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Coaching the Classroom: Lessons from a Super Bowl Champion · Higher Listenings

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny because Dan Hurley, who just lost the national championship, I saw this uh analogy that he gave about coaching his players.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: He said during this like during practice, he's the jockey.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's the jockey.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: He's demanding more.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: He's training, training, training, training.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: But game time, he's the cornerman.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Encouraging, motivating, you know, bragging.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like that is the way my final is.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's Christian Fauria, a two-time Super Bowl champion, turned broadcaster, turned faculty member at Bryant University.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: As he discovered, knowing your craft and knowing how to teach are not quite the same thing.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, Christian and Bryant University's director for the Center of Teaching Excellence, Constanza Bartholomew, explored the overlap between elite coaching and effective teaching.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Along the way, they unpacked the unlikely partnership that helped Christian find his footing in the classroom and why the best instructors, like the best coaches, know how to raise the floor for everyone.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the question: What does it take to move from teaching students to actually improving their performance?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Higher Listenings.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to you both to Higher Listenings.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to have you with us.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having us.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're happy to be here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm totally excited.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just happy all the mics work to be out with the amp.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've got the full audio, and I'm gonna roll right into it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, Constanza, you spent your career in higher education teaching and now leading work at Bryant Center for Teaching Excellence.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Christian, while Constanza was working on her PhD, you were busy winning Super Bowls before heading into broadcasting.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And now you're both here teaching at the same institution.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say, this sounds like the setup for a movie somehow.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So take us back.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: How did this partnership actually begin?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'll start because I guess I was the catalyst because I got fired from a job from my broadcasting job that I had had for years, like 13 years in a very competitive sports broadcasting market here in Boston.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: I've always wanted to coach, but I don't like the lifestyle of actually coaching football or sports other than my kids.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I decided I was going to get into teaching, and but I wanted to be at a higher level to make a real impact.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought I could do it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Wrote a bunch of schools, got a bunch of replies.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Bryant was really the only one that really seemed like they had a big commitment.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: They had a unique vision that I thought that I could help, but I had never taught before, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Ever.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: I really was really nervous, anxious, had so many questions.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then the chair of the department said, Hey, you need to work with Constanza.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you need to talk to her in the CTE.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it's CTE to me means like head trauma.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like when I hear CTE, that's a that's an NFL thing that we get is brain damage.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: So from constant hits to the head.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: And lo and behold, there she was, like a beacon of hope.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I just had really stupid questions and and and a lot of fear and anxiety about what I was about to do or how I was about to do it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: I just spent a lot of time coming to her office, asking her questions, spitballing ideas.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really how it started.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: When Chris, his department chair first introduced him to me, he said, Oh, he used to play for the Patriots.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Chris, I know nothing about football.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Okay, not here to teach football.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's here to teach broadcasting.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, all right, somewhere within, you know, the communication.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Teach football.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it I mean, yeah, there's there's a lot to it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: But Christian came in and he was like, I'm really excited to learn, but I'm also nervous, you know.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about teaching.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like a sponge.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: He just he wanted to know, and he genuinely wanted to hear my opinion.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: He'd come in and we'd talk about different ideas.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: His his playbook in the classroom just unfolded, and it was really magical to watch.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I actually told you.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: I told her this, and it was a compliment.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and it was like an epiphany for me.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Just like Cassanza was getting the same out of me at my as my coaches did.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Similar techniques, whether she knows it or not, similar motivational tactics, empathizing with my issues.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember like I'm like, holy cow, like you're no different than Bill Belichick, is what I told her.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Just without the surly attitude that goes with it.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was, and I'm not saying that at all to make her blush or exaggerate, because I don't even think she knows who Bill Belichick is.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think she had to ask her husband who he was.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: But he's like, I mean, that's what it was for me, right?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I was amazed that I saw that type of coaching at the academic level.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So at what point did it start to click that you might actually be thinking about learning and development and coaching in similar ways?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So Christian started last January with us, right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: January 2025.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the more that we work together, he's like, Oh, well, this is a coaching phrase or this is a coaching technique.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so he started making those connections because again, I know nothing about football.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't claim to know.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Oh, like this reminds me of this, and oh, there's an old thing here.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when it really started to click for us in terms of Christian's own experience, broadcasting, own experience on the field.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Christian started saying, I think there's something here.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Tell me more.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: It is funny because she would say something, and I would literally reminisce about something that was told to me with a similar situation for a football game.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I would translate it in football speak, and then she would be like, Oh, yeah, it's the same thing.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_04: Christian, speaking of reminiscing, before we get more deeply into this notion of coaching and how it applies in in this conversation here, I want to take you back to your playing days, if I can, and think about your experience being coached.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_04: Was there a moment that stands out for you now as something that's shaping your teaching approach today?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've always been inspired by my coaches.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that is absolutely seen in my teaching.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: I like to use illustrations, analogies, real life examples with props to really drive a point home.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: The one thing that I think that I try to implement, which I think is the most valuable thing amongst all of them, right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: If I had to really list them, is motivation through encouragement.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_04: And uh Cosanta, when you when you hear that, what do you recognize or characterize that from your experience in faculty development and as a professional who helps faculty develop their teaching and learning practice?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes when faculty come in for consults, it can be a very vulnerable experience, right?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're usually coming in either because they want to try something new and they're excited about it, but they're nervous about it, or because something isn't working.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, when I talk to faculty about their course evaluations, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they might just have that one comment that sticks with them and they're like, oh, I didn't really love this.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: We can process it and we can think about it in a different way.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's encouraging for them to know, okay, I'm not the only one who's going through this.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Learning and teaching are both a struggle.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I see it paralleled every single day.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: As Christian said, we're here to coach faculty, we're here to support them, we're here to let them know that they're not alone, we're faculty facing.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So for all those reasons, I think, as Christian said, there are a number of parallels, but that's immediately what comes to mind for me.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: Let me stick with you for a minute here.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: One of the things that excited us about this conversation was the fact that Christian really is representative of a growing population of faculty who are coming from various industries.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: And they're bringing expertise into the classroom, but they don't have that background in education or in teaching.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_04: In his case, given his experience, Christian kind of came with a coaching and being coached mentality.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_04: So he he was looking and receptive to the idea of a coach in his practice.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_04: That was kind of what has spent his life experiencing in doing.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm curious about how you think about that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_04: Should we be thinking about this coaching paradigm as a generalizable and really important component of faculty development?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Christian and I use this metaphor of a Ferris wheel.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think just like when students come into the classroom, they're coming in with all different levels of experience.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, faculty come in with all different levels of experience, whether it's coaching, whether it's teaching, whether it's giving presentations, whether it's none of the above, and they just have a lot of subject matter expertise or years of experience.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you think about a Ferris wheel, we're we're coming onto a Ferris wheel and we're at a different vantage point than someone else, we see things differently at the top of the Ferris wheel than we do at the bottom.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the same thing with teaching experience.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to really work with that faculty member or work with that student to coach them.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the individual experience, it's the process that really matters today.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_04: So if I'm somebody who is new to teaching, coming from industry, where does that make sense for me to begin?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_04: How do I begin this journey toward finding a coach, being coached?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_04: Is there something that I should do that what where I should focus immediately or early to make the most impact on my teaching experience and on my students?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, first of all, I you have to, there's like really three things.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have you have to identify what you want to get out of the class and what you want the students to get out of the class.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's first, you know, I went through that.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: I knew exactly what I wanted them to get out of the class and the way I wanted to do it, based on me doing a whole investigation from other journalists and broadcasters in the space.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: What's missing?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: What should they learn?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: What do they need to know?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: What is the industry expecting from them?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: What's missing?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: What's my blind spot?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And based on these conversations, like we learned, we discovered that the one thing that was missing is something that we called earned resiliency.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: It is the idea of failing to gain strength.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: It is a process of discovery, of realizing how much and how far you can go, what you're willing to deal with, uh, what you're willing to overcome.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, and and then we were building a platform off that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I will tell you, I just had a panel discussion with this class that I had.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: I took 10 students and I and I taught them for a whole semester.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: I brought them out to Radio Row, and they were explaining their experience to about 50 kids who want to take the class, right?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Who are interested in the class.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And they went through every single one of them, all 10 of the kids, and they all said the same thing.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I knew we were right, because they all talked about how important rejection was to them.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: They all talked about how they grew with being denied and being told no over and over and over and over again.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And when we were coaching them and teaching them, we said, yeah, it's gonna happen.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Embrace it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Every professor, especially from the industry guys, like the um guys who come from broadcasting, construction, the finance world, like they're expert at their fields because they have been through the mud and the muck, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they have a different callous body than a student would.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say that's more valuable than anything.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: So how do those guys get that?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: How do those girls get that?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: How do we create something like that?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have gone through different ways of, you know, hey, well, you gotta implement something that I that that is quantifiable from your students where they have earned resiliency.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_04: I I think this is this notion of resilience, the way you're speaking about it, is kind of novel to me.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: And you're talking about it in a really interesting way here, both in terms of helping faculty leverage the resiliency they have developed in their teaching practice and in the design of their course, but also in really intentionally shaping the experience within in the domain that you're focused on at in your particular discipline.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: So whatever skills you're trying to help them develop in that in that course, you want to think about setting up exercises that help them cultivate resilience in the way that you're talking about.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's really an interesting uh notion.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it's but it's Yeah, I was just gonna say it's not the hidden curriculum though, because I think there's a lot of courses where resilience is part of it, but it's not talked about overtly.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's the weed out courses.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of a negative way to learn about resilience, which is this is just gonna be really tough, and probably half of you aren't gonna be here by the end of the term and all that kind of stuff, versus saying I've heard it from other students who took the course and how important that was and what that actually meant to them.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm way more likely to be up for the challenge to to actually do the program, do the hard work, be willing to fall on my face, knowing that that's the intention, that there is an actual goal here that's gonna help me.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And this is actually from a place of caring because that's what it takes to be successful.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about day one in your class, Christian?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: About what you say to your students because I think Oh, well, you tell me because I say a lot of crazy stuff.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, well, he Yeah, remind me before I say something you don't want me to say.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Christian walked me through day one, and he's like, I tell students that it's going to be challenging, but I also let them know I'm there next to them every step of the way.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Christian frames it like a coach.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, There I I think of class like a video game that we've all played, but the students haven't.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we know or we think we know where the roadblocks are, and students have to go through them.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we might tell them this lesson today, it's gonna test you, but until they go through it, they don't know what we're talking about to the full extent, right?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so Christian says, Yes, this is going to challenge you, but I believe in you.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny because Dan Hurley, who just lost the national championship, I saw this this uh analogy that he gave about coaching his players.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: He said, during this like during practice, he's the jockey.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's the jockey.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: He's demanding more, he's training, training, training, training.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's like go, he's like he pushed them to the the brink of it of uh of just quitting.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: But game time, he's the cornerman.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's the he's the trainer who is you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, encouraging, motivating, you know, bragging.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like that that is the way my final is.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: So during the year, to Cassanza, I I let him know the standards are set high for a reason.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't lower them.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna let you lower them, and don't expect me to lower them.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's too bad, tough, you know.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: But by the time we get to the final, it is definitely corner man.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I am like, okay, bring me your final presentation.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's mold it a little bit, let's work on it a little bit.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't you believe in yourself?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why do you keep acting like you are you can't do this?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like you you have it's constant encouragement, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the final project is absolutely so rewarding, right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you how rewarding it is.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that's ultimately that's what we call raising the floor, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because part of the earned resiliency that we want them to earn is raising their foundation.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: We want the floor to be so high that when you do fail, because you will fail, but the fall isn't a big deal.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And even if you do fall, your foundation and your floor is so high that you know you're still ahead of everybody else, but you just don't know it yet, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: So there's this constant metaphors and analogies that we're trying to use that to create that belief, not in not only in yourself, but on what you're learning, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's contagious.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking a bit about culture, right, in your classroom.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I I know that culture is a huge part of being on a sports team, it's a huge part of being in a work environment, or it should be.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's usually a very clear sense of expectations, like what's the standard?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: What does good look like?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: How should people show up?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: How do they work together?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: What's actually valued?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think about creating that kind of environment in your classroom?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for me right now, because I'm not teaching, the classroom is the center for teaching excellence, right?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when I hear, and I I always think of Ted Lasso, he's like, What?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can't hear you over all that negative self-talk.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So when I hear that, I'm like, I'm sorry.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Can we talk about your strengths?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or, oh, look at the work that we did between last semester and this semester in terms of reviewing your course evaluations.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I actually had a faculty member last semester trick me and she said, Consonta, I need to talk to you about my course evaluations.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Okay, I'll get you in right away.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And she showed them to me.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, these are phenomenal.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, I know.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I remind folks of those moments because we're all human.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: We all have days where, you know, class might have gone really well, but we feel like it hasn't gone well, or it didn't go according to plan.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're so adaptable as instructors, right?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're just so used to it, but then we're like, gosh, darn it, what I wanted to do didn't happen.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's my job in the Center for Teaching Excellence to remind folks that there are small wins in everyday teaching that we may not be paying attention to because we're so concerned about, oh my gosh, I've got a student who's struggling.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I need to help them, that we lose sight of all of the good things that we're doing or that are happening in the classroom.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, you know, creating that culture where faculty can see the good things that they do and not just think about, oh gosh, I got to do all this grading and reminding them of the good.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Every coach I've ever had always starts the first day of camp or practice with his values and his standards and what he believes in and some sort of phrase, right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: Grid over everything, right?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's some sort of cookie saying that they try to use for the whole year.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and I tell you what, like that's exactly what I try to do with my classes.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I try to do it because they're all unique, all the personalities are different, each year is different, and I really try to let them know what's acceptable, what isn't.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's the rules and you know, responsibilities that I lay out and you know, and how I'm constantly reinforcing them when they decide they don't feel like doing it anymore.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: But as far as the culture goes, the culture is really set by the the teachers, the professors, the chairs of the department.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it really is like I can identify a winning team the moment I step in the locker room.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Instantly.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: I can identify whether this team is good or bad.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I notice it right away.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: What the coach says, how the players respond to it, their work ethic, and like every championship team I've ever been on since I was in eighth grade, we've all had the same thing in common.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what Christian's also describing is something that I used to say a lot in the classroom.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I care about my students learning the content.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, but I care more about how they feel in the classroom.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because if my students don't feel comfortable in the classroom, they're not gonna share their opinions.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: If something's going on with them that they should come and talk to me about, depending on what it might be, if they need an extension or what have you, they're not gonna do that if they don't feel comfortable in the classroom.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're going to remember that uncomfortable feeling of, I don't think that this instructor cares about me more than they are whether or not I covered all of the material in class.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I know when I was, here's a here's a nerdy story.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in high school, I know Kristen's like another one.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in high school, my dad was like, Oh, our high school's doing this thing where you can sign up to take Harvard Extension School classes.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think because you're so great at languages, you should take a language.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, Great.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I signed up for Arabic.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm gonna do it.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: First day of class, the instructor came up to me and said, I don't think you're gonna do well in this class for no reason.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless I was wearing a sign on my forehead saying I'm nervous and I don't think I can do it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I studied so hard for that first exam.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I told my whole family, I said, I'm on sabbatical.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can't bother me.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I studied, I studied, I studied, and the instructor handed back my exam, which I still have to this day.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: It had an A on it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Oh, I guess this was luck.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I still remember that moment.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think all of us have those memories of coaches or instructors or people who we looked up to who were supposed to help formulate us into whatever it is that we were supposed to be doing.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want that feeling.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's icky.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to feel, as Christian said earlier, safe to fail, knowing that even if I do fail, the coach, the instructor, the faculty member is going to be there and say, that's all right, we got this.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_04: The past few minutes have really elicited, I think, two really critical features of a really good classroom environment.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_04: One is the culture and the other is the climate.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_04: I want to turn to a third dimension here, which is really about the feedback.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_04: Coaching and teaching both involve a lot of feedback, but not all of that feedback, not all of that input, advice, counsel is gonna land the same way.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we we just heard an example of an interaction that is not helpful, but what what kind of feedback um really helps somebody improve?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: What makes it effective?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, this was this was uh a coaching point that I learned from Consanza based on what I wasn't doing.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, I'm blunt by nature, and I've realized that I have to, I'm not doing a sports radio show in Boston, so I gotta be a little bit different.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's always what I think they can work on, and then what I'm proud of them for, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: And some students, I can be a little bit more direct.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, dude, listen, you know that's not good enough.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, look at your score.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I expect you look at your last scores.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: You you you did not put any effort into that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I say it.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: I said, however, you still have a ton of time.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be more opportunities for you to make it up.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Don't let me down.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: From a um, from a um, I guess a template, it is, you know, what I think you missed and and how I think you can do better.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think you said something really important there too, which is I know that you're capable of better.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to tell someone that this isn't meeting the standard, but when you couple that with, and I know that you can actually meet the standard or exceed the standard, that lands, I think, totally differently.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, because it's still showing that you believe in them.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just to play off of what Christian has just said, first you have to, as we talked about earlier, create the climate and create the culture where students feel safe and comfortable.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be different for every single instructor.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: As to how they do it, because each instructor is unique, just like the students, but you have to create that culture and that climate first.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Second, you have to get them to know the students, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is really challenging if you have a class of 300, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think about the lecture halls that I was in at BU, but I but if we think about a traditional classroom with 25 to 35 students or so, you have to get to know them so that if they're not there, if they're absent, you notice it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So what I used to do is if a student was absent, I would take a picture of their chair, I would email it to them after class and say, we missed you today.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's Oh my God, that's such a good idea.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I would also label the chair with their name so that they would know that I wasn't just reusing the same picture.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You have to let them know that they're missed if they're not there and that you see them.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because gosh, if I think back to my 18-year-old self, I was so insecure, right?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I just knowing that somebody cared that I existed was so impactful.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had a student once say to me, You're the only instructor that noticed that I was out for a week.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad you reached out to me via email.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: My heart broke, you know, because we're in education because we care.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: So then, if saying all of that, we also have to say, you know, the reasons why we're proud of our students.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have to point out the good, catch them in the good, right?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And tell them why.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is amazing because, or I learned this from you, and here's what I got out of it.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can deliver any sort of feedback that might be like, you know, what Christian said, like, I know you can do better than this, or hey, you know, this was missed here.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how you could tweak it.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're constantly picking out the things that a student hasn't done, no matter how well your dynamic is, they're not going to perform as well as they will if you also tell them why what they've done is good and give them concrete feedback.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_04: One of the one of the things that that we've talked about in sort of preparing for this conversation, Christian, is the experience of watching a recording of yourself teaching, which is similar, I think, or equivalent maybe to watching game tape as a player, you know, to kind of you know be be caught in the act um and really, you know, have the opportunity to frame by frame analyze your performance.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_04: What was that experience like uh the first time you did it?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Miserable.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was miserable.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I am PTSD over that.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because you leave the room, you're like, oh, that was a that was awesome.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was so good in there.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: Just like a game when I would always tell my kids, like, it's never as good as you think it is, and it it also is never as bad.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm glad I did it, right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because I record a uh some of my lessons, you know, or some guest, you know, and I'm hand to God, Eric and Brad, like I'm like looking at my body language, I'm watching the way I walk, um, you know, I'm listening to what I say.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that didn't even make any sense.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: No wonder they're falling asleep.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I challenge any professor to do it.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Just try it, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_04: I've had the same experience.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_04: I've watched myself teaching.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_04: It's a painful, that's incredibly valuable developmental experience.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_04: But for those of us who don't have the benefit of a career in watching ourselves on game tape, um, Constanta, how do you encourage faculty to embrace this as a practice?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are my faculty, and I think that Christian's such a great role model for this, that it doesn't take away from your subject matter expertise if there are things to work on in the teacher playbook, right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because most of us come into higher education, and much like Christian, we haven't had any formative background in how to teach.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's really intimidating and it's a vulnerable process, right?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're not taking away from a person's subject matter expertise.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're saying, you have so much knowledge.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how we can share that in a way that might be more impactful or that might be clearer or more concise for your students.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how we can engage them.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes if you've taught the same lesson in a certain way over and over, it'll be refreshing for you, an eye-opening for you to change it up, right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I think again, bringing faculty away from the notion that this doesn't take away from their subject matter expertise, it actually raises the floor for them in terms of how they can deliver.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious for you, Constanza.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about building trust in the classroom.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Are the things that you do with an instructor when they come into your office to build that trust?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think to get the feedback, to be open to suggestions, eventually to get to the kind of rapport that you both seem to have, is there a bit of a recipe or maybe some things that you do intentionally to get to that place?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, can I get a little personal with you all for a second?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: So in January of 2020, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when I came to Bryant, I had already lost my mom and my grandmother.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: They died a day apart in 2018.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't tell anyone as I was teaching that this happened.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you can imagine being an adjunct faculty member and going to your department chair and saying, Hey, we're gonna have a double funeral.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my entire department said to me, Why didn't you say anything?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, you know, I didn't want to take away from the work.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So when I came here to Bryant, I said, All right, I'm going to tell folks that this is my reality, that I am the primary caregiver for my dad who was in his 80s.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't hide it.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I said, look, this is what I go through in my day-to-day.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: It might be changing a chemopump.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: It might be going to a doctor's appointment.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an extreme example, I know, but having folks get to understand who I am outside of the office space, I think is super helpful.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I got married in the fall and I told everyone, because like, you know, super excited.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: We went to City Hall and then I came to work that same day for our faculty welcome back lunch.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they got me a cake.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, congratulations, you got married.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I tell faculty to the degree that I feel comfortable what's going on in my life so that they don't just feel like, oh, well, this is, you know, higher ed corporate Constanza.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, they get to know who I am as a human.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Again, everybody has different levels of comfortability with that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I show them here's me being vulnerable with you to the degree that I feel comfortable so that you understand where I'm coming from.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I also give examples of for the classroom too, like, oh, here's a moment where I screwed up big time.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I did, here's what I learned from it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's allowing yourself to be vulnerable with folks and to talk about your own struggles, to talk about your own life, to talk about your own individual culture with folks so that they feel like they can do the same with you.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why I told Christian right away I know nothing about football.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So don't quiz me.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_04: If there's one one kernel, one idea, one one shift in practice or orientation toward teaching that you would wish an instructor to take away from this conversation into their own teaching practice, what would it be?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's it's earned resiliency.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's what it is.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's the one thing I think everyone, including the professors, the teachers, and the students, can uh can benefit from just as much, if in in some cases, probably more than the actual class that you're taking.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: I do know that being a caregiver for as long as I have been has shaped me in ways that are transformative, much like my educational experiences, but in a different way.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that earned resiliency is really, really important.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know what type of earned resilience resiliency our faculty are stepping into classrooms with and our students too, but we do know that each person that we interact with has lived experiences and that they have their own set of unique gifts and skill sets because of that.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think getting to know students, getting to know faculty, building that trust, which is essential, building that climate where folks feel like they can have conversations, even if they're difficult, even if they're talking about struggles and not necessarily about wins, that's how you ultimately develop the type of climate where talking about earned resiliency to whatever degree, shape, or form, even if it's, oh my gosh, I got an A on that Arabic exam, you know, um, is a comfortable feeling.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and also talking about the path that you took to get there too.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_04: I just want to thank you both for this conversation and for your vulnerability and trust in us to uh carry it on.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_04: So thank you both.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's been great.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: This was so much fun.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Ciao.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.
• 30:04
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