tihe156.mp3

Bonni: [00:00:00] Today on episode number 156 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Kerry Moore is back on the show and she joins me to answer a question about setting boundaries with students along with some other listener questions as well.

Production Credit: [00:00:16] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:26] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our personal productivity so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:54] Today I am welcoming back to the show my friend and colleague Kerry Moore. Kerry has studied social work at Gordon College and UCLA and as a licensed clinical social worker she worked in hospice care for more than 10 years and has also worked extensively with homeless individuals and families. Kerry has provided clinical supervision to social workers and student interns and has a special interest in the factors that help new human service workers to learn and grow. Kerry currently serves as assistant professor of social work at Vanguard University of Southern California and is the chair of psychology in Vanguard’s Professional Studies Program. Kerry welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Kerry: [00:01:41] Hi Bonni thanks for having me on.

Bonni: [00:01:43] Well as you already know when I read one of these questions which these questions have actually come in over the last six months I instantly thought I wonder what Kerry would say about that. And I thought it was so great I sent it over to you and then you wrote said I have some ideas. And then when you do the episode and I was like No no Kerry I want you to do the episode with me. So. Here we are and it sort of expand it over that and I kept getting more questions and adding them to the bucket. And I think we’re just going to dive right in because I know we have a lot of questions to answer and a lot to say so let’s start out with question number one from Shawn.

Kerry: [00:02:20] OK. So Shawn asked for resources or advice on transitioning from a career in business to teaching college students he says I’m making this transition and wants to inspire accounting and business students through combining theory with my real world experience experiences.

Bonni: [00:02:37] I really liked Shawn’s question because it really is this balance between the broader goals of higher education and continuing on one’s educational path and at the same time there is just this need to keep things as real as possible. And one of the past episodes that really stood out to me as one helpful way to do that was when Thia Wolf talked about public sphere pedagogy and I’ll put a link to that episode as well as everything else that we talk about today on teachinginhighered.com/156.

Bonni: [00:03:15] But one of the things in public sphere pedagogy we don’t have to go all out and do such grand things as she described on the episode she is at Chico State University and they have all these great things like the great debate and many interdisciplinary things that go on throughout the year. But we can start small. Invite guest speakers to come in. Invite a business professional in to give some feedback on one of your students projects have your students go out and visit businesses if that’s at all feasible for you in your teaching. I think that really helps to make it more real.

Bonni: [00:03:50] And so many so many faculty have commented about when you do that that oftentimes the guest the professional someone who is doing this full time will often say the same thing that you said but it just has a lot more credibility because sometimes students I think think of us as sort of in this ivory tower and maybe not as able to relate to what’s happening in the real world. And I just find it to be energizing and add a lot of credibility. And I couldn’t suggest that more and I guess the last thing I’ll say on this is I’m just so glad you’re asking this question because that that should be a question that you keep asking throughout your whole career not just as you’re making the transition.

Kerry: [00:04:30] Yeah. I I do find that these real world connections make the most impact for students. Sometimes I get some pushback from students because they require like I have students visit a human service agency and interview someone there and it requires some extra work to schedule and to plan. They don’t they don’t think that they want to do it at first but they often give feedback that it’s the most meaningful experience.

Kerry: [00:04:56] And I do bring in practitioners from the field to come speak in class. And then when I talk about my own experiences in the field my training is in social work so I had about 10 years as a field social worker before I came in to teach. And at first I think I just did kind of storytelling you know randomly throughout as well as I had an example.

Kerry: [00:05:19] But what I’m trying to do now is maybe use my own stories a little more strategically and I know you’ve talked to Bonni about for example having students predict and that that’s a good learning model so things I’m thinking about are sort of telling the beginning of a story obviously in a way that’s confidential to the people involved. And then having kind of stopping before I tell the end and having students think what do you think I did to handle this or how do you think the client would have responded and talk it through rather than only telling stories but trying to be a little more purposeful and how we weave those then.

Bonni: [00:05:55] I love that prediction example I had completely forgotten about that as it relates to Shawn’s question. And Shawn since you asked specifically about accounting and business students there are so many great podcasts out there and one that just time and time again has really relevant episodes related to your topic is Planet Money.

Bonni: [00:06:15] And Planet Money makes a great one for prediction as well because they’re only 15 minutes long and they do try to create this sense of mystery and intrigue and so many of the stories. So you could actually pause it partway through when they haven’t resolved how the company ended up resolving something or a particular issue got resolved and then ask them to predict so I really liked that example. Thanks Kerry for reminding me about that.

Bonni: [00:06:38] All right. Next up we have a question from Lydia and Lydia’s question is actually why we built this entire Q&A episode and this is the one where I thought I really want to hear it. Care to say about this and I have a few thoughts of my own as well.

Bonni: [00:06:54] Lydia writes “I’m a huge fan of your show and look forward to every week’s podcast.

Bonni: [00:06:58] Thank you very much Lydia.

Bonni: [00:06:59] “My question for you is how can faculty grow and develop relationships with their students in the name of mentorship but stay clear from friendship status. Weird question but I’ll explain. I’ve been teaching for four semesters. I’m 31 and look 21. I’m bubbly a people pleaser and use a lot of humor. Nice qualities but I found out quickly they were not to my advantage in the classroom. After my first semester teaching I confused many students as I seemed to pop in and out of being a teacher and quote being myself some first semester evaluations describes me as showing favoritism and quote bipolar neither of which are true. But in my efforts to build meaningful relationships I can now see how I gave this impression positive and nurturing. Student teacher relations. Honest evaluations difficult conversations all seem like incompatible qualities for one person to have. I do use less humor with students and rarely share stories about my life and family. However I can’t feel out that line between mentorship and friendship. Can you help?”

Kerry: [00:08:12] I just think this is such a great question and it it kind of speaks to something I think we all have to figure out which is kind of developing our teaching persona and figuring out kind of what am I like in the classroom and does that feel authentic to who I am as a person. One thing I wanted to mention first. This line just really jumped out to me that Lydia.

Kerry: [00:08:36] You’re feeling like having a positive relationship sometimes feels incompatible with giving honest evaluation and having difficult conversations that those seem like qualities that couldn’t exist in one person. So I would really start there and kind of think through what are your own beliefs about your role and I would really challenge the idea that having difficult conversations isn’t compatible with being a positive and supportive teaching presence.

Kerry: [00:09:10] You know the way that I think about teaching as as different from from Friendship is that the goal. You know some of this happens in friendship too but our goals in teaching are to help the students grow in certain learning outcomes and to grow in a holistic way as they as they study their discipline and I do think that honest feedback is one of the best gifts that we can give them in that process. It’s not in a in a mean spirit or a critical spirit. Even our difficult conversations I think are meant to help our students grow. So I think some of my most difficult ones are when students plagiarise. For example no one loves having those conversations but the truth is that students are not going to be successful if they don’t know how to use information inside information. So having that hard conversation is absolutely what they need to move forward successfully.

Kerry: [00:10:09] So first of all I would just suggest kind of some soul searching about your own role and kind of think through how do I conceptualize my role as a teacher. The other couple of things I wanted to mention one is this really strikes me as a question about boundaries. So sometimes people think about boundaries as just things that you say no to things that you won’t do. The way that I sort of define boundaries is a set of guidelines around a relationship that make the relationship predictable and when relationships are predictable they feel safe and healthy because we know what to expect.

Kerry: [00:10:46] So especially if you’re getting feedback about favoritism or sort of inconsistent application I would really make sure that you have thought out ahead of time. All of the guidelines for how you’re going to handle the details of teaching so make sure that in your own mind you’re clear. How do I handle late work how do I handle plagiarism. How do I handle students who miss class or talk in class or check Facebook or any of the kind of common scenarios that come up. Make sure that you have a clear guideline in your own mind.

Kerry: [00:11:22] And many of those you may want to spell out in your syllabus as well just so that students are really clear about the way that things will be handled. That also helps make those difficult conversations much less difficult because when those situations come up there’s already a clear expectation of how they’ll be handled. And then you just walk through that guideline you just carry out something you’ve already decided on ahead of time.

Kerry: [00:11:50] I know Bonni you’ve done episodes in the past that I find really helpful about things like late work and kind of building some grace into every class. I really love that model. I don’t love a system where you have to kind of adjudicate. Well is that worse that your grandmother passed away or that you got the flu or that you were in a car accident. I just don’t think professors want to be having to decide every single time. What what concern that could come up is the worst. I think it’s so much better if we just build a little wiggle room into each class so that we know students are going to have some stuff come up and we’re not having to kind of grade each of those problems along the way.

Kerry: [00:12:35] And then the last thing I just wanted to mention you mentioned Lydia wanting to create opportunities for mentoring which I really love and I would just encourage you to think about creating several different ways that students could connect with you. So if you’re a very bubbly and friendly and use humor in class there’s a certain kind of student that’s going to connect with that right away they’re going to jump into class conversations they’re going to stay after class and talk with you further and you might just kind of bond with those students and develop mentoring relationships naturally. But there may be students with other kinds of personalities that get left behind if that’s the only way that you’re letting students connect.

Kerry: [00:13:19] So I would just think about at that you know before the class even begins. What are the ways that I’m going to make sure I’m available for connection to students with different personalities styles. One thing I’ve really tried to do is maximize the the five minutes before class and the five minutes after class. I don’t think of that any more as prep time or set up my laptop time I think of that as I look around the classroom for people who I haven’t yet gotten to say hello to and try to catch a little moment with those quieter students. So I would just encourage you to make sure that there are opportunities for all different kinds of students that if they wanted to develop a mentoring relationship that they they would know how to do that and would be able to.

Bonni: [00:14:01] One of the things that I really hooked on to was just enjoying that you are distinguishing friendship from different kinds of relationships. We were on a work planning retreat recently and someone referred to the group that we were with as an We’re just a family. And in my head at a little bubble like no no no see this is not a family. This is work and I have a really healthy treasured relationships at work. But you are not my family and in fact sometimes family has come along with baggage and just that little bubble sat above my head and I decided that probably over our social dinner that we were having. I didn’t need to bring up all my baggage around her for this family.

Bonni: [00:14:47] But one of the things I wanted to share about Kerry and my relationship is she was on an episode earlier and all linked to that in the show notes because I shared about having a family member who was diagnosed with dementia and I knew that that her profession is in social work and we’ve become close friends this past year.

Bonni: [00:15:06] But it’s happened over a span of time and throughout that time there were a couple of points in time where I had to kind of check in with Kerry and say I’m starting to feel uncomfortable I don’t want you to have to feel like you’re my professional social worker and I don’t like if there’s someone I should go hire to perform duties and Kerry you were sharing with me about how we could find a facility for my family member and you shared information about resources in the county where we live that can help deal with some of the elder abuse that we uncovered.

Bonni: [00:15:40] And but that I just thought it was really healthy that we both would identify in a sort. I think we joked about it over email like oh it’s official we’re friends and like what does that friendship mean. And at what point do friendships get out of balance where one friend is contributing more than is comfortable for that friend and they just think that’s always really good a healthy way to have relationships that are that do have good boundaries that you can that can be sustained over years and years and years because nobody has to feel like they have to tap out at some point because it’s too much commitment.

Bonni: [00:16:17] And I’ve always felt like with friends you know I’m I’m not a great friend to have. If someone needs a lot of check ins you know I just I don’t just think oh I just will pick up the phone and call and see how they’re doing today that’s not really I’m able to offer my friendship today. So I just think that’s healthy to think about relationships so you’ve thought about friendships and what those means and then the fact Lydia that you’ve recognized. We cannot be friends with our students. That’s not inappropriate.

Kerry: [00:16:44] Sometimes that seems mean to say right to say I am not friends with my students but to realize we can be friendly with our student right we can care about them and have a friendly working relationship. But if we call it a friendship we’re setting up the students and ourselves our frustration and disappointment because friends do all you know friendship is reciprocal back and forth a friend goes and sits with you at the hospital when you’re sick right. All these things that your professor is not going to be doing.

Bonni: [00:17:13] Yeah. In fact we have a podcast editor who I think I have mentioned by name on the show before but if I haven’t. Andrew Kroeger is our podcast editor and he was a student of mine 10 years ago or something. And I today would certainly call him a friend. So I do have former students who I consider to be friends but they are former students and you know some years have to go by where that power dynamic has to shift such that you truly are equals because I want to have friendships where I’m equals with the people in my life that I’m friends with and you cannot be equals with a student.

Bonni: [00:17:50] You are grading their work. And so that would be one thing I’m really glad to hear you contemplating. I was going to mention one other thing Kerry because she talked about not ever sharings. No she didn’t say never. She said rarely sharing stories about my life and family and not and not using humor and I was going to suggest that when it comes to using humor or when it comes to sharing stories about my life or my family I do my best to see if it’s relevant to the class and if something is relevant to the class I think humor can be marvelous and can be a way that can really help people remember and you can almost create a memory for a class by doing that.

Bonni: [00:18:35] There’s a professor at Biola University who’s a math professor and every year on April Fool’s Day he does this ridiculous old thing with his white board and his projector where it looks like he’s talking to himself on the video and he’s moving things around but it’s all just prerecorded videos. And that is something that does get written up in the Chronicle of Higher Education and kind of went viral and students every year look forward to something is coming for April fools.

Bonni: [00:19:07] And wait until we can see what that’s going to be for this year he’s created just a memory for his students through his humor and certainly sharing stories about your life and about your family if it’s relevant to a class can be helpful. But as you said or as you implied Lydia I do think we have to be cautious because people don’t necessarily want to hear stories too much about that.

Bonni: [00:19:29] I try to keep it really brief super brief I do in the beginning of classes let people know that I have a family. I’ll show a quick picture. I usually get some oh that kind of thing but let them know that I’m a human being. I can create a little bit of warmth that way but no way do we want to talk too much about that because people really don’t want to hear about it.

Kerry: [00:19:51] Right. personal sharing is always for the students. So there’s some sort of educational benefit that you could think of if you’re sharing a story about yourself. It’s never for our own need to be liked or to have students understand how stressful our own life is. It’s never for ourselves it’s always for kind of a student driven purpose.

Bonni: [00:20:16] Well thanks so much for writing to us Lydia and let us know how it goes and Kerry I know you’ve got the next question from Steve.

Kerry: [00:20:22] Yeah. So Steve has a question about continuous course improvement. He writes that he’s looking for strategies for improving course content and delivery for professors teaching in a quarter system. He says most people I hear talking about it are teaching in a semester system and often have a break in the summer to go to work. The changes I have begun as an adjunct and have two weeks between terms and one week is spent finalizing grades from the previous quarter.

Bonni: [00:20:52] I really liked your question Steve. And one of the things that’s hard to gauge is even those of us that teach in more of traditional semester times so many of us still don’t spend those summers working on our course. A lot of my colleagues are spending those summers whether it’s writing books or doing research or even taking vacations.

Bonni: [00:21:14] We have some colleagues right now that are over in Europe that are leading a study abroad trip so I don’t think that it’s that the majority of professors have lots and months and months and months to make their courses better I think really it’s better for us to think about it as a continuous course of improvement which is how you phrased your question. I try to whenever I can fix it right then if at all possible.

Bonni: [00:21:38] So if I’m teaching a course and I go oh that didn’t work right. Change the PowerPoint or change the way that I did things and even if it’s something that the students have already seen if I can go back two weeks and just tweak something change the directions of an assignment if it wasn’t clear but then it’s done and then I can just copy that course shell over and all of those revisions are going to come over and I’m just a big believer if it’s going to be a really quick fix just do it right then.

Bonni: [00:22:08] The other thing I do is I read my course evaluations and I tend to read them a couple of different ways and I’m going to be talking about this in an upcoming episode. But there’s sort of the emotional side of it that’s just hard. It’s hard to when you pour your heart and soul into something and then you know when things you don’t get the kind of feedback you are hoping for so I read it that way.

Bonni: [00:22:30] But then I do read it from a more just had the sort of space and say OK what action can I take based on the one or two things I want to take away from the feedback here and incorporate that in even if it’s not a course that I’m going to be teaching immediately the next semester. Well it’s on my mind. I can fix it if I have some reasonable likelihood of teaching that course again I can fix it right then inside the learning management system or inside my course content folders on my computer make those changes.

Bonni: [00:22:59] Because I’m not going to remember it as vividly as I am immediately after I just did something that I realized I want to change or immediately after I read those evaluations so I try to make those changes pretty quick.

Bonni: [00:23:11] And the other thing I try to do is not try to make huge mammoth changes just make small changes but I think we’ll have the biggest make the biggest difference and that’s tended to keep me pretty sane after more than a decade of teaching. So what about you Carrie what are your thoughts on continuous course improvement.

Kerry: [00:23:30] Yeah this really resonates for me. I also I teach in a program that basically runs year round so I teach through the summer. I never have a big block of time to make changes. I love your first suggestion Bonnie and I haven’t really done that yet. I’m always writing myself a list of things that I want to change for next time and sticking them in folders.

Kerry: [00:23:50] And I think it would be so much better if I made the changes as I want. One thing I do try is to just make small changes and kind of be kind with myself that the class is never You’re always going to have dreams for how it could be bigger and better. And sometimes those dreams can can just leave us feeling discouraged like feeling like there’s so far that I still want to go.

Kerry: [00:24:13] But I have found that just breaking off manageable pieces. One example that I’m doing right now. Bonni you’ve been talking recently about Penn casting which is kind of drawing a picture that represents key ideas from the class and the way that you do it. Is that using all this cool technology and you kind of make a video of the picture being created.

Kerry: [00:24:37] And for me going out and getting all that technology was just going to be a huge piece of it. You know I don’t I don’t have a I don’t have any of those pieces yet and it seems like a lot to take on but I loved the idea of adding a picture that would get at key concepts. So I just created one. You know I drew one out on my own and then I started just drawing it on the white board every week for the students.

Kerry: [00:25:01] So they kind of pull out a piece of paper and draw along with me as I drive it on the white board which is the technology that I already have and it’s been really wonderful. You know I was able to pull in part of what you were talking about and at some day in the future I’ll pull in the technology too. But I just was trying to kind of be kind with myself and say That’s great that I added a little piece even though it’s not all the way there yet.

Bonni: [00:25:26] I love that it’s so important to just to be able to do that and that you can hone in on. I’m not ready to go all the way down this path but I’m just ready to take that first step and those kinds of things really can add up.

Bonni: [00:25:38] Our next question is coming. Actually I forgot to ask in advance to ask my mom who majored in French to help me pronounce this name. And now here I am not going to be able to pronounce it. L O I C Kerry, you don’t happen to be hired in any French skills in your background?

Kerry: [00:25:56] I wondered about pronunciation too but I can’t help you with that one.

Bonni: [00:26:00] I apologize for not doing my homework in advance. I’m going to refer to you as L and I’m going to ask my mom to help me pronounce it or maybe you could call in and give us a pronunciation so I can do a better job in the future. But she wrote in and asked about cultural experiences and influencing without legitimate power.

Bonni: [00:26:19] So she writes First of all I would like to thank you for the wonderful work that you do on your highly professional podcast. It’s always a pleasure to listen to it. It’s very helpful…

Bonni: [00:26:29] And I’m realizing I’m saying she and I’m wondering maybe this is a he. Oh it just keeps getting better doesn’t it.

Bonni: [00:26:36] He or she is a professor in social in strategic management in the French School of Management and this individual is also deputy director for pedagogy and academic development and they share podcasts with colleagues and they get to learn from it as well so thanks and your school start referring to you as you. Your school is French and there are more. More than 80 percent of the professors though are not French.

Bonni: [00:27:04] And so the suggestion here is that it would be fun to hear more about different professors who are living in vastly different cultures and what that experience has been like that. And what I consider that idea for the podcast and I absolutely would. And in fact we did have just the start of this conversation back on episode 80.

Bonni: [00:27:26] But I know there’s a lot more we could have about that conversation. So thank you for the idea and I’ve talked to the way in my future episodes list. And then you also say that you’re curious to know how did professors influence others and have them follow their lead without any hierarchical power.

Bonni: [00:27:43] And you’re thinking of cases when the professors trying to coordinate courses with other people and how important that coordination is. But we can’t force the involvement from others and this is something that comes up so often not just in academia but really any organization. You get people together and in this day and age we work in far too much complexity to think that hierarchical power is going to get the work that needs to get done done even if it was possible to just have top down leadership work. You’re not going to have the commitment from people to really want to work their best efforts to achieve whatever outcomes you’re looking to have.

Bonni: [00:28:26] So we really do need to exercise our ability to influence without power. One of my favorite books about this I can’t recommend enough and I will put it in the show notes is Peter blocks the empowered manager and it is a wonderful book that among other things suggests that we map out our political relationships when we’re trying to accomplish a goal and we think about our political relationships on two spectrums.

Bonni: [00:28:56] One would be how much trust do we have with this person if we don’t work that closely with them. We don’t we haven’t had a history to know our trust that it’s going to be very low. It doesn’t mean they have necessarily done anything bad in the past. It just means we haven’t worked together so of course our trust levels are low because we don’t know what this will be like. And then the second spectrum we put we map out to our people we might need to work with on this is agreement.

Bonni: [00:29:26] The level of agreement that we have that the course of action that we’re proposing is the right course of action. And most people tend to spend their time with allies people who we have high trust with and people who we also have high agreement with. But what Peter Block suggests is that we’re actually missing the most valuable information we could ever have when we’re trying to influence without power and that is people who we trust but people who don’t agree with us on this particular course of action and I forget…

Bonni: [00:30:00] He calls these opponents and opponents of such a negative word. But I almost wish he could have picked a better word that doesn’t sound so negative. I got really hooked on doing this because you really can find out. First of all what are people’s objections going to be. So if you’re in a public setting and you’re going to be asked to actually voice your proposal for something and you already know what people’s concerns are how much easier is it then to address them in advance.

Bonni: [00:30:31] I know some of you are worried about this or maybe you’re asking this question and I certainly guess that it really is a risk. But here’s some ways I think we might address that. It’s really a smart way to spend so much more time with someone who you trust. You know that they’re not trying to disparage you in any way they don’t wish you any ill will. They just don’t agree with you. This particular thing. And so that’s one influence trick that I really like. But mostly just overarching it suggests Peter Block’s The Empowered Manager.

Bonni: [00:31:02] And then one last little research construct I’ll thow out there is all the way back from 1959 to researchers French and Raven came up with the bases of power. And this whole idea that usually when we have talked about power it’s positional power or what they call legitimate power. You have this title as a chair as a director as a provost and that’s where your power comes from.

Bonni: [00:31:28] But if we really think about an organizations there’s so many other ways that power comes out we can get power through our expertise. I tend to be someone in my organization who is at least in the top 10 percent of technical skills and knowledge of educational technology. And even without a title there’s some credibility that comes from knowing about that. That brings along some power with it the ability to influence. So there’s lots we could talk about here but those are just a couple starting points that I know where you have a couple of things to share too.

Kerry: [00:32:03] Yeah. And you know I’ll just say what you just said reminded me of the idea of reaching for disagreements. You know you were talking about trying to think through what objections might be and listening to your opponents. So we have to be careful I think about the the illusion of agreement that if you have a friendly group everyone will say Yep sounds good. And then not actually bring a lot of energy to the task because they don’t actually agree.

Kerry: [00:32:30] So I think it can be great even if we all seem like we’re on the same page to ask questions like if you were making the case that we shouldn’t do this what would you say and really encourage people to share any disagreement they might have.

Kerry: [00:32:46] The other thing I think about when we need to get something done but we don’t have a lot of authority to tell people to do it is to think about both the content what we’re asking and the process how we’re asking that. So it’s a time when we especially need to be thoughtful about the timing of the request. So if we’re asking at a busy time of the school year we know that that optional things are going to be a low priority. So trying to time our request well to ask it in a way that’s likely to build some buy in and then the other thing that came to my mind is just make sure that that we are the kind of people who are investing in other people’s projects.

Kerry: [00:33:30] So you know Bonni I think of you as someone who cares about the whole university and you’re invested not just in things you’re in charge of but that you care about other people’s research interests other people’s projects. And so when you need to try to get by and people want to do that because because you care about other projects as well. So just to make sure that we’re developing sort of a professional life where when we ask a favor of someone or ask for investment it’s not that the it’s not the first time that someone’s ever seen us and we’re not seen as only having a one way request for help but that we’re willing to invest in other people’s projects as well.

Bonni: [00:34:14] I love those suggestions and I also am cracking up at myself because first of all Google I didn’t have to call my mom to find out the name on Google.

Kerry: [00:34:25] Oh what how do you say it.

Bonni: [00:34:27] Oh I’m going to play a video in just a second but it’s a form of the name Lewis. So we’re most likely talking about a male here. LEWIS And let’s see I’ve got a video I can pull up that will teach us how to pronounce it. “Luic”.

Bonni: [00:34:47] It sounded like the recording on Wikipedia we should do a video of ourselves now that we are experts in pronouncing Luic’s name. Thank you so much for the e-mail and I apologize for not doing the research in advance but you know at least you know that this is real conversation that we’re having. We don’t script these episodes out. [laughing] This is the real world this is how the magic happened.

Bonni: [00:35:11] All right Kerry I know our last question here is from David and I’m going to toss it back over to you.

Kerry: [00:35:17] Yeah he asked: I wanted to know if you have any feedback on quality management for online programs. I know that it’s a loaded topic as quality is to find so many ways and touches on so many roles. In any event I felt I had to ask because I am currently looking into developing a process that would involve a more holistic approach to keyway and touch on senior administrative support course instructional design pedagogy outcomes and student feedback. There is no silver bullet but I’m curious what other institutions are doing in this space. Or if they’re models to follow.

Bonni: [00:35:53] And David John I knew when I got your e-mail that it was going to take us awhile to record this Q&A episode so I did already write you back with a little bit of research that my institution has done just informal looks at two of the big organizations in this space you’re generally talking about Quality Matters or the Online Learning Consortium. Often abbreviated OLC and they’re both wonderful organizations I have been certified in the Quality Matters system so I know it better than OLC.

Bonni: [00:36:26] But I am getting to know more about OLC and one of the advantages it seems to have is maybe a little bit more room for customisation if you don’t quite want to use their exact rubric to look at the quality of your Procrustes but those would be the two starting points that I would make if I were you to see which one might better serve your needs. That was quality matters and the online learning consortium. And we are going to keep recommending things now but not about quality of online programs. But I’m going to flip over and talk about quality of music.

Bonni: [00:36:59] One of the things I really treasure about my friendship with Kerry is also that it comes with her husband who’s becoming a friend as well. And Stephen I’ve talked about his podcast. I guess I don’t talk about it on the on the show before but I’ve recommended his Stephen Explains the News podcast and that’s so much fun to listen to.

Bonni: [00:37:18] And he also every Monday on his Facebook page has a music Monday and always posts a song and it’s fun because his songs are. He doesn’t just post them. Oh isn’t this a great song. It’s somehow related to his past or his life. He wrote a really touching one when his mom passed away that I started bawling when I started listening to it. And so it I.

Bonni: [00:37:40] Now when I hear songs I think he might like also to pass them over to him on Twitter as well. And Harold Jarche he posted this wonderful song called When it Comes My Turn and I’ll play a little clip of it in a moment. But Harold Jarche I’ve talked about before on the show he is really a worldwide expert in personal knowledge management and so he’s a lifelong learner.

Bonni: [00:38:02] And the verse I want you to listen for the chorus I want you to listen for at the end it says “I laugh I love I live I’ll learn I wanna die with a smile when it comes my turn”. And it was just such a nice song and the harmony is so great. And this artist is David Miles. And now I’m just playing David Miles all the time because this is great harmony. He’s a guitarist and plays sort of folk sounding music. And here’s a little bit of when it comes my turn.

When It Comes My Turn: [00:38:33] *When It Comes My Turn plays*

Kerry: [00:39:03] I love that Bonni.

Bonni: [00:39:04] I love that song. It’s stuck in my head. There’s another great one called I Wouldn’t Dance to that one in the show notes if anyone wants to check it out too. Such great music. All right Kerry what do you have to recommend.

Kerry: [00:39:17] I think my recommendation is going to be a counterpoint to yours. You have music and I’m going to recommend silence. I’m coming off of a year and a semester that have felt pretty frenetic and I think a lot of us are in that mode right now of leaving a very very busy time. And I’ve been doing some reading and have really been challenged to find spaces for silence.

Kerry: [00:39:42] Our culture gives us less and less automatic opportunities. I know a lot of us are even doing a lot of listening to wonderful resources like this podcast. But even when you’re driving even when you’re folding laundry that you’re also listening. And I’ve been challenged to kind of really learn some moments of silence in my day. I think our brains need that space to kind of work through everything else that’s going on.

Kerry: [00:40:12] So if you like me have forgotten how to ever have silence or be silent. I would just recommend giving it a try. It can feel a little strange if you haven’t had much quiet lately. But I think it’s good for our it’s good for our soul and it’s good for our brain to be quiet.

Bonni: [00:40:30] Well Kerry thank you once again for coming back on to the show and I hope it’s just the second of many many many visits to come.

Kerry: [00:40:37] Thank you so much for having me. Bonni it really is an honor and I love your podcast. Thank you for all that you provide to all of us who listen.

Bonni: [00:40:45] Thanks again to everyone who wrote in with questions for this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed and thanks to Kerry. If you have a question that you would like answered on a future show just go to teachinginhighered.com/feedback. And I’d love to consider doing another Q&A show next time we’ve got some a collection of questions in the queue.

Bonni: [00:41:05] And you’re also welcome at the feedback link to let us know of any suggestions that you have for future episodes or guests and if you have yet to subscribe to the weekly e-mail from Teaching in Higher Ed that’ll get all of the show notes of the links of the things that Kerry and I talked about and you’ll get an article along with that on either teaching or productivity. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll see you next time. Thanks again to Kerry and look forward to having you on the show in the future again. Take care everybody. See ya next time.