Hard Thoughts: My BIG Question and Next Steps

I had the great opportunity to talk to a storied and respected educator in POGIL circles about potentially leaving teaching. I've known this person for about six years, and they have helped me grow my teaching and reflection practices in ways I am incredibly grateful for. We talked for about an hour and a half, and while I still have questions, our conversation has helped me pose and reframe some of my questions in prior posts. 

• What homework practices can I implement that increase students' chances of practicing the skills and concepts they learn in class? I'm concerned I've relied a bit too heavily on technology and by extension students' self-regulation to complete those assignments. In assigning online homework there are assumptions that each student has a stable, quiet place to complete coursework, that students know how to focus on these assignments and not be distracted with the entirety of the Internet, and that they know how to use these technologies for learning. I have some thoughts on how to help students focus on the core of what I need them to do after class, practice, and will share them soon. 
• What are ways I can scaffold my activities to help students who do not have sufficient prerequisite knowledge successfully learn the course material? Sure, I can do a bit at the very start of the term to make sure they are in the right class, and doing sufficient review of prerequisite topics is a necessity in any math class. We talked about different POGIL models, or different questions, and I wonder if there are other things I can do to increase student 'flow' through an activity. Differentiation is a core skill in the K-12 classroom, and I wonder how much of those skills I can use in mine. 
• Can I continue to make the decision to meet students where they are, and support them towards the course outcomes? 

This last one is THE question. Right now I think my answer is yes, I still have things I want to try. When I cannot continue to make that decision and have things I want to try, I think that is the moment I start planning my exit. After all, if I quit I can't answer the "What if?" questions, and if they run out I think I have my answer.

That being said I think this process over the last few months of examining my teaching practice and desire to continue it has pointed to some other opportunities. In talking to other educators they agree that now is a good time to consider alternatives. The landscape of higher education is anything but certain, and having a back-up plan (or two) is a good hedge if things go south, say by runaway automation, employment opportunities drying up, or worse. By having a plan of what else I can do I am doing this work on my own terms, and not waiting for external factors to dictate when and how I have to change. After all, No Effort is Wasted, so says Hank Green. 

I am planning to put a few eggs in other baskets, away from my home institution. Nothing major, and I do not plan on slowing down on any of my commitments. (I have a reputation for being an annoying but helpful cuss to maintain after all.) No, I think I have to put some small investments into other ideas, thought experiments, potential lives I want to live. At the start of this summer I'd like to take some time and explore a few big ideas. 

• Cal Newport had a podcast recently titled Should I Press Pause?, and shared a three step process to identify small actions you can take towards big changes for your life. It sounds like it will be helpful; identify the big 'join the circus' dreams you have, and backwards design them to small actionable things you can do today.
• I found this older TEDx talk 5 steps to designing the life you want by Bill Burnett and it has some elements I want to think about (gravity problems, choice overload, etc.) but not sure if I want to follow it to the letter. 
• In Getting Things Done there is the concept of a Year End Review, and it seems like it makes more sense for me to do this at the end of the academic year, as opposed to my birthday, April 28th. Its just an awkward time during the school year.

In the podcast Newport talks a lot about going somewhere new and interesting to go through these three steps. Unfortunately I am a little tight on time and money at the start of this summer, so I'm planning to do it during jury duty that I have next week. I may be able to get some time afterwards to go to a nice coffee shop or our downtown library, but it may just have to be some municipal buildings for me. I am hoping the change in scenery will give me some of what he's going for, and that being elbow to elbow with other potential jurists won't be too distracting. 

How are you thinking about your big life goals? Is there a question or practice that helped you clarify what you wanted to 'be' when you grew up? How do you balance your professional obligations with investments into different futures?

Education Research Writer: Dual-classing Science Writing and Education Writing

As an educator for a few years (uh...16?) I'm seeing a kind of 'blank spot' in the education landscape; individuals who take education research, and write articles and produce other media promoting the teaching practices from this research. 

Contrast that with science writers who make up a whole industry of reading current science research, and writing for publications like Popular Science, National Geographic, and other national magazines. Sure, we might have organizations or institutions (PERTS, the Rand Corporation, Dana Center, etc.) that create initiatives to support the implementation of one set of best practices or another, but we don't have individuals writing about the most recent advances in education research. Granted, there are breakthrough topics every so often that get printed, seemingly everywhere, like the growth mindset based on Dr. Carol Dweck's work. At the same time education topics are not a regular part of most American's media diet. 

An obvious reason might be that science is very accessible and visually impressive to more people than education research. I mean, who wouldn't want to watch a video of rockets taking off, over watching stock footage of students taking a test? I would! It could also be that the American attitude towards education is transactional; you educators give us knowledge, and in turn we pay your salaries. Suffice it to say, I don't agree with this attitude, and believe it likely hurts our educational outcomes compared to other nations'. 

Back to science writers, what do they do? This list of responsibilities from Indeed.com might come in handy:

• "Writing research-based pieces of content to discuss scientific theories, science trends and news
• Adhering to a particular style guide to make sure all content pieces follow company standards
• Conducting interviews with industry experts, including medical doctors, scientists and academic professionals
• Planning content creation and publications
• Keeping updated on breaking news in science and the types of content that an audience wants to read more about
• Proofing written content before publishing
• Selecting supporting documentation to accompany a news story
• Attending conferences, events and meetings to learn about breakthroughs in science"

The job seems bifurcated: half the time you are collecting information through interviews, reading, and additional research, while the other half the time you are creating content. So how might we revise this list of responsibilities for an education research writer? (Unfortunately we can't just say 'education writer' as that includes diverse jobs such as curriculum writer, journalist who reports on education news (not research), among others.) Doing a simple find and replace of 'science' with 'education' on the science writer list of responsibilities we get:

• "Writing research-based pieces of content to discuss education theories, education trends and news
• Adhering to a particular style guide to make sure all content pieces follow company standards
• Conducting interviews with industry experts, including teachers, educators and academic professionals
• Planning content creation and publications
• Keeping updated on breaking news in education and the types of content that an audience wants to read more about
• Proofing written content before publishing
• Selecting supporting documentation to accompany a news story
• Attending conferences, events and meetings to learn about breakthroughs in education "

Changing six words seems to do the trick, but is such a job in demand? Can someone make a living doing this? I have some more thoughts to share on this, and might try it out in the near future. Do you know someone who currently has this job? Let me know in the comments.

Comment on Joe Pitkin's blog post The School Down the Hill From the Ivory Tower

 I wrote a comment responding to my colleague Joe Pitkin's blog post The School Down the Hill From the Ivory Tower. In it he talks about the democratization of information through the internet, and the role community colleges play in higher education. Here is my comment, mainly so I can have it in an accessible spot for me to reference later. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Joe! I’m having similar ‘big’ thoughts about community colleges and higher education in general. You’re right, our commitment to providing a high-quality, personalized education to anyone who walks in our doors is our value proposition, and we need support from the state, administrators, and colleagues to do that. Too often I see people from other departments operate under a scarcity model of resources, that to get ‘mine’ I must take from ‘yours’. That isn’t going to get us anywhere.

Where I see the biggest opportunities for growth in higher education is the mismatch between the new role of educators and the instructional methods that have been brought over from that previous age. As information disseminators, sure, lecturing makes sense in that we are to convey information quickly and efficiently. But if our role isn’t to disseminate information, rather to guide students to grow their own understanding of the world and develop skills, then our instructional methods must change.

The part that really bums me out is the fear that many faculty display when asked to do something other than lecture. Yes, it is absolutely scary to do something new professionally, but we can’t keep lecturing. Besides not aligning to our new roles, too much research has been done to show lecturing isn’t an effective instructional method, along with the negative effects it can have on BIPOC and first generation students.

If we don’t adapt to this new role, using effective instructional methods and technologies, then the private market is going to eat our lunch, ala https://www.outlier.org/.