Chantal Levesque-Bristol: A first year freshman is really just a summer older than a senior in high school. You can't just be thrown in the deep end. You need some structure. You need some guidance. You need some clarity, right?
So that's something that we really talk about.
Narrator: This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Doctor. Rob McDowell and Doctor. Jared Piles chat with Doctor. Chantal Levesque-Bristol.
She's a professor of educational psychology at Purdue University and executive director of the Center for Instructional Excellence. In today's episode, they bring everything together in our current series on stirring motivation. Thanks for joining us.
Jared: Well, Rob, we are continuing our series on stirring motivation, and we've almost reached the end of the series. And, someone we wanted to talk to that we've had on previously back when we did our series on active learning was Doctor. Chantal Levesque-Bristol because she really kind of, at least for me anyway, started to stoke the fire about motivation and self determination theory.
Rob: Right.
Jared: We thought it'd be great to have her back on and she has been willing to join us again. So all the way from Purdue University, home of the boilermakers, doctor Chantal Levesque-Bristol. Welcome back, doctor Levesque-Bristol.
Rob: Yes. It's great to have you back.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Thank you. So good to be back. I'm glad that I'm here talking with you two again.
Rob: We're just excited to talk to you and really excited to talk to you about some of these things that are going on, what you're doing, especially given our series on motivation. You're doing something not too dissimilar from what doctor Alterman has done in the k through 12 space. You're doing it in the higher ed space. You want to talk to us about that a little bit?
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Yeah, absolutely. So we actually were working with Doctor. Alterman, but also Doctor. Vermaat, who published the higher ed version first in 2020 of the the model, the Teaching Compass model. And at that time, it was published in Dutch, And we really wanted to use it in our own work in higher education and really look at our professional development program.
So we're very much engaged in professional development based in self determination theory. So we have this program called Impact. So we use the the teaching compass that doctor Alterman first, you you know, published and discussed with you in a higher ed context in English. So doing the translation, working working with them, and then looking at whether these constructs were going to be, you know, again, substantiated in higher education. And, also, very importantly, to see if we could see changes in teachers', you know, faculty's motivation and motivational style from, you know, the start of our the professional development program to to the end.
So that's kind of what we're doing here at Purdue with with this work.
Rob: That's excellent. Would you take just a brief moment, and let our listeners know what are these, dimensions or or this compass that you're talking about? Give give them a little bit of an overview on those dimensions because sometimes we have new folks that are just joining in and and before they're able to go back and listen to to what doctor Alterman said, it might be beneficial if you just kinda give us a, you know, a quick recap and overview.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Yeah. Absolutely. So the same four broad teaching styles, motivational style have been found in higher education. So I'll start with those four broad, and then each is separated into two more. So we end up with, like, eight different teaching style.
So we've got, you know, autonomy support, structure, control, and chaos, which are the four general one. Right? And just to give you sort of a little bit of what that looks like, you know, autonomy support is really about generally, like, understanding, really understanding students' perspective, and we talk about providing choice, and and I'll go back to, like, meaningful choices and options. That's gonna be contrasted actually with chaos, which is another, you know, structure, which this one is really about sort of this laissez faire, like this, you know, waiting and seeing what happens. So it's almost like too much autonomy.
Right? So autonomy yeah. Autonomy support is about meaningful choices. And then we get into, you know, structure and control. So structure is about really clarifying and guiding, and it's very important in higher education.
And that's what makes autonomy support in these choices meaningful is by providing that component of structure. And that can be contrasted with control, which really looks at the forms of, you know, demanding and domineering, which is really about pressure and about sort of having students do what the instructor want them to do without a lot of scaffolding. So those I I don't know if that gives you sort of, like, this the overview that you were look looking at.
Rob: Yeah. That was that was really good. I think it's helpful for our listeners to just have that in their mind as we continue to, talk about what this means for higher ed and and listen to what you know, listen to where you're going with it. But, again, thank you very much.
Jared: When you were doing this transition into higher ed and applying this compass to a different context, what was the most difficult of the sub areas to kinda translate over?
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Yeah. So in terms of the the vignettes, because, again, it's based in vignettes. Right? So we present the faculty with different scenarios the same way that we would do with k through 12 teachers. So it's very similar.
And then each vignette has four sort of response type, which map onto these four general broad styles that I just talked about, right, the autonomy, support, structure, control, and chaos. And faculty are answering, you know, the extent to which they would endorse each. There was just, like, a couple of the context or the words that needed to be changed so that it would be applicable to higher education. Like, for example, teachers in higher education don't really use lesson plans. They don't really talk about lesson plans that way.
Right? So we would talk more about, you know, your course design or your syllabus or your topic for the day. So that was not too difficult to translate. What we wondered was more like, would we see sort of the same style as being, you know, highly endorsed? And I think you mentioned some of the blind spot.
I heard you talk about blind spots. Some of the things that were surprising, but not really surprising, is that, you know, we didn't see a whole lot of controlling style into our faculty. Like, we didn't see a lot of demanding and domineering. Although I think that one might be one that may be hidden, right, where the faculty are answering the question and saying, No, I don't really do that. So they're kind of lowering their scores.
So that might be a hidden one. But also what we saw a lot, and that was, you know, kind of expected, is that there was more of these sort of the- although it was relatively low, and I'll talk about what we found that was highest, but awaiting was one that was, you know, was there and that we actually, through the work with the professional development, we saw decrease from the start of the semester working with faculty to the end of the semester. And awaiting, that would make sense because it's really the sense of, well, I'm putting my content together, I'm going to deliver my lecture, and the students are going to figure it out. Right? They're adults.
They're in college. You know, they will they will figure it out. I don't need to overexplain or or give them a lot of context. And that's actually something that changes a lot because through the professional development, we help faculty really think about awaiting is really laissez faire. It's too much choice, not enough structure.
So really moving them from awaiting into more of the structure piece and using guiding and clarifying strategies that we see increase through a professional development program is really the work that we're doing. So not that it's difficult to translate in a way, but the heavy lifting in professional development is really moving away from this awaiting more into guiding and then the structuring, the clarifying, right, the structure, which is guiding and clarifying. And also into participative, which is really that autonomy support piece using participative and also attuning as as a shift. So that's been the heavy lift.
Jared: Do you think there's they kinda don't wanna think about controlling as much because there's the perception that students in higher ed have a different motivation than those in k 12? Cause there's always been this kind of assumption that students who are in college are more motivated. Therefore, they don't need to have their hand held nearly as much.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Yeah. I I really like this, like the hand holding piece. Right? And that's something that we hear them a lot. Right?
Where they're in college. They're adults, and I don't need to to hold their hand.
Jared: Mhmm.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Or I will tell them what to do and they just need to do it, which that's really much more domineering and demanding. Right? Yeah. And and and especially in very difficult class or class that would be considered sort of still weed out class. Right?
Mhmm. Well, the ones who can get it, they will just get it and the other ones will just not make it. Right? So we're really changing that narrative with our professional development program, right, to really sort of tease that apart, right, and say, no, you know, they're you know, really, like a first year freshman is really just a summer older than a senior in high school. Right?
So there's there's not something magical that happened during that summer. And we really talk to our faculty about that. Right? That they still need the structure. Even like, you know, an adult, if you're starting a new job, you can't just be thrown into deep the deep end.
You need some structure. You need some guidance. You need some some clarity, right, on on the goals and the objectives and where's the scaffolding and what does that look like and some some guidance. Right? So that's something that we we really talk about.
But you're absolutely right. It's kind of a misconception that now it's sink or swim.
Jared: Yeah. It reminds me a lot when I I used to teach freshmen in high school and the senior just a summer older, was true for those freshmen boys who came in. They were still just middle school, but like you could tell they were still trying to find their way, but they were still acting like schoolers. And I couldn't really treat them with any kind of dignity until I had to treat them like middle schoolers till, like, January. But yeah.
So that that rings true with me too, I think.
Rob: Yeah. I think it's interesting as I'm I'm listening to you either throwing them in the deep end or giving them structure, the the question is where is it's always where's the balance?
Jared: Yeah. And it varies by student too.
Rob: Oh, yeah. Like, I see
Jared: want to be thrown in
Rob: the that in my own classes, and and I'm in a senior you know, my class is usually well, it is. It's usually taken their senior year, and they have to take it in order to graduate. Mhmm. So, you know, this is spring semester, so I have students in my class who this is their last semester. So they're doing their capstones in the business program, wherever they find themselves, management, accounting.
But I'm always shocked at how many of those who I need to give more structure to and those who are, like, bored out of their mind. And so it's been a it's been a challenge to try to balance those needs, across my students. I found just saying, hey. If you need more, you need to talk, come see me. You know?
And I'm finding that that's been a lot better even with their assignments that I give them, which I give them. I basically provide them with the outline. So I almost feel like I'm giving them too much. But I found, like, when I didn't, it was really bad.
Jared: It kinda reminds me of, there's a question we have on here. We'll ask you about the original model calling for motivational tailoring, which is sound like what you were doing, where it's like, you know, you have to kind of tailor what it is that you're wanting the students to do based on their own level of motivation for the most part. Because you have some that want to jump in the deep end, some that want the hand holding or maybe that's the incorrect term to use, but Structure. Structure, yeah. But you know, it can vary in a higher ed space.
Like in a K-twelve space, you've got 30 kids, 35 or 50, depending on the school you're in, in a classroom. And that's pretty normal. But in higher ed, you've got different scenarios like a 300 person lecture, seminar, office hours, and stuff like that. So Chantal, what did you find with that and how does that this idea, how can it help hit all those different settings and different formats?
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: That's really the purpose of the book that we just finished and gonna well, not just finished, but it's gonna be published May 1, out May 1, is that we take self determination theory, right, and the satisfaction of the three basic needs, which are very connected with the teaching compass, right, because satisfaction of the basic needs is what creates and the directiveness. Right? Is it what creates the two axes that produces those eight different styles that we're talking about. So the aim of the book is to really talking about how do you actually design a course and use satisfaction of the basic psychological needs to design those different modality. Right?
Those different sort of how do you adapt? So how do you basic needs and what does it look like to meet the needs in a lecture hall versus a seminar versus experiential education? So each chapter, after an introduction on self determination theory, each chapter goes very much it's it's very practical. So it's really helping instructor design their course that way. So, you know, what does that look like?
Well, if you're thinking about providing choice, you know, autonomy support and providing structure, some guidance in a lecture hall, let's say if you have 500 students, that's gonna look different. Right? And you're talking about providing the outline, even providing a video recording of the lectures, providing your notes ahead of time, whether you require, you know, in person attendance or not. Right? So students having access to all of these material in a lecture hall, for example, allow in a lecture class allows them to either come to class if they want to, if that's how they best engage.
Right? Or not come to class, but then look at the recordings and the notes and the outline later on in the comfort of their own room and and really digest the information that way or even come to class and review later with all of the material that's available. Right? The structure is there, and then the choice is there as well. The choice piece is there as well because you can choose to access the information differently.
And then, you know, you can use technology like a student's response system, and we talked about that in active learning in terms of, you know, helping the students engage. So that will look very different than you if you are in an experiential education class where you're working with community partners. Right? So there might be a lot more structure because you don't wanna be sending students into an experiential ed experience. Right?
Let's say nursing students that are actually going to draw blood blood, for example, you don't want them to experiment at that time. Right? You really want them to follow a certain protocol and follow the structure. So there might be limited choice, but then provision of a rationale there really helps students understand why there is less choice in this particular context. And the choice piece might come in in designing or deciding which community partners you're going to work with, right?
What kind of work would you like to do or are you ready to do? Right. So the tailoring comes in, in kind of like how will these basic needs met? But again, with the compass, right, if you want to connect it to the teaching compass, you're not going to send the students in an experiential education experience without giving them some scaffolding. Bad things are going to happen.
Right? And that's not going to to be good. Right? So chaos is is not an option. Right?
So you need to provide choice, but the structure is very important here.
Rob: So choice within the structure.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: That's my key phrase all the time. When I when people ask me, what does it mean to to be choiceful and not just free for all? It's choice within a structure. It's meaningful choice within a structure.
Rob: So this sounds an awful lot like HyFlex?
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: We do talk about HyFlex.
Rob: That's what it sounds like to me.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Actually, HyFlex is one of the case studies. So each chapter, which that part I love about the book, each chapter has two case studies. We interviewed faculty that we've worked with as part of our impact program. And the HyFlex is one of the case study that Doctor. Nathan Menser uses.
Started in COVID, but will never go back. He says, always uses it and still uses it. I actually wrote a book about iFlex that just came out not too long ago. So he's featured in the technology chapter. Okay.
In terms of, yeah. So I I love those case studies. And, again, each case studies is also focusing on the three basic psychological needs. So it goes over, well, what does it look like in this particular case study to foster the need for autonomous autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Jared: I hate that my brain does this, but as soon as you mentioned giving students the flexibility of coming to class or not, which is all that faculty will hear, Do you get a lot of, pushback when you say that, that they could, not come to class? We have faculty to say, but they're paying to come to class and they need to be in the classroom. You just can't replicate, the face to face teaching through HyFlex or hybrid or online. What is usually your response to that? Because I'm curious.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Yeah. So when you start with this, right, they need to come to class. They pay to come to class. If you stay there, right, if that's the narrative, then it sounds a lot more like something that's more domineering or demanding. So it falls within the control.
Now if you can add a rationale to it and tell me why is it that it's beneficial for students to come to class, and you can provide me evidence that students who come to class do better, right, because maybe you're doing something in class that you're not just simply lecturing, you're really doing critical thinking or problem solving, discussion, and there's something that you cannot get outside of class or by watching a lecture, then you're providing a rationale, right, for students. So now you're moving toward this autonomy support and this more sort of the attuning. Right? You're you're you're saying to students, I'm understanding your perspective, but here's a reason why it's beneficial to come to class. She answered your question about will they come to class.
Right? Or or will they just kind of preload if I provide them, you know, all of this material? The answer is typically no. Like, you won't see a whole lot of students not come to class. And actually, we talked about Nathan Mentzer, who in HyFlex, right, it's built so that if you cannot come to class he encourages people to come to class.
But if you cannot come to class, then you can join through Microsoft Team and not fall behind. And most students will choose to come in person, but he does provide a rationale as to why he believes it's important and also kinda like that students are engaging more and typically perform better. But he makes a very interesting comment that it's more the function of the student's motivation. Right? The ones who were already disconnected and really lacked motivation or were very sort of amotivated are going to use this as a way to hide, but it's gonna be very few students.
Actually, in in our lecture chapter, one of the case study in math, Joe Chen, has the same strategy. He teaches very large sections of, you know, four or 500 students. He doesn't require attendance. All of his lecture, video actually, it's on YouTube and other instructors are using his videos. It's very popular.
And he says, I'd rather have a 100 students that are going to really be engaged and want to be there and value this in person experience than 400 students who are going to be completely disengaged. Right? But these other 300 students, they made they they're also engaged, but in a different way. Right?
Jared: Sure.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: They're looking at the notes and the videos in their room, maybe at 2AM, and that's when they could actually, you know, engage with the material.
Rob: Yeah. It's very interesting. I was thinking about this for my class because, I had my wife come in, to my class this semester. You know, she said to me, Rob, I don't think some of your students are engaged, and I think it's it's causing problems for others. So I like this.
Basically, you know, if you get one student who decides to check out on you and they're there, they influence others around them, and it and it kinda has this, I don't I don't know, yeast effect. Right? Leavens the whole it can leaven the whole lump, and you can have some people who would be actually connected, listened, and or listening and engaged disconnect because they look over and they're see they see a kid playing a game or they see a kid surfing, Amazon or they see a kid see another person watching videos and their attention gets drawn away from what's actually being discussed or the things that they're supposed to be discussing. So this kind of makes me rethink because I do require attendance. But you're making me rethink, maybe, I need to let people self select out who aren't engaged Yeah.
And and just record. I I'm thinking about it.
Jared: I'm thinking about the students in my own section right now that are on their phone. Yeah. Disengaged. Yeah. The entire time I'm teaching.
Rob: Let them be disengaged somewhere else and have have deeper, meaningful conversations with those who actually wanna engage.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: The one thing that we also talk about in our work, right, we talk about structure, which we also saw increase in structure and guiding guidance, guiding from the professional development is really the importance of connecting your learning outcomes to your activities and your assessment.
Rob: Right.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: So with this conversation, what I would say and I we hear this all the time with our faculty is that I would say, well, what are your learning outcomes for the class?
Rob: Right.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Right? And how does attendance play into that? Oh, man. So if you connect your learning outcomes, your activities and assessment, and if there's a way to accomplish the outcomes without What's the role of attendance? That's kind of a key question here.
And if you can connect it to a meaningful learning outcomes, great. But if it's not fully connected, then what is the outcome that you're trying to achieve, and how is the best way to achieve that?
Rob: Alright. Last question. What is your go to in terms of a move that our listeners could make, whether they're k through 12 or higher ed. When you say, of this model, what's the most common thing that you could offer them to do next? In other words, to try in their next class session or to be attentive to.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: To me, the first piece is always to begin with the alignment of your learning outcomes. So clear alignment of your learning clear definition of your learning outcomes to begin, and then alignment with your activities and assessment. And then rethink about how to incorporate meaningful choices. Right? So the moving from the awaiting into the participative and then the clear alignment and and make those goals very clear because that's the structured piece.
So, again, autonomy within a structure. That's what I would really encourage faculty to reflect on and think about before they go into their next class session or to even just observe. Right? Observe their class session without changing anything and see if those things are present.
Jared: Well, we're running out of time with you, doctor Levesque-
Rob: with her than There
Jared: So is a with that being said, tell us about the book, the title and such, and where people can find it and all that other stuff.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Designing Impactful College Courses, Applying Self Determination Theory to Unleash the Potential of Autonomy Supportive Learning Environment.
Jared: That is quite the title. Excellent. Yeah. I I love it.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Unleashing the potential.
Jared: Unleashing the potential.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Love. And, you know, if you if you do read the book this summer, these questions that you were really debating right now, I think, you know, the the outcomes, what I would want the book so for me to know that the book was successful is that you'd be able to read the book, go through the specific elements that you're really trying to redesign, right, and thinking about class attendance, and you would come out of reading the book having some ideas that you could implement and try that would foster engagement by meeting the basic psychological needs without forcing attendance, for example. Right? So, again, you know, in terms of the compass moving from the controlling piece, which is definitely one of the splits slip off that we see, right, from controlling into more structure.
Jared: Well, our plan is to pick up the book as soon as it comes out, reading it. And then I think it'd be a great exercise for us to go through it and think about the questions we've had.
Rob: Mhmm.
Jared: Talk review it on the podcast, podcast, and then ask doctor Levesque Bristol to come back. Yeah. We're we're so thankful to have you back. Thanks for, joining us, and we'll talk to you again soon, hopefully.
Chantal Levesque-Bristol: Thanks for having me. Enjoyed it.
Ryan: Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments about our conversation with Doctor. Levesque-Bristol, feel free to reach out to us at CTLpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn. And finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog.
Thanks for listening.