Teaching in Higher Ed

The Centerpiece of Our Teaching

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The centerpiece of our teaching

“I'll be right back,” our two year-old said, in the middle of our Finding Dory movie night. I asked her where she was going.

“I'm going to get my blanket to put down on the couch, Mommy,” she replied. I watched her go, thankful for the seasons in which our kids have been able to gain more agency in their lives. As their language and motor skills develop, they're able to seek their own paths more.

She carefully placed the blanket down on the couch, climbed up and sat down, with the most satisfactory expression on her face.

“It's better for my butt, Mommy,” she said with delight.

I'm thankful for tonight's distraction of Finding Dory and “better butts,” but I'm feeling less-than-delightful this evening. My heart is broken for so many in our country who believe their own agency will now be diminished, under a new president.

Because that wasn't enough to process, I also have a loved one who is starting to show signs of cognitive decline. This has been a week of appointments to attempt to capture whatever we can in designing a long-term plan for care.

I keep attempting to channel my inner Kerry Moore during this season. I occasionally have moments of success at it, but mostly I keep trying to control the universe of this situation far more than will ever be feasible.

While some have criticized movies like Inside Out for being unrealistic, I'm taking all kinds of comfort that Dori is able to navigate her world so well. I cling to the hope that it might be the case for my loved one, for as long as is possible.

I had been asked to participate in a post-election dialog by a student-led group a few weeks prior to the election. My first inclination had been to politely decline the invitation. However, I decided that this was no time to avoid risk and to remain comfortably distant.

My acceptance came when I thought I knew who our president would be… Tuesday's election results were a complete surprise to me and I know I wasn't alone in that.

The night of the panel, I was emotionally raw and had no idea how I had come across. The room was filled with teary-eyed students, along with others whose expressions I could not read. I knew at least one student in attendance, who I hold dear, had voted for the president elect (or at least had said she would during our most recent conversation about the topic, prior to the election).

It was painfully difficult to try to balance my desire to express the reasons for the raw emotions so many are feeling, while trying not to demonize those who had voted for the president elect. Afterward, I channeled my inner Shelia Heen (co-author of Thanks for the feedback: The science and art of receiving feedback well) and privately sought input on how I had come across.

“What's the one thing I did during the conversation that held me back from being as influential as I wanted to be?” I asked of two of my students who stayed after the panel.

Both students were very gracious about the impact I did make, but had a suggestion for how I could have been better. I had gotten choked up while talking about how I didn't want to explain to my kids what certain words meant, when the leader of our country was speaking on television. However, one of the students said this didn't really resonate with her, not having kids.

They indicated that I could have been even more effective if I had brought up issues closer to their concerns, as college students. While I had addressed the concerns over those who could potentially lose their healthcare, with a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, most of our students are on their parents' health plans and are also incredibly healthy. I completely agreed with their critique and know that I need to become more well-versed on college affordability and accessibility.

One expert I know I will benefit from in this quest is Sara Goldrick-Rab, author of the book Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream. Angela Jenks has shared on the podcast about her perspective-taking as it relates to knowing the price of our assigned textbooks. It is easy for us to lose touch with what it is like to attend college from a financial perspective, for our students.

I need to get better. I need to be better. My students deserve better than my current level of knowledge on an issue that has such a clear impact on their lives. Especially the most vulnerable of them…

I'm incredibly grateful that I'm not alone in wanting to do this work. Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel challenged us this week:

Champion each other. The fight we need will be started with hugs not assault rifles. Don’t be afraid to use the word “love” in your pedagogy.”

May we all have loving our students at the centerpiece of our teaching. Thank you for reading this post. It has been the hardest one to write that I can remember.

The trouble with a fixed digital literacy mindset

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Feeling too old to learn new techniques,

…came the reply from a colleague, when I asked for some input on a workshop I gave recently.

I’ll confess to often struggling with this common theme. There is this myth that age has at least some correlation with digital literacy, if not full on causation.

David White attempts to reframe this challenge with a new set of analogies. Questioning the metaphor of natives versus immigrants, he proposes a new model for thinking about digital literacy.

He suggests we might better refer to digital skills using the framework of visitors versus residents.

This model resonates with me, especially since there are so many different aspects to what it means to be digitally literate.

This Digital Skills metro map from a higher ed organization in Scotland captures this complexity well.

Because a person knows her way around spreadsheets and word processors does not mean she will necessarily be versed in matters of digital privacy. Because a person leverages a flipped classroom model in his teaching does not mean he will necessarily be skilled at using collaboration tools.

While I resist the age explanation of technical incompetence, I certainly recognize the challenge of priorities. Our roles as faculty are comprised of diverse roles with competing goals. Digital literacy may not bubble up as important in one’s higher ed positions.

At a bare minimum, our students should be able to receive feedback on their work and know where they stand in all of their classes at any given time. A learning management system (LMS) is the tool most closely designed to provide that function, though I know there are some ethical challenges inherent in the use of an LMS.

We frequently talk about the importance of our students having a mindset that associates effort with improved academic performance. We try to influence their beliefs and show them that “anyone can learn our discipline.”

What if we started doing that same thing for ourselves?

I know I have some work to do on this, myself. How about you?

Essential Word Processor Features for Faculty

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Word Processor

I was helping a student get prepared for a job interview yesterday. She said that half of her time at the company was going to be spent in a one-on-one interview, while the other half of the time would be devoted to an assessment of her Word and Excel skills.

She admitted to not being adept at Excel, but touted her Word skills, since she had been using it extensively in her current internship. I inquired as to whether or not she knew how to set tabs. She said she knew how to “tab over,” but didn't even know what I meant when I asked about “setting” a tab.

I have the utmost confidence in her ability to do well on the interview. She will quickly be able to learn more of the word processing and spreadsheet skills she needs and the organization she's interviewing with will have an exceptional intern.

However, it did get me thinking about the most common features in word processors that many faculty don't utilize, which ultimately make their work harder in the long run.

Here are the most essential features I recommend you leverage, when using a word processor:

Use Styles

If you've written an academic paper, or a manual of some kind, you've likely made use of headings and subheadings. However, most people don't know that you can create a style in your word processor that, when applied, automatically places that formatting on a given line/paragraph. There are some built-in styles in most word processors, which you can modify at any time to have the look-and-feel that you want.

This documentation shows you how to create styles in Microsoft Word, but you're only a search away from discovering how to use styles in whatever word processor you happen to use.

Here's a video of how to create styles in Microsoft Word from Lynda.com*.

Auto-create a Table of Contents

Once you have styles set up in your document, it becomes incredibly easy to auto-create a table of contents in your document. After you auto-create a table of contents, you can come back later and right-click and choose update, to have the table of contents reflect any changes you have made in your document since you first created it.

Here's how to auto-create a table of contents in Microsoft Word.

This video shows you how to quickly create a table of contents, and incorporates a review of applying styles, as was discussed, above.

Insert Page or Section Breaks (Versus Pressing Enter a Bunch of Times)

When you want to move down to a new page in your document, many people are tempted to accomplish this goal by pressing enter a bunch of times. The problem with this is that, if you make changes to your document down the road, your page breaks will all likely be shifted a bit and your pages will not appear as you originally desired.

Instead, if you insert a page break, or a section break – new page, you can be assured that no matter what changes you make to the document, a new page will appear where you originally intended. Section breaks are helpful if you want to have a different page numbering scheme (like roman numerals at the start of a document that then move into regular numbers), or if you want each section of a document to have a different header (like perhaps the name of the chapter or section of a document). Page breaks can be inserted and also can be deleted, if you change your mind later.

Here's the documentation on how to insert a page break in Microsoft Word.

Below is a short video on how to insert a page break in Microsoft Word.

Next Steps

Those are just three features in a word processor that have a lot of leverage, but it is really just the beginning of finding ways to save yourself time. I've found that the website Lynda.com* has plenty of video tutorials to help me work more effectively with many different technology tools. Here's a referral link* that will allow you to receive a free, 2-week trial to their service*, which I highly recommend.

Your Turn

What features do you consider most essential in getting the most out of a word processor?

Sharing on Utopistica About Teaching in Higher Ed

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Utopistica

I was honored to get to speak with Lina Gomez for the Utopistica YouTube television show, from the Universidad del Este, Puerto Rico, a few weeks ago.

Utopística, programa de discusión y análisis que procura constatar la realidad como precondición para la formulación de alternativas verosímiles de futuro

Lina asked challenging questions that really got me to reflect about how my experience with Teaching in Higher Ed has changed my teaching, since June of 2014, when it launched. Their professional setup for the show made me really wish that we had a green screen in our home studio.

It looks like I'm shaking my fists in anger (or celebration?) in the still shot for the video. Instead, I'm imitating myself playing the Ellen Head's Up game (without using my iPad as a prop).

The interview is in English.

Resources Mentioned During the Interview

Paul Simon

I also reminisced about how one of my college professors got me to learn more about history by playing Paul Simon before and after classes.


Engaging Students Using Quizlet Live

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Quizlet Live

I’m experimenting with flashcards in my teaching this semester. For as long as I’ve been teaching, I’ve strongly recommended flashcards to my students. However, I knew most students didn’t follow through on the advice.

Over the summer, I decided to have my teaching assistant make flash cards for my entire introduction to business course. I recognized that some of the benefits from flashcards are derived by actually making them, yourself. However, I suspected that a larger percentage of students would receive at least some advantages that this form of retrieval practice offers, even if they didn’t make them from scratch.

After doing a little bit of research on possible tools, I decided to select Quizlet as the app for this function.

Results

In my recent mid-semester review, many students commented that the flashcards were contributing to their learning. However, I was concerned that the focus was still on memorization and not enough on application.

This wasn’t the fault of Quizlet, of course, but more so that having baseline knowledge of terms and their associated definitions will only take us so far.

I also was concerned that they were only likely accessing the flash cards, at best, once a week. That level of frequency wasn’t going to prove anywhere near as useful as if they could increase the times they accessed them.

Some students have downloaded the Quizlet app on their phones and have reported being more likely to review them a few times each week. I have the flashcards embedded from within our LMS, which ensures that they’ll likely go through them at least that one time, but doesn’t provide any more accountability than that.

Something New

Overall, my thoughts this semester about Quizlet have been positive, though I already have some ideas about how I might want to tweak things next time around.

However, this week I tried a new feature of Quizlet, in class, and was instantly in awe.

Quizlet Live

The name of this feature is Quizlet Live. It is a game that you can play with a minimum of six students (two teams of three), all of whom have a mobile device.

Introducing Quizlet Live from Quizlet on Vimeo.

I’ve got around 30 students in this class. When I accessed the flashcard deck that reviews for our upcoming exam, I chose to use Quizlet Live.

It brought up a code on my computer that all the students entered into their phones. Then, I had the option of having teams randomly created, or assigning students to teams.

Students then moved around the classroom to sit next to their teammates. Each student saw a question on their devices and 3-4 possible answers.

Only one of the students on a team had the correct answer on their screen, so they spent a lot of time comparing possible answers and discussing the likelihood of one of their answers being the correct one.

On my computer, a scoreboard was displayed, showing each team’s progression. With each correct answer, their team’s circle would move forward on the line. With each incorrect answer, their team’s circle moved all the way back to the beginning.

Recommendation

I wish I had a video of the students playing the game, or at least some audio. Every single student in the room was completely engaged.

They laughed. They groaned. They failed. They tried again.

Quizlet Live provided information about what the students learned while playing, as well as where they need additional clarification.

I will need to think about how to review more effectively, next time. I’m afraid I may have skipped too quickly back to the game play, for another round, versus providing them with further explanations of difficult concepts.

Still, I highly suggest you check out Quizlet Live for an interactive way of reviewing in one of your courses. This tool is especially good for the kind of information that would be suitable to put on a flashcard.