Tag: education

Working With(out) Students

May 11, 2023 / Christine O'Donnell

For this post, I wanted to share a contradiction in my work that I’ve really struggled with. I got into the work that I do – managing education-related programs with a focus on US college/university physics departments – because I wanted future physics/STEM students to have better experiences in physics and related fields. As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I was lucky to have a fairly privileged upbringing which enabled me to pursue a career in physics and astronomy. One consequence (in my opinion) is that I have a responsibility to use my position to contribute to and to empower efforts that transform and redefine STEM so that STEM can be co-created by and for more diverse communities.

However, I’ve found that in my pursuit of a career to improve student experiences in physics/STEM, I now no longer directly interact with students. I had a few conversations about this contradiction with colleagues at the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Conference in November 2022, and those conversations have continued to rattle around in my head. For those not familiar with POD, the organization’s primary audience are staff who work in centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) or similar structures in higher education. These centers often provide faculty development, e.g., workshops to encourage instructors to use evidence-based pedagogical practices in their classrooms.

In these conversations, many of us talked about wanting a career where we could have a larger impact on STEM education than what we could do as an individual instructor. Speaking for myself, I was always troubled by the thought that if I became a professor, I could do my best to make sure the students who were in my class had a good experience, but (1) that effort didn’t ensure my students wouldn’t receive messages of exclusion from other classes or settings and (2) it meant that the students I could impact would only be those who were “lucky” enough to be in my class. I wanted to do more.

Working at a CTL often means that staff do not have direct interactions with the students in their university. Instead, CTL staff often work with the faculty and instructors in workshops, books clubs, and other activities (sidebar: some of my colleagues are involved in “students as partners” projects, but that still seems to be fairly unique). By working with faculty and instructors, CTL staff have the potential to influence entire departments. Of course, individual professors can have a department-wide impact too. As a postdoc, I had the opportunity to co-chair a Committee on Inclusive Community in my school (large interdisciplinary department, in the context of the university I was at), and we were charged with finalizing and implementing a strategic plan for the whole school. I really enjoyed this work, but was frustrated by the fact that if I did become a professor, that kind of service work often isn’t “valued” in the same way as publications for tenure and promotion.

In my current position, I do get to focus on that kind of service work on a national scale. My job involves submitting proposals and managing programs that empower people at colleges and universities across the country to do things that improve their (physics) programs. Working at this “meta” level allows me to multiply the impact I can have, but it does mean I rarely interact with the students who are the heart of our motivation. I’ve found other outlets for that motivation by volunteering with education activities and events, but it still strikes me as incongruent that those interactions aren’t a more regular part of my work.

I will also add that in a couple of my projects, we have talked about how to solicit and incorporate the students’ perspective more directly. For example, when we do site visits to departments that we fund, we often schedule a meeting with only students to hear their input. So, the students aren’t completely missing, but in the conversations I had at that POD conference, we were all intrigued by how you “lose” some of those connections in order to increase your impact.

I don’t have a specific “call to action” in mind with this post, but I’d like to invite readers to engage in these conversations. How do we weigh increasing impact versus wanting specific activities (like working directly with students) to be a part of our work? How can we design projects to try to address and/or minimize the disconnect – but perhaps more fundamentally, should we? Do you find this trend in your own careers, and did it influence your choices in which career opportunities to pursue?

The value of being a student when you are an educator

March 2, 2023 / Anne Metevier

I’ve been teaching at the college level for many years. My goal is for my students to learn more than they thought they could in my courses, and to be empowered by that experience. I push them to work hard and to show me what they’re learning. I have had many, many students who have impressed me with their learning, and it is a joy to see their growth. But sometimes, honestly, my students’ work disappoints me. Maybe they didn’t follow the instructions or look at the rubric (that I worked so hard on) when they were doing an assignment. Maybe they copied someone else’s work. Maybe they put ideas together in a creative but surprisingly illogical way. Maybe they asked me to tell them what to do rather than trying something out by themselves before asking for my input.

I think about these students a lot, because I want to support and encourage their growth. However, with increasing experience as an educator, I’ve found it increasingly easy to settle into my position as a subject area (astrophysics) expert. Over time, I remember less about what it was like to struggle to learn a topic or skill in my field, or to challenge misconceptions I held with new, evidence-based ideas. I work hard to improve as an educator. I am hard on myself and I don’t always get it right. But I still have a level of confidence in my subject-area knowledge that is different from that of my students.

So I thought I’d share how valuable it has been to me to become a student again. (Here I want to acknowledge several of my colleagues who post here on TMV are also students as well as educators, and they will have important and individual insight on this, too.) A few years ago, I began taking weekly classes in drawing and painting. While I have always been interested in art, I had little formal training in this area and did not consider myself “good” at art. The experience of studying and practicing drawing and painting has been extremely rewarding, often humbling, and overall very instructive (beyond painting), and it has fed into my practice as an educator.

A progression of expertise, a progression of expectations

A picture of Anne in her art class, standing next to her large drawing of a hammer. — Me, in art class circa 2018, happily accepting
critique of my drawing of a hammer.

When I began taking art classes, I didn’t expect much of myself. I experienced the simple joy of finding out that I could paint something recognizable. I wasn’t too hard on myself if my composition wasn’t perfect, or if I chose the wrong background color. I was receptive to my instructor’s corrections. I was a beginner, after all. Over time, however, I began to expect more of myself. Recently, I decided to try a new medium and was frustrated by how hard it suddenly felt to mix colors or hold a paintbrush. I wanted instruction but also wanted to be able to successfully paint on my own. I’ve realized that it now takes much more bravery to begin each painting. I worry that the new painting won’t turn out well, and I go so far as to imagine that if that’s the case, it might prove that I’m not really an artist. I now have a lot of attachment to the idea of being an artist, where I didn’t before.

At these times, I can remind myself that I may be experiencing something akin to what my students feel when they are taking a test or beginning an assignment or project: if they don’t get positive feedback on this test/assignment/project, how will that reflect on them as a learner? How will their peers and instructors (like me) judge them? How will they judge themselves? How can I help them approach their learning with open-mindedness to the subject and to the outcomes of their work, especially as their expectations for themselves grow?

Bravery and the potential for failure

Sharing something you’ve worked very hard on can be an act of bravery. There is uncertainty about how it will be received; it is always possible to misunderstand the instructions or what is expected. It is possible to fail. Putting myself in the position of being a student has helped me experience for myself why a student might not try hard on an assignment or might act like a topic (or whole subject, like math) isn’t important. Among other things, this may be because they are avoiding the potential, terrible feeling of failure in the wake of hard work.

Experiencing this has made me think harder about how to make space for students to make mistakes and, occasionally, fail. How can I help them take risks? How can I help them use their mistakes, challenges, and failures to learn more? How can I make space for mistakes and failures in my own teaching, and learn more from them, so that I can get better at supporting my students?

Learning as a not-quite-linear process of growth

Although my continued art practice has improved my ability overall with respect to technique, composition, and working with color, every so often I start a painting that doesn’t come together the way I’d hoped, or I work on a painting so much that, honestly, it gets worse rather than better. These paintings are still a part of my learning process, and they have taught me a lot about learning itself: learning is not necessarily a linear process. I cannot assume that each painting will be better than the last, or that each time I use a painting technique I’ll show improvement. However, I have to practice, experience challenges, and overcome both failures and failure avoidance to become more skilled.

Similarly, I have to be cognizant that my students may experience setbacks in their learning. They may get stuck on a concept and have a hard time getting “unstuck”. Like me, they may procrastinate because it’s easier to think about the nice grade they got on the last assignment than to start all over with a new assignment. Or, also like me, they may be discouraged by a past grade or outcome they’d hoped would be better, and need some time to approach the task again.

Caveats and conclusions

I want to emphasize that experiencing these things is much more instructive than conjecturing or writing about them. Directly experiencing the uncertainties involved in learning something new has given me deeper insight into what my students’ experiences might be. A major caveat here is that I cannot assume that my experiences directly mirror those of my students.

What are some strategies and considerations for better supporting students?

It is important to let students know that we do not judge them as whole human beings based on the outcome of one test, one project, one assignment, or one course grade.
Students may feel more like we see them as whole human beings if we give them ways to let us know a little more about themselves, including what is important to them, their responsibilities outside of classes, and what their relationship is with the subject matter of the class. One way to do this is to give students surveys, and read and respond to what they write.
It can be important to give students constructive, critical feedback at times, to let them know how they can improve. This can be a sign of our respect for what they can achieve, and we can let them know this comes from a place of respect.

What are some strategies and considerations for becoming better educators?

Acknowledge and work with our positions as students and practitioners of education itself. It’s worth noticing the parallels between the fact that we are constantly learning about teaching while our students are learning about the subject we are teaching.
We can always consider ourselves students with respect to addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion in the classroom. As we aim to improve in these areas, we can keep in mind that our growth may not be linear, and may include high expectations, hard work, and failures, as well as successes.
We can remind ourselves that the point of this work is to support the incredible, whole human beings that we teach. It’s a side benefit that we get to grow alongside them.

Thank you to the many colleagues and students that I have learned from at the Institute for Scientist & Engineer Educators (UC Santa Cruz), Sonoma State University, and Santa Rosa Junior College. My sincere thanks to my art teacher, Mary Fassbinder, and my fellow art students.

Reflecting on what it means to engage with equity, diversity, and inclusion

February 23, 2023 / Christine O'Donnell

Before you read any further, I need to note that this post isn’t meant for everyone, and I think that’s okay, though it does raise some inherent, unavoidable contradictions.

Some context: Last year, I was part of an NSF grant proposal related to a project that’s been around for over 20 years and is coming to the end of its current pot of funding. As a team, we all agreed that our project was behind the times when it comes to explicitly addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI – as an aside, I know that’s not the typical order of the letters, but I like the reasoning of putting “equity” first as the goal of inclusion and diversity [1]). We wanted to use this new proposal as an opportunity to make EDI an explicit part of our project, so we worked with a consultant to help us critically reflect on our processes and project designs. This work was relatively new to my two White colleagues. For myself, I had some amount of experience with critical self-reflection from my prior work addressing EDI in academic departments, research involving culturally responsive and relevant curriculum, and coursework.

After the proposal was submitted, my colleagues remarked how they weren’t prepared for what it meant to do intensive EDI work, and we considered how we might share our experiences with our other colleagues.

And that brings me to this post: as part of reflecting on the process and how I might discuss the process of doing EDI work with others, I needed space to process my own thoughts and write them down. But that also brings up the aforementioned inherent, unavoidable contradictions. I identify as a multiracial cis-gender woman, as part of the LGBT+ community, and as both a scientist and a crafter/maker. Yet my “multiracial”-ness stems from the fact I am half HongKongese and half Irish/Welsh/American, with a very much White-passing complexion. In many ways I am highly privileged. Yet the goal of EDI work is to center the most marginalized voices, and so writing an article about my experience runs counter to that goal. But at the same time, as my colleagues pointed out, they felt they would have been able to engage better with the EDI work if they had a better idea of what to expect.

Separately (relatedly?), I find it hard to write or present about anything related to EDI in a way that can work for all audiences. Instead, I’d rather be clear on who I hope something is useful to (though I welcome feedback from everyone!). In this case, my imagined audience is someone with dominant/privileged identities who has some awareness of EDI and is about to begin engaging with some intensive EDI work.

And with that preamble, here’s some reflections on my experience. Not everyone will experience or react to these things in the same way as me, and there is no “this is the way” or “one size fits all” for this kind of work.

Expect to be uncomfortable

As someone from a STEM background, I’m mostly used to the idea that learning can be uncomfortable [e.g., 2, 3]: essentially, when you learn something new, you’ll initially struggle and be bad at it, whether the topic is quantum mechanics, calculus, or computer programming. It takes a lot of practice to get good at something, and that process involves a lot of failing and stumbling.

However, the “discomfort” from EDI work is a very different feeling. We live in a society that has structures and systems that were developed in a way that was biased towards certain groups, and even though the legal basis for doing so has been (largely) eliminated, those structures and systems persist to this day. A recent National Academies report [4] explored this in detail and called for STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) organizations to actively address these systems.

Learning about these realities leads to some very harsh realizations. Those of us who have identities that are not marginalized have likely benefited from these systems, and also have probably contributed to these systems. For example, I used to advocate for STEM outreach programs that target women and people of color with the goal of “increasing interest” in STEM (which is also a deficit framing), without paying any attention to the realities of STEM that push out and exclude those students. Another example is that I’ve generally been in departments where I had access to mentors who looked like me (cis-female, White-passing), and I haven’t had to go through the thought process of how to communicate or relate to a mentor who didn’t look like me.

Those realizations are uncomfortable. How many students have I hurt by assuming they weren’t actually interested in STEM? How many students did I impact and convince to pursue STEM, only for them to then hit barriers that harmed them and pushed them out? How many students could have excelled in STEM but didn’t have the mentors to support them? How have the standards and expectations we set in STEM denied creativity and de-valued students’ skills and expertise?

Doing EDI work means making peace with the fact that there will be A LOT of uncomfortable realizations, and that is a part of the learning process. I’ve sometimes seen this sentiment framed as “be comfortable with being uncomfortable”, and that’s honestly how I first heard this bit of advice, but I personally prefer the framing of “expect to be uncomfortable”. The idea of “becoming comfortable” doesn’t sit right with me – while it is something that’s an expected and regular part of the work, I don’t like the connotation that it becomes something you’re “okay” with happening. Instead, every instance of discomfort needs to be an alarm bell or a red flag because it means there’s something there that needs to be questioned.

Separating “guilt” and “blame” from “responsibility”

This one might be the most “your mileage may vary” item in this article, but for me, this helped initially as a way to process the discomfort of EDI work. I found that the worst discomfort was over the idea I may have unintentionally caused students harm. I got involved in education research specifically because I wanted to make sure students had better experiences in STEM. How could I have done something so opposed to what I believe in?

For me, one article that helped re-frame my thinking was “White Complicity and Social Justice Education: Can One Be Culpable without Being Liable?” by Barbara Applebaum (2007) [5]. The article’s legalese-like interpretation of culpability and liability appealed to me because of my background in things like high school debate (which itself is probably something to think about, with norms of competitiveness, but that’s a separate article), and it helped me re-frame the blame and shame that I was feeling. Applebaum argued for a distinction between culpability and liability. Because we live in a racialized and biased society, dominant (White) individuals will take actions that reinforce systemic bias without knowing their actions have that impact. However, once they (reasonably) should know something has an impact, only then are they responsible and liable for doing better.
So, sometimes when I’m feeling particularly uncomfortable because I realize I have helped to reinforce marginalization – like when I read about how many active learning strategies implicitly support assimilation to Western norms of debate and communication, and many of the curricula I’ve worked on emphasize active learning [6] – I ask myself whether my lived experiences would have shielded me from knowing what I was doing was wrong. Usually, the answer is “yes”, but now that I know, I have a responsibility to do better, e.g., talking with colleagues and rethinking my own approaches.

Expect to question everything

Given what I’ve learned about the ways I’ve been unintentionally complicit, I also consider it a responsibility to do what I can to identify potential ~~blindspots~~ gaps of knowledge (note: I left the strikethrough in because I only realized the ableist language when revising this article [7]). This responsibility can take many forms, such as reading articles or watching webinars to learn from experts, but another form is questioning everything, especially with the help of a consultant or a critical friend [e.g., 8].

For example, when designing curricular activities, I ask questions about whose knowledge is present, and what kinds of skills or knowledge is “valued” for grades. Or when designing a process for reviewing applications, I ask questions about who is able to submit applications (since the process itself can serve as a gatekeeper) and what characteristics are “valued” in the selection process. Some of these questions can get at the very foundations of a project: Who decided the particular issue being addressed is something of value? Who was included in determining this was the “best” approach to take towards addressing that issue? And honestly, sometimes, these are questions I can answer but can’t (directly) affect, but even in those cases, I think it’s important to ask the question and acknowledge the issue.

EDI work is never done

I sometimes joke that I’m attracted to the kind of work where if we were completely successful, that kind of work would no longer exist. If we could fully address EDI concerns, then someday, theoretically, we wouldn’t need to focus on EDI. But unfortunately, that’s sadly not how the world works. I don’t think it’s hopeless – I genuinely think I can make a difference – but we’ll still be doing this kind of work for a long, long time.

So, this means the process of learning (and unlearning) never ends, and we can always do more to identify ways to address systemic biases. And since there’s aspects of the system I have no agency over, I can always work on finding better ways to mitigate those systems and/or finding ways to increase my ability to affect those systems.

And all of these things can be iterated on, especially as the landscape of EDI work in general continues to evolve and change. One of the things I’ve been pushing for on my projects is to do a better job of being transparent about our successes and our failures, especially on issues related to EDI. While everyone’s path is different, sharing that information can provide inspiration and/or identify obstacles to help those who want to pursue their own EDI journeys.

Part of me wonders, and another part worries, what I will think if I revisit this article in a year or three. Will I still think this is a good article for the intended audience, or will I cringe at what I wrote and consider this article to be a “failure” on my EDI journey?

But that’s not an excuse to put off the work – I have a responsibility to do the best I can, and to keep learning so I can do better.

Positionality, Perceptions, and Power Dynamics in Educational Spaces

January 26, 2023 / Erin Karlgaard

Contemplating questions worth asking over a mug of mocha.

There have been so many thoughts swimming around in my head in preparation for writing my first blog post here. I’ve been wrestling with positionality for a couple of years as a white, female body in a profession dominated by others who look like me. While the link above refers to the term positionality as “how differences in social position and power shape identities and access in society,” another very real aspect of positionality is how I am perceived by others because of my identities, and in light of others’ positionalities.

In addition to thinking about my presence and the effect it has on others in my classroom, I also think about my practices, how they are formed, and who benefits or is harmed by them.

One of my passions within the field of education is teaching (and presenting to other teachers) around critical thinking. I find myself changing as a human through the questions I wrestle with, and so my blog submission here is centered on questions we should be asking ourselves, and my meandering thoughts about each of them. For me, asking questions leads to asking more questions–until eventually I get to the questions that really need to be asked. I hope you’ll join in and add some questions of your own.

Presence in the Room

How often do we consider the power dynamics at play in our daily interactions? Even as we grow collective consciousness around positionality, power dynamics don’t yet get enough attention in many educational spaces. Partially, this is a product of our system–a Frierian concept of learning, where teachers and other adults subscribe to the hierarchical system of being the authority in the room. The other part is the pace: juggling academics, meetings, parent phone calls, dealing with social and emotional issues with students, sick kids, etc. etc. It wouldn’t be too much of a hyperbole to say that I move a hundred miles a minute some days. And yet, that autopilot allows us to ignore the perpetuation of “power over” within our spaces.

As I think about days I’ve felt most successful at my job, I’m aware that those are the days that are most dialogic with my students, the times I’ve paused the “hectic” and made adequate space for critical, student-led conversations–for all of us to be human together. Autopilot is responsible for so much of our bias creeping out from the recesses of our brains and into our practices–and ultimately, part of our bias reflects our upbringing and experiences we had as students in the classroom, including management, and teacher/student roles and relationships. I wonder what this looks like in other areas of education and in other professions entirely? How are others aware of power dynamics? How do you counter hierarchical power imbalances within your spaces?

What do students perceive / What do I want my students to see?

A few years ago, my principal asked us to give descriptors of our best teachers–what made them people we still remember today? We were also asked to describe what qualities stood out in those who were our least favorite. Teachers who were caring toward students, took time to listen, pushed students to do their best, were a consistent positive presence, and showed compassion to their students stood out as memorable. Those who just taught their content, didn’t seem to care, were sarcastic, had “favorites” or didn’t really know the students personally stood out in the opposite way–it was clear that teaching was just a job for them. First of all, I love this activity as a way to reflect on how I show up every day. Am I memorable? Have I created an environment within my classroom that I would want others to remember in positive ways? Would I as a student have remembered me as an educator? I think about what my students perceive about me, as a teacher as well as a white, middle-aged female. How do they experience my presence in the room, and what are their perceptions about how I create learning spaces for them. While I do get feedback from students and families pretty regularly, I reflect on how students’ perceptions likely vary according to their identities within my space.

Last fall I listened to a newer podcast on leadership called Disrupting Our Practice, specifically an episode that focused on positionality. It completely changed my perspective on how I’m perceived in professional spaces (I highly recommend a listen). I wonder if others wrestle with how they are perceived in their professional spaces. Does stopping to reflect on perceptions and positionality cause us to reconsider practices or change how we operate?

These discussions are happening in every field right now, and I’m curious to see specifically how it might shift educational practices in the next decade. What shifts have you noticed in your settings, and what do see as outcomes of disrupting the educational status quo?