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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Hello, Transform Your Teaching listeners. It's Jared. Whether you are new to the podcast or have been around since day one, we want to hear from you. Please take a minute and fill out our quick survey and help us make the podcast even better. Click the link in our description.
Jared:We'd be very grateful if you did. And for participating, you'll be put into a drawing for a handcrafted transform your teaching mug. And we're doing a drawing in the month of October, November, and December. So be sure to participate and help us out. We'd be grateful if you did.
Jared:And as always, thanks for listening.
Narrator: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.
Jared:Welcome back to the Transform Your Teaching Podcast here on the campus of Cedarville University. My name is Jared Pyles, and I'm joined by Doctor. Robert McDole. Hello, Dr. McDole.
Jared:It's good to be here today. We're doing a lessons learned episode where we reflect on the series. And Rob and I have created three lessons that we, as we reflect back, we think about here are the lessons that we've learned from this series and we haven't shared them with one another. We're going to go round robin, go back and forth and share them and maybe some discussion. They could be the same.
Jared:They could be completely different. We could have learned completely different things or completely disagree on what each person has said, but we'll just wait and see. So why don't you start us off with your first lesson learned from understanding the new college student?
Rob:My first lesson learned is that the issues with anxiety with students started happening way before COVID. That was something that we learned in, I think, at least two of our interviews. One with Nancy. I think Nancy really brought that forward the most. Mhmm.
Rob:And I thought where she went with that was extremely interesting in the correlation with screen usage, particularly the cell phone and social media. So for me, that was kind of like an moment. And it was also interesting to learn that, you know, Ohio specifically, and there are probably others that are doing the same, But Ohio was specifically targeting and shutting trying to shut that time down during the school day.
Jared:Yep.
Rob:It made me think about that here at Cedarville to a greater degree as to what our students are facing because a lot of them are not probably self disciplined enough to put it down. Sure. So it's gotta be having an effect on them. Yeah. So that was that was really probably my first lesson lesson learned.
Jared:Well, I think my first one is, and we heard this through our student interviews and we heard it through some of our other guests, is that students crave a connection. Either it be with each other or as some of our student interviews said, with their instructor. Yeah. And wanting to make a connection besides just they're my instructor, they're imparting knowledge onto me that I have to then later reflect on and regurgitate on my final exam. I think there's more of a need now more than ever to show a sense of compassion.
Jared:Students desire that connection. So it's the, you know, later on, we're going to talk, not in this episode, but in a future episode, we're gonna talk about connection as far as, in an online course. One of my, Boise instructors and one another fellow graduate of Boise is doing a, doing research on connectedness in an online course. Connectedness versus closeness, they're talking about.
Rob:Connectedness versus closeness. Yeah,
Jared:believe me. It's really bad because I wanted to attend their whole session, but another one of my people in the cohort was presenting. So I saw the first half of their, they were setting it up, but I didn't see the last half where they explained it. I was like, so I'm, I had this unfinished document in my head that didn't finish downloading. And so I need them to come on and tell me the rest of the story.
Jared:But anyway, there's the desire for students to have that connection. And I think that comes up in the, interviews that we had where they're like, Hey, I want to hang out, not hang out, but there's this that came up in a couple of the interviews where our students are like, I want to, meet with my professors during their office hours and not necessarily about academic things, but others, but there's variety to some others are like, I would never do that because I feel like that's a hindrance in their time, but some are craving that connection more than others.
Rob:Just like a desire for relationship of some sort. Yeah. Yeah.
Jared:Yeah. So that's my first one.
Rob:Well, my second one also comes from our interview with Dr. Wood, and it has to do with the developmental age of our freshmen.
Jared:Yeah. That's a big one.
Rob:18 year olds coming in as 14 year olds. And and you may have something similar, but I'm gonna I'm gonna, like, narrow in to something that I think I've seen with my own family Mhmm. And my own children Mhmm. As being positive. And I've also seen the negative side of that from others in my family.
Rob:Okay? Extended family in that kids are not getting jobs. Yeah. In their teenage years and even up into when they get to college, they don't have any work life experience. That's kinda gone hand in hand with the whole driver's license thing where you have a lot of people not showing up with driver's licenses
Jared:Yes.
Rob:Uh-huh. To school. I was just like, what? That was so new to me, you know, because it was just so foreign. So that really made an impression on me as I thought about the things that were different in my kids than what I see here as a general whole and what I've seen in my class as well.
Rob:Like, I tend to be able to see who's had experience in work and who hasn't. Mhmm. Right? Because the way they think and the way they process is totally different. So, you know, not having work, I think, makes a big difference in your perspective and how you learn.
Rob:Because having to go through that kind of process on a daily basis or even every other day or whatever your part time schedule is to just have that thing that's outside your home, a responsibility that isn't your mom asking you to do something or your dad asking you to do something, and then you're receiving money for that. You know, you have something that you then have to make a decision about how you're going to spend.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:I think that process, just that simple process, is huge in development. Yeah. That's that's my my theory anyway. Yeah. You know?
Rob:I don't, you know, I don't have any data right now I can point to. There's probably somebody that does. I haven't looked at that. I haven't researched that, but that's just my gut reaction to
Jared:It's running
Rob:my hypothesis. Mhmm. And I think there's some truth to that because there are some schools, colleges where, you know, they reduce tuition by making everyone work. I think was Barry College one? Will you talk to that gentleman?
Jared:Yeah. Barry College. Yep.
Rob:Barry College is one. Another one Georgia. That's pretty close by is Berea College down in Berea, Kentucky.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:They do something very similar where every student, they have to work a job. Right. And their their tuition is essentially free as far as I know. I may be off on that. That's been many years since I really looked into it.
Rob:But it's a campus where they go and learn, but it's also driven by student work. And so the students are getting experience, they have to deal with the money and so on and so forth. So that was my I think there's something there. And that was my number two.
Jared:So my second lesson learned, and you kind of hinted at it a bit, but student struggles are not obvious, but they're willing to share them. Yeah. So it's interesting because Nancy Gillespie, when she came on, she talked about how this new generation of students are more comfortable with not being okay. Talking about mental health and talking about willing to share the anxiety and the struggles they have. And the student interviews that we did brought that immediately, showed that that statement was true because-
Rob:Yeah, they weren't ashamed to share.
Jared:They weren't ashamed to share it. But what's interesting about it is it wasn't obvious at first. Like I remember the one of first ones we did, the student, you said to her, You know, I think it looks like you have it all together. And immediately she was like, Actually? And she listed off the anxiety that she's having and everything else.
Jared:So it's not obvious. And what's different about this generation that Nancy talked about is that, yes, it's not obvious, but they're willing to share if you press in. And you don't have to press in that much. It was one question, right? And every single other one we've done, we've talked about, tell us about anxiety.
Jared:And they're like, oh, well, let me tell you about my level of anxiety. They're not talking about like, oh yeah, my friend or I see it in my class or whatever or in my dorm. They're more than willing to share. It's something that we need to, as educators, to be aware of so it can inform our instruction and be sensitive and compassionate towards all of our students because there could be something lying under the surface. And what's great about this generation is they're willing to say, Oh yeah, here's what's going on.
Jared:Yeah. And I mean, it's legitimate.
Rob:Yeah. It is. So It's a big issue that I've had conversations with my wife about. I've had conversations with other colleagues besides yourself and others where it's just you take a lot of things for granted. You're just ignorant about it.
Rob:Yeah. I'm just being honest, like and not a willful ignorance. Let me let me be clear. It's not like, you know, it's just that's not how I see the world. And so I don't I don't go towards things where I don't think there are problems.
Jared:Sure.
Rob:You know, the old phrase, if it don't it's not broke, don't fix it. Yeah. So you don't explore that, I think, and I just didn't. Sure. So it was a real eye opener to me as well.
Jared:Yeah. Alright. Your third. The last one. The last one.
Jared:The last one.
Rob:So, I think the last one, I don't know if we talked a lot about it, but it became like painfully evident to me was the need to pay attention. The need to be paying attention and looking and don't just accept. They're kinda going along with what we were just saying there. Don't just accept what's on the surface. Be willing to ask questions.
Jared:It's gonna get messy.
Rob:Yeah. And that's a scary thing.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:And I gotta be honest, you know, like, wait a minute. This this whole series is kinda like, I knew there were issues. Right? And I think there was a certain sense which I wanted to sit behind my theories, you know, and comfortably be told that I was correct and everything. Right.
Rob:And as some things were confirmed, but other things were kind of blown open, I kind of wonder if other faculty or other teachers might feel the same. Like, oh, I didn't think that. I didn't, you know, think through that. I just assumed. Yeah.
Rob:And I remember my mother used to tell, you know, tell me that don't don't assume, Rob. Yeah. Because you know what it does and Yeah. I'll leave it there.
Jared:Yeah. Sure.
Rob:So there is that part of of ignorance and not just accepting, you know, generalized ideas about what's going on Right. But actually asking questions. Clarifying, I I would say.
Jared:You mentioned hiding behind theories. I think it's also easy to hide behind your content and be like, I'm just here to deliver content.
Rob:Yeah.
Jared:And then when the, when fifty minutes hits on the clock, I'm done. Yeah. I'm packing up and leaving.
Rob:Out of here.
Jared:But if we're going to talk about, and we've talked about, I've said this over and over again, teaching the whole student, getting to know the whole student, it's messy. Yeah. Because believe it or not, your students aren't perfect. Yeah. They carry with them a lot of stuff.
Rob:It's kind of come home to me, not just in this, but in, you know, in speaking that I do outside of here in churches, and, you know, just other teaching opportunities that I have that are not here at Cedarville. I'm seeing similar things. I think once you're in a situation or you're in a content area, you can tend to become I don't want to say complacent, but you know the things, right? You know your content. You know what you need to teach.
Rob:But I think sometimes we miss the fact that the islands where we're trying to build bridges to, I call them the islands of learning, you know, where our students are, they move. Yeah. And we still keep using the same, like, well, here's how I address this because the students were like this five years ago. Right. And to know that you have to keep up to date with the zeitgeist of the student and keep touch with that to understand where they're at Yeah.
Rob:So that you can build the proper bridge.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:I mean, I always knew that, but I felt like it was a little bit more solid, like the islands weren't moving that much. Sure. But I think they do move. Right. Not all the time, but they do move and you just have to be aware of it.
Jared:Yeah. So my third is, and this came up with the interview with Ariel Horan, Doctor. Ariel Horan, one of some of our earlier episodes when we talked about creating a student profile.
Rob:That was a good episode, by the way. I enjoyed listening to it.
Jared:Did you? I did. Oh, good. She's very intelligent. Yeah.
Jared:Her presentation that she did, which was based off her dissertation, there were multiple people in the room who were like, you could go national with this and make some actual change in rural school districts.
Rob:Yeah. My wife was, she was like, Oh yeah. Because she teaches in a rural school district. So she understood it.
Rob:Anyway, you go ahead because I definitely had some reactions to that one.
Jared:So it fits in with what her research was, is that there are still limitations to access for students. Yes. Still. Yes. 2024, it still exists.
Jared:In some cases it hasn't moved at all. Yeah. I'm reminded of this every single time I go down to my hometown in Southern Ohio and I try to get on the internet at my dad's house.
Rob:Good old Gallipolis.
Jared:Good old Gallipolis, Ohio. It's the same access problems. We can't assume that our students have had high speed internet or access to technology their whole lives when they walk into our classrooms. I mean, bit into this misconception when I taught at high school and I assumed, oh, students have access to phones all the time. Surely they can format a Word document and double space it in one inch margins.
Jared:And I was floored by the fact that they couldn't do that because I didn't consider the fact that, yes, they know how to use a phone, they know how to get on social media, but those skills are not one to one for anything academic. And the same is true with, like, you can't assume the students come in with an understanding of how high speed internet works or how to find research or how to study first gen students, for example, like I didn't know how to study when I came in. So I think it's, it's important that we keep that in mind.
Rob:But anyway. If I may, bonus round because I thought that interview was really good. And there were two things that I wanted to reflect on with you. One had to do with what you were just talking about, but a finer, narrower issue, which I know just because of my background, but I'd never really applied it in terms of accessibility. And that is most students do have mobile phones.
Rob:So the data was pretty clear about that. But the issue that I hadn't thought about is that you don't have the same amount of information That comes through on your mobile phone That fools
Jared:me too.
Rob:As does a full website that you look on on a desktop. Right. So I was like, she's not wrong. Yeah. That is a barrier.
Rob:Yeah. I mean, that definitely is a barrier. I think the other one that I thought was very interesting to me was the disconnect between rural students and their which I didn't think that they wanted to go back Yeah. To where they lived. Right.
Rob:So that kinda blew me away too. Yeah. But the disconnect between reality and their dreams
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:Like, we keep telling students, oh, just dream. Just dream. Can do anything you want to, but they their particular dream was to be a marine biologist in the middle of Idaho.
Jared:Yeah. I know.
Rob:I was just like
Jared:I know. I It's incredible,
Rob:isn't it? Yeah. I mean, that's a great dream, but unless there's another, like, worldwide flood, I don't see a marine environment making its way to the mountains Of Idaho anytime soon.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:And, you know, you're not gonna do research as a marine biologist. Right. You know, so that was this disconnect. And so it made me think, I wonder if that disconnect is not just in the rural districts, but it's across the board where they're sold this bill of goods. Oh, you can do anything.
Rob:You can be whatever you wanna be, and that's just not true. That is just not true.
Jared:And it's with some reality check-in there.
Rob:And and and she's finding in her program that she's having to take real time
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:To to actually help these students understand reality.
Jared:Right. Like,
Rob:this is not gonna work for you. You wanna be a marine biologist.
Jared:It makes you wanna do research on, like, how media has an influence on student dreams or student career choices or whatever for that anyway. Well, in the future we plan on coming back and talking about how to serve these students, kind of a part two of that, but that's not coming till next year, early twenty five, twenty twenty five when we do that. But that's gonna do it for us on this episode of the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog.
Jared:And don't forget to do our survey to be entered into a drawing for a mug, a handcrafted mug. Have a good day.
Rob:And we
Jared:got some new ones coming. We do. Thank you for ruining that. Thanks for listening.