Teaching

I have wrapped up another semester of teaching and am full of thoughts about what transpired. I already miss the students and am glad to be able to cross paths with at least some of them in the Fall semester.

Below are some of the ways in which I experimented in this class and what some of the results were.

Syllabus

Each time I go look at old syllabi these days, I find myself thinking I really sound like a jerk. My practice, lately, has been to remove the offending passages. Sometimes, a kinder, more edifying way of phrasing something is possible. Most times, I find the deletion stands and there is no need to add anything back in.

My Business Ethics syllabus was changed to remove the strict language about what ‘participation’ really means and the consequences of being disruptive in a class. My goal was to remove all language that sounded patronizing and to only add things back in that are written in such a way as to be likely perceived as supportive of one’s learning.

OpenTextbook Adoption

I decided to take the plunge and go without a textbook from a for-profit company. I had used a $70 text from a traditional textbook company in the past. This time, I used a combination of readings from two different open textbooks on the topic:

• Good Corporation, Bad Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Economy (2016), Pulos & Jimenez
• Ethics for A-Level (2017), Dimmock & Fisher

Both of the texts were licensed such that I could use portions of them within our LMS. I copied short sections of the text and always was sure to include the copyright information and links over to the primary sources. Also included were brief videos related to the same topics, as well as additional commentary that was written by me.

Course Workload Estimator to Get Realistic About Reading Requirements

The Rice Center for Teaching Excellence has a Course Workload Estimator, which is extremely helpful in determining approximately how long reading and other assignments will take to complete. It has regularly caused me to dial back the amount of reading I have assigned.

Anecdotally, this seems to contribute heavily to the likelihood that students complete that portion of the class (in addition to the other practices I use to build in some accountability). I also relied heavily on video content to fill in many of the gaps.

Shared Learning Outcomes

This ‘less is more’ approach also carried over into my learning objectives. I had five goals for the class outlined before we began. Then, during the first class, we discussed what the students were hoping to get out of the class. That dialog resulted in placing a slightly different emphasis on one of the goals I had outlined, in addition to adding an entirely new outcome that hadn’t been among the ones I brought to the table, initially.

I asked one of my students if I could share his reflections on part of the course here on my blog. He welcomed me to do so:

“One of the learning objectives that really impacted me and my thoughts in regard to ethics, in general, was learning to be a more conscious consumer. As a young adult, I find myself buying things that are just basically affordable. After learning about India’s sweatshop factories for “cheap fashion,” I realize how impactful my purchases can be in the long run. Knowing I have a voice and can write and communicate my thoughts towards a company has given me more confidence to stand up for what I believe is right or ethical.

My change in perspective came for the in-class film, ‘The True Cost,’ where filmmakers take an insiders perspective on the devastation of fast fashion and the cost it is taking on the workers who are the ones being the most impacted by the cheap clothing craze going on right now. This not only gave me a better insight as a consumer of clothing but also made me question other purchases that I make daily.

I now believe that this aspect of the class has given me something that will stay with me for the rest of my life and allow me to be ethical and support or vote with my money on companies I believe in.”

The True Cost was a great resource for the class (thank you, Ruthie and Kerry, for both suggesting it in the past!). Not only is it a tremendous film, but they have plenty of resources on their site for taking action on the learning that results from watching it.

My friend Jeff recommended another video series that I wound up adopting for this class: PBS Frontline – The Facebook Dilemma. The students did enjoy the videos, though I am not sure that the ways in which their personal information has been violated, through an unattenuated quest for profits quite got through for some of them. I didn’t show this one from John Oliver this time around (including his interview with Edward Snowden) – as it emphases more of the ways in which the government surveils its citizens and not as much on the profit motives that are more aligned with the course objectives. I know I have more room to grow, in terms of raising the awareness of our students about privacy and the profit motive – in as compelling of a way that The True Cost does for fast fashion.

Attendance

For the first time in my 15 years of teaching in a higher education context, not one student missed a single class session. There were a couple of times when people were late, but since it was so rare that anyone was missing, we would often text them and check in to see where they were.

One guy had gotten caught up in playing a video game in what Csikszentmihalyi would call a state of flow. We managed to break him out of his unbroken focus to remind him that we had started class. This is something that normally would have made me angry in my early years of teaching. Today, I’m glad to have gotten over myself enough to know that I am not the center of my students’ universes – and that this is something to celebrate and not to be angry about.

The other day, I ran into someone else from the class and was talking about how surprised I was that everyone had done so well on attendance. He replied, “I think we were there all the time because we really wanted to be there. We knew if we missed a class – that we would be missing out on something really good.”

I used to spend a lot more time thinking about policies that would use punitive methods to maintain a certain minimum level of acceptable attendance rates. Now, I invest that time in creating positive learning experiences that students won’t want to miss. It seems to be paying off!

Grades

The grades for the students in this class were also quite high. I am aware that this will be frowned upon by some of my colleagues who believe that only a certain percentage of high grades should be awarded in a given class, regardless of student achievement.

Some of my fellow professors got into a discussion with a candidate a couple of weeks ago about the potential for grade inflation. They shared their beliefs about the importance of always having grades that spread across a curve of potential levels. The perspective is that if too many students earn A grades – that there are a certain percentage of individuals who won’t work even harder as they might if greater levels of granularity were identified and more grades were pushed down to the lower levels.

The conversation reminded me of when Cathy N. Davidson was on Teaching in Higher Ed, episode 169 to speak about her book: A New Education.

She shared about the history of grades and how they first started out as a means for assessing the quality of meat. The meatpackers initially opposed the system, since it wasn’t complex enough to accommodate the various qualities and characteristics of the meat they were being asked to rate. Davidson wonders if the system wasn’t good enough for the meat packers, why so many of us continue to mindlessly practice it today?

My beliefs about grades are all over the place these days, as I continue to be challenged by conversations I have been able to have on the podcast, such as:

• Episode 217: How to Ungrade with Jesse Stommel
• Episode 209: Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies with Asao Inoue
• Episode 29: Specifications Grading with Linda Nilson
• Episode 228: How to Create Engaging Online Classes with Laura Gibbs (only a portion of the dialog is about grading – but well worth a listen)

Your turn

How did your teaching go this semester? Did you experiment with anything new? If so, how did it go?

My first job out of college was teaching computer classes. The plan was that each of us would go through a week of “train the trainer,” when we would discover how to avoid saying filler words (like umm, ok, so, and like), where to stand when we were teaching (best spot was the back of the room, in order to spot whether someone was having difficulty following the steps), and how to have good dry erase board penmanship in order to display the topics for the day.

I never did get to complete my train the trainer program, however. I was in there long enough to have a service bell rang each time I said umm and to erraticate that filler word from my vocabulary. During my second day, my manager came and asked if I could teach a class the following day on an application I had never used before (Word Perfect for Windows). Trying to learn a new application was hard enough, but I hadn't ever used Windows before, making my first day of teaching quite eventful.

Because I wasn't actually teaching (David Merrill would have called what I was doing demonstration, I would later learn), the students were happy with the class and gave me straight tens on the course evaluations. Neither the students or I knew what we didn't know. We remained blissfully unaware of just how little we still knew about using Word Perfect for Windows, or even Windows in general.

The Word Perfect class was held offsite, so there wasn't anyone to observe me or provide feedback. Over the course of the next few weeks, I taught a combination of offsite and classes held at our main facility. After one of the local ones, my manager caught me as I was heading home and handed me something.

“Take this and give it a listen. You will learn a lot,” he said.

It was a cassette tape of me teaching a beginning Excel class. It felt strange to hear the sound of my own voice. Little did I know I would listen to myself at least once per week for four and a half years for the podcast, with no sign of stopping.

It didn't take too many minutes before I noticed the most irritating habit. I kept repeating the phrases “right now” and “go ahead” before each and every step I guided the students through.

“Right now, we are going to go ahead and go up to the file menu and choose open.”

“Go ahead right now and click insert-row.”

It drove me nuts to hear this repetition, but I couldn't stop listening to the recording.

It's hard to adequately describe how hard this was to hear. I used to sing on our former church’s worship band and used to dread whenever a certain guy would volunteer to do the sound on a given week. He just didn't have it down enough to prevent the loudest feedback noise I've ever heard in my life. I was already slightly hard of hearing during that time, but I pictured the additional loss that was occurring each time my weeks for singing were matched up with his weeks to run the sound.

Those cringe-worthy experiences were similar to the horror I felt at hearing my verbal repetitions of ‘right now’ and ‘go ahead.’ I vowed to do what I could to stop those patterns. Eventually, I did rid myself of those verbal tics, but new ones would take their places.

After some time, I finally figured out two approaches that resulted in more permanent change. First, I got used to shorter, more declarative sentences, which had been socialized out of me in my training to be a girl (side note – huge recommendation for episode 56 – part 10 – of the Scene on Radio podcast – The Juggernaut, which has me thinking about my own socialization as a young girl and my difficulties in being assertive). After intense practice giving more declarative commands in my classes, “Click file-open,” no longer felt like too abrupt of a statement.

Also, I let silence become more of a friend in my teaching (well, in my demonstrating – it would be many more years before I was really doing what I now think of as teaching). I didn't need to rely on catchphrases to fill the silence. It was ok to let people think and reflect.

That one cassette tape changed my teaching far more than anyone’s feedback might have who had sat in my first few weeks of teaching. Today, I have similar feedback mechanisms built into my practice with regularity. I listen to each episode of Teaching in Higher Ed, where I pick up on bad habits that have snuck into my interviewing. Also, I regularly see myself on video when recording panels, screencasts, or other video projects.

I was disappointed when I listened back to my interview with Peter Kaughman about compassionate teaching. I don't want to spoil the episode, if you haven't listened yet, though his life should hardly be thought of as a potential spoiler alert. After he so beautifully shared of his diagnoses and subsequent health challenges in his blog post, I didn't want to wind up asking a question that didn't facilitate the telling of his story in a way that would honor that incredible piece of writing.

I knew how much pressure I was putting on myself at the time, though I suspect only those who know me deeply would ever be able to spot the signs of these feelings. I heard it, though, in my repetition of the phrase, “I wonder if you would…” over and over again. “Stop wondering, Bonni – and just ask the question!” – I kept thinking as I heard my problematic phrase.

As I listened to this week’s episode with Josh Eyler (which had been recorded before my conversation with Peter), I realized that this new pattern had been around for at least a month now. It wasn't as evident in the dialog with Josh, but I still heard myself saying it two or three times. I've got something new to work on.

I'm thankful for these opportunities to always be getting better at what I do, both in podcasting and in teaching. If it weren't for the constant feedback that comes from self-observation, I would no doubt have an abundant collection of distracting habits by now that would be much harder to change.

If you aren't regularly exposed to opportunities to watch or listen to yourself teach, I highly recommend you find a way to incorporate that practice into your professional development. It can start with something as small as recording some screencasts for your classes and viewing those to get used to watching yourself.

It does get easier to hear or watch yourself over time if you commit to doing it regularly. After the shock wears off, there's no finer form of feedback that I've ever experienced. It's raw and so very real. What you're seeing isn't filtered through anyone’s biases – except your own.

A more formal way of doing this kind of observation is to do some in-class recording. My colleague uses a tool called Swivl that she says is highly effective. I haven't tried it, yet, but am in the process of watching this video series on the research they have conducted on this practice in educational contexts.

If you want a more systematic way of setting goals toward personal change (including teaching), you may want to check out Michael Hyatt’s free goal setting video series, which is an introduction to his paid 2019 paid Best Year Ever course*. They also offer a “free” lifescore assessment that can help you identify the areas in your life most in need of some goal setting. I put “free” in quotes, since both of these options require that you provide an email address. They do comply with all anti-spam laws and make it very easy to unsubscribe in the future, should you no longer wish to hear from their organization. At least that has been my experience always with them…

An Update

I’m so sad to report that after I wrote the earlier portions of this post, I learned that Peter Kaufman (episode 320) passed away on November 19, 2018. I reflect more on this in a future podcast but wanted to also share the news here. Thank you to Alex for letting us know in the comments section for that episode. I share this now because while there are ways we can always be getting better as teachers, if we aren’t willing to run the risk of the failures we will make along the way, we won’t be able to have the kinds of transformative relationships that are possible.

I am glad I didn’t wait to be a perfect interviewer to speak with Peter, or I never would have had the opportunity to learn from him in the powerful way in which so many of us did through that conversation. May we all continually find ways to receive the needed feedback to improve our teaching, yet not wait until we are where we want to be before we experiment and take risks.

Also, in memory of Peter, may each of us find ways to be more compassionate in our teaching. Perhaps even starting with the approaches shared in his book (co-authed by Janine Schipper), Teaching with Compassion: An Educator’s Oath to Teach from the Heart*?

The following article was originally published on EdSurge. It is part of my new Toward Better Teaching: Office Hours with Bonni Stachowiak column, which you can learn more about in my first article for EdSurge, where I articulate my vision for the project.

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How can I best support students with very poor writing skills when the class is not one specifically focused on writing? I'm already encouraging them to use the Writing Center and giving feedback that highlights one or two specific grammar/ clarity issues to focus on. Yet I fear that those who enter college with major deficits in this area will struggle in every class, without sufficient resources available to catch up. Thanks Bonni!

—Kerry Moore, assistant professor of social work at Vanguard University of Southern California

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Let me start by saying that I hear this question frequently. We professors sometimes misjudge the skill level students will start from on the first day of class on a variety of fronts. And these students vary in which courses they have taken or plan to take before they finish, so there is a bigger picture of their progression to consider.

Recently I had a bit of a wake-up call regarding my thinking about developing writing skills. In talking with Asao B. Inoue, director of the writing center at the University of Washington Tacoma, for my Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, he stressed the importance of finding out from students what their goals were around writing, prior to attempting to provide them with feedback. I realize that sounds completely obvious, but it was not something I have always remembered to integrate into my own teaching.

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You can submit your challenges and questions here.

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One example we talked about was all the time we might spend emphasizing a particular citation style (e.g. APA, MLA), when the individual has absolutely no intention of ever pursuing graduate school. Yes, I realize that many of us never had the idea of going to graduate school until well beyond finishing undergrad. I also recognize that in some disciplines, teaching students to use particular citation styles is essential, even at the undergraduate level. However, starting by identifying what goals our students have will allow us to provide far more powerful feedback than if we never are aware of them at all.

Inoue also articulated the importance of spending more time writing as vital to growing these skills. He stated that “The engine of learning is labor.” The more we write, the better we will get at it. This is particularly true if we have someone giving us useful feedback who is aware of our broader goals and aspirations.

John Warner’s forthcoming book, Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities, addresses this question directly. We might just be “teaching writing wrong,” he argues, by conditioning our students to perform “writing-related simulations,” which are too sterile to help them develop in ways that are most relevant to them.

I reached out to John to see what advice he has for us in these pursuits. He shared:

“I always like to remember and remind students that writing is thinking. If they're having trouble with the writing, there's likely an underlying problem with the thinking, and often it's rooted in them not being sure what they're supposed to be thinking about. I go back to trying to decide what kind of thinking I'm trying to privilege with the assignment and then helping students get started on that path.”

I asked others on Twitter for their advice and received far more responses than I ever would have anticipated. J. Scott Self, assistant professor in the school of educational leadership at Abilene Christian University, joked in a tweet that learning more about growing writing skills was the number one thing he was planning on asking Santa for this year, since it is such a challenge to help struggling writers make improvements.

I completely understand the frustrations, yet there is hope. We can look to those who have been able to address the realities while still challenging themselves and their institutions to change their approaches. I will weave the guidance received from Twitter in with my own advice and will link to the recommended resources.

Remember Writing Skills Fall on a Continuum

One paradigm that can be especially helpful is to think of developing writing skills as falling along a continuum. Ideally, we model for our students that we continue to grow our own writing skills and this quest is a lifelong pursuit.

Shannon Riggs, executive director for the division of Extended Campus at Oregon State University, stresses the importance of reading the kinds of writing styles we wish to emulate. That has been such a helpful practice for me—each time I have entered into a new form of writing in my work. It is also beneficial to employ this approach when it has been a while since we have written in a particular style.

Align with a Team

One challenge I have experienced at different times in my academic career is the feeling that I am trying to develop skills like this as a solo player. The more we can connect with others who are teaching in our program and across disciplines, the more we can brainstorm and share advice on improving our students’ writing together.

Approaches and resources that were recommended by people on Twitter include:

•  Writing Across the Curriculum: This is a movement that works to build effective writing assignments into courses well beyond English, composition and literature classes. There are several well-crafted books on the approach, including Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, by Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen.
•  Writing Across the Disciplines: Jason Ferguson summed up this approach best in a 2014 essay: “Every academic discipline requires writing of some kind and most of them require it frequently.” He provides an overview of the distinct goals and writing products within various areas of study.
•  Encouraging Active Learning: One recent book focuses on making sure writing assignments are done in way that promotes active learning, where students learn by doing rather than passively receiving information. It’s called Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, by John C. Bean

Thanks to Josh Eyler, director of the Center for Faculty Development at Rice University, and Matt Salamone, associate professor of mathematics at Bridgewater State University for suggesting that. Salamone also recommended the Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse, which looks fantastic.

Building a relationship with your university’s writing center can also be foundational in aligning with a team. They often have far more knowledge than we do about resources to support the writing-related learning goals we have for our classes. They are also able to develop relationships with students that extend beyond a given course and can provide individuals with a place where they can see longer-term growth opportunities.

If your institution does not have other departments you can rely on as part of your team, there are online repositories that can support you and your students’ learning. Anthony Schmidt, an educator and Ph.D student, tweeted his recommendation for Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) website, which is one of my all-time favorite resources for my growing my own writing abilities over the years.

Give Plenty of Opportunities for Practice and Revision

If we want to develop better writers, opportunities for practice and for gaining an understanding of the importance of the revisions process need to be emphasized. Laura Gibbs, an online instructor at the University of Oklahoma, shared:

“Exercises on writing can help up to a point, but in the end, writing is a skill that needs practice, and it is a complex skill which means that feedback from a skilled writer is essential. My main job in [my classes] is giving students feedback.”

Riggs, of Oregon State University, also recommended regular practice as a means for improvement. She tweeted that getting three pages down each morning can help all writers become more fluent and to reflect more on our writing.

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Thanks for being among the first to write in with a question for my new EdSurge column (I should note that I work with Kerry at Vanguard University).

The fact that you are inquiring means that you care about supporting your students in developing these vital skills. I wish you success in these pursuits. I was going to ask you to let us know how your efforts are going, but now I’m thinking we should read Bean’s Engaging Ideas together and report back to each other on how it helps our teaching evolve.

I'm excited to announce that my new column is now live on EdSurge's website.

The purpose of this column is to:

• Recognize that teaching is both an art and a science. Share the scholarship of teaching and learning that is helping to inform our teaching practices, while recognizing that our experiences are diverse and unique. Just like an artist, sometimes we learn the rules, so that we can then break them for a given purpose.
• Focus on the joy and the pain that can come from the pursuit of good teaching. Celebrate with you when things go well and mourn with you when they do not turn out as you wished.
• Provide guidance from my experience as a teacher and faculty developer and reach out to others when my expertise is lacking.

You can read more about my aims for the project and the ways in which the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast has inspired me to take this on by checking out my first EdSurge column, which came out in mid-August:

• Teaching Is Both Art and Science. How to Work Toward Improving Your Instructional Practice

I also answered my first question for the Office Hours column, having to do with developing our students' writing skills:

• How Can Profs Support Students Who Come In With Poor Writing Skills?

If you would like to submit a question for consideration, my Office Hours are open at:

• Facing a Thorny Teaching Issue? Ask Bonni!

I will occasionally post past EdSurge Office Hours columns here on the Teaching in Higher Ed blog, once it has been out for a week or two on EdSurge's site.

But your best source for the latest columns is on the EdSurge Office Hours guide. Special thanks to Jeff Young at EdSurge for the opportunity and the collaboration.