December 11, 2024 • 37 mins
In this episode of Digication Scholars Conversations, host Jeff Yan continues the conversation with Devon Thomas Jones and Thomas Murray from the University of Arizona.
Devon and Tom are Course Directors for University 301, General Education Portfolio, and University 101, Introduction to General Education Experience, respectively.
They discuss the value of General Education courses, the intentional design behind these programs, and their impact on students’ personal and professional growth.
Tune in to understand the critical role of effective communication, critical thinking, ethical information usage, and valuing differences in higher education.
Learn how these skills are essential for success in any career and everyday life, and discover the backstory of the significant General Education refresh at the University of Arizona.
Visit https://ge.arizona.edu/univ-hub/univ-curriculum for more information about our guests' courses, including syllabi, course readers, and other resources.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you'll hearPart Two of my conversation with
Devon Thomas Jones and ThomasMurray from University of Arizona.
Devon and Tom are Course Directorsfor University 301, General
Education ePortfolio, University101, Introduction to the General
(00:22):
Education Experience, respectively.
They are also both AssociateProfessors of Practice at the W.
A.
Franke Honors College in Arizona.
in the Office of General Education.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found On Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on
(00:43):
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
I'm A huge, huge fan of, um, the reformthat's centered around reflection.
I think that, you know, it is clearly,to me, one of those things where
when we, when we earlier on talkedWe're talking about the durable
skills, the transferable skills.
(01:03):
Reflection is probably the,the linchpin that, that, that
puts all of this together.
Um, you know, and, and that, I think,um, Tom, you were saying that for 12
years prior to this professionallyas students, they weren't ever asked
about what they are curious about.
I bet you they weren't being really asked.
Really on reflecting on anything oftheir own experience either, right?
(01:27):
And, and, and it's just such a, it'salmost like one of those things that, um,
Most people in the world won't deny almostnaturally that yeah, it's a good part.
It's an important part of learningyet We don't carve out time and space
in our curriculum in our day to dayTo have students do this reflection
(01:48):
and I don't I don't even think thatis reflection Is that kind of like
some people think of it as well?
There's that to touchy feely thingI'm gonna meditate and and it's not
even that it's you know, we're reallytalking about we're talking about You
You layering your own experience, makingconnections so that you can come up with
a strategy and how to solve a problem.
(02:08):
You know, these are thingsthat scientists do, artists do,
dancers do, you know, nurses do.
Um, you have to do it constantly,every day, all the time.
Um, and so it's one of, it'salmost like, it feels almost like
one of those skills that we justforgot that it was so important.
It's so important, but we forgot about it.
(02:29):
Um, and I think that.
Um, what you are all doing, bringingthat to be such a focus, is incredibly
important work, um, in, in your reform.
I mean, if you want to beexcellent in your field, reflection
is how you do that, right?
I mean, when I was in highschool and I played football,
what did we do every Monday?
We watched a videotape on VHS, uh,videotape of our football game for
(02:54):
that weekend, right, and, and ourcoaches made us look at the, at the,
okay, what, what did you do well?
What did you do poorly?
What do you need to dobetter next time, right?
That is how you get betterat playing football.
That's how you get better at teaching.
Anything.
If you want to be a great engineer, youneed to reflect on the engineering that
you've done and how you make it better.
(03:16):
And I think, I think what, what peopleforget about is that reflection.
Yes.
Is there something about being humanthat makes reflection somewhat natural?
Perhaps, but it's a skill, right?
It's like any other skill.
The more you do it, the moreintentional you are, the more
practice you have, the better you get.
(03:38):
Um, and if you want to be thebest of the best, that's how
you're going to get there.
And that allows our brains then,right, to recall experiences
and apply them in new contexts.
And that's ultimately What we're hopingstudents can do with what they've learned
and spent many years dedicating timeand energy in the classroom to having
(03:59):
these spaces where they can practicethese different skills and apply them
to course specific or case scenarios.
And then when they're out in their fieldsand industries, they're able to better
make those connections and to buildin that time and intentionality around
purposeful reflection and to facilitateis really part of the learning process and
(04:20):
ultimately what students should be ableto take with them so that they can say,
Oh yeah, I actually got something out ofmy degree because now I can see how I've
applied some of the things I've learned.
Um, sometimes I think it's easy toassume that like when we ask students,
right, like what are you curious about?
And to carve out thattime to sit with them.
(04:41):
One feels almost indulgent,right, in a world where there's
so many taps on our time.
Um, and instead, like, that, thatshouldn't be an indulgent activity.
That, that requires work.
And sometimes, sometimes it uncoversthings about ourselves that maybe
we We don't necessarily wantto deal with quite yet, right?
(05:03):
Or sometimes through that process,students come to realize, wow,
I've, maybe I'm picking a degreepath that is not right for me.
And what do I, how do I grapple with that?
Right?
Um, those are tough questions.
Um, and that's, as you mentioned,hard work, uh, to, to work through.
Um, but it's, it shouldn't be indulgent.
It shouldn't, that time shouldn'tbe reserved for the few.
(05:26):
Uh, Like in their like small Liberal Artson the grassy knoll, you know, whatever
this like time of whatever we thoughtcollege was supposed to be like, but
it actually should be embedded and timepreserved in the curriculum because it is
an essential part of the learning process.
(05:47):
Yeah.
I, I love that because I think, Ithink that, um, it's, I mean, you were
saying, That, you know, maybe humansthat naturally have that reflection,
but, but if, but then why are we notmaking that something that we value?
Like from, from, from day one,why aren't we saying, well, yeah,
(06:11):
we are naturally good at this.
Let's harness this.
Um, so we don't do that, um, very wellin, in, in the past and the past has been.
Actually, you're going to figurethat out because you're going
to be naturally good at that.
We are here to transfer a ton ofcontent to your brain and hopefully
you'll, you'll make sense of it allthrough your own reflection, right?
(06:32):
It's, it's, it's kind of, itfeels a lot like, um, Tom, you're
using a sports analogy earlier.
I feel, I feel like it feels a lot likewhen sports science wasn't very advanced.
We just go, well, just go runa ton and then you'll be fast.
And then later on, werealized, hold on a minute.
It turns out there's nutrition,there's sleep, there's, there's
(06:54):
strength, there's agility.
There's a lot more nuance thatwe should be thinking about.
Right.
And so, yes, you still haveto run, you know, to get fast.
You can't, you can't ignore that,but, but, but there is a lot of other.
Things that we do and we can do it smart.
You know, Jeff, I, I love running.
You actually hit a passion of mine.
And I think it's a great example becausemaybe humans find reflection naturally.
(07:19):
Humans are also built to run, right?
Like if you look at, at the historyof humanity, humans are actually
elite long distance runners.
evolutionarily, right?
Like, but you have to practice it, right?
You do, if you don't use that skill,you, it doesn't, you, you lose it.
Um, and so are we built to reflect?
(07:42):
I think we are, but you still have todo it intentionally and thoughtfully
and strategically and, and in asustained way, um, to make it valuable.
Well, you can almosttrain yourself out of it.
If you, if we don't put value on it,that's a danger to, to humanity, right?
I feel like there's a certain aspect of,you know, when we don't train ourselves to
(08:09):
become reflective thinkers, that's when webecome, Easily manipulated, manipulated.
Right?
Others easily being able to not beingable to tell, you know, um, truth from,
you know, things that are not true.
Um, because we're not exercisingthat part of the brain.
(08:31):
Um, and that's, that's a.
That's a dangerous path to go down.
Um, and if we only count on people tojust do it naturally, they'll still
do some of it, but especially ifwe keep telling people that doesn't
matter, you just need to learn this,then they go, well, hold on a minute.
Turns out, even though I'm naturallygood at it, I'm not going to, I'm going
(08:54):
to do, not going to do anything with it.
That's, you know, that's, that'sa, that's a serious problem.
Now I know that.
At University of Arizona, as part ofwhat you've done, um, in this reform,
and actually, Devon, in your course,it's called University, University 301,
(09:14):
and it's about, um, building portfolios.
I have, I've been so lucky tohave been involved with you
all to do your portfolio work.
You know, we just took a small part ofit because you, you use, you know, the
platform to do the work that you do.
Um, but, but the big part of what I'vebeen really, um, always been so, um,
(09:42):
enamored by is your, um, dedicationto making a learning portfolio.
Um, can you Maybe talk about why portfolioand what is a learning portfolio versus
any type, other types of portfolio.
Um, and, and maybe, you know, so thatpeople can get a little bit of that,
(10:06):
little bit of a color of like, well,what does it mean when they have gone
through Uh, UNF 101 and then theytook some articles and come to my
301 class and they do this portfolio.
Why?
And what does that look like?
What does it actuallylook like for a student?
Are they just basically writinga lot more paper or are they
not writing a lot more paper?
What is this?
Yeah.
(10:26):
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks, Jeff.
Um, what I think is particularlyexciting and when I think about what
Uh, makes a learning portfolio standapart from, um, what we consider
maybe more external facing or showcaseportfolios, career portfolios.
There's many different kinds of portfoliosand they all serve different purposes.
(10:47):
Um, and I had a colleague once kindof framed this well for me, um, as
the primary audience member of alearning portfolio is the student.
And that resonates with us and somuch of what we're trying to do is
that the primary audience and themain stakeholder in students learning
and their degree is the student.
(11:08):
So they, that is where theeffort and the work is.
And really the learning happens is thatwhen a, when a student gets a chance to
say this is actually what I've learned,this is what's mattered to me, and this
is what it's going to mean for me movingforward, and really almost in dialogue
(11:29):
with themselves, right, their past self,uh, and their learning, that That's it.
It's quite a profound responsibilityand then gives us a sense of, okay,
now I can actually talk about and seethe connections that maybe I didn't see
before, um, in my undergraduate career.
So, um, I think that's, andthat was a mindset shift.
(11:50):
Two, for me, professionally, right?
And it's something we still, like, whenTom and I meet with folks around campus
and we, we have our little, you know,song and dance we do about the classes.
That's a big, like, myth we have todebunk is what this portfolio is.
And that, um, There's value when, inparticular for some fields and industries
(12:12):
and for some degree programs, right,um, having an external portfolio is
a requirement and an expectation for,for their industry or their career,
and that's not to say that, like, youcan't have more than one, right, or you
wouldn't have more than one portfolio asa part of your undergraduate experience.
That would be, you know, if we wereto think about, we would never tell a
(12:33):
student, to have only one version oftheir resume or to complete one final exam
for their entire undergraduate degree.
Like, that would just serve nopurpose and it has no applicability.
Um, but rather with the, uh.
The Learning ePortfolio.
It's responsive to, again, the call thatwe are responding to with students that
(12:53):
I don't know, I want to be able to sayI know what I learned and what value it
has to offer for my General Education.
And that's what they're prompted to doas a part of this portfolio experience.
And sometimes the What they decideto include, um, may not be the things
that their General Education instructorlike per, you know, necessarily set out
(13:16):
for them as a part of the assignment.
Sometimes the learning that theyuncover through the reflective
process is not necessarily whatthe assignment was designed to do.
Um, and I think that that is, an importantand profound insight when you Realize
something from a learning experiencethat maybe you didn't expect to find um
(13:36):
is one of I think the the key pieces ofa learning portfolio that You wouldn't
necessarily put out into the world,especially if it was something like wow,
I learned that My team really struggled,uh, because of our time management, right?
Like, I wouldn't put that on my LinkedIn,uh, necessarily, you know, but that
would be important for me to understandand then to be able to say, next time
(13:59):
I work on a team, I know I got to bringthese skills to, to that team project.
So maybe that was a long answer, but it'san exciting opportunity for students,
um, to really get to say, this is what Ilearned and this is what matters to me.
And here's how I'm going toapply that learning in my future.
And I think part of that, um, that Devonwas alluding to is this idea of like
(14:23):
using a learning ePortfolio as a spacewhere you can also showcase failure.
And when we're talking about students whoare so often so failure averse, Right?
Like, not ever wanting to, um,kind of put under a microscope the
things that they haven't done well.
(14:44):
Having this space where they can say,wow, I went back and here's a paper I
wrote two years ago in my first year.
And actually, this is not a verygood example of critical thinking,
but this is what I've learned sincethen through these other experiences.
Like, that is, So powerful for students tobe able to more intentionally think about,
(15:07):
um, the things that they maybe haven'tdone as well as they wanted to, because
that's also a part of learning, right?
Is, is being able to,to learn from failure.
I mean, going back to your football gameanalogy, unless you won every single
one of those games, there will be somefailures, and that's where you're going
to have to learn and figure out how to do.
(15:27):
You know, better next time.
And I, one of the, one of the thingsthat I, um, that was, that is, that is
really, um, part of the inception ofDigication as a platform, you know, for
portfolios, it's called make learningvisible, but I love people don't realize
that when we say make learning visible.
(15:49):
Is to make learning visiblefirst and foremost to yourself.
Um, because that is what powers therest of, you know, how do you grow
from that to, you know, potentially,like you said, making it visible for
a potential employer or what have you,and you can edit and you can, you can
curate and you can do, do a versionof it that you make visible for them.
(16:14):
That's appropriate.
That's just being ableto understand audience.
You know, that's, that's, that's a,that's a, that's a simple thing to do.
Um, But the idea that we get tojust see it for ourselves, it almost
feels like you should be able todo it, except that we don't, right?
So if Tom, I'm going to go backto your football game, chess tape.
(16:38):
If no one taped it, right?
If no one taped it and no oneon Monday said, let's sit and
watch how we got our butt kicked.
I was using the case.
Right.
But if no one forced you to do it, noone taped it, no one bothered with it,
because we didn't care that much, right?
(16:58):
Then on Monday, you would, youhave missed one of the most
valuable ways to grow, right?
You would have just go,well, we got our butt kicked.
I'm not sure why.
Everyone just go run another 10 laps.
I'm going to push backon that a little bit.
(17:18):
I think, because there's two thingsthat you mentioned that are important
for the reflection to happen.
One is that somebody videotapedit, and two is that somebody said,
let's watch, let's think aboutthis and think about what happened.
I think the videotape is helpful, butit's not a necessary condition, right?
The necessary condition is thatyou make time for it, right?
That somebody says, sit down andthink about it, because a lot of
(17:42):
reflection happens without an artifact.
I mean, our ePortfolioshave artifacts, right?
But, you know, If you develop the habitsand skills of reflection, you can do that
without necessarily having an artifact,but just thinking about your experience.
So, I mean, I do a lot of, I do a lot ofrunning and when I, after I run a race,
I mean, I'm not racing competitively,believe me, but after I run a race, I
(18:05):
don't have a videotape of that race,but I can still think about like,
okay, how did I manage my nutrition?
What was my mental state?
How did training go leading up to that?
Um, I don't necessarilyhave to have an artifact.
in order for reflection to happen.
Um, the, the necessary conditionis that you make time for it.
Yes, it's make the time and the end andbeing deliberate about like, Hey, you
(18:29):
know, I'm going to actually think, thinkabout something that would have been
painful in particular sometimes, right?
Like it didn't go well, what happened?
Like I have to realize that.
Yeah.
And I think that's what.
distinguishes a learning portfolio from,say, a cloud storage device, right, or a
Google Drive, right, um, is that studentsare oftentimes prompted or, you know,
(18:55):
sometimes are incentivized on their ownto maybe save their work or they have
whatever versions of their past, you know,English papers, um, but in life, right,
as, as competing priorities happen, we,we document, we submit the work, and
then we move on to the next task, right?
And, um, that is often what is alsoincentivized, right, in higher education.
(19:21):
Submit the work, I evaluate it,I determine that you learned the
things I was looking for you to do.
And, What actually makes it a learning,the visibility part, right, the learning
eat portfolio, is that now I actuallyhave to go back and think about this
paper, maybe revisit it again, thinkabout maybe what were the conditions I
(19:43):
was writing this paper in, right, um, andactually maybe the things I got out of
it, and And to reflect in that capacitythat that is something that you wouldn't
necessarily be prompted to engage withif you're just here I am with my drive
and my cloud device and moving on.
Right.
(20:03):
It's kind of like a one, two punch.
You, you can have the experience,but if you don't get to process
that experience afterwards, itjust sits alone as an experience.
And it, it did something, but it didn'tdo its full potential, like to, to really,
you didn't really get most out of it.
You, you got, you got, you get thefirst half, you know, you got the
(20:23):
experience, but that experience did notmean as much as if you had been able to
actually take the time to process it.
And to make meaning out of it and tomake connections in this experiences
comparing to other experiencesthat you also have and layer them.
Um, how do you think, let meask you a little bit about
now that you've done this for,
(20:46):
look, you and, and like you said, yourcolleagues have done this for many
years, but now it's really broughtto the forefront, to a massive scale
to thousands of students per year.
Can we ask, can we talk a little bitabout, so what's the outcome of this?
Like what, what arestudents getting out of it?
You know, and have youseen evidence of it?
(21:07):
You know, like, uh, I think it must be socool, Devon, for you to teach the, the,
the, the, you know, the bookend, the, the,the other end of the bookend class where
you go, well, these students coming outof, um, you know, courses directed by, by
Tom, um, do they come out You know, comingto your class, being more reflective
(21:30):
and, and how so does it, does it show?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think what's been, um, one of the most,I don't know, unexpected benefits, right?
Particularly with teaching 301.
Um, one of, one of the first kind ofreflection questions students are asked
in the first week of the class is, um,what's been kind of the most meaningful
(21:51):
General Education class you've takento date and why, like, why is that?
Why was it meaningful?
What did you get out of it?
And overwhelmingly, you know, there'smany answers to that question.
Students can choose whatever classthey want, but the seems to be the
most popular answer is it was my Introto Gen Ed class, my UNIV 101 class.
And usually the answer is I didn'tsee the value at the time, right?
(22:14):
I didn't see the purpose.
I, and actually now I understand, right?
I learned.
Like how to learn, right?
I learned the value of reflection.
You know, they point to all thesedifferent things that they got out of
the class that at the time they mightnot have seen or really cared much
about because it's their first semester.
(22:35):
It's, there's so many things happeningin your life when you're starting a
new program, you know, and um, That'sa, that's a pretty profound insight,
um, and I think quite powerful thatwe, we don't see otherwise oftentimes
as, as faculty and instructorswhen we teach a one off class.
Um, we see, see the students, we, weinteract with them for a certain period of
(22:59):
time and then we hope that what, you know,the messages that we hope to relay, uh, go
with them and the show up somewhere else.
Um, but it's not often weactually get to see that.
Learning actualized, um, in, in real timeor some time afterwards and I think that
that's one of the most exciting thingsthat I find, um, is that students, um, see
(23:22):
the value and they just might not actuallysee it in the moment, um, they're starting
to recognize it later and so that's notto say every student, right, comes to
that realization or and even sometimesthey point about, About the zombies class
or what, you know, pyramids and mummies.
And they're, they can talkabout, oh, like, this is why
I got this out of this class.
And again, as faculty members, I don'tteach that class, but now I can tell,
(23:46):
you know, that faculty member, studentsare talking about your class and
here's what they're learning about it.
And if it's through their reflectionsor it's in their e portfolio, that
opportunity to engage with that work.
Um, I think is something that isoften missing, um, it's quite a
missed opportunity and somethingthat we're really excited to kind
(24:08):
of weave, um, for students intheir undergraduate experience.
And you know, by how we definedit earlier, that these things are
durable and, you know, transferable.
I bet you that if you were to askthat same thing again, you know,
10 years down the road, I knowit's hard to have these things.
I wish that we can justlike do that, right?
(24:28):
But if you were able to ask like10, 20 years down the road, it would
have been, um, even more pronounced.
It would be more pronounced thatthe student go, I went to college
because I learned how to think.
And I forgot at all together whatsome of the content that I did, you
know, but I learned how to thinkand learn how to solve problems.
I learned how to reflect,I learned how to use these.
(24:51):
And I think that's, you know,probably the even bigger and better
proof that it's hard for us to do.
Um, but you know, I, I bet you thatthat's the case, Tom, you must be
pretty proud when people say, Hey.
Univ Univ 101.
That was, uh, that was it.
That was my, that was the moment.
Do you know, it, sure.
Yeah.
(25:11):
I mean, it, it makes me proud.
I think there's, there's one anecdotein particular that I think I always
go back to and it, and it speaksto your question about are students
better at reflecting and it had,it was the, it was the first year.
that we were launching the new program.
Now, only new students are going to bein this new program, so we still have
(25:33):
to teach out our existing students inthe old General Education curriculum.
And we had a Gen Ed instructor teachingone of our Exploring Perspective classes,
reach out to our instructional supportteam, and say, Wow, I have all of these
students in the new Gen Ed program.
They're so prepared to dothe reflection in my class.
(25:56):
Do you have any strategies I cangive to the students in the old Gen
Ed program to help them catch up?
Because they're not, they're notreflecting at the same level as the
students who have gone through thisclass that has actually systematically.
Engage them in the habitsand skills of reflection.
And I think that, that piece ofevidence, right, anecdotal as it
(26:17):
is, is something that I, I pointto because it's, it's very clear.
Students might not see it in the moment,they might not see the value of it in
the moment, but just the act of doingit every week for an entire semester,
right, it's, It's like if you go fora long walk every day, you might not
(26:38):
notice that you're getting stronger,but like, you're getting stronger.
Um, and, and we, and we do see it,um, in their work, which is, I think,
really, that's, that's the exciting partfor me, is that we can see the actual
growth in And how they're thinking.
And I've heard similar sentimentsfrom other people and actually there's
(27:01):
even one additional piece, which is,but as far as the content, you know,
sometimes that's completely gone.
Even by the second semester, likestudents don't even remember what they
read about or what that was all about.
But it didn't matter becausethat wasn't the point, right?
The point of it was, no, we want you to,we want you to exercise that part of your
(27:24):
brain muscle, which is how do you reflect?
How do you solve problem based onthese, you know, like, how do you come
up with big, bigger, newer questions?
How do you come up withvisions of the world?
And these is the, these are the reflectionbecomes the basic building block.
How you answer all of these things.
Can I tell my C story, Devon?
Yeah.
(27:44):
Okay.
This is my favorite thing.
I, I, I had to take a computer programmingclass as an undergraduate, Jeff.
I hated it.
Absolutely hated it.
I have had no intention ofbeing a computer programmer.
This is 25 plus years ago, right?
That's a long time ago.
I had to learn C
(28:05):
Never used it since.
Two years ago when I wrote about thisstory, I had a like, Google C I'm like, I
don't, is this even the language anymore?
I don't even know ifpeople still use this.
It is.
I've never used it.
But I will tell you, when I sit down toan Excel spreadsheet, and I write like,
super complicated formulas, and peopleare like, how did you learn to do that?
(28:27):
I've never taken a class in Excel.
I took a class in C 25 years ago.
It taught me how tothink like a programmer.
It taught me about computer syntax, about,about computer language, about thinking
about punctuation, and, and that, andso now I can write really complicated
formulas in Excel, not because I took anExcel class, but because I learned it.
(28:52):
how to think like a computerprogrammer 25 years ago.
Um, and that to me is the powerof General Education, right?
Like you, you learn this way ofthinking, the content doesn't matter.
In, in most fields, if they're doingtheir job, the content's going to be
irrelevant in 15, 20 years, right?
(29:13):
But it's the way of thinking, right?
Like I learned to think in thisway and that, that thinking is.
Where all the value is.
It's, it's so crystallized in sortof where you stand in this, in
this, in the, in the pedagogy, andthat you are so willing to put all
(29:34):
that into practice and in scale.
So it's not, I mean, I think I'veseen in a lot of institutions, they're
like, well, we experiment with thisone little group, um, and it does well.
But then there's always a but, butprobably because of that smaller group
of people because they were in thiscollege and they naturally do better.
(29:54):
Um, you know, there's always someexcuse and why it wasn't going to work.
And for University of Arizona to,um, take on this Kind of endeavor,
you know, this reform at this scaleat this level and doing it so, so
progressively to be able to just go,we're going to really, you know, make
this part of part of this and you'reable to see the results, um, like this.
(30:20):
I am just so.
Um, in all, and I, I feel likethere are a lot of institutions who,
hopefully, if any of them are listening,they're, they're probably thinking
about, well, we are going through ourown reform, our own sort of refresh.
Uh, we also have our Gen Ed program for25 years and we hadn't done anything,
(30:40):
and we've been talking about it.
Um, I hope that they can see what youall have done and, and, um, you And, and
store that as a, as a, as a source for, ofhope that that could happen for them too.
And I really think that it's, um, youknow, I, I just came back from a, well,
(31:02):
I didn't just come, I came back, youknow, I went to a Gen Ed conference in,
in October and I feel like there were,you know, Folks that are on the other
side of before the reform or during thereform, you know, or the trying to get
a reform going, um, sometimes they feellike this is never going to happen because
(31:25):
Faculty Senate wasn't going to let usor, um, actually you mentioned earlier
Board of Regents, um, you know, in some ofthose, and then you Some programs in some
states where certain things are bannedand they are having to do these kinds of
reforms with hands tied and, and, and invery restrictive, um, you know, manners.
(31:48):
It makes life very, very difficult.
Um, but I, I think that what you have donehere serves as an amazing example of what.
Can happen, um, if you prioritize it.
Yeah, I, you know, I'll add that I thinkmaintaining the focus on what's in the
interest and response to students, right?
(32:08):
The institutional support thenmakes it actualized, right?
Um, and that also the work thatwe're doing in 101 and 301, having
a common first year seminar focusedon General Education, building.
A General Education e portfolio.
Like these don't exist in a vacuum.
(32:30):
We, we operate on a campus that hastremendous like high impact practices
and meaningful learning experiencesfor many different students.
Um, and I think that recognizing thatthat work is also, like, this isn't the
only ePortfolio a student creates, right?
They're creating ePortfoliosin other Gen Ed classes, right?
(32:53):
And to recognize that experience and tosee that as, well, this is a tremendous
opportunity because now students are,you know, Getting practice with this
way of thinking and engaging in theirlearning so that it isn't the first
time that they're doing somethingbecause we know that then that kind of
practice makes it more easier to recall.
(33:14):
It makes then the depth of theirwork uh, more robust, right?
And, um, I think that also then makes itfeel Everyone has a seat at the table.
Everyone's work can be valued andthat students can engage in multiple
experiences that are meaningful.
(33:36):
And we know contribute to ultimatelytheir learning and their success here.
And I think that that thenmakes it feel like there's more
opportunities to collaborate.
To get buy in and to makethe work more sustainable.
Um, so, you know, I think that that'san opportunity to look for as well.
Um, because one, one solutionisn't going to work for everybody.
(34:01):
There's many different possibilities,um, and, and good work that's happening.
It's just, how do you recognizethat work and, and amplify it so
more students can get connected?
I, I want to, can I plugsomething for you, uh, Devon?
Sure.
I know that you, I know that you and, um,a number of your colleagues had, um, uh,
(34:22):
published a, an article, um, in, um, atthe International Journal of e-portfolio.
Uh, article is named Connecting theDots, utilizing Learning Portfolio in a
large scale General Education curriculum.
And I, um, I.
I find it to be an incredible article.
(34:44):
Um, one of the things that I, uh, reallylove is, is that you said learning
portfolio can act as a constellation,the work of connecting the dots.
And I just think that's so beautifulbecause stars themselves, you know,
each individual star means something.
It's, it's cool, but it's theconstellation that makes meaning.
(35:06):
And, and I, I just love that.
I think that's such a beautifuland poetic, um, illustration
of the work that you're doing.
Congratulations.
Yes.
Yeah.
It was exciting to realize and, um,document for, even for ourselves, right.
Uh, and being able to share thatwork and the, Tremendous effort
(35:27):
of many of our colleagues on thiscampus and, and where we're headed.
So thanks.
Well, you're practicing what you preach.
You're making your own work visiblefirst to yourself, but now to the world.
Um, I think that's, that's lovely.
Um, well, Hey, listen, I am asuch a big fan of both of you.
And I hope you all continue thisamazing work at University of Arizona.
(35:48):
I hope that we get to touch baseagain, maybe in a few years, we're
going to be like, Hey, now we've grownin these other directions as well.
And maybe we can have that, like,Hey, we actually did go and talk
to some students after the graduateand they say, University of 101
It was still the bomb, right?
(36:10):
All right.
Thank you both again for joining us today.
Um, for listeners, if you, uh, wantto learn more about, um, uh, Devon
and Thomas's work, um, I will, um,be, um, posting some links to, you
know, their, their, you know, thegender, gender education program.
I'll post links to that, uh, articlethat I, I just talked about and, uh, any
(36:32):
other links if you guys want to share,we'll, we'll include those as well.
Uh, but, uh, thank you again so muchfor being, um, I really appreciate,
uh, being a leader in this and,and doing such meaningful things.
Especially at this kind of scale,it takes, it takes real courage and,
and, and, uh, and effort and, uh,and, uh, and the hard work you put in
(36:53):
there, you know, is really showing.
And I think that, um, youknow, literally, yeah.
Many, many tens of thousands ofstudents are going to benefit from
this and this is really, you know,one of the most exciting things that
I, I see in, in, in higher education.
So, um, really appreciateeverything that you've done.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.
(37:14):
Okay.
Take care.
Coming up next, we'll be chattingwith Whitney Fountain Ruiz, a recent
graduate of Arizona State University.
Here's a quick preview.
I did try to get him but I wantedhim to understand it is okay.
You make mistakes, but if you make amistake, you can also ask questions
(37:35):
until you, um, get help or findthe answer that you're looking for.
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you'll hearPart Two of my conversation with
Devon Thomas Jones and ThomasMurray from University of Arizona.
Devon and Tom are Course Directorsfor University 301, General
Education ePortfolio, University101, Introduction to the General
(00:22):
Education Experience, respectively.
They are also both AssociateProfessors of Practice at the W.
A.
Franke Honors College in Arizona.
in the Office of General Education.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found On Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on
(00:43):
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
I'm A huge, huge fan of, um, the reformthat's centered around reflection.
I think that, you know, it is clearly,to me, one of those things where
when we, when we earlier on talkedWe're talking about the durable
skills, the transferable skills.
(01:03):
Reflection is probably the,the linchpin that, that, that
puts all of this together.
Um, you know, and, and that, I think,um, Tom, you were saying that for 12
years prior to this professionallyas students, they weren't ever asked
about what they are curious about.
I bet you they weren't being really asked.
Really on reflecting on anything oftheir own experience either, right?
(01:27):
And, and, and it's just such a, it'salmost like one of those things that, um,
Most people in the world won't deny almostnaturally that yeah, it's a good part.
It's an important part of learningyet We don't carve out time and space
in our curriculum in our day to dayTo have students do this reflection
(01:48):
and I don't I don't even think thatis reflection Is that kind of like
some people think of it as well?
There's that to touchy feely thingI'm gonna meditate and and it's not
even that it's you know, we're reallytalking about we're talking about You
You layering your own experience, makingconnections so that you can come up with
a strategy and how to solve a problem.
(02:08):
You know, these are thingsthat scientists do, artists do,
dancers do, you know, nurses do.
Um, you have to do it constantly,every day, all the time.
Um, and so it's one of, it'salmost like, it feels almost like
one of those skills that we justforgot that it was so important.
It's so important, but we forgot about it.
(02:29):
Um, and I think that.
Um, what you are all doing, bringingthat to be such a focus, is incredibly
important work, um, in, in your reform.
I mean, if you want to beexcellent in your field, reflection
is how you do that, right?
I mean, when I was in highschool and I played football,
what did we do every Monday?
We watched a videotape on VHS, uh,videotape of our football game for
(02:54):
that weekend, right, and, and ourcoaches made us look at the, at the,
okay, what, what did you do well?
What did you do poorly?
What do you need to dobetter next time, right?
That is how you get betterat playing football.
That's how you get better at teaching.
Anything.
If you want to be a great engineer, youneed to reflect on the engineering that
you've done and how you make it better.
(03:16):
And I think, I think what, what peopleforget about is that reflection.
Yes.
Is there something about being humanthat makes reflection somewhat natural?
Perhaps, but it's a skill, right?
It's like any other skill.
The more you do it, the moreintentional you are, the more
practice you have, the better you get.
(03:38):
Um, and if you want to be thebest of the best, that's how
you're going to get there.
And that allows our brains then,right, to recall experiences
and apply them in new contexts.
And that's ultimately What we're hopingstudents can do with what they've learned
and spent many years dedicating timeand energy in the classroom to having
(03:59):
these spaces where they can practicethese different skills and apply them
to course specific or case scenarios.
And then when they're out in their fieldsand industries, they're able to better
make those connections and to buildin that time and intentionality around
purposeful reflection and to facilitateis really part of the learning process and
(04:20):
ultimately what students should be ableto take with them so that they can say,
Oh yeah, I actually got something out ofmy degree because now I can see how I've
applied some of the things I've learned.
Um, sometimes I think it's easy toassume that like when we ask students,
right, like what are you curious about?
And to carve out thattime to sit with them.
(04:41):
One feels almost indulgent,right, in a world where there's
so many taps on our time.
Um, and instead, like, that, thatshouldn't be an indulgent activity.
That, that requires work.
And sometimes, sometimes it uncoversthings about ourselves that maybe
we We don't necessarily wantto deal with quite yet, right?
(05:03):
Or sometimes through that process,students come to realize, wow,
I've, maybe I'm picking a degreepath that is not right for me.
And what do I, how do I grapple with that?
Right?
Um, those are tough questions.
Um, and that's, as you mentioned,hard work, uh, to, to work through.
Um, but it's, it shouldn't be indulgent.
It shouldn't, that time shouldn'tbe reserved for the few.
(05:26):
Uh, Like in their like small Liberal Artson the grassy knoll, you know, whatever
this like time of whatever we thoughtcollege was supposed to be like, but
it actually should be embedded and timepreserved in the curriculum because it is
an essential part of the learning process.
(05:47):
Yeah.
I, I love that because I think, Ithink that, um, it's, I mean, you were
saying, That, you know, maybe humansthat naturally have that reflection,
but, but if, but then why are we notmaking that something that we value?
Like from, from, from day one,why aren't we saying, well, yeah,
(06:11):
we are naturally good at this.
Let's harness this.
Um, so we don't do that, um, very wellin, in, in the past and the past has been.
Actually, you're going to figurethat out because you're going
to be naturally good at that.
We are here to transfer a ton ofcontent to your brain and hopefully
you'll, you'll make sense of it allthrough your own reflection, right?
(06:32):
It's, it's, it's kind of, itfeels a lot like, um, Tom, you're
using a sports analogy earlier.
I feel, I feel like it feels a lot likewhen sports science wasn't very advanced.
We just go, well, just go runa ton and then you'll be fast.
And then later on, werealized, hold on a minute.
It turns out there's nutrition,there's sleep, there's, there's
(06:54):
strength, there's agility.
There's a lot more nuance thatwe should be thinking about.
Right.
And so, yes, you still haveto run, you know, to get fast.
You can't, you can't ignore that,but, but, but there is a lot of other.
Things that we do and we can do it smart.
You know, Jeff, I, I love running.
You actually hit a passion of mine.
And I think it's a great example becausemaybe humans find reflection naturally.
(07:19):
Humans are also built to run, right?
Like if you look at, at the historyof humanity, humans are actually
elite long distance runners.
evolutionarily, right?
Like, but you have to practice it, right?
You do, if you don't use that skill,you, it doesn't, you, you lose it.
Um, and so are we built to reflect?
(07:42):
I think we are, but you still have todo it intentionally and thoughtfully
and strategically and, and in asustained way, um, to make it valuable.
Well, you can almosttrain yourself out of it.
If you, if we don't put value on it,that's a danger to, to humanity, right?
I feel like there's a certain aspect of,you know, when we don't train ourselves to
(08:09):
become reflective thinkers, that's when webecome, Easily manipulated, manipulated.
Right?
Others easily being able to not beingable to tell, you know, um, truth from,
you know, things that are not true.
Um, because we're not exercisingthat part of the brain.
(08:31):
Um, and that's, that's a.
That's a dangerous path to go down.
Um, and if we only count on people tojust do it naturally, they'll still
do some of it, but especially ifwe keep telling people that doesn't
matter, you just need to learn this,then they go, well, hold on a minute.
Turns out, even though I'm naturallygood at it, I'm not going to, I'm going
(08:54):
to do, not going to do anything with it.
That's, you know, that's, that'sa, that's a serious problem.
Now I know that.
At University of Arizona, as part ofwhat you've done, um, in this reform,
and actually, Devon, in your course,it's called University, University 301,
(09:14):
and it's about, um, building portfolios.
I have, I've been so lucky tohave been involved with you
all to do your portfolio work.
You know, we just took a small part ofit because you, you use, you know, the
platform to do the work that you do.
Um, but, but the big part of what I'vebeen really, um, always been so, um,
(09:42):
enamored by is your, um, dedicationto making a learning portfolio.
Um, can you Maybe talk about why portfolioand what is a learning portfolio versus
any type, other types of portfolio.
Um, and, and maybe, you know, so thatpeople can get a little bit of that,
(10:06):
little bit of a color of like, well,what does it mean when they have gone
through Uh, UNF 101 and then theytook some articles and come to my
301 class and they do this portfolio.
Why?
And what does that look like?
What does it actuallylook like for a student?
Are they just basically writinga lot more paper or are they
not writing a lot more paper?
What is this?
Yeah.
(10:26):
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks, Jeff.
Um, what I think is particularlyexciting and when I think about what
Uh, makes a learning portfolio standapart from, um, what we consider
maybe more external facing or showcaseportfolios, career portfolios.
There's many different kinds of portfoliosand they all serve different purposes.
(10:47):
Um, and I had a colleague once kindof framed this well for me, um, as
the primary audience member of alearning portfolio is the student.
And that resonates with us and somuch of what we're trying to do is
that the primary audience and themain stakeholder in students learning
and their degree is the student.
(11:08):
So they, that is where theeffort and the work is.
And really the learning happens is thatwhen a, when a student gets a chance to
say this is actually what I've learned,this is what's mattered to me, and this
is what it's going to mean for me movingforward, and really almost in dialogue
(11:29):
with themselves, right, their past self,uh, and their learning, that That's it.
It's quite a profound responsibilityand then gives us a sense of, okay,
now I can actually talk about and seethe connections that maybe I didn't see
before, um, in my undergraduate career.
So, um, I think that's, andthat was a mindset shift.
(11:50):
Two, for me, professionally, right?
And it's something we still, like, whenTom and I meet with folks around campus
and we, we have our little, you know,song and dance we do about the classes.
That's a big, like, myth we have todebunk is what this portfolio is.
And that, um, There's value when, inparticular for some fields and industries
(12:12):
and for some degree programs, right,um, having an external portfolio is
a requirement and an expectation for,for their industry or their career,
and that's not to say that, like, youcan't have more than one, right, or you
wouldn't have more than one portfolio asa part of your undergraduate experience.
That would be, you know, if we wereto think about, we would never tell a
(12:33):
student, to have only one version oftheir resume or to complete one final exam
for their entire undergraduate degree.
Like, that would just serve nopurpose and it has no applicability.
Um, but rather with the, uh.
The Learning ePortfolio.
It's responsive to, again, the call thatwe are responding to with students that
(12:53):
I don't know, I want to be able to sayI know what I learned and what value it
has to offer for my General Education.
And that's what they're prompted to doas a part of this portfolio experience.
And sometimes the What they decideto include, um, may not be the things
that their General Education instructorlike per, you know, necessarily set out
(13:16):
for them as a part of the assignment.
Sometimes the learning that theyuncover through the reflective
process is not necessarily whatthe assignment was designed to do.
Um, and I think that that is, an importantand profound insight when you Realize
something from a learning experiencethat maybe you didn't expect to find um
(13:36):
is one of I think the the key pieces ofa learning portfolio that You wouldn't
necessarily put out into the world,especially if it was something like wow,
I learned that My team really struggled,uh, because of our time management, right?
Like, I wouldn't put that on my LinkedIn,uh, necessarily, you know, but that
would be important for me to understandand then to be able to say, next time
(13:59):
I work on a team, I know I got to bringthese skills to, to that team project.
So maybe that was a long answer, but it'san exciting opportunity for students,
um, to really get to say, this is what Ilearned and this is what matters to me.
And here's how I'm going toapply that learning in my future.
And I think part of that, um, that Devonwas alluding to is this idea of like
(14:23):
using a learning ePortfolio as a spacewhere you can also showcase failure.
And when we're talking about students whoare so often so failure averse, Right?
Like, not ever wanting to, um,kind of put under a microscope the
things that they haven't done well.
(14:44):
Having this space where they can say,wow, I went back and here's a paper I
wrote two years ago in my first year.
And actually, this is not a verygood example of critical thinking,
but this is what I've learned sincethen through these other experiences.
Like, that is, So powerful for students tobe able to more intentionally think about,
(15:07):
um, the things that they maybe haven'tdone as well as they wanted to, because
that's also a part of learning, right?
Is, is being able to,to learn from failure.
I mean, going back to your football gameanalogy, unless you won every single
one of those games, there will be somefailures, and that's where you're going
to have to learn and figure out how to do.
(15:27):
You know, better next time.
And I, one of the, one of the thingsthat I, um, that was, that is, that is
really, um, part of the inception ofDigication as a platform, you know, for
portfolios, it's called make learningvisible, but I love people don't realize
that when we say make learning visible.
(15:49):
Is to make learning visiblefirst and foremost to yourself.
Um, because that is what powers therest of, you know, how do you grow
from that to, you know, potentially,like you said, making it visible for
a potential employer or what have you,and you can edit and you can, you can
curate and you can do, do a versionof it that you make visible for them.
(16:14):
That's appropriate.
That's just being ableto understand audience.
You know, that's, that's, that's a,that's a, that's a simple thing to do.
Um, But the idea that we get tojust see it for ourselves, it almost
feels like you should be able todo it, except that we don't, right?
So if Tom, I'm going to go backto your football game, chess tape.
(16:38):
If no one taped it, right?
If no one taped it and no oneon Monday said, let's sit and
watch how we got our butt kicked.
I was using the case.
Right.
But if no one forced you to do it, noone taped it, no one bothered with it,
because we didn't care that much, right?
(16:58):
Then on Monday, you would, youhave missed one of the most
valuable ways to grow, right?
You would have just go,well, we got our butt kicked.
I'm not sure why.
Everyone just go run another 10 laps.
I'm going to push backon that a little bit.
(17:18):
I think, because there's two thingsthat you mentioned that are important
for the reflection to happen.
One is that somebody videotapedit, and two is that somebody said,
let's watch, let's think aboutthis and think about what happened.
I think the videotape is helpful, butit's not a necessary condition, right?
The necessary condition is thatyou make time for it, right?
That somebody says, sit down andthink about it, because a lot of
(17:42):
reflection happens without an artifact.
I mean, our ePortfolioshave artifacts, right?
But, you know, If you develop the habitsand skills of reflection, you can do that
without necessarily having an artifact,but just thinking about your experience.
So, I mean, I do a lot of, I do a lot ofrunning and when I, after I run a race,
I mean, I'm not racing competitively,believe me, but after I run a race, I
(18:05):
don't have a videotape of that race,but I can still think about like,
okay, how did I manage my nutrition?
What was my mental state?
How did training go leading up to that?
Um, I don't necessarilyhave to have an artifact.
in order for reflection to happen.
Um, the, the necessary conditionis that you make time for it.
Yes, it's make the time and the end andbeing deliberate about like, Hey, you
(18:29):
know, I'm going to actually think, thinkabout something that would have been
painful in particular sometimes, right?
Like it didn't go well, what happened?
Like I have to realize that.
Yeah.
And I think that's what.
distinguishes a learning portfolio from,say, a cloud storage device, right, or a
Google Drive, right, um, is that studentsare oftentimes prompted or, you know,
(18:55):
sometimes are incentivized on their ownto maybe save their work or they have
whatever versions of their past, you know,English papers, um, but in life, right,
as, as competing priorities happen, we,we document, we submit the work, and
then we move on to the next task, right?
And, um, that is often what is alsoincentivized, right, in higher education.
(19:21):
Submit the work, I evaluate it,I determine that you learned the
things I was looking for you to do.
And, What actually makes it a learning,the visibility part, right, the learning
eat portfolio, is that now I actuallyhave to go back and think about this
paper, maybe revisit it again, thinkabout maybe what were the conditions I
(19:43):
was writing this paper in, right, um, andactually maybe the things I got out of
it, and And to reflect in that capacitythat that is something that you wouldn't
necessarily be prompted to engage withif you're just here I am with my drive
and my cloud device and moving on.
Right.
(20:03):
It's kind of like a one, two punch.
You, you can have the experience,but if you don't get to process
that experience afterwards, itjust sits alone as an experience.
And it, it did something, but it didn'tdo its full potential, like to, to really,
you didn't really get most out of it.
You, you got, you got, you get thefirst half, you know, you got the
(20:23):
experience, but that experience did notmean as much as if you had been able to
actually take the time to process it.
And to make meaning out of it and tomake connections in this experiences
comparing to other experiencesthat you also have and layer them.
Um, how do you think, let meask you a little bit about
now that you've done this for,
(20:46):
look, you and, and like you said, yourcolleagues have done this for many
years, but now it's really broughtto the forefront, to a massive scale
to thousands of students per year.
Can we ask, can we talk a little bitabout, so what's the outcome of this?
Like what, what arestudents getting out of it?
You know, and have youseen evidence of it?
(21:07):
You know, like, uh, I think it must be socool, Devon, for you to teach the, the,
the, the, you know, the bookend, the, the,the other end of the bookend class where
you go, well, these students coming outof, um, you know, courses directed by, by
Tom, um, do they come out You know, comingto your class, being more reflective
(21:30):
and, and how so does it, does it show?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think what's been, um, one of the most,I don't know, unexpected benefits, right?
Particularly with teaching 301.
Um, one of, one of the first kind ofreflection questions students are asked
in the first week of the class is, um,what's been kind of the most meaningful
(21:51):
General Education class you've takento date and why, like, why is that?
Why was it meaningful?
What did you get out of it?
And overwhelmingly, you know, there'smany answers to that question.
Students can choose whatever classthey want, but the seems to be the
most popular answer is it was my Introto Gen Ed class, my UNIV 101 class.
And usually the answer is I didn'tsee the value at the time, right?
(22:14):
I didn't see the purpose.
I, and actually now I understand, right?
I learned.
Like how to learn, right?
I learned the value of reflection.
You know, they point to all thesedifferent things that they got out of
the class that at the time they mightnot have seen or really cared much
about because it's their first semester.
(22:35):
It's, there's so many things happeningin your life when you're starting a
new program, you know, and um, That'sa, that's a pretty profound insight,
um, and I think quite powerful thatwe, we don't see otherwise oftentimes
as, as faculty and instructorswhen we teach a one off class.
Um, we see, see the students, we, weinteract with them for a certain period of
(22:59):
time and then we hope that what, you know,the messages that we hope to relay, uh, go
with them and the show up somewhere else.
Um, but it's not often weactually get to see that.
Learning actualized, um, in, in real timeor some time afterwards and I think that
that's one of the most exciting thingsthat I find, um, is that students, um, see
(23:22):
the value and they just might not actuallysee it in the moment, um, they're starting
to recognize it later and so that's notto say every student, right, comes to
that realization or and even sometimesthey point about, About the zombies class
or what, you know, pyramids and mummies.
And they're, they can talkabout, oh, like, this is why
I got this out of this class.
And again, as faculty members, I don'tteach that class, but now I can tell,
(23:46):
you know, that faculty member, studentsare talking about your class and
here's what they're learning about it.
And if it's through their reflectionsor it's in their e portfolio, that
opportunity to engage with that work.
Um, I think is something that isoften missing, um, it's quite a
missed opportunity and somethingthat we're really excited to kind
(24:08):
of weave, um, for students intheir undergraduate experience.
And you know, by how we definedit earlier, that these things are
durable and, you know, transferable.
I bet you that if you were to askthat same thing again, you know,
10 years down the road, I knowit's hard to have these things.
I wish that we can justlike do that, right?
(24:28):
But if you were able to ask like10, 20 years down the road, it would
have been, um, even more pronounced.
It would be more pronounced thatthe student go, I went to college
because I learned how to think.
And I forgot at all together whatsome of the content that I did, you
know, but I learned how to thinkand learn how to solve problems.
I learned how to reflect,I learned how to use these.
(24:51):
And I think that's, you know,probably the even bigger and better
proof that it's hard for us to do.
Um, but you know, I, I bet you thatthat's the case, Tom, you must be
pretty proud when people say, Hey.
Univ Univ 101.
That was, uh, that was it.
That was my, that was the moment.
Do you know, it, sure.
Yeah.
(25:11):
I mean, it, it makes me proud.
I think there's, there's one anecdotein particular that I think I always
go back to and it, and it speaksto your question about are students
better at reflecting and it had,it was the, it was the first year.
that we were launching the new program.
Now, only new students are going to bein this new program, so we still have
(25:33):
to teach out our existing students inthe old General Education curriculum.
And we had a Gen Ed instructor teachingone of our Exploring Perspective classes,
reach out to our instructional supportteam, and say, Wow, I have all of these
students in the new Gen Ed program.
They're so prepared to dothe reflection in my class.
(25:56):
Do you have any strategies I cangive to the students in the old Gen
Ed program to help them catch up?
Because they're not, they're notreflecting at the same level as the
students who have gone through thisclass that has actually systematically.
Engage them in the habitsand skills of reflection.
And I think that, that piece ofevidence, right, anecdotal as it
(26:17):
is, is something that I, I pointto because it's, it's very clear.
Students might not see it in the moment,they might not see the value of it in
the moment, but just the act of doingit every week for an entire semester,
right, it's, It's like if you go fora long walk every day, you might not
(26:38):
notice that you're getting stronger,but like, you're getting stronger.
Um, and, and we, and we do see it,um, in their work, which is, I think,
really, that's, that's the exciting partfor me, is that we can see the actual
growth in And how they're thinking.
And I've heard similar sentimentsfrom other people and actually there's
(27:01):
even one additional piece, which is,but as far as the content, you know,
sometimes that's completely gone.
Even by the second semester, likestudents don't even remember what they
read about or what that was all about.
But it didn't matter becausethat wasn't the point, right?
The point of it was, no, we want you to,we want you to exercise that part of your
(27:24):
brain muscle, which is how do you reflect?
How do you solve problem based onthese, you know, like, how do you come
up with big, bigger, newer questions?
How do you come up withvisions of the world?
And these is the, these are the reflectionbecomes the basic building block.
How you answer all of these things.
Can I tell my C story, Devon?
Yeah.
(27:44):
Okay.
This is my favorite thing.
I, I, I had to take a computer programmingclass as an undergraduate, Jeff.
I hated it.
Absolutely hated it.
I have had no intention ofbeing a computer programmer.
This is 25 plus years ago, right?
That's a long time ago.
I had to learn C
(28:05):
Never used it since.
Two years ago when I wrote about thisstory, I had a like, Google C I'm like, I
don't, is this even the language anymore?
I don't even know ifpeople still use this.
It is.
I've never used it.
But I will tell you, when I sit down toan Excel spreadsheet, and I write like,
super complicated formulas, and peopleare like, how did you learn to do that?
(28:27):
I've never taken a class in Excel.
I took a class in C 25 years ago.
It taught me how tothink like a programmer.
It taught me about computer syntax, about,about computer language, about thinking
about punctuation, and, and that, andso now I can write really complicated
formulas in Excel, not because I took anExcel class, but because I learned it.
(28:52):
how to think like a computerprogrammer 25 years ago.
Um, and that to me is the powerof General Education, right?
Like you, you learn this way ofthinking, the content doesn't matter.
In, in most fields, if they're doingtheir job, the content's going to be
irrelevant in 15, 20 years, right?
(29:13):
But it's the way of thinking, right?
Like I learned to think in thisway and that, that thinking is.
Where all the value is.
It's, it's so crystallized in sortof where you stand in this, in
this, in the, in the pedagogy, andthat you are so willing to put all
(29:34):
that into practice and in scale.
So it's not, I mean, I think I'veseen in a lot of institutions, they're
like, well, we experiment with thisone little group, um, and it does well.
But then there's always a but, butprobably because of that smaller group
of people because they were in thiscollege and they naturally do better.
(29:54):
Um, you know, there's always someexcuse and why it wasn't going to work.
And for University of Arizona to,um, take on this Kind of endeavor,
you know, this reform at this scaleat this level and doing it so, so
progressively to be able to just go,we're going to really, you know, make
this part of part of this and you'reable to see the results, um, like this.
(30:20):
I am just so.
Um, in all, and I, I feel likethere are a lot of institutions who,
hopefully, if any of them are listening,they're, they're probably thinking
about, well, we are going through ourown reform, our own sort of refresh.
Uh, we also have our Gen Ed program for25 years and we hadn't done anything,
(30:40):
and we've been talking about it.
Um, I hope that they can see what youall have done and, and, um, you And, and
store that as a, as a, as a source for, ofhope that that could happen for them too.
And I really think that it's, um, youknow, I, I just came back from a, well,
(31:02):
I didn't just come, I came back, youknow, I went to a Gen Ed conference in,
in October and I feel like there were,you know, Folks that are on the other
side of before the reform or during thereform, you know, or the trying to get
a reform going, um, sometimes they feellike this is never going to happen because
(31:25):
Faculty Senate wasn't going to let usor, um, actually you mentioned earlier
Board of Regents, um, you know, in some ofthose, and then you Some programs in some
states where certain things are bannedand they are having to do these kinds of
reforms with hands tied and, and, and invery restrictive, um, you know, manners.
(31:48):
It makes life very, very difficult.
Um, but I, I think that what you have donehere serves as an amazing example of what.
Can happen, um, if you prioritize it.
Yeah, I, you know, I'll add that I thinkmaintaining the focus on what's in the
interest and response to students, right?
(32:08):
The institutional support thenmakes it actualized, right?
Um, and that also the work thatwe're doing in 101 and 301, having
a common first year seminar focusedon General Education, building.
A General Education e portfolio.
Like these don't exist in a vacuum.
(32:30):
We, we operate on a campus that hastremendous like high impact practices
and meaningful learning experiencesfor many different students.
Um, and I think that recognizing thatthat work is also, like, this isn't the
only ePortfolio a student creates, right?
They're creating ePortfoliosin other Gen Ed classes, right?
(32:53):
And to recognize that experience and tosee that as, well, this is a tremendous
opportunity because now students are,you know, Getting practice with this
way of thinking and engaging in theirlearning so that it isn't the first
time that they're doing somethingbecause we know that then that kind of
practice makes it more easier to recall.
(33:14):
It makes then the depth of theirwork uh, more robust, right?
And, um, I think that also then makes itfeel Everyone has a seat at the table.
Everyone's work can be valued andthat students can engage in multiple
experiences that are meaningful.
(33:36):
And we know contribute to ultimatelytheir learning and their success here.
And I think that that thenmakes it feel like there's more
opportunities to collaborate.
To get buy in and to makethe work more sustainable.
Um, so, you know, I think that that'san opportunity to look for as well.
Um, because one, one solutionisn't going to work for everybody.
(34:01):
There's many different possibilities,um, and, and good work that's happening.
It's just, how do you recognizethat work and, and amplify it so
more students can get connected?
I, I want to, can I plugsomething for you, uh, Devon?
Sure.
I know that you, I know that you and, um,a number of your colleagues had, um, uh,
(34:22):
published a, an article, um, in, um, atthe International Journal of e-portfolio.
Uh, article is named Connecting theDots, utilizing Learning Portfolio in a
large scale General Education curriculum.
And I, um, I.
I find it to be an incredible article.
(34:44):
Um, one of the things that I, uh, reallylove is, is that you said learning
portfolio can act as a constellation,the work of connecting the dots.
And I just think that's so beautifulbecause stars themselves, you know,
each individual star means something.
It's, it's cool, but it's theconstellation that makes meaning.
(35:06):
And, and I, I just love that.
I think that's such a beautifuland poetic, um, illustration
of the work that you're doing.
Congratulations.
Yes.
Yeah.
It was exciting to realize and, um,document for, even for ourselves, right.
Uh, and being able to share thatwork and the, Tremendous effort
(35:27):
of many of our colleagues on thiscampus and, and where we're headed.
So thanks.
Well, you're practicing what you preach.
You're making your own work visiblefirst to yourself, but now to the world.
Um, I think that's, that's lovely.
Um, well, Hey, listen, I am asuch a big fan of both of you.
And I hope you all continue thisamazing work at University of Arizona.
(35:48):
I hope that we get to touch baseagain, maybe in a few years, we're
going to be like, Hey, now we've grownin these other directions as well.
And maybe we can have that, like,Hey, we actually did go and talk
to some students after the graduateand they say, University of 101
It was still the bomb, right?
(36:10):
All right.
Thank you both again for joining us today.
Um, for listeners, if you, uh, wantto learn more about, um, uh, Devon
and Thomas's work, um, I will, um,be, um, posting some links to, you
know, their, their, you know, thegender, gender education program.
I'll post links to that, uh, articlethat I, I just talked about and, uh, any
(36:32):
other links if you guys want to share,we'll, we'll include those as well.
Uh, but, uh, thank you again so muchfor being, um, I really appreciate,
uh, being a leader in this and,and doing such meaningful things.
Especially at this kind of scale,it takes, it takes real courage and,
and, and, uh, and effort and, uh,and, uh, and the hard work you put in
(36:53):
there, you know, is really showing.
And I think that, um, youknow, literally, yeah.
Many, many tens of thousands ofstudents are going to benefit from
this and this is really, you know,one of the most exciting things that
I, I see in, in, in higher education.
So, um, really appreciateeverything that you've done.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.
(37:14):
Okay.
Take care.
Coming up next, we'll be chattingwith Whitney Fountain Ruiz, a recent
graduate of Arizona State University.
Here's a quick preview.
I did try to get him but I wantedhim to understand it is okay.
You make mistakes, but if you make amistake, you can also ask questions
(37:35):
until you, um, get help or findthe answer that you're looking for.
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