Bonni: [00:00:00] Today on episode number 174 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Laura Gogia shares had to develop learning objectives for the 21st century.

Production Credit: [00:00:13] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:24] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our personal productivity so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:52] Hello this is Bonni Stachowiak and today welcoming back to the show. Laura Gogia. She is an educational consultant researcher and designer specializing in program evaluation digital learning and higher education. She also has an M.D. and a Ph.D.. She is the Principal for Bandwidth Strategies where she offers organizational development and creative support for institutions of higher and continuing education.

Bonni: [00:01:22] Before that, she was the Associate Director of the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University and a liaison for the Virginia Longitudinal Data System at the State Council for Higher Education Virginia. Gogia earned her doctorate in Educational Research and Evaluation and her medical degree both at VCU. Laura, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Laura : [00:01:49] Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Bonni: [00:01:51] I’m so glad to get to have another conversation with you. This one actually started on Twitter and you recently went back and reread these tweets so for people that didn’t just happen to be on Twitter that day and see things explode. Can you give us a little play by play of what happened there.

Laura : [00:02:07] Yes. I was sitting my my in my home office and I was all lonely and wanted to stir up some trouble on Twitter. And so I literally just tweeted out something along the lines of I like learning objectives and I kind of left it there and it just it’s loaded just the way I knew it would.

Laura : [00:02:28] Because there are people out there who live and die by learning objectives. And there are people who think that they are the work of the devil and my personal feeling on it is that it’s a little bit more complex. It’s not even a buy it’s not binary it’s even a spectrum.

Laura : [00:02:46] But in reality it’s everything. And that we need to start accepting and that they’re good or bad there. Everything in between. And we need to be able to move across the levels and think about them in different ways in different scopes. So that’s what I was getting at with starting the conversation. But yeah it kind of exploded pretty pretty quickly.

Bonni: [00:03:09] Speaking of things that are controversial I started out in corporate training and we talked about learning objectives a lot as an instructional designer we would talk about them a lot. And one of the big things that I can recall from those early conversations was avoiding the use of the word understand which is.

Laura : [00:03:28] Which is interesting because hear especially in Digital Humanities we talk about understand as being one of the good sort of objectives.

Bonni: [00:03:39] Yeah and the reason is in that world the reason it was frowned upon was that is so hard to measure that how would I know if you understood it. And the how would I know if you understood it as what should be backed into the learning objectives. Now where people would criticize that would be that you can’t really quantify learning that neatly in type in at such a tidy fashion.

Bonni: [00:04:06] So maybe we can come back to understand and have it be a little bit more nebulous as to whether or not I would know so it’s really this is a lot of work that goes in I think where both you and I come from is really being a lot more nuanced than we tend to talk about it.

Laura : [00:04:21] In fact I would like to unpack some of the things that you’ve already said.

Bonni: [00:04:26] Oh please.

Laura : [00:04:27] Because you know you’re talking about how it’s important and corporate and I completely agree with that. My own experience in the corporate world is those learning objectives are extremely important. And then we moved from that to the assumption that why they’re important is for a suspect and for measuring learning which I agree with you in this particular sector.

Laura : [00:04:51] That’s that’s why they’re being used. But there are other reasons why those learning objectives could be used to. And I’m thinking that those kind of unspoken assumptions are part that that’s part of the big battle that’s why people find learning objectives controversial as how they’re placing value on them.

Bonni: [00:05:12] What are some of the ways that you use them because you did come out and say you said there I said. You did come out and say you enjoy them what do you find benefits to using them.

Laura : [00:05:23] Well I think we need to look at them in multiple ways. They are certainly important for our assessment but I would say that’s actually lower on the list.

Laura : [00:05:34] If we’re going in any any sort of order and I don’t mean a value order but in a way of organizing it in a way that makes sense to people. I would start with learning objectives are part of a negotiation. So what are learning objectives created?

Laura : [00:05:51] Typically they’re created by a professor by a faculty member before the course started. So it’s kind of a way of saying to the class here’s where I stand here’s what I think we’re trying to achieve. So it’s a statement from the faculty member that becomes a meeting place. So it’s a concrete way of saying here’s what I’m hoping we’re going to get out of it.

Laura : [00:06:20] And then the students can actually come back around to those learning objectives and look at them as like this what we want from the class. So it’s a place of negotiation a place of communication.

Laura : [00:06:33] So that’s one way to look at learning objectives. And I think that in a lot of the circles that I move in around Digital Humanities digital education that’s where they’re coming at this from is that it’s not about measuring the learning. It’s about here’s where I stand.

Laura : [00:06:54] How do you feel about this. Here’s what I’m hoping to inspire. This is what I’m hoping to bring to the table. And so that’s for words like understand learn an objective around. I want us to love this. I want us to appreciate this. I want us to understand the nuance. I want us to be able to have a conversation about discuss.

Laura : [00:07:17] Describe that’s where if the feeling behind those sorts of words come is this idea that this is this is the passion this is what I want to build in my course.

Laura : [00:07:29] All right but not very measurable because that’s not the primary goal right now if we come at it from a standpoint of these learning objectives are here because this is what we’re trying to achieve. And I need evidence that it’s happening.

Laura : [00:07:46] You know the court that the university needs evidence we need to be accountable. I need to see whether or not my courses are achieving what it needs to achieve which is it’s also a very very fine goal. OK. We need that we need to make sure that we’re doing good work. Right.

Laura : [00:08:01] And that comes through assessment and evaluation and that sort of thing. So from that standpoint you need you’re focusing on the things that are measurable which understand to love to discuss. You know these are not things that are particularly measurable so that makes sense too.

Laura : [00:08:18] And then you have people who are just really trying to make sure that they’re working at multiple levels and that’s where Bloom’s Taxonomy comes in. Although I think it’s frequently overused misuse. You know it’s not being used as a as an inspiration. It’s being used as a like you must do these things but it’s a way to stir the imagination around.

Laura : [00:08:41] OK so we need to be able to define things but we also need to be able to discuss things like put things together. We need to be able to compare and contrast. We need to be able to critique. We need to be able to create and create and apply with things you know so something like Bloom’s Taxonomy makes people who are not used to doing instructional design start thinking about all the ways that they can play around with a concept and introduce a concept and have learners be active around a concept.

Bonni: [00:09:12] We talked about learning objectives bein controversial Bloom’s Taxonomy also controversial. But before I talk a little bit about the controversy and you already shared a bit but that was all the way back in 1956 that it was first created by Dr. Benjamin Bloom and his goal as you said was to think more to challenge us to think in more higher order ways.

Bonni: [00:09:36] And to me this is a great way that Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used if someone was just used to giving tests that were more memorization type of exams and they wanted to start to think more creatively about ways that they could assess learning that moving the way up this pyramid would take them all the way from understand which a lot of tests measure for understanding then all the way up to the very top which would be create.

Bonni: [00:10:03] And I’m excited I am I’m finally in my doctoral class this fall going to be doing what I consider a risky create endeavor and going to follow. Robin DeRosa I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing her last name Robin but she has a whole post on how to write open textbook.

Bonni: [00:10:20] So I feel like I’m going all the way to the top of that create on the pyramid to have the class write a textbook this fall and that’s exciting. And it’s also scary we’ve talked a lot about on the show recently some of the things that stops us from being more creative in thinking about how we’re going to learning. Is that fear we might fail and this thing could totally go south.

Bonni: [00:10:42] But it’s nice because we do have this sort of supportive community though around open education where we can experiment and I commented on her post she already wrote back and like you know what I can do that I can do is I haven’t tried it before but what could possibly go wrong.

Bonni: [00:10:56] Yeah. So the idea around Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used really well but in what ways do you see people using that not not as wide. You talked about a little bit but do you have any other examples.

Laura : [00:11:07] Absolutely and before we move too far for anyone else who wants to follow Robin DeRosa’s work as she’s on Twitter a lot under the @actualham… [Bonni laughs] is Her Twitter name because I follow her closely too.

Laura : [00:11:23] I think the getting back to Bloom’s I think probably the most important critique that I have of Bloom’s is the fact that it is thought of as a pyramid.

Laura : [00:11:35] So words like I understand don’t actually have to be under things like create like less important because if you think about it again coming from a humanities standpoint you know the idea of having passion around something truly understanding something what does it mean to understand well you have to be able to create with it you have to be able to understand context and nuance you know.

Laura : [00:12:00] So it almost feels like when people are having cut or being controversial around learning objectives they’re talking past each other they’re not actually debating head to head. It’s they have different motivations. So is it about evaluation or is it about stirring up passions.

Laura : [00:12:21] Is it about having a negotiation with your students. Those are two very very different motivations. Right. And so if you’re not actually getting on the same page to have the conversation about learning objectives then you’re always going to talk past each other and you’re always going to have these debates you know thinking about understand in the sense of general education liberal education the arts you know the deep meaning of what I understand really means that’s going to be a different sort of understand than somebody is thinking about it at a relatively shallow level of Bloom’s Taxonomy where we’ve got this like a list of verbs and some of the verbs have been put at a higher level than other verbs.

Laura : [00:13:07] And so personally I find the pyramid problematic because how you discuss I think discusses a level two on Bloom’s discuss well is that define or is that truly having a nuanced conversation about learning objectives. I mean Bonni you and me are discussing learning and learning objectives right now. But we’re pulling from different backgrounds from different sectors from different disciplines. I mean this discussion of Bloom’s Taxonomy and learning objectives that’s different than saying just defining what Bloom’s is.

Bonni: [00:13:45] For people that didn’t get a chance to hear the last episode with you which of course all linked to in the show notes but I’m so fascinated as I watch your face we’re able to see each other right now on Skype.

Bonni: [00:13:56] But I’m thinking about your talk about drawing from a history you are drawing from a history from having been a physician which to me is I don’t know if it’s fair to say that it’s all the way on the other side of the spectrum of the more of the humanities piece. I mean there certainly is lots of crossover but but I mean there are.

Laura : [00:14:16] But in this conversation it helps so much because I can see all sides of the debate. Our main objectives. There are situations where someone needs to know how to put in a catheter or needs to put in an I.V.. All right. They don’t need to think critically about the I.V. they need to get it in quickly.

Laura : [00:14:38] You know there are situations where those cut and dried learning objectives that we are going to measure that it makes sense. It’s what needs to happen those particular situations need those. Then there are other situations where we need to talk more about you know critical thinking about debate about conversation about thinking about things from from different perspectives about critiquing our orders and how to deal with that. You know we need to have those situations too.

Laura : [00:15:13] And I think what happens in higher ed unfortunately is that those sorts of classes are very separate most of the time you have your very skills base and even siloed with in programs to you know you have very skills based sorts of courses and mindsets and you have very expansive liberal arts general ed sort of courses what we need more of are those kind of middle mixed experiences where we combine specific skill sets in settings that are authentic and can contextualize.

Laura : [00:15:55] And I’ve been working out this idea around like service learning for example is situated learning. Right. And we we all most people like the idea of the service learning course it’s a high impact practice with the C and you know it’s it’s it’s important.

Laura : [00:16:11] And I I like service learning courses when we think of online which a lot of my work is done in online settings. We have two camps. We have the people who look at online and a very skills based sort of way. Here’s the tack that all students need to know.

Laura : [00:16:29] We use online settings because they’re asynchronous and accessible and you know all those things are delivering content we’re doing delivering content and it’s an online is a way to deliver content.

Laura : [00:16:43] And honestly I don’t know that that’s all bad. OK. As a mom as a nontraditional student you know I need those courses I can get to in the middle of the night sometimes. OK. So I’m not saying that that’s bad per se.

Laura : [00:16:57] And then we have the camp that looks at online as a way of being as a way of thinking digital thinking. And this is where I live most of the time where we’re talking about knowledge as a dynamic creative process. Knowledge is something that’s being negotiated from all different places.

Laura : [00:17:16] You know we look at opportunities for serendipitous learning you know and the the digital way of life and that is the argument that those that courses need to focus on living in the digital way of life. Well what if we could mix and match some of these things. Or what if we could have just like we have a service learning designation for courses.

Laura : [00:17:41] What if we had digital learning designation for courses this is where we’re going to think digitally we’re going to explore the open web. We’re going to do all of these things. And of course there are a lot of people that argue that that’s why all courses should be.

Laura : [00:17:56] And that’s where I get controversial with my friends right is because I have lived in the medical world. I do know there are some courses where you need to just practice putting in that IP and you do need to have content delivered. And I can’t believe I said that on record because that’s a controversial statement.

Laura : [00:18:16] What I just said but I think there’s room for everything and we need to do a better job of embracing the fact that we need everything and bringing everyone to the table and respecting where everyone is coming from and most of the time. Everyone can mix it all up together.

Laura : [00:18:34] But there are going to be certain times where it needs to be one way and certain times that needs to be otherwise and that’s OK. And I guess that’s my point behind the learning objectives. There are some times in some places where it needs to be specific and measurable. There are other times and places where they need to inspire love and joy and understanding. And quite frankly most of the time it needs to be a mixture of the two and you need to have multiple levels of learning objectives within a course but there’s room for everyone.

Bonni: [00:19:08] Yeah my son is sick right now and just took him to the doctor and while we were there I was surprised because I had actually been to the doctor the other day and tried to get a flu shot while I was there.

Bonni: [00:19:19] They would not give me a flu shot for the reason of why I was there like you can’t come in with issue. And then also try to while you’re there you know quick stop to take care of two things.

Bonni: [00:19:30] So I thought they would tell me the same thing with him in fact my husband had just ask Will you take a picture of the flu shot clinic information so that he could plan on when he would bring the kids and I said sure and I asked them and so it’s not up yet but we can actually give your son a flu shot today if he wanted.

Bonni: [00:19:45] And I was like I love that. I was surprised that they let it. But the reason I bring it up is that the nurse came in and this is a nurse that we haven’t met before at least I haven’t and didn’t know my son and my son is just like he’s really a really super brave kid.

Bonni: [00:20:00] And I was hoping that would be treated as a brave kid but instead she’s like oh could you hold his arm and hold that and I understand like they probably have a lot of freak out about her having me like sandwich his knees between my legs and all this was making him think something terrible was going to happen when I had just told him as a flu shot it was going to feel a little pinch. Anyway the reason I bring it up is that what you’re saying about any field.

Bonni: [00:20:24] It isn’t just is so important to be able to give that flu shot and to administer it quickly regardless if you’re talking about an adult or a child. And then you also need to be able to read people and not be creating fear we’re fear didn’t exist in the first place.

Bonni: [00:20:38] And it’s just I mean every profession has that kind of nuance so I love what you’re talking about is a blend of all of these things coming together. And then what we said earlier but bears repeating we need to leave enough room for learning that emerges in the moment.

Bonni: [00:20:57] And I recently had someone write in and I wrote a blog post which I will link to in the show notes about how do you catch up. You know I’m teaching this class and oh my gosh the test is coming what how do I catch up.

Bonni: [00:21:08] And I did give some advice on how to catch up but I also said do a little bit of journaling so that you can think about not doing that again the next time because ideally we do leave enough room for stuff that emerges and learning is messy and people are unique and distinct and have varied interests and they’ll want to apply what it is that they’re discovering in some different ways. So I think leaving enough openness to do that.

Laura : [00:21:32] You know leaving in and filling in the blanks on the learning objectives. So maybe you have 10 and you’ve got three fill in the blanks. I mean I think so many times those learning objectives are just checkoff. It’s what you’re doing while you’re designing the course. It’s not part of the living experience. Nobody is learning objectives. I raised the learning objectives now as a student. I did not read learning objectives and less somehow it was going to help me study for the exam right.

Laura : [00:22:01] So this idea of seeing them as a negotiation or what needs to happen in the course something that students agree with or don’t agree with.

Laura : [00:22:14] And we can have a conversation about to a certain extent you know revisiting those learning objectives and helping students have some insight on what you’re doing through the course and why and how it matches up with these learning goals and objectives that you had in advance.

Laura : [00:22:33] Talking is just like is this working. Do you feel like you can do these things. If not then how do we how do we fix it or you know what else have we achieved in the course and adding them on as other learning objectives.

Laura : [00:22:47] And so actually leaving spaces for the students prep for it learning objectives to actually emerge and then looking at it at the end as far as being a celebration. Did we do these things together that we actually manage to push our collective knowledge.

Laura : [00:23:03] And that goes for the faculty member as we all learn when we teach. You know I’m having a party for you learning objectives and actually sounds fun. I think we should do that.

Bonni: [00:23:13] Where do you see the importance or do you see an importance between learning objectives from one course and then where they intersect with other courses within a program.

Laura : [00:23:24] So that’s interesting because a lot of the courses that I’m working with our partner programs that actually a program level objectives and so I actually think that’s nice because when you’re building a course you actually have to map it back to the program level objectives.

Laura : [00:23:39] And so from an alignment standpoint I think that’s important. But from a practical standpoint I think we need to keep bringing them up. I mean having them at the beginning of the syllabus is not enough. It needs to be an ongoing conversation with students at the larger picture of what exactly are we trying to achieve not just in this course but in your multi years here or how does this fit into your life. Your life goals it be kind of fun to have students have life goals and then a program goals and then there are course goals.

Laura : [00:24:16] And actually having conversations around how they fit in together I mean something like that would be a great sort of underlying project for like a program blog like where you know like a domain of one one’s own sort of situation where students can have their blog post coming into a program or blog coming into a to a program and then they’re blogging through their courses between courses at the end how do their life goals the program goals and the course goals align or do they.

Bonni: [00:24:49] Where. What have you found to be particularly inspirational to you as you have. Well actually have you evolved your thinking about learning objectives over your career. Has that changed over time. Or are there places you go to look for to draw inspiration to keep you growing and challenge your own thinking about learning objectives.

Laura : [00:25:10] Well you know I keep changing fields and if that works it works that works really well for getting multiple perspectives. I mean I think I think that in a lot of ways I’ve bounced around from one extreme to the other as a lot of learners do as they go through their their personal journey. You know I’ve started with learning objectives being a means to get to the end.

Laura : [00:25:36] You know I want very specific learning objectives. This is what I need and then I bounce into the entirely different area of everything needs to be emergents and now I’m very much in a pragmatic kind of I think it’s more nuanced area of seeing how these things play out across different disciplines and understanding that there is a place for everything.

Laura : [00:26:01] And honestly if there was more crosstalk if there’s more respect for the different levels and an understanding that there’s different levels take a lot of times people who are focused just on the assessment level or the Bloom’s level like that. What I would consider to be a more concrete yes but somewhat problematic in terms of depth or nuance.

Laura : [00:26:26] If they understood that there were bigger goals at play that were probably more important. And then if the people who focus on those more abstract levels are like look we do need to evaluate. We do need to assess. We do need to understand what’s going on. If we could if they could get rid of some of that mistrust that has built up around assessments if through that and understand that the the measurable stuff is important too. We could all get together and this looked more like a nuance complex give complex sort of give and take relationship.

Laura : [00:27:08] I think it could be kind of magical. So that’s kind of where I am right now. And I got there again from bouncing around from job to job from discipline a discipline to having conversations people all over the map.

Bonni: [00:27:23] One person who’s really been inspirational to me not just in this area but I would say more broadly just in designing and learning experiences is Sean Michael Morris and when I had him on the podcast we got into a conversation about learning analytics and some of the ethics behind that.

Bonni: [00:27:41] And he really resists it and doesn’t think it’s fair to students and I mean he’s so articulate I can’t even hope to do justice to him other than to say Go listen to that episode.

Bonni: [00:27:50] But one of the things I had said was that I find it helpful to have those learning learning analytics just to be able to make note of I should probably take him with that student but it helps inform me to become a more caring person because I might not notice.

Bonni: [00:28:06] I’m not one of those that just would notice that Johnny hadn’t contributed to something in a while you know I appreciate that as information but then wish it would just then go away I don’t want it to track people for the rest of their lives to be affected because they didn’t show up to you know a particular course or what have you.

Bonni: [00:28:25] But what I found so helpful about that conversation was it was six months or more after that conversation and we were on a virtually connecting session together. He was the one of the guests who’s being showcased. And I was just there online participating.

Bonni: [00:28:43] I don’t know how to explain it it’s if you’ve never been in a virtually connected session. I was not I was the audience I wasn’t the the show that makes them. Yes but he actually brought up his feelings about it but then said oh and Bonnie brought this up and it was such an important point of how she uses that. And I thought oh my gosh first of all how does he even remember that.

Bonni: [00:29:05] But second of all just the pity to have those more nuanced conversations like you said and let somebody else stretch your thinking. I just really respected him because he’s such a brilliant educator yet that he would have his mind be stretched in a way that must have been you know semipermanent since it had been so long since we had discussed it.

Bonni: [00:29:26] I really found that profound and I really do wish we had more conversations like that about learning objectives and other topics and teaching and learning.

Laura : [00:29:34] So much about learning analytics. In many ways it’s a similar conversation and the conversation about learning objectives and ultimately I think it goes back to making sure you understand what you’re doing and why you know why is it important to know if Johnny is contributing to a discussion board every week. Is that really important.

Laura : [00:29:54] Why does it what’s going on. And if the important point is I need to check in on these analytics to make sure that Johnny is ok. I don’t know any educator who would argue against that. Like that’s what should happen. But if you’re using it to say well Johnny only participated two times so that’s a C-plus. Well that’s problematic because I don’t even know what that means. Right.

Laura : [00:30:21] So it’s about you know I have a friend in Institutional Research who talks about this idea of it’s not about measuring as much as defining what you’re trying to measure and that that’s that’s where the hard work comes into play as understanding what are we trying to understand.

Laura : [00:30:40] There is that understand word. That’s the that’s the key word for the day is understand but it’s it’s about understanding why you’re doing things and struggling with it and critiquing it and bringing in different perspectives on it versus just getting the numbers from the analytics and saying well the analytics say this or I’m going to buy this program because it has analytics that’s never a good idea. Yeah.

Bonni: [00:31:07] Well this is the point in this where we get to give our recommendations. I wanted to recommend that people read James Lange’s a recent column in The Chronicle of Higher Education. He titled it A Welcoming Classroom.

Bonni: [00:31:21] And I really liked this a lot because a lot of times I see as faculty sometimes talking about disability or accommodations as something that’s part of our labor and our work and even I see some faculty go as far as to be irritated by those things and I loved his title a welcoming classroom. Wouldn’t we all want our classrooms to be welcoming for everyone.

Bonni: [00:31:44] And I just wanted to read his closing here. But I also encourage you to read come and read the whole thing on the Chronicle which I linked to in the show notes but he says “I hope we can agree as a universal principle in the creation of college courses that we all want students to feel welcomed and to have equal opportunities to succeed in our courses. If we begin our course design with that simple plea in mind and keep it at the forefront of our deliberations and debates about accessibility we can help lift the weight of requesting accommodations from the backs of students who already have been asked to bear significant burdens in the pursuit of learning. In doing so we’re more likely to help all students succeed.”

Bonni: [00:32:26] And wow it’s a powerful post. I highly recommend people check it out. And then the other one is a request to go read a post that I was invited to share on a journal that is a student graduate student run Journal at the University of Texas at Austin. They have a journal called flow and it is on media. They’re attempting to really define what flow is because it used to be predominantly about television broadcasting. And in that particular medium and now they’re trying to broaden it.

Bonni: [00:32:57] So I understand they invited me because of the podcasting element was one way that they can stretch what does. What does media mean and redefining that so I wrote a post called The Transformative Power of Podcasts.

Bonni: [00:33:10] I talked a little bit about how podcasting is changing in general with the advent of podcasts like Cereal which was just completely exploded the idea of what’s possible with podcasts and another one and very fond of called s town.

Bonni: [00:33:27] And then I talk a little bit about how my teaching has been transformed through podcasting and suggest everyone go take a look at that and I’ll pass it over now to you Laura to share yours.

Laura : [00:33:36] Well I went an entirely different direction yours is deep and very meaningful. I went in the direction of life hacks because a lot of us a lot of us teachers are also writers as sometimes we struggle as far as how to get our thoughts out so I don’t know about you but I get them all stuck in my head and it’s like how do I spit it out.

Laura : [00:33:57] And I have two different two different things that helped me first just Twitter like there have been so many times where I have just like like deep thought I’m very passionate about it. I’ll actually run it through Twitter and into the Twitter chat that you’re talking about with all the controversy around learning objectives that really started because I needed help with phrasing around a statement.

Laura : [00:34:24] And I find that having those 140 character boxes helps me as far as phrasing what I need to phrase so a lot of times when you see me like put out these statements about digital education or open education or philosophy it’s because I’m literally trying to phrase my thoughts and find a way to do it better.

Laura : [00:34:48] And it’s amazing because those the most times i’m being quoted it actually comes from thoughts that I created through Twitter and then that the the supplement to that thought is I just downloaded grammar really needed to for a job. There’s a job that I’m doing where people where they wanted me to run everything through Grammarly.

Laura : [00:35:10] And so you think it’s just spelling and grammar check. But having that across all of my platforms such checking my tweets checking my email it’s actually making me more careful as far as my phrasing as far as making sure that my punctuation is right. It’s actually turning me into a better writer.

Bonni: [00:35:32] Sounds like it could make us better writers. I love it. Thank you so much for those recommendations. And Laura thank you for your second time investing your time on the show. And I just love how you think about things in a more nuanced way and wanting to have healthier conversations that ultimately lead to better teaching and better learning.

Bonni: [00:35:51] So thank you for all of that. I did want to mention one quick thing that since we last spoke you have redesigned your web site and really thought through in terms of your own identity how that’s being shaped by your professional work and so I’d encourage people to go to the show notes which will be a teachinginhighered.com/174 and go check out Lora’s Web site.

Bonni: [00:36:12] I found I bookmarked it because I found it just it’s always helpful when someone’s done that work on identity and then expressing that in their blog and Web site so it’s really worth taking a look if you have even if you saw before go back and check it out again or if you haven’t ever seen it it’s worth going taking a look into. Thanks again for your time.

Laura : [00:36:29] Thank you. And I did not run it through Grammarly I probably should go back and put it through Grammarly. But if you see grammar mistakes don’t blame Grammarly. OK that was. That was me.

Bonni: [00:36:40] Thanks again Laura.

Laura : [00:36:41] Thank you.

Bonni: [00:36:44] Thanks once again to Laura for being back on Teaching in Higher Ed today for episode number 174. And thanks to all of you for listening.

Bonni: [00:36:55] If you have yet to subscribe to the weekly updates you can get the links that we talk about in each of the shows and follow up on resources like the James Lange article I mentioned my article on the transformative power of podcasts and other resources that we discuss.

Bonni: [00:37:10] And you’ll also get an article in that same e-mail about Titan or productivity. So go ahead and go to teachinginhigher.com/subscribe if you have yet to subscribe.

Bonni: [00:37:22] And if you have yet to rate or review the show on whatever service it is you use to listen to it that helps other people discover it. But don’t soda’s just sharing it with your colleagues and thanks for listening. I really enjoy being a part of a community with all of you and I’ll see you next time.

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.