Making Learning Less “Schoolish” with Susan Blum

WEBVTT
00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:07.839
And so I think that's not only disengagement, but it's alienation.
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.039
You don't care.
00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:11.199
You are not invested.
00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.000
There's nothing for you that you're getting.
00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:26.719
If a student isn't committed to this for themselves, then they are doing it for reasons that almost ensure that they won't learn, it won't transfer, it won't stick.
00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:27.519
That's Dr.
00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:35.759
Susan Bloom, author of Schoolishness, and that distinction between disengagement and alienation gets it something that's been central to her work for many years.
00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:46.079
Rather than simply asking what's wrong with students, Susan asks us to take a harder look at the structures and practices we've built around them and what they're actually designed to accomplish.
00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:54.719
Because ultimately, how much of what happens in our classrooms is really about learning, and how much is simply what we've come to recognize as school.
00:00:54.960 --> 00:01:02.320
So in this episode, we get into what it might take to make the learning experience more meaningful, more authentic, and a little less schoolish.
00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:11.680
And one quick note before we jump in, apologies, but I had some microphone challenges during the recording, so the audio in my end isn't quite up to our usual standards.
00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:14.159
So thanks for your patience.
00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:18.319
Welcome to Higher Listenings.
00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:20.159
It's really wonderful to have you with us.
00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:21.599
It's great to be here.
00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:23.120
Nice to see you both again.
00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:31.760
So, Susan, your latest book revolves around a word that sounds a little bit like something you might be diagnosed with, schoolishness.
00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.560
What exactly is schoolishness?
00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:44.799
Right, so I was trying to figure out something to unify systemic critique I had of the things that made learning not work.
00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:55.599
And I came across a word in an essay about writing by Ken Lindblum, who talked about schoolish writing.
00:01:55.840 --> 00:02:09.039
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that schoolishness is this kind of condition we know as things that look like real school.
00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:17.280
It's like a prototype of an educational environment where everything revolves around the school itself.
00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:29.520
So the structures, the purposes, the activities, the interactions, the relationships, the very architecture is made for school.
00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:31.919
And everybody recognizes it.
00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:36.159
You look at a classroom and you instantly know that's a school.
00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:51.680
And this idea of schoolishness helped me think about contrasting the learning that's done in school with the learning that's done so much better in lots of ways outside school.
00:02:52.240 --> 00:03:03.039
Just to dig in a little bit more there, if I was to go to a classroom or a course that was emblematic of schoolishness, what would I what would I observe?
00:03:03.199 --> 00:03:03.919
What would I notice?
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:13.840
You would notice it would be inside, it would be in a building that is set apart from the rest of the world.
00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:23.520
There would be a clear definition of a teacher and students, generally one teacher and many students.
00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:41.199
Typically, this the teacher would be lecturing at the front of the room, possibly standing, and there would be a different posture, different physical activities of the students who might be sitting and they might be quiet and the teachers talking.
00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:42.800
The teacher is in charge.
00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:55.199
The teacher has all the power, and the students are passively waiting to be taught and then to be told what they are and are not allowed to do.
00:03:55.360 --> 00:04:14.639
And then the activities would be typically a worksheet, it would be tests, it would be something that the teacher has created and imposed on the students because at the end of this activity, whatever it is, they will be given a grade which is consequential.
00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:25.120
The imbalance in the power relationship is one of the key factors, and the fact that what we're seeing is dissociated from the world.
00:04:25.519 --> 00:04:29.920
So it's not out in the world where people are going to do real things.
00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:37.199
The hope in educational jargon is that there will be this thing called transfer.
00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:49.519
That whatever happens in this hermetically sealed room is going to then translate into something useful later in a different context.
00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:53.040
And so all of that is part of schoolishness.
00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:55.120
That's fantastic.
00:04:55.199 --> 00:05:02.240
A description of what a lot of us have experienced in our own learning and of what we obviously can observe across classrooms.
00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:04.319
I want to pursue this a little bit further.
00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:11.360
How much of that practice do you think is really a kind of choreography that we've inherited from our institution?
00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:16.879
There's the 50-minute class, there's 15 weeks in a semester, everyone's doing the same assignment.
00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:20.879
How much of this has anything to do with how we actually learn?
00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:31.279
As I was writing this book, I was thinking about the fact that these structures are inherited and they've been replicated over and over and over, not for any good reason.
00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:42.319
So when people talk about the fact that we've always had grades, and if you're going to do different kinds of grading practices, you have to prove that they're working.
00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:48.000
But nobody ever proved that conventional grading is working.
00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:55.519
And you mentioned 15-week semesters and 50-minute or 75-minute class periods.
00:05:55.920 --> 00:06:13.040
That is an absolutely artificial artifact of certain kinds of practices that happened 100 years ago, like three credits for every three stints of 50-minute periods in a 15-week semester.
00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:15.040
It's called the Carnegie Unit.
00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:26.639
And like the whole thing has this insanely arbitrary origin, and that is the system of Carnegie units that we all operate under.
00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:34.240
So twice the Carnegie Institution itself said, maybe this is not the best way to learn.
00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:40.720
So in the 60s and recently, the Carnegie Institution studied it.
00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:43.360
They said, is this the best way to learn?
00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:47.920
And the answer both times was no.
00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:54.399
But we have this system, and the system works and everybody understands it.
00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:56.079
So we're not going to get rid of it.
00:06:57.040 --> 00:07:12.319
But you are absolutely right that somebody who is learning English who comes in knowing a lot, and somebody who comes in knowing a little probably doesn't need to spend the same amount of time learning English.
00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:24.079
And yet, if they're going to get credit for English 101, they are going to have to spend three hours a week in their classroom for 15 weeks so they can get their three credits.
00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:28.800
Well, any of us who is a teacher basically came up through the system.
00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:35.680
We don't question it because that's just it's what anthropologists would call it's naturalized.
00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:39.279
It's become the way people think about things.
00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:46.480
So we just replicate the system that we came through, and most of us are pretty good at it.
00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:48.879
So we think this works.
00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:50.319
And here we are.
00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:57.439
I love these histories and am kind of excited about the kinds of experiments around these structures that are underway.
00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:04.560
But for lots of educators in a college environment, they're working and operating within a received system.
00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:06.800
And those structures aren't going to change anytime soon.
00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:11.600
They can't ignore the structure, they have to operate within the structure, and yet they want to pursue effective learning.
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:12.639
What's the balance there?
00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:14.240
What do we advise them?
00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:22.319
I would advise people to really figure out, and this is what I'm doing myself as I approach my courses this semester.
00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:26.000
What is the really fundamental goal of my course?
00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:28.720
Not so much covering the content.
00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:31.199
What are we really trying to get after?
00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:36.799
And what are the activities that will make that happen in the most effective ways?
00:08:37.039 --> 00:09:07.039
I know people who suggest, for instance, I I think Robert Talbert is one of them, that you design a 12-week course for a 15-week semester so that you have time to catch up if things aren't going well, you have time to ease into the structures, you have time to reflect at the end, to not so much cover all the content, but to really achieve the goals.
00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:14.000
Some people suggest going out into your campus and exploring things physically.
00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:18.559
So you we know that you can learn things outside the actual building.
00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:23.120
I teach anthropology, and one of the things we do is we do a lot of observing.
00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:33.200
So one of the first things I'm going to have the students do is to actually go outside and observe some interactions where they don't have to get special permission or something, but what do you notice?
00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:34.480
What are people doing?
00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:41.279
I could lecture, I could have them read, and they will read about eye gaze.
00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:49.279
You know, we have these ideas that you should look people in the eye, but that's not actually what Americans do when we talk informally.
00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:56.879
I could tell my students that, and they probably won't believe me because all their lives they've been told, look the person in the eye.
00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:09.360
And so when they go out and they actually see people in the student union or the library or whatever talking, that will stick with them in a way that no amount of lecturing would.
00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:14.720
That's a way where we can challenge the stricture of being inside.
00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:25.279
You can have people get up and talk to each other, you can have people move around the room, all the active learning techniques, which are numerous.
00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:31.600
I have my students doing debates, we do quick, kind of round robins asking questions.
00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:38.240
Any kind of thing you do that interrupts the lecture and gives students a voice can help.
00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:52.879
And it can also foster an environment of collegiality and cooperation, which to me is a benefit, even though there are those who would argue that we should keep competition at the center of classrooms.
00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:59.919
I disagree with that, but I understand that there are people who think that that's really what we should be inculcating.
00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:07.440
So we're kind of poking at the larger issue, the perennial issue, around students being disengaged.
00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:12.080
But you use a different word in your book and in your writing, the idea of alienation.
00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:15.360
And that seems like a very different diagnosis.
00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:20.240
So, how does that work and what are students alienated from?
00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:23.519
Yeah, and I use that term deliberately.
00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:41.200
I use it in the way that Marx used it, thinking about use value and exchange value, intrinsic, extrinsic uses of things, and alienation of labor, for instance, is what Marx was talking about in terms of industrial laborers.
00:11:41.440 --> 00:12:01.120
They are alienated from the fruits of their labor in the sense that they aren't making washing machines for themselves, they are making washing machines to be given this external script that they can turn in for something that they actually need and want.
00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:05.279
And the quintessence of extrinsic motivation.
00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:21.840
You're learning Spanish not because you want to speak Spanish, not because you want to watch telenovelas, but you're learning Spanish because you have to have three credits, three Carnegie units of a foreign language, and you hear that Spanish is the easiest one.
00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:26.879
And so I think that's not only disengagement, but it's alienation.
00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:28.080
You don't care.
00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:30.159
You are not invested.
00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:33.039
There's nothing for you that you're getting.
00:12:33.279 --> 00:12:45.759
If a student isn't committed to this for themselves, then they are doing it for reasons that almost ensure that they won't learn, it won't transfer, it won't stick.
00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:47.679
They are going through the motions.
00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:53.519
It's very easy for me to teach somebody who wants to be an anthropologist.
00:12:53.840 --> 00:13:01.840
But it's much harder to teach someone who needs three credits of a social science at 11 o'clock on Monday.
00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:17.120
I can do it, but it means I have to figure out how to bridge that gap between the requirement and them so that it isn't so alienating.
00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:21.200
Why should they care about learning anthropology?
00:13:21.440 --> 00:13:22.559
What is it for them?
00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:30.399
And so one of the things I personally do is I ask them, okay, I know you need this because it's a requirement, but what else?
00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:32.080
What is your way in?
00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:47.919
The world is fascinating, and I believe truly, deeply, that almost every student can be fascinated by almost any topic, but we have to do the work to make sure that we show that to them.
00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:54.000
It doesn't mean we have to make it easy, it doesn't mean we show movies all day long.
00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:58.879
It means that we have to think about okay, you became a civil engineer.
00:13:59.120 --> 00:13:59.679
Why?
00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:09.039
You know, what was it that you, the teacher, saw that is so compelling that you've devoted your life to it.
00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:16.000
Show them something about that, bring them in, and then it's not alienating in the same way.
00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:23.759
One of the structures that plays a role in this alienation is the way in which we assess and grade students.
00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:44.320
I've been quite energized by the attention that grading is getting, not just in experimental ways among educators who are interested in ungrading and alt-grading and various experiments around that, but the way in which this now becomes suddenly a very national story with two major institutions very publicly experimenting in two very different ways.
00:14:44.559 --> 00:14:50.000
So, what does grading reveal about how we think learning works or how learning actually works?
00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:54.960
And what do you think about this debate that's happening live in front of us between these two institutions?
00:14:55.519 --> 00:15:00.960
Harvard and Yale had a lot of earnest people trying to figure out what's wrong.
00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:16.399
Their argument was we've lost credibility because we assess too leniently, and so Yale suggested that they maybe think about restricting the number of A's.
00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:22.559
Meanwhile, Harvard has been having these same conversations and they did it.
00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:31.919
Their idea was that students increasingly have been getting the highest grade for work that doesn't merit that.
00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:47.200
And so Harvard, like all institutions, is trying to communicate the quality of their students' learning to outside audiences.
00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:55.519
And if they're all getting the same grade or the same report, it's not helping to differentiate them.
00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:00.639
And so they see one of their jobs as differentiating students from each other.
00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:09.360
And one of the claims about grades is that it will motivate them to work harder and to achieve excellence, true excellence.
00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:15.519
That got a lot of attention, and I'm personally skeptical and critical of that approach.
00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:32.000
At the same time, the University of Michigan, the College of Um Literature, Science, and the Arts has announced just last week this policy for incoming first-year, first semester students.
00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:38.799
They will take ordinary classes, they will be assessed in their classes according to the instructor.
00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:46.559
The students will get the feedback and the assessment, but on their transcript, they will only say pass or no credit.
00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:59.519
I think that we are having this very exciting, very overdue conversation because we know for a hundred years research has shown that grades are never consistent.
00:16:59.759 --> 00:17:14.319
So I might emphasize improvement, and my colleague might emphasize timeliness, and somebody else might emphasize creativity, and somebody else might emphasize precision of facts.
00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:22.640
And we can all claim that we're objective because we are taking our arbitrarily chosen criteria and applying them to everybody.
00:17:22.799 --> 00:17:26.799
So grades have never been consistent across instructors.
00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:41.359
But there is this idea that in a true meritocracy, if we have one, you should know who is really truly deserving of that internship with McKinsey or whatever it is.
00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:54.720
You know, a lot of people met the Harvard announcement with applause, like it's about time we re-impose standards and really separated the excellent from the merely good or average.
00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:58.160
And the bell curve mythology persists, right?
00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:03.440
And in my own practice, I've regarded student failure as in part at least my failure, right?
00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:09.359
I thought every student should be capable of achieving this level of excellence in my class, and my job is to help them do that.
00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:16.880
Whereas the Michigan announcement was met with the kind of reaction that reveals the political divide in our country right now.
00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:26.640
A lot of people thinking this is just more cobbling of underprepared, overprivileged students who need to experience the real world before they experience the real world.
00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:35.200
So they are all about the need for competition and for fear and anxiety as a recipe for striving toward excellence.
00:18:35.519 --> 00:18:41.680
One of the concerns about moving to an ungrading process is I don't know how to motivate my students if there's not the threat.
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.839
Like carrots are all well and good, but ultimately some students respond to the stick.
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:48.559
So, how do you come down on this topic?
00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:57.359
Like, what is your sense of how faculty might begin to experiment in their own class in cautious and but appropriately responsible ways?
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:06.319
I think motivating students through fear is business as usual, and it produces all the bad stuff that we don't want.
00:19:06.640 --> 00:19:13.200
And so the challenge for teachers and faculty is to find other motivations.
00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:20.720
And that might mean rethinking everything, which no nobody has time to do, so it's really hard.
00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:27.839
Education has become this kind of transactional enterprise, which is not what any of us want.
00:19:28.079 --> 00:19:36.319
And the outcomes of that kind of fear-based competition have not been great.
00:19:36.480 --> 00:20:02.960
And when people compare it to the real world, I had an older student, and she was a retired dentist or a pausing dentist, and she loved my ungrading policy because one of the things that we do in my classes is students talk about their own successes and failures, their challenges, and because I'm not grading them on the particular assignment, they can actually be honest.
00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:09.119
But the goal is for them to develop the confidence to know whether they're doing well or not.
00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:18.400
And she said that mimics the real world so much better than being evaluated about every little thing.
00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:28.240
She said she gets students who have been through four years of college and four years of dental school, and they show up in her practice and they say, Is this right?
00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:29.359
Is this good?
00:20:29.519 --> 00:20:30.319
Is this okay?
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:31.440
Is this what you want?
00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:33.039
What am I supposed to do?
00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:40.880
So we have trained them into this absolute passivity where they don't know what's good or right or enough.
00:20:41.440 --> 00:21:01.359
And so if you were going to a job and you were looking over your shoulder every minute for your boss to give you praise or reprimands about every single little thing you did, it would be so inefficient and ineffective, and it would waste everybody's time.
00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:15.039
If you go to a job, most jobs, you will ease into it slowly, you will be learning the techniques, you will learn to write a report in the style of that workplace or whatever it is.
00:21:15.279 --> 00:21:24.240
People might help you revise it so that it's a little bit better, and you won't be failed, you won't be sent home immediately.
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:31.839
And that's, I think, what the Michigan proposal is aiming to replicate: that high school is not college.
00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:40.400
College represents a freer structure, which for some means they may choose badly.
00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:44.400
And so many students have a really hard time the first semester.
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:52.480
And for all those people who are saying, When I was a freshman, I learned the hard way, that may be true.
00:21:52.799 --> 00:21:59.599
But the world is very unforgiving right now, and our students often don't dare make.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:06.319
Make mistakes, especially the high-achieving students at places like Michigan, Harvard, Notre Dame.
00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:16.319
Our students have spent their entire childhood fixated on their grades, fixated on achievement, fixated on being perfect and never making a mistake.
00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:20.319
They take easy classes because they have to get good grades.
00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:29.440
What if a first-year student said, I've always wanted to try Chinese, but it's I hear it's really hard.
00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:32.400
So, you know, to be safe, I'll take Spanish.
00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:36.160
But what if they said, I have nothing to lose.
00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:37.839
All I have to do is pass?
00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:44.880
Or what if they say, I've always wanted aerospace engineering, but I hear you have to be a genius?
00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:47.599
What if they took it and tried it?
00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:55.519
If they do badly, mediocre, then they do, but it's not going to ruin their GPA for forever.
00:22:55.839 --> 00:23:09.680
So I personally think this Michigan idea, it's not just mental health and coddling, it's also allowing them to explore and try things that maybe will stick.
00:23:09.839 --> 00:23:17.279
That's the advantage and the beauty of a rich curriculum that's offered at a place like Michigan.
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:24.079
And yet many students are afraid to really break out because they don't know if they'll be good at it.
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:25.680
I think you're absolutely right.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:38.160
The expectation would be that Michigan students are now going to feel much freer in experimenting toward their desires because the risk is minimal in that first year, which is which I think is all to the good.
00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:49.920
Susan, in preparing for this conversation, I really couldn't help but recall my own experiences experimenting with active learning and more innovative practices in my classroom.
00:23:50.240 --> 00:24:07.440
And when I was part of the research project at the University of Minnesota, where we began to introduce these new learning spaces, these active learning classrooms, we discovered students can be made really uncomfortable when you violate their expectations for schoolishness.
00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:09.440
They're expecting that experience.
00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:14.640
And when you change the conditions and the rules, they can get pretty upset about that.
00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:26.880
So have we trained them so successfully to do school that they don't know what to do when we give them freedom and agency, and in fact, may actually actively resist it.
00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:28.240
So do you worry about that?
00:24:28.319 --> 00:24:31.200
And what do we do if we encounter that in our own classrooms?
00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:33.279
Yeah, that's a great question.
00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:55.119
And I think understanding the student's prior experience is really helpful, and not blaming them for not wanting liberation when they've learned the rules of the I I'm not gonna call it a prison, but they've learned the rules of the institution up till that point.
00:24:55.440 --> 00:25:01.759
And in some ways, the ones who are the highest achieving are the ones who know the rules the best.
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:03.839
So I I had a class once.
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:07.119
I was teaching a class called the culture of college.
00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:14.000
So, you know, my topic, my field, I'm gonna use these liberatory practices.
00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:18.000
So I showed up the first day and said, What do you want to learn?
00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:22.160
And they looked at me like, do your job.
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:23.039
What do you mean?
00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:24.240
What do we want to learn?
00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:26.319
You're supposed to tell us what to learn.
00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:29.359
That class was not a very successful class.
00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:46.640
I did not teach that class again for eight years because it went so badly, because I had not really factored into it the students' resistance to self-determination.
00:25:46.880 --> 00:25:56.000
They had been so expert at responding to the demands that had been imposed on them.
00:25:56.240 --> 00:25:59.119
Assessment practices are consequential, right?
00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:06.480
And so reassuring students that they're gonna be okay if they're not gonna be okay is a matter of bad faith.
00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:20.319
So you have to really mean it, that they will be okay and you're there to help them succeed, and that if they put in the work and learn the stuff, you will actually they will be all right, whatever that means.
00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:22.720
They will get good grades, that's okay.
00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:34.960
I think reassuring them regularly, not just introducing something new the first day and saying, Here is my grading practices, you've never seen it before, so let's do it.
00:26:35.279 --> 00:26:37.839
That is not very reassuring.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:27:17.279
I just read a post by Linda Nilsson, who has written about specifications grading, and she summarized some studies about specifications grading with thousands and thousands of students, and they looked at their learning and then they looked at their attitudes, and one of the things they found out was that some of the specifications grading instructions were like five pages long, and the students were very anxious, they didn't know how to work this whole system.
00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:25.519
So the more complicated a novel practice is, the more uneasy students may be.
00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:40.000
And I think if we are going to do something unusual, it's our responsibility to help the students see how it's going to work so that they're not afraid that their lives will be ruined by something risky.
00:27:40.559 --> 00:27:47.839
Is there a simple step you'd recommend for faculty that they could take if they're interested in moving forward in a new direction?
00:27:48.559 --> 00:27:56.640
I think one place to begin is to start looking into examples of active learning.
00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:02.160
I think that reversing the power dynamic can be a place to begin.
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:15.039
I also find student reflections on their learning to be very informative, and actually looking at what students are experiencing is helpful as well.
00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:20.319
My first real teaching was in China, way back in the 80s.
00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:34.240
I was teaching English, I was I was not very good at it, but the person I was teaching with was good, and she said that the thing to think about is not what I'm doing, but what the students are doing.
00:28:34.880 --> 00:28:40.960
So not my lectures, but how are they using what I'm doing?
00:28:41.039 --> 00:28:45.359
What are they experiencing when they're sitting there or when they're practicing or something?
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:52.400
So that's one way to kind of reverse the assumption that everything is about us.
00:28:53.359 --> 00:29:11.839
As we wrap up here, is there a school or a university or a program or even a classroom you visited that you've encountered the experience in there and thought, this is it, this is the antidote or the post-schoolishness environment we should be seeing or expanding across our landscape?
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:20.640
What I often remember, and I wrote about this in Schoolishness, is a project I studied ethnographically for three summers.
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:37.519
It was an engineering internship in the city of South Bend, where students came from all different learners came from all different backgrounds, and they had real projects, and their goal was to work with the community to realize these different projects.
00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:53.039
Each person worked in a team of three, and the three people were from different backgrounds, different ages, different types of schools, different majors, and their goal was to make something happen by the end of the summer.
00:29:53.200 --> 00:30:00.319
And so the motivation was real, the time frame was real, they had to learn all kinds of technical material.
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:07.359
They had access to a lot of mentors who were not teachers, but they were resources to help them learn the material.
00:30:07.519 --> 00:30:11.039
They had to learn about devices, they had to learn techniques.
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:19.680
Some of it was very mathematical and computer oriented, some of it involved politics and social interactions with neighbors.
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:29.119
They learned about red tape and government and waiting, and they learned physical skills, they learned how to make things.
00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:35.440
They all had to do presentations, they had to do weekly updates and reports, they learned teamwork.
00:30:35.680 --> 00:30:44.799
It was for me a really brilliant example of how deep, lasting, meaningful learning could happen.
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:52.880
And the students, most of them said this was the most meaningful experience they had had often in their lives, not just in school.
00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:59.680
So for me, that's kind of the anti-schoolish model of something that can happen.
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:02.160
And so we can take pieces of it.
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:10.720
Project-based learning, problem-based learning, anything that is motivated by something that really gets people up in the morning.
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:16.559
And this internship I'm talking about, the students had to be there at eight o'clock in the morning, and they were there.
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:29.920
So if you can create a social environment where people are doing their best and they're reinforcing that of each other, I think good things can happen.
00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:35.599
Well, Susan, your passion and expertise have just been a delightful way to spend the afternoon.
00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:41.039
I'm sorry to see it come to an end, but thank you so much for your time and best of luck as the semester gets underway.
00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:42.799
I think your students were in for a treat.
00:31:43.119 --> 00:31:53.599
Well, thank you, Brad, and thank you, Eric, for the invitation and the very robust questions that you asked and the engagement and all the work you do all the rest of the time as well.
00:31:56.559 --> 00:32:02.720
Higher Listenings is brought to you by Top Hat, the leader in student engagement solutions for higher education.
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:08.559
When it comes to curating captivating learning experiences, we could all use a helping hand, right?
00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:17.440
With Top Hat, you can create dynamic presentations by incorporating polls, quizzes, and discussions to make your time with students more engaging.
00:32:17.599 --> 00:32:18.960
But it doesn't end there.
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:33.119
Design your own interactive readings and assignments that include multimedia, video, knowledge checks, discussion prompts, the sky's the limit, or simply choose from our catalog of fully customizable Top Hat e-techs and make them your own.
00:32:33.359 --> 00:32:36.880
The really neat part is how we're putting some AI magic up your sleeve.
00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:47.279
Top Hat Ace, our AI-powered teaching and learning assistant, makes it easy to create assessment questions with the click of a button, all based on the context of your course content.
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:56.160
Plus, Ace gives student learning a boost with personalized AI powered study support they can access anytime, anyplace.
00:32:56.400 --> 00:33:00.000
Learn more at TopHat.comslash podcast today.