
[00:06:46.801]about reading and writing and and explicit instruction.
[00:06:50.250]And then how it works is, what we learn in lecture,
[00:06:55.740]so it's designed around big three.
[00:06:57.390]So word work, reading and writing.
[00:07:00.478]So whatever we learn about word work in the lecture
[00:07:03.810]that week, they then apply into their lesson plans
[00:07:07.380]and with their child the next week.
[00:07:09.630]And then in lecture the next week we might learn about
[00:07:12.840]reading and then whatever we're learning about in reading,
[00:07:15.300]they apply the next week.
[00:07:16.440]And so it works through like a cycle.
[00:07:18.460]And it's nice because then when we come back to word work,
[00:07:22.110]my undergrads are usually at a point of like, okay,
[00:07:24.630]I've done all these things, what next?
[00:07:27.030]And so we can move to the next level,
[00:07:30.660]or give some new ideas to help them advance their teaching
[00:07:35.529]and help them move their child,
[00:07:37.380]help their child move along in their reading skills too.
[00:07:41.580]So I'm thinking about,
[00:07:43.740]when we're thinking about those challenges,
[00:07:45.180]so you had these big structural challenges
[00:07:47.700]in terms of how to make lecture
[00:07:50.040]and clinic practice match up.
[00:07:55.230]And that seems like a lot,
[00:07:59.742]a ton, right?
[00:08:01.140]It is.
[00:08:02.190]And I would love to know a little bit about how,
[00:08:04.980]'cause I'm thinking back to conversations
[00:08:06.480]we had last semester (laughs)
[00:08:08.940]around how did you think through in triage?
[00:08:16.803]You only have so many hours in the day, right?
[00:08:19.080]Yeah. And you have other
[00:08:20.130]things that are also in your life,
[00:08:24.513]like partners and kids and pets and et cetera.
[00:08:30.084]How did you think through
[00:08:34.380]triaging
[00:08:37.182]the challenges that you were experiencing?
[00:08:40.501]How did you decide which challenges to take on
[00:08:43.860]and which ones not to,
[00:08:46.770]and how did you
[00:08:49.912]make peace with that?
[00:08:51.580]I don't know how I did. (all laughing)
[00:08:55.020]I think that, I don't know,
[00:08:56.370]I don't know if I know how to do that last semester,
[00:08:59.902]but this semester I learned so much from last semester
[00:09:04.380]that I was able to take lessons that I learned
[00:09:08.610]or reflect and make some changes so that I can do that.
[00:09:12.750]So for example, last semester
[00:09:18.510]Once again I thought I was being really clear,
[00:09:19.800]we talk a lot about Scarborough's Reading Rope
[00:09:23.903]and Duke and Cartwright's model of reading
[00:09:25.890]and how reading's interconnected.
[00:09:27.720]So we do three different little lessons in this hour
[00:09:32.130]of tutoring on word work, reading or writing.
[00:09:35.100]And my undergrads in the anonymous midterm feedback
[00:09:39.918]were like, I don't understand why I'm having
[00:09:42.420]to teach my student all of these things
[00:09:44.550]when my student specifically needs work on whatever it is.
[00:09:47.670]Whether it be phonological awareness or phonics.
[00:09:51.896]And so last semester,
[00:09:53.790]we went went back through
[00:09:56.190]and brought the Reading Rope back,
[00:09:59.010]and I had my students look at the different
[00:10:01.440]instructional strategies they had done during tutoring
[00:10:04.410]and then match them to the parts of the Reading Rope.
[00:10:06.630]So this is why writing matters in the Reading Rope,
[00:10:08.670]'cause it goes into this piece.
[00:10:10.620]And it was a big aha moment.
[00:10:13.500]And there was a lot of stress about,
[00:10:16.091]how do I help my students understand this?
[00:10:18.480]'Cause this is a really critical piece of the whole class
[00:10:22.617]that the concepts of reading are interconnected,
[00:10:25.890]and that when you're working on one,
[00:10:27.240]it automatically will help with another,
[00:10:29.324]and that you also don't work on one thing for 60 minutes.
[00:10:33.090]'Cause if you're seven,
[00:10:34.350]you don't wanna work on decoding for an hour.
[00:10:36.330]At least I don't want to. Or if you're 56.
[00:10:38.332]I was gonna say, I don't wanna work
[00:10:39.360]on decoding for an hour either.
[00:10:41.190]So what I was able to do then is, the beauty of, I think,
[00:10:44.340]higher ed, is that I don't have to wait a year to implement
[00:10:47.490]the changes that I want, I got to do it at semester.
[00:10:50.580]And so I reworked what we do
[00:10:54.990]the very beginning of class,
[00:10:57.450]the first few weeks, and reworked
[00:11:01.620]bringing more explicitly
[00:11:04.020]and tying what are we doing in practicum
[00:11:06.570]and how is it tied to this Reading Rope?
[00:11:08.190]So not just talking about it again,
[00:11:11.460]'cause we did talk about it a lot,
[00:11:13.050]but making those connections more explicit.
[00:11:18.690]And so this time, like this Monday in class,
[00:11:23.100]we were looking over the assessment data
[00:11:25.830]that they had given their students.
[00:11:27.690]So on the past test, which is about phonological awareness,
[00:11:30.330]nonsense words, which is phonemic awareness,
[00:11:32.850]word detect skills, and spelling inventory.
[00:11:38.160]And we posed the question,
[00:11:39.591]what are these assessments?
[00:11:41.360]What does this tell us about your child?
[00:11:43.770]And they said, well, they're all really similar,
[00:11:47.190]but they're showing us the different aspects.
[00:11:48.900]So they're testing different pieces
[00:11:51.362]of the bottom part of the Reading Rope.
[00:11:54.060]I was like, yay.
[00:11:55.110]Yes, that's exactly it, yes.
[00:11:57.840]So what I'm hearing is from semester to semester,
[00:12:01.863]is first of all, when you think about your first semester,
[00:12:05.420]it is going to be messy.
[00:12:06.969]It was really challenging.
[00:12:08.640]Especially if you are walking into a situation
[00:12:12.030]where you're trying to coordinate a lot of pieces
[00:12:14.320]and you're trying to restructure things.
[00:12:18.000]And that's the transition.
[00:12:19.680]And we talked a little bit last time about this.
[00:12:22.110]As graduate students,
[00:12:23.190]we really advise you to stick with what's there.
[00:12:26.112]Somebody else has said it.
[00:12:28.230]They have an awareness to everything that's happening.
[00:12:31.380]So you should stick more or less to the script as described
[00:12:35.430]if you're lucky enough to have one.
[00:12:36.870]And you talked about one where you didn't have enough of one
[00:12:39.780]and then you have to struggle with it a little bit.
[00:12:42.060]But once you step into a new faculty role
[00:12:44.790]and you want to make the course your own,
[00:12:46.410]it's going to be rocky for a while until you find
[00:12:49.200]your footing and you find what works.
[00:12:51.510]And how to coordinate.
[00:12:52.590]So that's one thing that I learned from that.
[00:12:54.990]And the other thing is that you
[00:12:57.210]are going to get some feedback.
[00:12:59.520]Focus on that feedback because there are clues in there
[00:13:03.330]about what might be working.
[00:13:05.250]And the way I think about it,
[00:13:07.200]and I think about it in publication too,
[00:13:09.180]when I get feedback and I'm like, but I've done this.
[00:13:12.078]In publication it works exactly the same way,
[00:13:15.049]The first reaction is "you don't understand."
[00:13:18.690]And the second reaction is, "oh, you didn't understand,
[00:13:22.110]I need to do a better job
[00:13:24.000]to make sure that it all connects."
[00:13:25.770]So you've learned from that
[00:13:27.240]and you are making it more explicit.
[00:13:29.550]And so rocky beginnings lead,
[00:13:31.646]if you go to your feedback and really learn from it,
[00:13:35.490]can lead you to have a much better result.
[00:13:37.980]And there is a magic about starting
[00:13:40.665]with a little bit of a mess
[00:13:42.806]because then your student reviews
[00:13:45.703]and the evaluation of your writing goes up.
[00:13:48.750]If you start really high, there's nowhere to go.
[00:13:51.060]You can just go flat.
[00:13:52.583]That's my self-protection because my first semester here,
[00:13:55.920]So start messy? Well,
[00:13:57.990]Is that your purpose?
[00:13:59.748]I have questions.
[00:14:02.160]All I'm saying is, I dunno,
[00:14:03.799]I don't think, from an assessment
[00:14:04.890]perspective, it's hard at that moment.
[00:14:06.570]But then four years later when you have to renew a contract
[00:14:09.850]or when you have to go up for tenure,
[00:14:14.820]you can show a really nice graph of growth.
[00:14:17.610]So,
[00:14:20.280]it's my silver lining, (Nick laughing)
[00:14:22.650]let me sit with it.
[00:14:23.850]My first semester was very,
[00:14:25.860]my reviews were quite concerning
[00:14:30.335]to some people and to myself.
[00:14:39.660]But that in retrospect really helped me
[00:14:42.300]to focus on student feedback.
[00:14:45.960]Teaching's difficult.
[00:14:47.634]And it's hard and there's a lot of lessons to learn.
[00:14:49.740]I think that's one of the great things about it
[00:14:51.150]is you can always improve.
[00:14:53.250]I was thinking about my first year of teaching
[00:14:54.660]on the way here, and I was just kind of
[00:14:56.460]horrified thinking about it.
[00:14:58.813]I mean, 'cause the first semester,
[00:15:01.230]it's kind of like the first year of teaching,
[00:15:04.110]and I know a lot more things.
[00:15:06.510]I know my content, I know a lot more about teaching,
[00:15:10.632]but there's a lot of other different challenges.
[00:15:13.230]Working with adult learners is different.
[00:15:16.350]I worked with sixth graders most of my career.
[00:15:19.800]And so it's just different.
[00:15:24.330]And also I should also say,
[00:15:26.100]I didn't have to do this alone,
[00:15:27.450]and I don't think anybody should be doing this alone.
[00:15:29.520]So I worked with Dr. Rachel Schachter,
[00:15:32.370]the director of the reading center.
[00:15:33.810]So we collaborated a lot
[00:15:35.130]and she was a really great mentor for me.
[00:15:37.140]I talked with you about the reading center,
[00:15:38.730]I talked with you about the reading center.
[00:15:40.777]I talked with a lot of people who gave me a lot of good
[00:15:44.520]feedback or helped me process through.
[00:15:46.830]So I wasn't alone.
[00:15:48.460]I don't know if I could have done it all by myself
[00:15:52.620]and I don't think anybody should do it
[00:15:54.540]all by themselves either.
[00:15:56.040]Yeah, and I think that point is really important.
[00:15:58.680]It's not necessarily that you can't do it.
[00:16:00.510]I'm pretty sure you would've been fine, but it really helps.
[00:16:04.589]Pretty sure, 90% sure you would've been okay on your own.
[00:16:09.599](all laughing)
[00:16:11.130]I always work probability.
[00:16:13.050]I mean I would have been able to do it on my own.
[00:16:15.393]I think I would. Yes.
[00:16:17.117]But it is really just from a psychological perspective,
[00:16:21.900]you feel much better if you have somebody
[00:16:24.000]to talk to who says yes, sometimes it gets messy,
[00:16:27.000]and here are three things you can think about doing
[00:16:30.560]to make it better next time.
[00:16:32.790]Yeah.
[00:16:33.988]I'd like to come back to the feedback piece
[00:16:38.790]because just like when you're getting a review back
[00:16:42.360]on a manuscript, or you're sorting through
[00:16:47.550]student feedback around your teaching,
[00:16:51.150]being able to sift through what's founded feedback,
[00:16:56.250]what's actionable feedback versus
[00:17:02.552]what's not actionable,
[00:17:04.410]or is feedback designed
[00:17:07.560]to like,
[00:17:10.260]oh, your standards are too high.
[00:17:13.320]And being able to sort through that
[00:17:19.320]feels like an important skill to have.
[00:17:23.400]Particularly when you are trying to get better
[00:17:27.510]and you are seeking out student feedback, and,
[00:17:33.630]one of the realities of teaching is
[00:17:37.890]you are teaching for a purpose, right?
[00:17:41.610]There are certain content and certain knowledge
[00:17:44.160]that you are working to help support students in gaining.
[00:17:50.372]And sometimes how they think they learn is not the way
[00:17:54.120]that they actually learn, right?
[00:17:56.430]We have all these myths like,
[00:17:57.540]oh, I'm a left brain person, I'm a right brain person.
[00:18:02.040]That's not a thing.
[00:18:04.890]Learning styles, also not a thing,
[00:18:08.070]but yet they're heavily entrenched.
[00:18:12.283]And so what are systems that you all use
[00:18:15.600]to be thinking about how to sort that feedback out
[00:18:19.710]so it's actually useful to you?
[00:18:23.072]How do you identify useful feedback from
[00:18:27.510]feedback that
[00:18:31.589]isn't actually feedback, if that makes sense.
[00:18:36.900]Well sometimes, I mean,
[00:18:38.696]I guess this kind of goes back
[00:18:40.320]to thinking like a researcher.
[00:18:42.180]You look for the themes of what's popping up.
[00:18:44.635]And so over and over and over again,
[00:18:47.040]I noticed in my feedback last semester,
[00:18:48.900]there are misconceptions about how long
[00:18:51.810]the lesson plan should be.
[00:18:55.343]Because lesson design is really important
[00:18:57.540]in the reading center.
[00:18:59.144]The undergrads, the tutors are in charge
[00:19:01.783]of the lesson design for their child
[00:19:04.260]for an hour twice a week.
[00:19:06.180]And there's no cooperating teacher there.
[00:19:07.830]I mean, they have supervisors, there's other support systems
[00:19:10.680]there for them, but this is really the first time
[00:19:12.600]that they're completely in charge.
[00:19:18.015]And so sometimes what I noticed on the feedback
[00:19:21.210]was there were misconceptions between
[00:19:23.640]what students perceived my expectations to be
[00:19:26.730]versus their own expectations of themselves.
[00:19:30.270]And so that theme kept coming up.
[00:19:32.340]So what I did for that one,
[00:19:35.130]I just called everybody together at the reading center
[00:19:37.530]and clarified, this is my expectation for the reading,
[00:19:41.152]for the lesson plan.
[00:19:42.660]I don't want you to be spending too many hours on them.
[00:19:47.010]I want you to spend a good amount of time on them.
[00:19:49.495]Because think about the course credit
[00:19:52.393]versus time outside of class, what that is.
[00:19:55.350]But I don't want you to be spending all of your time
[00:19:57.240]on this lesson plan.
[00:19:59.910]For not understanding concepts.
[00:20:02.850]That came up a lot.
[00:20:04.080]And so, like I said, Rachel and I came together
[00:20:08.130]to design our second assignment to help address that.
[00:20:12.870]So because we talked about it in class
[00:20:16.623]and then we made the second assignment
[00:20:18.240]completely about that.
[00:20:19.410]Choose an area of focus that your child needs work on,
[00:20:21.690]whether that be working on long vowels,
[00:20:24.990]or if it needs to be working
[00:20:26.400]on answering inferential questions.
[00:20:28.410]And then each of the teaching domains,
[00:20:31.604]word work, reading and writing,
[00:20:33.060]what's an instructional strategy that you can work on that
[00:20:35.160]area of focus in each of those areas to help our students
[00:20:40.740]think about it in that way a little bit more.
[00:20:45.750]For me, so what I'm peeking from that
[00:20:48.480]that is similar to some things that I do
[00:20:51.840]is you don't necessarily want to wait
[00:20:54.273]'til the end of class to get feedback.
[00:20:57.330]You want to use assignments as sometimes
[00:21:01.950]they're great at telling you
[00:21:04.860]if a good portion of your students aren't getting
[00:21:08.034]that you're aiming at something specific,
[00:21:10.290]you're missing something, we need to redesign.
[00:21:12.600]And I also do a mid-semester anonymous feedback,
[00:21:16.812]so they can say anything.
[00:21:19.740]The only important thing that I keep in that is the time
[00:21:23.700]after we do that, one week after they provide the feedback,
[00:21:27.870]I summarize the feedback into themes
[00:21:30.360]and I put on the board the top three.
[00:21:35.310]And remember again,
[00:21:36.562]there's room for you to really take whichever
[00:21:40.242]you think are the most important three.
[00:21:42.180]Even if numerically they're not the top three.
[00:21:45.240]I mean it is the ones you want to,
[00:21:46.950]but you have to show your students,
[00:21:49.020]if you do ask for the feedback, you have to respond to it.
[00:21:51.900]You can't just leave it lying there
[00:21:54.030]because then everybody senses,
[00:21:55.830]we gave feedback and you haven't changed a thing,
[00:21:58.410]or it's not visible that you've changed a thing.
[00:22:01.110]So I go back, I do one slide.
[00:22:04.080]Here are the three things you said are working, two slides,
[00:22:07.110]three things you said are working,
[00:22:08.400]we're gonna keep those, three things you said
[00:22:10.830]we need to work on, here's what I'm going to do
[00:22:13.314]or here's what I need you to understand,
[00:22:15.390]or let's discuss this, and give it not too much time,
[00:22:18.780]but make sure that this is treated seriously.
[00:22:21.210]Because you can learn and you can fix this class.
[00:22:24.090]If you are waiting for the end of a semester,
[00:22:26.340]especially in a semester system,
[00:22:27.900]it's too late for these students.
[00:22:29.460]So that feedback could be helpful for you
[00:22:31.230]to design the next class, but there's something we can do
[00:22:33.540]for the students right in front of us.
[00:22:34.943]Make it at least a little bit better, and that's important.
[00:22:37.680]It was really important last semester
[00:22:39.150]since it was my first time and it was anonymous,
[00:22:42.000]and some of it can be really difficult.
[00:22:46.590]Yes, difficult to read.
[00:22:48.360]Difficult to read,
[00:22:51.360]and to sift through,
[00:22:52.350]because I've poured my heart and soul into this.
[00:22:54.210]I've worked really hard on it, to me and makes sense,
[00:22:57.810]and I really care about my students
[00:22:58.917]and I really care about their experience.
[00:23:01.440]I want them to learn a lot.
[00:23:03.750]It's a challenging class and it's a lot of work
[00:23:05.954]and I know that, and I want them to get the most out of it.
[00:23:11.322]So, it was really challenging to read that feedback
[00:23:14.190]and your initial,
[00:23:15.629]Emotional response.
[00:23:17.160]The emotional response, once I got through that,
[00:23:19.830]then I could take action, reflect and take action.
[00:23:22.320]And a lot of it was clarifying things,
[00:23:26.130]making those adjustments, 'cause then by the end
[00:23:28.290]of the semester we had the aha moments
[00:23:31.050]that I wanted to come.
[00:23:31.920]And it really helped me think more about
[00:23:35.400]being more intentional this semester.
[00:23:37.740]So when we were going through our designing lesson plans
[00:23:40.650]this semester, I was much more equipped to articulate,
[00:23:44.692]this is what I want you to have in the "I do".
[00:23:48.090]I do not want a script.
[00:23:49.590]I don't want you to write everything out.
[00:23:50.910]I don't want that,
[00:23:51.743]'cause that's not what a lesson plan is for.
[00:23:53.400]And I do want these critical pieces of,
[00:23:56.129]what are you teaching them?
[00:23:59.261]Why is it important?
[00:24:00.840]When do you use it?
[00:24:02.130]In the modeling and then keep going back
[00:24:03.840]to this essential knowledge.
[00:24:08.220]And just thinking about those things.
[00:24:09.750]I also asked my students last semester too,
[00:24:11.730]because there were some changes in the reading center.
[00:24:14.100]Like if you were gonna be tutoring
[00:24:16.170]twice a week instead of once a week.
[00:24:17.670]Last semester my students had teaching partners
[00:24:19.560]'cause I had 109 students.
[00:24:21.390]Which is great. This semester I have 50.
[00:24:23.092]It is great, I know. And also scary.
[00:24:24.073]It is great, and this semester I have 52 undergrads,
[00:24:28.470]so I don't have teaching partners.
[00:24:29.880]So I asked my students last semester,
[00:24:31.650]if you were gonna be teaching twice a week,
[00:24:33.360]would you rather turn in all of the lesson plans
[00:24:36.720]once a week on Sunday, and then you reflect
[00:24:39.300]and make the adjustments just naturally.
[00:24:41.310]I feel like it's more organic type of planning.
[00:24:44.550]Or would you rather turn in a lesson plan
[00:24:46.912]once and then again.
[00:24:48.413]And most of them said, I think I would prefer once a week.
[00:24:54.493]And so now I'm talking with undergrads,
[00:24:56.730]it can be feel anxious cause some anxiety
[00:24:59.420]to plan twice a week and then like,
[00:25:01.890]oh my gosh though, I'm not sure what to do.
[00:25:05.538]Or, do I need to go back and change my plan
[00:25:08.149]now that I've taught?
[00:25:09.390]Nope.
[00:25:10.650]It's that natural learning that happens as a teacher.
[00:25:13.890]You use the formative assessment
[00:25:16.158]and then you make the changes.
[00:25:19.470]And I like to have my, like the supervisors,
[00:25:22.080]so we have teachers who come in and supervise our undergrads
[00:25:24.720]when they're teaching to talk about those types of things.
[00:25:26.850]So that's one of the other really important pieces
[00:25:28.560]of the class is data and using assessment.
[00:25:32.790]So I feel like it's a little bit more
[00:25:35.280]organic type of planning and teaching too.
[00:25:38.250]So I want to take you in a different direction,
[00:25:41.040]or a little bit think about interactions with students.
[00:25:45.750]Once in a while, we have a student that reacts,
[00:25:47.940]whether in anonymous feedback or actually in class
[00:25:51.240]body language, or sometimes they just speak up
[00:25:54.210]and they're a little bit difficult,
[00:25:55.500]they push back and have you had that?
[00:25:58.680]And if you have?
[00:26:01.230]Yeah, I've had pushback, not necessarily in class,
[00:26:07.151]and not even necessarily to my face.
[00:26:10.320]But definitely on midterm feedback.
[00:26:17.402]And some of it has to do with just,
[00:26:22.920]I think what it boiled down to was feeling
[00:26:25.020]like my expectations were too high
[00:26:27.190]or that I wasn't understanding
[00:26:32.220]of the realities of their lives,
[00:26:36.570]or, sometimes my undergrads,
[00:26:39.330]a few undergrads felt like I didn't have enough empathy
[00:26:47.220]for really stressful situations.
[00:26:51.390]And from my perspective I feel like that's farther
[00:26:53.370]from the truth, because I do, I do understand what it is to,
[00:26:59.790]so a lot of them were navigating grief last semester.
[00:27:02.910]I am also navigating grief.
[00:27:07.036]And a lot of them are really,
[00:27:09.329]really anxious or have anxiety.
[00:27:13.320]I understand that, I also.
[00:27:16.140]So a lot of the things that they're going through,
[00:27:17.970]I am either also going through,
[00:27:19.770]I'm at a different point in my life.
[00:27:22.560]And I also understand that at this point in their life,
[00:27:26.370]my students are almost,
[00:27:27.960]most of them are almost student teaching.
[00:27:29.610]And it's a scary point to be because you're like,
[00:27:32.280]do I really wanna do this?
[00:27:34.320]Have I made the wrong decision about being a teacher?
[00:27:37.710]Am I cut out for this job?
[00:27:39.521]Not all of them feel that way.
[00:27:43.140]Of course mental health is a lot.
[00:27:45.210]I feel like,
[00:27:48.609]when I went through college, we weren't talking
[00:27:51.060]about mental health, and mental health is a much bigger,
[00:27:56.850]I think there's more awareness around it.
[00:27:58.920]And so there is kind of this tension between
[00:28:03.390]perceived expectations and those realities of life.
[00:28:09.662]And it's not that I didn't,
[00:28:12.524]like, if my students need to take time or need something,
[00:28:16.440]I want them to, I also want them to communicate with me.
[00:28:22.383]Sometimes it gets a little bit tricky
[00:28:24.330]with the reading center too,
[00:28:25.560]because it's not just me being their teacher.
[00:28:28.332]Lecture class is a little bit easier
[00:28:30.540]because it's just me and them.
[00:28:32.850]We can work that. We can figure it out.
[00:28:34.970]At the reading center, it's different, though,
[00:28:36.930]because there's a child who's being tutored,
[00:28:39.270]there's a family who's bringing their child for that.
[00:28:43.590]And so it's a little bit different of a context.
[00:28:46.206]And you can miss and we can make it up.
[00:28:50.490]You do have to provide me a little context, though,
[00:28:52.710]of what's going on, you don't have to disclose anything.
[00:28:54.954]So there's a little bit more of that principal/employee,
[00:28:59.340]like principal teacher relationship,
[00:29:02.967]and that can cause a little bit of tension too.
[00:29:10.378]And so I don't know the answer to it,
[00:29:13.440]because any student who comes to me,
[00:29:17.070]I listen to them, I wanna work with them.
[00:29:21.210]I will accommodate them as much as possible.
[00:29:26.010]And so, I mean, I just think,
[00:29:29.850]it's something new for me.
[00:29:32.580]Because,
[00:29:34.170]typically forming relationships with people
[00:29:35.910]is a real strength of mine.
[00:29:38.010]So that was something new to navigate
[00:29:39.930]and it was challenging 'cause I'm trying to take a step back
[00:29:42.610]and think about, well, did I not show empathy?
[00:29:45.787]What could I have done differently?
[00:29:47.788]Now I look back at these different situations
[00:29:50.180]like, well, I guess I could have done this.
[00:29:52.380]And so I'm always thinking about that.
[00:29:54.930]But I think that's part of being in your first year too.
[00:29:58.830]Because I think about the same things
[00:30:00.930]back from my early years of teaching too.
[00:30:02.880]Same situations that are just in my mind
[00:30:05.827]that I think and replay, and what would I have done
[00:30:08.250]differently if I had had more experience.
[00:30:11.687]What would I have done differently
[00:30:13.230]if I already had five years of experience?
[00:30:15.120]Exactly.
[00:30:16.230]That is not exactly how this works.
[00:30:19.137]No, it's not.
[00:30:20.156]We cannot have pre-experience.
[00:30:21.900]We try.
[00:30:24.540]I have some thoughts on that, but not for this podcast.
[00:30:27.360]Oh, all right. (laughing)
[00:30:28.480]For a different podcast, all right.
[00:30:31.470]Some thoughts on that.
[00:30:36.030]So it also feels a bit like,
[00:30:40.610]what are the boundaries that you set for yourself
[00:30:44.280]in terms of,
[00:30:46.680]'cause I tend to think about one of the ways
[00:30:48.780]that I wrestle with or address the concern around,
[00:30:53.280]I teach Lib Block here at UNL, which is six credit hours.
[00:30:56.940]It's a big amount of time
[00:31:00.425]and there's a perception that it's only a three credit class
[00:31:03.090]but it's actually six.
[00:31:04.830]And one piece of feedback
[00:31:08.460]that I often get is "This takes so much time."
[00:31:12.360]And so in response to that feedback,
[00:31:14.430]I've literally laid out the time requirements
[00:31:17.190]for every reading.
[00:31:19.140]If you read at the pace of a seventh grader,
[00:31:23.040]to accommodate a wide range
[00:31:24.630]of reading and comprehension speeds,
[00:31:27.180]the amount of time it should take to finish an assignment,
[00:31:29.490]et cetera, et cetera.
[00:31:30.323]I've really laid out,
[00:31:34.110]micromanage, some might say,
[00:31:36.170]but have laid out the time expectations
[00:31:39.510]because of that particular piece
[00:31:45.343]of feedback around "this takes so much time."
[00:31:47.850]Yes, but how are you using your time?
[00:31:51.669]Which goes back to,
[00:31:52.800]the how much time are you actually planning,
[00:31:56.550]It may be too much, kind of moment.
[00:31:59.190]Right, 'cause once they get a sense of,
[00:32:02.858]oh, this is all possible
[00:32:06.660]if I'm actually putting in the,
[00:32:08.910]based upon the Carnegie hour, right?
[00:32:11.070]One hour in class equals two hours outside of class.
[00:32:14.738]That's why 12 credits is full-time, right?
[00:32:19.649]So once they have a sense of,
[00:32:22.710]look, here's the standards,
[00:32:25.380]here's what I need you to do,
[00:32:28.080]and these are the boundaries that I'm gonna lay out,
[00:32:36.870]whenever you set a boundary, there's always gonna be
[00:32:38.640]disappointment, either you in yourself
[00:32:40.680]for letting your boundary fail,
[00:32:42.420]or disappointment on the other person
[00:32:44.673]for not having that boundary
[00:32:48.720]get traversed.
[00:32:50.982]So how do you manage that?
[00:32:54.450]What are your strategies for managing,
[00:32:57.450]working through and with student disappointment
[00:33:01.290]around holding up those standards, right?
[00:33:04.170]Because at the end of the day,
[00:33:07.350]as a teacher within that course,
[00:33:10.950]that's what we're doing.
[00:33:12.675]We're trying to elevate student performance
[00:33:15.326]to particular standards.
[00:33:18.990]And sometimes there's pushback and disappointment.
[00:33:21.630]How do we deal with that?
[00:33:24.570]I can say what I'm doing.
[00:33:26.760]The first thing is as much clarity as possible
[00:33:29.227]as early as possible, so you set it up for that.
[00:33:33.150]You don't wait for the feedback to come back to you.
[00:33:35.937]And I think about our friend Justin Olmanson
[00:33:39.116]who creates a class that has a lot
[00:33:41.779]of ambiguity in the projects.
[00:33:44.190]And for a long time students pushed really hard against it.
[00:33:48.090]And what he's come to the conclusion is,
[00:33:50.640]if you tell them this is what it's gonna feel like,
[00:33:53.370]and be ready for it, you're gonna feel confused.
[00:33:56.070]You're gonna feel like you don't know what to do.
[00:33:58.050]It's going to feel very different.
[00:33:59.850]You can make it, it'll be fine.
[00:34:01.920]Students before you have reported exactly the same thing.
[00:34:04.500]That seems to alleviate some of it,
[00:34:06.270]just like having the times.
[00:34:07.950]It's like this is how long it's going to take.
[00:34:10.980]So plan on it because this is my expectation.
[00:34:14.760]This is how I'm designing everything.
[00:34:16.620]If you want to get through this class,
[00:34:18.060]this is what you'll need to do.
[00:34:19.530]Look at your calendar.
[00:34:20.670]When students resist,
[00:34:21.840]and sometimes I have that silent resistance.
[00:34:24.030]I called on one of my students last semester and then,
[00:34:28.080]about a third into the semester I asked
[00:34:30.630]to have a meeting with her during office hours,
[00:34:33.090]I have Zoom office hours, and I said,
[00:34:36.743]"It feels like you're pushing back against me."
[00:34:39.750]And her first reaction was, "No I'm not."
[00:34:42.213]And I'm like, okay, let's think about this.
[00:34:44.910]And she said, "Well, yes I am."
[00:34:46.440]And she described some situations in her own personal life
[00:34:49.830]that were adding stress, but she wasn't communicating that.
[00:34:52.950]There's no way for me to know.
[00:34:54.000]What I'm finding often is that is the situation,
[00:34:56.520]but having that conversation, and that's hard
[00:34:58.890]when you're teaching for the first time
[00:35:00.090]because you're just busier thinking,
[00:35:01.560]how do I make all of these assignments work?
[00:35:03.870]So having that bandwidth to attend to individual students,
[00:35:08.340]you're just limited, back to boundaries on your own time.
[00:35:11.220]But at this point, at least, I'm able to do that
[00:35:13.735]and to have that conversation,
[00:35:16.170]and just having that conversation helped.
[00:35:18.030]And sometimes it's a conversation about time
[00:35:21.210]and sometimes it's like, you tell me you don't have time,
[00:35:23.940]let's talk about time, what are you doing with your time?
[00:35:26.430]And we start having frank conversation,
[00:35:29.250]especially as they get late in the program, saying,
[00:35:32.280]if you want to teach and if you want to do this well,
[00:35:34.800]you've got to put in the time.
[00:35:36.150]And if you don't have have time,
[00:35:38.130]you have to think about what is important.
[00:35:40.860]My immediate world right now,
[00:35:44.640]I need to work, and I'm volunteering in three places
[00:35:47.040]and I'm doing two other things.
[00:35:49.620]And can you do a little bit less of that to make sure
[00:35:52.560]that your long-term plan to be a teacher,
[00:35:54.450]which you're planning to be for 10 years or maybe 20,
[00:35:57.120]or maybe for the rest of your working life,
[00:35:59.100]depending on how your life turns out.
[00:36:00.720]But many people are planning a long term,
[00:36:02.820]you want that to go well.
[00:36:04.230]And if what we're doing now isn't going well,
[00:36:08.010]that does not bode well for your long term.
[00:36:10.260]So it's being able to helping students separate
[00:36:13.500]the short term and long term.
[00:36:15.000]That has been a learning experience for me
[00:36:17.700]because you've gotta be brave enough
[00:36:19.470]to have that conversation with students and to say,
[00:36:22.087]"Let's talk about what you're doing" and whatnot.
[00:36:24.180]And often they find place and often I have students
[00:36:27.270]that come back to me and say,
[00:36:28.470]I've lowered the number of hours I'm working,
[00:36:30.570]I'm not not working, but I'm taking one less job.
[00:36:34.411]I have three jobs, I now have two jobs.
[00:36:36.930]That's a huge relief for a while at least.
[00:36:40.590]And so having those conversations is really important
[00:36:43.350]with the students who resist the most.
[00:36:45.240]And I think that can help.
[00:36:46.440]But clarifying expectations is a critical piece.
[00:36:50.340]So I was thinking as you were talking,
[00:36:52.950]it made me think of something that I did this semester.
[00:36:55.110]So last semester,
[00:36:56.590]the very last thing I asked my undergrads to do
[00:36:59.880]is make a top 10 list, things that you need
[00:37:03.150]to know about this course.
[00:37:05.280]Yeah, thanks. I like it.
[00:37:06.240]Yeah.
[00:37:08.100]You gave me a good idea.
[00:37:09.270]And so, The only good idea
[00:37:10.945]I've ever given. Oh, that is ridiculous.
[00:37:13.438]You're full of good ideas.
[00:37:15.526]So anyway, it was really,
[00:37:17.820]and it was really helpful advice because it was between,
[00:37:21.780]so I have lecture and practicum, but then once again,
[00:37:23.760]they're so closely aligned,
[00:37:25.729]everything that we do is tied together.
[00:37:28.169]And all of my undergrads, all 109 of them,
[00:37:32.760]made these top 10.
[00:37:35.858]And so then what I did this semester on the first day
[00:37:38.370]of class, 'cause this class has a reputation
[00:37:41.280]for being time consuming and challenging and a lot of work,
[00:37:44.250]which it is, it's also really amazing.
[00:37:46.470]And it's also, Worthwhile.
[00:37:48.690]Worthwhile, and you learn a lot from it.
[00:37:51.508]And so on the first day of class,
[00:37:53.562]I pulled several of the top 10 lists
[00:37:57.831]for my current students to explore.
[00:38:01.020]So things, even if I tell them, yes,
[00:38:03.600]it will feel overwhelming at first,
[00:38:05.220]you will get the hang of it.
[00:38:06.690]My previous students were saying that.
[00:38:08.970]Advice like, don't let lesson planning take too long.
[00:38:13.532]Get the core components what you need, don't write a script.
[00:38:20.610]Things like carve out a chunk of time
[00:38:22.080]each week to do your lesson plan, just get it done.
[00:38:26.070]So all previous advice from my students,
[00:38:29.423]and it was about attendance too.
[00:38:33.261]It's like, be present in lecture and in practicum
[00:38:37.412]because what you learn in lecture
[00:38:40.020]will help you in practicum.
[00:38:41.674]In practicum you need to be present for your child.
[00:38:44.910]You're there for them.
[00:38:46.525]Advice for switching things up, so I think that helped.
[00:38:52.260]I feel like I was also more prepared to explain
[00:38:55.980]the inner workings of the course.
[00:38:58.380]And once again, reassure them.
[00:39:00.810]Yes, if you're feeling overwhelmed,
[00:39:02.520]I understand it is overwhelming.
[00:39:04.350]There's a lot of information you need to know
[00:39:06.690]and it will all be okay.
[00:39:08.970]And if you need to talk, please come to me,
[00:39:14.335]we will work together.
[00:39:16.050]We'll plan together to help you be successful.
[00:39:21.127]I'm trying to think about other things
[00:39:22.620]that I've done to make time.
[00:39:25.375]I have so many students that I don't have a lot of time to,
[00:39:33.360]I don't have room for anything extra,
[00:39:35.310]if that makes any sense, there's no room or fluff.
[00:39:38.490]Everything has to be, like,
[00:39:41.130]Functional.
[00:39:41.963]Functional, and I want it to be aligned and meaningful
[00:39:47.868]and aligned to the course goals.
[00:39:51.219]I did get that in our exit interviews last semester.
[00:39:53.567]One of my students said that she didn't feel like there was
[00:39:56.280]anything extra, everything was aligned,
[00:39:58.230]everything had purpose.
[00:39:59.880]I was like, yes, that's good to know.
[00:40:02.430]Yes, that it hangs together and it makes sense
[00:40:05.490]even if at the end or maybe mostly at the end
[00:40:09.900]where it's supposed to kind of coalesce.
[00:40:12.390]Because at the beginning, especially as you were saying,
[00:40:14.550]it's feels very confusing and we're not sure
[00:40:18.630]where we're going even though there's a syllabus,
[00:40:20.730]but the syllabus doesn't always help.
[00:40:24.390]So I did want to ask,
[00:40:26.133]what do you put in your syllabus that helps them?
[00:40:29.130]Do you put those top 10 things in the syllabus?
[00:40:31.120]No, I didn't put that in the syllabus.
[00:40:33.941]That's on our canvas course.
[00:40:36.149]But in the syllabus there's the course goals.
[00:40:43.709]I'm trying, hold on.
[00:40:44.542]I'm trying to think of everything.
[00:40:45.900]Attendance is a big thing.
[00:40:47.220]Especially since we're still bouncing back
[00:40:49.320]from the pandemic.
[00:40:50.220]Attendance expectations were quite different
[00:40:52.290]during the pandemic.
[00:40:53.640]And so that's something that we're readjusting to.
[00:40:58.050]And so,
[00:41:01.800]it's also like last semester,
[00:41:03.720]when you're collaborating with different people,
[00:41:05.070]you all have the same syllabi.
[00:41:06.090]You all have to agree on the same attendance policy.
[00:41:08.280]This semester I have a little bit more autonomy
[00:41:10.800]'cause I'm the only person teaching lectures.
[00:41:12.330]So I put in a few different things for attendance.
[00:41:16.588]Like one excused absence, no matter.
[00:41:19.260]You don't even have to tell me why.
[00:41:20.610]And then after that,
[00:41:23.820]I keep the discretion
[00:41:25.890]to keep an absence excused because once again,
[00:41:29.840]everybody has things going on in their life.
[00:41:31.978]I feel like last semester we dealt with grief.
[00:41:35.010]So much more than I think I ever expected to deal with it.
[00:41:39.090]So I keep that caveat in there.
[00:41:42.870]All of our assignments are in there,
[00:41:44.550]the due dates are in there.
[00:41:48.240]I put in,
[00:41:52.410]oh, I'm trying to think.
[00:41:53.730]There's a lot in the syllabus.
[00:41:55.260]I'll put in all the resources from,
[00:41:57.858]especially I put in
[00:41:58.980]the mental health resources this semester.
[00:42:01.110]I put in tech help, everything that they need for class.
[00:42:07.069]I put in, this is something new that I put in.
[00:42:10.380]I put in something about how you can expect
[00:42:12.660]to engage during class.
[00:42:15.600]Because since most of my students
[00:42:17.730]are gonna be elementary teachers,
[00:42:20.021]we have lecture components for those direct instruction.
[00:42:23.370]And I do expect you to do active participation.
[00:42:26.601](Nick sneezes) Partially because, bless you.
[00:42:29.400]Darn it, sorry.
[00:42:31.890]On live in the podcast.
[00:42:34.068](Nick groans)
[00:42:36.027]Look, it was 60 degrees yesterday.
[00:42:38.400]Today it's 20, my sinuses are like, what is going on?
[00:42:42.960]It's Nebraska.
[00:42:45.540]Okay, so I'm gonna go back to this.
[00:42:47.336](laughing) We're moving on.
[00:42:49.067]Active participation, but then also
[00:42:51.270]I expect them to turn and talk a lot.
[00:42:54.600]I expect them to enact as students
[00:42:56.940]and then also enact as teachers.
[00:42:58.890]And so I got pushback against that sometime last semester.
[00:43:03.450]That's something I also addressed that came out.
[00:43:07.434]And some of my students were like,
[00:43:09.000]we feel like you're treating us like elementary kids.
[00:43:10.590]So I went in and I said, I apologize.
[00:43:12.600]I do not think of you as elementary students.
[00:43:14.760]I apologize if you feel this way.
[00:43:16.470]Here's where I'm coming from.
[00:43:17.760]My last position was an instructional coach
[00:43:20.130]and how I am teaching you is how I would conduct
[00:43:24.300]professional development for in-service teachers.
[00:43:27.210]And there was this, just this feeling kind of spread
[00:43:31.170]across the room of like, oh,
[00:43:35.922]we were talking about that.
[00:43:40.642]And so I put that into the syllabus just to kind of preface
[00:43:44.760]that we're going to do a lot of different things here.
[00:43:49.440]Another thing I put in last semester,
[00:43:51.000]my students naturally had a lot of collaboration
[00:43:52.950]with their teaching partner.
[00:43:54.360]I don't have that this semester.
[00:43:56.520]So what I did was based off of a colleague,
[00:44:00.930]Dr. Cindy Linzell, she did critical peer mentor groups
[00:44:03.448]for her dissertation.
[00:44:04.680]So I have critical peer collaboration groups during lecture
[00:44:08.430]where my students get a chance to bounce ideas
[00:44:11.940]off of each other, look at their data together,
[00:44:14.340]think about what this data means in terms of instructional
[00:44:16.560]strategies and do that kind of work.
[00:44:18.150]So I put that into the syllabus.
[00:44:21.600]And I went over my syllabi
[00:44:24.390]with our instructional designer too.
[00:44:25.667]'Cause I wanted both of them just to make sure
[00:44:28.560]they were crystal clear to see what I was missing.
[00:44:31.230]What should I put in there?
[00:44:32.670]That's something new that I did this semester.
[00:44:35.648]That was helpful too.
[00:44:37.050]So yeah, you don't have to go over your syllabus
[00:44:38.760]or syllabi on your own either.
[00:44:39.870]There are people to help you with that.
[00:44:41.957]Yes, so utilizing your resources.
[00:44:43.350]Yes. As much as possible.
[00:44:44.670]They're there for a reason.
[00:44:46.050]Yeah. Right?
[00:44:47.520]So looking at our time. Yes.
[00:44:52.232]And we've talked,
[00:44:53.100]But it it's been lovely. It has been lovely.
[00:44:54.996]Don't you enjoy our time together?
[00:44:56.689]I'm not saying that it's not.
[00:44:58.430]Why are you putting words in my mouth, Guy?
[00:45:01.931]It's 'cause I sneezed, isn't it?
[00:45:03.786]Mmm-hmm.
[00:45:05.026]I tried not to, I tried to hold it back.
[00:45:06.780]But yes.
[00:45:09.730]So when you're teaching for the first time,
[00:45:14.007]just like our students experience when they move
[00:45:16.860]into a class, there's a lot of stuff we don't know.
[00:45:19.110]There's a lot of structural pieces that we work
[00:45:22.020]to get into place and thanks for coming in, talking to us
[00:45:26.190]about an experience that was has been
[00:45:29.098]a bit more recent for you than it was for Guy and I.
[00:45:34.101]Well.
[00:45:35.610]I mean,
[00:45:38.310]you gave out your age.
[00:45:40.410]Yeah, I did.
[00:45:41.400]So. But...
[00:45:42.492]How long have you been teaching in higher education?
[00:45:46.770]I'd rather not say 'cause it makes me feel old.
[00:45:49.387](Guy laughs)
[00:45:50.220]Age is just a number, though.
[00:45:52.560]If it were a child, it'd be a high schooler.
[00:45:54.750]Okay. So thank you. (Guy laughs)
[00:45:56.220]So yeah, so in the teens.
[00:46:00.360]Yeah, this is clearly.
[00:46:01.920]A lot more than the teens, in my case.
[00:46:05.151]= right, so in the teens, and I mean,
[00:46:06.900]and there's still always stuff that I am learning, right?
[00:46:10.771]At some point, not in this podcast,
[00:46:13.740]but in a future one I would love to talk about
[00:46:18.690]what is the role of anonymous feedback
[00:46:20.550]and does it actually work against our students?
[00:46:23.160]I'd love to talk about that. Oh, okay.
[00:46:26.340]And so like,
[00:46:29.340]even though I'm still learning or even though
[00:46:31.800]I've been teaching for a while,
[00:46:34.621]there's still stuff I'm learning.
[00:46:36.792]I love the fact that I can be like,
[00:46:38.850]what did my students do in your class?
[00:46:40.754](Guy chuckles)
[00:46:42.660]And that kind of, Yeah, that's the other
[00:46:44.220]cool thing is that since both of you teach Lib Block,
[00:46:47.910]I get your students after, and something I do love,
[00:46:51.210]I'm like, all right, who did you have for Lib Block?
[00:46:53.430]That's always fun to ask. (laughing)
[00:46:55.680]Or they talk about you like,
[00:46:57.120]I remember Guy talking about this.
[00:46:59.010]Or like, Nick explained it like that too.
[00:47:00.980]So that's always fun too.
[00:47:03.780]And that's the joy of working in a program
[00:47:05.700]where you actually have other people to coordinate with.
[00:47:08.880]But also to see,
[00:47:10.920]and we talked about this actually last time when we talked
[00:47:14.640]about teaching and that is, you don't have to do everything.
[00:47:18.930]Other people are working, and they're helping students get,
[00:47:23.400]in our case, pre-service teachers
[00:47:25.470]get the components they need.
[00:47:27.270]So it's not all on me in my one class with two credits
[00:47:30.870]I need to give them everything.
[00:47:32.460]I can't, and I'm not supposed to.
[00:47:34.620]And other people are doing their job.
[00:47:36.990]Right.
[00:47:38.040]So,
[00:47:39.480]we've talked more about teaching,
[00:47:41.640]thought about how we deal with disappointment,
[00:47:44.940]expectations, get feedback.
[00:47:48.540]'Cause teaching is a central part of our job even though,
[00:47:51.468]We're not that kind of doctor.
[00:47:53.307]We're not that kind of doctor,
[00:47:54.750]but we still do really good work.
[00:47:58.080]Maybe. I don't know.
[00:47:59.294]I do. Anyway, you do.
[00:48:00.894](laughs) I'm sorry.
[00:48:03.210]Yes, you do.
[00:48:04.228]It's still up in the air here. I know you do too,
[00:48:05.614]and do you.
[00:48:06.630]Up in the air. No, I'm sorry.
[00:48:08.520]So yes, so thank you for coming and talking
[00:48:10.581]with us. It was fun.
[00:48:12.083]It was delightful.
[00:48:13.110]All right, and we'll see you in the next one.
[00:48:15.540]I'm not that kind of doctor.
[00:48:17.040]That felt creepy.
[00:48:18.681](laughing)
[00:48:20.091](upbeat music)

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Not That Kind of Doctor - The First Year Teaching in Higher Education

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