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Hello, and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in Teaching podcast.
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I'm your host, Rachel Yoho, and I'm excited to be joined by two guests for our episode today.
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And so I will ask our guests to introduce themselves as we get started with our conversation.
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I'm Joy Banks and I teach in the Division of Special Education and Disability Research.
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I teach courses to pre-service and in-service teachers.
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The courses include topics related to literacy, leadership, and individualized assessment.
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Hi, I'm a faculty member in Tourism and Events Management.
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My name's Min Pak.
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I teach courses like Global Understanding through Travel and Tourism, which is a Mason Core course fulfilling global context, destination marketing and management course and internship courses.
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I have also taught Global Tourism Issues in Honors College.
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My teaching focuses on travel and tourism as a lens to understand global systems, sustainability and global issues every country or city has faced, and connecting classroom learning to real world context and experiences.
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I'm especially interested in how tourism intersects with the technology, politics and sustainability and preparing students to think critically about global challenges.
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Tourism may sound like a narrow field, but it actually touches major global issues.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Thank you both so much for those introductions.
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Is there anything else that you'd like to add about, especially about your instructional modalities as we get started?
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We want to talk a little bit about in-person versus online teaching.
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So anything you wanna share also about, not just what you teach, but how you teach?
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In terms of teaching different modality courses, I actually receive a mixed message.
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On one hand, I hear from parents and students that they want more in-person classes, but, you know, in reality, the online sections tend to fill up very quickly.
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For example, we offer multiple sections of global understanding through travel and tourism.
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And this semester, I'm teaching both, an in-person section and an online section.
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What I have found is that ultimately, what matters most is the student engagement.
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So I don't see a significant difference between the two.
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Even though it's the same course, I do design assignments and assessments a bit differently to support student engagement in each format.
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In the in-person class, I incorporate more group discussions and small interactive activities.
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In the online section, I rely more on structured discussions and self-reflection.
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So in terms of a student's level of thinking and their understanding of the issue, I don't see a noticeable difference.
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Each format has its own strength and limitations.
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Yeah, I've had the opportunity to teach a course that was offered online and also in person.
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And I do find that I have to change the assignments in the classes to make sure that the students are working towards the same outcomes.
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I've also found that in order to maintain the same level of engagement online as I do in my in-person class, that I've implemented synchronous sessions so that the students are meeting as a group throughout the semester.
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And I've been very intentional in those synchronous sessions to ensure that the mini lectures, as I call them, are designed in such a way that they're heavily focused on student interaction, so that they're learning from each other instead of attempting to implement a lecture style instruction on an online platform.
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So the instruction online is intentionally designed where I give a little bit of a lecture that allows them to understand the terms.
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So we go from the term to the whole concept, but when we get to the whole concept, they're actually implementing an activity.
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And then I use the chat as a check for understanding so that they're always modeling for each other, and then they're also always giving each other feedback, which I find increases engagement because in a in-person class, there's always that small group of students who simply don't respond, right?
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They just let someone else answer a question.
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But in an online format, I get probably 100% or close to 99% participation because they're just typing in a response in chat or in a survey, and then they're able to talk with one another.
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So the level of engagement is different, but it still offers the opportunity to allow for students to support each other.
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I really like that.
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And I think we've had two sort of casual trends that we're observing.
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You know, one is the expressed desire that Min was talking about for like,"Oh, we want in person, we want in person," but online fills up first.
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And then also the interactions and the expectation around interactions and things that, Joy, you were talking about for, you know, how students interact and also how you help students see each other as collaborators in learning or partners in learning.
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I was thinking about a online course that I taught and I had a experience where I couldn't share my screen on Zoom.
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And I panicked, right, because I needed to be able to model this activity for the students.
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But finally, I decided to let a student share their screen and I walked them through the process and they completed the activity.
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And after we finished the class, multiple students said that that was the session they enjoyed the most because they were able to see one of their peers complete the activity and it kind of reinforced the idea of peer modeling.
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Whereas I was on the other side of the screen just kind of scrambling and frustrated with the process.
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But I mean, that's just an example of online teaching.
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You just don't know what's gonna happen.
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You have
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yeah.
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to be ready for it.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So any other casual trends that you're observing right now or that you're thinking about in your classes, maybe across modalities?
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Well, for me, the key question is not where we teach, but how we design meaningful learning experiences.
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In the in-person section because we already discussed the topics in person, I just use an essay-based exam that focused on students' analytical ability.
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So, you know, they are asked to apply concepts, use evidence to support their arguments and develop well-structured argument.
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In the organization, I build on that, but add another layer to encourage interaction.
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So in addition to the analytical component, I include structured debate activities.
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So students are asked to construct and defend their arguments using evidence and reasoning, and to actively engage with opposing viewpoints by developing counter arguments from a specific policy perspective.
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So that's the difference.
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And also, I incorporate a reflective writing component for students, especially coming from the online section.
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So I ask the students to respond to questions like what they learned from the opposing group's perspective and how the exercise, shaped their understanding of the complexity of, the topic, and as a matter of fact, what I found really interesting is that, this combination, the analysis debate and reflection helped, reinforce a more holistic understanding of the issue, and I was actually very impressed by the depth of their reflections.
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So I'm now thinking that I didn't include this reflection part, for, in class, students because they have, interaction in real time and learn from each other in real time.
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But, you know, having this reflection and then, you know, how deeply it reinforces the student, learning, I may add a reflection part for in-person section as well.
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I like that.
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We're thinking through things in real time.
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That's very cool.
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But I think what you, the point you made there about meaningful learning experiences, and that's really very much the point I think we'll be coming back to, but having those across modalities having meaningful interactions to support those also.
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Any other observations or things that you're thinking about, Joy?
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Well, there was also another point that was made, and that was thinking through design for an online course.
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And what I found myself doing with an online class is actually using the flipped classroom model where I have the student, of course, read an assignment and then attempt an activity or a small assignment that's a low stakes assignment, maybe worth zero points, but it encourages them to apply what they've just learned.
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And then I actually use the synchronous sessions as an opportunity to model the correct responses.
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And in my in-person classes, it's actually done the opposite way, where I model first and then have them practice.
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But with the online class, I've figured out that the flipped approach works better for them because they're able to practice independently and then receive feedback in writing on the assignment that they submitted, and then also receive feedback when they're in a small group setting.
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And both ways seem to work effectively.
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Again, I think the important thing is thinking through the assignment and making sure that the students are able to give feedback to one another and then receive immediate feedback from the faculty member as well.
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So either way, that interaction is important.
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Absolutely.
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These are such great points.
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And as we think about our conversation or even our conversations just broadly about teaching in higher education, we tend to default to talking about teaching undergraduate students.
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So how about your thoughts here on teaching graduate students in some or any of these contexts?
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For me, it seems that there seems to be a mixed reaction to online instruction for graduate students.
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Graduate students enjoy the flexibility of having an online class, and of course, they can go at their own pace to some extent,
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Right.
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It red and it reduces their commute time.
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But then I've also had graduate students in an online class who were coming back to school for the purpose of interacting with new colleagues and learning from new colleagues.
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And the online format didn't allow them to have that type of spontaneity or create those impromptu conversations and relationships with new friends and peers.
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So it created, I guess a type of disappointment or sorrow they kind of expressed because they had to take a class online.
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So again, it just seems to be a mixed reaction for graduate students.
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Yeah, it depends on what we value.
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One of the things that you both and I have talked a little bit about is teaching about controversial topics or topics that may be perceived as controversial in different types of settings.
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And so how do you approach helping students grapple with ideas for the first time, particularly in the context that we've been talking about across different modalities?
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That's a really important question, especially in my field, because, many of the topics we cover, like over-tourism, economic inequality, over global, international tourism and sustainability, those are often new or unfamiliar to students.
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So, my approach is to, first ground the discussion in evidence and concrete examples, and I typically use case studies or real-world solutions to help, students to see how these issues play out in practice rather than just presenting them as abstract concepts.
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I really love using case studies and simulations.
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I also tried to introduce multiple perspectives early on, so students understand that these issues are complex and don't have a single right answer, especially tourism involves multiple stakeholders like a tourist, countries, as a destination, and local residents who receive impacts from, you know, people visiting their communities and businesses, industries.
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So the goal is not to have them agree, but to help them think more critically and engage with different viewpoints.
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In terms of modality, the approach is similar in principle, but differs in how it's implemented.
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In in-person classes, I rely more on live discussions and small group activities, where students can talk through ideas and respond to each other, in real time.
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in online settings, typically in our courses, in our classes, it's asynchronous.
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So, I tend to use more structured discussions and, reflective writing.
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I ask students to respond to opposing perspectives, that's really important to learn different viewpoints and multiple perspectives, and also ask them to reflect on how their thinking has changed after reviewing opposing perspectives.
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That gives them more time to process and often leads to more thoughtful engagement.
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So overall, whether it's in person or online, I try to create a structured environment where students feel comfortable engaging with complex ideas while also being challenged to think more deeply about them.
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So the goal is to help students move from simply reacting to ideas to actually analyzing and reflecting on them.
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Along those lines, it's definitely important to introduce students to enduring challenges and each discipline has some enduring challenge where there is a divide in how professionals think about the topic and how they want to solve the problem within that particular discipline.
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And it's important that we allow students the space to explore those topics to explore those topics as it relates to the evidence that is in the discipline, and then also as it relates to their own individual perspectives.
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And I say their individual perspectives again because as future educators or future professionals, they're going to bring their own understanding of the discipline and of the enduring challenge.
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So they should have the space to explore that divergent perspective.
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Even if it is not aligned with what we see in the profession now, it's an opportunity at least for that student and others in the class to begin to explore new ideas.
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And then because we're there as a faculty member, we also can help to intervene and to kind of guide their thinking so they don't go too far off the trail, but so that they can at least begin to explore new ideas related to a controversial topic.
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As it relates to the different modalities, I have found, at least for me, when teaching about an enduring challenge in a particular discipline, it's easier as a faculty member to intervene and to provide them with feedback, and positive reinforcement if a discussion seems to go off the rails.
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Whereas online, particularly if they are working in a breakout session, it's not always as easy to intervene in order to restore that rapport that's needed between the faculty member and the student as well as the other students.
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So what I attempt to do in online settings is that when they come back from the breakout room, of course, first read the room, right?
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See if there are any expressions on their faces that I need to attend to.
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And then also allow them the opportunity to kind of use the chat once again, just to express their ideas.
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So that gives me the opportunity to provide them with immediate feedback, and then if necessary, follow up with a group or an individual student.
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But still, because we're talking about meaningful learning experiences, we can't avoid those topics simply because the modality of instruction doesn't necessarily lend itself well to those challenging topics.
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We still have to figure out ways to coach students and scaffold students through that learning process.
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Yeah, that's such a great point, Joy, and I think we see both the concept and examples of implementation there.
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And I think in some other episodes of the podcast, you know, we had an interesting episode in, I believe, season three with someone from the FIRE organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, I think is the acronym there, is really thinking about how do we approach some of these?
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How do we help students?
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And I think that's what both of you are talking about, helping students interact with the topics.
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And some of those can be debates.
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Personally, I really like teaching with debates, like actual structured ones, not when the class session turns into a debate, that kind of thing.
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But even when we think about assigning topics or assigning sides, because we see so many of these issues are so multifaceted, like you were talking about, Min, we see different perspectives or even some of the things that I particularly like to do is assigning a role.
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Put yourself in the position of someone who does X and, you know, make some points.
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What might their positions be?
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How would they be expressing or interacting with these different areas?
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I think these are such great points.
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I just wanna add, in addition to, cases study that I love, role playing is another technique that I use to help students to understand the complexity of the topic.
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Sometimes it ends up very joyful, you know, play, students joking about,"Hey, I'm a businessman.
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Why do I care your position?" Something like that.
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But, ultimately, I think, you know, the role playing is a very useful tool to understand different positions and the perspectives around the topic.
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Absolutely.
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So as we start to wrap up our conversation, you know, this really brings us back to the role of teaching in higher education as our keystone concept for today, particularly around creating meaningful learning experiences.
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And one of the things that we've talked a little bit about is not only just the modalities, but what each person in the learning environment is looking for.
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We've talked about students, graduate students maybe who are interested in building their networks or meaningful connections or interactions.
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We've talked about undergraduate students who might be looking for particular modalities or, you know, obviously things that might fit into their schedule, as well as, you know, building those personal and professional and sort of lived experiences through the courses.
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Any final thoughts that you'd like to share on sort of this larger concept of the role of teaching in higher education and how we create meaningful learning experiences?
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I think especially in today's environment, the role of teaching in higher education is shifting in a meaningful way.
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What I mean by is that, you know, with information and knowledge being so easily accessible through AI and other advanced technologies, I don't see my role as simply delivering content anymore.
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Students can find information on their own.
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What's becoming more important is helping them develop analytical and critical thinking skills, how to interpret information, evaluate it, and apply it in meaningful ways.
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So whether I'm teaching in person or online, I try to design course materials and learning environments that support that goal.
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That includes using real world examples, asking students to engage with multiple perspectives, and encouraging them to explain and justify their thinking rather than just to recall information.
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For me, teaching is really about helping students learn how to think, not just what to know.
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And if they have the course with a stronger ability to analyze complex issues and think more critically, then I think that that's a meaningful outcome.
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So similarly, when we think about the purpose of education, it is the process of ensuring that students can contribute meaningfully to a discipline, and also helping them to understand human interactions, and that education is the process of growth and not just mastering a subject area.
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And particularly for future educators, they're gonna interact with people from a variety of diverse backgrounds.
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So they do have to grapple with the complexity of the content, right?
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In very few situations in an educational setting is there one definitive right answer.
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Instead, it's the process of being able to hear someone else's perspective and integrate it into your own ideas, so that you can become more culturally competent, so that you can become a person who is able to collaborate cross-culturally, and then ultimately to be able to live in this very diverse society, right?
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But, you know, I say live in a diverse society, I can even narrow that down.
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Be able to be a meaningful contributor to your profession.
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And that's what we're hoping that students will be able to do.
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Absolutely.
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I think these are such great points because in a lot of contexts in education, we come back to the theme, the idea of process, not just product.
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We might be talking about writing courses.
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We might be talking about other courses within the humanities or social sciences.
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We might be talking about different types of STEM fields and research or, you know, anything along these lines, or the creative process in the arts, whatever these might be, that so often we get into those spaces, or even spaces when we're having conversations about AI.
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You know, all of this often comes back to that idea of we're building the process, we're looking at how we grow as individuals, how we grow as professionals, and that's really a lot of that process.
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So with that, thank you both so much for joining us.
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I really appreciated your time, your insights, and your conversation today.
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Thank you.
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Thanks for having us.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So please check out other episodes of the podcast.
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We're posting every two weeks during the fall and spring semesters, and you can check that out on the website as well as your favorite podcast platform.
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So thank you so much.
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Hello, and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in Teaching podcast.
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I'm your host, Rachel Yoho, and I'm excited to be joined by two guests for our episode today.
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And so I will ask our guests to introduce themselves as we get started with our conversation.
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I'm Joy Banks and I teach in the Division of Special Education and Disability Research.
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I teach courses to pre-service and in-service teachers.
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The courses include topics related to literacy, leadership, and individualized assessment.
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Hi, I'm a faculty member in Tourism and Events Management.
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My name's Min Pak.
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I teach courses like Global Understanding through Travel and Tourism, which is a Mason Core course fulfilling global context, destination marketing and management course and internship courses.
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I have also taught Global Tourism Issues in Honors College.
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My teaching focuses on travel and tourism as a lens to understand global systems, sustainability and global issues every country or city has faced, and connecting classroom learning to real world context and experiences.
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I'm especially interested in how tourism intersects with the technology, politics and sustainability and preparing students to think critically about global challenges.
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Tourism may sound like a narrow field, but it actually touches major global issues.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Thank you both so much for those introductions.
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Is there anything else that you'd like to add about, especially about your instructional modalities as we get started?
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We want to talk a little bit about in-person versus online teaching.
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So anything you wanna share also about, not just what you teach, but how you teach?
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In terms of teaching different modality courses, I actually receive a mixed message.
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On one hand, I hear from parents and students that they want more in-person classes, but, you know, in reality, the online sections tend to fill up very quickly.
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For example, we offer multiple sections of global understanding through travel and tourism.
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And this semester, I'm teaching both, an in-person section and an online section.
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What I have found is that ultimately, what matters most is the student engagement.
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So I don't see a significant difference between the two.
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Even though it's the same course, I do design assignments and assessments a bit differently to support student engagement in each format.
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In the in-person class, I incorporate more group discussions and small interactive activities.
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In the online section, I rely more on structured discussions and self-reflection.
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So in terms of a student's level of thinking and their understanding of the issue, I don't see a noticeable difference.
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Each format has its own strength and limitations.
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Yeah, I've had the opportunity to teach a course that was offered online and also in person.
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And I do find that I have to change the assignments in the classes to make sure that the students are working towards the same outcomes.
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I've also found that in order to maintain the same level of engagement online as I do in my in-person class, that I've implemented synchronous sessions so that the students are meeting as a group throughout the semester.
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And I've been very intentional in those synchronous sessions to ensure that the mini lectures, as I call them, are designed in such a way that they're heavily focused on student interaction, so that they're learning from each other instead of attempting to implement a lecture style instruction on an online platform.
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So the instruction online is intentionally designed where I give a little bit of a lecture that allows them to understand the terms.
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So we go from the term to the whole concept, but when we get to the whole concept, they're actually implementing an activity.
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And then I use the chat as a check for understanding so that they're always modeling for each other, and then they're also always giving each other feedback, which I find increases engagement because in a in-person class, there's always that small group of students who simply don't respond, right?
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They just let someone else answer a question.
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But in an online format, I get probably 100% or close to 99% participation because they're just typing in a response in chat or in a survey, and then they're able to talk with one another.
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So the level of engagement is different, but it still offers the opportunity to allow for students to support each other.
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I really like that.
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And I think we've had two sort of casual trends that we're observing.
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You know, one is the expressed desire that Min was talking about for like,"Oh, we want in person, we want in person," but online fills up first.
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And then also the interactions and the expectation around interactions and things that, Joy, you were talking about for, you know, how students interact and also how you help students see each other as collaborators in learning or partners in learning.
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I was thinking about a online course that I taught and I had a experience where I couldn't share my screen on Zoom.
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And I panicked, right, because I needed to be able to model this activity for the students.
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But finally, I decided to let a student share their screen and I walked them through the process and they completed the activity.
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And after we finished the class, multiple students said that that was the session they enjoyed the most because they were able to see one of their peers complete the activity and it kind of reinforced the idea of peer modeling.
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Whereas I was on the other side of the screen just kind of scrambling and frustrated with the process.
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But I mean, that's just an example of online teaching.
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You just don't know what's gonna happen.
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You have
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yeah.
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to be ready for it.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So any other casual trends that you're observing right now or that you're thinking about in your classes, maybe across modalities?
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Well, for me, the key question is not where we teach, but how we design meaningful learning experiences.
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In the in-person section because we already discussed the topics in person, I just use an essay-based exam that focused on students' analytical ability.
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So, you know, they are asked to apply concepts, use evidence to support their arguments and develop well-structured argument.
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In the organization, I build on that, but add another layer to encourage interaction.
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So in addition to the analytical component, I include structured debate activities.
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So students are asked to construct and defend their arguments using evidence and reasoning, and to actively engage with opposing viewpoints by developing counter arguments from a specific policy perspective.
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So that's the difference.
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And also, I incorporate a reflective writing component for students, especially coming from the online section.
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So I ask the students to respond to questions like what they learned from the opposing group's perspective and how the exercise, shaped their understanding of the complexity of, the topic, and as a matter of fact, what I found really interesting is that, this combination, the analysis debate and reflection helped, reinforce a more holistic understanding of the issue, and I was actually very impressed by the depth of their reflections.
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So I'm now thinking that I didn't include this reflection part, for, in class, students because they have, interaction in real time and learn from each other in real time.
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But, you know, having this reflection and then, you know, how deeply it reinforces the student, learning, I may add a reflection part for in-person section as well.
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I like that.
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We're thinking through things in real time.
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That's very cool.
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But I think what you, the point you made there about meaningful learning experiences, and that's really very much the point I think we'll be coming back to, but having those across modalities having meaningful interactions to support those also.
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Any other observations or things that you're thinking about, Joy?
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Well, there was also another point that was made, and that was thinking through design for an online course.
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And what I found myself doing with an online class is actually using the flipped classroom model where I have the student, of course, read an assignment and then attempt an activity or a small assignment that's a low stakes assignment, maybe worth zero points, but it encourages them to apply what they've just learned.
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And then I actually use the synchronous sessions as an opportunity to model the correct responses.
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And in my in-person classes, it's actually done the opposite way, where I model first and then have them practice.
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But with the online class, I've figured out that the flipped approach works better for them because they're able to practice independently and then receive feedback in writing on the assignment that they submitted, and then also receive feedback when they're in a small group setting.
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And both ways seem to work effectively.
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Again, I think the important thing is thinking through the assignment and making sure that the students are able to give feedback to one another and then receive immediate feedback from the faculty member as well.
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So either way, that interaction is important.
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Absolutely.
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These are such great points.
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And as we think about our conversation or even our conversations just broadly about teaching in higher education, we tend to default to talking about teaching undergraduate students.
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So how about your thoughts here on teaching graduate students in some or any of these contexts?
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For me, it seems that there seems to be a mixed reaction to online instruction for graduate students.
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Graduate students enjoy the flexibility of having an online class, and of course, they can go at their own pace to some extent,
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Right.
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It red and it reduces their commute time.
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But then I've also had graduate students in an online class who were coming back to school for the purpose of interacting with new colleagues and learning from new colleagues.
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And the online format didn't allow them to have that type of spontaneity or create those impromptu conversations and relationships with new friends and peers.
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So it created, I guess a type of disappointment or sorrow they kind of expressed because they had to take a class online.
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So again, it just seems to be a mixed reaction for graduate students.
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Yeah, it depends on what we value.
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One of the things that you both and I have talked a little bit about is teaching about controversial topics or topics that may be perceived as controversial in different types of settings.
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And so how do you approach helping students grapple with ideas for the first time, particularly in the context that we've been talking about across different modalities?
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That's a really important question, especially in my field, because, many of the topics we cover, like over-tourism, economic inequality, over global, international tourism and sustainability, those are often new or unfamiliar to students.
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So, my approach is to, first ground the discussion in evidence and concrete examples, and I typically use case studies or real-world solutions to help, students to see how these issues play out in practice rather than just presenting them as abstract concepts.
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I really love using case studies and simulations.
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I also tried to introduce multiple perspectives early on, so students understand that these issues are complex and don't have a single right answer, especially tourism involves multiple stakeholders like a tourist, countries, as a destination, and local residents who receive impacts from, you know, people visiting their communities and businesses, industries.
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So the goal is not to have them agree, but to help them think more critically and engage with different viewpoints.
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In terms of modality, the approach is similar in principle, but differs in how it's implemented.
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In in-person classes, I rely more on live discussions and small group activities, where students can talk through ideas and respond to each other, in real time.
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in online settings, typically in our courses, in our classes, it's asynchronous.
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So, I tend to use more structured discussions and, reflective writing.
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I ask students to respond to opposing perspectives, that's really important to learn different viewpoints and multiple perspectives, and also ask them to reflect on how their thinking has changed after reviewing opposing perspectives.
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That gives them more time to process and often leads to more thoughtful engagement.
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So overall, whether it's in person or online, I try to create a structured environment where students feel comfortable engaging with complex ideas while also being challenged to think more deeply about them.
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So the goal is to help students move from simply reacting to ideas to actually analyzing and reflecting on them.
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Along those lines, it's definitely important to introduce students to enduring challenges and each discipline has some enduring challenge where there is a divide in how professionals think about the topic and how they want to solve the problem within that particular discipline.
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And it's important that we allow students the space to explore those topics to explore those topics as it relates to the evidence that is in the discipline, and then also as it relates to their own individual perspectives.
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And I say their individual perspectives again because as future educators or future professionals, they're going to bring their own understanding of the discipline and of the enduring challenge.
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So they should have the space to explore that divergent perspective.
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Even if it is not aligned with what we see in the profession now, it's an opportunity at least for that student and others in the class to begin to explore new ideas.
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And then because we're there as a faculty member, we also can help to intervene and to kind of guide their thinking so they don't go too far off the trail, but so that they can at least begin to explore new ideas related to a controversial topic.
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As it relates to the different modalities, I have found, at least for me, when teaching about an enduring challenge in a particular discipline, it's easier as a faculty member to intervene and to provide them with feedback, and positive reinforcement if a discussion seems to go off the rails.
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Whereas online, particularly if they are working in a breakout session, it's not always as easy to intervene in order to restore that rapport that's needed between the faculty member and the student as well as the other students.
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So what I attempt to do in online settings is that when they come back from the breakout room, of course, first read the room, right?
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See if there are any expressions on their faces that I need to attend to.
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And then also allow them the opportunity to kind of use the chat once again, just to express their ideas.
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So that gives me the opportunity to provide them with immediate feedback, and then if necessary, follow up with a group or an individual student.
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But still, because we're talking about meaningful learning experiences, we can't avoid those topics simply because the modality of instruction doesn't necessarily lend itself well to those challenging topics.
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We still have to figure out ways to coach students and scaffold students through that learning process.
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Yeah, that's such a great point, Joy, and I think we see both the concept and examples of implementation there.
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And I think in some other episodes of the podcast, you know, we had an interesting episode in, I believe, season three with someone from the FIRE organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, I think is the acronym there, is really thinking about how do we approach some of these?
00:17:46.907 --> 00:17:48.317
How do we help students?
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And I think that's what both of you are talking about, helping students interact with the topics.
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And some of those can be debates.
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Personally, I really like teaching with debates, like actual structured ones, not when the class session turns into a debate, that kind of thing.
00:18:04.238 --> 00:18:20.048
But even when we think about assigning topics or assigning sides, because we see so many of these issues are so multifaceted, like you were talking about, Min, we see different perspectives or even some of the things that I particularly like to do is assigning a role.
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Put yourself in the position of someone who does X and, you know, make some points.
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What might their positions be?
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How would they be expressing or interacting with these different areas?
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I think these are such great points.
00:18:32.968 --> 00:18:44.748
I just wanna add, in addition to, cases study that I love, role playing is another technique that I use to help students to understand the complexity of the topic.
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Sometimes it ends up very joyful, you know, play, students joking about,"Hey, I'm a businessman.
00:18:52.387 --> 00:18:55.597
Why do I care your position?" Something like that.
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But, ultimately, I think, you know, the role playing is a very useful tool to understand different positions and the perspectives around the topic.
00:19:07.077 --> 00:19:07.768
Absolutely.
00:19:07.817 --> 00:19:22.278
So as we start to wrap up our conversation, you know, this really brings us back to the role of teaching in higher education as our keystone concept for today, particularly around creating meaningful learning experiences.
00:19:22.428 --> 00:19:32.288
And one of the things that we've talked a little bit about is not only just the modalities, but what each person in the learning environment is looking for.
00:19:32.288 --> 00:19:39.097
We've talked about students, graduate students maybe who are interested in building their networks or meaningful connections or interactions.
00:19:39.127 --> 00:19:55.157
We've talked about undergraduate students who might be looking for particular modalities or, you know, obviously things that might fit into their schedule, as well as, you know, building those personal and professional and sort of lived experiences through the courses.
00:19:55.488 --> 00:20:05.837
Any final thoughts that you'd like to share on sort of this larger concept of the role of teaching in higher education and how we create meaningful learning experiences?
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I think especially in today's environment, the role of teaching in higher education is shifting in a meaningful way.
00:20:15.101 --> 00:20:29.351
What I mean by is that, you know, with information and knowledge being so easily accessible through AI and other advanced technologies, I don't see my role as simply delivering content anymore.
00:20:29.681 --> 00:20:32.431
Students can find information on their own.
00:20:32.760 --> 00:20:45.810
What's becoming more important is helping them develop analytical and critical thinking skills, how to interpret information, evaluate it, and apply it in meaningful ways.
00:20:46.111 --> 00:20:55.178
So whether I'm teaching in person or online, I try to design course materials and learning environments that support that goal.
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That includes using real world examples, asking students to engage with multiple perspectives, and encouraging them to explain and justify their thinking rather than just to recall information.
00:21:07.897 --> 00:21:13.840
For me, teaching is really about helping students learn how to think, not just what to know.
00:21:13.840 --> 00:21:23.673
And if they have the course with a stronger ability to analyze complex issues and think more critically, then I think that that's a meaningful outcome.
00:21:24.285 --> 00:21:45.781
So similarly, when we think about the purpose of education, it is the process of ensuring that students can contribute meaningfully to a discipline, and also helping them to understand human interactions, and that education is the process of growth and not just mastering a subject area.
00:21:45.862 --> 00:21:52.041
And particularly for future educators, they're gonna interact with people from a variety of diverse backgrounds.
00:21:52.162 --> 00:21:56.332
So they do have to grapple with the complexity of the content, right?
00:21:56.362 --> 00:22:02.632
In very few situations in an educational setting is there one definitive right answer.
00:22:02.999 --> 00:22:23.939
Instead, it's the process of being able to hear someone else's perspective and integrate it into your own ideas, so that you can become more culturally competent, so that you can become a person who is able to collaborate cross-culturally, and then ultimately to be able to live in this very diverse society, right?
00:22:24.118 --> 00:22:27.689
But, you know, I say live in a diverse society, I can even narrow that down.
00:22:27.689 --> 00:22:32.221
Be able to be a meaningful contributor to your profession.
00:22:32.672 --> 00:22:35.241
And that's what we're hoping that students will be able to do.
00:22:36.189 --> 00:22:36.709
Absolutely.
00:22:36.749 --> 00:22:45.409
I think these are such great points because in a lot of contexts in education, we come back to the theme, the idea of process, not just product.
00:22:45.409 --> 00:22:47.358
We might be talking about writing courses.
00:22:47.358 --> 00:22:51.558
We might be talking about other courses within the humanities or social sciences.
00:22:51.558 --> 00:23:06.078
We might be talking about different types of STEM fields and research or, you know, anything along these lines, or the creative process in the arts, whatever these might be, that so often we get into those spaces, or even spaces when we're having conversations about AI.
00:23:06.409 --> 00:23:17.259
You know, all of this often comes back to that idea of we're building the process, we're looking at how we grow as individuals, how we grow as professionals, and that's really a lot of that process.
00:23:17.739 --> 00:23:20.699
So with that, thank you both so much for joining us.
00:23:20.699 --> 00:23:24.858
I really appreciated your time, your insights, and your conversation today.
00:23:25.134 --> 00:23:25.535
Thank you.
00:23:25.761 --> 00:23:26.541
Thanks for having us.
00:23:26.778 --> 00:23:27.738
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:28.008 --> 00:23:30.738
So please check out other episodes of the podcast.
00:23:30.738 --> 00:23:40.535
We're posting every two weeks during the fall and spring semesters, and you can check that out on the website as well as your favorite podcast platform.
00:23:40.835 --> 00:23:42.035
So thank you so much.
