Category Archives: from professional development activities

Presenting on Peer Assessment at the STP Conference

I’m delighted to be presenting on Saturday morning at the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Annual Conference on Teaching in Phoenix, Arizona (https://teachpsych.org/conferences/act.php). The title of my talk is “Peer Assessment of writing in large classes: Reliability, validity, and improving student attitudes.” Here’s a copy of my slides:  RawnTalk_STP_2018. Here is the rubric/assignment handout I give to students that I reference in this talk: Writing to Learn Instructions for Students 2017.

Are you here at ACT? The talk is 10:30am, Saturday Oct 20, Room Crescent3. I’ve prepared more than I expect to discuss. Come with questions if you like so we can spend more time on what the group is most interested in discussing.

Are you *not* here at ACT? Check out the action on Twitter! #stp18act

On Returning from Sabbatical

I’ve had many conversations lately about what it’s been like to return from Sabbatical. My year away from the hectic pace of my regular teaching and service schedule gave me space to think big, to write, to follow my curiosities in work and life, to travel, and to prioritize care for myself and my loved ones. I learned to appreciate that I am not the sum of my work, what it feels like to be truly well-rested, that actually I am not that important (lots of amazing things still happen without me — this might sound arrogant, but it was an important realization for allowing myself to unplug and say no), and that I don’t have anything left to prove to others–so I can start building my career on my own terms (thanks therapy for this last one!). I developed an Educational Leadership Statement (triggered by the SoEL Certificate program) which helped me to evaluate my suite of commitments/projects and set two priority areas (faculty development and curriculum) that I can use to make decisions about what to say yes to. Before sabbatical I had never in my life taken time away, and I am forever grateful for that chance to catch my breath and re-evaluate my life.

Returning was, as expected, a bit of a shock. I taught about 500 students each term, and I had lots of energy for large-scale renewal of lessons (including switching a textbook in one case — something I’d been putting off for a while). Lesson and course planning consumed me. Lessons that used to take an hour or two to prepare often took closer to 5 — which is not easily sustainable for 6 different hours (9 total) of class prep per week! I felt I became even more accessible for and responsive to my students, which also takes time and mental and emotional energy (including ~daily decision-making that has logistical + ethical implications).

But here’s where I think the effect of sabbatical came through: I let myself do this essential work of good teaching and let other things go. I wasn’t very good at responding to email most of the time, instead taking more of a triage approach (spend about half an hour once or twice a day putting out fires, and let the rest accumulate until I could schedule more time to deal with it). I resigned from at least two committees. I said no to various “small” things like giving workshops or reviewing. I worked Sundays (teaching Monday at 9, 10, and 12 requires that for me), but I still left work at 3 on Mondays and Thursdays so I could get to my yoga class on time because I had learned yoga improves my well-being.

All this saying no had some noticeable effects. I still didn’t work evenings or Saturdays to “make up” for the work I needed to do during the day. My job (JOB–not my life) is teaching first, and I am not obligated to work 60 hour weeks to make everything else also equally first. I got used to disappointing people, which is something I have tried to avoid at much cost throughout my life personally and professionally. I regularly began emails with apologies for tardiness, I failed to call meetings that should have happened but were not actually absolutely essential, I declined invitations regularly. But I also learned to re-frame that “no” as an opportunity to nominate someone else. People think of me for roles, and that’s amazing and wonderful — I’ve worked really hard for my work to be respected! But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other people around who could do a great job and learn/build their CVs too. I now think of a no as a chance to mentor someone into a new role for them. I became (professionally) lonely. As I wrapped up various commitments and longer-term projects (deliberately without replacing them), removed committees and other work from my days, I realized that a growing discontent inside me was loneliness! Teaching is (mostly) fun and is (for me) very social with students… yet I realized more than ever that sitting at tables with colleagues who also love teaching is essential professional fuel for me. As I rebuild my smaller suite of commitments, I am paying keen attention to joining tables where conversations and initiatives are energizing.

As I realize it’s time for me to do other work this morning, I’m left with feeling a sense of extreme gratitude for my job and my career. Being an Educational Leadership (EL) faculty member at UBC means I work really hard to do the best work I can do for my students, colleagues, and institution–just like everyone around me. And it also comes with tremendous opportunity and autonomy to continually craft and re-craft my own teaching-focused career. I think everyone deserves a sabbatical, and I’m grateful to be among those who get one.

STLHE Handout

Hello!

Hope to see you at our STLHE conference presentation today: “Contributions and experiences of teaching focused faculty in Canada: Results from a national survey” (CON1.11a at 11:10am in McCain 2116, Dalhousie University). Here’s our handout:

STLHE 2017 Conference Handout Rawn Fox (Final)

Tweet us your questions! @cdrawn @joannealisonfox #stlhe17 #con111a

Our Abstract…

CON1.11a – Contributions and Experiences of Teaching Focused Faculty in Canada: Results from a National Survey

Many Canadian institutions are implementing faculty positions that specialize in teaching, yet little scholarly understanding of these positions exists. We conducted the first national survey of Teaching Focused Faculty (TFF). Launched during STLHE 2015, we surveyed 251 TFF working in 18 institutions across seven Canadian provinces, representing a variety of disciplines and experience. TFF regularly engage in diverse scholarly activities spanning teaching, service, leadership, pedagogical and disciplinary research, and professional development. TFF value their positions more to the extent that they feel integrated as part of departmental and institutional cultures, feel fairly compensated, have clarity regarding promotion and tenure expectations, and participate in mentorship regarding teaching careers. We recommend that institutions continue to cultivate permanent TFF positions to offer positive career paths for people who contribute productively to the educational mission of universities. We offer best practice recommendations for institutions and departments.

Laptops in the Classroom?

A few weeks ago I was asked by a colleague how I typically handle the issue of laptops in the classroom. On the one hand, they can be a useful learning tool, and many students like to use them. It’s practically become a perceived necessity for student note-taking. On the other hand, laptops can be incredibly distracting in these days of internet addiction and omnipresent social media. I am not immune to the internet’s pull either, and find it difficult to imagine what it’s like to be a student with that constant distraction.

(I’m reminded of a time when I asked students how they would like to handle laptops and they asked me what happened in my classrooms when I was an undergrad. As I was a relatively young faculty member, they had assumed my classmates all had laptops too. To their shock and horror, I explained it wasn’t an issue because nobody had them back when I started undergrad… last century in 1999!)

Here’s my response to my colleague:

I have a laptop-free zone, after sharing this study by Sana, Weston, Cepeda: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254. I am sure to emphasize the effects of the flickering screen on the people around them, and even ask people to raise their hands if they can see a particular student’s screen. It surprises some folks (especially those who tend to sit near the front, whose screens are in wide view). I explain my role is not to take away their freedoms, but to protect the classroom as a place of learning. If they’re hindering other people’s learning, that becomes my business.
I also discuss “The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard” http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614524581 but encourage them to make that choice for themselves.

What do you think? How do you think laptops should be handled? What are the best solutions you’ve encountered?

Adventures in Being a Complete Novice

Yesterday I failed miserably. I was frustrated, a tiny bit embarrassed, and delighted. I was delighted because one of my personal goals for my sabbatical is to learn something completely new from scratch. I want to feel like a complete novice, so I can improve my empathy for what my students may be going through when they join my class. The phenomenon called the hindsight bias or curse of knowledge basically means that once we know something it’s really difficult to imagine what it’s like to not know that thing. Imagine not knowing what the traffic lights or temperature mean. Imagine not knowing how to decode what these letters that form this sentence mean. Weird, eh? The challenge is, it’s my job as a teacher to imagine what it’s like to not know about psychology (or some aspect of it), and then try to teach that topic to people who actually do not know (as much) about it. What makes this action trickier is that the longer I do my job, the more I know about psychology, which makes it harder and harder to imagine what it’s like to be in my students’ chairs. I try to get around this challenge in a few ways, including talking with my students about their thoughts. But let’s be honest: it’s been a while since I’ve had a pure experience of complete and utter lack of understanding.

Enter: Pottery class.

Yesterday morning I wandered down to a studio I’ve passed a million times but never entered. I was excited to embark on a new learning adventure! I was going to create something! It might not be beautiful, but I could create! I was the second person to arrive, out of a class of 10. I met my teacher, she used our names to introduce us to each other. I felt welcome. Someone said she had done this before and I didn’t think much of it until later. (For the record, my only foray into art was a single class in high school that was half history, and included zero pottery.) The teacher showed us around the facility. I was trying to absorb all the information. The keywords I remember, in no particular order, include: kiln, bisque firing (as opposed to another kind of firing I forget), plug, glaze, members only shelf, don’t touch, student shelf, slip, washroom, clay, silicate, wheel, clean, wedge, centering. Soon, my brain was full of terms, but I was still excited. Read: without some sort of handout or way to take notes, jargon became a jumbled mass quickly… but maybe that’s ok as I don’t really need to know all this right.

It felt like an eternity until we finally got our clay! Read: all I wanted to do was *DO* the discipline of pottery, which made it difficult for me to concentrate fully on the orientation. The teacher demonstrated wedging, which is kind of like kneading dough and is essential for a strong final product. I measured exactly 2 pounds of clay from my large block (instant success!). My wedged clay looked reasonably good for a first try. Great! With confidence I prepared my wheel station. I watched the teacher’s demonstrations carefully, and tried to emulate her precise hand and body actions. Things were going reasonably well until suddenly half my clay came off in my hand! I made do for a while, and then I tried to make a cylinder, carefully watching the steps and trying to follow with a half portion of clay. After trying to be so careful with it, my cylinder fully collapsed in on itself. It was such a disappointment. I suddenly felt frustrated, especially when I looked over at the person who had done it before. Hers looked just like the teacher’s. Read: social comparison framed my feeling of disappointment and pushed it into failure, but also motivation to make another one.

I stayed an extra half an hour because of a fierce desire to make SOMETHING, ANYTHING that didn’t resemble a pile of grey mush. I tried three times and couldn’t even get the clay to stick to the wheel. It kept slipping off! That most fundamental starting point eluded me, despite the careful attention I had paid to the demonstration, despite the fact that I’d successfully done it just an hour before when my teacher was there. Frustrating! I gave up — but only because I realized I had actual work I had to do and couldn’t just spend the rest of the day on pottery. Reluctantly, I left. All the way home I was frustrated and annoyed because I couldn’t get it. Slowly, I began to laugh at myself. I had taken one single class in a completely unfamiliar discipline and somehow I wasn’t a magical unicorn prodigy in pottery so I was frustrated by it. Ha! Later, I actually uttered the words, laughing, “Turns out I’m not a great potter!” and they made me pause. Really? Is it true that I don’t think I’m a great potter because I got one lesson and couldn’t make something? Of course not. Read: This reaction is consistent with something I’ve suspected for a long time. I tend to have a fixed mindset, and correct to growth when I notice it. I’m reminded of when my statistics students say “I’m no good at math” and I try to convince them otherwise. It takes time and practice and willingness to fail but not feel like a failure.

Scorecard: Pottery definitely won the day. I won insight about failing and a pile of clay covered in mud (called slip) that looked kind of like this (actually this is nicer than mine was):

When I searched for “Pottery cylinder collapse” this image from “Fine Mess Pottery” came up, in a post aptly titled “To that beginning student.”  Apparently I’m not alone.