Not That Kind of Doctor - Embracing Our Students' Perfectionism in the Classroom
TLTE
Author
01/11/2024
Added
0
Plays
Description
Perfectionism in students can be both a driving force and a stumbling block in their academic journey. In this episode of Not That Kind of Doctor, Guy and Nick delve into the complexities of perfectionism, exploring how it manifests in different ways and how educators can navigate these challenges to support their students effectively.
🎓 What You'll Learn:
The difference between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism and how they impact student learning (12:15)
Strategies for fostering a growth mindset in students to help them move beyond the fear of failure (29:31)
How to create clear objectives and expectations in your coursework to reduce anxiety and promote learning (40:00)
Tips for developing rubrics that focus on learning progression rather than point accumulation (45:23)
The importance of knowing when to refer students to counseling services for additional support (48:45)
Whether you're a teacher, a graduate student, or an academic leader, this episode offers valuable insights into how you can help students navigate their perfectionist tendencies and create a more supportive learning environment. Join us as we discuss practical approaches to embrace and channel perfectionism in positive ways.
Like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes where we tackle the challenges of academic life with humor and real-world advice. 🎓✨
#StudentSuccess #GrowthMindset #TeachingStrategies #PerfectionismInEducation #HigherEd #teaching
Perfectionism - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
Searchable Transcript
Toggle between list and paragraph view.
- [00:00:00.816](energetic electronic music)
- [00:00:10.230]I mean, potentially not. Potentially not.
- [00:00:14.220]Okay, so explain to me why not?
- [00:00:17.070]Because you teach. Okay.
- [00:00:18.480]You encounter this all the freaking time.
- [00:00:22.470]So I teach.
- [00:00:23.460]So walk me through it
- [00:00:25.050]because we're talking about perfectionism today,
- [00:00:27.300]and I am trying to understand,
- [00:00:30.390]because I don't think about myself as a perfectionist.
- [00:00:34.590]I have many other challenges in my life.
- [00:00:36.720]Perfectionism isn't one of them.
- [00:00:39.060]I don't know that that's necessarily true.
- [00:00:40.740]Okay. Actually, okay.
- [00:00:42.900]So let's background here.
- [00:00:45.180]Let's do a little background because-
- [00:00:46.590]Let's.
- [00:00:47.940]We both enjoy the Girls Gilmore.
- [00:00:50.340]Yes. Right?
- [00:00:51.390]Yes.
- [00:00:52.223]So do you remember that episode in season four?
- [00:00:56.220]Yeah. Where Rory is on her way
- [00:01:00.750]to go see her ethics professor.
- [00:01:02.460]Mm-hmm. And she is going
- [00:01:05.160]under the guise of, "Oh, I didn't get certain things
- [00:01:08.070]in my notes, can you clarify this?
- [00:01:09.600]And oh, by the way, do you have my paper graded?
- [00:01:11.220]Tell me all the great things that I did," right?
- [00:01:13.770]Do you remember that episode? Yes, I do.
- [00:01:15.080]Do you remember what happens
- [00:01:16.050]when she gets to the professor's office?
- [00:01:19.920]This is like trivia, "Gilmore Girls" trivia.
- [00:01:21.312]Yeah. I don't know.
- [00:01:22.260]I do remember that she gets the response she didn't want,
- [00:01:25.710]but I don't- Right, which was,
- [00:01:28.177]"Oof, this is not great.
- [00:01:30.180]This is a D paper." Yeah.
- [00:01:31.807]"Maybe you should drop a class."
- [00:01:34.980]Yes.
- [00:01:36.480]An advice I have given many times by the way. (laughs)
- [00:01:39.102]And my hypothesis, in the Amy Sherman-Palladino universe,
- [00:01:44.520]is that that is the moment where like,
- [00:01:47.010]Rory's life kinda shatters.
- [00:01:49.800]Mm-hmm, yes. Right?
- [00:01:51.180]Because she's been an A student all along.
- [00:01:54.180]Well, she's been...
- [00:01:58.140]She hasn't necessarily been challenged, right?
- [00:02:00.263]Mm-hmm, yeah. In terms of everything.
- [00:02:02.670]See, there's also certain things
- [00:02:04.350]that don't make sense about that.
- [00:02:05.311]Yeah, yeah, yeah. About that series.
- [00:02:06.570]But like, the fact that she's the valedictorian
- [00:02:08.760]over Paris Geller at Chilton.
- [00:02:10.230]What? No, that should not have happened.
- [00:02:13.448](laughs) Antisemitism.
- [00:02:15.810]It could be, it could very well be,
- [00:02:18.960]but that also never made sense.
- [00:02:20.400]Like, these are things now that I re-watch it,
- [00:02:22.260]I'm like, "What is going on?"
- [00:02:24.480]But what is so interesting about Rory Gilmore,
- [00:02:26.640]and the reason that we're starting with her is,
- [00:02:32.310]I have got, right now, students
- [00:02:36.480]who show up in Stars Hollow Connecticut sweatshirts.
- [00:02:40.050]Wow.
- [00:02:41.130]So, like, and "Gilmore Girls," in a way,
- [00:02:43.680]is like this fascinating show about the education of a girl,
- [00:02:48.690]but it's also had these cultural impacts on like,
- [00:02:54.180]what achievement looks like and what's happening.
- [00:02:56.760]And Rory is kind of this embodiment of perfection that,
- [00:03:03.780]or an idea of perfection that you have probably seen
- [00:03:07.650]in your students as well as I have seen in my students.
- [00:03:10.840]Yeah. I do see it in my students, definitely.
- [00:03:14.190]And I see it sometimes in faculty members,
- [00:03:16.200]especially as department chair.
- [00:03:17.580]I've seen it with faculty members
- [00:03:19.140]who have the same perception of themselves
- [00:03:22.050]and that way of thinking.
- [00:03:24.240]So if there's any feedback that says,
- [00:03:26.467]"Well, you could get better at something,"
- [00:03:28.800]immediately gets a reaction of,
- [00:03:30.907]"But I've always been a 4.0 student,"
- [00:03:33.450]which is, you know, difficult to hear from somebody
- [00:03:38.010]who's been teaching at a university for a while.
- [00:03:42.480]Right, but that doesn't exclude us from like-
- [00:03:44.340]No, I think that we're all...
- [00:03:46.110]So, what you're saying is,
- [00:03:47.557]"I've seen it through my students, that perfectionism."
- [00:03:49.613]Mm-hmm. Okay. That I will do.
- [00:03:52.020]And have you found yourself saying something
- [00:03:55.200]along the lines of, "Oh, their perfectionism
- [00:03:57.630]is really getting in the way of their learning"?
- [00:03:59.670]Absolutely.
- [00:04:00.780]And I hear that all the time, right?
- [00:04:02.820]So- Yeah.
- [00:04:04.260]As we're thinking about how pervasive perfectionism is
- [00:04:10.110]within our student body,
- [00:04:11.130]and we're thinking about, you know, the massive levels
- [00:04:15.659]of anxiety and depression
- [00:04:18.090]that our students are thinking about
- [00:04:19.950]or are experiencing, right?
- [00:04:22.320]There's this notion of, if we're truly student-centered,
- [00:04:27.930]we're truly student-centered, whether we're faculty
- [00:04:31.290]or graduate students who are teaching undergraduates
- [00:04:34.650]or undergraduates ourselves, like,
- [00:04:38.040]how do we position perfection,
- [00:04:45.210]not as an enemy for learning,
- [00:04:47.370]but how do we negotiate some ways around that
- [00:04:50.250]so that we can capitalize that?
- [00:04:51.480]Because if we're saying things like,
- [00:04:54.127]"Oh, that gets in the way of their learning,"
- [00:04:57.270]if that's a core piece of their identity,
- [00:04:59.490]we're creating this oppositional relationship with them.
- [00:05:03.210]Yes. Right?
- [00:05:04.230]Very much so.
- [00:05:05.160]And so we're not embracing our students
- [00:05:08.880]in reasonable ways within our training.
- [00:05:11.220]We are not counselors.
- [00:05:12.150]I want to be clear about that from the onset.
- [00:05:20.544]We really need to think through ways to leverage
- [00:05:26.100]and navigate perfectionism in our students
- [00:05:29.370]to support their learning.
- [00:05:30.540]Because we're seeing,
- [00:05:31.800]we are seeing these increased levels of anxiety.
- [00:05:34.020]We are seeing these increased levels of depression,
- [00:05:36.660]and it's connected to some of this zeitgeist around,
- [00:05:42.360]this is what perfection is, this is how this works.
- [00:05:45.930]so today on "Not That Kind of Doctor,"
- [00:05:48.829]we're not gonna be that kind of doctor.
- [00:05:50.550]We're gonna talk about perfectionism in students,
- [00:05:54.600]impacts on teaching from a teacher education perspective
- [00:05:59.460]because I'm Nick Husbye, Associate Professor
- [00:06:02.250]of Elementary Literacy Education here at UNL.
- [00:06:05.250]And I'm Guy Trainin, Professor of Education here at UNL.
- [00:06:08.580]And we are "Not That Kind of Doctor,"
- [00:06:10.530]not that kind of psych.
- [00:06:11.374]I'm not a psych doctor. I'm not a psychologist.
- [00:06:14.580]I'm not a counselor, but I am someone
- [00:06:18.660]who is really committed
- [00:06:23.460]to connecting with my students,
- [00:06:26.430]helping my students build knowledge about teaching reading.
- [00:06:29.580]And this whole project was really coming out of
- [00:06:35.400]kind of a bias audit for myself, where I kept thinking,
- [00:06:40.267]"Oh, if I could just get my students
- [00:06:41.670]to stop being so perfectionistic."
- [00:06:44.430]And what kind of, again, that antagonistic role in my head.
- [00:06:50.790]And what I started thinking about was,
- [00:06:53.737]"What would happen if I embraced that perfectionism?
- [00:06:58.920]If I allowed my students to show up to my class
- [00:07:01.350]as whole people, what would that look like?"
- [00:07:05.370]And I didn't quite have an understanding of perfectionism.
- [00:07:10.200]It was very much a very flat kind of-
- [00:07:13.470]Just a general idea. Right.
- [00:07:15.630]And it's actually much more complex than that.
- [00:07:20.192]And in order to understand some of those struggles,
- [00:07:27.450]we have to develop a more nuanced understanding
- [00:07:30.690]of how perfectionism manifests.
- [00:07:33.960]Like I said before, I was working
- [00:07:35.100]on a lot of knowledge building reading this summer,
- [00:07:38.160]and one of the things that kept coming up
- [00:07:39.840]was this notion of perfectionism.
- [00:07:45.660]And I keep thinking back to students who,
- [00:07:50.700]you know, "How do I get all my points?
- [00:07:52.560]How do I score on this test exactly what I want?"
- [00:07:58.110]And digging into some of that research,
- [00:08:03.660]I found some pretty interesting things.
- [00:08:05.190]So, I would love to know a little bit
- [00:08:06.930]about how you've experienced student manifestations
- [00:08:10.050]of perfectionism in your classes thus far.
- [00:08:12.810]So that is, first of all, you're right.
- [00:08:17.497]I was thinking about perfectionism
- [00:08:19.380]from a personal perspective.
- [00:08:22.150]From the challenge when we're working with students,
- [00:08:24.300]I see that very often.
- [00:08:25.440]I see that in graduate students wanting the paper
- [00:08:28.620]to be perfect and struggling with it until the last minute,
- [00:08:32.670]and then handing in or not handing in what they have.
- [00:08:35.850]And that's always a struggle to say,
- [00:08:39.367]"You know, this has gotta be good enough."
- [00:08:42.390]So that conversation about good enough
- [00:08:44.850]happens quite often when we need...
- [00:08:47.640]And we have, the advantage and disadvantage of education,
- [00:08:50.880]and becoming a professional is, we always have deadlines.
- [00:08:54.300]We have deadlines for conferences.
- [00:08:55.860]Something comes up and it's suddenly on our radar.
- [00:08:57.990]We haven't seen it, but there's an opportunity
- [00:09:00.090]to submit a paper to this, but we have a week.
- [00:09:03.000]You have only a week.
- [00:09:03.990]It's never going to be perfect in a week
- [00:09:05.820]unless you have something ready.
- [00:09:07.530]So, is it going to be close enough knowing that
- [00:09:10.740]in any of these opportunities, there are chances to redo.
- [00:09:14.880]And with my undergraduate students, I've seen this push
- [00:09:19.530]about grades, about points, about figuring out,
- [00:09:24.480]and it's really interesting because that point system,
- [00:09:29.220]whatever you have in your class,
- [00:09:31.470]becomes problematic in two ways.
- [00:09:32.970]One is the perfectionism. I need to get all the points.
- [00:09:35.880]How do I get all the points? Even if-
- [00:09:38.310]They're like Pokemon. They gotta catch 'em all.
- [00:09:39.360]Yeah, yeah, and it's like, I mean,
- [00:09:42.030]I have 1,500 points in my class.
- [00:09:45.060]You have 1,450. Those last 50 really do not matter.
- [00:09:50.160]You are doing just fine. Can we let it rest?
- [00:09:53.970]And that's been a problem that,
- [00:09:56.670]that discussion that is really, there's a point
- [00:09:59.490]where you become really tired of it.
- [00:10:01.710]There's a danger also of defensive grading.
- [00:10:03.840]You know, some students will come to you about three points,
- [00:10:06.900]and I rarely have used that, but I've seen instructors,
- [00:10:13.680]especially instructors who feel less confident,
- [00:10:16.890]if they're graduate students
- [00:10:18.180]or they're adjuncts that are coming for one semester or two,
- [00:10:21.358]they tend to do that more often.
- [00:10:23.838]They're like, "Do I wanna have an argument with the student?
- [00:10:26.190]No, I don't. Here's an A."
- [00:10:28.050]And so that's always in the background from my,
- [00:10:32.790]especially in my administrative roles.
- [00:10:35.070]I've had people tell me,
- [00:10:35.977]"I don't feel confident in giving a student a B."
- [00:10:39.930]We're not talking about failing a student.
- [00:10:41.700]We're talking about giving a student a B.
- [00:10:43.740]So that's been a struggle to say,
- [00:10:45.307]"No, you can and you should."
- [00:10:47.446]So there's the discussion with the students.
- [00:10:49.560]There's the discussion with other instructors.
- [00:10:51.552]And there's the, "Tell us exactly what you want to see
- [00:10:55.110]in an assignment" that can be really frustrating
- [00:10:58.680]because there's a point where that assignment
- [00:11:00.510]becomes fill in the blanks, which is not what I want.
- [00:11:03.750]I want you to think. I want you to create.
- [00:11:06.030]I want you to work through a problem.
- [00:11:08.550]And that's going to be a little bit ambiguous
- [00:11:10.470]until you work through the problem.
- [00:11:12.180]I can't give you the words for the solution without numbers
- [00:11:16.260]or like keywords and do it in that style.
- [00:11:20.010]So that's been a struggle.
- [00:11:23.370]And I had multiple, I have a set of solutions
- [00:11:28.110]to try and accommodate that, but they're very imperfect,
- [00:11:32.820]and every semester it's somewhat a new thing.
- [00:11:37.170]And sometimes because our students, this is the first time
- [00:11:41.820]that they're being asked to really work through it.
- [00:11:44.518]And we do that as a discussion
- [00:11:47.730]instead of that feeling that arbitrarily I have decided
- [00:11:53.040]to undo everything, or I arbitrarily have decided
- [00:11:55.890]that they get this many points and that's it.
- [00:11:57.810]Mm-hmm, yeah. Well, so...
- [00:12:01.920]That was long. Sorry.
- [00:12:03.900]Well, no, but I asked and you responded.
- [00:12:06.480]So thanks, thanks for participating. I appreciate it.
- [00:12:09.990]Well, and so, okay.
- [00:12:11.880]So, let's talk through two different types of perfectionism.
- [00:12:15.897]All right. There's multiple types.
- [00:12:17.670]There's kind of a taxonomy. Yeah, correct.
- [00:12:19.140]But the two big types of perfectionism
- [00:12:23.760]are adaptive perfectionism.
- [00:12:27.270]And this is like, the best-case scenario.
- [00:12:31.410]So you said earlier,
- [00:12:32.377]"I don't think of myself as perfectionist."
- [00:12:34.018]I think you actually kind of are a perfectionist
- [00:12:37.770]because when you're an adaptive perfectionist,
- [00:12:39.960]if you're thinking about, what does a perfectionist want?
- [00:12:44.310]Flawless performance.
- [00:12:46.500]Not really. Well, okay.
- [00:12:49.560]A perfectionist is really,
- [00:12:51.600]if you step back and think about it,
- [00:12:53.760]working toward a more equitable,
- [00:13:00.750]stable, joyful version of the world for them,
- [00:13:05.820]whatever that looks like.
- [00:13:09.180]That is a very healthy way to think about it.
- [00:13:11.580]I don't know if most people
- [00:13:14.070]who calls themselves perfectionist are in that space.
- [00:13:17.460]Right, well, because...
- [00:13:19.883]We'll talk about the second type in a minute.
- [00:13:22.140]But if we think about even people
- [00:13:26.490]who get bogged down in all these details,
- [00:13:30.000]like, that's what they're working toward.
- [00:13:31.470]They're working toward this Rory Gilmore-esque,
- [00:13:34.050]I live in Connecticut, and I go to Yale and-
- [00:13:36.720]Yeah.
- [00:13:37.553]They're working toward this like,
- [00:13:41.610]scripted kinda Hollywood life, right?
- [00:13:46.380]If you have an adaptive perfectionist,
- [00:13:48.510]an adaptive perfectionist is someone
- [00:13:50.730]who would consider themselves whole, fairly whole.
- [00:13:55.800]Yeah.
- [00:13:56.633]And what they're engaged in is not necessarily,
- [00:14:03.270]oh, I have to get all the points on this.
- [00:14:05.040]It's, I'm working toward this goal,
- [00:14:07.704]and the perfection is in my constant striving to get there.
- [00:14:12.750]It's in process knowing that they may never get
- [00:14:17.970]to that place where everything is lined up,
- [00:14:21.780]but the pleasure for them is in the working towards it.
- [00:14:28.648]And I see that fitting with some of your behavior.
- [00:14:31.596]All right.
- [00:14:33.120]You're always working towards solutions.
- [00:14:34.890]You're always trying to tinker and think things through.
- [00:14:36.960]Yeah. And it feels like
- [00:14:37.920]the process is of interest to you.
- [00:14:40.950]Mm-hmm, for sure. Now, that's not typically
- [00:14:44.670]how we talk about perfection. No, it isn't.
- [00:14:47.610]We tend to talk about perfection
- [00:14:48.810]in terms of maladaptation.
- [00:14:51.394]And maladaptive perfectionists
- [00:14:53.147]are coming to any given task feeling incomplete.
- [00:14:58.500]They're coming into any given task
- [00:15:00.780]feeling like they are broken
- [00:15:06.060]or are missing some inherent quality.
- [00:15:10.980]And the majority of their energy
- [00:15:15.570]is spent trying to conceal that,
- [00:15:19.530]trying to hide that, trying to overcompensate for that,
- [00:15:26.112]which you can see gets kind of in the way
- [00:15:29.700]of any real substantial kinds of development.
- [00:15:37.471]So, when you're thinking about perfectionism,
- [00:15:42.570]it's important to separate those two things out, right?
- [00:15:46.560]Like, there's the... Yeah.
- [00:15:49.530]There's the student who may come to you and say,
- [00:15:53.557]"Hey, I want to talk about these three points."
- [00:15:56.188]Mm-hmm.
- [00:15:57.021]And what they're actually saying is,
- [00:16:01.567]"I thought I nailed this rubric criteria,
- [00:16:05.220]but apparently I didn't.
- [00:16:06.060]Can you talk me through that?
- [00:16:07.170]I wanna know how to get better,"
- [00:16:08.760]versus, "I did this, give me my three points."
- [00:16:11.640]There's a difference in how those two things
- [00:16:14.070]are approached there. Mm-hmm.
- [00:16:16.620]So, by thinking through and about,
- [00:16:21.270]one, the potential of embracing perfectionism
- [00:16:24.570]within my classroom, my coursework, other people,
- [00:16:29.370]that's allowed me to think about how I approach students
- [00:16:32.610]in slightly different ways.
- [00:16:35.160]But this is kind of new to you.
- [00:16:36.330]So, as you're thinking about adaptive versus maladaptive,
- [00:16:40.067]how you doing, how you going?
- [00:16:43.205]The maladaptive is the problem.
- [00:16:45.690]Oh, I mean, it's the one that we-
- [00:16:46.920]It's in the word. (laughs)
- [00:16:47.859]It's the one that we encounter all the time.
- [00:16:49.713]Yes. Right?
- [00:16:50.546]And if you're a maladaptive perfectionist,
- [00:16:53.610]that leads to a whole variety,
- [00:16:55.890]a whole host of different kind of manifestations.
- [00:17:01.890]And part of that is extreme procrastination.
- [00:17:05.940]Mm-hmm, yeah. Right?
- [00:17:06.960]Like, students who just cannot get started.
- [00:17:11.130]And the reason that they can't get started
- [00:17:15.000]is because they're automatically terrified of failure.
- [00:17:20.733]Yeah.
- [00:17:21.810]And so they're never going to be able
- [00:17:25.290]to do that task well enough
- [00:17:29.460]to the standards that they have set for themselves.
- [00:17:33.210]Or that they feel others have set.
- [00:17:35.040]Or that they feel that others have set for themselves.
- [00:17:37.140]But in reality, oftentimes it's more stuff,
- [00:17:42.150]the perceived perception
- [00:17:43.920]of what others have said. Yes, yeah, absolutely.
- [00:17:45.837]Absolutely, I've seen that with my kids, even.
- [00:17:48.990]I do want to come back to that idea of things
- [00:17:53.790]that they've set for themselves.
- [00:17:55.090]Yeah. Or things that other people,
- [00:17:56.850]standards that other people have set for them.
- [00:17:58.770]Yeah. Right? That they don't...
- [00:18:00.090]So this procrastination becomes debilitating.
- [00:18:07.500]Mm-hmm.
- [00:18:08.340]And I have seen an increase of this
- [00:18:12.270]in my student population. Absolutely.
- [00:18:14.070]And we actually have evidence that in general,
- [00:18:17.412]in younger people over the last 20 to 30 years,
- [00:18:21.150]there's been a growth in the number of people
- [00:18:24.341]who have that worldview,
- [00:18:25.500]so it's not just our observations in our classrooms,
- [00:18:28.440]but it's really something
- [00:18:29.850]that is permeating society in general.
- [00:18:33.840]And then you also get conversations
- [00:18:36.030]with similar maladaptive perfectionists
- [00:18:38.850]around things like points
- [00:18:40.830]where it's not actually connected to the learning.
- [00:18:43.200]It is about the points, right?
- [00:18:46.140]So these are some pretty potentially damaging behaviors
- [00:18:54.720]that students can partake in.
- [00:18:57.750]And once, for myself, once I've been able to separate
- [00:19:02.790]and kind of think through and differentiate
- [00:19:04.620]between these two kinds of perfection,
- [00:19:07.890]it gives me, I can separate that student
- [00:19:12.450]who is trying to understand, how do I get better?
- [00:19:17.580]Because that's part of the striving,
- [00:19:20.130]and who is not arguing for points
- [00:19:28.320]for the sake of arguing for points,
- [00:19:29.970]but are really working through
- [00:19:33.900]some really drastic things in their head
- [00:19:36.330]around their self-perception,
- [00:19:37.967]around their critical inner voice.
- [00:19:42.990]And that has made all the difference this semester.
- [00:19:46.770]Yeah, when I think about it, I think about a few things.
- [00:19:53.520]And one is, it is possible to shift quite a few students
- [00:19:57.900]to more towards the learning throughout the conversation.
- [00:20:02.100]That requires trust.
- [00:20:03.090]That requires an organized system
- [00:20:06.210]where there's a discussion from which everything starts.
- [00:20:13.170]I am a little bit worried when we have these discussions
- [00:20:17.580]and we have some students who are about points that,
- [00:20:20.820]when it becomes clear to them
- [00:20:22.380]that the discussion will be about learning, they disengage.
- [00:20:25.680]They're like, "I'm not gonna...
- [00:20:26.820]It feels like I'm not gonna get my points. I'm out."
- [00:20:29.580]So there are some students like that,
- [00:20:31.770]and I worry a little bit about that.
- [00:20:33.960]I think it's still worth seizing the opportunity.
- [00:20:36.240]We are going to seize the opportunity
- [00:20:37.800]and we're going to have as many conversations as possible.
- [00:20:41.040]The second piece that I think is really important,
- [00:20:42.750]especially in what we do,
- [00:20:43.650]this is where the teacher education part comes in.
- [00:20:45.960]And that is, they're going to have students,
- [00:20:47.970]and they're likely to do two things.
- [00:20:49.980]One is, they might project their maladaptive perfectionism
- [00:20:54.750]into their students, perpetuating the problem,
- [00:20:57.690]which is something to talk about.
- [00:20:59.720]So they at least try to think about,
- [00:21:03.360]how do I structure my classroom
- [00:21:05.010]so that doesn't become the goal
- [00:21:07.380]so it's not just about accumulating enough points.
- [00:21:10.650]It's about learning, it's about joy, it's about growing.
- [00:21:15.300]So that growth mindset piece has to be there.
- [00:21:17.820]So, it's not just about them.
- [00:21:19.590]When we're working with them, we're also working
- [00:21:21.840]with a generation of students they will have.
- [00:21:24.330]And so making it explicit and bringing it out
- [00:21:28.500]and maybe even calling it out when it needs to be,
- [00:21:31.260]not in front of everybody, but in a one-to-one
- [00:21:34.410]or a small group conversation would be helpful
- [00:21:37.800]because we have to make them conscious.
- [00:21:39.570]If not, they are likely to transfer all of these feelings
- [00:21:43.320]to some, or maybe even all of their students.
- [00:21:46.200]Disregarding some students who are not striving.
- [00:21:49.560]I always have a few students in my classrooms
- [00:21:51.780]that can figure out, what's the bare minimum
- [00:21:53.670]to get whatever grade they're okay with,
- [00:21:55.980]and they will perform to that level.
- [00:21:58.050]And I kind of, I have a love-hate relationship with that
- [00:22:01.440]because I love the fact that somebody has sat
- [00:22:03.450]and figured that out and is like, "This is what I need to do
- [00:22:06.690]and it's gonna be good enough."
- [00:22:08.250]But there's a point of me that says,
- [00:22:09.967]"You want to be a teacher.
- [00:22:11.280]You should strive a little bit more than for a B minus."
- [00:22:14.490]Oh, and that's your maladaptive perfectionism right there.
- [00:22:17.164](laughs) Yes. Yes, I will own that one.
- [00:22:21.145]So-
- [00:22:21.978]It's a struggle. So there's a moment-
- [00:22:23.597]It is. Where I'm like...
- [00:22:25.080]But then I go, "Well, you got a B minus.
- [00:22:27.150]I gave you what you deserve.
- [00:22:28.470]This is what you know and we will move on."
- [00:22:31.020]So, and if we change that verb from deserved
- [00:22:33.403]to earned. To earned, yes.
- [00:22:36.120]Definitely, yes. Right? And that's...
- [00:22:38.850]So as we move into like, okay,
- [00:22:40.650]so we've got maladaptive perfectionism
- [00:22:43.830]and adaptive perfectionism.
- [00:22:45.060]Now, what does that mean for us as teachers?
- [00:22:47.550]That really highlights some of the structural stuff
- [00:22:52.050]that we as instructors can do to help shift our students.
- [00:22:57.630]Mm-hmm. Right?
- [00:22:58.620]Like that notion of, what is enough?
- [00:23:03.090]Yes. Right?
- [00:23:04.290]So like that idea of, oh, I need you to know more.
- [00:23:07.350]There's always more. There's always more.
- [00:23:09.570]Yes. But this is the basic.
- [00:23:13.140]This is what I need you to know at ground level for myself
- [00:23:17.340]in order to get you to teach a kid how to read.
- [00:23:21.570]Yeah, absolutely.
- [00:23:22.650]And anything above this is gravy.
- [00:23:24.247]Is gravy, yeah. But this is the basic level.
- [00:23:28.140]This is where I need you operating.
- [00:23:30.180]Yeah.
- [00:23:31.290]And that's B work.
- [00:23:34.590]Yeah, absolutely. You know?
- [00:23:35.970]And B work is time consuming. Mm-hmm.
- [00:23:40.050]And I'm very clear about that.
- [00:23:41.550]Yeah. Like, one of the things
- [00:23:43.230]that we can do to really help maladaptive perfectionists
- [00:23:49.440]in our coursework is to provide really clear objectives.
- [00:23:55.680]This is what I need you to do.
- [00:23:58.110]And this is the level at which I need you to do it.
- [00:24:01.650]Mm-hmm, yeah. If you go over that, great,
- [00:24:04.710]but this is where I need you to be.
- [00:24:07.260]And I'm gonna ask you to do some really tough stuff.
- [00:24:11.106]This is where I need you to be.
- [00:24:13.530]And so it's that,
- [00:24:20.850]oh, I want you to know more, right?
- [00:24:22.600]Yeah. There's always more, yeah.
- [00:24:24.357]And there's invitations for that.
- [00:24:26.310]But there's the shift for myself around,
- [00:24:31.290]I don't expect you to do that.
- [00:24:32.820]This is my expectation.
- [00:24:34.230]This is what I need you to be by the time we're done.
- [00:24:38.820]And if that's where we get,
- [00:24:40.380]I'm really, really happy with it.
- [00:24:42.120]And so, and let me pivot that a little bit
- [00:24:48.362]to put it in action, in an action orientation
- [00:24:51.480]for graduate students or junior faculty.
- [00:24:55.290]If you come to a place and you're being asked
- [00:24:57.720]to teach a class that has already been taught
- [00:25:00.180]and you are receiving a syllabus from somebody else,
- [00:25:03.950]as an example, or as, this is what you should be doing,
- [00:25:07.470]you should be asking these questions.
- [00:25:09.270]Is it clear here? What is that work?
- [00:25:13.050]How is it judged? What are the things that they must know?
- [00:25:17.160]And if it's not there, ask questions or define it yourself
- [00:25:21.780]because you have control over your syllabus.
- [00:25:23.550]Not everybody else.
- [00:25:24.570]Definitely not when you're a graduate student
- [00:25:26.490]or a junior faculty.
- [00:25:27.810]You don't want take on that task for everybody.
- [00:25:30.090]You want to take that on for yourself
- [00:25:32.100]because that clarity with students
- [00:25:33.720]will prevent a lot of friction.
- [00:25:35.220]The more clear you are, the more like,
- [00:25:37.350]yes, maybe I didn't get the grade I wanted,
- [00:25:41.010]but I got the grade I earned.
- [00:25:42.870]And it was clear from the beginning what that is.
- [00:25:46.800]Where we get the most friction with students
- [00:25:49.470]and the most dissatisfied students
- [00:25:51.300]is when there isn't clarity and then they feel surprised.
- [00:25:54.780]That's when most of that negative friction happens.
- [00:25:58.500]I've seen it very often working with graduate students
- [00:26:00.897]who are teaching for the first few times,
- [00:26:03.083]and it's not exactly their syllabus.
- [00:26:06.510]And that's what you want to clarify very early on.
- [00:26:09.360]Because when it's ambiguous, it's going to be very hard
- [00:26:13.680]to have the hard conversations with students.
- [00:26:15.600]And that's where defensive grading sometimes comes in.
- [00:26:18.120]They're like, "You know what, it's not clear.
- [00:26:19.950]I understand you're upset.
- [00:26:21.210]I'm just gonna give you the grade and I'm going to move on,"
- [00:26:24.210]or I'm gonna fight with you.
- [00:26:25.500]Either way, it's unpleasant.
- [00:26:27.390]Either way, it feels like somehow something has failed.
- [00:26:30.930]And it has because there wasn't enough clarity for students
- [00:26:34.200]to act on, especially our students in teacher education.
- [00:26:38.310]They are striving, for the most part,
- [00:26:40.830]they are adaptive or maladaptive perfectionists.
- [00:26:44.220]They really want to do good job.
- [00:26:46.860]Our problem is not the people.
- [00:26:49.440]I think my startling realization that a few students
- [00:26:52.140]are gaming the points from the other side
- [00:26:54.420]is that it's so rare that when you see it, it sticks out.
- [00:26:58.230]I don't have a lot of students like that.
- [00:26:59.820]Yeah, well, and those are non-perfectionists, right?
- [00:27:03.090]Yeah, yeah.
- [00:27:03.930]And there's certain strengths-
- [00:27:04.763]They're like, "Good enough." Or certain weaknesses there,
- [00:27:06.327]but that's not the majority of students that we see.
- [00:27:08.547]No, not by a long shot.
- [00:27:10.020]But I think you highlight a really important part
- [00:27:15.060]of just preemptively, before your course even begins,
- [00:27:19.836]how you can think about navigating what you know is coming.
- [00:27:25.140]Yes. Right?
- [00:27:26.070]And switching out certain terminology.
- [00:27:29.910]Like, one of the best things that you can do,
- [00:27:31.573]and this is all throughout the literature,
- [00:27:33.390]is helping students develop a growth mindset for themselves
- [00:27:38.760]and be open to alternative variations
- [00:27:45.270]in what success can look like for them.
- [00:27:47.250]Mm-hmm. Right?
- [00:27:49.170]And I've really been working on shifting my own language
- [00:27:55.650]around how I talk about my students.
- [00:27:57.210]Like, I don't want you to be the best.
- [00:27:58.800]I want you to be well-prepared.
- [00:28:00.240]Mm-hmm, yes.
- [00:28:01.530]And that shifts some expectations 'cause best is not...
- [00:28:05.490]What does that mean, right? Yeah.
- [00:28:07.140]And it's this one pinnacle.
- [00:28:11.400]Like, it's not very well-developed versus,
- [00:28:13.470]I know what a well-prepared reading teacher looks like.
- [00:28:17.310]I know what the content knowledge looks like.
- [00:28:19.080]I know what the practices look like. I can teach that.
- [00:28:23.130]And not only can I teach that, but I can provide that
- [00:28:27.150]as an accessible objective to my students.
- [00:28:31.110]They know what that looks like through my teaching,
- [00:28:35.550]through their experiences in coursework,
- [00:28:37.350]and we can talk through that.
- [00:28:40.200]So, so much of it has been about creating opportunities
- [00:28:45.780]for talk around envisioning themselves as engaging in growth
- [00:28:53.460]and also trying to get rid of punitive language.
- [00:28:58.680]Yeah. Right?
- [00:28:59.940]Like, "Oh, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this."
- [00:29:03.457]"This is what you do." Yes.
- [00:29:05.190]Here's some pathways.
- [00:29:06.240]Ultimately, my students as undergrads are adults.
- [00:29:09.990]Here's multiple pathways.
- [00:29:12.060]Here's what the end result needs to be.
- [00:29:13.470]This is the objective.
- [00:29:15.300]This is how you show that you meet the objective.
- [00:29:18.300]You can come at it in a couple of different ways.
- [00:29:22.710]Let me be clear about that, right?
- [00:29:24.990]And each of those ways is fairly well delineated.
- [00:29:31.011]And one of the traps,
- [00:29:33.300]and the literature about perfectionism talks about this,
- [00:29:36.989]is that it can lead to a focus on points,
- [00:29:42.390]to a focus on the things that are measurable.
- [00:29:47.190]And some things are much easier to measure than others.
- [00:29:50.640]That's why tests and quizzes
- [00:29:52.530]can become a proxy for everything,
- [00:29:54.870]even though they might not be everything.
- [00:29:56.940]That performance in a lesson you teach
- [00:29:59.220]is considerably squishier than points
- [00:30:01.680]on a short-answer test.
- [00:30:05.220]Did you get it? Did you get the concept?
- [00:30:06.750]Were you able to explain the concept or not?
- [00:30:09.300]Were you able to come with the right solution or not?
- [00:30:11.550]But teaching a lesson has so many elements
- [00:30:13.706]that it feels squishier.
- [00:30:15.270]I mean, we can make it fairly concrete, I think.
- [00:30:18.060]And again, thinking about,
- [00:30:20.070]what are the things you must know how to do?
- [00:30:22.800]Everything else is gravy.
- [00:30:24.300]You can be fantastic and that's good for you,
- [00:30:27.330]but we are aiming to make you a capable teacher
- [00:30:30.390]who can keep on learning
- [00:30:31.680]because nobody is ready the minute they exit the program.
- [00:30:35.310]Everybody is ready for everything five to seven years later.
- [00:30:39.780]We know that for a fact.
- [00:30:41.010]The expert teacher that,
- [00:30:42.240]going back to "The Expert Pedagogue" by Berliner,
- [00:30:46.710]it takes time, and you need all of that experience.
- [00:30:49.350]And there's no way to get that experience
- [00:30:51.030]before you have experience, right?
- [00:30:53.190]You have to actually be in the classroom and enact
- [00:30:55.620]and do all of these wonderful things.
- [00:30:57.570]And so what we're preparing you is to have enough knowledge,
- [00:31:01.590]enough skill, enough strategies to be able to execute
- [00:31:06.000]at a reasonable level early and to keep on learning.
- [00:31:08.700]And that growth in learning,
- [00:31:10.050]that growth mindset is critical here.
- [00:31:12.180]Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, totally.
- [00:31:13.410]And there's certain things that,
- [00:31:15.532]so if we look at concrete strategies,
- [00:31:17.880]'cause you know I like a good, concrete strategy.
- [00:31:20.850]Yeah, absolutely, we all need something to do
- [00:31:23.250]and not just to talk about.
- [00:31:24.870]There's a couple of things
- [00:31:26.160]that I've been playing around with this semester
- [00:31:29.256]that have really changed the tenor of my classroom.
- [00:31:31.710]Yeah. And one of them is,
- [00:31:33.530]so I've moved to exams, I've moved to quizzes.
- [00:31:37.170]We still do the occasional lesson plan.
- [00:31:42.030]Not as many of them. Okay, yeah.
- [00:31:45.090]But we still do them, and so there's this back and forth
- [00:31:49.200]between kind of more quantitative
- [00:31:51.000]and more qualitative pieces where the exams and quizzes
- [00:31:55.560]are really getting at, how well do they know content
- [00:32:00.060]versus lesson plans or application of that content?
- [00:32:03.990]And so one of the things that I've done
- [00:32:08.940]has been to institute an item analysis after every exam,
- [00:32:14.700]so I don't do this for quizzes,
- [00:32:15.810]but I do it for my first two exams.
- [00:32:19.380]And the final, they don't have the chance to do this.
- [00:32:22.320]But what it does is, when they finish their exam,
- [00:32:27.750]when I post their grade to Canvas,
- [00:32:29.640]I include a Google Doc link
- [00:32:32.160]to every question that they got incorrect.
- [00:32:37.620]And this is after I've gone through
- [00:32:38.730]and checked for validity.
- [00:32:39.690]There's always one or two questions where I'm like,
- [00:32:41.710]"Ugh, that was just a bad question.
- [00:32:42.750]Everyone's getting that point.
- [00:32:44.280]Ugh, that was another bad question.
- [00:32:45.390]Everyone's getting that point."
- [00:32:46.530]So once I've controlled for that, like, my ineptitude.
- [00:32:49.740]Yeah, which is important. Which is gonna happen.
- [00:32:51.930]Especially if you adapt somebody else's,
- [00:32:53.870]for example, just to say, the curriculum makers,
- [00:32:57.330]those who publish the books
- [00:32:58.530]often have sets of questions that come.
- [00:33:01.530]They are not always good questions.
- [00:33:03.108]Nope.
- [00:33:03.941]I've had really bad experiences with those assessments.
- [00:33:07.410]So I've used them and I actually had to ax whole quizzes
- [00:33:10.380]and I'm like, "Okay, I need to rethink this
- [00:33:12.420]because the item analysis said,
- [00:33:14.483]'These are just bad questions.'"
- [00:33:16.080]And then I went back and did the reread and I went,
- [00:33:20.317]"Yeah, that is a confusing..." Yeah, yeah.
- [00:33:22.980]And it's okay. Yeah.
- [00:33:24.990]Like, one, in class, I was very clear and upfront,
- [00:33:29.647]"Look, these are the questions that I nixed.
- [00:33:34.530]Tell me why you think I nixed them."
- [00:33:37.020]And that gives them another opportunity to one,
- [00:33:39.090]see that I am growing as a professional as well.
- [00:33:42.120]Like, it's not perfect.
- [00:33:44.190]And also gives them a chance to talk through content.
- [00:33:47.340]Like, what do you think I was trying to get at
- [00:33:49.740]and what does this actually get at?
- [00:33:50.880]'Cause there was a mismatch.
- [00:33:52.290]Because I've drafted, I think I'm up to like 872 questions
- [00:33:56.850]for this course this semester. Whew! Wow.
- [00:33:59.670]But, I take this as kind of a feather in my hat.
- [00:34:04.530]I've only had maybe six questions across the two exams
- [00:34:08.760]that we've had so far that bombed
- [00:34:11.670]so that's a fairly good, out of 250 questions,
- [00:34:16.050]that's not a bad rate. Yeah, that's pretty good.
- [00:34:17.250]Yeah. I'm feeling pretty good
- [00:34:18.360]about that, but they do take a lot of time.
- [00:34:20.040]So anyway, after they're done with their exam,
- [00:34:24.330]I give them the opportunity to do an item analysis.
- [00:34:26.850]And within this item analysis, and this is,
- [00:34:29.250]it's interesting that this is also just good teaching.
- [00:34:32.220]Yeah.
- [00:34:34.470]In their item analysis, they get a copy of every question.
- [00:34:37.410]They get the correct response there,
- [00:34:42.510]and they also get their response.
- [00:34:44.460]And so what I ask them to do is,
- [00:34:46.761]one, identify, what kind of question is it?
- [00:34:50.940]What is it asking of you? Mm-hmm.
- [00:34:53.316]Two, why did you get it wrong?
- [00:34:55.920]Okay. Were you confused? Were you-
- [00:34:58.952]Did you just not know it?
- [00:35:00.332]Did you just not study it? Yeah.
- [00:35:03.140]What was going on there? And for...
- [00:35:07.080]It's been interesting because for some
- [00:35:09.600]of the letter sound relationship stuff,
- [00:35:12.570]it's something like, "Oh, I didn't say this out loud
- [00:35:14.940]and I really should have said it out loud, right?"
- [00:35:17.039]Yeah, that would've helped. Yes.
- [00:35:18.811]Like, what's the...
- [00:35:20.820]There was one question that just sticks it in my mind.
- [00:35:23.040]It was a valid question,
- [00:35:25.410]but very few of my students got it correct.
- [00:35:29.280]Where I was like, what letter contains the same sound
- [00:35:32.430]you hear at the beginning of tent?
- [00:35:34.650]And the correct answer was missed. Like M-I-S-S-E-D.
- [00:35:39.630]Mm-hmm.
- [00:35:41.460]But no one got it 'cause they didn't say it out loud.
- [00:35:43.800]And so- Yes, and so they saw the T
- [00:35:45.420]and the D and they, yeah. They saw, yeah.
- [00:35:47.100]They saw the E and the D and they were like,
- [00:35:48.247]"Oh nope, none of these."
- [00:35:49.890]And I was like, "Nope, phonology is about sounds, people.
- [00:35:52.950]You gotta make sounds."
- [00:35:54.270]But what it allows them to do then is go back
- [00:35:58.650]and rethink what that question was asking.
- [00:36:01.980]And then I ask them to track,
- [00:36:03.990]where in the course material did I cover this?
- [00:36:06.360]Mm-hmm. Oh, okay.
- [00:36:08.190]There's nothing that I'm asking you
- [00:36:09.690]that I haven't covered either in lecture.
- [00:36:12.210]Yeah, or in reading. Or in reading.
- [00:36:14.310]Yeah. So where is it? Show me.
- [00:36:17.007]And I wanna know specifically where you found it,
- [00:36:19.320]which reading, what page,
- [00:36:22.080]what guided note, what class session.
- [00:36:24.395]And that has really helped decrease levels
- [00:36:29.790]of anxiety around exams. Mm-hmm, yeah.
- [00:36:34.350]Because it's shifting.
- [00:36:40.410]It's not this kind of be-all, end-all
- [00:36:42.180]totalitarian assessment.
- [00:36:45.480]It's really a way to get them back into that content
- [00:36:51.330]and view it as a learning possibility.
- [00:36:54.450]So in many ways, I mean, in the '90s we talked about,
- [00:36:57.660]especially in special education,
- [00:36:59.010]we talked about demystifying assessments.
- [00:37:02.130]And it's a great way not just to demystify,
- [00:37:05.160]but actually give them skill.
- [00:37:06.960]So when they either use somebody else's assessment,
- [00:37:09.990]which is likely to happen quite a bit
- [00:37:11.700]because we get curriculum.
- [00:37:12.810]Not everybody does.
- [00:37:14.130]Or if they create their own assessment, the ability
- [00:37:17.460]to work through that assessment and ask the hard questions.
- [00:37:20.430]What was that question trying to do?
- [00:37:22.680]Is it really what I was aiming at? Did I cover it?
- [00:37:25.890]All of these questions, because we do see that it's spotty.
- [00:37:30.540]I mean, the people who write curriculum are people,
- [00:37:33.180]and they have differing level of expertise.
- [00:37:36.060]And sometimes they're probably tired.
- [00:37:37.650]When they got to the third grade, seventh unit,
- [00:37:40.650]they might've gotten tired
- [00:37:41.850]and a few questions are not quite what they need to be.
- [00:37:44.490]So that provides a set of skills.
- [00:37:47.280]The other thing that I do with students early in my class,
- [00:37:50.460]and that is a little bit connected to that,
- [00:37:52.856]and it helps to deflect some of the discussion
- [00:37:56.520]and demystify grading is, at least about citizenship
- [00:38:00.046]and everything around citizenship in the classroom,
- [00:38:03.960]we create rubrics together.
- [00:38:05.790]So we collaborate on, what does it mean?
- [00:38:08.520]And they get to put a lot of input into that,
- [00:38:11.602]which starts a conversation about rubrics
- [00:38:14.970]and about performance and about competence.
- [00:38:17.640]What is enough? Is really a great moment to talk about.
- [00:38:22.050]Because at the beginning of the semester,
- [00:38:24.281]there's that wonderful moment
- [00:38:26.381]where everybody's got an A, that's the students,
- [00:38:29.970]and you as the instructor, you have no grading to do.
- [00:38:33.210]It's a glorious moment.
- [00:38:34.500]It's probably the only moment in the semester
- [00:38:36.420]that is quite like that, but it is great.
- [00:38:39.600]And at that moment when you ask students
- [00:38:41.730]to talk about citizenship, one of the things that we'll do,
- [00:38:44.850]for example, about attendance, and they will say,
- [00:38:47.557]"You get full points only if you are 100% in class"
- [00:38:52.230]because it's easy because nothing has happened yet.
- [00:38:55.560]But there's almost never 100%.
- [00:38:58.230]You get sick. I don't want you in class sick.
- [00:39:00.600]I'm very sorry to say, not even for that 100%.
- [00:39:04.320]So that starts that conversation about competence
- [00:39:07.980]and what is enough given that life serves us
- [00:39:12.720]with a whole host of things.
- [00:39:13.830]And this is with something really simple like attendance.
- [00:39:16.470]You're either here or you're not here.
- [00:39:18.210]And then we can talk
- [00:39:19.043]about whether there's going to be online attendance or not.
- [00:39:22.860]For students, for example, especially during COVID,
- [00:39:26.010]I mean, we're still during COVID,
- [00:39:27.330]but during the high of COVID,
- [00:39:29.400]we did not want anybody with COVID in the classroom.
- [00:39:32.220]Then we would let people in. That mostly has gone away.
- [00:39:35.820]Some people do, some people don't.
- [00:39:37.530]But there are opportunities around that
- [00:39:39.600]depending on what has happened.
- [00:39:41.700]And that's a great discussion
- [00:39:44.490]because that can be a discussion about what counts
- [00:39:47.220]and what doesn't count, and also, what is good enough?
- [00:39:50.880]Is it okay to miss one class or two class sessions?
- [00:39:54.150]Usually we eventually get to the point
- [00:39:56.264]where we're saying, "Yes, it is okay."
- [00:39:58.020]And you're still going to get all,
- [00:40:00.270]quote unquote, "that points," all the points
- [00:40:02.640]because it's going to happen.
- [00:40:04.590]And there's no reason to take away
- [00:40:10.140]from your ability to reach competence.
- [00:40:13.140]Because again, it's not about showing up.
- [00:40:15.120]Showing up is a tool to get to competence.
- [00:40:18.210]Yeah, and so two things.
- [00:40:20.310]One, that whole, like, on the first day,
- [00:40:24.690]oh, everyone has an A mentality is something
- [00:40:26.670]that I've had to really get rid of.
- [00:40:28.050]Yeah.
- [00:40:28.883]Because that does push a perfectionist narrative.
- [00:40:32.070]Oh, you're all perfect right now.
- [00:40:33.420]Yes. (laughs) It's only all downhill from here.
- [00:40:35.850]Right, like, and so I've had to-
- [00:40:38.217]But there's that sense.
- [00:40:39.480]I've had to really match that.
- [00:40:40.710]And my response to that has been,
- [00:40:45.540]on the first day, we are full potential right now.
- [00:40:49.470]Yes. Like, I want you
- [00:40:51.210]to think about everything you think you know
- [00:40:52.920]about reading and writing education,
- [00:40:55.620]and we're gonna expand and move out of those areas
- [00:41:00.660]and really work on developing some competence.
- [00:41:04.768]And then the other thing that I've really
- [00:41:06.570]been pushing against in my own teaching is,
- [00:41:11.220]I don't allocate grades to habits any longer.
- [00:41:15.750]'Cause so much of perfectionism
- [00:41:17.190]is performing that perfection.
- [00:41:20.910]And so like, what that's made me do is,
- [00:41:25.200]I don't give points for attendance.
- [00:41:27.330]Mm-hmm. I don't.
- [00:41:29.430]And part of why I don't is, if you don't show up for class,
- [00:41:33.600]you're not gonna be able to pass my class.
- [00:41:36.325]Yeah. The value added
- [00:41:39.720]in terms of you showing up is integral to what's going on.
- [00:41:45.690]So every point is connected to those learning objectives.
- [00:41:50.220]And I've made that really, really clear
- [00:41:52.350]'cause I'm not looking at...
- [00:41:54.660]I will teach you how to construct notes.
- [00:41:56.490]I will teach you how to effectively come up
- [00:41:59.790]with a flashcard deck to help you study for your exams.
- [00:42:03.270]I will teach you those things,
- [00:42:04.170]but I'm not grading you on those things.
- [00:42:05.340]Those are habits. That's outside of my realm.
- [00:42:09.030]Here's where the points are.
- [00:42:11.250]They are in your learning
- [00:42:12.570]because I need you to be a well-prepared teacher
- [00:42:14.790]by the time you leave me.
- [00:42:15.870]I don't have time to track like, things.
- [00:42:21.030]If I don't see you for a couple of weeks,
- [00:42:22.740]I'm gonna send you an email
- [00:42:24.810]'cause you're not gonna do well on the exams.
- [00:42:26.340]You're not gonna do well on the assignments.
- [00:42:29.310]So that's up to them to do that.
- [00:42:33.180]Yeah, I see it a little bit differently, to be honest.
- [00:42:36.722]I put a lot of emphasis.
- [00:42:39.930]So, attendance was a side example.
- [00:42:42.390]I'm actually not concerned with attendance at all,
- [00:42:45.450]but I am trying to talk to them throughout the semester
- [00:42:51.330]about creating a community within the classroom
- [00:42:54.510]and trying to model that.
- [00:42:56.220]So what we create together is an understanding of,
- [00:42:59.100]what does it require to be a member of that community?
- [00:43:03.870]And that for me is one of the things
- [00:43:06.780]that I'm trying to establish in their understanding of,
- [00:43:10.260]what does it take to be a teacher?
- [00:43:12.270]Including a reading and writing teacher.
- [00:43:15.390]It's, how do you create that community of learners
- [00:43:18.030]that work together and achieve together?
- [00:43:20.700]Right, and you can do that while also teaching.
- [00:43:26.190]Oh, absolutely. Right?
- [00:43:27.330]You have to do that while also teaching.
- [00:43:30.090]Like, we start with content from day one, you know, like-
- [00:43:33.060]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
- [00:43:36.810]We got out early last week
- [00:43:40.740]for the first time all semester.
- [00:43:43.050]And my students were like- Wow.
- [00:43:44.107]"This is the first time all semester
- [00:43:47.760]that this has happened." Yeah.
- [00:43:50.220]Yeah, because there's some stuff I need to teach you.
- [00:43:52.680]There's some urgency.
- [00:43:53.513]I don't get to take an off day unless I'm super sick,
- [00:43:56.250]which has happened, but-
- [00:43:58.560]And it does happen. You model that
- [00:43:59.926]and you have a continuation plan for learning.
- [00:44:05.880]Yes, I got into trouble with that a few years back,
- [00:44:08.880]quite a few years back before the pandemic.
- [00:44:13.290]I was working with a colleague and we were,
- [00:44:18.000]we're like, "We are at the point where we can teach online,
- [00:44:21.900]and we all have resources
- [00:44:23.610]so if class is going to get canceled,
- [00:44:25.830]here's what's gonna happen."
- [00:44:27.960]The blowback about 10 years ago was enormous
- [00:44:32.580]because it was a snow day.
- [00:44:34.410]And we said, "Here's what you need to know
- [00:44:37.170]'cause we don't have time."
- [00:44:39.570]That did not go well. I would imagine not. So-
- [00:44:43.950]Snow days are sacred.
- [00:44:45.660]Snow days are kind of sacred.
- [00:44:47.700]I mean, just because we don't have snow very often,
- [00:44:49.980]so it's an event. (laughs) Yes it is.
- [00:44:52.260]You know?
- [00:44:53.093]So, one of the best things that we can do
- [00:44:56.970]for maladaptive perfectionists is to be really clear
- [00:45:02.400]about reasonable expectations
- [00:45:04.080]to really de-emphasize perfection in our coursework.
- [00:45:09.330]Be clear about what it is we're trying to do for them,
- [00:45:13.440]and be thoughtful about
- [00:45:17.220]how we are communicating learning
- [00:45:23.940]as process versus learning as point accumulation, right?
- [00:45:28.320]So to your earlier point about rubrics,
- [00:45:31.290]within rubrics, I don't include points any longer.
- [00:45:34.530]This is the proficient column.
- [00:45:36.513]Here's the characteristics of what I'm looking for
- [00:45:39.570]in terms of proficiency.
- [00:45:41.370]And if you want to have a conversation with me
- [00:45:43.110]about where you are, we're grounding it
- [00:45:46.350]in the characteristics in that rubric.
- [00:45:48.840]And that requires a really well-written rubric.
- [00:45:52.440]That's not just bean counting, right?
- [00:45:56.250]So rubrics tend to get used to justify grades.
- [00:45:58.980]That's not the purpose of a rubric.
- [00:46:00.240]A rubric's meant to be a learning progression.
- [00:46:01.980]Yeah, and a guide to the learner more than anybody else.
- [00:46:05.280]Exactly, so like, we have to be careful
- [00:46:08.489]about those kinds of things
- [00:46:09.810]because we always want to balance those high expectations
- [00:46:14.516]but within reasonable standards, right?
- [00:46:17.010]Like, we cannot go around telling our students,
- [00:46:22.147]"We want you to be perfect." No.
- [00:46:24.270]And not expect some level of anxiety.
- [00:46:28.230]Like, that's just not fair to them.
- [00:46:30.330]And not defining what perfect is or what best is or-
- [00:46:35.220]Mm-hmm, and not providing clear articulation
- [00:46:41.400]of what that looks like, right?
- [00:46:43.230]I mean, part of what has been so helpful
- [00:46:46.770]about this particular semester
- [00:46:48.150]as I've been taking on this work is, it's been really lovely
- [00:46:52.260]to model for my students' language around their learning
- [00:46:56.280]and see them and hear them utilize
- [00:46:58.410]that same kind of language. Yeah.
- [00:47:00.990]That metalinguistic ability has been delightful and lovely
- [00:47:07.200]and has really helped me reposition myself and my students.
- [00:47:14.910]And I want to point out
- [00:47:17.010]that especially if you're starting out on teaching,
- [00:47:19.500]and this is early in your career, this is an opportunity
- [00:47:23.070]to make sure that there's joy in teaching
- [00:47:26.850]because teaching sometimes becomes about survival,
- [00:47:29.280]and that's my least favorite kind of teaching.
- [00:47:31.830]But if you are clear with yourself and with your students
- [00:47:35.070]and have reasonable expectations,
- [00:47:37.560]then it's gonna be considerably more joyful
- [00:47:40.050]because you're gonna get that feedback from them.
- [00:47:42.300]And you don't have to constantly fight
- [00:47:44.550]against expectations or that sense of anxiety.
- [00:47:48.540]That sense of anxiety, going back to what you said,
- [00:47:50.970]that sense of anxiety is real. Yeah.
- [00:47:53.430]Whether we agree with it or not is highly irrelevant.
- [00:47:57.660]That sense that they have is real,
- [00:47:59.430]and it's distracting from their learning.
- [00:48:02.370]Yeah. In real ways
- [00:48:04.530]so we have to do something with it.
- [00:48:06.540]Well, and so that brings us to kind of the final point
- [00:48:09.600]of this meandering conversation.
- [00:48:12.420]Like, there is... (Guy laughing)
- [00:48:16.800]Even Dan is laughing. I know. I heard that.
- [00:48:22.020]We're "Not That Kind of Doctor," right?
- [00:48:23.760]So these are strategies that I've,
- [00:48:26.880]some of these strategies I've been able to utilize
- [00:48:28.740]in my coursework this semester.
- [00:48:31.020]And that's worked with- The majority of students.
- [00:48:34.153]A majority of students who I would say
- [00:48:36.450]in my "Not That Kind of Doctor" opinion,
- [00:48:38.790]have some level of maladaptive perfectionism.
- [00:48:41.790]And I've seen that shift and change across the semester,
- [00:48:44.250]and I've really appreciated that.
- [00:48:46.029]But there's no guarantee that this would work with someone
- [00:48:48.150]who has massively maladaptive perfectionism.
- [00:48:52.260]And so thinking about ways to work with wraparound services.
- [00:48:58.020]Mm-hmm, absolutely. Here at UNL,
- [00:48:59.940]we have CAPS counseling who work with students
- [00:49:05.070]around these kinds of things to help get over those,
- [00:49:10.163]for instance, procrastination blocks.
- [00:49:12.840]Yeah, the paralysis that can come with perfectionism.
- [00:49:15.720]Right. Absolutely, yeah.
- [00:49:16.740]And so they're more trained at that than I will ever be.
- [00:49:21.270]Like, I want to be clear that as I'm thinking about this,
- [00:49:24.690]I am not like, "I'm a psychologist."
- [00:49:26.670]No, I'm a teacher educator
- [00:49:28.530]who gets better at teaching the longer I am around.
- [00:49:32.580]Like, that's the point of that practice, right?
- [00:49:34.860]And so as I'm considering this,
- [00:49:36.630]what's within my realm of possibility to support this?
- [00:49:41.970]So, I'm not a counselor.
- [00:49:44.190]I will listen to a student talk with me
- [00:49:49.167]and then refer them to counseling.
- [00:49:51.360]Yeah, and it's really important to know that,
- [00:49:53.760]especially if you're starting out in teaching
- [00:49:56.820]at the university level.
- [00:49:58.200]And that is, when you feel like, "I cannot help,"
- [00:50:01.530]if you can't help your whole classroom,
- [00:50:03.450]then you need to reorient and find a mentor
- [00:50:06.330]and make sure you have one already.
- [00:50:08.340]But talk to your mentor and find out strategies
- [00:50:11.940]to work with your whole classroom.
- [00:50:13.110]But there are going to be a few students
- [00:50:15.240]that it feels like they're outside the norm
- [00:50:18.630]in your classroom and you can't help them.
- [00:50:20.190]And this is the moment,
- [00:50:21.270]not to take that on as an extra burden, but to say,
- [00:50:24.397]"You need help beyond what I can do to you.
- [00:50:26.730]Talk to your advisor. Go and get counseling."
- [00:50:31.140]In all universities, at least in the United States,
- [00:50:33.750]we have counseling services,
- [00:50:35.520]and they can give a certain number
- [00:50:37.830]of at least minimum sessions available to you.
- [00:50:42.210]Counseling them early.
- [00:50:43.290]So if you sense that early,
- [00:50:44.940]send them early because it gets really hard.
- [00:50:47.700]Yeah. That there's,
- [00:50:48.750]in the last few years there's been a lot of consumption
- [00:50:53.460]of these services and they tend to have a backlog,
- [00:50:58.320]so send them early.
- [00:50:59.970]They're much more likely to get help,
- [00:51:01.650]even if it takes a few weeks.
- [00:51:03.330]But they, when it gets to that point,
- [00:51:08.036]you also need to ask for help at that point and not just be-
- [00:51:12.270]Well, and also, not to get meta about this,
- [00:51:15.420]but I feel like as educators,
- [00:51:17.910]we want to be everything to everyone.
- [00:51:19.890]Yes, and we can't. And we can't.
- [00:51:21.510]That's maladaptive perfectionism.
- [00:51:23.490]And we will talk about that next time.
- [00:51:25.740]We'll talk about ourselves with that perfectionism,
- [00:51:28.320]not just our students. Oh jeez.
- [00:51:30.840]That is not the episode that I proposed, Guy!
- [00:51:34.470]But I think we should tackle that
- [00:51:36.030]because that is something I see in graduate students
- [00:51:39.300]and in faculty just as much as I've seen in our students.
- [00:51:42.630]And I think that's something that we need to talk about
- [00:51:46.410]because that comes out in maladaptive ways
- [00:51:51.960]that are not good for long-term wellbeing
- [00:51:55.800]and also for survival in academia,
- [00:51:59.070]so that's a promise for next time.
- [00:52:00.900]It's a promise for next time.
- [00:52:02.430]All right.
- [00:52:03.263]That's not the one I had planned, Guy.
- [00:52:05.810](laughs) All right.
- [00:52:07.470]Look at me being maladaptive right now.
- [00:52:09.670]Okay, okay. It's fine. It's fine.
- [00:52:13.170]So yes, so, when we're thinking about perfectionism,
- [00:52:19.597]I would encourage everyone who works with students
- [00:52:23.340]to really think through, how can you embrace that?
- [00:52:25.620]'Cause students are coming with it
- [00:52:27.210]whether they want to or not.
- [00:52:28.590]We don't wanna have a Rory Gilmore moment
- [00:52:30.060]where all of a sudden at the end of season four,
- [00:52:32.250]she's stealing a yacht.
- [00:52:33.270]Like, no one wants that
- [00:52:34.440]'cause it's just the downfall of the entire series.
- [00:52:37.680]And Western civilization. Yes.
- [00:52:39.120]And civilization in general, not just Western.
- [00:52:41.160]I wonder if Amy Sherman-Palladino knows that she did that.
- [00:52:44.250]Probably. Ugh.
- [00:52:46.050]Anyway, so, we've outlined some ways to be thinking
- [00:52:50.430]about better adapting to and supporting that perfectionism,
- [00:52:57.330]right? Mm-hmm.
- [00:52:58.163]How do we move students from being maladaptive?
- [00:53:00.030]How do we help them negotiate that
- [00:53:01.350]within the boundaries of what we can do as teachers?
- [00:53:04.491]And when do we reach out for bigger help?
- [00:53:07.140]So again, we are "Not That Kind of Doctor,"
- [00:53:09.930]so I will make sure that there are some resources
- [00:53:12.960]that I have found particularly helpful
- [00:53:15.810]in the description box.
- [00:53:19.140]All right.
- [00:53:20.580]But yeah, yeah.
- [00:53:22.650]Mm-hmm.
- [00:53:24.120]This has been "Not That Kind of Doctor,"
- [00:53:26.580]where we're talking about teaching, not counseling,
- [00:53:29.130]because that's what we do. (laughs) Yes.
- [00:53:30.690]So we're separating these things.
- [00:53:32.640]Trying to. All right, and so next time
- [00:53:33.990]we're talking about... (sighs)
- [00:53:36.720]Our own perfectionism.
- [00:53:38.340]Our own perfectionism. Yes.
- [00:53:40.860]Some people are uncomfortable right now.
- [00:53:43.500]Well, I mean, no, actually,
- [00:53:45.270]here's what I'm trying to figure out is like,
- [00:53:46.530]do I have money to send you for a therapy session?
- [00:53:48.510]'Cause that's what that feels like.
- [00:53:50.370]And I just paid off my student loans today.
- [00:53:54.150]Whoo!
- [00:53:55.110]And so I'm like, "Will I have extra money to do that?"
- [00:53:57.227]'Cause I feel like there should be some compensation
- [00:53:59.580]for that as I'm like, "Here are my problems!"
- [00:54:02.910]Yes, but we are about being faculty, not about therapy.
- [00:54:07.433]Just bringing us to the previous section.
- [00:54:10.200]All right, we'll see you next time.
- [00:54:13.051](energetic electronic music)
- [00:54:16.675]♪ Hey, hey ♪
The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!
You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.
Log in to post comments
Embed
Copy the following code into your page
HTML
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%; overflow: hidden; position:relative; -webkit-box-flex: 1; flex-grow: 1;"> <iframe style="bottom: 0; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; border: 0; height: 100%; width: 100%;" src="https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/21743?format=iframe&autoplay=0" title="Video Player: Not That Kind of Doctor - Embracing Our Students' Perfectionism in the Classroom" allowfullscreen ></iframe> </div>
Comments
0 Comments