Not That Kind of Doctor - Starting Strong: Crafting and Implementing Effective Course Expectations
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09/16/2024
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In this episode of Not That Kind of Doctor, Guy and Nick dive into the art of setting expectations at the start of a semester. From creating flexible syllabi to modeling classroom routines, they share strategies for building a supportive learning environment. Nick discusses his unique approach to syllabus design as an aspirational document, while Guy outlines how he engages students in co-creating classroom guidelines.
Key Takeaways:
Syllabus as an Index Fund: Treat your syllabus like an investment—it pays dividends in classroom management and student engagement.
Co-Creating Expectations: Learn how to involve students in setting behavioral expectations to foster a sense of community.
Routine is Key: Establishing consistent routines can help reduce the cognitive load and make learning more accessible.
Navigating the Honeymoon Period: Address the 'honeymoon' phase of the semester, where everyone has perfect attendance and straight A's.
Join Nick and Guy as they share their insights and a bit of humor along the way, like the iconic cinnamon roll explosion metaphor! 🎓🍩
#ClassroomExpectations #TeachingTips #NotThatKindOfDoctor #SyllabusDesign #highereducation #highered #teachingstrategies
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
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- [00:00:00.176](upbeat instrumental music)
- [00:00:10.350]All right, what are we talking about today?
- [00:00:12.360]We're talking about my second favorite thing.
- [00:00:15.270]Second favorite? Second favorite thing,
- [00:00:16.770]'cause we know that the most wonderful time of the year
- [00:00:19.410]is job hunting season.
- [00:00:20.760]Yes.
- [00:00:21.593]That is our Martha Stewart wreath.
- [00:00:22.680]We are reinventing it for every season.
- [00:00:24.780]However, today, we're focusing in on how to start classes.
- [00:00:32.280]How to be thinking about setting expectations
- [00:00:36.660]in your class when you're teaching,
- [00:00:39.330]'cause here at UNL,
- [00:00:41.280]we're at the beginning of the semester.
- [00:00:42.480]So this is literally what I'm doing right now.
- [00:00:48.510]And when you carefully set your expectations
- [00:00:51.210]at the beginning of the semester, you just...
- [00:00:53.880]It pays off dividends.
- [00:00:55.800]It is like the best little,
- [00:00:59.430]I don't know, index fund,
- [00:01:01.410]that you can invest in pedagogically.
- [00:01:03.990]Yes. Because those dividends
- [00:01:05.130]just keep coming, right?
- [00:01:07.110]But it does take a lot of setup
- [00:01:08.880]and it does take a lot of consideration,
- [00:01:10.860]and so in today's episode of Not that Kind of Doctor,
- [00:01:14.820]look at me segue, me being Nick Husbye,
- [00:01:17.790]associate professor of elementary literacy education
- [00:01:20.280]here at UNL.
- [00:01:21.540]And Guy Trainin, professor of education here at UNL.
- [00:01:24.780]So today, I thought we'd talk about what
- [00:01:28.350]and how we set expectations when we're teaching,
- [00:01:32.940]so that instructors who are coming to college classrooms
- [00:01:37.860]kind of new- Yeah, need to do.
- [00:01:40.470]Can think about how to make that happen, right?
- [00:01:43.050]Because there's the content of the course,
- [00:01:46.560]but then there's also the, how do you teach it
- [00:01:49.917]and what do you need to happen in that space
- [00:01:52.800]in order for it to be taught.
- [00:01:56.340]So I think it all starts day one.
- [00:01:59.730]It definitely does.
- [00:02:00.563]Actually, it starts before day one.
- [00:02:02.137]It starts in your syllabus.
- [00:02:03.360]Yes, yes.
- [00:02:05.190]And talk to me a little bit about how you use your syllabus,
- [00:02:07.410]'cause I use mine a little bit differently,
- [00:02:09.150]and I would love to know-
- [00:02:10.980]So I actually have an empty space
- [00:02:15.240]in my syllabus for behavioral expectations
- [00:02:17.850]and expectations in general.
- [00:02:20.700]What I do is, I say,
- [00:02:23.167]"We're going to have a discussion in class,"
- [00:02:26.940]and then I bring to class an empty template of expectations.
- [00:02:34.140]What does it mean to not meet expectations,
- [00:02:36.570]meet expectation, and exceed expectations?
- [00:02:39.180]And what I create is, I create the categories.
- [00:02:42.270]So for example, attendance and late policy,
- [00:02:46.710]the use of AI has emerged recently,
- [00:02:49.230]but the use of other resources as well.
- [00:02:52.680]Participation in small group
- [00:02:55.380]and in a large group,
- [00:02:58.080]the policy around late work
- [00:03:00.810]and handing in work on time and all of that.
- [00:03:03.390]So I have these categories, but I do not fill it out.
- [00:03:07.170]I leave it empty,
- [00:03:08.640]and then we use the first couple of meetings
- [00:03:12.540]as we're discussing the content,
- [00:03:14.610]and how we're going to do things, and creating a community,
- [00:03:17.940]one of the ways that I use to create community
- [00:03:21.720]is have discussions around what do you think
- [00:03:24.870]is appropriate here,
- [00:03:26.640]for us as a community to decide about rules,
- [00:03:29.670]and I let them also define some rules
- [00:03:33.180]about how they want me to be responsive as an instructor.
- [00:03:36.300]So I give them an opportunity.
- [00:03:37.560]No, we are creating rules
- [00:03:41.370]or really community guidelines for all of us,
- [00:03:45.300]not just for you as students, who have to show up,
- [00:03:48.030]but I have...
- [00:03:49.770]If there's something that...
- [00:03:51.000]And really, my message to them is at that point,
- [00:03:53.640]if there's something that you have experienced in college,
- [00:03:57.330]that with your instructors,
- [00:03:59.490]that you think was not helpful to you
- [00:04:02.280]or you think was really disregarding you in any way,
- [00:04:05.430]this is your opportunity to tell me what that is,
- [00:04:07.620]and for me to at least know that this is something
- [00:04:10.080]that causes a reaction.
- [00:04:11.520]I've never had a group of students
- [00:04:13.500]bring up anything unreasonable in there, right?
- [00:04:16.620]Nice. And so it's not like
- [00:04:18.720]this is an opportunity to create unreasonable expectations,
- [00:04:22.320]and I also have a role in that.
- [00:04:24.420]So I can say, "This is unreasonable," right?
- [00:04:26.467]"I cannot respond to you within...
- [00:04:28.770]I will not grade anything within an hour
- [00:04:30.870]of submitting it, regardless of what-"
- [00:04:32.250]It's not gonna happen.
- [00:04:33.167]Just not gonna happen. Not gonna happen.
- [00:04:34.320]But let's have a discussion about what's appropriate.
- [00:04:37.950]So we have it as a community discussion.
- [00:04:40.920]Now, I do know that not everybody feels
- [00:04:45.000]as comfortable talking about this.
- [00:04:46.740]So what we do is we have a community discussion
- [00:04:49.620]and we have a document.
- [00:04:52.290]We actually have multiple documents.
- [00:04:53.940]So I'll let different groups address things
- [00:04:57.270]in different rubrics, and then they cross reference.
- [00:05:00.300]So there's like this whole complex.
- [00:05:02.610]So each group focuses on one of these domains,
- [00:05:05.790]but then everybody else has an opportunity to comment on it.
- [00:05:09.180]I collate it, which gives me a little bit more control,
- [00:05:12.990]Right. About what's reasonable
- [00:05:15.060]and what's not,
- [00:05:16.110]and you often talk about...
- [00:05:17.460]We both talk about the fact that there's a honeymoon period
- [00:05:20.490]at the beginning of the semester,
- [00:05:21.450]and one of the problems- Not the honeymoon period.
- [00:05:22.753]But one of the problems of the honeymoon period
- [00:05:25.650]is that nothing is due yet,
- [00:05:28.740]and everybody's still got an A.
- [00:05:31.410]So, and everybody has shown up to all the classes
- [00:05:35.880]for the most part, and nobody's been late.
- [00:05:38.340]And so suddenly, students often say,
- [00:05:41.527]"Nobody can ever be late
- [00:05:42.990]and nobody can ever miss even a single class"
- [00:05:45.840]And I just look at them and I say,
- [00:05:47.587]"Is this a reasonable way to meet expectations?
- [00:05:52.890]Or do we need at least a little bit of room
- [00:05:55.200]if you're not feeling well?
- [00:05:56.550]Or if something happened in your life
- [00:05:58.200]that you need a little bit of time,
- [00:05:59.610]or something happened to your car
- [00:06:01.590]and you were a little bit late?"
- [00:06:02.880]Maybe there are some, maybe we need to think about it.
- [00:06:05.880]So my problem is often actually saying,
- [00:06:08.977]"We need to have realistic expectations of ourselves."
- [00:06:11.730]Because you don't want to be stuck with this later saying,
- [00:06:15.157]"Well, I didn't know that was going to have an impact."
- [00:06:17.640]Because once we establish it, so they do it in groups,
- [00:06:21.150]they comment on each other group, I create a draft,
- [00:06:24.870]and then I leave it for a week
- [00:06:26.490]for everybody to be able to comment anonymously
- [00:06:29.100]or with their name on it.
- [00:06:31.590]So if there are serious concerns,
- [00:06:34.380]I can take those into consideration,
- [00:06:36.030]and they've had time to think about it.
- [00:06:38.310]Nice. And then it becomes
- [00:06:40.200]the set of expectations,
- [00:06:41.397]and what I love about doing it that way
- [00:06:43.920]is when students invariably have a problem in something,
- [00:06:49.560]I go back and say, "We all agreed to this.
- [00:06:52.020]You wrote this.
- [00:06:53.580]I remember you actually highlighted this,
- [00:06:56.430]and now it's a problem, so this is what we agreed on,
- [00:07:00.120]this is what we're doing."
- [00:07:02.550]And I think that's...
- [00:07:03.870]We were going to talk about this a little bit later,
- [00:07:06.030]but that's the holding everybody to it.
- [00:07:09.330]Because once we agree to it, again,
- [00:07:11.400]I love the idea of agreeing to it as a community.
- [00:07:14.400]We are all beholden to it.
- [00:07:15.990]And if we need...
- [00:07:16.920]If you decide as a community that we need to change this,
- [00:07:20.820]we can have a discussion,
- [00:07:22.290]but until that happens, this is what we set up to do.
- [00:07:26.640]And so that's really important,
- [00:07:28.470]but that clarity is super important.
- [00:07:31.560]It's the first thing I talk to every graduate students
- [00:07:34.890]teaching for the first, or even second or third time,
- [00:07:37.350]is that written document, however it's created,
- [00:07:41.670]even if you created it
- [00:07:43.080]and you're putting out there, more clarity,
- [00:07:45.600]more detail, saves you a world of trouble later.
- [00:07:50.550]Because you can direct everybody to that document
- [00:07:53.850]that is there, there are the rules.
- [00:07:56.760]Well, and there's a certain amount of buy-in, right?
- [00:07:59.670]Yes. 'Cause it's co-constructed.
- [00:08:01.500]Yes. It's co-shared.
- [00:08:03.390]And I take a slightly different approach-
- [00:08:05.100]Yeah. Where
- [00:08:07.920]one of the books that I read this summer
- [00:08:09.990]that really helped me rethink my syllabus
- [00:08:13.050]was William Germano and Kit Nicholls',
- [00:08:16.117]"Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document
- [00:08:18.750]That Changes Everything."
- [00:08:21.090]And one of the things that they talked about was,
- [00:08:24.960]I had never thought about the syllabus in this way,
- [00:08:28.110]but the syllabus as aspirational document.
- [00:08:31.530]Yeah. The syllabus as...
- [00:08:34.170]This is who I want you to be,
- [00:08:36.930]you being students, by the end of this semester.
- [00:08:39.240]And so I really spent a lot of time reorganizing
- [00:08:43.350]and rethinking my syllabus around,
- [00:08:47.430]by the time you leave my course,
- [00:08:49.230]I want you to be able to teach reading
- [00:08:51.420]and writing K-6 to 90% of the kids effectively
- [00:08:55.830]90% of the time. Yeah.
- [00:08:58.020]That's what we're doing,
- [00:08:59.340]and I organized around that idea of,
- [00:09:03.600]this is who I want you to be,
- [00:09:05.700]and really used my syllabus
- [00:09:08.360]to kind of sell that notion of,
- [00:09:11.640]this is who I'm gonna support you in becoming,
- [00:09:14.460]here's the kind of behaviors
- [00:09:15.870]that I think are going to be helpful
- [00:09:18.630]in that, right?
- [00:09:19.470]So one of the things
- [00:09:21.480]that I've really been thinking about a lot is,
- [00:09:25.620]how busy our students are
- [00:09:27.690]and how much time is a...
- [00:09:28.950]We talk a lot about time as a finite thing, but it is.
- [00:09:31.680]Yeah. Right?
- [00:09:33.724]And given the Carnegie hour,
- [00:09:37.320]it's a one to two ratio,
- [00:09:38.670]one hour in class to two hours outside of class,
- [00:09:41.190]and being very clear about,
- [00:09:45.060]I have looked at every single reading that I have assigned,
- [00:09:48.300]I have calculated it-
- [00:09:50.280]Yeah. At a 150 words per minute.
- [00:09:52.290]Because when you encounter new content information,
- [00:09:54.660]and here's my citation- You're slower.
- [00:09:56.130]You're slow. Yeah.
- [00:09:57.570]Right?
- [00:09:58.403]And so very carefully and methodically, like breaking down,
- [00:10:07.140]this is who I want you to be by the time we're done
- [00:10:09.330]and I'm gonna help you get there,
- [00:10:11.070]and here's how we're going to do it.
- [00:10:12.660]What do you need to be doing in order to get there?
- [00:10:15.720]And there's some things
- [00:10:16.553]that are going to be very common for all of us,
- [00:10:19.860]and there's some things that you're gonna need
- [00:10:21.000]to be working on individually, right?
- [00:10:23.490]But the pathway that we're going to go on is very clear,
- [00:10:31.320]and that's new for me, that's slightly different.
- [00:10:33.480]Yeah. But also feels like
- [00:10:34.830]it's a bit more of an alignment
- [00:10:36.840]with like who I am and how I think.
- [00:10:39.480]And what I've learned from you
- [00:10:41.880]to a great degree, but is always on my mind also,
- [00:10:45.810]just not as you talked about,
- [00:10:50.250]exactly how much time.
- [00:10:51.870]So I've never actually calculated
- [00:10:53.520]how much time readings took,
- [00:10:55.410]and you've taught me about, "This is how much it takes."
- [00:10:58.950]It's not that hard once you think about it.
- [00:11:00.930]It's not that hard. It's just...
- [00:11:02.040]I've never thought about it,
- [00:11:03.150]but really, that sends the signal to students.
- [00:11:06.270]I know how long it's gonna take,
- [00:11:08.070]and I'm sending you a signal,
- [00:11:10.560]this is on average what it's gonna take.
- [00:11:12.540]If you read a little bit slower,
- [00:11:13.920]you will need to think about,
- [00:11:15.907]"Okay, I need a little bit more time."
- [00:11:18.540]But we are aware that this requires time out of class
- [00:11:22.170]and we are expecting it and here's where it is
- [00:11:27.000]and this is what it's gonna take.
- [00:11:29.220]And the other message that that sends,
- [00:11:31.740]when we're talking about expectations is,
- [00:11:34.770]I am respecting your time.
- [00:11:36.420]Yeah. I am not gonna ask
- [00:11:38.430]any more of you than I am allowed to,
- [00:11:41.640]based upon this understanding of what a credit hour is.
- [00:11:44.160]When you enrolled, that's the understanding
- [00:11:46.140]that you were coming to,
- [00:11:47.970]I will not take up more time than is required.
- [00:11:53.520]Therefore, because I'm being responsible with your time,
- [00:11:56.760]I want you to be responsible with my time.
- [00:11:59.010]Yeah. And that really helps
- [00:11:59.970]with things like attendance and whatnot,
- [00:12:03.270]because there's this investment
- [00:12:05.640]and transparency around that,
- [00:12:07.710]and it also ensures
- [00:12:10.050]that when they're looking at the syllabus
- [00:12:11.640]and they're going, "Oh my gosh, this is so much,
- [00:12:12.840]this is so much, this is so much,"
- [00:12:13.860]and I'm like, "Check the graphs."
- [00:12:16.650]'Cause literally I have, for every week I have a graph,
- [00:12:20.160]this is where your time's gonna be this week,
- [00:12:21.840]this is how many hours you need in class,
- [00:12:22.983]this is how many hours you need reading,
- [00:12:24.810]this is how many hours you're spending on homework,
- [00:12:28.050]because I've mapped that out.
- [00:12:29.460]Yeah. Right?
- [00:12:31.050]And so it creates some really precise expectations
- [00:12:38.010]for when you're coming to class,
- [00:12:40.590]what are we doing, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:12:44.250]And it really helps students, I think,
- [00:12:48.180]who may not know how to student, you know?
- [00:12:53.490]Figure out how to get some of that done.
- [00:12:55.290]Which sounds weird,
- [00:12:56.250]'cause our students are in their junior year,
- [00:12:58.650]but sometimes they've been able to coast, right?
- [00:13:01.560]Yes, in one way or another.
- [00:13:03.570]And so it feels like-
- [00:13:05.130]Or coast, or hold on for dear life
- [00:13:07.620]and somehow make it. Right,
- [00:13:09.240]and so trying to make those scaffolds
- [00:13:11.550]in order to get to that end identity
- [00:13:14.190]and practices that are in that identity,
- [00:13:16.620]really, really clear.
- [00:13:19.080]And so that syllabus is just one way to do that, right?
- [00:13:24.090]As I'm planning for the semester,
- [00:13:25.770]I'm just trying to be thoughtful
- [00:13:29.370]in terms of, am I asking too much?
- [00:13:33.300]And am I being pragmatic
- [00:13:36.330]in what I'm asking them to do, right?
- [00:13:40.620]And kind of mapping that out.
- [00:13:41.940]What weeks are gonna be more intense?
- [00:13:43.470]Which weeks are gonna be less intense?
- [00:13:45.180]Just trying to make- Definitely.
- [00:13:47.444]Think that stuff through,
- [00:13:48.450]because if I'm being clear about my expectations
- [00:13:54.000]for the work that we're doing,
- [00:13:55.800]students are more able to rise to them.
- [00:13:59.940]Yeah, and I'm thinking about
- [00:14:03.690]our colleague Justin, who was on our episode on AI.
- [00:14:07.200]Yes. And we'll add that in.
- [00:14:09.780]Title card, somewhere.
- [00:14:12.210]But he talked about the fact that,
- [00:14:16.350]especially when there are moments of a lot of anxiety,
- [00:14:20.850]a lot of work, the work is not even across the semester.
- [00:14:24.270]There are moments where there's a lot more that is new,
- [00:14:27.150]and there are moments where we're doing a lot more review
- [00:14:30.360]and maybe even a little bit of a breather.
- [00:14:33.660]It depends on the semesters, you know, around spring break
- [00:14:37.590]or around fall break or around Thanksgiving.
- [00:14:41.202]There are ebbs and flows for every semester,
- [00:14:43.740]and so identifying that to students from the beginning
- [00:14:47.040]and say, "Look.."
- [00:14:49.080]For example, in my class,
- [00:14:50.400]the beginning of semester is going to be a lot of new things
- [00:14:54.120]that you haven't thought about.
- [00:14:54.953]I mean, we teach, for example, phonics
- [00:14:57.090]and other things that students did not need
- [00:15:00.090]and they don't have the language for,
- [00:15:01.500]and that's much harder, and then things even out.
- [00:15:04.530]And so the unevenness, if it happens in your class
- [00:15:09.000]and you try not to have too much of it,
- [00:15:10.620]but you do know that some things are harder than others
- [00:15:14.670]for your students.
- [00:15:16.290]And if you teach the same class a few times,
- [00:15:19.170]you start getting to understand
- [00:15:20.550]where are students struggling the most,
- [00:15:22.380]and by setting the expectations
- [00:15:26.430]that this is going to feel hard,
- [00:15:28.380]but you will make it to the other end.
- [00:15:30.630]Right. We will get
- [00:15:31.680]to that end goal,
- [00:15:33.180]it helps them reduce the anxiety
- [00:15:36.060]and be able to work through that time,
- [00:15:39.030]knowing that there's a path through that we have charted,
- [00:15:42.090]and we know this is hard.
- [00:15:43.380]This is hard for everybody,
- [00:15:44.550]not just you. Learning is hard.
- [00:15:45.660]Yes. Right, like if you
- [00:15:46.800]knew this already- Yes.
- [00:15:48.480]Then you wouldn't need in this class.
- [00:15:50.520]You wouldn't need this, right?
- [00:15:52.500]And I think that kind of ties into kind of our next piece,
- [00:15:57.660]our next question that I would love to ask is,
- [00:16:00.150]first day name games, yes or no?
- [00:16:03.420]What's your opinion?
- [00:16:05.010]Name games first day? No.
- [00:16:06.660]Second day, I do it second day.
- [00:16:08.910]Yes. Oh.
- [00:16:09.743]I don't do them at all.
- [00:16:11.250]Oh, I do. Hot take, I'm not a fan.
- [00:16:13.350]We do a...
- [00:16:14.460]So I open class once a week.
- [00:16:17.370]So I have a class twice a week.
- [00:16:18.510]I open class once a week with an opening circle,
- [00:16:23.430]and that's an opportunity
- [00:16:24.600]to practice names in different ways.
- [00:16:26.730]Not necessarily a game,
- [00:16:28.470]but I use that opening circle to...
- [00:16:31.530]So everybody, your turn is to speak
- [00:16:34.260]and then you say somebody else's name.
- [00:16:35.820]So they have to recognize names and that-
- [00:16:40.650]So you've got like a frame.
- [00:16:42.420]Yes, you definitely have to have a frame,
- [00:16:45.060]and we do some embodiment exercises,
- [00:16:48.900]and so there's an embodied hello that we do,
- [00:16:51.480]and that's an opportunity to do that,
- [00:16:53.550]but it's just a way to teach 'em another way to connect,
- [00:16:59.490]but also to model ways for them to work with our kids.
- [00:17:02.700]And so the one advantage we have in teacher education is,
- [00:17:05.730]everything we do is also modeling.
- [00:17:07.830]I'll always go back to it.
- [00:17:09.420]So we have different strategies around that,
- [00:17:11.760]and you can learn the name of everybody.
- [00:17:15.780]I teach in the elementary education program,
- [00:17:17.520]but actually come from secondary
- [00:17:18.930]where you have rotating students.
- [00:17:21.000]So that trick is a little bit harder
- [00:17:24.540]because if you've got the same group of 20
- [00:17:26.940]or two groups of 20 students throughout the day,
- [00:17:29.820]you very quickly learn names,
- [00:17:31.080]and they now learn others.
- [00:17:33.420]If you've got students flowing in and out,
- [00:17:35.400]it's a little bit different, so.
- [00:17:36.777]And the frequency's important, right?
- [00:17:38.370]Yes. Like how-
- [00:17:39.630]Absolutely. But all of this is to say,
- [00:17:42.960]knowing students' names are an essential part
- [00:17:46.230]and it's just an early bit that you can do.
- [00:17:49.770]I don't do name games, I literally launch in day one.
- [00:17:54.420]Yeah. Like-
- [00:17:55.253]I mean content.
- [00:17:56.130]We start talking about subject, predicate, object
- [00:17:59.070]like day one.
- [00:18:01.320]And so the....
- [00:18:03.330]And again, part of that is,
- [00:18:05.820]I'm fortunate enough to teach in a cohort.
- [00:18:07.800]They already know each other.
- [00:18:08.880]So if I'm thinking about the function of that activity,
- [00:18:11.880]it's more for me- Yeah.
- [00:18:13.530]Than anything else,
- [00:18:14.363]and I'm not going to waste a half hour, 45 minutes
- [00:18:17.880]on something just for me.
- [00:18:18.780]Instead, I have them wear name tags
- [00:18:21.240]for about four-ish weeks.
- [00:18:23.910]And I explicitly tell them like, this first four weeks,
- [00:18:27.660]it's gonna be really awkward,
- [00:18:28.950]'cause I'm gonna be like, "Guy, what do you think?"
- [00:18:33.630]And I'm gonna walk around the room
- [00:18:34.830]and be like, naming people off.
- [00:18:36.875]Yes. But that's also,
- [00:18:38.700]when you're talking about the modeling,
- [00:18:39.870]like that's me learning who they...
- [00:18:43.110]What their names are and how that's functioning.
- [00:18:45.360]And then they, you know, think they're gonna be clever,
- [00:18:48.870]and change clothes and sit at different tables,
- [00:18:52.080]and in different combinations, but that's fine.
- [00:18:54.450]That's just additional practice for me
- [00:18:57.660]to get those things down.
- [00:19:00.960]But it's...
- [00:19:03.870]Yes, for four weeks I am awkward.
- [00:19:05.970]And even after the four weeks,
- [00:19:08.190]there's a chance that I'm gonna slip up.
- [00:19:09.780]Yeah. But after four weeks,
- [00:19:11.790]I'm very clear with them about like,
- [00:19:14.430]if I don't know you,
- [00:19:15.477]if I identify you by the wrong name, you tell me.
- [00:19:19.020]Yes, absolutely. Because that's
- [00:19:20.550]an opportunity to get some feedback,
- [00:19:22.800]and it's not on purpose.
- [00:19:25.410]I've given myself four weeks,
- [00:19:27.000]I'm gonna slip up
- [00:19:28.170]as the scaffolds are ripped from me, right?
- [00:19:31.770]Yeah.
- [00:19:32.940]I haven't slipped up in a very long time,
- [00:19:35.040]but I have a slightly larger group this year.
- [00:19:38.340]So we'll see how it goes.
- [00:19:39.750]It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine.
- [00:19:41.400]It is fine. It's gonna be fine.
- [00:19:43.500]So talk to me about the structure within the class,
- [00:19:46.650]because expectations are in the syllabus and informal rules,
- [00:19:49.890]but there are expectations
- [00:19:51.360]that are not part of that necessarily, but are still there.
- [00:19:53.977]So how do you create community expectations for different-
- [00:19:58.170]So I rely...
- [00:20:00.360]Huge surprise, I rely a lot on routines.
- [00:20:03.570]Yes. Like we engage
- [00:20:05.580]in routines,
- [00:20:07.350]partially because again, the modeling.
- [00:20:10.770]Yeah. I think about
- [00:20:11.670]instructional routines as kind of teacher Tupperware.
- [00:20:14.580]These are things, lists of...
- [00:20:21.420]Vygotsky has this notion of de-fossilization, right?
- [00:20:23.440]Yeah. Like there are things
- [00:20:24.900]that we do so naturally,
- [00:20:27.210]but in order to be able to break them down,
- [00:20:29.190]to make them comprehensible to someone else,
- [00:20:31.200]we have to de-fossilize them.
- [00:20:33.120]And so when I'm thinking about my teaching,
- [00:20:36.360]instructional routines are one of those ways,
- [00:20:38.130]it's like a recipe that I can share
- [00:20:40.290]and make communicable to students.
- [00:20:42.810]So like, we always start with
- [00:20:46.230]kind of a kooky conventions piece,
- [00:20:48.630]because I need them to know certain things about grammar.
- [00:20:51.870]So we always start with kind of a light, you know,
- [00:20:56.250]picking a line from children's literature,
- [00:20:59.040]based upon Jeff Power's notion of patterns of power,
- [00:21:02.040]we compare it, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:21:04.050]And then we move into kind of a lecturer-lecturee
- [00:21:09.840]interactive learning piece,
- [00:21:12.720]and then we briskly move through those things.
- [00:21:16.050]There's some notion of,
- [00:21:18.900]I provide guided notes,
- [00:21:20.250]'cause I want to take that executive functioning load down,
- [00:21:22.770]so that they can play with ideas and concepts.
- [00:21:25.650]Then there's an application activity,
- [00:21:27.870]and they have to be, again,
- [00:21:31.170]as we're moving toward that kind of identity at the end,
- [00:21:35.520]and identities are composed of practices,
- [00:21:38.430]not statements, right?
- [00:21:40.500]As we're moving through,
- [00:21:42.270]okay, here's how these activities,
- [00:21:44.700]here's how this knowledge is building up to that.
- [00:21:47.820]So I rely on a pretty...
- [00:21:52.470]Like my class is organized pretty similarly
- [00:21:55.830]every single time we meet,
- [00:21:58.230]and I shift up
- [00:22:00.000]and change kind of what's happening
- [00:22:01.980]inside of those routines.
- [00:22:04.380]So it doesn't get necessarily boring,
- [00:22:08.340]but students know what to expect.
- [00:22:09.930]Students know what kind of learning,
- [00:22:13.050]and what's expected of them in those moments.
- [00:22:15.600]And so that's one of the ways that I hope
- [00:22:19.500]that I'm modeling for them,
- [00:22:20.940]how these instructional routines
- [00:22:22.110]that I'm also teaching them- Yeah.
- [00:22:24.330]Can work and be leveraged.
- [00:22:26.100]And so the two layers here
- [00:22:28.890]are really that having instructional routines
- [00:22:34.470]and an agreement about what they are, makes it hard...
- [00:22:37.560]It makes it, sorry, easy for you as an instructor
- [00:22:40.530]to keep doing them.
- [00:22:41.580]Because now you can focus on content
- [00:22:43.440]as their agreement about,
- [00:22:45.600]how do we go about doing certain things,
- [00:22:48.240]is understood by everybody in the community, but also by us.
- [00:22:51.270]So we don't have to spend time
- [00:22:52.740]on reinventing the class every time we go into it
- [00:22:57.180]and spending our time in totally the wrong way.
- [00:23:00.540]And the second piece is,
- [00:23:02.730]it's easier for students because they know what to expect.
- [00:23:05.550]Right. And they know what's coming
- [00:23:07.080]and they know when we do this kind of activity,
- [00:23:10.230]what are the outcomes that are expected
- [00:23:12.450]and what kind of directions do you need?
- [00:23:14.850]And that's hard, especially early on.
- [00:23:17.070]I see instructors sometimes,
- [00:23:19.740]midway after giving an assignment to students
- [00:23:23.130]and they're working in groups.
- [00:23:24.030]Suddenly they remember three more things
- [00:23:26.070]that they need to say.
- [00:23:27.300]That is a really...
- [00:23:29.370]I mean, it happens
- [00:23:31.140]and then you stop everything and you give more directions,
- [00:23:34.500]and some people listen and some people don't.
- [00:23:36.300]So you really want to establish these routines.
- [00:23:38.790]I think about this as a layered cake.
- [00:23:41.730]Like there are layers in what I do every time.
- [00:23:45.120]And if you cut through it,
- [00:23:46.530]you will see the same pattern almost every time.
- [00:23:49.080]And if it isn't, I will let them know,
- [00:23:51.150]today we will skip this, because we're doing more of this.
- [00:23:53.880]Right. But it is a layered cake
- [00:23:56.160]every time,
- [00:23:57.180]with the breaks being the frosting in the middle.
- [00:24:00.390]Yeah.
- [00:24:01.223]Well, and I think, again,
- [00:24:03.570]going back to thinking about my role as an instructor
- [00:24:08.727]and you thinking about your role as an instructor,
- [00:24:11.880]part of the goal is to make those learning experiences
- [00:24:16.650]as accessible as possible.
- [00:24:18.554]Yeah.
- [00:24:19.530]And reduce that executive functioning load
- [00:24:25.560]where you're like, "What are we doing in this?"
- [00:24:27.960]Like the purpose is not the activity.
- [00:24:29.260]Yeah. The purpose is the content
- [00:24:31.020]within the activity.
- [00:24:33.090]And when you...
- [00:24:36.930]Again, 24 hours in the day.
- [00:24:38.970]Yeah. If you have to keep
- [00:24:40.650]redesigning new activities every single week,
- [00:24:44.160]like who has time for that?
- [00:24:45.900]I don't.
- [00:24:46.733]Nobody does. Right?
- [00:24:47.840]At the beginning of the semester,
- [00:24:49.140]you might fool yourself to think that you can.
- [00:24:51.390]Right, no you can't. You can't.
- [00:24:52.560]Telling you now. You can't.
- [00:24:54.690]So find those things that are durable.
- [00:24:57.120]Yeah. Find those things
- [00:24:58.440]that are...
- [00:24:59.460]And by durable, I mean you can use them
- [00:25:03.240]to address a wide variety of content
- [00:25:06.450]and you can elevate them.
- [00:25:08.790]But if you need to, you can also scale them down.
- [00:25:11.880]If that's not where students are,
- [00:25:12.900]you can scale them down and meet them where they're at.
- [00:25:15.300]And that allows...
- [00:25:19.200]That structure really takes off the pressure
- [00:25:24.960]of how is this activity working,
- [00:25:28.080]versus, okay, what am I trying to learn
- [00:25:32.610]through this activity?
- [00:25:35.010]And how does that relate to the end goal
- [00:25:37.200]of where I need to be when I finish this class in December?
- [00:25:40.290]And one of the things
- [00:25:42.270]that I think is very much a K-12 behavior,
- [00:25:45.090]but I find it incredibly effective anywhere I go,
- [00:25:48.030]whether it's creating a workshop
- [00:25:49.980]or teaching a class in higher education
- [00:25:53.220]or teacher education for that matter is,
- [00:25:55.410]if students know what they're expected to do
- [00:25:57.390]when they walk into the class,
- [00:25:59.580]then they're not sitting waiting on you
- [00:26:01.770]as the instructor to launch into something,
- [00:26:05.040]and then they'll go.
- [00:26:06.060]They know, we go in and here are the three things
- [00:26:09.180]we're going to do.
- [00:26:10.260]And in my classroom, for example,
- [00:26:11.910]there are materials they need to come out and they help.
- [00:26:14.550]So if you are showing up
- [00:26:16.080]and there's time still until the beginning of class,
- [00:26:19.980]you'll help take the materials out.
- [00:26:21.780]And then you go to your journal
- [00:26:24.870]and you start journaling.
- [00:26:25.950]And so there's something happening immediately,
- [00:26:29.130]and you are already engaged.
- [00:26:30.900]So I'm not trying
- [00:26:32.130]to get everybody engaged when the class starts.
- [00:26:35.430]Well, and that's the other nice thing
- [00:26:36.510]about those kinds of routines,
- [00:26:37.650]is they do help set up students
- [00:26:40.860]to understand what kinds of engagement are expected.
- [00:26:43.110]Yeah. Right?
- [00:26:44.940]So another thing that I'm playing with this year
- [00:26:46.920]in class is,
- [00:26:48.780]partially as a model,
- [00:26:49.770]partially as a reflection on my own teaching,
- [00:26:53.130]equity sticks, which is literally-
- [00:26:56.040]Yeah. This age old
- [00:26:58.890]classroom tool- Yes, yes.
- [00:27:00.480]Where you have everyone's name on a stick
- [00:27:03.270]and when you have a question, you pull a stick,
- [00:27:05.970]they respond, you put it in the other...
- [00:27:07.770]I think I bought really cheap plastic cups from Target.
- [00:27:10.980]I got one that's "Thinking on Deck,"
- [00:27:12.720]one that's "Brilliance Shared," and I just move it on over,
- [00:27:16.200]and part of that is coming from,
- [00:27:18.870]one, there was a lot of bias in my previous-
- [00:27:22.380]Yeah. Question to answer thing
- [00:27:25.650]in class,
- [00:27:26.520]and then two, some of the learning research around,
- [00:27:30.930]by allowing some of my students to background themselves,
- [00:27:33.990]'cause they would never volunteer.
- [00:27:35.880]Yeah. That actually...
- [00:27:37.470]That they need some of that tension
- [00:27:39.660]in order to- To stay engaged, yeah.
- [00:27:41.790]To one, stay engaged
- [00:27:43.410]and two, that is for learning, right?
- [00:27:47.697]And that's an impetus for learning.
- [00:27:49.620]But it's also,
- [00:27:52.017]and I think I think I was okay with this
- [00:27:53.520]before all of this,
- [00:27:54.570]but if they answer inaccurately
- [00:27:59.310]or it's off, how to redirect that.
- [00:28:01.691]Yeah.
- [00:28:02.524]And probably one of the like nicest things
- [00:28:05.523]that students ever said about my teaching was,
- [00:28:09.097]"We read about the scaffolds
- [00:28:10.470]that you're using in this class."
- [00:28:13.350]Yeah. Like, "You're actually
- [00:28:14.430]doing it." Yeah.
- [00:28:15.810]And, "I don't feel stupid.
- [00:28:18.690]Like you don't make me feel stupid."
- [00:28:20.130]Yes, and that's really important,
- [00:28:22.050]when you're reacting to students.
- [00:28:23.280]Which is really important, right?
- [00:28:24.480]Like I can see where you're going,
- [00:28:26.197]"Oh, that's your thinking.
- [00:28:29.310]Let me tweak it a little bit here.
- [00:28:30.930]I wanna redirect you here."
- [00:28:33.900]And so that's really helped with engagement.
- [00:28:37.410]Like the notion that if you make a mistake,
- [00:28:43.050]I'm not going to like-
- [00:28:45.690]Yeah, embarrass you publicly
- [00:28:48.810]or make you feel small.
- [00:28:50.400]That doesn't serve my purpose.
- [00:28:51.690]Yes.
- [00:28:52.523]That doesn't serve my purpose.
- [00:28:54.090]Yeah. So-
- [00:28:54.957]The other structure that I use,
- [00:28:57.300]we talked about an activity structure and expectations.
- [00:29:00.630]The other structure that I use is a knowledge structure.
- [00:29:04.234]So I have the core concept in the domain
- [00:29:09.300]in a matrix,
- [00:29:10.650]that I throw almost every time,
- [00:29:14.820]on the board or on the PowerPoint or whatever we are using,
- [00:29:19.650]and so it always anchors back to that format.
- [00:29:24.060]It's always sitting somewhere in everybody's knowledge,
- [00:29:27.090]whether it's in literacy, we've got the literacy rope
- [00:29:29.700]or whatever we are using.
- [00:29:31.350]But as a way to always tie it to that goal of,
- [00:29:35.130]where do I want you to be at the end?
- [00:29:37.290]And reminding of this verbiage
- [00:29:39.990]and basically going back to it in the beginning enough,
- [00:29:43.890]that everybody can sing that and feel that that is firm.
- [00:29:48.390]And partially,
- [00:29:49.680]that's because I think it's critically important
- [00:29:51.990]from a learning perspective.
- [00:29:53.130]Partially because as a learner,
- [00:29:55.440]there were quite a few times in my life
- [00:29:57.270]that nobody has created that anchor,
- [00:29:59.430]and it literally took me months after the class was over
- [00:30:02.280]to go, "Oh, that's what they were doing!"
- [00:30:05.310]There's no reason for that to be implicit.
- [00:30:07.080]Make it explicit.
- [00:30:08.040]Make it a core part of your instruction
- [00:30:10.020]so everybody's there.
- [00:30:11.460]It makes everything better.
- [00:30:12.720]So there's a structure to content as well,
- [00:30:15.330]and exposing that structure to students,
- [00:30:18.060]help again, reduce, set expectations.
- [00:30:21.360]Here's the language you need to use,
- [00:30:23.370]here are the concepts, there are the core concepts,
- [00:30:26.100]but I'm giving them to you.
- [00:30:27.180]There's not that sense of a hidden thing, hidden curriculum
- [00:30:30.540]that I expect you to know without telling you what it is.
- [00:30:32.880]Right, yeah.
- [00:30:33.713]No, in that I'm not trying to trick you.
- [00:30:35.580]Yes. Right?
- [00:30:36.413]Like, I am expecting you
- [00:30:37.830]to have read these things,
- [00:30:39.330]to know about these things from these readings,
- [00:30:41.100]and then I'm gonna augment them in class
- [00:30:43.080]and I'm gonna be very clear about that.
- [00:30:46.350]But also thinking about from a learning standpoint.
- [00:30:51.300]And Anita Archer has been fairly influential
- [00:30:57.870]in helping me think through some things
- [00:30:59.880]with her explicit instruction kind of stuff.
- [00:31:02.580]And one of the things that I find most helpful,
- [00:31:05.187]and this is backed up by learning theory, is,
- [00:31:09.450]I call it repackaging.
- [00:31:11.370]So at the end of the class period, I'll repackage-
- [00:31:16.380]Yeah. For students.
- [00:31:17.213]Like, this is what we did today.
- [00:31:18.570]Yes. You did this, you did this,
- [00:31:21.270]you did this, you did this.
- [00:31:22.560]Here are the functions, this is how this leads us up.
- [00:31:26.310]I would like to...
- [00:31:28.110]Note to Nick, Fall 2025,
- [00:31:31.080]have a visual that I can like leverage in my PowerPoint
- [00:31:34.980]that does that a little bit more graphically,
- [00:31:37.710]and consistently across time, without...
- [00:31:41.970]I'll probably still repackage at the end of every class,
- [00:31:45.060]but that's been really helpful, right?
- [00:31:47.460]So I'll repackage in class,
- [00:31:48.660]but I'll also send out kind of a mini digest
- [00:31:50.880]or a weekly digest,
- [00:31:51.930]where I do somewhat of the same thing.
- [00:31:54.510]And that's a structure you use better than me,
- [00:31:57.390]depending on the class, is part of your structure,
- [00:32:01.290]as I've learned, is an end of the week repackaging.
- [00:32:05.070]This is what we did this week,
- [00:32:06.330]here's an anticipation for next week.
- [00:32:08.100]I try to do that in class verbally,
- [00:32:11.160]but there is a tremendous advantage
- [00:32:12.990]to doing it after class,
- [00:32:14.250]when you can reflect
- [00:32:15.660]and also potentially get some feedback
- [00:32:18.210]from students and all of that,
- [00:32:19.440]and then repackage and think forward.
- [00:32:22.530]I think I'm less organized and that's why it's hard for me,
- [00:32:27.030]but that's just the way it is.
- [00:32:28.770]So we've talked about this a few times.
- [00:32:32.880]Nick is considerably more organized
- [00:32:34.680]and structured than I am.
- [00:32:35.850]But I still think that for the sake of students,
- [00:32:38.880]this structure is important.
- [00:32:40.050]So whether it is important to you personally
- [00:32:42.900]or not, that does not matter.
- [00:32:44.160]The important thing is, what does it do for students?
- [00:32:46.770]Well, and I think the important thing
- [00:32:47.700]about any structure is...
- [00:32:49.650]Or system. Yeah.
- [00:32:50.610]Regardless of what it is,
- [00:32:51.540]it needs to be able to accommodate anomalies.
- [00:32:54.030]It needs to be flexible,
- [00:32:56.100]it needs to be able to withstand some duress, right?
- [00:33:02.700]Because ultimately, something's gonna go awry, right?
- [00:33:06.240]Like something's gonna explode.
- [00:33:08.130]Yeah. Something's gonna happen,
- [00:33:11.460]something's not gonna go quite right.
- [00:33:12.990]Like there's always something that's going to happen.
- [00:33:17.790]And a good structure
- [00:33:20.130]is going to allow you to respond to those things
- [00:33:23.790]and to kind of rebuild.
- [00:33:28.470]Yes.
- [00:33:29.310]Re-solidify what that is.
- [00:33:34.080]But like there are certain things
- [00:33:36.270]that you can do when stuff goes awry, right?
- [00:33:39.670]Yeah. So what do you do
- [00:33:41.250]when your class goes awry?
- [00:33:42.330]Well, I think that there are different things
- [00:33:46.020]that can go awry.
- [00:33:46.920]So I talked a little bit about the fact
- [00:33:49.200]that once a week I do an opening circle,
- [00:33:51.510]and opening circle is a golden time,
- [00:33:53.340]because I take about 15 to 20 minutes.
- [00:33:55.290]You try not to make it take over your class
- [00:33:57.660]because then nothing else happens.
- [00:34:00.510]But that's an opportunity,
- [00:34:03.690]especially when things are happening outside the class,
- [00:34:06.330]but impact the class.
- [00:34:07.470]So for example,
- [00:34:09.540]after the Uvalde shooting in the school,
- [00:34:14.250]that's something that impacts future teachers.
- [00:34:16.260]They're thinking about this,
- [00:34:17.280]and if they're not, I need them to think about this.
- [00:34:19.620]And so knowing that I have that space and time
- [00:34:23.640]allowed me to bring it, it's a structure.
- [00:34:26.070]So talking about my layer cake,
- [00:34:27.990]it's a layer that already exists,
- [00:34:29.760]but it is flexible with content.
- [00:34:33.330]So I can put something else in there
- [00:34:35.940]and make that the point of discussion.
- [00:34:38.040]So we sat...
- [00:34:38.940]That morning, the conversation was a little bit longer
- [00:34:41.790]and people needed some time to work through it,
- [00:34:44.550]to process, to think about what they want to say.
- [00:34:46.770]But it was a golden opportunity.
- [00:34:48.690]So that's one way for me to do this.
- [00:34:51.390]When it's external events
- [00:34:53.130]and it's not part of something happened with content,
- [00:34:56.130]but if something happens with content,
- [00:34:57.990]I just, either squish a layer,
- [00:35:02.340]or just move a layer to next week
- [00:35:03.900]and replace it with...
- [00:35:05.107]"Here's a better way to do this activity."
- [00:35:07.530]That did not go well.
- [00:35:08.940]So we practice it.
- [00:35:10.500]I thought it was going one way, it didn't,
- [00:35:12.930]here it is again.
- [00:35:14.310]And I actually also structure a priority.
- [00:35:18.060]I structure my semester
- [00:35:19.380]with a few days when there's a little bit...
- [00:35:23.076]There's room to review whatever topics we did,
- [00:35:28.620]and I'm not sure it's fully there,
- [00:35:30.450]and that the feedback from assessment says
- [00:35:33.870]too many students don't understand this.
- [00:35:36.300]So this is not just individually sending materials,
- [00:35:38.760]but it's actually we need to revisit.
- [00:35:40.620]So I structure that into the semester,
- [00:35:44.160]which is painful,
- [00:35:45.030]because we always have such a full semester.
- [00:35:47.790]Right. But I find, you know,
- [00:35:50.160]if I do that, it releases the tension of,
- [00:35:53.190]I'm gonna run over and give a really bad example
- [00:35:55.650]by not approaching something that didn't go well.
- [00:35:59.461]Yeah. What do you do?
- [00:36:00.690]So I've done a couple of different things.
- [00:36:04.710]One of the things that I do around like content knowledge,
- [00:36:07.590]if they're not getting something on that first day,
- [00:36:10.890]I've really been thinking about learning objectives in bands
- [00:36:15.840]and thinking about what I need students to do
- [00:36:22.733]before we meet in class,
- [00:36:23.610]and what I want them to do after we have class.
- [00:36:26.190]So I think a really good example would be
- [00:36:28.680]what we're doing with phonemic awareness right now,
- [00:36:31.200]where phonemic awareness
- [00:36:32.790]and phonological awareness,
- [00:36:33.930]that distinction's really hard for students.
- [00:36:36.660]It's really hard
- [00:36:37.650]when you're getting into the units of what's happening.
- [00:36:41.520]So students have actually been engaged in readings
- [00:36:45.480]about phonemic awareness for about a week now,
- [00:36:48.540]and yesterday was the first day that we covered in class.
- [00:36:51.300]And then there's activities that are gonna happen afterward
- [00:36:55.530]that are gonna keep pulling-
- [00:36:57.330]Yes. At that.
- [00:36:58.163]So really thinking about,
- [00:37:00.540]it's that notion of interleaving, right?
- [00:37:02.220]Like we're not just blocking something in-
- [00:37:04.920]Yeah.
- [00:37:05.753]We're having chances to practice it across time.
- [00:37:09.660]Giving that opportunity to forget a little bit,
- [00:37:12.300]and that forgetting is gonna help you
- [00:37:14.730]pull it out of that short-term memory
- [00:37:16.980]and pull it into long-term memory.
- [00:37:19.320]So that conceptual scaffolding has been helpful.
- [00:37:23.940]I've also been doing a lot of,
- [00:37:27.990]in every class I kind of have a...
- [00:37:30.330]I don't know, five to 10 ish minute.
- [00:37:33.150]Like, so there's exams in my courses,
- [00:37:35.640]which is a shift for a lot of our students.
- [00:37:38.280]Yeah. They're not used
- [00:37:39.750]to having exams,
- [00:37:43.050]which is, you know, interesting.
- [00:37:47.550]And that freaks a lot of them out
- [00:37:50.070]because it requires particular kinds of learning.
- [00:37:53.400]And so being very clear about,
- [00:37:59.190]I'm gonna support you in this,
- [00:38:00.330]here's the tools that I've given you,
- [00:38:01.710]so they'll have things like guided notes,
- [00:38:03.540]again, that help them focus in on concepts
- [00:38:05.760]as they're in lectures.
- [00:38:07.200]But also like, here's things that
- [00:38:10.710]we know as researchers,
- [00:38:12.720]work when you're trying to move things
- [00:38:15.030]into long-term memory,
- [00:38:16.200]'cause I want you to be able to do this
- [00:38:18.180]after you leave my class, right?
- [00:38:19.890]Like, how do I support you
- [00:38:21.900]in getting that stuff in that big old brain of yours.
- [00:38:25.350]And so things like, how to build a flashcard deck, right?
- [00:38:30.090]Like there's studies around that
- [00:38:32.910]and what makes a more effective flashcard deck
- [00:38:35.400]and what doesn't?
- [00:38:37.200]Things like, how to rework your notes.
- [00:38:41.100]What makes more sense, what doesn't,
- [00:38:43.920]a big like turning point in class was,
- [00:38:48.900]read first, then highlight.
- [00:38:51.900]Yeah. And they're like,
- [00:38:52.807]"Oh my gosh, I just highlight everything,
- [00:38:57.630]because I don't know what's important."
- [00:38:59.010]I'm like, "That's what I just said!" Right?
- [00:39:03.071]And so things like that-
- [00:39:04.650]Yeah. Where I've kind of
- [00:39:06.720]proactively been talking about,
- [00:39:09.990]these are the kinds of learning behaviors
- [00:39:11.610]that I want you to work on with me,
- [00:39:15.210]have been really, really helpful in terms of keeping things.
- [00:39:20.130]We'll see how the rest of the semester goes.
- [00:39:21.900]I started this kind of last fall
- [00:39:23.610]and it worked out pretty well.
- [00:39:25.020]Yeah. Because I know
- [00:39:29.040]that they have some strategies
- [00:39:31.500]that I can point them back to.
- [00:39:33.300]Yeah. In order
- [00:39:34.133]to make that happen.
- [00:39:35.070]So I leave myself kind of like,
- [00:39:37.110]when things go awry, I leave myself breadcrumbs.
- [00:39:40.020]I leave myself islands that I can go back to,
- [00:39:42.270]that help me...
- [00:39:44.677]"Oh, this doesn't seem to..."
- [00:39:47.550]You don't seem to understand phonemic awareness right now,
- [00:39:50.430]we've got two or three more instances
- [00:39:53.490]where we're gonna really focus on it,
- [00:39:55.500]and I already know that, because I've planned that out.
- [00:39:58.110]Yeah. So I can look at that.
- [00:40:01.020]If performance on a quiz
- [00:40:02.370]or performance on an exam doesn't go particularly well,
- [00:40:05.610]tell me about how you're studying.
- [00:40:07.770]What are you doing
- [00:40:10.230]to move that information from short-term to long-term?
- [00:40:13.830]And I'm also being very clear about,
- [00:40:15.113]this is what you need to have memorized.
- [00:40:17.010]This is what you need to apply.
- [00:40:18.630]Yeah. And be able to do that.
- [00:40:21.090]Use the quizzes, et cetera, as like supports for that.
- [00:40:26.700]Also, I just try to be...
- [00:40:30.360]Huge surprise, I try to be funny,
- [00:40:32.010]which is something I fail at quite often,
- [00:40:35.460]because my- That's what
- [00:40:36.690]makes it funny is that, I fail.
- [00:40:38.820]I have never felt so old. (Guy laughs)
- [00:40:43.290]This year, there's something about this year
- [00:40:45.480]that just makes me feel incredibly old.
- [00:40:50.280]I don't know half of the people.
- [00:40:53.160]Yeah. Half the singers-
- [00:40:55.500]Oh yes. That my students
- [00:40:56.460]are listening to.
- [00:40:57.540]Yes.
- [00:40:58.373]They'll mention titles of TV shows
- [00:41:01.650]and I'm like, "Is that the latest Colleen Hoover?"
- [00:41:03.210]And they're like, "No."
- [00:41:06.150]And they're like, "Colleen Hoover was so two years ago."
- [00:41:08.610]I don't know if she was or not.
- [00:41:09.690]I'm just proud that I knew who Colleen Hoover was, right?
- [00:41:13.500]So there is that kind of bumbling...
- [00:41:15.870]I've been leaning into that this year,
- [00:41:18.000]but like trying to like,
- [00:41:20.857]"Look friends, I know it's week two,
- [00:41:25.410]but I'm noticing some things on our quiz."
- [00:41:28.500]Yes. "Here's some of the things
- [00:41:32.190]that are tripping you up."
- [00:41:33.210]So, and then I think that,
- [00:41:35.850]I wanna pick up on two things you said.
- [00:41:37.680]One is, as an instructor,
- [00:41:39.600]you've gotta find a way
- [00:41:41.550]to get that learning feedback from students,
- [00:41:45.240]whether it is through quizzes, through tests,
- [00:41:47.520]through assignments,
- [00:41:48.510]through whatever it is,
- [00:41:49.800]to understand where they're at.
- [00:41:51.480]And there are lots of ways to do that.
- [00:41:53.430]I do a lot less tests and quizzes,
- [00:41:55.710]but I do a lot more other kinds of feedbacks.
- [00:41:58.740]As long as you have data about what's happening,
- [00:42:02.820]you have a concrete way to know,
- [00:42:05.377]"Oh, this is a piece I need to reinforce
- [00:42:07.950]next time we talk about it."
- [00:42:09.390]The thing I use is,
- [00:42:10.740]after I get the data,
- [00:42:12.060]is that structure I talked about.
- [00:42:13.920]So for example, you know,
- [00:42:15.180]the big ideas in reading for example, right?
- [00:42:17.880]And I can go back to them every time,
- [00:42:19.800]because we have this in the corner and we point to it
- [00:42:22.530]and it becomes more and more their responsibility
- [00:42:25.170]and less and less mine.
- [00:42:26.640]But it's an opportunity to reconnect to more ideas
- [00:42:30.120]and kind of, almost subversively,
- [00:42:32.460]adding a layer of knowledge to it,
- [00:42:36.660]or just shoring it up one more time
- [00:42:39.690]and not saying,
- [00:42:40.523]"You learned this at the beginning of the semester.
- [00:42:42.930]I've already forgotten it.
- [00:42:44.310]You definitely have forgotten it."
- [00:42:45.660]No, we- Oh yeah.
- [00:42:46.830]We keep hitting it all semester long.
- [00:42:49.080]It goes throughout the entire semester,
- [00:42:52.650]like you were gonna continue to draw on this
- [00:42:55.140]throughout the entire semester.
- [00:42:57.360]And so that's part of what led me to last summer
- [00:43:00.150]that like, how do I actually get that to happen?
- [00:43:03.120]Yes.
- [00:43:04.110]You've got to be intentional about it.
- [00:43:05.850]It's not gonna happen by magic.
- [00:43:07.800]No.
- [00:43:08.633]And it takes a lot of planning.
- [00:43:09.720]Like this is my second cycle of like,
- [00:43:11.850]trying to be as planful as possible,
- [00:43:14.850]and it's a lot of work.
- [00:43:17.940]It is work. A lot of work.
- [00:43:18.900]So start building it.
- [00:43:21.060]If you are teaching for the first few times,
- [00:43:22.980]just try to identify.
- [00:43:24.840]And again, and I always go back to this,
- [00:43:27.270]if you have somebody else teaching that, talk to them,
- [00:43:29.940]even if they're just as inexperienced as you are,
- [00:43:32.580]just that conversation
- [00:43:33.960]and clarification would help,
- [00:43:35.340]if you have a mentor in your teaching,
- [00:43:37.200]I'm mentoring a few graduate students right now.
- [00:43:39.600]It's a golden opportunity to ask questions,
- [00:43:42.900]to inquire, to try things
- [00:43:46.080]and talk about them and find your path through it,
- [00:43:50.580]without making it too much work.
- [00:43:52.710]I mean, you were hearing...
- [00:43:53.580]Both of us have been teaching
- [00:43:54.960]what we've been teaching for a long time.
- [00:43:56.730]20 years.
- [00:43:57.600]And that means we've taught it many, many times
- [00:44:00.780]and we're still working on it.
- [00:44:02.370]So you don't have to have it all figured out
- [00:44:05.070]and perfect in your first semester or second.
- [00:44:07.350]We're kind of like America,
- [00:44:08.400]moving towards a more perfect union, right?
- [00:44:10.830]It's like, it's not that we are,
- [00:44:12.060]it's that we're working toward it.
- [00:44:13.140]We're in a constant state
- [00:44:14.970]of becoming. Of becoming.
- [00:44:16.620]Whoa, that was weird.
- [00:44:21.510]But yeah, like there is...
- [00:44:24.330]So we've talked a lot about what happens
- [00:44:27.720]if our students don't understand things conceptually,
- [00:44:30.900]or when it comes to behaviors,
- [00:44:34.110]that's a little bit different
- [00:44:35.940]and that might require some difficult conversations.
- [00:44:38.490]Yes. Which...
- [00:44:40.080]Episode forthcoming.
- [00:44:41.970]Yes. Where you have to, you know,
- [00:44:46.980]really address, once you've established a pattern,
- [00:44:50.520]you have to address what's happening there.
- [00:44:51.520]Yeah. And so that's a
- [00:44:53.460]kind of a bigger topic on its own.
- [00:44:54.810]So we're gonna dedicate, you know,
- [00:44:56.550]a separate podcast to that.
- [00:44:57.930]So that should be the one that comes out after.
- [00:45:01.320]All right, and I'm going to run to the store
- [00:45:03.480]and get some equity sticks and cups.
- [00:45:06.060]I mean, you know, it's been...
- [00:45:07.740]It's not- No, I like it.
- [00:45:09.990]It feels...
- [00:45:12.660]I had never heard them phrased as equity sticks before.
- [00:45:15.030]And so as I'm reading through
- [00:45:16.590]some of the literature this summer,
- [00:45:17.670]I was like, "Oh, yeah.
- [00:45:21.360]I see what I...
- [00:45:23.349]Okay." And again,
- [00:45:24.420]the advantage, they feel school-ish,
- [00:45:26.910]but the advantage there is,
- [00:45:29.520]they are, again,
- [00:45:31.170]reducing the cognitive load for you as an instructor.
- [00:45:33.720]You don't have to think about it.
- [00:45:34.770]Yeah, no. You're just doing it.
- [00:45:36.300]And you don't have to think,
- [00:45:37.537]"Did I call on this person? Did I not?
- [00:45:39.420]Is there somebody I'm missing? No."
- [00:45:40.800]I'm just literally moving-
- [00:45:41.633]Yeah. The problem I'm having
- [00:45:42.660]right now is,
- [00:45:43.650]I don't always remember where I leave the cups.
- [00:45:45.732](Guy laughs)
- [00:45:46.800]And so I need to like figure that out.
- [00:45:50.580]Or sometimes I forget the cups in my office
- [00:45:52.200]and I have to run back up and grab them.
- [00:45:53.640]So part of that's a materials management thing.
- [00:45:56.100]Yeah. But it's new.
- [00:45:57.510]I'm giving myself some grace.
- [00:45:58.590]Yes.
- [00:45:59.423]Or maybe you should get a tool belt,
- [00:46:01.080]but that's a story for-
- [00:46:02.273]I mean, I contemplated bringing out my teaching apron
- [00:46:06.530](Guy laughs)
- [00:46:07.920]and it might happen.
- [00:46:09.390]All right then. So-
- [00:46:11.397]And we will share a photo of that.
- [00:46:13.860]I wonder if there is a photo.
- [00:46:15.390]I'm still wondering if I have my teaching apron.
- [00:46:17.670]Mm, we can always get you a new one.
- [00:46:19.800]Not one with a snowman angel on it.
- [00:46:22.290]Mm, wow.
- [00:46:23.640]That's literally what it was.
- [00:46:25.524]It was good times.
- [00:46:26.760]That's what happens when you teach elementary
- [00:46:28.530]in the mid 2000s.
- [00:46:32.220]So we've been talking about establishing expectations.
- [00:46:37.440]And it's more than the syllabus.
- [00:46:39.300]It's more than the syllabus and it's more than...
- [00:46:43.650]It's nice to start on day one,
- [00:46:46.500]but you can kind of work those at any given time.
- [00:46:50.220]If you find that there's things that you wanna shift,
- [00:46:51.840]you want to change, if things go awry,
- [00:46:54.360]hopefully we can use some strategies to do that.
- [00:46:58.497]All right, and we'll see you next time.
- [00:47:00.607](upbeat instrumental music)
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