Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you will hear part two of my conversation with J.
T.
Torres, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning,
Quinnipiac University.
More links and information about today's conversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication Scholars Conversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
You know, we'd already talked about, sort of a lot of mainstream, um, you
know, sort of views of higher education today and some of it's not in a positive
way because some, you know, I think that we can probably agree that, you
know, cost is definitely an issue.
Um, you know, affordability, of course, you know, we, you know, like, and, and,
and, and, and to be inclusive, that's a whole other, you know, A thing to throw
into the mix of factors, but I, I, I do want to talk about the product, the
experience of higher education itself.
You talked about first year experience, which you love.
I love it too, but a someone who's eager to become, you know, X, whatever it
is, a nurse, an engineer or whatever.
Right.
You know, I've seen people who are like, either themselves or their parents, you
know, being frustrated that, can I just go take that computer science class?
Can I just go write code today?
Or if I'm a nurse, can I just learn how to, you know, do, perform
some procedures with, you know, with, with a patient or, you know,
give me some hard biology, right?
Why am I taking this class?
That sets, you know, ecological studies of, you know, um, of
food and agriculture and society.
Why am I, why am I going to have to do that if I'm going to become a nurse?
I feel like I have some good answers, but I think yours is going to be bad.
So I Well, I don't, I don't know.
I don't know because I, as I'm hearing you articulate that and
we run into that a lot here.
So, you know, when I say here again, a professional university means that the
way we market and the way we recruit students means that we're promising
them fast tracks to the professions that they want, to the salaries that
they want, the careers that they want.
We get a lot of students who ask those questions, right?
Like, why do I have to do a general ed curriculum?
Why do I have to think critically?
Why do I have to, you know, be in these courses, right?
That's, that's frequent here, especially because of the university.
Um, and I have to say, I don't, I have a lot of empathy for those
students asking those questions.
I think our curriculum needs a lot of revision.
I don't just mean Quinnipiac higher education in general.
Um, and I think there's a lot of limitations because of,
because of accreditation, right?
We're just used to doing things in certain ways.
We're used to assessing what we're doing in certain ways, and I
don't think curriculum Um, reform or even transformation has kept
up with the changing landscape.
So I have empathy for those students.
I think that they've been messaged throughout their entire lives to
get your salary as fast as you can get your career as fast as you can.
So we can't blame them for asking those questions.
What we have to do in the meantime is Remind them why
those, those topics are important.
This goes back to the just in case versus just in time learning, right?
Um, we cannot keep doing the just in case education, um, because
it's too expensive, right?
I also have that point of empathy because tuition is so expensive.
If I'm coming to school to be a nurse, um, and I don't know, you know, that
I can benefit from having a much broader interdisciplinary perspective.
If no one's ever explained that to me and I'm paying 70 to 100,000
dollars depending on the university that I go to to be a nurse.
I want that to be as cheap as possible and I want, and I
don't want to incur those debts.
So I am going to ask those questions.
Why am I here?
Right.
And I think that's totally legitimate.
What we have to do is go back to that just in time education, right?
So when I have students, um, I'll just speak to my experience.
I've had students ask why they do need to take a first year writing
class or why they're taking an ecological literacy class.
Class.
And you know, the class isn't called that, but why are they going to
sit in a semester where they're reading about food and agriculture?
I have to start right away with the student experience.
What do you eat?
What do you care about eating?
Um, have you known anybody who's had foodborne illness, right?
Start with this place of desire.
Um, start with this place of connection.
One thing that I've, I've done is I've tried to jump out ahead of that question.
So I, you know, we have a pretty robust School of Health Science, um, we have
lots of nursing students here, um, lots of OT, (Occupational Therapy) students,
um, so I, I get a lot of School of Health Science students and they come
in with those same prerogatives, right?
They just want to know when do I get to be a nurse, right?
When do I get certified?
And so I don't rack up all these, all these student loans.
Um, First day of class, I ask them, I make it an icebreaker, a community
building activity where I say, um, you know, some of your nurses, some of
your engineers, but we're going to read about the environment this semester
as an introduction about yourself.
Can you tell me how you think your future career connects with the environment?
Right?
And then they come out just because I prompted them and I made it an
environment where it's conversational.
I'm not lecturing.
I'm just asking.
Here's a thought experiment.
What do you think the connections are?
And I'll.
Regularly hear from, uh, students, the nursing students who will say
something like hospitals create an enormous amount of waste.
Here's an article I found that talks about the weight, the environmental
waste of, of pharmaceuticals, of, of the, um, of single use protective equipment.
Right?
And then they come out and they start saying like, Oh, wow, there's
an environmental impact here.
My goal.
A large goal for everybody is to just realize everything is connected.
Um, my favorite movie is everything, everywhere, all at once.
All right, and so I, I want to create that, but in a classroom.
I just want people to see that all the multiple universes that
are out there connect in some way.
And if you just, if you're open to that, if you realize that there's no such
thing as an individual course, as an individual human or individual profession.
Every decision we make has an impact on someone else.
Not only are we more likely to have empathy and inclusivity, but
we're also understanding how this course connects with this course.
I think that's lovely.
And I, by the way, I also agree with you.
I want to go back a little bit on that.
Um, you had mentioned about, you know, we, we do need a um
reform in, in higher education.
Um, it's, it's really far from perfect.
And, and a part of it is, you know, like you were saying, how
we assess them and accreditation.
Um, maybe for those who don't understand the, all of the
relationships, what does that mean?
Like what's accreditation?
What has it got to do with it?
And why do we, why is it so broken?
Like if, if we, you know, JT just said it like it's it's don't get me in trouble.
I didn't say that.
I'm just joking.
I'm joking.
This is a part that you know, um is bottlenecking us from yeah,
it is a bottleneck to to to make make big strides into An improved
version of it that I think many of us can Could see and would like to
see, and it's worth a lot of money.
There's a lot of research, you know, they say it can save a lot of time.
It can make all those students who are asking those questions, they
will provide an answer to them.
So why are we doing like, what's the, what's the hold up?
Yeah, no, really great question.
Um, and it also relates back to our earlier conversation about the falling,
the declining trust in higher education, accreditation serves to make sure That we
are doing what we say we are doing, right?
It is a very, very important mechanism, right?
It just makes, it's quality control.
It makes sure that when you go to one university, um, and you accumulate
a certain amount of credits, um, in pursuit of a major, those credits
should have the same value as a different university that you go to,
regardless of prestige and name, right?
It's just making sure that we are delivering.
What we say that we are delivering to the community.
Um, reform, um, is very, very difficult because there's declining
trust in higher education as it is.
Um, and I don't know that it's necessarily a broken system.
It's just a system that worked for a different time.
I don't think the system has caught up with the changing landscape.
Um, and it's changing so fast that we're all kind of confused about
how how we go about changing.
And, um, that landscape has to do with, you know, falling.
Falling attendance, falling enrollment, with increasing tuition, with AI, with
the pandemic, you know, all these factors have dramatically changed the landscape.
And so, accreditation bodies and agencies are probably not keen on a
whole new transformation right now when everybody feels that the, that the
land underneath us is very unstable.
Um, and so, we need to find a way to maintain trust.
Uh, a quick example is, you know, I love using ePortfolios because I
believe in holistic assessment, right?
The power of an e portfolio again, you're making learning visible, but
you also get to tell the story of your own learning of your journey.
You get to see it happen.
You get to include the data that's relevant to you, and you get to
reflect back on what you're doing.
Um, that's really difficult to share across massive
bodies of stakeholders, right?
Institutions to, to, to It's so much easier for us to
share grades, for instance.
Um, so I love ePortfolios, especially in the context of the ungrading movement.
I work with a lot of educators K through 12 or in college who want to
find ways to ungrade their classes.
And I am philosophically behind The concept of ungrading, right?
I understand that grades are an institutional communication mechanism.
It's just easier for us to say who somebody is in terms of a GPA than
it is to say, look at this brilliant ePortfolio they have, right?
Like, we just don't have enough people in the room to go in that direction.
So while I'm philosophically behind ungrading, I also reflect on if
colleges and universities like imagine tomorrow if all the universities
said, we're going to get rid of grades because we want to be more equitable.
My heart would be jumping up and down, but I have to imagine
from the public perception.
It's going to look like.
So then you're a degree mill.
How are you evaluating students, right?
Like, where's the quality control?
And then I imagine accreditation bodies, right, are going to freak out
in terms of like, how do we know that what you're submitting as artifacts,
right, and artifacts could be anything from a student essay to a paper to a
project to exam scores, um, how do we know that these artifacts are aligned
with, um, a certain level of rigor that we expect from higher education?
So I think that even when our heart is behind the changes that we need to make,
the current social and cultural context around higher education is making it,
um, not, I'm trying to avoid using the word difficult because I don't think
it's necessarily about difficulty.
I think it's more about retaining and restoring public trust that we
are rigorous, that we are holding people to high expectations, um,
and then how, How can we do that in ways that's more meaningful?
Right.
Cause we don't want the very mechanism that we designed to, um, make sure that
the checks and balances are in place to stop it from actually catching up with,
you know, what, to actually make it make, uh, uh, uh, to, to deliver the actual
Product that it's supposed to do, right?
Yep, exactly.
Because it's, uh, it's sort of, in some ways, um, like you said,
it hasn't caught up fast enough.
And that, as a result, it's, um, and it happens in a lot of regular
things that are regulated, right?
Um, in, in the world.
Um, I think AI is actually a really big, you know, um, part of it.
We're not able to, you know, legislate nearly fast enough, you know, comparing
to how fast the technology is moving.
Yep.
You know, like, and, and it's, it's, it's, it's It's, uh, it's, it's not only cat
and mouse because it implies that you can eventually catch them, but it's not like
a runaway train, you know, like, um, so, so I think it, it is hard and I, I do.
You know, for me, I worry, I worry a little bit about sort of the,
there is that public trust, but there's also just the, we have
a lot of choices today, right?
People can get a, some micro credentials and some, they could learn how to go, they
can go, if they want to learn, so they can take an online course of some sort,
and that might be all that they needed.
They actually didn't really want all this four years worth.
Um, and, um, and, and with all of the choices, it really does imply that, you
know, the landscape of learning could just be really, and the, the, the, the
landscape of learning with credentials is also another sort of weird part
too, because then accreditation comes with the credentialing part of it.
And, and, and, and, and, and I will say that, I don't know, as a, as someone
who is maybe on the hiring side of, um, of, of, you know, where we hire,
um, People at our company, um, you know, we look these days a lot less at
their degree and where they came from.
We look a lot more than the work that they're able to produce.
Um, and the kind of quality of the work, the quality of the
personality, the cultural fit.
And we are sometimes looking at that, you know, degree, not even as a requirement.
It's just, okay, it's interesting that you went there and did this.
Um, and that it explains your trajectory of how things worked out.
Do you know what I mean?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
If you did that, you must know this.
Um, at least in my field, right?
In, you know, hiring programmers or, you know, even a customer support person
or, You know, like I, I'm sure it's a little bit different if you're hiring,
um, you know, like, uh, like you said, a nurse, you know, I, I probably want
someone who actually were, you know, were vouched for that they know how
to, you know, perform, you know, you know, these medical procedures safely.
But, but for a lot of other, other fields, actually, you know, we're not looking at
that as a, as a, as a requirement really.
Right, right.
It's less about, like, what badges you've earned in your, your scout sash
and more about, like, what, what are you able to do with that information?
Right.
I really want to see you tie the knot.
I don't want to see the fact that you can tie knots, you know?
Exactly.
Yeah.
And that's, that's what I mean about authentic assessment, right?
And so working with faculty in my center, it's all about, you know, let's just
stay with the example of tying knots.
If tying knots is the thing that will make you a professional in a
particular field, then why don't you just assess them on tying knots?
Don't just give them an exam about what a knot is.
Right.
And so that's where that movement.
Um, I, that's where I'm always trying to push the movement of assessment,
the culture of assessment into these authentic simulated spaces.
Um, yeah.
And then, and then back to that challenge of accreditation.
How do we report?
That, that, that competency or that ability, um, or that outcome, how do we
communicate that and report that, um, within our institutions and to other
institutions, like in the crediting body to show that, yeah, there's growth and
we're doing what we say that we're doing.
Um, we're just using these authentic forms of assessment so students can do
rather than just credentialing them.
All right.
Let's, let's talk a little bit about AI.
All right.
Yeah.
Um, we already mentioned it a few times.
I, I think that these days you can't have conversations without talking about
it somehow or talking to it somehow.
Yeah, right.
Um, I think we should talk a little bit about it.
I, I want to first, um, point out one thing.
Hopefully we don't stay on this for too long.
But, a lot of institutions, when they hear AI, they are still today.
Yeah.
Um, you know, sort of plagiarism and, you know, academic honesty and cheating is
the Sort of the first thing, you know, that many people are, you know, it's,
it's, it's, if we mention AI, that's going to be one of the top three things
in most people is the top one thing.
Um, so what's going on there?
Can you tell us?
Um, yeah, I'll try my best.
I can't, I don't know exactly what's, what's going on, but, uh, yeah.
Um.
You know, first thing, plagiarism is older than AI, right?
Like we know that this has been a concern for many years, um, for everybody.
And this goes back to our, our relationship with assessment
that's more about accountability than it is about improvement.
Right?
And it's not...
we haven't been so concerned with, let me assess where you are, low stakes, so
I can see where you are, so I can help you improve wherever you are, right?
It's always been, let me assess where you are, because this assessment is
going to have implications for your financial aid, for your scholarship, for
your career, for your ability to say it.
Like, we just create all these pressures that we inadvertently
message to students, you better pass; regardless of how you pass, right?
Like you want to keep your financial aid, you better pass this class, right?
So we create all these external factors, um, that AI is not really one of them.
I don't think AI actually motivates cheating and, and this, and I know this
is my own opinion anecdotally, but it's also based on the research, um, very
new emerging research into AI use or.
Even outsourcing assignments, right?
Like one of the most popular ways that students have plagiarized
before AI is to go onto websites where you can pay somebody else
to do the work for you, right?
So it's not necessarily cheating as we've known it.
It's a cottage industry of cheating.
Um, and looking at those for those who didn't know, I, I looked it up.
It was between 800 to 1, 000.
You get a guaranteed "A" yep.
Yeah, it's a very known thing.
Students know where they are, you know, if you just go, you know what, I just
need to get an ECA on this, you can do that, and they will do everything.
Including creating the presentation and giving you notes.
If you should, you need to show up in person to make that
presentation at the final day.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So that's been available, right?
And that's been one of the most common forms of plagiarism.
So I'm just sharing this to say I don't think AI created
plagiarism or even exacerbated it.
What it's done is complicate it.
Complicate our understanding of it because now there's an easier route.
Um But, we also know that when students are, you know, going back to belonging
and inclusive classrooms, um, we also know that intrinsic motivation is a very,
very powerful human thing, phenomenon.
Um, if a student is engaged in something that they're doing, if they have that
interest in something that they're doing, they are more likely to do it.
Even when shortcuts are available.
So let's go back to video games as an example, because of course, um, there have
been things like GameShark, their AI has been part of the video game community and
world for years, where it's very easy to program a bot to play the game for you.
So you get the rewards from the game that you want, whether it's the digital
currency of the game, or whether it's outfits for your avatar, or whether
it's just, you know, to show up on a leaderboard and to brag to the world that
you're the Madden player or NBA 2K player.
You can actually program a bot to do the video game playing for you.
Now, there hasn't been a lot of formal research into this use, but I, um, I
have to believe that the video game industry would collapse if people weren't
actually playing the games anymore.
Right, so it, here comes this, this, Mode for you to cheat the thing that
you love doing and people don't use it or at least abuse it too much, right?
They might, even if it's incorporated, they're still playing the game.
They're still involved in the community.
They're still doing the thing that they're being asked to
do by these game developers.
The involvement is still there.
The engagement is still there.
The stakes are a lot lower.
They don't even have to win.
They're just doing it for their own personal satisfaction.
So they're more likely to actually do it and go into the flow, right?
And, and be engaged in that moment.
And I think we can treat education the same way, right?
So when I am working with, uh, with my class, you know, when you talk
about project based learning, I break everything down into these separate parts.
Um, I've I'm doing my best to lower the stakes, you know, because I
want students to make mistakes.
I want them to fail so they can learn from failure, not fail and then have that "F"
follow them around the rest of their life.
And when I do those things, um, at least in my own class
surveys and my own, you know, um, research, my own action research.
Students are less likely to take a shortcut regardless of what it is.
It's even if it's Chat GPT, I, I ran a study last semester.
Um, and because of the choices that they're making, because they say things
like this topic's really important to me, or they might say things like the
way the assignment is broken up, it's actually more work for me to use AI.
Um, it's easier for me to just do the work because you've broken it out into
chunks for me where I feel I have the capability to complete this assignment.
Well, now we're not talking about plagiarism anymore.
We're talking about motivation.
And I I'd rather have the discussion go there where like, let's talk
about how AI can help motivate.
But that in mind and thinking about equity, imagine a student.
So I teach writing classes.
Imagine a student who uses English as a second or third language.
It's not their, it's not their home language.
It's not the language they use when they talk to their family members.
Um, or even when they think to themselves, it's not the language that they use.
And I asked the student to write an essay, just like I ask all my
other students to write an essay.
Right from the beginning, this student is not at the same
starting point as everyone else.
So now there's an issue of equity.
Let's say that student uses CHAT GPT to draft an outline or even an introductory
paragraph with the goal of, I'm going to try my best to make the rest of my writing
look like that introductory paragraph.
I can look at that as plagiarism, or I can look at that as leveling the playing
field, right, that now that student has an equal starting point as everybody else.
And so for me, it's more about motivation and equity because plagiarism is a much
longer, um, An issue that had, that we've had to face for many more years.
Um, and I think it has more to do with how engaged and involved students
are, than what tools are available.
I think it really goes into that just in time and just in case, um, area too.
Like for me, you know, like when you, when you go in and play Legend
of Zelda, if someone were to say.
Hey, let me play it for you.
You'd be like, no way.
Exactly.
I wanna get to play this.
That's the whole point.
But I, to me, I think that there is this, um, I I've been using
this other, I'm going to throw, I'm going to throw this analogy to you
and see what, what you think of it.
Um, cause I can, I think people go, well, So, you know, Legends of
Zelda is fun, so is entertainment.
How can you compare that to, you know, the textbook?
Okay, fine, whatever.
I'm going to give you a slightly different analogy here, because video game is
so fun that they're like, you know, oh sure, I can binge watch, you know,
Netflix for like 11 hours straight.
Is there a high production value, et cetera, et cetera.
All right, so let's take a musician or an athlete.
Let's take an athlete that has to, train to, um, run a marathon, um,
they don't now, by the way, they do cheat in different ways, you
know, performance and enhancing drugs, you know, things like that.
But if you were to tell, if they were to be told, let's say you are
someone who wants to run a marathon, you are not an experienced runner.
You went online, bought a course, or I read a book they gave you.
I mean, this, by the way, really does exist.
They give you these courses that basically said you have, you know,
four months or six months, you know, in every single week, they tell you how
many miles you should run and for how long and how fast so that they, they
peak you all the way to like the week before, you know, you run the marathon,
you'll be able to log about, you know, you can actually run 20 ish miles.
That week, and then the adrenaline will push you through
to the 26th and finish, right?
So people just want to finish, right?
And I'm not talking about ultra competitor here.
Just someone who said, Hey, it's always been my bucket list.
And
You would, you can talk to the person, they go to week three, they're supposed
to, I don't know, run, you know, like, log eight miles that week, maybe four
times two miles a piece, all right?
You could not pay that person to have someone else run for them.
Exactly.
By the way, these are hard, right?
By the time you get to the thirteenth week, they might be running 18
miles that week, and they're running, you know, six miles apart.
It's taking them a lot of time, energy, and it's not the, you know,
it's not like Legend of Zelda.
It's like they are sweating, their head is telling them to stop, please stop, you
have cramps, your joints not working, you are hungry, you know, all of that, right?
So you're fighting extreme physical and mental discomfort.
Um, and challenge to push yourself to be able to do it again.
You couldn't pay this person to not do that a hundred percent.
They know that if they don't do it, they can't run that marathon.
Right.
And that's what the thing they want the most.
So there is, to me, this sort of, by the way, these are not people that, that's
new, like they just somehow had this trust that this curriculum works for them.
Don't they?
Right?
Yeah.
They didn't, uh, students, I come to many classes, not your class,
because you are very good at getting them to understand that.
But if without that, there is this huge misalignment, this huge gap that sets,
look, I don't know why I'm doing this.
So why, what does it matter if I had someone else do it?
Because there is this huge misalignment on this doesn't matter to me.
Right?
The stuff that actually does matter to you.
Like if you are that nurse and you're like, Oh no, I, I really need to
learn how to perform this, this, this task because if I don't, I won't
know what to do when the patient comes in and has this condition.
So I need to do it.
I can't have someone else help me do it.
Like maybe I can, so to speak, cheat by saying, well, you thought I need
to have it done, like pat down now, but I don't, yeah, I need a little
cheat sheet, so to speak, fine.
Right?
But actually I want to do it.
I want to learn it.
Um, so I think that's that trust and that misalignment that is
really, like powering a lot of this.
And the gap gets wedged and wedged wider and wider and wider to the
point where a student just kind of going, yeah, I can just do it.
Hey, like, forget the AI part.
I can pay 800 and get a guaranteed a any school.
Yeah.
I just do that.
Exactly.
I mean, you're describing motivation theory perfectly, right?
It's all about goal setting and those goals have to be
distal and proximal, right?
So the distal goal of, I want to be able to run a marathon
or just complete a marathon.
Um, that's a distal goal.
I know that I can't do that tomorrow.
I can't even do that in a year necessarily.
I need lots of training.
What's going to keep me motivated and keep me.
Um, keep me on track, you know, through the curriculum are those
proximal goals, goals that are close enough to be achievable.
And when I achieve them, I can publicly, um, celebrate them and I can, and
that motivates me and encourages me to move on to the next goal.
Those goals have to always be in range, right?
So I think about Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, right?
We need to constantly set goals that are just outside of our threshold, but they
look like they're just in arm's reach.
I'm almost there, right?
I can, I can do four miles this week, right?
I, um, I, I've done two.
I just need two more and I'm right there.
And then before I know it is 13 miles, right?
Because that goal became within my threshold, fell within my threshold.
Um, And that's how we need to set up a curriculum, right?
And so, for example, I have, I'm a large advocate and we're doing this in much
larger areas now here at Quinnipiac, you know, we, we tend to, the traditional
story is we cap a course, um, with its climax, uh, to use this, a story metaphor
with the final exam, which is high stress.
High stakes and largely disconnected from us.
And we just do a multiple choice test.
Most many students do, right?
Or they do their 20 page research paper.
Um, even if they're invested in it, you know, it might just be by the end of 20
pages of writing this, I'm done and I never want to see this topic again, right?
It's not, we're not at a good place when we reach final exam week.
We bring puppies on the campus to help destress people because of how much
we stress them out for final exam.
So what we're doing now is we're calling it a showcase week, right?
So by By the time the final exam week comes, at least for the College of Arts
and Science, which is going to run this huge showcase this year, um, Instead
of asking students to take a test or to submit this major, onerous product, um,
we're going to hold space where they can engage with authentic audiences.
You know, we're going to invite employers, we're going to invite community members,
and students are going to present to them, here's what I did this semester.
Here's this work that I'm really proud of.
It is literally and emphatically a showcase.
Let's celebrate what you've accomplished.
That needs to work in throughout the semester as well.
I'm constantly trying to work in through my syllabus, scheduled
moments of public success.
I want to set it up where the student cannot fail, no matter what.
They will succeed these, like, and so they're not truly assessments.
They're more of just a public showcase to prove to yourself that you can do it.
You've accomplished this proximal goal.
And let's move on to the next one.
Without that, we don't know what story we're telling, right?
Like, if I'm in a course and I don't see that relevance to that
course, I'm not going to do what the marathon runner does, right?
Because I don't see the goals, and I don't see myself chasing those goals.
I think that's, that's, that's really a great point.
That, um, that it's, it's a great way to, to see a solution, like what you were
saying, this showcase at the end, right?
It's, it's such a meaningful solution that anyone can implement.
It is.
Yeah.
It's just a change of the story that we tell about learning.
Like, does it have to end with something as dreadful as a final exam?
I, I, I like the idea.
Oh, I, I like how you describe that when you are.
At the end of this project, if you are supposed to, at the end, I go, I
would never do this again, we've like literally just failed them, right?
Exactly.
Like that's different from like the musician that goes, by the time I've.
Figured out how I can play this music, play this song.
I want to keep doing it.
This is when I get to perform.
Exactly.
And I go, Oh, thank God I can like move on.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You know, and that's, um, my, my big pie in the sky dream is that courses
will embrace, um, edutainment, right?
Like I don't, I don't think there should be a divide.
And I know a lot of people will disagree with it, and that's, that's fine.
I, um, and I'm, I'm always happy to have that conversation, but I do think
education should be entertaining.
I think entertainment is a fundamental human capacity.
Um, and maybe not even human.
I think all species in some way, shape, or form are driven by the
pleasure and joy of feeling good about being in the moment and entertainment
should be an instructional strategy.
It, we shouldn't do what we can to.
Leave it at the door.
Right.
Like, like you come to school, no joy for you.
Joy is not in the word school.
So, right.
Or even, even the word discipline, right?
Like, I mean, what, what discipline are you studying?
I mean, that word itself, like discipline and punishment to
echo Foucault (Michel Foucault.)
Yeah, no, that's a, that's a, that's a good point.
Um, I, I agree with you.
I think that sort of this, you know, there, there isn't, I think it's a,
It's a silly correlation that, you know, in order for you to succeed,
it's, it, you're going to put in some hard work as in unenjoyable work.
I don't think, I don't think that should always be true.
You know, sometimes we do them, like I was saying about the, the, you
know, the marathon runner you sustain through, you know, sort of like.
Serious challenges.
Um, but it doesn't, you know, I actually think that, um, uh, for, for many people
that talk about that, there is joy to be have in, in, in those instances.
Right.
Um, and people talk about their runner's high, but I think there is at least at
the very minimum, that sense of, you know, like, yes, I'm going to go through this.
And at the end, it's going to have this, you know, like, the feeling
is going to be great when I finish, like, that six miles, you know, today.
Absolutely.
Desirable difficulty.
Yeah, and I, I just think that, you know, in education, um, a friend of
mine, uh, professor, um, uh, Jordy Getman from Bronx Community College.
Do you know him, by the way?
No, no.
I think you'll really get along with him.
Um, she We always talk about like, this is some, sometimes it's,
you know, it's academic laziness.
It's like, we, we thought like we designed this.
We know it's going to work in our head.
You know, we just are too lazy to even explain to them why this is the case.
And we don't need to convince you.
You have to do this for me as if you are like my, Employees, I pay,
except that it's completely not true.
You have to circle it out.
So, whatever, you know, that, that power dynamic of grade and this high
stake thing that you talked about, this grade, this, you know, this,
like, if you don't do this, you know, you're not going to get a grade.
If you don't get a grade, you're not going to get a certificate.
Then your whole life is going to get ruined, right?
And you're not going to get a job.
You're not going to be qualified to do this.
And, and, and, and this, You know, creates a lot of, uh, some animosity almost, you
know, between, between, you know, the person who sets out to want to learn.
That's why they even bothered applying to a school and getting in.
And, you know, it's a lot of effort to get there.
Um, and then the person who actually took a job, took a profession, make the career.
Many, many faculty members, you know, are.
You know, it's, uh, it's, it's something that hopefully that they enjoy, you know,
teaching, and then there's a, there's some version of a passion in their head
at some point, but there is a little gap that, that is just stopping us
from making that big, that connection.
And I think for folks like you who can make that connection easily
with the students, because you have a lot of empathy for them.
Because you can easily put yourself back into that mode of Legend of Zelda or this.
And you have me with Legend of Zelda in your own head.
Can't wait, right?
Because if you can do that, then yeah, as soon as they're gonna stay.
Yep.
I mean, I think, I think about course design as an epic story.
Right, like, it's the hero's journey, um, in some way, like, at the start
of every semester, every student is a hero going on their epic quest,
and I just want them to realize that.
And what is that elixir, right, that they're going to bring
back to that ordinary world?
What is the thing that they are learning that they're going to bring
back to their world and improve their world because of becoming this hero?
Well, that's fantastic.
Um, JT, I think I can talk to you for a really long time, and maybe we should.
Um, um, talk more.
Um, I'm always happy to talk to you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
But this is, this is fantastic.
I really, really appreciate you, you know, bringing it to,
to this, uh, to this podcast.
Uh, I, I love, um, I love the way you think.
Um, I feel like we are really just scratching the surface and
there's so much that you've done.
I, By the way, did do some, you know, research, usually don't even do a lot
of research, but, um, I did, you know, I saw, I actually started reading some
of your, the stuff that you, you, you did and your, your books that you did,
you wrote it, co wrote a book with, um, uh, um, another Digication Scholar.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
Jill Flanders Crosby.
Yeah.
From University of Alaska, um, on dance.
Um, yeah.
And, uh, and your own novel, um, uh, um, about, um, Cuba, is that correct?
Yep, yep, yeah, yeah, it's about, it's about a family, um, I mean,
it's, it's autofiction, right?
So, like, it's based on elements of my life, um, but just, like, a family
trying to find their identity, um, after they are forced to give up
the identity that they had in Cuba.
So it's a migration story about this being in Florida.
You've got, you've done so much and then you have articles
about artificial intelligence.
Um, so I, I'm going to try to, um, make sure some of these things get put
into the show notes so people can go look for, look for, look for your work.
But we really need to, um, You know, get you back on so that we can, uh,
we can, we can, we can discuss more of these topics, especially as, as,
um, you know, the, the, how quickly AI is going to continue to change,
um, uh, the world and high education.
And I think there'll be, there'll be a lot to be discussed here.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It's, it's at least job security because AI is going to change so much that
we need scholars to keep studying it.
Right.
That's right.
Okay.
All right.
Well, Thank you, JT.
Um, I appreciate everything again, and, uh, we'll, we'll talk to you soon.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Take care.
You too.
Coming up next, we'll be chatting with Andre Perez, a student
at the University of LaVerne.
Here's a quick preview.
Be happy to share, share it too.
Just be able to share it and just share with anyone.
Um, and yeah, just focus on having fun.
That's the most important part.
And then, also, the grade helps, too.
Be serious, but also have fun with it.
It's that perfect balance you just gotta find.
But don't try and just make it all academic.
Try and put your own spin on it, cause that's what a portfolio is all about.