A conversation with Dr. Regina Barreca of University of Connecticut on teaching, learning, and humor.

You can’t use humor to be liked. You have to use it to make a point. Especially for women, too often our sense of self-esteem or even, in a professional setting, our sense of accomplishment comes from, you know, do they like me? And it can’t work that way. Teaching certainly can’t function that way. It has to be: did I make this point effectively? Did they get it? And that’s very different than being liked.

Links for this episode:

• GinaBarreca.com

Then, in the fall semester of 2009, we decided that we here at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching might have more to say on a variety of subjects, and that a blog might be the best way to do it. Thus was born CAT Food (for thought). We could have established it as an entirely separate creature from the podcast, but I thought it made more sense to simply expand the scope of our existing blog rather than maintain two different blogs going forward.

So, essentially, our podcast blog got bigger and changed its name. Teaching, Learning, and Everything Else is still chugging along, but now it’s a topic which will be presented alongside such other topics as Blackboard Bits, Bytes, and Nibbles and Sociable Feast. It’s my hope that this model best serves our primary readership, namely faculty in higher education. In particular we are dedicated to our faculty here at Xavier, but we believe much of this content may be of general interest to teachers everywhere.

If you were subscribing to the podcast in a feed reader, you probably didn’t notice anything different except that the name of the feed may have changed. Now you know why. If you’d like to continue to focus on the podcast only, you needn’t do anything. We now are publishing to separate feeds: one for just the podcast, and another that encompasses all the blog topics, including the podcast.

You’ll find all the feed options listed in the sidebar from our main page. And if you don’t have any idea what a “feed reader” is, don’t worry. There’s also an option to subscribe by e-mail.

A conversation with Dr. Josh Aronson of New York University on teaching, learning, and stereotype threat.

People perform better when they don’t feel their intelligence is being evaluated. So in a very broad way, if you can create an environment that takes the heat off of intelligence — and I think different teachers do this in a variety of ways — so if they say, look, I’m here to evaluate not how smart you are, but what I have been able to teach you… Now the onus is on me. Now the bell curve isn’t about you. I am being put on a bell curve as your teacher. So you can sort of shift the emphasis from evaluation of your intelligence to evaluation of my ability to teach you. I’ve had teachers come to me and tell me that when they [do this] the kids do much better, and they aren’t vomiting on their exam pages anymore.

Links referenced in this episode:

• “Stereotypes and the Fragility of Academic Competence, Motivation, and Self-Concept” by Joshua Aronson and Claude M. Steele. From Handbook of Competence and Motivation, 2005. [PDF courtesy of the author]

A conversation with Dr. Mano Singham of Case Western Reserve University on teaching, learning, and the authoritarian syllabus.

That element of choice and trust between the teacher and the student I think are important aspects of creating a good learning environment, and I think the authoritarian syllabus tends to work against it. Authoritarian syllabuses can achieve certain things. You can get people to do things. But you can’t get them to want to learn. That was my epiphany, if you like.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Death to the Syllabus! by Mano Singham in Liberal Education, Fall 2007
• “Moving away from the authoritarian classroom” by Mano Singham. Change, May/June 2005, pp. 51–57. [PDF courtesy of the author]
• “How my course syllabus is created” by Mano Singham. [PDF courtesy of the author]
• Mano Singham’s Web Journal: Thoughts on science, history and philosophy of science, religion, politics, the media, education, learning, books, and films.

We’re proud to announce this podcast is a finalist for a POD Network innovation award. We hope to see you at the conference.

A conversation with Dr. Arthur Zajonc of Amherst College on teaching, learning, and contemplative inquiry.

While we may begin with the “pause that refreshes,” if we leave it only at that then it’s seen only as a break from learning. I’m really keen on it being seen also as a means of learning. That is to say, we school our attention — that’s long been a part of the contemplative traditions, the deepening and stabilizing of attention — then, if we can bring that deepened and stabilized attention to the work at hand, it’s going to be far more productive. And in addition, if one can take up a practice such as this contemplative inquiry practice, we add to that an enhanced learning capacity. So not only attention is schooled but also a new modality of inquiry is also offered to the student.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Arthur Zajonc’s personal website
• Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry by Arthur Zajonc on SteinerBooks
• Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
• The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education

A tip of the hat to the good folks at TalkShoe who helped us with some technical problems.

A conversation with Dr. Eszter Hargittai of Northwestern University on teaching, learning, and digital inequalities.

The idea behind introducing the term digital inequality… is that it’s really a spectrum of differences even after people go online. So even once people get connected, it’s wrong to think of them as all equally accessing all that the internet has to offer, because people will do so in very different ways and in different contexts and with different implications for what benefits they can reap from their access and use.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Eszter Hargittai’s personal website
• Digital Inequality: From Unequal Access to Differentiated Use by Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai, Coral Celeste and Steven Shafer

Transcript

Hammer: Hello! Today I’m speaking with Eszter Hargittai. She’s an associate professor of communication studies and faculty associate of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She received her PhD in sociology from Princeton University and she has done a post doctorate fellowship at the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and National Affairs at Princeton. She’s currently a fellow at Harvard University. Her research focuses on social and policy implication of information technologies, and what we’re particularly interested in talking about today is how they can contribute to or alleviate social inequalities. Dr. Hargittai, thank you so much for speaking with me today.

Hargittai: Thank you for having me today.

Hammer: I thought what we could start out talking about digital inequalities and digital divide. You suggest that digital divide is no longer relevant and I wonder if you could just tell us what that means?

Hargittai: Sure! I should actually, probably clarify. I do think that digital divide is still relevant to some a different question. So digital divide additionally refers to basically a binary classification of have or have nots, when it comes to digital media and in particular often applied to the internet. So the idea behind this term has been that some people are online, some people are internet users, and some people are not. And this term tends to suggests that there is basically a binary approach which is good and bad, and when people go online and they cross this divide and there’s no longer a concern. The idea here is that while that is still the case, that some people fall on both sides of the divide, where they’re not all users. The idea behind introducing the term digital inequality, which I did in works done with Paul from Princeton is that it is really a spectrum of differences even after people go online. Once people get connected, it is wrong to think of them as all equally accessing all that the internet has to offer, because people will do so in very different ways and different contacts and with different implications for what benefits they can reap from their access and use.

Hammer: So that, is that what you mean by inequalities then.

Hargittai: Yeah, so that’s the idea behind this term digital inequality is that there’s really a spectrum of differences.

Hammer: Yeah that makes sense. I winder if you could tell me a little bit about how did you get interested in studying this idea to begin with. What lead to this and what was the early research?

Hargittai: I started looking at the social aspects of the internet in the mid 90’s, when I was actually a senior in college. I had just gotten back from a year in Geneva, Switzerland, which was interesting because the web had actually just been worked out there by Tim Berners-Lee of CERN so this was very much the time when things were happening, and Geneva is a very international city, and so I came back to the US to finish college and was thinking of how the web, the internet is making it much easier to access for people, but at the same time internationally lots of people still did not have access. So I end up writing my senior thesis in college about the international unequal access to the internet, and then when I went to graduate school, I started thinking even within the US, we had more users than the other countries, and there were still considerable inequalities, so that’s how I started thinking about to topic.

Hammer: So you’re talking about inequalities and the spectrum, I like thinking about that as a spectrum as opposed to this binary we are looking at, but what are some concrete examples? Like what are inequalities, what do they look like to a layperson not studying it?

Hargittai: Sure, so there’s different dimensions in which people differ considerably when it comes to their internet use, so one way to think about it is, that even in terms of technical equipment people would have different kinds or types, right, some people will have the latest gadgetry, they will have high speed internet connection, which is very different from a dial-up connection which still a lot of people have or having older machines running older software right? A lot of things on the web nowadays require all types of plug-ins and different programs and if you don’t have them it’s much harder to access them and parts of the web. So that’s one technical aspect and there’s what I’ve called anatomy of use and the idea there’s basically the freedom to use the medium when and where one wants to.

And to give two examples that are quite contrasting, so look at a person who has 24 hour access to the internet at home freely can do whatever she wants versus the person who has to rely on a library connection where the library is only open certain hours of the day, one has to go to the library, one might have to stand in line to get access to the machine, and the machine might be running filtering programs, or there might be people looking over you shoulder. So even though in a really simplistic statistical manner both of these people could be called users, clearly there’s a very serious qualitative difference between the level of autonomy when it comes to using that machine in your home, no filtering, 24 hour versus a location others and ones your depending on hours of operation etc.

Then there are other domains, there’s also the idea of, the extent to which people in one’s networks are also knowledgeable about the internet. Let’s say you have colleagues or friends who are very knowledgeable about the internet, then topics related to using to the internet might come up in everyday conversations and all types of ideas, oh what’s the latest website you should check out for something, or if you run into a concrete problem and you need help fixing it or solving it then if they are knowledgeable people and networks amongst your peers, friends, and colleagues then you can turn to someone. If they aren’t, again then you are less able to perhaps make use of the medium in an optimal way. Then finally, a concept that I have focused on a lot in my work concerns online skills and so the idea here is that people are going to differ considerably on the extent to which they are able to make use to the internet and how much they understand it and how much they are able to do many things.

Hammer: You mean suppose to what you mention first about just having the technology but knowing how to navigate.

Hargittai: Right, exactly. So take people and assume that they all have access which a lot of people do and then if you look at their skills and how they are using their internet and able to use the internet, you will still find quite of bit of variation, and one of the things that I’ve uncovered in my work is that this variation is not randomly distributed in the population. Meaning that people’s characteristics actually predict who’s going to be more likely to have higher learning skills.

Hammer: And I’m assuming I can guess what most of those characteristic skills are, I anticipate them, but what kind of characteristics are you thinking?

Hargittai: So basically what we attempt to find is that a person’s social economic status for example or level of education or income predicts level of skills so those from privileged backgrounds come to be better users of the Internet. Also I have found that in some cases, women tend to be less confident in their use of the internet than men, and also find some racial and ethic inequalities as well.

Hammer: It just came to my mind as I was hearing you speak about this. Do you think new technologies like the iPhone, I’m thinking like iPhones and Blackberry’s and those kind of like portable internets, do you think that the popularity of some of things are going to help with inequality or make them even more exaggerated?

Hargittai: Yeah! That’s a very good question! I think it could go in different directions, certainly for now I don’t think it’s going to get rid of the inequalities, partly because these devices themselves are expensive enough and even if some of the devices are not that expensive, certainly the data plans are. So for people who are from less privileged backgrounds, while they’re very likely to have phone plan, they’re less likely to have a data plan and so if you look at who uses their cell phone for email and web surfing, that is still not equally distributed across the population. Now over time it might although given the current economic situation, I don’t know if it’s about to change very quickly. Again, even with the mobile devices, there are skills involved; there are different applications one can use, right? So I have a very smart phone, Nokia ’95, which I can download all types of applications to, but I need to know how to do that, and I need to know where to find the applications. So for example, my phone runs a program that basically makes my phone into a pedometer, which counts steps as I walk which is helpful, but again I need to find out if that was an option, I need to find where I can get that program, I need to download it. So even if it’s free, there are still some skills involved in being able to “get it” and install it.

Hammer: And I think, even understand what application can be in your phone.

Hargittai: Exactly! Absolutely.

Hammer: Before we move on, from these categories you mention earlier. My background is in psychology so the one I find the most fascinating is that whole anatomy of use. The idea, I think, that is really fascinating because I think that one has psychological implications and I was wondering — on NPR this morning coming to school, I just heard this report, I don’t know if you heard it, but the reporter was talking about the response to the stimulus package and that part of the money is going to go to broadband and rural communities and helping rural communities get online and get on the internet and that should help with jobs. Did you hear that?

Hargittai: I did not hear the NPR part but it’s interesting because I was just reading the stimulus bill and looking for the section that addresses broadband and I have it right in front of me, section 6001 part B, which refers to things like providing broadband and education, awareness, training, access, equipment and support. So this is actually very much in the bill that recognizes that this isn’t really just a technical issue and back in December, I had to opportunity to go talk to someone people on the transition team, and we pretty much had a discussion about this issue and they seem very interested.

Hammer: And, I mean, I’m certainly not asking us to get political here, but what does your research suggest? I mean is this an important thing to do, because of the NPR report, they were doing both sides and there was one person who said that it is the price that people pay in the rural communities and it is not an effective, not a green way to live and so what does your research suggest?

Hargittai: Well I’m not sure what you are asking exactly, about —

Hammer: I’m sorry, not a clear question. I mean in terms — I’m trying to think of a way to ask it, not as a political question, but as a research question — does your research that you have done suggest that education and accessability for all people regardless of SES and regardless of education levels, would it be beneficial outcome?

Hargittai: So, the research is very much in the beginning stages in terms of long-term outcomes, so it is really hard to say. Partly, I mean I don’t have a problem with getting somewhat political here, the last five years there has been very little data collected nationally on Internet users. So basically 2003 was the last time that the current population survey collected information about internet uses and the last report that came out from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, called “The Nation Online,” seem to suggests that we have solved the problem of inequity, and the four reports before that one were called “Falling Through the Net,” and if you looked thorough the statistics, it was certainly not the case that suddenly everyone was online, you could really see a rhetorical shift. And for four years we had absolutely no data being collected on this, so we really couldn’t track it. There has been other sorts of data collection going on. The Internet and American Life project collects helpful data as do some others out there but nothing like the current populations survey, which is through the census bureau. And then in 2007 they had another supplement that some of us were very enthusiastic about but then saw what it was and it was basically just a few questions asking pretty much no more than “do you use the internet” which is not things that allow us to answers these questions of what are the actually beneficial outcomes and who is benefiting and how exactly. So one of my hopes is that we will again see better data collection in this round so that we answer some of these very important questions. But for sure, rural areas have been disadvantaged, and in this country we have for a long time had all sorts of substitutes in terms of the postal system thought to make sure that rural areas are not left behind, so I think an argument can definitely be made that there should be some substitutes that make sure that people there also can access the internet.

Hammer: And I guess that leads me to the real question, and then I would like to shift and talk about implications of this for education. So what are, of the work you have done and of the research you have done, and that you are currently doing, what is the “so what” question? Why should we worry about these inequities and what are the implications of the inequities, you know — what do you see as implications there?

Hargittai: Sure! So the concern is that as I said, it is not random as to who uses the internet well, and who doesn’t, and also I guess what I haven’t said yet is that I have also looked at for example there are different types of things people do online, and this again isn’t random, so people who are more privileged in position tend to use the internet for more things, and one could argue that the more things you use it for, the better potential outcomes of it, right? So there are very, again very qualitative differences in how one can use the internet. One can just check sports scores all the time, one could also do tough things such as learning new skills that may be relevant for jobs, understanding finance better, reading up on health issues, I mean there are a lot of potentially beneficial uses. Its not enough to say, oh well, if enough people are not motivated to do that you can’t make them because people, a lot of people just don’t understand what’s out there, and there’s so much material out there and there’s also a lot of incorrect material out there that definitely requires some level of education for people to be able to make sense of it or for everyone to make sense of it and to locate the right sources, to locate the most relevant sources. To find the tools that are of interest and so for this I think it is absolutely essential that we have education awareness training as part of the deployment of the technology because it’s not simply the technological problem, so you just can’t fix it with a technical solution, and again the problem is that from the data that we do have it seems like people who are already in more privileged positions are the ones more likely to use it for more things, and the potential is that those who are less privileged might fall behind even more, and that’s really not what we want to see.

Hammer: And you mention the education part, so I’m going to kind of go with that. What do you, and as I know that this is not your research area per se or what you really work for but as you think about this, how can this or how do you think this digital inequity has affected college classrooms or can affect college classrooms? Whether teachers or students?

Hargittai: Sure, I mean again, people in college, even though you are controlling for a level of education at some level, they still come from very different backgrounds and so you would want to make sure people are on a similar page and those who come from more privileged schools or more privileged families don’t sort of run away and leave the others behind in terms of their online skills and abilities. So a lot of college classes require all sorts of searching for information, I mean that’s always been the case, it’s just a lot of this has moved to the web. So you want to make sure students know how to access good information and how to make sense of it, how to understand it, how to find the right tools, and some will argue even the idea of everyone having opportunities for everyone to make their own voices heard, so one of the enthusiastic encouraging aspects of the web, especially in most recent years, is this participatory aspect. But again we find that it is not equally distributed, that certain people are more likely to be posting their own content and that way certain people are going to be more likely to influence conversations and so again for that purpose you want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to be part of those conversations.

Hammer: And by there, I am assuming you mean like blogs or those kinds of things.

Hargittai: Sure! I mean anything from posting a video, to having your own blog, posting your own writing, to commenting and to voting on content out there, all sorts of things!

Hammer: I wonder if you could tell me what do you teach? And how has this, you know this knowledge that you have about research and about the area that you study, has it influenced your teaching or your interaction with students?

Hargittai: It certainly influences in a sense that I am very conscience of, the fact they aren’t all per se when it comes to the Internet, so I think a lot instructors might go into the classroom thinking that all of the students know a lot about the ITM and sort of take that for granted and I think that problematic because they don’t and the class I tend to teach to undergrad, the classes has to do with the Internet so it fits very directly, right, so if you have an Internet society less can very organically fit in somewhat skills relating things. But even when it’s not specifically the topic of the day, I will often take a few moments to show them tricks and tips and I think some of it you can do as part of, say if they are working, writing a paper, then I will take some time to show them things like google scholar or but also just how you for an example use domain names and things like that and how do you search more specifically and things that they don’t actually necessarily know, so it’s worth taking the time to explain.

Hammer: It’s almost like, a felt it was like a stereotype, another type of stereotype that we tend to have about students. Oh they know all this.
Hargittai: It is a stereotype and it’s actually, to me it is interesting. Those who teach on the classroom and interact with 18-19 year olds should know better because, I know, I think they kind of give away their ignorance on occasion pretty explicitly if you are paying attention, so but it might require instructors to pay a careful attention to tat right? To, again and not walk in there with assumption that they know everything. They know a few things extremely well, like some things they use a lot.

Hammer: Text! They know how to text.

Hargittai: They know how to text, they spend a lot of them spend a lot of time on Face book, yes, but a lot of other things they don’t know that could be total beneficial to them.

Hammer: Well probably they have those critical thinking skills components behind them in terms of evaluating the content.

Hargittai: Exactly!

Hammer: This is kind of making me think of the recent articles on digital natives and are they really digital natives and have you in your work kind of countered that idea that students are digital natives and faculty are not in different areas here?

Hargittai: I mean I think in some dimensions there is some difference, I think it is a little complicated as to where you are actually draw the line. There’s certain areas where it is different to grow up with it from the start but I think this often gets translated maybe even because the semantics of its actual native as oppose to say immigrant which I don’t really like those terms because the native does seem to imply that, Oh well they just know it. And why I think there are different ways in which they might relate to technology because it sort of takes it for granted that it is part of everyday life and most interactions, that doesn’t mean they get it at all. Right? So it is important to recognize that there are different ways in which it might matter that they have grown up with it more than others. And also who know there are older people who are extremely fluent with the technology so I don’t think it is required to have grown up wit it for a lot of things.

Hammer: Another stereotype there?

Hargittai: Yeah another stereotype!

Hammer: I wonder before as we wrap up, I have one more question. I wonder if there is any last tips or advice you would want to give faculty members who are listening to this podcast, who might just be interested and being sensitive to this issue in their classroom? Do you have any tips or advice you might want to offer?

Hargittai: Um again I just wouldn’t walk into the classroom assuming that all students know everything. I think also teachers do often know things that students don’t know about it. I think it’s worst be explicit about these things and having discussion about them instead of assuming away in any direction actually, but also teachers can approach it in a way that there are curious to hear the prospective of the students right? And by getting the prospective of the students for example having the discussion of what are their favorite tools or websites. Teachers can learn but also that way realize is that what is that of what the students know and what are the areas they maybe lacking. But basically that basic assumption I think constructors need to share that if they have that.

Hammer: Thank you, thank you so much! My last question I have for you and this is again broadening back out from the classroom, but I just think about your work in general, at having social implications and political implications and educational implications and you know really is just a part of this modern life and I just wonder if you can think of any other phenomenal that has happen historical that you can compare, that we can compare to the Internet. Can you think of any other historical tools or techniques that kind of came along with have shifted our ________?

Hargittai: I mean, I think historically there are all sorts of tools that have shifted parodies in various ways, whether it is communication media or other for example industrial innovations, I mean anything, you know for example automobiles had a very significant influence library term on urban life and suburban life. So I think there are all sorts, depending on how one looks at it. Again even if we just keep it within the round of communication media, it’s interesting what kinds of shifts we saw. I mean I think what I important to think about is not to assume that the technology will have anyone particular type of affect that to understand that technologies enables all sorts of thing, but it’s often up to social factors rather it’s government or businesses or the users to shape what comes of those technologies and how we tempt to adopt them and how they end u influencing different things, so depending on these factors, their factors ca go in all sorts of different directions.

Hammer: Well, Dr. Hargittai I think you so much for speaking with me today, I think your work is very interesting and I wish you luck on all your data collection.

Hargittai: Thanks you very much!

Native ways of knowing have been documented now over the last dozen years or so in ways that teachers can recognize and acknowledge in their teaching and utilize as strengths in the classroom…. So when you’re teaching science, you use the traditional knowledge, that people have developed over millennia to survive in a very harsh environment, to demonstrate that science is something that’s practiced every day in the community. And you can find situations in the community where you can demonstrate the subject matter that would otherwise be taught from a textbook, and that’s called for in the state science standards, but starting with something that’s there in the community that students can relate to. And that has been one of the few if not the only approach that has made a significant difference for native students, to capitalize on their strengths, rather than punish them for their differences.

A conversation with Dr. Ray Barnhardt of University of Alaska Fairbanks on teaching and learning across cultures.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Teaching/Learning Across Cultures: Strategies for Success by Ray Barnhardt
• Alaska Native Knowledge Network

Transcript

Conversation #6

H: Hello, today we are talking to Dr. Ray Barnhardt. He is a professor of Cross Cultural Studies and the director of the Alaska Native Knowledge Network at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has a PhD in Anthropology and has published on the issue of teaching across cultures, which we will be talking about today. Hello, Dr. Barnhardt, and thank you for speaking with us.

B: Good morning.

H: And good afternoon here. I thought I would start by asking you to tell us a little bit about your own background and your own students who led you to the interest in teaching across cultures.

B: Well, depending on how one sees things, all teaching I suppose can be classified as teach across cultures, because they all bring different constellations of experiences. I started teaching when I completed my undergraduate degree in mathematics. I got a high school teaching credential. So I taught high school math in Baltimore, Maryland, for a few years in an inner city school. I encountered students whose backgrounds were certainly different than my own. I had to figure out how I would approach things as a teacher, to make algebra and geometry and so on relevant to the student. And at this time — it was back in the 1960’s — at that time there was not a lot of attention being given to the cultural background of students and issues associated with that. So I went on to graduate school to better understand the issues involved, and what am I going to do about it. Which was what led me to anthropology and linking and utilizing anthropology as a framework for what goes on in schools and communities as far as education is concerned. So when I completed my graduate work at the University of Oregon, I then took a position here at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1970 and began working on the first effort to prepare Alaska natives as teachers. There were a total of six Alaskan natives in the entire state at the time, so our task was to bring what amounted to the first generation of native teachers into the system. We have been working on variations on that theme ever since, trying to sort out what that means, for a native person to assume a teaching position, and the kind of pedagogical practices that can be utilized by native and non-native teachers, and make education meaningful and relevant to the students. So pretty much that’s what I’m still doing in different arenas within the state and nationally.

H: Now when you said there were only six Alaska native teachers. Is this for secondary schools or college? Can you expand that a little?

B: K-12.

H: So that was all the native teachers, and the rest were…?

B: Imported from elsewhere, and we still import them. Approximately eighty percent of teachers who teach in Alaska, come from outside of Alaska. It’s a high turnover rate which is an ongoing problem.

H: I’m sorry I missed that last?

B: We have a high turnover rate of teachers, particularly in the rural state. An average of thirty something percent turnover rate. So the challenge of preparing teachers to be able to understand the cultural background of the students they’re working with is an ongoing task. The article “Teaching Learning Across Cultures” was intended to address some of the elements associated with that task.

H: Yes, it seems like maybe you’ve got a double whammy if you’re teaching native students and you’re also teaching non-native teachers to work with native students. So you deal with it from both angles?

B: Exactly, yes, it’s a different process between the two, and it works best if one could bring the two groups together in a common endeavor. Each can learn from the other, that’s one of the elements that we’ve tried to incorporate into our teacher education program.

H: We’ll link to your article on our website, on our podcast website. One thing that I was struck with was you start with the importance of first impressions, and I was wondering if you can expand on that above the article. You talk about the successful first impression, but there also pitfalls we can make with our first impressions.

B: Yes certainly, the impressions work both ways. The teachers come into a village setting — I’m referring primarily to village schools in Fairbanks or Anchorage areas that look pretty much like schools anywhere, elsewhere in the rural areas it’s quite different. When teachers get off the plane, which is the only way to get to most of the communities, people in the community sized them up, based on experiences with other teachers. There have been a lot of teachers who have come and gone from these communities, so community members have their own impression of what kind of person comes into the community and sort out what type of person it is. Rather if it’s someone who could work with them and become part of the community, or someone who can stand apart and remain only socially with school.

So to establish a long term relationship in a community you have to get involved in the life of the community. Not in a directive way, where you’re telling people what to do, but participating and showing respect of the things that make up life in that community. What I indicated in the article and we need to encourage teachers to do is go to the new community they haven’t been to before. Go there as far in advance as possible. Preferably months or so in advance and just get to know people and provide an opportunity for them to get to know you as a person, rather than as a teacher, so they can get to know you on personal terms. Which then carry over to their professional relationship with you so, there are a lot of tips on how to do that and what it means. A typical experience of non-native teachers going to a native community — the teacher is probably learning more themselves about the community they’re working with and the students they’re working with than the students are learning from them, so the getting acquainted process takes place the first year or two.

And if we have a thirty some percent turnover rate on the average, you’re looking at new teachers every three years in a school, and if it takes them two years to get up to speed, you’re only getting one year of productive work out of them. So what we’ve been doing is developing orientation programs to accelerate the getting acquainted process. Taking teachers out to fish camps, traditional settings where people are doing their customary activities and helping teachers understand how they can draw upon the expertise and knowledge in the community, as a way to liven up the curriculum. It’s a long-term process when you do that right. The average teacher ends up staying a couple years longer, five years instead of three years, and you get that much beneficial return from the effort.

H: So it actually helps with retention a little bit longer at the same time. I wonder if you could speak a little about what you were just speaking about, but apply it to another population besides Alaska. Like you mentioned about teaching in inner city schools, I’m thinking about Hispanic-serving institutions or historically black institutions. When you’re not going into a rural community where you’re getting there a month in advance might help. In an urban one where it’s harder maybe to… What would be your advice for someone in that situation?

B: The kind of teaching strategies that emerge from this sort of approach — and most of them applicable in any school environment — are strategies that utilize experiential learning to a high degree. On project based learning, cultural based learning, place based learning, and those strategies are — you do them differently in an urban multicultural school context, but the strategies are nevertheless applicable and can have beneficial effects in any school context and any cultural context. As long as you’re adapting to the cultural context that students are coming from. And in an urban area that’s going to be multiple cultural contexts. So you get involved in looking at variations and helping students understand differences in perspectives, history, talent, knowledge and so on. That can be drawn upon to liven up the curriculum. We’ve done this in variety of ways, in rural schools in Alaska, as well as the urban schools here. The results have been consistent in both contexts, of course you’re going to do it different in a heterogeneous setting than a homogeneous cultural setting. To capitalize on the insights and successful strategies that teachers and community members have developed over the years, we worked with elders and native educators and others throughout the state for a period of two years back in the late 1990s to develop Alaska’s standards for culturally responsive schools, a set of standards and guidelines for teachers and school boards, administrators and everybody else, regarding the kind of practices and strategies that they can utilize to incorporate a cultural lens in what goes on in school. Those standards have been adopted by the state board of education along with the state content standards in the various subject areas. Schools incorporate these into their curriculum development effort and human service programs and so on, so that in addition to the content standards that drive curriculum in schools, the cultural standards provide a how to achieve the goal that the content standards spell out by utilizing the cultural and physical environment that you’re working in. So we’ve tried to tie these pieces together in ways that make it easy, or as easy as possible, it’s not easy, but easier for teachers to utilize that cultural context as a resource in their work.

H: Well before we start talking about some tips for teaching across cultures, I want to ask a question about the first impression issue. When you’re talking about a multicultural classroom and multicultural students in a more diverse setting, how do you manage impressions then? What are your tips for managing first impressions then?

B: Well, again, students are coming from a community context and probably multiple community contexts within the given community and are approaching school, the whole purpose of school, in different ways. So the critical thing for teachers is to teach in ways that accommodate and even celebrate that diversity rather than trying to standardize things to the point where the most important aspects of students’ lives, that is, their identity, who they are and where they fit into the world, gets ignored. The strategies that seem to work are the ones that tap into and build upon and strengthen students’ identities. So to do that you have to demonstrate, as a teacher, respect for that diversity in the community, different forms of identity and so on, in your own behavior if you’re going to expect it from the students. So the kind of impressions you give to students when they come into the classroom on day one set up relationships that will carry over into everything you do for the remainder of the year. Students are in effect teaching the teachers as much as the teachers are teaching the students if you take that approach. That means making yourself available in a way that students can feel comfortable and that your accessible to help them deal with whatever their needs are.

H: What about the notion of color blindness? I could see a faculty member saying, “I teach content not culture, so I don’t need to know someone else’s culture because, I’m blind to culture, it has nothing to do with my scientific content” or whatever. What is your response to this idea of colorblindness?

B: Well, all you have to do is look at the distribution of student performance. If you’re taking that approach all students are performing at a comparable level indeed they’re coming in on equal plane. Then apparently that’s working. But that’s not what the data says. Alaskan native students continue to be at the very lowest level in terms of academic performance of students not only in Alaska, but throughout the country. So if that’s the position you’re going to take as a teacher, you need to be able to demonstrate that you’re still able to reach all students in ways that they’re all able to perform at a comparable level, but that not what’s happening. So the approach that we’ve developed over the years that appears to make a difference is to not only acknowledge, but to capitalize on as a strength the diversity of student experiences in the classroom and utilize that as a foundation for all teaching, not just as another subject to add to the curriculum, but what we refer to as — we have courses and curriculum resources and so on that utilize what we call “native ways of knowing.” Native ways of knowing have been documented over the last dozen years or so in ways that teachers can recognize and acknowledge in their teaching and utilize as strengths in the classroom, different ways of knowing. So when you’re teaching science you use the traditional science that people developed over millennia to survive the very harsh environment to demonstrate that science is something that’s practiced every day in the community. And you can find situations in the community where you can demonstrate the subject matter that would otherwise be taught from a textbook, that’s called for in the state science standards, but you’re starting with something that’s there in community, that students can relate to. That has been one of the few if not the only approach that has made a difference, a significant difference, or made students capitalize on their strengths rather than punish them for their differences.

H: I wonder if you can share a couple more of your specific tips or advice for faculty who are teaching across cultures and find themselves in that position.

B: Well let me put it into the context of a charter school that we started here four years ago. Effie Cochran Charter school, it’s based, it’s a seventh- twelfth school and it’s based on the curriculum and teaching practices is based on Alaskan native cultural, traditions, and knowledge. The whole curriculum is grounded in that Baskin cultural practices and cultural traditions as reflected in the communities here in the interior of Alaska in the Baskin area. So we have elders in the school on a regular basis. We have a fish camp, traditional authentic fish camp that the family who lives there, the elder of the name Howard Luke. This is his home, where he grew up a community existed before Fairbanks was founded, by the gold miners. We incorporate that camp as though it’s another classroom for the school for activities. Students say there building a snow shelter for people hunting in the winter time. They can go over to the camp and build a snow shelter. the way snow shelters were built many years ago, learn the traditional skills that go along with building a snow shelter, and all the terminology associated with different kinds of snow. Which is far greater than anything we have in English? Then link that to scientific principles that are embedded in that snow shelter. Learn how you keep warm. How do you glaze the inside with a heat to put on ice, and create an icy layer that creates a very warm and comfortable place to be able to stay warm and survive in a winter storm or whatever. In the shelter students have caribou hide, hide of a caribou that’s been hunted and saved the hide, caribou hide have considerable greater insulating affect in quality, than other hides as moose hides for example. So one of the challenges for the students is to figure out what is it about caribou hide that led the ancestors to incorporate them as an insulating blanket that you can put down on the snow and be quite comfortable. So when student s get back to school and get out there microscope and take a look at the hair on the caribou hide. They find out unlike moose hide hair it hollow. It’s hollow and creates and insulating layer that the air in the hollow hair. They can then develop an experiment for science fair projects were they can demonstrate the difference of the hide.
H: Oh that’s fascinating. Wow!
B: So you can use the cultural knowledge from the community to teach all subject matter, as a launching pad to teach all subjects. Not just adding it on to teach just a little bit of history, literature, basket making or something like that.
H: Well thank you so much for sharing your great work. You’re doing that’s so fascinating and I appreciate having a glimpse into that culture. On a personal note you have been there for a long time. So do you feel kind of native?
B: No, I wouldn’t pretend to do that but, I learned to appreciate things that aren’t always obvious on the surface. Working with people long enough you see patterns and elements of cultural traditions that, that one doesn’t see on a past through, basis. So it’s been very fortunate to been able to work with allot of elders and native educators. They’ve certainly taught me allot more than what I’ve taught them.
H: Did you have any idea when you started out on your career path this would end up being such a specialty in your work?
B: No, No, it just kind of happened, based on opportunities that came up along the way.
H: Well thanks again for talking to us. Do you have any last words of advice or wisdom you would like to share?
B: No, I think you’ve got what sounds like a good project there and I would be interested in following up on what you’re doing.
H: Ok well thank you, thank you very much
B: Ok, bye
H: Bye

I tell my students that one of my goals for every class that I have is that I want them to be uncomfortable at times. I say that if they’re comfortable with everything we’ve discussed and it doesn’t sound new to them or unusual then they’re not learning in the class, and that in order to grow and develop we have to have some growing pains, and so we have to have some discussions that push our boundaries a little bit, that make us a little bit uncomfortable… Thinking sometimes hurts.

A conversation with Dr. Tracy Zinn of James Madison University about teaching, learning and classroom discussion.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos
• QQTP: Connor-Greene, P. A. (2005). Fostering meaningful classroom discussion: Student-generated questions, quotations, and talking points. Teaching of Psychology, 32(3), 173-175. [order]
• Types of Questions Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy (from Honolulu Community College’s Faculty Guidebook)

Transcript

E: Hello today we are talking to Tracy Zinn and assistant Professor at James Madison University, were she regularly teaches statistics and research methods. Tracy’s research interest includes affective teaching behaviors motivation as applied to university classrooms and students perceptions of diversity in the Universities. Recently she published a chapter on classroom discussions, and so today that’s what we are going to do: discuss discussions. Hi Tracy.

Z: Hi Elisa how are you?

E: I’m doing very fine. I’m actually sitting in my office looking out at very rare snow in New Orleans. It snowed here this morning.

Z: There is snow in New Orleans?

E: Ah hah ah hah.

Z: I’m jealous…

E: You have to come look. On the weather channel, it snowed all morning very very hard. Yeah. It’s very celebratory around here.

Z: Yeah!

E: Have y’all had snow yet?

Z: We have torrential rain right now.

E: Aww aww… very good, very good. Well what I wanted to talk to you today was about your chapter on classroom discussions. I think that’s such an interesting topic, such a useful teaching tool and yet something we really never get trained on.

Z: Yeah I was just thinking about that.

E: Uh hum. . . So to start off for you, what qualifies as a good discussion?

Z: Uhm. I was thinking about what qualifies as a good discussion, and I thought maybe it contrast of what with qualifies as a bad discussion

E: Okay.

Z: And when I think of the discussion going bad, it’s usually dominated by one person. A lot of times it’s unnecessarily contentious, like you have one person who thinks being contentious means it’s a good discussion and not relevant to the actual point. It’s not that I mind contention, but unnecessary contention. It’s when you see a lot of students zoning out and not really paying attention, they’re doodling, there are one or two people that are involved. That’s pretty much your bad discussion. So a good discussion I think is when you have a broader range of participation, you actually cover relevant topics and not just let the conversation get off on a tangent. I think that a good discussion makes people think about the topic and find blanks between that subject and other subjects or that subject that you’re talking about that day and the ones you talked about previously in the semester. I would think that’s a hallmark of a good discussion, and then one thing I think is a good discussion is that there are moments of uncomfortable silence

E: Humm!

Z: And I think that’s often over looked as a good part of discussion, that uncomfortable a little bit squirmy, “I’m not sure if I should be talking about this” is often a good hallmark of a good conversation too.

E: I wonder if you’ll expand on that a little bit, how, give me an example, what does that mean?

Z: Sure. One of my goals for every class that I have. I want them to be uncomfortable at times. I say that if they’re comfortable with everything we’ve discussed and everything doesn’t sound new to them or unusual, then they’re not learning in the class, and that in order to grow and develop we have to have some growing pains, and so we have to have some discussions that push our boundaries a little and make us uncomfortable and that encourages us to think about things and ways we’re different or encourage us to rethink our positions on things that we haven’t done before. So if you’re having a discussion and nobody’s uncomfortable or everybody is saying their opinions are the same as they’ve always been there whole lives, then that’s not really a challenging discussion. They can do that in their dorm room, with their best friend. In the classroom setting you really want to push them to think of new ways and thinking sometimes hurts. LOL

E: Yeah (Lol) true. Are you teaching Stats and Research methods now, are there other courses you teach?

Z: I’ve taught Stats, Research Methods, I also teach Industrial Organizational Psychology

E: Uh hum.

Z: And a class in business psych, called Performance Management. So Statistics and IO are my two hallmark classes that I teach almost all the time.

E: Okay.

Z: And it’s funny because people say Statistics wouldn’t be a class you have a lot of discussions, but I actually think discussion is vital in statistics, and one of the first things I do in my statistics class is I have them read a portion of the book called Innumeracy. It’s by John Allen Paulos and it talks about how a lot of the American population likes to brag that they’re not good at math, they’re not good with numbers, and he likens it to somebody bragging about being illiterate.

E: Uh oh.

Z: Nobody says, “I’m illiterate,” but we’re perfectly find with people saying, “I’m just not a math person, I just don’t, I can’t do math.” I had them to read that at first because I want them to know that I believe they can do the math I’m asking them to do, and it’s not good enough to just say, “I’m not good at math and I’m not gonna try in Statistics.” So that’s one of the linchpins of the beginnings of our statistics courses, we have a long discussion about Innumeracy and what that might mean to them. Talk about misconceptions about math, and it really opens them up to pursuing statistics in a way that if they wouldn’t have had that discussion.

E: Uh hum uh hum… and let me see the way they formed the question. Is that where you get the uncomfortable silences there?

Z: Oh yeah, yeah, one of the things they read about in Innumeracy is the idea that a lot of people brag and say, “I’m not a math person, I’m a people person.” As if those two are mutually exclusive, as if, if you know how to do statistics you can’t possibly be a people person.

E: LOL

Z: And inevitably we have this pause, and somebody raises their hand and says, “I have said that a lot.”

E: Uhm hum.

Z: “Now I realize that’s like a silly cop-out way of getting out of doing thinking a hard way about math.” So we always have that real uncomfortable silence right before talk about that part, because inevitably half the class has used that line.

E: Yeah uh hum. So now when you think about those… awkward silences, uncomfortable silences, it doesn’t have to be topics that are uncomfortable, just the students kind of challenging themselves.

Z: Right, right.

E: Or their own thinking.

Z: Right, and it might be the topic that’s uncomfortable, because in IO psychology we talk about IQ test and the predictive ability or not of an IQ test, differences across populations that we have often seen with these standardized tests, what reasons we might have for those. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable to talk about these group differences and IQ tests, we shouldn’t even be talking about this, we should just skip over that and not talk about that, but it’s really important to present something and talk about the reasons for it, talk about the reasons for it and have it as part of the class discussion. Rather than just sweeping something uncomfortable under the rug.

E: Uh hum uh hum.

Z: Yeah

E: The other thing you mentioned, in addition to that, is good discussions don’t have a lot of the students zoning out or doodling or that kind of thing. So what do you do about that? I can think about times when me and three students in the class are having a good conversation, and when I really get objective and look around, I can see the eyes glazed over. So what are some of the practices you have to help that problem?

Z: Well, one of the things I’m a big fan of is setting up your class to promote social interaction with other students, not just with you. Because the classroom is set facing forward — looking at you, and you’re looking at them, so it’s so they can have a conversation with you, but not set up for them to have a conversation with each other. So what’s an easy thing to do is arrange your classroom where they’re looking at other students, and even in big classes I often tell students, “For the next ten minutes you are going to talk to a partner or a small group about this topic.” Have them scoot their chairs so they can face somebody. Set up your classroom where it can promote social interaction among students, not just with you, and if you give them a chance to think about and discuss in the small groups, then they’ll have something to share when you rejoin the large group discussion.

So just to give you an example of what I might typically do is have a situation or problem they need to think about, get in groups of three or four, take ten minutes to think about these things and discuss them among yourselves, take notes about things you want to discuss, give them ten, fifteen minutes to discuss these things, then come back in the classroom as a whole and ask each of the individual groups to share something they discussed about the particular problem. And that way not everybody is talking to the whole group, but you’re giving them an opportunity to discuss in a small group and that makes the students so much more comfortable, especially the shy students who don’t want to share something in front of 50, 70, 100 people, but would be fine sharing something with two. So they can participate in the discussion that way, and another person can share it with the whole class. So you’re capitalizing on different people’s strengths. Where they have people who don’t mind talking in front of large groups and they can do that, where some prefer the smaller group discussion but they still will be part of the discussion.

E: So when you talk about discussions, they can be broadly defined, they can be small groups of student discussions or large class discussions and that sort of thing.

Z: And I think that’s important because, really, a large classroom, if you have 70 people it would be virtually impossible for each of those 70 people to say something in a one hour discussion, but if you give them an opportunity to be in smaller groups to share their opinion then you’re still hearing from everybody just in a different way.

E: Uh hum uh hum…. That makes sense. I think one of the biggest challenges that a lot of faculty have with setting up group discussion is coming up with good questions, you know, good problems and good questions to discuss. I wonder if you can give some tips on questions that won’t fall flat.

Z: Well I think this is a really important question because like you said we don’t get training on how to have a classroom discussion. It really wasn’t part of my graduate school training, how to have a good classroom discussion. Students need a lot more scaffolding on how to have a discussion than we often think, faculty need a lot more scaffolding than we think we do. We think, “I know the topic” and can go in and free wheel it, and actually we might need to prepare more for a discussion-based class than you would for a lecture-based class, if you want it to be a quality discussion.

So a couple of things I would say, first I think the biggest problem that we have when we’re asking kids to discuss, we don’t do enough prep work and don’t ask students to do enough prep work. We need to give them information about what the discussion is going to be about, what reading it’s going to cover, give them some ways to prepare for that discussion and give them that time to think about it. Because students can answer a lot of questions if they prepared for it. If you ask them at the spur of the moment sometimes how it’s put, they’re afraid to say the first thing on their mind. So having prep work is really important. So what I like to do to have a straight discussion. You ask questions of varying content and discipline. You don’t want to ask, but to start off with probably an easier kind of odd funny question. That way students are seeing participating can be done, and it can be fun. But you want to mix it up, not always asking very simple questions, but you’re not always asking very difficult questions. That keeps people’s interest, also keeps them thinking.

Another thing, a lot of times when we’re leading discussions we’ll ask a compound question —

E: Ahh yeah… (lol)

Z: — two questions in one, and so the student might know the answer to one question or might have something to say about one part of that question, but not know the other, so might not say anything. So if you can keep it to one question at a time, you’re going to get a lot more participation.

And also we really need to be patient. I know when you’re up in front of a class, and you ask a question, and there’s five seconds of silence, those five seconds seem like so long. Really if you’re asking a good question, a good question that makes people think, they need a second to think about it. So a lot of times if you’re asking easy questions at first, funny ones, maybe get people loosened up and involved, then you ask a complex integrative question. That requires students to integrate information from different classes, different theories. What’s a great thing to do is pose that question then say, okay, take a minute and write down what you think, take a minute and just write a reaction to that question. Compose some things you might want to share with the class, and that gives them time for complex questions to really pull out some talking points they want to say. You can ask them to pair up and talk about your answer to that question and come back to the whole class and select people to share their answers. So often we want to ask these difficult, complex, and sometimes uncomfortable questions, and we don’t give students time to reflect on it, because we’re trying to get through the material and rush through the class. When it’s really uncomfortable for us is the silence.

E: Give them a moment, it’s like, “Take a moment,” and it minimizes the silence, and I don’t have to feel uncomfortable about it. Yeah Yeah

Z: I’ve gotten a lot of good reflections based on that technique, giving students a second to think about it. And that way you can say, yes, this is a difficult complex question, this is asking for your thought, and you shouldn’t be answering off the tip of your tongue, you should think about it for a minute. We really want to encourage thinking and wrestling with ideas and to give them the space to do that.

E: Absolutely, and I can think of examples of that, where I’ve been at presentations, conferences, and without time to digest the figures, the data, and it passes by. I’m going to recap a little bit, because you said important stuff there. I want to be sure that I got that all. In terms of common problems, you say: prep work, that some faculty don’t put prep work into it or give the student the background for the prep work. The types of questions you ask, you know, you ask reflective questions, and timing, allowing students the time to ingest and come up with their answers.

Z: Right, and if I could give a little recommendation, Patty Connor Green wrote an article about a preparation technique for students and it called QQTP’s or “Questions, Quotations and Talking Points,” and this is a way to get student prepared for an in-class discussion before they come to class.

E: Okay.

Z: There is reading to cover, and students are asked to come up with questions pertaining to different parts of the reading, and you can put requirements on the questions. They need to be synthesis questions or validities questions, thinking about the science in me. Then they’re going to come up with interesting quotes from the readings they want to share. And then finally: talking points, important points that they want to bring up during the class discussion about the reading. Those talking points can be integrative with other reading material, but they’re going to be points they can bring up in class. They would have it with them; they’ll already have several talking points, so they’ll already have something to say when they come into class. So they don’t have to feel put on the spot, being prepared to be involved with this discussion and participate. I’m trying to think of the year it was published, I want to say 2005, but I’m not sure.

E: Okay, we can look it up and link that and Bloom’s text from our website, our podcast website, so listeners can link to that. Just a question in your practice, do you do technique for every class discussion or just periodically?

Z: No, it’s actually a quiet of bit of work, but for my stats class where students lead discussions, I do require every class meeting, but it’s a very small class, and it’s a reading and writing intensive class. So it makes more sense to do it with those, for other classes you might just use it periodically if there’s a particular topic you think the preparation would be necessary for. You can just pull out parts of that, and say everybody needs to bring out two talking points to class. You know, you don’t have to do the whole thing. Or bring one quotation you want to say and one talking point, and that gives all your students something to have tangible, so they’ll never feel put on the spot. They’ll have something already prepared to say. It should be more thoughtful, therefore promote better class discussion.

E: I’m going to try that for sure, that sounds neat. Let’s take another perspective real quick and talk about the risk of class discussions. What are the risks of faculty members that might be the standard lecturer and just doesn’t want to give up the podium. What’s the risk or the perceived risk of class discussions?

Z: The “risk,” in quotation marks — I’m doing a little air quotes — is loss of control. You don’t have control of what material exactly would be presented and in what format and how long it would take, you lose control a little bit. Now there some days when you might say, “I need to lecture on this material and make sure they get these particular points,” but there should be days when the students can participate more and take more control of the content, there should be days that’s possible for you. You may not feel comfortable every day, but there should be some days that you can.

But there are real risks in losing control, and I think a lot of that is not setting ground rules for the discussion at the beginning. And if I may give you an example of this, I was a PA at Auburn when I was a graduate student. I had no ground rules for the discussion at all. I also had an all white classrooms, all of a sudden one of the students starts going on a tirade and using extremely foul language, including they worst word you can use, if you know what I mean. I just didn’t know what to do, I kicked him out of my classroom, and I had completely lost control of the class. People were arguing and fighting across the classroom and angry at each other. It was a very sensitive topic. And I didn’t know what to do, I kicked that kid out of class, mainly because I couldn’t believe someone used that word, and I didn’t know what else to do.

Well, I think what you need to do before you use discussion, especially when covering discussions that could be very volatile, you have to set up ground rules with your students. You have to have them, but I think it’s important to let the students come up with the ground rules. I have students who talk about what do we want to say is a ground rule for discussion. Basic things, do people need to raise hands or not, can they interject, or what are the ground rules for showing respect for other people opinions and ideas, what do we need to do, what we won’t tolerate, and what are the consequences if someone breaks these rules? And it’s really great when students come up with those rules, they don’t get broken, because they have come up with them, they believe they are good ground rules for discussion, and things tend to go more smoothly. So I was just thinking, we’ll have a discussion, it’ll be great. But you really can have people with very strong opinions, and if you don’t have a discussion of respect, you can lose control pretty quickly.

E: That is very good advice, as you’re saying that I’m thinking of my own examples over the years where I learned. I taught a human sexuality class, and that’s what we spent the first full class day doing. After the syllabus day we spent the full day talking about respect and confidentiality, appropriate etiquette.

Z: I teach a class on science versus pseudo-science. I can’t believe I didn’t mention it at the beginning. It’s a general science class, it’s not just psychology students, but we talk about a wide range of topics from ESP and astrology to ghosts and afterlife and creationism versus evolution. So it can get pretty interesting. And this is probably a general rule for professors, being able to establish rapport with your students, being able to have an environment that they feel you’re a trusted person is so important when you’re talking about things so sensitive. When I’m talking about evolution to a group of students who may never have had a real presentation of this, might have a different view, it’s real important that they have already been able to establish some rapport with me, and I show them respect with my daily interactions. Once you do that, students are much more open to hearing new information if it’s coming from a respected source. Discussions tend to go a lot more smoothly if you’re respected and if you respect your students. And I don’t mean just acting like you respect your students. There are some teachers who clearly don’t like students, you know, and students can tell that. But if you really like your students and have their best interest, treating them with respect and setting up those ground rules first, you can have a much more interesting class discussion.

E: Very good. Tracy it’s been so good talking to you. I wonder if you want to offer any final words of advice to faculty who are thinking about using this technique more.

Z: I would say, don’t be afraid to not cover some content; discussion takes more time than lecturing; you may not cover as much content, but you’ll get a much more rich covering of that content, even though you’re not covering as much, to make up for it. They can always read another chapter on their own, but they won’t be able to recreate those discussions.

E: Thank you so much for sharing with us today, I really appreciate it.

Z: Thanks, Elizabeth.

“It’s just so much fun to live on the edge. And I think that’s what you do as a teacher. If you take it seriously and you’re excited about it and you want your students to do well, it is living on the edge.”

A conversation with Dr. William Buskist of Auburn University about master teachers.

Download Conversation #4

Links referenced in this episode:

• What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain
• TBC: Teacher Behaviors Checklist by William Buskist and Jared Keeley

Transcript

H: Today we are talking with William Buskist, a distinguished professor in the teaching of psychology at Auburn University and a faculty fellow at Auburn Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Buskist has published over 30 books and articles on teaching, and he is a co-recipient of Auburn’s highest teaching honor. He’s a past president of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Bill, thanks for talking with me today.

B: Well thanks, I’m glad to be here, looking forward to it.

H: You’ve done so much work in teaching and specifically the teaching of psychology. What I though what we could focus on today is your research on master teachers.

B: Sure.

H: And to begin with I just thought that we’d start by just defining the term for those who never heard this term. What does that mean, “master teaching”?

B: That’s a great question. I don’t know if anybody’s got a solid hand on it yet, but let me take a crack at it. We have teachers who are pretty good at what they do, we have teachers who are very good at what they do, and then we have teachers who stand far and above those folks. They just do so many things exceptionally well. The short version of the answer is that a master teacher is somebody who produces large amounts of student learning, and the students enjoy it at the same time. So learning is a pleasure for students, they’re motivated to learn, they’re motivated to come to class, they’re motivated to participate, the teacher’s able to instill in them a genuine desire for their learning. So these are people who leave a lasting impact on their students.

H: That’s interesting. So, as you think about that term, it’s got a student focus instead of a teacher performance focus?

B: Well, they’re related. I think partly what a student reacts to is the performance of the teacher. Particularly the social aspects of the situation, and that’s one thing that much research has long ignored in terms of studying the student-teacher relationship. It’s always sort of like the student is a person who is in need of knowledge for some reason, then you have the knowledge itself, then you have the teacher who conveys it. And that’s an overall simplistic model of what teaching and learning really is. Teachers understand those connections among those three variables, but they also take a look at the larger context, and they engineer a learning environment that is highly conducive and highly motivating or inspirational to these students.

H: But before we move away from the term, in your work why did you choose this term, as opposed to distinguished teacher or exceptional teacher or award winning teacher? Why did you go with master teacher?

B: It’s a term that’s been a round for a long time, and when you take a look at the master teaching literature, that’s how these authors in their research or in their musings refer to the people they’re studying or in some cases themselves. I mean there’s a small part of the literature out there that’s basically made up of books written by master teachers talking about master teaching and why they in particular have been so successful.

H: And could you name some of the books for listeners that you would recommend?

B: Oh, there’s a lot of them. We can go back into the 70’s and take a look at Ken Eble’s book. He actually wrote two volumes, The Craft of Teaching. We got Joseph Lowman in 1990’s who wrote a book called Mastering the Techniques of Teaching and then of course you got books by Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach. Stephen Brookfield has written several really good books, Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher and there’s a few, The Skillful Teacher and a few other books of that manner. Most recently in the late, I guess it was not late, I guess it was in 2002, 2004, something like that, Ken Bain wrote a book called What the Best College Teachers Do. And that was really the first wide-scale attempt that met much acclaim in terms of actually in-depth study of people who are exceptionally good in the class room. He did this across all disciplines and found some interesting things.

H: And we can put a link on the website where this podcast will be broadcast, we can put a link to those books so that listeners can do that. It’s interesting that you mentioned Ken Bain’s book because I’ve read that recently, and it is just a great, really kind of empirical look at studying these characteristic of teachers, and I immediately thought of you as I was reading this cause I know that’s some of the research that you’ve done. So I wonder if you would describe your research that you’ve done in this area.

B: Sure, what Ken did was to apply very high criteria to selecting teachers across the country for inclusion in his study. They had to be much better than good teachers, and they had to meet several criteria, none of which I can think of at the moment by the way. And he actually went out, he watched them teach, he talked to them, he talked to their students and then on the basis of the information that he gathered, he wrote this very, very interesting little book which is a very quick read, and I recommend it to our listeners.

What I’ve done is to take a similar approach in some respects but then do a couple of things a little bit differently. The first thing I did was that I took a sabbatical in the late 90’s, and I sort of anticipated what Bain was going to do in his book, and I stopped at various colleges large and small, up the eastern seaboard up into Canada. And I interviewed teachers across disciplines, in some cases I got to watch them teach, in some cases I got to talk to their students. And on the basis of that I came up with a sort of a top ten list of things that these folks did that I was able to observe in a classroom or when I interviewed them. So I started by actually watching these very, very good teachers in action in the classroom or in the laboratory or in the studio, wherever they happen to be.

And you know, I found some things, for example, that key to success in their teaching is not to teach just about facts and figures. They learn about facts and figures, they learn about teaching problem skills and teaching students how to think about whatever their discipline facts and figures happen to be. They were incredibly enthusiastic about their content of their courses, about their students, and about teaching in itself. So it’s not just enthusiasm for, in our case, psychology, or biology, or zoology. They were excited about being in the classroom. These were people who wanted to be there, and they made it a point to let their students know that they were very excited about their job as a teacher.

H: How did that concretely come out? I mean is that something they said that they did, or did you observe it? You know, what does that look like, letting students know?

B: Both. You could sort of see that when they entered that classroom, they turned on, so the persona emerged which they became not just animated but genuinely enthused about what their topic was. And you could see it in their hand gestures, you could feel it in their voice, in their facial expression, their body language, so part of it came across like that. When you talk to students about what was going on in the classroom from their perspective, they reflect that. They said “I would never want to miss a class with Dr. Smith, it just makes learning so interesting and so fun, and I wouldn’t want to miss class cause I wouldn’t want to disappoint him, I just love what we talk about and I love the fact that he is so into what he’s into.” And students pick up on that very quickly and that’s key, they love to be in a classroom with somebody who wants to be there with them as opposed to somebody who’s just going through the motions.

H: And I do want to hear some of the other characteristics that you came up with, but exploring this one a little bit, you know, that’s a theme that you do see in the literature on teaching, that enthusiasm for subjects and love of student and it comes across as so important in teaching and connecting with students. Do you think that that’s the kind of thing that can be learned?

B: I do.

H: Okay, comment on that please.

B: I do. If you take a look at the teaching literature in master teaching you’ll find lots of lists, you’ll find studies that looked at descriptors of award winning teachers, you’ll find another literature that looks at what students have to say in their evaluations of great teachers. And then you have a smaller empirical literature, and what you find is that there’s one common theme that runs through everything, and that is simply enthusiasm. But these are people who are passionate. If you listen to people like Charles Brewer and others of that stature talk about teaching, one of the things that they always address, always address, is enthusiasm for the topic. Absolutely, one of the things that we’ve done to approach this idea of master teaching a little bit differently is that we developed what we call a Teachers Behavior Checklist, and it started by simply asking students to describe the qualities of their best teachers. And we defined “best teachers” as somebody from whom they learned a great deal and enjoyed it. Sort of like I talked about earlier in the definition of master teachers. And with this research we came up with 47 qualities, which is really an unmanageable list. What we did next was we took this list of 47 qualities, gave it to another set of students, and we said here’s a list that some student colleagues have generated that describe their very best teachers. What we want you to do with this list is: Tell us how you know that a teacher, for example, is accessible, or approachable, or confident, or enthusiastic. So what these people did is to apply behaviors to these qualities, so now we not only know the quality but we also know the behaviors which represent these qualities. Does that make sense?

H: Yeah, yeah interesting.

B: So this is totally generated by students, so for example the eighth item on the Teachers Behavior Checklist is “enthusiastic about teaching and about the topic.” And the behaviors that students identified are things like “smiles during class,” it’s amazing how many things you can cover by simply smiling during class. “Preparing interesting class activities,” in other words, it’s apparent to the students that the teachers invest some effort in that day’s activities. They are full of emotion and they use gestures and facial expressions to convey those emotions, particularly when they are emphasizing important points. So if you get somebody up there who is deadpan, who otherwise lacks energy, then students infer that this person is not really excited about the topic. And then the final item that students told us was that if the teacher arrives in class, excuse me if the teacher arrives on time for class. In other words that’s a sign that the teacher cares.

H: Wow.

B: So if you’re always late, you’re showing up at the last minute, sort of screwing around to get your PowerPoint set up or your lecture set up, then students say, “This person doesn’t really care about us, otherwise he or she would have been here on time.” So now the interesting thing about the TBC as we call it, is we thought, well, this is all well and good, and I use this a lot to evaluate my graduate student instructors that I’m training to become college professors here at Auburn. And so, you know, if they get low marks on a particular item on the TBC scale, which has 28 items now instead of 47, I can go right to these particular behaviors and say, “You know maybe you should try smiling more during class, or, you know, students commented that you’re not on time to class. You really need to be there a little ahead of time, and when you’re there ahead of time, once you set up, you need to be intermingling with these students and talk to them, just chit chat. Just sort of let them know that you’re interested in their lives, and then maybe from that you can pull some information out of that context and use it in class in your examples and those kind of things.”

H: Wow, so you can really target what behaviors to work with these students in.

B: Absolutely. It really helps us pinpoint where the deficits are in anybody’s teaching. What we did to follow-up is that we took this list of 28 items with their attendant behaviors and we gave them to about a thousand Auburn students and a little more than a 100 Auburn faculty, and we said rate the top ten. You know, from your point of view, which of these 28 qualities/behaviors is most important to becoming a master teacher. And I was completely unprepared for the result. I thought never the two worlds shall meet. But here at Auburn there was a 60% overlap between what the students put in the top ten and what the faculty put in the top ten.

H: Wow.

B: And now we’ve taken this research to community colleges, to mid-level schools, we’ve done it in Canada, we’ve done it in Japan, and we find exactly the same thing, that there’s between a 60 and 80 percent overlap in what teachers and students feel as being critical to master teaching.

H: And, aside from enthusiasm, what are some of the other ones?

B: Oh, you mean in terms of the top ten?

H: Yeah, yeah.

B: Okay, well let me backtrack just a little bit.

H: Okay.

B: And give you some other information that I think you’ll find interesting, and the listeners will find interesting. The question naturally asked is, what aren’t in the top ten? Where do students and faculty differ?

H: Yeah, yeah.

B: And what we find is — and this is really interesting, and it’s reflective of the factor analytic portion of the master teaching literature — is that students want to have a relationship with their teacher. Now, they don’t want to have a close personal relationship, but they are interested in characteristics like being understanding, or being positive in the classroom, or showing encouragement for students in the classroom, or being flexible, or open-minded. These are all social qualities. Faculty aren’t really on those kinds of social aspects. What they’re focused on, of course, is technique, they want to become better, they feel that technique is the key to teaching. Now if you listen to people like Parker Palmer, they’ll tell you just the opposite, that good teaching can not be reduced to technique, it has to do with what the teacher brings to the classroom. So faculty are interested in, for example, being prepared, being a master communicator, presenting information clearly and of course promoting critical thinking.

So that’s how they differ, what they agree on, for example, are the following: enthusiasm is the first one, it’s right up there in the top ten. Being creative and interesting — both faculty and students think it’s important to good teaching. Being respectful, being approachable, of course being knowledgeable is key, and finally, from the Auburn data, being realistic and having fair expectations of what you expect of students. And on that note, there’s a very interesting corollary. Students don’t mind tough teachers, you can be tough as nails so long as you’re not being tough as nails for tough-as-nails’ sake. What students really admire in a teacher is somebody who has high standards and then helps students meet those standards.

H: Okay.

B: They just don’t leave them out there flying in the wind, they provide the necessary scaffolding to meet those particular goals and objectives that the teacher established for the class, and that is key. So this idea that you have to be easy to get a good evaluation is nonsense, and in fact that’s what all the literature shows, students in fact don’t have a whole lot of respect for easy teachers. But they admire and look forward to taking classes from teachers who are truly realistic, who have high expectations but give students the time and the tools to get there.

H: That’s inspiring stuff, and I’m sorry — I should know this — but is the TBC, have you published that somewhere, that we could put a citation?

B: Yes, it’s been published in Teaching of Psychology.

H: Okay.

B: And then we’ve done factor analytic work on it to show its reliability and validity, that also is published in Teaching of Psychology.

H: Okay, well, I’ll definitely get those references there, because I think that people listening might really want to use that in their own faculty development, or for faculty who want to, you know, especially graduate students or somebody who is really beginning and wanting to pinpoint these things.

B: You got it.

H: That’s such neat work I think.

B: It’s been a lot of fun.

H: Let me ask you, getting off the details of that a little bit, I’ve got two kind of personal type questions. One is, how did you get interested in this to begin with? How did you, you know, this whole line of research, and you’ve really become known for this in the psychology teaching circle for sure, where did this interest begin?

B: That’s a interesting question. I left graduate school with the idea that I was going to set the world on fire with laboratory research, and I really enjoyed lab research. I enjoyed data collection, I loved just mulling over data. And when I came to Auburn back in 1982 that’s exactly what the plan was, and I started out like that, and then a couple years into my career here, my department head came to me and said, “We’ve got a real problem in Introductory Psychology, it’s a mess. How about the two of us sort of revamp the course and see what we can do.” And I said sure, and so I wind up taking a look at the structure of the course, which was taught primarily by graduate students who received the book the day before classes started in the fall and said, here, you’re teaching Introductory Psychology tomorrow, prepare your syllabus. And that is not quite the right way to go about it. I think you would agree?

H: Yeah.

B: And so there were some interesting problems that we encountered in trying to design a course that would be a good course, a compelling course, and still give graduate students the experience that they need to become GTAs, effective GTAs and then for those students who were interested to become teachers of record. So I really got interested in teaching by taking a look at the problems of setting up a good, a really solid intro course. And then as I started teaching the course myself for the first couple of times it became apparent that I was not as adequate as I would like to be as a teacher, so I got into the teaching literature, and that’s where I was first exposed to the master teaching literature. And what I found there were these long list of things, you know, that to be a master teacher you need to be X, Y and Z, and I thought, well, you know, that’s all well and good, but the problem is, I don’t know how to become X, Y and Z, you know. The literature is couched in personality variables, so you know you might find that being caring or being interesting or inspiring or challenging are important qualities of master teachers, but how do you teach someone to become and to have those attributes. It sort of goes back to your question earlier, about can we teach people to be enthusiastic.

H: Right, right.

B: And so I started looking for behavioral markers in literature and couldn’t find anybody. Couldn’t find anybody who had done that kind of work. So that’s what led me to develop the TBC.

H: I have to just say I love that answer, because it also shows your own enthusiasm for teaching, the fact that working to teach graduate students better teaching is what got you interested in teaching literature.

B: Absolutely. I tell people I have the best job in the universe, that I’m teaching students to become college professors.

H: Yeah, and think of the impact it has down the line.

B: Oh, it’s been fun, it’s been absolutely a ball.

H: Well I got one last question and I’ll let you kind of give a summary or last final word here, but one other question that I wanted to ask you, and you touched on this, but how has this worked, especially since your research you did on the sabbatical and when you interview people all over, how has this affected your own teaching?

B: What’s made me much more introspective about it, it’s made me much more thoughtful and reflective about it. I try to leave no part of my teaching unexamined, so that from the minute I begin preparing for a new course, I go back and look at what I’ve done in the past, I look over my notes. When I finish a presentation or a course, I go home immediately and make notes about what I like and what I didn’t like and what needs to be changed and what doesn’t need to be changed. And you know, as I’ve gotten older I’ve found that I have to make more changes in order to relate well, to connect well to my students who are getting younger and younger all the time. So it’s really helped make me a better teacher, and a much more thoughtful teacher and much more aware of the special issues and baggage that students bring with them to the classroom.

And for that reason even though my content may remain similar across semesters, the actual enterprise of teaching does not, because you get a new group of critics, a new group of participants every semester. And the key is to connect with them, so you may find that what worked last semester may not work at all. But then you may find what worked 20 years ago will work again, that’s the great thing about teaching, it occurs in real time, it’s live, and despite your best preparation you’ve got to be on your toes for that 50 minute period.

And I love it. That’s what so exciting about it, it’s just so much fun to live on the edge, and I think that’s what you do as a teacher. If you take it seriously and you’re excited about it and you want your students to do well, it is living on the edge.

H: Yeah, yeah I agree, if you engage students, it’s a different level of risk every time.

B: Absolutely.

H: It’s a loaded word, but you know what I mean, it is a different, yeah it’s a different level every time. As we wrap up here, do you have any last words of advice you would like to offer either new teachers who are starting to teach or people that have been teaching awhile?

B: Yeah, I do, I think if you want to become a good teacher, there are few things that you can do right away, the first thing you have to do is you simply have to ask yourself: How can I become a more effective teacher? That’s where good teaching starts, trying to answer that question, and the interesting thing about that question is, is that we all have different starting points in terms of our level of goodness as a teacher. So you know, being a teacher for almost 30 years, I’m at a different level of skill than, let’s say, a person right out of graduate school, but yet we can both ask the same question, “How can I become a more effective teacher than I was today?”

So it’s got to start there, and then once you decide that you want to be more effective, then you will begin reading the teacher literature, you will be searching for clues and ideas that you can use, you can smuggle under the classroom. I think the second thing is that you have to be proactive, and that’s sort of what I’ve been hinting at all along, I guess, is to be proactive means that you got to ask yourself that question, and then find the answers to that question. And a great way to find answers is to attend conferences, listen to podcasts such as this one, become actively involved in becoming a better teacher.

And that surprisingly is one of the key aspects of becoming a better teacher is to first be a good thief. And what I mean by that is that you have to recognize that other people do things very well in the classroom, and if you can find a way to steal their ideas, and smuggle them into your classroom and make them your own. That’s okay and nobody cares, it’s completely ethical because all good teachers want everybody else to be good teachers. And what you’ll find is, sort of like me, when you get teachers who love teaching and you talk to them, you can’t shut them up, they want to share with you everything they know about teaching, and they want you to take it and use it anyway you can to make yourself a better teacher.

So I think those are a couple of ideas, you know, you have to be willing to take calculated risk in your teaching. You can’t be afraid to, you know, try a new demonstration or a new slant on a topic, you know your teaching will never improve unless you want to live on the edge a little bit. I think you’ve got to understand that teaching is a social behavior and that teaching doesn’t occur in a vacuum, you got somebody on the other end who’s live and interactive and who wants to be interactive and who wants the knowledge, and you’ve got to appreciate the kinds social variables that your students bring in the classroom with you. So all those sorts of things.

H: Well, on a personal level, I must say I’m sitting at my desk here at Xavier, and I have on my bulletin board a handout from, I don’t know how many years ago, what conference this was, at APA, and you gave me this handout, “The Seven Keys to Becoming a More Effective Teacher.” And number one is, “Ask how can I become a more effective teacher.”

B: Right.

H: And I’ve got that on my bulletin board everyday.

B: Well thank you that’s really nice.

H: Will, it’s always a pleasure talking to you, thank you so much for your time today.

B: Thank you for the invitation. I’ve enjoyed it very much.

H: Bye.

A conversation with Dr. Marcia Rossi of Tuskegee University about teaching, learning, and dealing with personal problems of students.

Download Conversation #3

Transcript

H: Hello, today I’m speaking with Dr. Marcia Rossi from Tuskegee University, she received her PhD in experimental Psychology with an emphasis on learning and behavior analysis from Auburn University. She collaborates with faculty and aerospace science engineering on research projects relating to human factors in flight training and visualization training. She teaches Introduction to Psychology, Theories of Learning, Human Factor Psychology and Social Psychology among other courses and she is responsible for installing the Psi Chi Chapter at Tuskegee University, which is a National Honor Society in Psychology and she still serves as its adviser. Recently Dr. Rossi has written a chapter entitled “Helping Students with their Personal Problems: Should I Help and How?” Welcome Dr. Rossi.

R: I thank you for having me.

H: What I want to do is we’re going to focus today on this chapter. I think it’s such an important issue dealing with student problems and student issues, and it’s one that we usually in graduate school that we don’t get trained on at all, and I thought we could start by just asking you, how did you get interested in this topic?

R: Well that’s a good question, I guess it has risen out of basically my work here at Tuskegee University and being a faculty member and working with students and just the kind of problems that they have and tending to come to me and talk. I thought there might be some need for that, and then I was requested by Dr. Buskist to write a chapter on that after a discussion he and I had.

H: Oh okay was there anything in particular or a particular incident that you could share with us that — of course being anonymous — that gave you some expertise in this area or interest in this area to get to the point to write a chapter?

R: Well I’m not sure that I can think of a particular incident, I think it’s just been a number of incidents. And you know the way that I have reacted to them and the number of discussions that I have had with them that he thought I would be a good person to write a chapter on this.

H: Oh okay very good, and I guess this is a broad question to get us into the chapter, when should faculty get involved with student personal problems?

R: Okay so that’s the big question, well I think it depends there’s a lot of factors that go into that, and it depends upon what you mean by personal problems. So one of the things I talked about in the chapter is the different kinds of problems that students might have including academic problems, relationship problems such as breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend or having problems with their roommates or you know parents things like that. Of course the academic problems, having financial problems which is increasingly a problem, and then nowadays we’re having more and more students that have health related kinds of issues, and so the issue of when should you get involved kinds of depends to some extent on what kind of a problem you’re dealing with. And so that’s one of the first things to do is try to identify the kind of a problem.

H: Thank you for clarifying those kind of different categories as you see them, why would the type of problem be a issue with whether you get involved or not — how do you see that as leading into that?

R: Well let’s say you’re an academic adviser and a student comes to with an academic problem, then of course it’s your responsibility to deal with it, and different people have different ideas about the extent that they should go to dealing with problems, so that’s another issue as well. But there’s certain responsibilities we have, and so if you’re an academic adviser and a student has an academic problem then it’s definitely your responsibility, but sometimes students come to their academic adviser for other problems, and that’s what often is the case. As well they will come to a professor or their academic adviser, and they don’t know who else to turn to, and so then in terms of getting involved, you know, there’s certain things you might go through to decide how involved you should be.

H: Okay besides the type of problem, any other things for that big question about when to get involved?

R: Well again, it kind of depends upon what kind of problem it is, and what you see is how you can help. I mean one of the first things that I say is, first try to figure out the nature of the problem, and even when sometimes a student may come to you, and it sounds like it’s an academic problem, then it turns out that they maybe they might come to you and say “well should I drop this class?” And you start talking about that, and then you get into a little bit more of a discussion about why they’re having trouble, and it turns out that maybe you have an idea they have a learning disability. So now you need to get involved as their adviser because you need to say, okay you know “have you had this type of problem before?” or “do you have this same kind of problem in your other class? what are some similar classes?” You know, try to identify what other courses that they are having problems in and see if you can see some sort of a pattern, and if you see that they’re having problems with certain kinds of courses, then you can make referrals to try to address that. And if you determine it’s a learning disability then they need to be referred to get tested so they can get special services.

H: I think one thing when I was reading your chapter, one thing that I find so intriguing about this topic anyways is those more gray area type problems. And I also wonder if there are gender issues here, you know, as a female faculty member, early on in my teaching career when I was younger, I would get students, female students coming to me with more of the personal problems, relationship problems, and I really struggled with what’s my role here. You know, I don’t want to do any damage, I’m not trained in dealing with those types of problems, so I wonder if you could talk me through a scenario like that, in terms of like you just did with the academic example.

R: Okay well I think the first thing I would try to do is listen to them and ask them questions and not judgmental questions. One of the guidelines I have in my chapter is to be open and non-judgmental and listen to the term of the nature of the problem. And so if they come to and their talking about their particular problem try to see where they’re coming from, try to understand what specifically is the problem. And you’re right, as a female and as a psychologist I tend to get a lot of students that come to me, you know, so they come with female problems as well as coming to a psychology professor because they think that they can talk to psychology professors a lot of times. And you don’t have to be in psychology, sometimes they come to others who they just feel they can trust, and so, you know, the first thing to do is just take some time and listen to the student and try to be empathetic and hear what they’re having to say. Students have come with pregnancy issues and different kind of concerns like that, and you know it’s not that you’re necessarily trying to advise them about matters that you don’t feel you qualified to advise, but really just kind of listen to them because they really just sometimes need another adult that they can trust. And here they are, you know, most of them are away from home, maybe don’t have as much contact with family members, or maybe it’s something they don’t feel like they can talk to a family member about, and so here they are bringing it to you. So that’s a situation where you know it’s a lot for them to actually come to you and open up, and so you really need to be careful about how you just listen to that and try to identify what they’re saying and what the actual issue is.

H: In a situation like that — let me reverse the question a bit — when is a time you recommend not helping, you know, not in the academic realm but in a more personal realm?

R: Right, well it depends upon what you do to help. Again there’s several things you can do to help, and one of the first things you can do is to make referrals, and so if you’re listening — and to me that’s not really helping so much — if you’re just listening and then you make a referral. I mean, I think different people have different boundaries about where they think they should help and where they shouldn’t help, so I think it’s everybody’s responsibility when a student comes to you, that you should help in the sense of talking to them and listening to them and trying to hear what they have to say. If you don’t personally feel comfortable in going much beyond that, maybe your own particular issue and your own particular boundary that you want to draw the line. But at least everybody should be I think willing to listen to what the student has to say and to try and understand that particular problem. And then in the situations like you’re talking about that are more serious, you know, if it’s something that’s definitely a serious issue, then you may need to make a referral to them. If they’re having depression or suicidal tendencies or medical kinds of issues then you know the best thing to do is to try to refer them to the appropriate resource.

H: Okay okay yeah it seems like, I’m a psychologist as well and so potentially psychologists are more aware of boundary issues than other people, faculty in other discipline. It seems like sometimes I talk to them and I fell like, oh I want to be a little gentle with the student, you know, I know my limitations may be a little more than other faculty do. You mentioned boundaries, and I wonder if your boundaries have changed over time? Your personal boundaries — have you noticed them loosening or tightening or has it changed over time in your teaching?

R: Good question, I don’t know. We all have different constraints so one boundary is how much time do you have to spend, and that’s the reality. And a lot of faculty are very busy, and I’ve been serving as department head for the past year, so that’s constrained my time more. And so that you know that’s the main boundary issue I have is really a matter of time, and I will definitely take time to talk to the student and try to help them. But I may not be able to sit in my office and talk to them day after day after day, you know, if they keep coming back. But in terms of other kinds of boundaries, I don’t really know that I have any real change in that, and if it takes talking to a student time and time again then I will. And so I haven’t really had a big change in that although sometimes I guess, over time, you get better at recognizing the nature of the problem, you know, at an earlier stage in the conversation. And so when they come to you now, you can get to the core of it a little bit sooner — that might be a difference.

H: At any time because — that’s interesting to hear you say, you know, okay multiple times working with students, multiple times and problems and kind of helping them. Have you ever experienced any kind of conflict of interest with that, in terms of your administration or, you know, deans or department chairs feeling like you were too involved or that it was a topic that a faculty member shouldn’t have gotten involved in? Have you ever had any of those situations?

R: I’ve never had any of that, and I don’t know if it’s just the way that I tend to interact with the students or what it is exactly, but I personally have not ever had any kind of issue with that. And in fact with students sometimes, in regard to the question right before this one, there will be times when I will talk to a student, and I’ll say, we come to some sort of a conclusion, I’ll say “let me know next week how it goes.” You know, I might ask them to come back to me, and let’s say they’re not even in my class, but they’re on campus or they’re an advisee. You know, I may run into them and say “well how did that go, come by and see me,” and almost a variable of them come by and they let me know if I ask them to.

H: Do you feel like to some degree your reputation as an emphatic listener is out there, and do you think that increased the number of students that come to you, or do your think it’s just a personality variable that you would have no matter what?

R: I don’t know that I can really answer that, but I mean I think generally, like you said, I am the adviser for Psi Chi, and now I’m the department head, and so I’m doing a lot of activities in the department. So a lot of the students, you know, do know to come to me with problems, and so, I don’t know which variable you want to attribute it to.

H: Okay, I want to come back to the guidelines in your chapter in just a moment, because I think those are really interesting. But before we do that, speaking specifically about teaching, so your time in the classroom, do you think the empathy you’ve shown students, the help, and writing this chapter, and thinking about this — does it change any of the way you relate to students in the classroom or change your teaching dynamic in any way?

R: I don’t really think it’s changed it, I think I’m more aware of what I been doing, so maybe that’s part of it, and maybe I feel a extra responsibility, not just because of the chapter but just over time. I’ve developed maybe more of an extra sense for responsibility, but being in one institution for a good bit of time, that you just kind of know your role and know where you fit in, I don’t really know.

H: And just for listeners, how long have you been at Tuskegee? I don’t think I mentioned that.

R: I think it’s about 17 years.

H: Okay okay very good. Yeah, I just wondered if it would affect rapport, and I just think those kind of emphatic responses can help those kind of things. What about policies or class policies or class management or those kind of things? Do you think being more aware of students as whole people and who are experiencing problems too have influenced any of those over time?

R: Well I think yeah in that sense. For example, you know I have policies on my syllabus about late assignments and things and one of my policies, when I first started teaching, one of my policies was that things really couldn’t be late, if they were maybe a day late. And I started having problems with, well, here this student had this death in the family and this student had this serious, you know, situation. And so I came to a conclusion maybe five years ago, or six or seven years ago, that actually talking to a more seasoned faculty member than I at that time who had a policy that they had enacted and I started doing that. And now I try to recommend that to all the faculty in my department that, you know, students sometimes do have legitimate reasons for being late, and there are a lot of personal kinds of problems that get in the way. And, you know, maybe you don’t want to just say okay everything can be late, but you might have a penalty. And my policy has changed to now where it is, is that they can be up to a week late, but they’ll have a letter grade deduction within that week. After that I don’t take it at all, so, you know, I think yes, you’re right, over time maybe I have changed in terms of my classroom policies, I’m a little bit more aware today. For example, today we’re at the election, you know, that played into that everybody was excited about the situation, and so that changed what happened in class today. So those things definitely do come into play in the classroom as well.

H: Yeah it almost sounds like a respect issue as well. You know respecting that students have this life and they’re experiencing things and, you know, that can play out in the classroom.

R: Right, I mean I think that’s definitely the case. I think the era of the student as being, you know, coming from a family where they generally have all their expenses taken care of and, you know, we have a lot of nontraditional students, students that are working sometimes one and two jobs and sometimes students with families and just like you said it’s a matter of respect. You realize that they have other issues going on, and you have to meet them half way.

H: Are there any of your colleagues that give you feed back on that as you’re to soft, that’s not the way to go in the real world?

R: Yeah I get some of that, you’re right, I do. I do have some colleagues that think that, and we have discussions within the department as well as externally. Not necessarily people attacking me personally about my views but just in general discussions come up on campus about what is appropriate, what’s inappropriate, and some folks feel like that, you know, we’re being too lenient in some cases. Other, especially the younger faculty realize that students today have a different mindset, and they have a different set of responsibilities as well, so you have to recognize that.

H: My school is in New Orleans, and so when we evacuated for Katrina and came back that semester I really felt a difference in my teaching, in my dealing with student problems then. You know, you used the word earlier as we were talking, the responsibility — you know, I felt a responsibility for these students who choose to come back, and I really started looking at my policies differently and students differently as a result of that.

R: Oh yes, and we have a number of students come to Tuskegee from there.

H: Thank you.

R: And that we absorbed and, you know, we took them in late in the semester, and the faculty was instructed to work with them, and so we did.

H: Thank you, thanks for doing that. You mentioned in your chapter you have three guidelines for helping students deal with personal problems, and you mentioned the first one which is the open, nonjudgmental, listen and determine the nature of the problem. I wonder if you would comment on guideline number two which is know the appropriate campus and community resources to make referrals?

R: Okay and yeah, I can, and let me just go back, if you don’t mind, to that first guideline. One of the things that sometimes, I don’t know if this came out earlier when we were talking, but sometimes when a student comes to you with a particular problem it may not be clear. I mentioned it in the context of learning disabilities but sometimes they may come to you, and it seems like the problem is one particular kind of a problem, and really it’s something else. And so, you know, that’s where asking them questions and listening to them carefully really helps you kind of sort out the exact nature of the problem. And so that’s an important thing, not just to take it at face value when they say to you — that’s the point I’m trying to make, is not to take it at face value. When they say, I’m having this particular problem, to kind of go into depth, just take a few minutes, it only takes five minutes really to get them to talk about things and figure out exactly the nature of it. And so once you do that, then you’re better able to make the referral.

Getting to the second guideline, if it is a academic issue there are tutorials on campus, for example most schools do have an office for students, student support services, where then can go for help getting diagnosed with learning disabilities and getting special kinds of treatments and getting accommodations so that the faculty are required to give them accommodations. There’s community resources that you need to know about, you know, most campuses have a campus counsel center, and if they don’t there’s possibly some community service agency that can help them with counseling. So knowing the kinds of resources that you have available, you know, to help the students, is an important thing.

H: As you’re saying that I’m realizing that would be a great thing for new faculty orientation, you know, to include in there, especially people who are new to the community.

R: Right.

H: And don’t really know the resources that are there.

R: You are exactly right.

H: Okay and then the third guideline, recognize that there are limits on how much you can help.

R: Right, that’s I think where a lot of people, you know, think okay you know I’ve done what I can, what else can I do. And everybody has to have there own limit and that’s something that everybody has to determine for themselves, and my feeling is that over time you kind of figure that out, and if you find that you are overwhelmed by student problems, you know, you may have to draw the line a little sooner. But in general I think folks should try to help the students and try to listen to them and try to make the referrals and do what they can, and then at least you feel like you’ve done what you needed to do and that you’ve taken the time to help them try to solve the problem. But everybody does have a limit, and there are times when a student will just want to come back and use you as a friend or a counselor and keep talking to you over and over. And at some point you might have to gently say, “you need to go on to a therapist, I can’t help you anymore with this.”

H: I’m thinking about faculty, especially newer faculty who might be struggling with this issue, what are some of the ethical pitfalls that might come up to this, or can you think of any ethical pitfalls or downsides that faculty should watch out for?

R: Well you don’t want to get into a situation of counseling somebody and trying to provide therapy advice or counseling advice and not be qualified to do so, and so that’s an ethical issue. And of course if you try to assume that responsibility, then you know that’s an ethical issue, and the student follows your advice and ends up hurting themselves or getting hurt or something.

H: Can you just give an example of what you mean by that, like what that might look like?

R: Well, if someone comes to you, and it seems that they have a mental illness for example, and maybe they’re suicidal. And you continue to try to handle it yourself, and you’re not qualified, and you’re not providing them the resources and the services that they truly need and, you know, something may happen, and if that does then obviously that’s an ethical issue.

H: And I don’t know if you’ve dealt with anything that severe, like suicidal ideation or that sort of thing, but that does happen on campuses, faculty do have to deal with that. For something that severe, have you ever documented the help you’ve given or the conversation or touch base with your chair about it so that other people know what’s going on?

R: I don’t even know, I’m trying to think back, we have not had many of those conversations, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a case here with a student that was suicidal. I mean, I do know it happens at other institutions, and I’m sure it has happened here, but I just don’t know any particular cases of students coming to me. But way back, you know, a number of years ago I had folks that were very depressed and had referred them for counseling and so on, so I’m trying to think of any other kind of issue.

H: I just think new faculty might be, you know, trying to establish their own ethical boundaries for themselves and figuring out their role, getting their own, you know, getting mentoring on this on their own. Letting their department chair know what’s going on might just kind of cover them a little bit, make them feel more comfortable.

R: Right, no, I think so, and I mean I think that’s an appropriate place for workshop on faculty to recognize. We were talking internally on campus about this, that faculty need to be more aware of the kinds of mental illness and mental health issues that are occurring, and of course, you know, the cases of the shootings and so on. Being able to recognize students that might be a threat to themselves or someone else is an important skill that people need to have, so I think that’s definitely a worthwhile kind of a thing to have a workshop on that.

H: Yeah cause it’s so out of the realm of our training for teaching.

R: Exactly.

H: As we wrap up here I wonder if there’s any last piece of advice you would want to offer faculty members in any stage that’s dealing with this issue?

R: Well I guess I’d like to say that, you know, all faculty go through these kind of things, and one of the things I would like for people to keep in mind is, do keep in mind that the student is coming to you because in some way they trust you to try to help them. And so to recognize that and respect them as an individual and do your best to try to help them without crossing any kind of boundaries or going over the line with your responsibilities or prying into their life. You know, you don’t want to have somebody that’s prying into your life and the student’s life and that sort of thing. But certainly just remember that all faculty go through these kind of things, but then again students go through these things too, and so we need to try to be as respectful as we can of the students and try to help them to the extent we can.

H: Well thank you, thank you Dr. Rossi. I appreciate your time talking to me today.

R: Thank you, I enjoyed it very much.