Not That Kind of Doctor - The First Year Teaching in Higher Education
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02/28/2023
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Navigating the challenges of teaching in higher education can be daunting, especially when transitioning from a doctoral student to an instructor. In this episode of "Not That Kind of Doctor," Guy and Nick are joined by Dr. Emily Fisher to discuss the complexities of teaching in higher ed, from course design and managing student expectations to responding to feedback and setting boundaries.
We share our personal experiences, offering insights into how to balance the demands of teaching with maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Whether you're redesigning a course, aligning practicum with lecture, or just trying to manage your time effectively, this episode is packed with practical advice for educators at all stages of their careers.
đź“Ś Key Takeaways:
Strategies for aligning course content with practicum
How to manage and respond to student feedback
Balancing professional expectations with personal life
Tips for setting clear boundaries and maintaining them
The importance of collaboration and mentorship in teaching
Whether you're a new faculty member or a seasoned educator, this episode provides valuable insights into the art of teaching and the ongoing journey of professional growth.
#HigherEducation #TeachingStrategies #NotThatKindOfDoctor #AcademicLife #ProfessionalDevelopment
How do you balance teaching with everything else? Share your tips and experiences in the comments below! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insights into academic life and beyond!
The First Year Teaching in Higher Education - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
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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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