Bonni: [00:00:00] On today’s Teaching in Higher Ed episode number 103, I get to talk to Sean Michael Morris again this time about critical instructional design.

Production Credit: [00:00:12] Produced by Innovate Leaning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:22] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is 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 approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:50] Our family recently went away for a little bit of a retreat and one of the things that we were asked to do there was to fill out what’s called a wheel of life I don’t know if you’ve seen these before but they just ask you to sort of rate different aspects of your life. I’ve seen various various variations of them including your friendships family your health your professional development your career and so on and for this particular time when I did it I felt like I was off the charts in terms of professional development and I think that’s probably predominantly due to two reasons.

Bonni: [00:01:27] One is just feeling like on Twitter how powerful those connections can be that I have made and how much every time I go and spend time on there I’m just there with such a hunger for learning that gets completely satiated by satiated by that process.

Bonni: [00:01:43] And then also the fact that there are just so many great resources for the things I’m interested in including that I have signed up for a class that is coming up offered by the digital pedagogy lab and we’ll be talking about that a little bit in this episode and that that particular class that I’m signed up is going to be taught by Sean Michael Morris who is today’s guest. He was on the show previously. And today we get to have a conversation about critical instructional design. Let me share just briefly about Sean Michael Morris in case you didn’t get a chance to listen to the past episode.

Bonni: [00:02:22] He is at Middlebury College an instructional designer there and their department of digital learning and also the director of the digital pedagogy lab and the director director of hybrid pedagogy and I am excited to be able to talk to him because he has been such a teacher for me. Just in informal ways. And then also that will have this connection in more of a formal capacity as well.

Bonni: [00:02:48] And just a quick note of accolades about Sean Michael Morris is that Jesse stormily recently said that he considers shawn to be the greatest online educator that he has ever had a chance to be taught by and to work with. And I’m just so excited about him joining me for today’s episode. Sean, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Sean: [00:03:11] Thanks for having me back.

Bonni: [00:03:12] I had such a nice time talking to you the first time and I wanted to share with everyone why you’re back and that is that when you were on the episode the last time I mentioned to you that you really have been a teacher to me and I jokingly said I have never paid you to do that job. And actually I am now it’s official the credit card transaction has gone through. I now can say that I am or will be paying you to be my teacher from June 13th to July 1st and that is for a course that you’ll be teaching with Amy Collier called Critical Instructional Design. And I’d like you to talk just a little bit about the class and because I think that people who are listening might like me also be interested in something like this for their own professional development.

Sean: [00:03:58] Sure sure no problem. First of all thank you very much for enrolling. I’m actually really excited about this course. I’ve been doing construction a lot and I made mention this in the last awesome so I’ve been doing construction design to various degrees for about 15 16 years and it’s one thing that’s sort of always bothered me about intellectual wine is it’s the way that it makes very mechanical the mechanical nature of teaching because it’s virtual because it’s asynchronous largely certain processes are put in place where the spontaneity is taken two to be.

Sean: [00:04:36] The relationship is taken out of teaching the sort of care and nurturing of the student is taking no teaching and all of a sudden it becomes mostly about what content can be transferred and what’s and then and then assessments essentially. So you’re giving content and then you’re checking to make sure the content was accurately read apparently and absorbed to an almost absurd extent where really in some cases and a certain extent where she says she’s leaving behind when it becomes fiction.

Sean: [00:05:07] Well when they go online they leave behind the thing that makes them gullible teachers in class. They leave behind their very dynamic speech in their gestures and they’re walking back and forth in class or they’re creative things they do with the arranging of desks or stuff like that. But the teachers like to do when they’re in the room and all that just gets ripped away and then all of a sudden they’re reduced to essentially PowerPoint presentations that the students have to sit there and go through memorize and then regurgitate the form of an exam of some sort and critical instruction goes on.

Sean: [00:05:44] It’s sort of it kind of comes out of a conversation I’ve had about the life the last 15 16 years about trying to make what happens in the classroom not not not replicating what happened in the classroom online line but rather taking the sort of wonderful dynamic that occurs in the classroom and trying to find a way for for a wonderful dynamic to occur online. Not the same dynamic can’t be can’t that can’t be done but some similar kind of dynamic something where a teacher can approach and say I’m teaching I’m not just loading up content and letting that be that that substitute for the teacher. I’m actually in a situation where I get to teach. Right now I don’t know. I mean there are tools available to teachers that help with that.

Sean: [00:06:33] But in many cases we’re faced with teaching them inside an LMS (the learning management system and teachers sometimes feel very helpless against a warning system. How can I how can I do it differently. Basically it’s designed so that all I’m doing is letting content and then assessing it and then and then posting grades.

Sean: [00:06:54] But it’s a critical answer she was mine is a way of starting to question the elements trying to figure out ways to package if you will not really in the code but just in terms of the way it behaves and the way it expects us to behave the pedagogy that’s encoded in the elements itself trying to break into that. Switch it up and make it work for us.

Sean: [00:07:17] So a lot of the critical juncture is at this point is is questioning it’s a matter of stepping back and observing and saying what are the assumptions of the elements. What are the assumptions about that I that I make and have been given to make about online learning and how can I how can I switch that and make it make it into something that feels more productive more like teaching but I want to do it that makes sense.

Bonni: [00:07:42] I’ve been doing the pre-reading that you assigned them a very good student you’re going to find it might just do you wait. And one of the articles when we talked about doing this episode I had thought in my mind that I think you maybe have pre-reading of four or five articles something like that.

Bonni: [00:07:59] And one of them includes a talk given by Gardner Campbell and I thought what we could talk about those things and that would be that would make for a great episode and it couldn’t get farther than an article which I will post a link to in the show notes at teachinginhighered.com/ 102 that you wrote called “Critical Pedagogy in the Art of Learning Management” and that’s really where our conversation will center on today although I’m sure knowing you and knowing me we will find other things to bring into it as well.

Bonni: [00:08:32] But you start out really with this whole notion of absurdity and you talk about that there are other things that are delightful when they come into our teaching and into our instructional design. Things like you didn’t say there were diversions but that’s what I think of or maybe that was the word you use but I mean there there’s great things that can be emerging that are wonderful humor can be wonderful but that absurdity. We don’t want to have any of that in our teaching.

Bonni: [00:08:59] And I do want to make a cautionary note that I’m not quoting you exactly because you do have a very colorful four letter word that you use that begins with F and rhymes with the word duck. And I told you before we started recording that I am not trying to censor you I’m just inherently selfish and I want to be able to listen to podcasts and my car with my two year old and my four year old and I do like to listen to the episodes after they air and so we’re not going to say that word but it starts with this absurdity that creates a whole list of things that I want to kind of walk through this list with you and have you share a little bit about. And it really is absurd as I was reading I thought you hit it on the hit the nail on the head. Tell me about the absurdity that consists of learning as PowerPoint slides.

Sean: [00:09:48] I’m sure you have. You have at some point sat down with either a child or a student or another adult and I had a had a good conversation that went in directions that you had no idea it was going to go on and maybe this just happens all the time in the house that I’m in I currently have two undergraduates. One was my husband. One is my child. And they’re always bringing home amazing stuff from school. Right. Interesting stuff about philosophy and stories about social justice and all sorts of conversations we have around the dinner table. Amazing.

Sean: [00:10:24] And you never know exactly where they’re going to go because they’re fed completely by a group of people that are around the table in our management system or in many cases all my learning the idea that content can be contained in this image very simple essentially slide show. So in a lot of elements is you have a situation where and this is very interesting because I actually designed in an era of mass and I do this intentionally but in many elements you have a situation where essentially your resume content and then there’s a little Next button and you press the next button and you go to the next bit of content and you press the next button because the next bit of content and you just read through this.

Sean: [00:11:04] And so it’s not unlike literally unlike a PowerPoint presentation where you’re just clicking next clicking next cookie next and going through. In most cases it Alamance there’s no narration and usually with a with a with a PowerPoint slides situation right. Someone’s there and they’re talking through the PowerPoint and that sort of thing. The idea that this sort of content can be that linear. The idea that you could go from point A to Point B to point B to point D without any evidence without any change without any sort of any kind of contribution from a student to any kind of shift in the dynamic or shift in the conversation. Feels like feels absurd to me and it feels like it’s not learning.

Sean: [00:11:47] When I sit around with with people at the dinner table what we’re talking about philosophy or we’re talking about social issues or talking about whatever it may be or literature you never know with a conversation is to go and then never knowing where the conversation is going to go. Not only makes it really interesting but also it makes it really edifying mix it makes it a learning experience.

Sean: [00:12:07] The container of the content of this point A to Point B to point C and so on. Keeps anything dynamic from happening. It actually silences the learning and you can hear that silence. Then when you get to the point of a discussion forum where students are supposed to let you know what they thought of the reading or they’re supposed to somehow reiterate what was said in the reading. Really what you get is is the internet equivalent of crickets. You get text but that is it’s boring to read. That isn’t interest and it doesn’t contribute anything doesn’t add anything but really is just a reiteration of all that it is.

Sean: [00:12:46] And you can double check that against the content and then you can assess it and say yes they’re getting it but you’re not allowing for actual learning to occur. All you’re doing is you’re taking information and dumping it into someone’s into someone’s brain and then they’re dumping it out onto the page.

Sean: [00:13:02] And I think a lot of dumping and very little.

Bonni: [00:13:04] Learning I’m thinking about the guy who produces our podcast, his name is Andrew. And I’m thinking about the fact that he picks out quotes from every episode. Then we can use on social media. And Andrea this is my vote for something that has to do with the times. As my husband mentioned recently I do have a pretty good big potty humor which is great when you have a two and a four year old so it’s perfect. Tell me about discussion that consists of rhetorical questions.

Sean: [00:13:33] So this is actually something that happens in our live classroom as much as happens on line. And that is the asking or question when you already know the answer. Teachers are are really guilty of this. I’m guilty of this. It certainly has happened in my courses. And I think it comes out of the city is that teachers feel like students have to reach a certain kind of knowledge about how to reach a certain objective and this is really really reinforced right now in all I’m learning and ground learning.

Sean: [00:14:04] The idea that the Course has objectives to get to this point misses and that shows that you have achieved something and now you can leave the class within. So we ask these questions because we’re trying to guide them to see to know what we know. But when I ask a question of you for example I’m not asking you to find out what I know I would just tell you what I know now and then and then you could contribute back what you know and then we could have this conversation back and forth to some rhythm that starts happening in the classroom. And it certainly starts happening online.

Sean: [00:14:42] The whole idea of a discussion forum when you when you set one up in a in an elevator is that the discussion forum becomes a place where it’s exactly rhetorical questions. It’s it’s essentially you’ve done the reading with the reading set and that’s really all there is to it. Not only does it not honor the student’s ability to contribute intellectually or creatively to the conversation noncitizen on a teacher in any way shape or form.

Sean: [00:15:06] And I think that’s part of what I find the most troubling about instructional design and a lot of noncritical if you will pedagogy is that for some reason teachers think it serves them to be non-critical or to follow the rules quote unquote of an Alamance or of online learning. For some reason they believe it serves them and in fact it doesn’t. It’s actually hurting them. That’s not what we were taught to do as teachers. That’s not what we were taught to do as learners. We were not taught to just say here’s the content, memorize the content and then you know what I’m going to grade the content that I wrote.

Sean: [00:15:46] Basically you’re going to write back this content and I’m going to grade to make sure you’re saying the same thing that I said. Who wants to do that? That’s that’s the most boring thing you could possibly imagine. And so you have situations where you have teachers who I’m kind of going off topic here but teachers who don’t want to be in class who students who don’t want to be in class because this is what’s happening. There’s just this process of reinforcing the boring and Fang and just getting through it to get to the objective. And I think this is made much much worse in online learning where it where the relationship is invisible where you can’t see the student. You never meet the student in many cases you have to design the course before any students or even loaded into the course, so you have no idea who is going to show up or the dynamic is going to be. You’re just creating something that students can regurgitate and tell you back.

Sean: [00:16:40] I feel like it does everyone a disservice including the teacher not just about taking care of students. In fact it’s also about taking care of teachers and our teachers. So rhetorical questions actually do nobody any good. They don’t do any good that enter the student any good and they don’t lead to any kind of learning in my mind.

Bonni: [00:16:57] One of the early episodes of Teaching in Higher Ed which I’ll link to in the show notes was about something that is called The 8 Second Rule and this is the idea that I this would be traditionally in an A in a classroom environment. I asked a question and I count one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand and so on all the way to eight seconds which is an incredibly long time if you’ve ever tried it. And that that is the amount of time that you wait for an answer to emerge because people have to be thinking about what their answer is process and the better the question that you asked the more likely it is that they’re really needing to think deeply about things and then they have to do that assessment of risk is the answer that I am about to give. Going to be one that is edified or is it going to be one that is made fun of in some way.

Bonni: [00:17:51] And I think that one of the things people have mentioned that as a particularly helpful episode the ones who have gone back to the old old school like the early episodes have said you know that was really helpful to me because we start to condition ourselves out of asking questions that we actually want an answer. This process that without interference can really hinder it. The first time you do it in a classroom it’s probably going to take you all the way to those eight seconds because they’re going to go.

Bonni: [00:18:19] Wait a second when other people ask me questions in this particular environment they go and answer them for me and it’s not socially acceptable to go and actually answer the question that’s been asked and they end up I think driving themselves back more toward your rhetorical questions and also of course how we learned is is easy then to try to think that that’s the way that it’s supposed to be.

Bonni: [00:18:40] And it can be really hard to enter into places that we are on unfamiliar terrain and especially like as you said so many people struggling with a technology piece of it teaching in online environment is going to make it that much harder to do.

Sean: [00:18:54] I was I was also taught the 8 second row although I was taught the 10 second rule so that are less fortunate and it is hard to do in class. And if it’s crazily important to do in class because when you reach that 8 seconds that 10 seconds almost always by the time you reach that someone will always have something. And if it didn’t if there is total silence after that long then then you can think OK I didn’t ask the question right. How can I ask the question another way and try to get that answer coming again.

Sean: [00:19:28] It’s a great observation that one of the three is rhetorical questions because they’re risk free. Essentially you’re just saying back when the teacher told you. And so if you get that right then you get that right. And there are right in the world you’re wrong. I’m in that situation. When you’re asking an open ended question there is no right or wrong. There’s your observation and you you have to as a student you have to bring your person and your own personal observation to and possibly or on to the creative expression to that moment of answer your question.

Sean: [00:20:03] And what I would what I would wonder when I’m you know turning back to the idea of the suffrage line or online learning is how do we create a second rule online. How do we ask those open ended questions and then wait for the responses to see what kinds of things come out be I mean that’s if that’s the sort of question that I want to be able to ask in the course is how do we do this.

Bonni: [00:20:28] One of the things that I’ve heard people talk a lot about is the careful balancing act between being responsive in discussion boards or perhaps in a Twitter chat or something like that. And then also allowing for other voices to emerge. And then if we’re too responsive thinking nobody nobody’s answering and I don’t want them to feel like they. That no one is there to support them in their learning.

Bonni: [00:20:51] But at the same time we have to kind of give that that uncomfortable silence I think for other voices to emerge. Tell me about a memory of that you haven’t in fact you mentioned this that one of the challenges is that education creates this or the absurdity in education creates this sense of learners who don’t want to be in class teachers who don’t want to be in class and administrators who don’t know what happens and class.

Bonni: [00:21:16] And I love when you share your memories of teaching. So what do you talk about a time when that wasn’t true when learners really wanted to be their teachers really or you wanted to be there and perhaps even an administrator or two knew what was happening in that class.

Sean: [00:21:34] So I don’t know that I can speak to the last one.

Bonni: [00:21:37] Darn it, two for three I’ll take it.

Sean: [00:21:42] Yeah. I was really fortunate when I taught on ground and that’s it because I taught creative writing. And so for most people I was either something that they wanted to be doing with a major or with something that they were taking as an elective. And either way it was one of the funnest ones you could take. And so I was really fortunate in that I often had students who wanted to be in class. Now I also approached creative writing from a perspective from a critical perspective.

Sean: [00:22:10] What did it mean to be a writer. Not what had been to write a book or what does it mean to write a story but what does it mean to be a writer. That’s kind of the direction that I took. And so my classes were very much about where students were coming from what they brought to the table. It was a lot less than I was bringing to the table. I could talk about characters and setting and plot and all those things to the end of the day.

Sean: [00:22:32] But I wasn’t actually interested in hearing me say those things. I wanted to hear them say those things and I wanted them to figure out what they meant for themselves. There were plenty of days when I felt like students were as engaged as I was in learning in that situation the administrators didn’t know what was going on in class. I actually this was as a grad student at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Sean: [00:22:57] I would turn in a different syllabus to the English office than I would actually use in class because I knew that what I wanted to teach is not what they would tell me to teach. And so I would just and I knew they were going to come see me in class so I just turned and what they wanted to see and then taught that I wanted to teach and I didn’t go on to have a long career in higher education and maybe that’s too tough.

Sean: [00:23:25] But actually there was a time when I mean for a while I was the chair of an English program an entirely online English program. In Colorado and so in that situation I was I was the administrator and I because it was online I could visit any of my teachers at any time that I wanted. I didn’t I wasn’t really into surveilling them but I often had conversations with teachers to ask them what they were doing across what they found was really working.

Sean: [00:23:53] In that situation it was just as much you are critical pedagogy as when I was with students. I was there as a mentor for the teachers as a as a helper. The teachers and so I wanted to know what it was that was working for them what wasn’t working for them I wanted them to want to be in class because I thought if they want to be in class then their students are going to want to be in class and so I was administrator. I kind of wanted to know what was happening but not from the perspective of surveiling but more from your perspective of how is it going and how can we support you wanting to be there to be our guests. Some examples from from my past.

Bonni: [00:24:33] When we talked earlier about the discussion board sort of cracked me up that neither you or I yet have expressed our disdain for them. I mean we’ve just conditioned our learners if they take another online classes make sure that your answer contains so many words and that you go and have a substantive response to at least three other people and then I will say that I think I probably have a desire to measure things more than you do and that probably has to do with that although I was going to say probably has to do with my background in corporate training but then you told me last time. So but you also share that. But I think I’m probably closer to that but that even gives me a headache to think about how to quantify that and how to set up an LMS to do that.

Bonni: [00:25:21] I’ve seen the shift that happens when we have people go public with their learning in some way whether that’s through Twitter or whether that’s through another kind of social media. Some of these more emerging ones I’ve been trying out snap chat I’m I’m about a kindergartener level on snapchat but just it’s fun to see these different places where we can experiment and have our students experiment with expressing themselves in some way in their learning.

Bonni: [00:25:46] And one of the things I’ve been thinking about I tried this last semester doing poster sessions in a consumer behavior class and I really resisted my own urge to have a rubric that was incredibly detailed on exactly what was expected. And I think there were maybe only five areas of criteria and it was pretty loose.

Bonni: [00:26:07] I thought. Like you’re probably going to be disappointed by the results that you see but that’s OK because it’s the first time you’re trying it. And this is what this is what you do. You experiment and don’t have too high of expectations.

Bonni: [00:26:19] I was completely blown away by what happened. There was one group that built literally built a Barbie dream house because you think of a poster of just you know the three sides and everything. And that’s what I would have thought if I had been assigned to this with my own criteria I would have you know printed out nice charts and maybe put some color there and I would it would have looked like a poster session and they built a Barbie Dream House.

Bonni: [00:26:43] And one of the things they looked at was consumer behavior of how the expressions of gender have affected women’s body image and there was another one with race and ethnicity and how that that has been portrayed in the Barbie brand throughout the years and I forgot what their third one was but I thought if I had made too hard of requirements for that and if there hadn’t been this sense of we we were going to be going public with this we were going to be combining with another event a business ethics competition that I did too. They knew other students were coming in.

Bonni: [00:27:16] Administrators were coming in and people from the business community were going to be coming in as well and it really created this sense of pride in their learning the sense of excitement and there was another group talk about innovation. There poster was analog but they had a cut out and they had an iPad running in the background so they they combined the digital with the analog was tremendous and I was just a really fun thing.

Bonni: [00:27:43] But we think about if I had had you know discussion boards talk about what you learned in consumer be all that. I mean we would have missed out on just this incredible experience and that was what I was thinking about in Time terms of when the learners wanted to be there they were so excited and that I don’t see that as often as I’d like to. And I wanted to be there and in that instance some of the administrators knew what it was he says and it was great fun.

Sean: [00:28:08] I think there is a direct correlation between the amount of restrictions were placed on students and their lack of interest in what we’re doing because the more restrictions you place the more expectations even and sometimes those are the same thing that we place on our learning. The less students have the ability to support themselves or discover what the learning is for themselves. It has to all come from you then.

Sean: [00:28:33] And not only is that a huge burden for a teacher. The idea that OK I’m going to dispense all the knowledge that you need to know for this course in the next 50 weeks if you have a 15 week time and instead this way you’re saying like loosening up some of the rubrics loosening up making some space where students can express themselves and reinterpret and and actually grab hold of that one piece of that one powerpoint slides. Really attractive but you didn’t ask about the kids. Right. And then they can elaborate on that.

Bonni: [00:29:11] Sean, is what we’ve been talking about today critical pedagogy.

Sean: [00:29:16] To an extent yes it is. I think that I think that what we’ve been talking about a lot is sort of a practical application of critical pedagogy in the classroom in an online forum. But there’s a there’s a sort of ingredient in critical pedagogy that is really be separated out when we’re talking about about its application and that is that it really derives before was about teaching really drops out of sort of social justice and moment when Pallo for our first sort of introduced the idea of critical pedagogy.

Sean: [00:29:45] It was less about teaching students in the sort of student centered way and and helping students take ownership of their own learning. And it was more about trying to teach people to read their world because if you could if you could help people reach their world then you’re giving them the very first tool they need to free themselves from any sort of oppression or any sort of cycle of the end. And in fact when I’m working with teachers to digital pedagogy lab or or through you know one of the courses like the one you’re going to be taking or in any sort of situation even on Twitter when I’m talking to teachers.

Sean: [00:30:21] My goal is always to guide them toward reading their world to not take for granted the assumptions that are handed to us or that we take on ourselves about what digital learning looks like about what learning looks like or what teaching looks like. About the role of the teacher and learner about things like data and surveillance and and the witness itself in education technology and education technology industry and all that sort of thing.

Sean: [00:30:50] My goal is to try to help them read their world. And in this circumstance their world is what’s happening with education specifically higher education because as soon as they can do that as soon as they can they can learn to read the elements for example or to read the vendor room a at a giant conference. You know as soon as they can read that then they can recognize when they can sort of separate themselves out from it and start acting in ways that are more discerning and and acting in ways that are that are more empowering.

Sean: [00:31:23] They’re not just being advertised to not just being sort of folks that are being intimidated by by institutional powers they’re not being sort of pushed on by other expectations expectations embedded in the design of an alabaster example. Instead they have the ability to read those things and respond to them the way that they want to respond to them. So when I talk about all this stuff when I talk about learning they consist of PowerPoint slides or discussions that consist of rhetorical questions.

Sean: [00:31:53] I’m just giving examples I’m giving examples of how I have learned to read the world of online learning ordered for digital learning or regular learning by non digital learning. I’m giving examples of what what I I’ve discovered in my own close reading of the world. I’m not saying this is true for everybody. My truth is that some people could use PowerPoint slides to great effect. I have no idea.

Sean: [00:32:21] But they’re not going to unless they’re really thinking about PowerPoint slides and what they do and what they can’t do and what they’re how they’re watched and how they’re responded to. And then you can create something really cool. But so often it’s teachers are taught the way that by the way unfortunately the way that we teach learners and that is by rote by this is what you do. This is just what you do a learner who comes to me and says Why do I have to take a midterm exam that’s a great learner is someone whose life is not just assuming that my rules are are correct are the rules but they’re not necessarily correct.

Sean: [00:33:03] And a teacher who in my case for example a teacher who turns in a different syllabus and he’s actually going to use in class is someone who’s doing something that is that’s empowering. It’s freeing. And I did that with my students in mind trying to enable me to provide them a syllabus that would empower them. And so it really is about that.

Sean: [00:33:28] And a lot of people do try to reduce it to this idea of student centered learning you know making that which can then be reduced to exercises that you can do in class which then become a new variation on rubrics basically. But in fact it’s so much more dynamic than that and so much more unpredictable now because when you’re talking about is human empowerment and you’re talking about helping people read their world so they can respond in the way that’s right for them.

Bonni: [00:33:56] Is critical pedagogy a set of glasses that we can put on to help us view teaching or learning from a different paradigm. Or do you see it as a better analogy would be its laser eye surgery. And we see everything through that lens.

Sean: [00:34:14] I think it’s for me it’s laser eye surgery. I don’t see how I would be able to take it off. There are certain trends in mining right now there are things like personalised learning or project based learning or things like that that are that are happening out there in the world and those those are techniques. And I think that those are more lenses today I’m going to lecture tomorrow we’re doing Project postponing the next we’re going to do one thing that I’m going to lecture again.

Sean: [00:34:41] For me all of this things can fit under critical pedagogy if you are being critical about them. If you’re being careful about why you’re doing them and you’re using them for what they’re good for them just like I was just saying by PowerPoint like they can be use. They just need to be used well. But for me I think I think critical pedagogy is more like laser eye surgery. For me it’s it’s my legs it’s it’s so when I walk in the world.

Bonni: [00:35:11] This is the point in the show where we each give some recommendations and I’ve talked about in a few episodes starting a slack channel for Teaching in Higher Ed and it’s been going really well and I wanted to just mention it again and officially recommend that people can send me an email or the easiest way to send me an email is to go to teachinginhighered.com/feedback. They’ll come right into my inbox and I would be more than happy to add you to that slack channel. And it’s been a neat community. People will pose questions. It’s a safe place to be able to admit not knowing something or struggling with something. And I’ve been enjoying it grow organically. And just how resourceful the people are who are providing answers.

Bonni: [00:35:54] I see it as very much similar to what I get out of Twitter which is tremendous although it does have a little bit more of a closer I guess closed community in the sense of that there’s been people who have expressed concerns over other people from their institutions seen what they might write in a public space like Twitter. And if that resonates with any of you at all I just encourage you to check out the slack channel. The thing that’s nice about slack is that it does allow you to really hone in your notifications you can easily turn on do not disturb.

Bonni: [00:36:28] It’s really smart if you see something on your cell phone that’s a notification is not going to also show you that same notification on your computer you have at 16 times across all your devices it’s just really smart. And I think they’re doing some smart things there in the channel and I’ve been truly enjoying the slack channel I think I probably feel closer to the community there on the black channel than I have in any other way just because of I guess the nature of that tool. I’d suggest anyone who wants to join us it’s. It’s been fun and I think it would be valuable to you. And Sean what do you have to recommend for us today?

Sean: [00:37:03] Well I’m going to a little books but I actually want to just compliment you on that use of slack because cyclers designed I think as a corporate team tool and and meant for corporations or institutions to use to keep conversations collected essentially. And the idea of sort of creating a public if you will kind of public flak is very very cool that I actually heard of anyone doing it. And I think that’s that’s super neat because it is that closed community.

Sean: [00:37:29] So you do have a different sense of intimacy and and a lot less risk because you have people there who are kind of similar thinkers where on Twitter you have no idea who’s going to read what you just what you just did and are benefits people. But I think that I really think that is very cool and I will definitely be wanting to join your side channel recommendations.

Sean: [00:37:49] I’ve got a couple of books. I’ve just started reading The Pedagogy of Indignation which is actually Paulo Freire’s final book and it’s actually out of print which I find interesting. For a long time I thought that his final book was Pedagogy of Hope which felt like such a lovely arc that he would go from because of the oppressed pedagogy of hope and I was like oh that’s so great at the end he found hope. That’s so nice.

Sean: [00:38:15] But actually the very idea was pedagogically indignation and I think that’s really fascinating. That’s that’s actually where he was at toward the end. And it’s a great book creatively accessible and very very inspiring read.

Sean: [00:38:27] The other one that I would recommend is The Children’s Machine and that’s by Seymour Papert P A P E R T. And I was turned onto his machine by maybe the only educational voice out there that I’m a fanboy for and that’s Audra Waters. Papert’s work is amazing. He was saying some the very original thinking about what it meant to bring computers into a classroom and some of his thoughts and ideas are incredibly relevant today and I think unfortunately highly ignored by most people who are bringing computers into classrooms. It’d be great if education technology and to look on value would listen to people’s ideas.

Sean: [00:39:04] And the last thing I would recommend is actually completely not related to education and that is a band called Lights that just you stumble just turn me on to your lights L I G H T S. Specifically a song called “Up We Go” because it’s quite good. Yeah. So those would be my recommendations.

Bonni: [00:39:25] Sean, thank you so much for joining me once again on Teaching in Higher Ed and I cannot express fully how much I’m looking forward to learning even more from you both in the formal and informal spaces. And I just thank you for how you’ve challenged me in my own teaching and just what an inspiration you are. Thank you for your time today.

Sean: [00:39:44] Thank you so much for having me back. It’s been great.

Bonni: [00:39:47] It’s always so great to talk to Sean. Michael Morris and I just appreciate him investing his time once again on Teaching in Highered this time on Episode 1 0 3. If you’d like to access the show notes those we’ll be teachinginhighered.com/103.

Bonni: [00:40:03] But if you don’t want to have to remember to go and do that I suggest that you subscribe to the weekly update it’s just a single e-mail that comes into your e-mail box once a week and you’ll get automatically sent to the show notes as well as an article about either teaching or productivity on most weeks. That article is included there and you can do that at teachinginhighered.com/ subscribe.

Bonni: [00:40:27] And if you’d like to stay connected maybe in a more intimate way with the teaching in higher ed community we have started a slacke channel. You can just go to teaching in higher red dot com slash feedback which is the fastest way to send me an email and let me know what email address you use on slack and I’d be happy to add you to the channel I’ve just been so excited to see the way that community is really coming together. And it’s been fun to see all the advice that gets shared and the vulnerability with which people ask questions is been great fun. So I’d suggest that you connect in that way it’s really been a rich set of conversations that have been happening up there. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll look forward to seeing 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.