Resources

Recently, I finished a book called Midcourse Correction for the College Classroom: Putting Small Group Instructional Diagnosis to Work (Hurney et al. 2021). It’s about a program on college campuses in which faculty members invite a colleague to come to their class at the mid-semester point to find out how the course is going from the students’ perspectives. This is a program offered at my institution, and many others, usually through a professional development or teaching and learning center. The book, and such programs, got me thinking about soliciting feedback from students, beyond simply what most of us are required to do in the form of final course evaluations. Think about it: course evaluations, if we even read them (and so many of my friends don’t, because it’s such a stressful experience), only let us know how the course was, how we did, what a group of students that is no longer enrolled with us thought about our teaching and their learning. Notice the past tense. Certainly this information can be useful for future courses (I am—usually—the same person teaching Religions of the World this time as I will be next time, after all), but it doesn’t exactly help those particular students in that particular course. (And I won’t even dive into the controversy around the utility and validity of student course evaluations here; suffice it to say, those evaluations are one of the only times that we actually ask students, the primary recipients of our teaching efforts, what they think about those efforts.) The point of a program like the one profiled in the book is that we can ask for feedback from students before the end of the semester, before the experience is over, when there is actually time to make changes or reroute. The small group instructional diagnoses occur at the mid-semester point. (You can check out the book to learn more about the process; it’s pretty cool!) Typical questions asked of students are: “What has helped your learning in this course so far? What has hindered your learning in this course so far?” and “What suggestions do you have for improvement?” The focus is on learning, not what they like/dislike or the instructors’ performance. At JMU a few years back, we also added companion questions focused on the students’ own behaviors, for example, “What are YOU doing that has helped your learning in this course so far?” as a way of conveying that they are also, and I would argue, ultimately, responsible for their own learning.) Then, with this information, instructors can decide what, if any, changes or clarifications they’d like to make during a follow-up conversation with the students and for the rest of the semester. In the absence of such a program, or colleague support, you can always ask these questions yourself (e.g., through anonymous paper forms in class, an anonymous ungraded survey on your LMS, etc.). But there are lots of other ways to check in with students and get actionable, important feedback. You might have students fill out a weekly online “how’s my driving?” Google form, as one of my friends does, or you might lead an in-class discussion every so often about how everyone is doing, or you might ask students to fill out a word cloud of how they’re feeling at the beginning of class on a particular day. There are lots of things we can ask about: students’ moods, feelings, and stress level; whether they understood a particular concept, lesson, or reading; how that recent test or lecture went; what study strategies seem to be working well for them; and so on. I use a variety of ways to check in with my own students and get their feedback in all of my courses. Last semester, for example, I had experimented with a great deal of flexibility around the exams (e.g., they were take-home and not timed), to try to ease the anxiety and overwhelm that I knew students were experiencing, and I wanted to know how this approach was working for them. I spent time in class after the midterm on a debrief. It turned out that many students were taking hours to complete their work, even though I had intended the whole thing to be over in 75 minutes. This was stressing them out more—the opposite of the effect I was trying to achieve! I took their feedback, which I would have never realized if I hadn’t simply asked, and made some changes to the final exam (e.g., reduced the number of questions). Students noted in my course evaluations (as they do every semester) that they appreciated how I asked them for feedback and how I adjusted parts of the course as a result. Indeed, research on mid-semester feedback programs demonstrates that students appreciate being asked. And, of course, this kind of feedback process can benefit us too, as we open up lines of communication with students, convey care, and possibly learn which adjustments to the course will better facilitate their learning. After all, who wants to be teaching a course that’s not going well? Who wants to dread going to class every day? Who wants to be giving failing grades on projects? Who wants to be meeting resistance, but not knowing why? It often doesn’t occur to us to just ask students when we want to know more. But we can. What do you want to ask?

I am an activist educator. What this means is that I strive for justice both in and outside the classroom. I utilize critical or liberatory pedagogies as my theoretical bases. As Brazilian educator Paulo Freire said, liberatory pedagogy involves linking the word with the world. In my thirty-three years of teaching at Agnes Scott College, I have brought the things I care about, both people and policy, into my teaching. In my classes students connect with the community, both on and off campus, through practicums with local organizations and guest speakers and walking tours of the city. I work hard not to “indoctrinate” students—as if that were even possible—and to create bold spaces with my students to engage complex social and political issues. Democratic education is not “sit and git,” a phrase I recently heard an abolitionist teacher repeat to describe his resistance methods in his high school classes. It is embodied, hands-on, messy, moving, imperfect, risky, playful, and shared. The day before classes began this semester, my college announced they were extending the contract with Aramark over food service staff to the entire campus, from not previously outsourced (Facilities) to already outsourced (HVAC, electrical, and landscaping). The announcement was planned to be for Facilities only, but student leaders in our living wage campaign and some key faculty leaders organized a protest by showing up at that meeting. There is a quote from the Aramark head guy that summarizes the neoliberal take over: “Higher education needs to transform itself and get more like business and industry and understand how they can lower costs and improve service levels.” This quote exposes what James Lawson labelled “plantation capitalism” (also known as “plantation politics”), the extension of the legacy of slavery into our current economic labor relationships. My facilities colleagues are reacting with phrases such as: “We’ve been sold.” Many of us students, alumnae, faculty, and staff feel we are experiencing the caving in of whatever moral center our institution had. We are protesting as I type this blog. I have been outspoken in this movement for three decades, so students know I have firm opinions about economic justice on our campus. How do I create a bold space in the classroom for differing opinions? A favorite educator of mine, historian Howard Zinn, put in his course syllabi the following statement: This is not an “objective” course. I will not lie to you, or conceal information from you because it is embarrassing to my beliefs. But I am not a “neutral” teacher. I have a point of view about war, about racial and sexual inequality, about economic injustice—and this point of view will affect my choice of subject, and the way I discuss it. I ask you to listen to my point of view, but I don’t expect you to adopt it. You have a right to argue with me about anything, because, on the truly important issues of human life there are no “experts.” I will express myself strongly, as honestly as I can, and I expect you to do the same. I am not your only source of information, of ideas. Points of view different from mine are all around, in the library, in the press. Read as much as you can. All I ask is that you examine my information, my ideas and make up your own mind. (Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian. New York: South End Press, 2002, p. 29) Whether acknowledged or not, all pedagogy is a pedagogy of place; the place of our classroom and campus, in concentric circles out, and back. This fall I began my third semester teaching a first-year required Leadership 101 course. My topic is “Religion and Economic Justice.” The beginning point is an “economic autoethnography,” a way for students to tap into their own intersectional social locations to understand economic (in)justices. The class of seventeen students is diverse, with a majority of students of color, with former refugees, international students, first generation students, along with several from single-parent, low income families. Some examples of writing prompts from this autoethnography assignment include: What is your understanding of social class from your own background? Tell a story. What is your own labor history? Your parents? Your grandparents? What institutional manifestations of classism have you seen and/or experienced? (e.g. health care, employment, education, etc.) In what ways has your social location and identity and also experience of social class and labor influenced your definition of “leadership”? What role has religion had (directly or indirectly) in your understanding of social class, classism, economic justice, and leadership? In this course students learn about our campus living wage campaign, work with a homeless shelter across the street from the college, engage leaders in local economic justice movements (the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights, the Georgia Poor Peoples Campaign, and the film director of the new documentary No Address: Part 2: On the Criminalization of the Homeless in Atlanta) and national movements (in particular the Poor People’s Campaign: The Call for a Moral Revival). From their own personal stories, students dive into leadership stories—from student leaders in the living wage campaign, to more well-known leaders from the past or present (e.g. James Lawson, Bishop William Barber, Rev. Liz Theoharis, Grace Lee Boggs, M.L. King, Jr., Marian Wright Edelman, Hosea Williams, Dolores Huerta, Bayard Rustin, and others) as a framework for reflecting on their encounters during the semester. As we engage the real time and real world happenings of economic injustice and movements to build a better world in the here and now and for those who come after us, I want my students to wrestle, as I do, with really complex issues for which I do not have “the answer” or solution.  And I invite them, in the words of Myles Horton of the Highlander Research Center, “to make the road by walking” for “the long haul.”

From a broader aspect, school closure during the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic created a crisis in the global history of education. But, personally, this crisis brought about opportunities, and the pros outweighed the cons. When classes moved online, the unexpected challenges of educational disruption inspired me—more precisely, forced me—to have a critical reflection on what exactly multimodal communication means in higher education. This unique moment also made me rethink how and why physical interactions play a critical role in the process of learning. These in-depth reflections have reshaped my teaching styles and pedagogical skills, especially in my Zen Buddhism course. The lack of physical interactions during the campus closure created more devastating impacts on my Zen Buddhism class than on my other courses. This intermediate-level class guides students to learn thoughts and practices related to mind cultivation in Buddhist meditation traditions in China, Japan, and the United States. I faced a challenging task: students mainly focused on pursuing “good grades” rather than connecting their learning to the real world. Without classroom engagement, students ended up memorizing knowledge rather than developing insights. This issue is worth seriously considering for instructors. I realized that providing students with opportunities for firsthand experience is more significant than teaching them theories described in textbooks or PowerPoint slides. When we returned to the normative classroom-based environment after the pandemic, I redesigned my course syllabus and included a tea ritual to boost students’ engagement. This change aims to stimulate cognitive abilities and develop a sense of self-awareness. Lesson Plan: Students are divided into five groups. Each group selects a “host” to make tea, and other members become the “guests” who experience mindful tea drinking. I explain the procedure of tea making and each student takes turns practicing the etiquette of a “host” who serves tea. Students are required to observe their physical and mental states during the entire process. After the tea ceremony, each group discusses why tea drinking is a type of mind cultivation and whether the ritual can evoke peace and awareness. The questions that students discuss include: How does tea drinking bring about sensory awareness of the whole person (smell, vision, taste, and feeling cold or warm)? Why and how does tea drinking denote a “healing journey” from a personal aspect? How is tea making as the subject of concentration be unique, when compared with mediation? How is tea drinking in the Zen tradition different from other types of drinking culture (for example, coffee)? During the discussion, I reduce my input to eliminate the “authoritative” voice and remind students that it’s their time to share their self-discovery, which is beyond right or wrong answers. Here is what I have learned from students’ feedback. Students rediscover their sense of awareness: While comparing tea drinking with meditation, most students respond that the concentration produced by meditation is too subtle to detect. But drinking a cup of tea can stimulate multiple sensations such as smell, taste, and physical feeling. Because tea is visible, touchable, and noticeable, students feel it is easier to bring their mind and body together. Students said that they are able to perceive the whole body as a learning tool. Through the integration of physical engagement in learning, students acknowledge that bringing body and mind together is the key to producing insights. Limitation of language: When students discuss and share their feelings, they find out that language has certain limitations and their sensations and states of mind are ineffable and beyond language. Some students struggle to find words to express their feelings. A student said that seeing the world through the lens of “ritual” is very distinct from that of “textbook.” All students agree that this activity diversifies their learning resources and supports other modes of learning such as reading or writing papers. Daily activities create opportunities for spiritual cultivation: This activity enables students to extend the tea-drinking experience to reflect on their other daily routines. Students report that a five-minute tea drinking is a doable and manageable daily opportunity for stress reduction. Students also mention that the quiet moment is a time of mental purification, and they hope to create more occasions to do so. A student suggests that the college should consider providing free tea ceremonies at quiet locations around campus to improve student self-awareness and relaxation during break time, especially the midterm and final exam week. This teaching experience is meaningful and rewarding because I see smiles on students’ faces.