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Breaking the Habits that Hold Back Good Teaching · Higher Listenings

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: Here's a little challenge.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_03: Can you put your teaching philosophy into 10 words or less?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: I did this exercise some years ago because I had to write an essay for this is how I teach, and they said do it in eight.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then I realized I actually had one word.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: Care.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's my teaching philosophy, and all my time allocation is aligned to showing and letting students know that I care about them and their learning.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing what matters most isn't only about becoming a more purposeful educator, it's also a remarkably effective way to decide what to stop doing.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: The things that don't matter quite so much.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Our guests today are Elizabeth Joost Hammer and Regan A.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: R.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Gudering, authors of the new book Teach Like a Champ.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Together they offer a refreshing perspective on teaching excellence, and it starts with letting go of the impossible ideal of the perfect professor.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Along the way, we look at the well-meaning habits that fill our plates, but don't always help students learn.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: The psychology of perfectionism and practical ways to reclaim your time while increasing your impact.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a thought to chew on.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: What if one of the smartest things you could do for your students is deliberately stop teaching new material for one day?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: More on that in a moment.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Higher Listenings.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to introduce you to a professor.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to call them a Professor Goldstar.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So each semester they take it upon themselves to know all 150 of their students by name.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: They've flipped their classroom years ago.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: They've embraced authentic assessment.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: They attend monthly faculty development sessions and they still manage to publish.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They eat a balanced diet and make time to see friends and family, especially during major holidays.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my first question for the both of you is Have we created an ideal of excellent teaching that no human being can actually live up to?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Have we created this ideal?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Not only an ideal, but an ideal that I think was probably created by our favorite professors.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's somewhere along the way, right?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that we carried into graduate school, and then we carry it with us then into our profession.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So to try to be ideal, um, I'm gonna turn this over to to Regan because I know he will talk about this as well, but it's more about like knowing your center, knowing your values, knowing your teaching philosophy, and then living that.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Regan, what do you what are your thoughts?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you know, it's funny because I have such a different take on that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, not so much with the the thought there, but Eric, when you drew up that ideal professor, for the most part, I said, hey, all those things on there are right on, right?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: And and here's why.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: Here's why, because I don't know if you realize this, but if you take a look at what you enumerated on there, get to know their names, be a department citizen, right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: But you also threw in two really key things, which was eating well and spending time with friend and family.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: And in our in our work together, those last two things is what make the first two things possible.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: But most importantly, and we're both social psychologists, but if you're taking care of yourself and getting social support, yeah, you can do all those things for students.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna but I'm gonna add, you can do all those things again, if it's at the heart and soul of your value system and your teaching philosophy, right?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that one thing that I guess when I kind of you know heard that little scenario of Dr.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Goldstar, it's um, you know, slip the classroom then, did this then, use technology now, now doing this.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I think sometimes there is a drive to just be to responsive to whatever the new trend is, even if the trend is not within, is not pedagogically sound or is not within uh one's teaching philosophy.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the things you listed were great and within a teaching philosophy, but it's kind of like knowing having a center, and you can't have that center vegan without healthy eating and social support.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good point.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea of a North star.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you have a sense of purpose, a North star that's guiding you?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that allows you obviously to make decisions and to figure out what you don't actually need to be worrying about at certain points in your teaching practice.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, Elizabeth, in one of your accounts, you mentioned that uh you made early attempts at teaching that led to overprepared lecture-heavy courses.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me tell you why it's a problem, and then I'll give you the advice.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: When I was first teaching, oh my gosh, I'm a little bit of a sentimental, not quite a pack pat rack, but sentimental.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got all my first lectures that I did when I taught social psych for the first time in 1993.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't get through that material now.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: One lecture, I couldn't get through it in a week, and wouldn't want to get through it in a week because there were no there was no student voice there.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was me saying, I have knowledge and I'm gonna do this.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And because I wrote out these lectures, way long lectures in very detailed, and I wrote them, and by God, I have to say them.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have to say it down there now.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what's happening now, I think, with slides, right?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you way over prepare, if you way over prepare for something, because you're a little defensive, I don't know if students are gonna ask the question, I gotta be sure to have this.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you way overprepare, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I know students want to go and really learn this material and reply it to themselves, but I've got 14 more slides to get through, and damn it, I'm gonna get through them.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: It stems from kind of defensive teaching, you know, kind of fear I I can't not know something, and then it it leads to some bad pedagogy.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I would say to a new teacher about this is limit your teaching prep.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Be realistic.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Say I'm gonna spend an hour and a half on this, and then what doesn't get done is not gonna get done because I'm gonna build in interaction points that are gonna take time, and so I don't have to cover everything.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then even once you do that, I would say to the new teacher, right?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: The new teacher is then hide a few of your slides.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: God forbid you you run out of time, never happens.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: But if you have lots of extra time, which never happens, then unhide them and you can show them in, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it resists that temptation just to fire hose knowledge at the end instead of letting students engage in material.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Elizabeth, this idea of over-preparing is, as you said, it's something especially novice educators do.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: I certainly did it in my day as well.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Is there another example of a kind of practice that you all have encountered that's pretty widely spread that that may not justify the effort that faculty are putting into it?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one thing is like managing our own perfectionism, right?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if I am just, you know, I've got this together and I want to put a neat image in my slide and I can't really find it, or it's not really fitting, or it bled over the back, whatever.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can spend 25 minutes worrying about why is this bullet shaped different than that bullet, and then word messes me.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a level of perfectionism that sometimes, and I think it can arise from, you know, again, that wanting to be ideal, wanting to be perfect.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that sometimes that's one thing I've really noticed.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just let it go.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think we do need to say, and I do want to say for the record, that there are too many faculty who are burnt out, right?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's exhausting, they are overworked.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so for me, three things come to mind.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: The big one is is being shackled to content, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: The the fear that you have to cover all this content.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Cover.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I'm gonna do this.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing air quotes for people who can't see me.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Cover.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: The language I think is revealing.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: You cover the content, you get through, you get through it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: You don't you don't teach it, you don't cover.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: And and speaking of language, Brad, I love that language point because I've started thinking about it, you know, and I talk about it as hey, look, uh our our gut reaction is to transmit knowledge when we should really be uh, you know, translating knowledge.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: And the difference between transmit and translate, transmit is, hey, I've got all this knowledge, you don't, here you go.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: And that goes to Elizabeth, what you were saying with those, you're packing your slides, you're packing your lectures, I've got to just transmit all this stuff to you.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: Instead, taking the time to translate that knowledge in such a way that the student can apply it to their lives, that takes some work.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, right?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: But but that unshackles us from the content and makes us think about it in a different way.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: The second one is a lot of junior faculty, and I'll say this, non-tenured faculty, junior faculty feel pressured to give students their slides, make all their notes available, and spend so much time making their notes and their slides in a way that they can give it to students that maybe they're spending too much time, you know, right there.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a whole separate tangent that I don't want to go on right now.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: But boy, I could talk about whether you should give your slides out or not.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: And my third thing is actually not knowing what the right type of feedback to give is.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: Feedback is super important, but especially as a novice, you may err on writing too much when that may not be the best for the student.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's an excellent point.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can give so much feedback that students then shut down, right?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: They it just it just drowns them.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, are you scaffolding the feedback?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is it learning feedback?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it defensive feedback?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I keep coming back to that word, but is it just justifying the grade I'm giving you instead of here's the grade you earned and here's the learning to make it better?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we spend a lot of time on feedback.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's not effective, Regan, you're right on that's a that's a time suck.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we've talked about things that maybe are sucking time that isn't really meaningful in terms of improving the teaching and learning experience for ourselves, for our students.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want to look at the other thing, which is teaching practices that do deliver, in your estimation, a really big return on investment.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if you had two or three, and maybe we'll start with you this time, Regan, if you had two or three teaching practices that you would say, this is non-negotiable, I have to protect these at all costs, what would you offer to our audience?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, I love that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll give you my answer and then I'll I'll give you the how to get there.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: Time with time for students.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Time for students, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and when I think about why is that the biggest thing?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because yes, lecture prep is important, yes, course design is important and writing assignments and design.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: But in this day and age, in a world where so many individuals, not just students, but so many individuals, are lacking adequate social communication, contact, and support.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: Every point of contact with the student has to be capitalized on, especially the first ones.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: And Elizabeth, one of the first things that you said was know what's important to you, right?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Here's a little challenge for listeners, right?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: Can you put your teaching philosophy into 10 words or less?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: I I did this exercise some years ago because I had to write an essay for this is how I teach, and they said do it in eight.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then I realized I actually had one word care.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's my teaching philosophy, and all my time allocation is aligned to showing and letting students know that I care about them and their learning.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So and there's that North Star that we sort of talked about earlier, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that you would add to that?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I I would.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna add two new things, but I'm gonna say it's it just it cracks me up because my number one thing I put down was be present for students.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like be present.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I read an article, and we can I think it was um in TOP or teaching psychology, but it was this article, it was just like a really basic intervention.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Show up to class 10 minutes early and chat with students before class.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just rush in with all your papers flying around, try to set up the tech, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: But actually get there in enough time to chat with students.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started doing that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And at first it was weird.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was weird.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: But now I have a group of students who are always like if I get there and it's just 10 minutes before class, they're like, Where have you been?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're late, why, you know, and get to know them, get to know them as not just brains on sticks, actual holistic people in energizes you're teaching.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other one I would add though is stay involved and whatever that means to you professionally, whether it's your scholarship of teaching and learning, whether it's your disciplinary scholarship, whether it's your professional organizations, stay involved in your profession because I think that that feeds our soul.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's a different kind of social support than our family at Christmas, it but it's a really important social support.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I fear we're talking about the North Star.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I fear that my North Star might just be guilt.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I kid, I kid.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I also had a 3-4 load in my first teaching appointment, my first year teaching full time, and I did feel guilty.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have enough time.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wonder if guilt does drive um some of the behaviors that we've been talking about.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: The guilt that we should give more feedback, that we should be more available to our students, that we really need to redesign our entire course this weekend, answer those emails uh and not wait another day.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how do we distinguish genuine responsibility to our students?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's more high achieving.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, we have made it through the highest degrees of education, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: We are high achieving people, and we want to be high achieving in every aspect of our life.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and teaching is is a is interdependent, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's interdependent.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So my high achieving is not just on me, it's on my students, it's on our this the interaction, on the learning environment.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I maybe then for high achievement, some people comes out as anxiety, other people comes out as guilt.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the one thing that I want to say when I think about that is is the I was gonna say like more problematic one that I've seen than guilt in faculty members is the drive for students to like me.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm more interested in being a popular teacher, a funny teacher, a like teacher, than I am having a learning environment, uh, an effective learning environment.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen that happen.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was truly like in the classroom.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: When my motivation becomes students need to like me and not I want to ignite fires of academic curiosity, then I think that's that's a worse driver to me than than guilt.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's funny you said that, uh Elizabeth, because I I do think that sometimes a lot of teachers do think of themselves as superhuman, right?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: And when you're superhuman, you should be able to do everything, right?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, I have another twist to this, which is I think if you're feeling guilty, that's actually such a great sign because it means you you are taking your teaching seriously.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we've talked a bit about some of the psychology of teaching, and then there's the mechanics.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So efficiency sounds great, especially to someone who works in the business world until it applies to teaching.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then it can sound suspiciously like, how can I actually do less work?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, where should faculty actually look for efficiencies without compromising student learning?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: My first reaction to that is to go, it's not how much how I can do less work, but it's how I can do more work.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Because if I'm efficient, then I can do more of the things that I really care about with my classes.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, take a look at the big areas, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: Course preparation or, you know, lecture lecture preparation, course design, uh dealing with emails and you know, and grading, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: Those are some of the really big things.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Don't just do it the way you've been doing it for the longest time.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Come up with ways that you can do it better.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes it may mean uh offloading some of that.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'll give you a simple example.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: We do uh student evaluations.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh when I teach a class of 400, that's a lot of written student evaluations.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's where I easily offload to AI, who creates a summary for me of the themes in all those four responses.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I think being selective about that, but really examining your daily life, your weekly life, and going, where are those times?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and sometimes it's in the teaching realm, and sometimes it's outside.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's so important what Regan just said.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've got two other things that I would, like really specific things that I would add.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Once you have a clear vision, you know, clear mission for yourself, a clear teaching philosophy, start focusing your service.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Start decide what is my service going, how is it gonna serve me?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so I knew pretty early on because I went to these teaching conferences, met Regan, you know, I was like, dang, I like doing workshops.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go into faculty development.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So pretty early on in my career, I start saying, if this if the committee doesn't have a faculty development component, then I'm not gonna do it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna choose one because you can't do them all.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the other, um, and this is this is a strange answer to this question about efficiency.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm telling you, this little tip has really changed my past couple of semesters.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I read that um pedagogy kindness book by Catherine Denial.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing she talks about compassion to students, kindness to students, but also kindness to self.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing she said, do is stop teaching, covering again.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing air quotes, covering material up until the exam.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Build in before every exam a catch-up and review day.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do it.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And she had all the reasons why.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm like, I'm doing it.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I did it.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: You lose three class days.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Regan, you lose three class days.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my girl, the world's gonna end.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're never gonna make it to graduate school.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: If they lose three class days in human development, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: It has changed my classes because now my pace isn't frantic at the end, their pace isn't frantic at the end.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not having to make all these cognitive decisions and adjustments because I'm not gonna get through.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: It has made me more efficient because I can plan my teaching better now.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know if I don't get through these last little concepts I've got that day.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and then we just kind of have this fun kind of release before the exam.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: It also gives me about efficiency.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: It gives me an extra day to create the exam, right?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I it's just it's really made a difference in just my own level and what I have felt like I can do.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: And just the one thing to add though, look at, and because this is a very fine-tuned thing that listeners can get into, is look at those repetitive those tasks that you repeat all the time, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: And come up with shortcuts for that, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, could I share one?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's hear it.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can assure it.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually have a Google Doc that's just called advisees.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wrote the email about like, okay, if you got an early alert, this is the email that goes, okay, registrations next week.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is the email that goes, okay, welcome to the back of the fall, welcome to, and I just go straight to that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the one about yes, my class is closed.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know, excuse me, I don't retype those anymore.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I just go to my Google Doc and capture them and put them in my email.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's an expert piece of advice.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: I know that you both are strong advocates for evidence-based teaching, which Eric and I spend a lot of time talking with folks like you about.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a complicated practice in a number of ways.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: If I change an assignment or introduce a new activity or redesign a component of my course, the impact isn't always obvious.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it might, in fact, require some painful experimentation in front of and with students over a semester or two in order for me to even develop the skill and understanding that optimizes that new thing and actually begin to see the positive impact.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it raises the question of when and how educators should assess whether the changes they're making are actually improving student learning and therefore worth the time and the effort that it requires.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, how would you guide people as to when and how to do that in ways that don't turn this into another burden, the size of my research project that is already falling behind my schedule, right?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: You said when and how.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think the when is really easy all the time.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's the how with the nuance comes in.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: And uh depending on your contents, the content, depending on your training, depending on your experience, you can decide which what's the best way to do it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, at one end, the anecdote actually noticing students' reactions now, as an empirical social scientist, that's like, oh, what's that?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: But you know what?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: There are some times where that's all you have time to do.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: But you're still, that's why, when all the time, that's one level, but then you keep ratcheting it up.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: Then, yes, you know, monitoring responses on exams over time, you know, the classic pre and post.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: And something that, you know, at some level, uh, something that's actually goes up and down in favor is what students actually think about an assignment is a good piece to an objective measure of learning.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I say a good piece, it shouldn't be the only thing, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: And too many studies, hey, oh, the students said they like it.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's only takes you so far.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: But are you actually moving the needle on their learning?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: Elizabeth and I like to share that far too often faculty get burnt out, feel pressured, feel overwhelmed because they almost feel like they have to do their best with that with no limits, right?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: And instead, we say you should know your limits, know your limits.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: And conveniently, limit spells out a ru is a nice acronym for the main areas of evidence based research that faculty should look at.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, limits, learning outcomes.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what what do you want your students to learn?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: I, what instructional method should I use?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, how do I measure it?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: The M.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: Am I an inclusive teacher?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_03: The other I and how do I use technology?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: So when you're measuring learning, right, remember you'll there are all these other components as well.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: And unabashedly, if you've not been trained to all to do all of this, find a partner, have a teaching champion, right?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: It could be a colleague.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I totally agree with what Regan said.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: You do it always.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: You do it continuously, always, every time you're doing something new.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: When I do mid-course reviews and I'm doing something new, like I just really revamped my advanced research class given the capabilities of AI.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Super revamped.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: So then I asked for a mid-course review in there and I said, yes, here are the questions.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's working, helping your learning, what's not, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: But also ask this.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: What is what's helping me learning with this?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: What is falling short with this about this new format?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can in a mid-course review or peer review or however you're you want to do it on your campus, you can say, please also get some anonymous feedback about how this is working for them.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: You just touched on AI.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a perfect segue for my next question.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because AI, as we know, can do a lot to support teaching practice.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can draft rubrics with it, generate examples, redesign activities and on.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your take on teachers outsourcing more of their teaching work to AI?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what parts of teaching should we be really careful not to optimize away?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big one.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big one.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on a APA Society for Teaching Task Force on AI right now.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: But first of all, AI empowered future is our students' future.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: If we care about our students and we feel like we have to, we are it's our responsibility to prepare them, whatever our university mission is for this next level, we have got to get our hat head out of the sand and do this.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: My little theme is no AI abstinence, right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the answer.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: However, I think it's going to depend exactly what we're just talking about about context.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: What is the context of your student population, your course, and then your and then within your course, your your learning objectives, right?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then within your learning objectives, your rapport and philosophy in the classroom.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then within that, I mean, it's just it's going to be so individualized.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So to say, oh, teachers should use it for this and not use it for that, I can't do that because it's so individualized.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: So my guidance is even simpler, which is never use AI to do something that you don't know how to do.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: And that seems ironic because people often offload and go, I don't know how to do this.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you do it.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: But when you're a teacher, and I will say this to my students, same thing for the students.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: This applies to both of us.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't know how to do it, whether it's writing an APA style or writing a multiple choice exam or writing an essay or doing a syllabus, I know an AI can pull together a syllabus for intro psych very easily.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, exactly.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: Elizabeth is cringing for those of you uh who don't have the visual.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: But if you don't know what the components are of a good syllabus, oh boy, yeah.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: So that's my very simple guiding principle is don't use it to do something that you really don't know how to do because you'll regret it.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: So burnout has come up organically in this conversation a couple of times.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it is in fact something that you devote uh your last chapter of the book, I think, to to treating pretty substantially.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, what what are some early warning signs of burnout and what does sustainable practice look like in the current climate?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say I think the earliest sign that you should, because you know, it's a busy time, modern time, we just talked about AI, like that's contributing to burnout.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I would encourage listeners, when you start to become cynical about students, whoa, you're there.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, because it starts like you know, you're cynical above you, the administration.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we've been complaining about administration since I don't know, University of your founded, right?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: But when it starts to affect your feelings toward your students, stop, pause, seek help, get yourself together.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because that cynicism, that's how burnout works.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the exhaustion.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's other characteristics of burnout, but the cynicism, I think, is the most dangerous one for academics and it spirals down.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as you are cynical about students, you've lost them.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think that extends to if there are parts of your job that you once used to love that you don't love anymore or don't look forward to doing, uh, that's the next thing right after.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: I love the student part because that is the biggest, I think for for teachers, that's the biggest one.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: If you uh if you go, oh, I'm not looking forward to going to class, or I'm not getting my students and they're not getting me, uh, that's a biggie.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and together there's exhaustion, sure.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: But I think there's that depersonalization too, where you just, you know, yeah, yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: You don't feel like you're part of the whole thing.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, uh something to really watch for is your own.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: And we talked about efficiency before, but your own productivity, when that drops up dramatically, though, that's definitely the hallmark.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's truly the almost the textbook example of burnout, those things we talked about.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I think it's not just burnout.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think you should very often, and like you said, Brad, burnout is everywhere, but I think sometimes we're just overwhelmed, which is a little bit down from burnout, right?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I think that can happen.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: And the good news there is that may not be as long term, but whether it's over being feeling overwhelmed or feeling burnt out, which is almost like a clinical level in my book, I think taking good care of yourself is so important.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: And that really nicely brings us back to sort of where we started, which is are you spending time with friends?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know, are you are you sleeping?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Are you eating well?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are you getting sunlight on your skin and not just overhead fluorescence?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Are you looking at a leaf in the fall?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: It really is lifestyle, you know, because some things are not under our control.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: But what is in our control is these lifestyle factors that we have to prioritize.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I love this.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually looking at right now.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: My bullet board says you can't set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Anonymous therapist.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you we both, we both like one of the questions, like the most important thing, be present for your students, be there for your students.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you weren't there for you, you can't do it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be there for your students.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you are operating on 20% of battery life, then you're not gonna make it through class before your battery's dead.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, you you have to do that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in higher ed, and oh, it's so interesting, Brad.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe this comes back to guilt.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe this comes back to guilt because we have to do it to be good professionals.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, if I take time for myself, if I take time for fun, if I go to the Monday night football game and then I'm tired on Tuesday morning, ooh, I'm not a good professional.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I am.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is I'm finding joy in life.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing this, it keeps me full, it keeps my glass full, so then I can share with others.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe this, so maybe the bottom line is um we're Regan R give me permission.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Take care of yourself.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is good for teaching.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Take care of yourself, it's good for teaching.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to thank you both for your warmth and your expertise in this conversation.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 29:38
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