1 00:00:10,126 --> 00:00:13,396 Brought to you by the MSU Center for Faculty Excellence. 2 00:00:13,816 --> 00:00:15,346 I'm your host, Michael Babcock. 3 00:00:16,578 --> 00:00:20,688 In this episode, we are joined by Ken Silvestri, an instructional designer here in the center. 4 00:00:20,898 --> 00:00:24,108 Thank you for joining us today, Ken. Thanks, Mike. It's good to be here. 5 00:00:24,288 --> 00:00:29,418 Great. Well, Ken, could you share some of your top tips and advice for faculty new to teaching? 6 00:00:30,138 --> 00:00:30,693 Of course. One thing I often see with new faculty they're coming into teaching for the first 7 00:00:35,142 --> 00:00:39,792 time is they approach it as if all their students are experts in their field. 8 00:00:40,482 --> 00:00:43,419 They're used to interacting with other experts in their fields and used to explaining, communicating their knowledge and expertise to other experts. 9 00:00:52,339 --> 00:00:54,769 They're laymen. They're very novice learners. 10 00:00:59,905 --> 00:01:00,185 that you can get at some of that information at the beginning of the course by surveying your students, 11 00:01:04,031 --> 00:01:05,666 doing maybe a little pre knowledge check on what they already know and where they're at different skill levels. 12 00:01:09,928 --> 00:01:12,827 But then you can use that that information sheet strategically by pairing up the students that are more 13 00:01:15,382 --> 00:01:20,572 advanced with students that have a little bit less knowledge and skill level and they can help each other. 14 00:01:20,872 --> 00:01:23,312 That sounds like a great strategy for sure. So what else? 15 00:01:23,729 --> 00:01:28,270 Have some other ideas? Yeah. Two things they often see might sink. 16 00:01:29,295 --> 00:01:31,224 A new instructor when it comes to teaching is a course that's a little bit disorganized. 17 00:01:43,831 --> 00:01:48,240 clear directions, be very transparent with what they need to get out of that. 18 00:01:48,241 --> 00:01:52,741 Whatever skills, what type of knowledge, what are the goals of the assignment, how they're going to be assessed. 19 00:02:06,567 --> 00:02:09,723 They get frustrated. They get stressed out that you're not caring about how other you thought we needed it. 20 00:02:13,671 --> 00:02:17,338 So I know you've created a lot of content on the CFP website or website around syllabi and and language. 21 00:02:20,294 --> 00:02:24,224 And and I've heard you tell groups that, you know, in addition to put it on your syllabus, 22 00:02:24,464 --> 00:02:28,454 it's really important to communicate that during class right at the beginning of your class. 23 00:02:30,044 --> 00:02:34,184 Yeah, I think at the beginning of the class you really want to communicate how you're teaching, 24 00:02:34,244 --> 00:02:38,474 teaching philosophy, how what, how you're going to teach. 25 00:02:39,044 --> 00:02:43,300 What are your goals for the course? And I think that can still be explained throughout the course to how you're 26 00:02:45,998 --> 00:02:49,808 going to use brain space because each instructor uses bright space differently. 27 00:02:50,124 --> 00:02:52,703 Are you going to use it for communicating with students? 28 00:02:52,704 --> 00:02:58,374 Are you going to use it to post content or are you going to use it for them to submit assignments and quizzes? 29 00:03:00,270 --> 00:03:07,391 So just being very clear on your teaching strategy intentions at the beginning of the course, but also down into your assignments. 30 00:03:07,495 --> 00:03:12,205 So being clear to the students why they're doing that assignment, what are they going to get out of that assignment? 31 00:03:12,710 --> 00:03:15,946 What skills and knowledge, How is it going to benefit their careers? And then step by step task instructions. 32 00:03:18,855 --> 00:03:23,804 And you don't want students wondering what they have to do for something because that creates a lot of 33 00:03:23,805 --> 00:03:28,185 anxiety and stress which can negatively impact their learning and then how they're going to be assessed, 34 00:03:28,185 --> 00:03:29,548 like what criteria are they going to be assessed by? 35 00:03:31,083 --> 00:03:36,542 What are the expectations They're modeling what looks like a good exemplar for students to 36 00:03:36,543 --> 00:03:41,283 see so they can kind of model and see what would meet your expectations and what doesn't. 37 00:03:41,533 --> 00:03:48,513 Hmm. Well, and you also mentioned empathy for students. And I've heard you also speak about this as trying to make that connection, 38 00:03:48,933 --> 00:03:53,343 giving students some agency feeling like they're a partner with you in the learning process. 39 00:03:53,703 --> 00:04:00,993 And can you tell me about a an instructor that would do sort of a check in, like with students, like, how's the course going? 40 00:04:01,353 --> 00:04:03,010 And then use that feedback to go back and tell the students, hey, you know, I'm hearing you're liking this or or this isn't working. 41 00:04:08,115 --> 00:04:11,655 And we're going to we're going to pivot a little bit. Can you talk about that a little bit? 42 00:04:12,165 --> 00:04:17,295 Yeah, I think that's a good strategy to target your teaching to what's working for students. 43 00:04:17,295 --> 00:04:20,694 What's not working for students gives them some conformation of what's working well in terms of supporting their learning. 44 00:04:22,963 --> 00:04:26,983 So you could survey your students every so often. 45 00:04:26,983 --> 00:04:29,025 You know, it doesn't have to be every day or every week. It could be every month. 46 00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:33,389 You know, once a month you kind of survey, you know, is too much work. 47 00:04:33,390 --> 00:04:34,672 Is it too much reading, Is it not enough activities in class? 48 00:04:36,917 --> 00:04:39,467 So getting a sense of what's working for them, what they need, 49 00:04:39,797 --> 00:04:46,487 and showing them that you're responsive to their their learning and you care about their success will go a long way with them. 50 00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:56,965 if you don't get that empathy aspect right and that that organization aspect right, they won't forgive some of those things. 51 00:05:01,555 --> 00:05:05,151 And if you're going to pay attention to how your students are coming to class, you know, keeping track of that, 52 00:05:07,714 --> 00:05:10,189 if they're keeping up with the work and if they're not, and reaching out to them in a very empathetic way, 53 00:05:12,993 --> 00:05:14,354 not a way that's kind of accusatory and making assumptions about why they're not doing the work and coming to class, 54 00:05:18,468 --> 00:05:19,830 that they're just lazy, that, you know, they don't have the discipline, they don't know what's going on in their lives. 55 00:05:23,115 --> 00:05:24,414 It could be like a family issue. 56 00:05:25,934 --> 00:05:29,593 They could be working two jobs. You just don't know. You don't want to make those assumptions. 57 00:05:29,594 --> 00:05:33,104 So reach out to them, make an intervention an empathetic way. 58 00:05:33,104 --> 00:05:33,833 Hey, I see. And then come to class. You know what's going on? 59 00:05:36,429 --> 00:05:38,459 Maybe there's something I can help with, and you do it more in a way of, Hey, 60 00:05:41,528 --> 00:05:45,008 we're going to work together to get you back on track because I care about your success. 61 00:05:50,942 --> 00:05:56,190 Yeah, I think other ways you can ease student anxiety about about the course is how you name things. 62 00:06:00,085 --> 00:06:04,885 Like if you name your stuff office hours, they may think you're busy during that time. 63 00:06:04,885 --> 00:06:10,074 They don't want to bother you, but if you tell them, I explained to them how they can use those office hours, 64 00:06:10,075 --> 00:06:12,876 that they can come and ask questions and and get help or maybe student support hours, you could call them. 65 00:06:15,387 --> 00:06:18,837 If you call something a quiz, it creates a bunch of anxiety, you know, 66 00:06:19,017 --> 00:06:19,759 instead of something like a practice opportunity or knowledge check might reduce that. 67 00:06:23,562 --> 00:06:26,952 And that idea about taking quotes, that's really good and good advice. 68 00:06:26,952 --> 00:06:32,652 We are I think we've talked about this hidden curriculum and for some students, they don't know what office hours, what that word means. 69 00:06:32,802 --> 00:06:36,749 You should call them student hours or something. Yeah, I think a better definition of what that is for the students will help, 70 00:06:40,244 --> 00:06:45,103 especially your first generation students that don't have access to your parents who've gone through 71 00:06:45,104 --> 00:06:50,534 college before and they know to go to see the professor during those hours to get extra help are great. 72 00:06:50,804 --> 00:06:52,429 Well, these are really good tips. But I think another aspect of teaching that you really want to do well and be 73 00:06:57,883 --> 00:06:59,886 intentional about is engaging students and be intentional about how you engage them. 74 00:07:05,024 --> 00:07:08,690 One way you can do that is make the learning relevant for students and find ways to make it relevant to their lives. 75 00:07:10,962 --> 00:07:19,662 Connect that abstract, theoretical content and knowledge to real world applications by bringing in real world problems to solve. 76 00:07:19,662 --> 00:07:21,151 Real world examples. Stories of you in your research and industry. 77 00:07:25,344 --> 00:07:27,140 That shows how that knowledge was able to help you be successful in those areas. 78 00:07:33,132 --> 00:07:35,306 starting your class with a big question that's related to your field and then spend the rest of that class. 79 00:07:38,577 --> 00:07:41,216 I got curious question that that gets them motivated to learn why And to get to that answer of an open ended question, 80 00:07:45,196 --> 00:07:47,506 You can also provide multiple ways to learn, 81 00:07:47,896 --> 00:07:51,177 and this is part of what we call universal design for learning the brain freeze variety when it comes to learning variety. 82 00:07:51,547 --> 00:07:54,037 So the brain craves variety when it comes to learning. 83 00:07:54,697 --> 00:08:02,527 So building in that into not only how you're delivering the content, but also how students demonstrate what they know then their skills. 84 00:08:02,917 --> 00:08:04,937 So you can add in little videos, a podcast, for example, to deliver the content in multiple ways. 85 00:08:09,533 --> 00:08:11,418 Can be a recorded lecture just breaking up beyond just having to read boring textbook all the time, 86 00:08:15,647 --> 00:08:21,527 a dense textbook to get the content that way or listen to a lecture for 45 minutes in class. 87 00:08:22,247 --> 00:08:26,117 But when it comes to demonstrating what they know, you can give them some variety there. 88 00:08:31,931 --> 00:08:34,190 But they also have that option for doing a paper. It can be something as simple as having a short answer question on a multiple choice exam, 89 00:08:47,375 --> 00:08:52,165 So you're giving them a little bit of extra opportunity to demonstrate what they know through writing. 90 00:08:52,712 --> 00:08:58,472 Well, these are all great ideas. And I know the center, you in particular have offered workshops on active learning. 91 00:08:58,982 --> 00:09:05,612 So really, I want to encourage our listeners to to take advantage of some of the workshops at the center offers around these topics, 92 00:09:06,002 --> 00:09:11,102 because they really are powerful ways to make your class more interesting and more effective. 93 00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:23,400 That really doesn't work as well as is getting getting students involved in their learning. 94 00:09:24,150 --> 00:09:28,671 Yeah, that's a very good point, Mike, because there's people who are more applied learners like myself, 95 00:09:39,110 --> 00:09:42,295 Write about it and and do analysis and comparison versus just memorizing a bunch of content and regurgitating it for a test. 96 00:09:46,699 --> 00:09:47,882 Not everybody learns that way or well that way. Well, Ken, we're about out of time. 97 00:09:51,774 --> 00:09:56,464 So what should people do if they want more information or need more consultations? 98 00:09:56,474 --> 00:09:59,774 I mean, what are some of the things the center can offer our faculty? 99 00:10:00,044 --> 00:10:03,935 Sure. Yeah. We we tried to support you in your teaching in multiple ways, and we offer multiple formats, depending what you're looking for. 100 00:10:08,641 --> 00:10:15,661 We can do, you know, one off workshops on a topic related teaching such as active learning, formative assessment, 101 00:10:15,965 --> 00:10:23,225 or we do counseling one on one consultations so we can sit down and take a look at your course, 102 00:10:23,225 --> 00:10:25,848 take a look at your syllabus, see ways that we can enhance your courses with, you know, theories of learning and how to engage students and so on. 103 00:10:32,171 --> 00:10:35,860 Or you can join a small group of faculty learning community. 104 00:10:35,861 --> 00:10:41,261 We often offer those a lot on different topics related to teaching where we we facilitate those. 105 00:10:41,621 --> 00:10:46,751 But we we really want faculty to share how they're doing things so they can learn from each other and what works. 106 00:10:57,441 --> 00:11:01,401 but from from each other and how those things get implemented across disciplines too. 107 00:11:01,942 --> 00:11:08,302 Well, can't. Thank you so much. This is really some great tips for all of us as we go into the classroom. 108 00:11:08,302 --> 00:11:13,312 And thank you for listening. And we we're looking forward to hearing more about what you're doing. 109 00:11:13,522 --> 00:11:14,143 Thank you. Thanks, Mike.