Teaching Naked Techniques, with José Bowen

Bonni [00:00:00] Jose Bowen reveals Teaching Naked Techniques on episode 136 of Teaching in Higher Ed.

Production Credit [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni [00:00:19] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to increase our personal productivity so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni [00:00:47] Today I welcome back to the show, Jose Antonio Bowen. He’s the President of Goucher College. He began his teaching career at Stanford University in 1982 as the Director of Jazz Ensembles. In 94 he became the Founding Director of the Center for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music at the University of Southampton England.

Bonni [00:01:12] He returned to America in 99 to Georgetown University where he created and directed the program. It’s now a department in performing arts. He was the Dean of Fine Arts at Miami University before moving to SMU in Dallas in 2006 to become the Dean of the Meadows School of the arts.

Bonni [00:01:35] He’s been a pioneer in active learning and the use of technology in the classroom including podcasts and online games. He’s been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Newsweek, USA Today, and NPR and a whole bunch of other ones. And he came on previously to talk about his book Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning. And he’s back today to talk about his new book Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes. Jose welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Jose [00:02:15] Thanks Bonni. Very glad to be here. Wow. Wow. Two whole years huh. Well certainly lots of president things things and some trips and building buildings and all that kind of stuff and in between and we did write a new book Teaching Naked Techniques because TNT is what you need to add to your teaching.

Bonni [00:02:34] [laughing] I didn’t even get [the reference] when I read it. Didn’t didn’t get it. I love it.

Jose [00:02:40] Well you know. It was going to be teaching good handbook and teaching they can field guide it and none of that sounded remotely happy enough – so…

Bonni [00:02:49] Well I was so happy you’re gracious to give your time back to the Teaching in Higher Ed community. And I know that your co-author Eddie will be doing the same as well so we’re going to actually have not a necessarily a two part episode but from both of the authors perspectives and why don’t we just start out with the thoughts that you both present in the introduction about how do we go about designing our courses for the brain in the body.

Jose [00:03:16] Sure so. So again the beauty of having a co-author and Eddie has been a fantastic co-author and he works with a different type of institution. Right. He’s at Georgia. So a big institution,  an R1. I’m at a small liberal arts college so they gave us lots of opportunities for saying you know does this work here not to the work of my institution or are that kind of thing.

Jose [00:03:39] He also knows the research literature better than I do and he’s on top of all sorts of things so we had a great partnership and a lot of fun doing this and we started with the idea that we wanted to look at the research the recent research and what he did added to what we knew about designing courses and experiences for students.

Jose [00:04:01] So the one hand what’s interesting is that there is this this this convergence of a couple of different fields which doesn’t always happen, right? So for a long time the pedagogic piece what teachers talk about was coming out of education and maybe educational psychology.

Jose [00:04:17] And there’s like there were some experiments and research going on in the classroom but all of a sudden we’ve now got this explosion of cognitive psychology and neurobiology to actually looking inside the brain and looking at how neural networks are created and how students learn. So we’ve had a couple of great new books that have come out since the first Teaching Naked came out especially Make It Stick. And then Terry Doyle and Todd’s book that The New Science of Learning.

Jose [00:04:44] So we wanted to take a look at those things and say how does that how does that change how we design our courses. And the energy that I saw I wanted to start by pointing out that pedagogy can only get us so far. And in fact the things that matter a whole lot more than pedagogy are what I call sweet.

Jose [00:05:03] So on the first day of class here I told all of my freshmen I said that you’re going to see me walking around campus and say hey how’s it going. And the answer is always going to be S.W.E.E.T. Those students tell me how is it going and they say sweet I think a SWEET is going to remind you that what’s most important for learning is sweet: sleep, water, eating, exercise, and time.

Jose [00:05:24] Pedagogy didn’t make the list right. That sleep really matters if you’re if you haven’t had enough sleep it doesn’t matter how exciting the class is. Your your your cognitive function is diminished or they fall asleep on water because your brain is dehydrated especially in the morning you need a couple of glasses of water. Coffee doesn’t help with dehydration. It makes it worse. It makes you feel more awake which is even even worse.

Jose [00:05:49] We’ve had an explosion of research on exercise and how exercise and even just before a test actually increases memory and recall. And we know that that eating your diet really matters to learning. And then finally time right takes time. You have to do the work. There really isn’t much teaching that goes on it’s only your learning that teacher can’t do the work for you.

Jose [00:06:11] So I tell my students to remember SWEET and so on the one hand we looked at all the biology our students have brains but their brains live in their bodies and their adolescent bodies. So the brain is changing a lot during college and I mean a lot a lot. So again we’ve learned a lot more about why teenagers take high risk behaviors what they’re motivated to do all of that sort of thing. So the question is how does that intersect. How does the the brain being in a body intersect with your classroom design.

Jose [00:06:48] And at the end of the day it really occurred to us that the design problem was really about encouraging or nudging students to better learning behaviors that you know what you’re really trying to do is NOT say well how do I cover all the content. What you’re really trying to do is figure out how to write design situations that will encourage students to do what’s in their own best interest and that’s a pretty different problem than what you know what should cover next week.

Jose [00:07:19] And you know what topic comes first. What’s really important to me. So the book was about thinking about the classroom and about the design problem through the lens of the biology of students in their brains and trying to figure out how do you nudge them for the behaviors that actually are the only behaviors that will help them learn which is their own study skills.

Bonni [00:07:42] One of the ways I know you try to nudge us as faculty as we’re thinking about our own designing is what we decided to introduce first to our students and our learning experiences and this is something I’ve learned about in the last couple of years and I’m spending a lot more time thinking about and I appreciate how you challenge us in this way what do we need to do as we think about first exposure.

Jose [00:08:03] You know one of the things that we can manipulate as teachers is sequence right. When when do we encounter what and when do students encounter material. And so so again one things we know about the brain is that your brain has this you know fight or flight response. So your body actually sends two signals to your brain. Right? And the first thing it gets to is not the neocortex but the neocortex is in front so things from your spinal cord go first to your amygdala which is which is a threat response right. Is this thing a threat. Do I need to get up and run? Is this you know was this a bear chasing me in which case I don’t need to say bear claws. Big Brown. I just run.

Jose [00:08:45] So the problem is that that also happens with all the information that comes in in the classroom. So if a student brain perceives something as a threat – it never gets to the judgment part of the brain. It’s just oh my god this is scary. Shut down all the other functions and focus on how do I protect myself.

Jose [00:09:05] So mass anxiety for example is a real problem or believing that you can’t do something. You know the mindset that that all these things are problems and that fact of him is not my problem it’s your problem. Well but it’s like if you want to help students learn you do have control over. Over when students some kind of material. So especially if a subject you know might have might be controversial but it might scare students, right? That’s not something I’m familiar with or I’m afraid I’m not going to do well at this or I’m just not interested. Right? I’m not motivated so turning on that motivation needs to happen right away.

Jose [00:09:45] And so if you start by thinking well what do I need to cover what matters to me. You’re probably not going to be as effective as you want to be. So good teaching in my view always starts with what matters to your students. Always it ends with what matters to you but it doesn’t start with. Well here’s what matters to me is what I want to teach you today. Right?

Jose [00:10:06] You know my favorite example of this is you know if you’re if you are going to have to teach a course on racial profiling to your local police department would it matter how many degrees you had or how many articles are written or how much of an expert you were. You’re teaching a mandatory training to police officers on a Saturday morning at 8:00 o’clock. Nobody wants to be there and they may respect you as an expert but they don’t really want to learn. We have to teach them so.

Jose [00:10:34] So your challenge is not –  how much / how fast can I talk to cram information in? But rather how do I break down people’s perhaps resistance to wanting to be on my course or their fear about what might happen? So the first thing that happens is engagement or engagement before content engagement before learning. So finding an entry point a way to engage people with something that matters to them.

Jose [00:10:58] So the place to start is not racial profiling but what matters to my audience is a different audiences will have different things that matter to them. So in the case of my police officers. My example is you know maybe we talk about trucks. Anybody here drive a truck. I have I have a couple relatives who are police officers and they drive trucks. I. But they have extra anybody who drives a Ford who drives a dodge you does this every well why and what would you if I gave you a free Chevy instead of your Dodge would that be OK. Right. And the answer would be no.

Jose [00:11:31] But the point is they have a conversation where you talk about find something football something you know whatever is interesting that you share your audience get them talking and then wait for your opportunity. Right wait for the time say Aha. So why is it that Ford matters so much to you. Is it because you know and well you know my father drove a ford or you know had been in the family or whatever whatever the reason is and then then you can start to talk about well is that a bias and you make judgments about that and how did you you know so ease into the subject. And when I do this exercise with faculty I almost always find that people don’t start far enough away.

Jose [00:12:06] People are thinking about their subject immediately and I think you know you probably need to take a two or three steps away find something that really matters to your students because when they’re engaged in they’re talking trust yourself you will find an opening to connect that subject matter and that meaningful conversation that’s happening with where you want to go. And that’s actually where the design and the pedagogy are.

Jose [00:12:29] So I think entry points are very very important. If it’s before students actually encounter your material if the pre-work just not even the first encounter the first contact with the material it’s before that stage. And I you know I came at this as a musician because right people are people get the heebie jeebies when you see Beethoven. Oh my god – it’s going to be a serious concert. I’m going to and what am I going to wear. You know what happens.

Jose [00:12:54] And so maybe I don’t have to mention there’s going to be Beethoven. Right? Could I actually introduce you to the music I’m about to play without using the word Beethoven. So this is the same principle. It’s how to how to how to figure out what happens first. Even before students encounter the material there’s a whole chapter on entry points.

Bonni [00:13:14] I know you have another lesson that you learned about sequence scene from teaching your students about blues and the rumba. And this is where I really wish I had some music cued up saying go but I don’t so I’m going to have to tell this either by humming a bar or something. Talk about your intro to a world music course and what you learned about sequencing when you thought about those those two styles of music.

Jose [00:13:36] Yeah. So the good news is I can talk about it generally. So traditionally when you’re going to do a course like this you say well I’m at to talk about one genre a day you know and this would be true if you’re going to be talking about historical periods or you know you defy if you’re corse into units. So you know I was going to talk about the blues which is the foundation of American music on one day. I mean the Rumba – which is the foundation of Cuban music. On another day. So it’s OK class today were going to talk about American music and read a lot about the blues and there read up and then next week or come back and learn about this. And then the week after that we’ll learn about some other country. So that’s the traditional way. You know you find some way to break stuff up and we know we pick content areas or sections that mattered.

Jose [00:14:19] So I was thinking about this and thinking well the problem with that approach is that I’m going to teach them about the blues for one day and I will teach them about the Rumba for one day. And I don’t want my own principles I want them to discover you know so I just had to say OK. So the first thing I’ve got to do is they’ve got to understand the difference musically between the two art forms. You know what. What things are different. I sent the students an example of a blues. It’s easy to find on YouTube and I sent them an example of a Rumba.

Jose [00:14:47] And so I said listen to these two things and then make a list of how they’re different, right? Just technically what’s different about them and so then we spent a day and so in the course of doing that you know I had to talk about the things I would have normally talked about a 12 bar blues and if the pattern of these kinds of things in hand and then ask me how are they similar. And then that led to a lawsuit. So they’re similar in a one Cuban American. So that led to the into the conversation was OK I introduced my next topic which is well why are they similar and why are they different. You go between classes and come up with a theory.

Jose [00:15:21] So come back to the next class with a theory as to why the blues and the Rumba might be similar and why they’re different to how you explain the similarities and differences. And so the answer is is obviously related to to when slaves came to which country where the where they were from what they were allowed to bring with them how long slaves came to America versus how long they went to Cuba etc. etc.

Jose [00:15:44] It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. Most of their theories had some. They were they were right in some ways and wrong in some other ways. But it forces the students to do some of the work themselves. And so I was able to do less of the teaching and the less of the professor and just set up a situation where students had to try to figure out an interesting question for themselves. But again a question that they had come to.

Jose [00:16:06] And I had to trust that the end of the first class they would they would think it was interesting to say well if you just you know talked about the technical difference between these two types of music. Now do you wonder why, right? I mean why would they be? And because they’re both you know they’re both African musics they’re both hybrid musics but they’re hybrids of different kinds of things. Why and why? You know what and so they’re OK they’re not experts in Cuba and they’re not experts in slavery and in the history of both countries.

Jose [00:16:40] But you know you’ve got you’ve got Google you can find some information do do a little work and see if you can put something together. And again it wasn’t I wasn’t asking for a complete history of slavery. I was asking for them to think about how the pieces might be put together. You have an example of just of how I had to rethink my own assumptions about secrets.

Bonni [00:17:01] Are there times when they have come back to you and just completely surprised you that they uncovered something that you hadn’t really considered about the distinctions.

Jose [00:17:11] Oh all the time. That’s the beauty of this is that you know you you bring you know your particular perspective and then students come back and so you know and it happens both ways. Sometimes you say well you know religion nobody mentions religion you know. Are there differences between you know the religion of of not just the the the slavery but but lot of the people who were were their masters and there was dead silence. Well I got to feel that the other ones were somehow I have an idea.

Jose [00:17:41] And sometimes it’s wacky doesn’t always have to be right. But again if students are thinking and processing for themselves but I do learn stuff and I also have a lot of fun in trying to push them to come up with longer lists. The minute I feel I need to have 10 different theories Oh my god answer. So that definitely pushes us into into cuckoo land sometimes which again is OK.

Bonni [00:18:04] Well you’re really describing to me just points out a real weakness in being the expert because we have these networks that are already built of knowledge. We have got. I mean when you think about even the outline for a textbook for a world introduction to world music course that outline already exists in your mind the outline for the introduction to business class that I teach already exists in my mind. I don’t have to I mean they might organize chapters differently than I might have but the knowledge is mapped in my mind. How do you step away from your own map so that you can rediscover what it’s like to not see these connections between the topics in a given course?

Jose [00:18:50] Oh yeah. Well that’s a big one. And so that is always a problem with the expert and the novice – is that you know we have we have connections upon connections upon connections and so again the design problem that is teaching is mostly about breaking things down into smaller and smaller units and we almost always don’t go small enough on the first cut.

Jose [00:19:15] You know my my favorite examples I did a you know a listening game and I thought well the first level was going to be you know what’s the ensemble piano trio big band you know solo guitar you know that sort of thing. And immediately came back to me he said Oh that’s great I like it. I love it. These other sounds like what’s a trombone. It never occurred to me that somebody might not have ever seen a trombone and know what that sounds like. So I don’t know I am ok I got to have this as a trombone. This is the clarinet right. This is a drum.

Jose [00:19:44] So we’re going to forget that there’s always a more basic level. So one way to get around that you know is do you do you pre-testing you ask before the semester starts that you know what are people’s assumptions about your discipline. So maybe ask your students on the first day to design a business course you know. The syllabus is over to you. You know where do a concept map right what what the concept map of this course look like on day one. What are the concepts that you’ve heard of and how are they related.

Jose [00:20:12] And it gives you a chance to peer into their brains and figure out what connections they see. The other thing I would suggest is to have the students the question why are you in this course. What matters right what what do you think you need to learn and why you need to learn it. Because if you understand why they want to learn it in some ways that’s even more important because now I understand their motivation.

Jose [00:20:36] Another good question is how do you think you can get an A? What do you have to do to get an A in my course, assuming you want it? So maybe you ask them what grade you want in my course and you ask them will how do you think you’re going to get that. Those are all ways to get inside your students head a bit at the beginning of the course. And of course if you’ve already designed your syllabus you’re stuck. But if you’re going to hold off on some of that and adapt to your students or you know ask them at the end of the semester or you know for next semester you get some information. But but that is the problem. That is an expert. You know why is in front of B.

Jose [00:21:10] And another one interesting that relates to the brain is that you know in order to really understand you’ve got a overly simplified B for the time being that you’ll come back and you’ll complicate later. But figuring out how to simplify and also how to tell students I am going to tell us is I am simplifying on purpose. I am making this overly simple because I want you to master this part and then I will add that complexity when you’re really good at that.

Jose [00:21:38] And even that amount of transparency helps students because students don’t know that you know that to think well this is just the way it is. Right. If you do this and you do that you will always get that in a bull market. This always happens in it that you know that always right. And so because you told me that you were as you were just giving them the general guidelines so so telling people when you’re simplifying is one way to help. Trying to break it down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Jose [00:22:02] And a final a final idea is to think about when you learn something totally new. Right because even though you’re an expert in business or in chemistry or whatever. Right. See when you learned tennis or first learn yoga or whatever it was. Right. You know when you’re first on tennis you think well the first thing you learn is the forehead. Like to see a lot of footwork or how to hold the racket. Right. Probably an even smaller piece right how to hold the rocket how to swing the rocket. And then what a good teacher does is teach you one skill and then slightly complicated right at something else and then go back to that first thing and make sure you can do the the forehand with the footwork together.

Bonni [00:22:44] One of the things that you described of a weakness of how we typically think about things –  I’m going to cover blues this day and going to cover Rumba is this play this day is that they aren’t then able to make those networks. And one of the things I try to do is just a quick exercise I do is I will create essentially index cards although I don’t actually print them on index cards or print them on regular paper but I’ve got categories that are in all capital letters or in an named blue font.

Bonni [00:23:13] And then I’ve got lower case letters that are things that fall under that category. As an example different economic systems economic systems will be in capital letters with blue on one of the cards and then completely shuffled around in this deck of about 50 cards will be capitalism socialism communism and they’ve got these decks that they work in groups of three to four sitting around in small groups where after we’ve talked about these different concepts they may have memorized what capitalism is. They may have memorized what socialism is but they forget that these things go together under this map called economic systems.

Bonni [00:23:51] So that’s one of the ways I can slow myself down to discover which things they’re starting to group together and understand how these categories map with each other and then areas where gosh they they actually don’t realize that these things go with each other and then we’ll kind of talk about what order might we present things so that they’re grouped in a logical order it’s a kind of a nice way for me to stop and do a check in with the class and check in with myself on what I’ve made assumptions about.

Jose [00:24:19] No I think that’s a great technique and I think, again, that’s why I like concept maps that and you know wikis Wikis are good for this too because again this is this is how we learn we’re making connections. And again if you really want your students to learn what you’re asking them to do is to to re-evaluate what they already know you’re ask them to say well that those things that you knew were the things that taught you last week re-evaluate them now because you have a new category. And they have to resort everything.

Jose [00:24:48] So that’s really important. And so you know I think about it because it changes or if you do concept maps to help them change all the time. But I like having students you know process for themselves. How are these things related to whether it’s index cards for love or or a concept map or working know broadening things on the wall. They get to feel then and again visual is important. They get to see that knowledge changes as you add pieces that that knowledge is really not just the facts it’s the the how you organize the facts that that’s what knowledge is if it’s this it’s the system not just the pieces.

Jose [00:25:25] And I think again as you say for us you know we have this complicated system we have this map that we bring with us to the table and what we don’t want to do is to say I’m in a trance I’m going to give you my map right to give you my content and I give you my way of processing at my map because students see the world differently they have they come with different pieces so they have to integrate things that you don’t have.

Jose [00:25:51] And so their map is going to be different than your map and that’s what you want. My example I to the piano teacher. I start from the assumption I don’t want my students to all sound like me I don’t want them to sound like my students. I mean yes there are certain things I’d like my students to be known for, perhaps, but that’s really my own ego.

Jose [00:26:10] What I really want is for all of my students to find their own voice find their own way of being the best piano player they can be to be unique in that. And so I have to do a lot more to get into side there had what they want to do why do they want to do it. Knowledge is the system and so students are bringing their own knowledge and so what you’re asking them to do is to integrate what they know with what we’re going to learn.

Bonni [00:26:35] We started this conversation with you asserting that pedagogy can only get us so far. Talk a bit about pedagogy as human relationships.

Jose [00:26:48] So let’s start with the macro which is that the evidence that we have coming out of the Gallup Purdue index is that the things that really matter to students 20 30 40 years from now are things like the sense of belief in themselves and their connectedness. And so one of thing that really really matters for your career. And that’s also your happiness. It’s your life earnings it’s your fitness your likelihood of getting a divorce. I mean all of these things are related to. Did you find a mentor in college. Somebody who believed in you. If you make relationships and somebody said I really think are going to be a great poet. I think you can be a physicist. And I believe in you.

Jose [00:27:35] That sense that these that these people these professors these mythical figures who have degrees you’ve never heard of these people who you would admire and respect and can’t imagine ever being. When when one of them says they believe in us it has a powerful effect. And so the idea of a faculty as role models really matters and so it turns out that that we have all of this interesting new national data that says that that relationships drive both success and happiness for the rest of our lives.

Jose [00:28:11] We also know that it’s very hard to learn when you’re anxious where we talked about you know the fight or flight. And so when you’re when you’re anxious or stressed or you hate the teacher or get even simple things like We know that students learn more when they believe the teacher cares about learning.

Jose [00:28:25] And so if you believe your teacher doesn’t care about you as a person or care about your learning you don’t learn as much. So so in every way the relationships with students and being key I’d also add that I think it’s become more important than the last decades because our access to content has increased so dramatically that you know if I if I don’t understand the concept you know Mr. Kahn will teach me I can find somebody online with a little explanation. There’s all of that off. You know your need to hook up your washing machine. You Google Maytag blah blah blah and there’s a video of somebody doing it for you you know we we have we’re going to get content.

Jose [00:29:05] And so the ability to learn online is related to to two things. One is understanding how courses work and how learning works and how you’re going to change your mental map and how to change. And then also to whether you can self-regulate Do you understand how to study and how how learning works do you believe in yourself. You believe that you can do this?

Jose [00:29:29] So those are things that teachers have a lot of effect over and really can change and so both in our own immediate classes our students will learn more if they feel that you’re approachable and long term you know they actually have better lives when they have connections with with faculty and and believe that you care about their learning. Actually Eddie did an experiment that that you should ask him about where he asked students to describe to me concept maps of what good teaching is.

Jose [00:30:04] And and you know obviously a long list of things. But when he categorized them they really ended up in two categories. One is that students want you to be organized and fair. Right well what we think of as the design characteristics. Right? How your syllabus is as I have it how the public should organize are your tests fair. Then they want you to be approachable funny nice the human characteristics as a whole other set of things that are that are about your humanity and those are the those are both important.

Jose [00:30:36] So the the the good news is we’ve written a book about the design part of it because we can help you with that. It’s a lot harder to help you with your human parts if you’re if you’re if you’re a jerk. Good luck. But it turns out that that being a jerk is going to make it harder for you to be a good teacher even if you design your course perfectly. Your students are going to learn less because you’re a jerk and they’re going to pick up on that.

Jose [00:31:04] So I often say that the fact that you know you don’t have to be funny students do like you to be funny it’s true. Funny is good humor is good but if you’re not a Jay Leno don’t try don’t don’t. You’ll be authentic. The students really want to know is that you’re a human being and that you’re authentic and that that compensates for not being funny because you’re a person and as a person if you can connect with me I can learn more.

Bonni [00:31:30] One of the chapters he really emphasizes being transparent to which I haven’t dissected both of those words but to me I can be authentic without being transparent. But when I do both together just being transparent about that I care about you. I might think that I care I might actually really care about it but actually vocalizing those words I have found makes such a difference. This might be hard. This is a challenging part of the cost a lot of times people really have a tough time with whatever it is I am here to support you I really care about you. Just just to be more articulate in my thoughts about care and concern really has helped me in my teaching and I just appreciate your guidance and guidance on that.

Jose [00:32:11] Yeah. No you’re absolutely right that the more transparent you can be the better. It also helps if that’s if it’s personal. You know I had trouble with this. I struggle with this. This didn’t make any sense to me when it was first explained to me. You know I only came to realize this was I think this was useful whatever you know those are the personal stories especially about your own failure because students look at you and think well you must have always gotten that you were always sitting in the front of the teacher’s pet. Right.

Jose [00:32:37] That may be true in some cases but most of us had a little bit of failure. So you know and if you don’t make it up you’re going to you know admit to some self-doubt when you were their age because that humanizes you and it also makes them realize oh really. I mean I could become a professor because I think I I’m not a smart issue because I you know I got an A-minus. And I I’m a disaster and you must have never gotten an A-minus.

Jose [00:33:03] And so when you say you know I got a C on my first test in chemistry and I didn’t understand it all. And I didn’t… I wasn’t… Whatever. All of those stories do matter it also turns out to be the case that the perception that you care is more important than actual caring and that’s just that’s just experimental finding. But it also is true that people think that high standards alone make a difference and they don’t in the same way that just being nurturing alone doesn’t make a difference that you have to be both. You need to you need to articulate this is going to be challenging.

Jose [00:33:40] And I know you can do it if you say this is easy. And if you say I’m just going to cut you a lot of I mean right you actually having high standards is great but it has to be paired with the going to help you when you fall down. And if it’s only going to help you with this class is going to be easier than students don’t do their best work students do their best work when they know you expect more of them when they explain they know the thing is going to be hard and they know that you’re also going to be kind and forgiving if in fact that disaster happens and they take a risk.

Jose [00:34:12] Right so it’s a balance of those things. But, again, teaching is often about managing the balance between those two things. Between, about, you know getting students to take risk and getting them – – that you will help them. But also saying, “This is hard.” And also when you succeed when something is hard you have a much greater sense of accomplishment. If I say this is going to be easy it’s OK. And then you get it, right? You know you don’t care that much. So  managing those two things is exactly exactly related to the idea that you need to be transparent and authentic and human to your students.

Bonni [00:34:46] This is the point in the show where we each get to give some recommendations and I’m going to recommend a series of videos that was put out by the New York Times fairly recently and they are all around implicit bias or different types of bias. The specific video I’m going to link to in the show notes is earlier in the series it’s called Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Racism.

Bonni [00:35:10] These are conversations I don’t think we can be having enough with each other with our students with members of our community. And these are each just about two to three minute videos that explain concepts around bias and they do it in real creative ways. And I would say I’m trying to think of the right way of articulating it. They do it with I guess a regard for anyone who is watching who may have biases which would be all of us.

Bonni [00:35:41] So they do it in a actually exactly what you were just saying, Jose. They do it in a caring way that since we all are going to carry around these biases with us then that’s the frame with which they’re communicating. The videos it’s not a in your face let me you know crush you to the ground and shame you into having these conversations. It’s a much more inclusive way I think and I think they would make for great conversations with faculty if you wanted to just play one of the videos and then have planned some questions in advance to discuss. And it also would be great with students who are learning more about bias. Jose, what do you have to recommend today.

Jose [00:36:19] So I don’t have a set of videos or a great new book but there’s certainly has been a lot has been written about America post-election and how divided we are and so on. On the topic of bias and difficult discussions my my recommendation is for more empathy and I think that many of us are very pretty sensitized in the classroom to things that could go wrong and the wrong thing.

Jose [00:36:46] And so I think you know we’ve had you know politics to that recently and I think it’s not going to stop for a while. So I think we need to be honest and transparent with our students that we’re going to have difficult conversations and that we are going to try to learn to respect and have dialogue.

Jose [00:37:02] But I think the first step is simply empathy. The first step is when you listen to somebody else to listen and you know as faculty you know we’re called professors we’re good at talking we’re paid to talk in a way. And so the question is can we do more listening and just listen without judgment. Because what I’d like to do is to get to more understanding. That doesn’t mean agreement.

Jose [00:37:24] But I do think that the first step is to learn how to. If we really want to be inclusive is to be inclusive even to those who would exclude. And so that’s what empathy means. It doesn’t mean I agree with you. It just means I hear you I understand. And so I think that’s going to be a big challenge. And so that’s certainly what I’m working on personally and on my campus. And my recommendation for the beginning of 2017.

Bonni [00:37:50] Jose it’s been wonderful having you back on the show. I’m going to be linking to the first episode that you did back in 2015 as it is still incredibly relevant today. It hasn’t gotten dated that hall and look forward to having an upcoming conversation with Eddie as well.

Jose [00:38:07] Thanks. I think you’ll enjoy that. I loved being here today. Thanks so much Bonni.

Bonni [00:38:12] Thanks once again to Jose for being back on the show. And of course we both recommend that you pick up his former book if you haven’t already Teaching Naked. And then this new one which has just been released Teaching Naked Techniques which has not just Jose’s experience and Eddie’s experience but so many more who have been able to contribute to the book so it’s just a very collaborative effort and I highly suggest that you pick up a copy they’ll be linked to it in the show notes.

Bonni [00:38:42] And thanks so much for listening as always. There have been a number of you who have written reviews for the show on iTunes and other services that you use to listen to the show and it’s just so fun to get that experience of just being able to grow the community a little bit more so thanks to those of you who have done it. And if you haven’t done the ad it’s really an easy thing to do. You just go in there. You can give it a series of stars or you can write some couple of sentences or even just a sentence about what it’s like to listen to the show to get people to experience it.

Bonni [00:39:12] I do also recommend that people subscribe to the weekly e-mail is just going to come into your inbox a single time each week and it will have the show notes with the links to everything that we talked about as the second article in the email the first article is a article that I write about teaching or productivity that I’ll help you do that. So again write a review for the show.

Bonni [00:39:34] Subscribe to the weekly e-mail and if you’d like join us on the Slack channel that’s just a smaller community that’s a little bit more private than out there on some of the broader social media tools you can subscribe at teachinginhighered.com/slack. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll see you all soon. Next week we will have Eddie on the show as a follow up to talk more about Teaching Naked Techniques.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.