August 21, 2024 • 27 mins
Dr. Shelley Reid returns for a follow-up conversation about how we create a classroom that supports all students – and the instructors – to create an environment of educational success through policies, procedures, assessment, and more.
Reality, equity, equality, and justice figure: https://www.bu.edu/diversity/resource-toolkit/inequity-equality-equity-and-justice/
Stearns Center resource – Designing for Flexibility: https://stearnscenter.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/21-Course-Design-Flexibility-ALL-Policies.pdf
Stearns Center Face-to-Face and/or Hybrid Teaching Resources (see Course Design & Organization Basics section for Life Happens Pass): https://stearnscenter.gmu.edu/knowledge-center/hybrid-teaching-resources/
Fast Learner/Slow Learner news article: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2023/march/the-myth-of-the-fast-learner
Fast/Learner Slow Learner original research article: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120
Example Exam Wrapper from the American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/topss/teaching-resources/exam-wrapper.pdf
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Episode Transcript
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Rachel (00:07):
Welcome to Keystone Concepts in Teaching, a higher
education podcast from theStearns Center for Teaching and
Learning, where we shareimpactful and evidence based
teaching practices to supportall students and faculty.
I'm your host, Rachel Yoho.
In this episode, I'm joinedagain by Dr.
Shelley Reid, the ExecutiveDirector of Engaged Teaching at
the Stearns Center for Teachingand Learning.
Shelley (00:30):
Thanks, Rachel.
It's great to be back andtalking with you again.
Rachel (00:34):
In our previous episode, we talked about active learning
and engaged teaching, as well assome teaching techniques to
support all students.
In this episode, we'll dive abit more into how to teach to
support all students, as well asthe instructors, and focus also
on aligning with universityinitiatives.
So when we're starting ourconversation today, we want to
(00:55):
talk a little bit about equityand equality.
These are often
incorrectly
used interchangeably.
So when we're talking aboutequity, we're really talking
about two things here (01:04):
fairness and justice, particularly in the
practices and policies that areensuring all campus community
members can thrive.
So this might be applied in theclassroom, in policies, and
practices that we're doing tosupport our students and help
our classes continue throughoutthe semester.
(01:25):
And so when we're talking aboutequity, equity and equality are
actually different thingsbecause equality implies that
we're treating everyone as iftheir experiences are exactly
the same, that they're cominginto the learning environment
from exactly the same ways, andthey're having all of the same
experiences.
And so when we're talking aboutequity and equality in teaching
(01:45):
and learning, what might some ofthe topics we want to start
thinking about, Shelley?
Shelley (01:49):
So I really like the way you set this up, and part of
what we talked about earlier isthat inclusive teaching has to
do with recognizing the nearlyinfinite ways that a group of
students can be diverse in theiridentities, their situations,
and also their preparation orresources for any given learning
situation.
You know, Faculty often say tome,"You know, the hardest part
(02:09):
about teaching my class is thestudents are all over the place
in what they know and how readythey are to do the work." And I
often say back,"You know, Ithink that's actually the
hardest part of teaching ingeneral." There might be like
this mythical class out therewhere all the students are
equally prepared and equallyenergetic and ready to show up
(02:31):
at exactly the same day.
But I've never seen that class.
Rachel (02:35):
I haven't seen it either.
I imagine it probably doesn'texist.
Shelley (02:40):
I think it's a myth, but I also think that that's for
me the most fascinatingchallenge.
It's what keeps me coming backto the work of teaching.
If it were easy, everybody woulddo it, right?
So, I think we can meet the ideaof giving equal treatment by
pitching our class somewhere atthat middle level of
preparation, keyed to theaverage student, and then
(03:01):
saying, everyone has the sameassignment and the same criteria
and the same deadline, so I'vedone my best.
But as you say, Rachel, thatgets us equality, but maybe not
equity.
And so I think we can ask,"Arethere ways that I can still hold
high standards, but I canconsider how to enable the most
learning for the most possiblestudents?" And that's really how
(03:24):
I see equity.
The path that enables the mostlearning for the most people.
Rachel (03:29):
That sounds like a great goal, but honestly, it seems
like another tricky balance in aplace where instructors are
balancing a lot of values, oftheir own values:"Well, I want
to do this, I want to do this inthis other way." So really
looking at consistency andflexibility.
So can you expand a little bitand give us some examples of
maybe how we can do that?
Shelley (03:50):
Sure, so we might look at a couple of different places
where this shows up.
So, for instance, we could lookat course policies like a due
date for an assignment.
Contrary to what we tellstudents, not all deadlines in
the real world are firm.
Lots of them are sliding scaledeadlines, and that means that,
(04:11):
you know, some people can getextensions, and some extensions
have more consequences, but someextensions have fewer
consequences.
I think it helps us to ask,"Would using a different
deadline policy enable morepeople to learn without either
limiting other students orsabotaging my ability to stay
(04:31):
organized and keep themlearning?"
Rachel (04:34):
Yeah, absolutely, because when we're thinking
about some deadlines, I mean,some of those deadlines are
important to us for ourworkload.
They're important for thestudents for scaffolding their
learning.
And sometimes deadlines are,like you said, more or less
flexible.
So I know if I submit a grant tothe National Science Foundation
late, they're not going toreview it.
But other things in life aren'tquite as firm, perhaps.
(04:56):
So how do we balance that?
Shelley (04:59):
Right.
And so I think that we want tokeep thinking about how those
balancing acts work.
And maybe we can talk a littlebit later about how that works
with particular late workpolicies.
I think those same kinds ofquestions come up as we start to
look at the way we structure orthe way we give out steps to an
assignment.
And we can wonder, is givingstudents more topic choices or
(05:22):
more ways to complete theassignment, is that going to
help show what they've learned?
Is that going to help motivatethem or help them feel that it's
relevant or connected to the wayreal world experiences really
happen?
Sometimes it makes sense toprovide just one way to do one
assignment for everybody, butwhat if changing the assignment
(05:44):
would enable more students tohave and to show more learning?
And I think a third space wherethis comes into play is thinking
about grading, right?
It's another space where we'retrying to think about being as
fair as possible.
So if we have an assignment andit's worth 30 or 40 percent of
students grades, we might wonderwhat happens if this assignment
(06:05):
comes during a week whereseveral students are struggling
with life factors beyond theircontrol.
And so maybe they struggle orfail at that assignment even
though they might actually havethe knowledge or skills.
And so again, there aren't a lotof real world professional
situations where we succeed orfail based on a single day's or
(06:25):
a single hour's performance.
So I think we can ask, didhaving one high stakes
assignment for a group of verydiverse students living very
diverse lives, did that enablemore learning to happen?
And did it reveal all thelearning that did happen?
Or is there something that wecan adjust and still find a way
to balance the needs of allstudents and our own workload?
Rachel (06:48):
So again, what we're really looking at here is how we
have some structure and somechallenge and how having those
are a good thing, but really nottrying to create unnecessary
barriers to learning, right?
Shelley (06:59):
Yep, exactly.
Rachel (07:01):
Yeah, so that matches really well with one of my
favorite images illustrating thedifferences between some of
these key terms.
For instance, like equality andjustice.
So in this figure that we'lllink in the show notes, we see
three people trying to watch abaseball game over a fence, and
the three people are ofdifferent heights.
And in reality, one of them'sstanding on a bunch of boxes.
(07:24):
We can't even see the personthere anymore.
And one of them is standing onone box to see over the fence,
and one can't see over the fenceat all.
So when we think about equality,we're giving everyone the same
number of boxes, and so two ofthem can see over the fence
because of their heights, andone of them still cannot.
And then if we continue thatout, we think about applying
equity in this, in this space,we're giving people the exact
(07:48):
number of boxes that they needto be able to see the baseball
game.
So we see one person standing ontwo boxes, one of them doesn't
need a box at all.
And so now they can all see thegame, which is great.
But then we can also thinkabout, if we think about justice
in this space, is reallythinking about these systemic
barriers.
What is the barrier here that'screating this?
(08:09):
And in this case, it's thefence.
So we don't need any boxes atall if we just take away that
fence.
And so when we're thinking aboutthis, we often hear about
instructors trying to be fair intheir policies and practices in
the classroom.
And it's really quite astruggle.
It's an ongoing conversationthat I have with a lot of people
of, well,"What is fairness?
(08:30):
I want to, I want to be fairhere," or"I want to be, you
know, equal or equitable." Andso Shelley, what do you consider
to be some of the considerationsfor instructors about creating
overall fairness?
Or basically consideringequality and equity in the
classroom?
Shelley (08:47):
I think it's a really interesting question, and
there's never going to be asingle answer, but I think that
the equity equality balance mapsonto some really interesting
conversations about distributiveand procedural fairness.
And so fairness can be what getscalled procedural.
That's the same policy foreveryone.
(09:08):
This has an advantage of beingreally straightforward.
We go back to that idea of a duedate.
If an assignment is due on the22nd of the month, everyone
knows the expectation, andeveryone's asked to complete the
task in the same number ofcalendar days.
It's equal, it's the same, butfairness can also be
distributed, adapted so thateveryone has a fair result,
(09:31):
which is an approach that alignsmore with that idea of equity.
So if you've ever given anextension to a student who had a
documented health crisis, you'veacknowledged that there are some
cases where giving the samedeadline to everyone It isn't
really fair, but that kind ofone at a time justice can bring
about a lot of stress in tryingto determine fairness on a case
(09:54):
by case by case basis.
It's stress for the student,it's stress for the faculty
member, it's not always clear tothe rest of students what's
going on, and it can requirestudents to have to reveal more
about their personal lives thanthey might want to do in a
learning situation.
Rachel (10:10):
Yeah, that's a great point and what, what students
feel compelled to share indifferent situations.
We also see sometimesinstructors going all the way
the other direction, that theysay they throw out all of the,
the deadlines or, orexpectations or all of these
things.
So we're really looking at awhole spectrum here.
So Shelley, how do we negotiatethis without just giving up on
(10:32):
any kind of common expectation?
Shelley (10:34):
That's a great question.
One approach I've been using isa kind of standardized
flexibility.
So in my case, one of the thingsthat I use, I call a Life
Happens pass because we knowlife just happens sometimes.
And in my class, this is anautomatic, no questions asked
extension.
Depending on the class, it mightbe for 48 hours, or it might be
(10:56):
for 3 or 4 calendar days.
So, I often give my English 101first year students two 48 hour
Life Happens passes for thesemester.
I see this as inclusive becauseof all the reasons that somebody
might be running late, all ofthose are included.
So that might be family issues,it might be illness, it might be
(11:18):
workload overwhelm, it might bestudents who just need a little
bit more time to master aconcept.
It can even be just a bad hairday and everybody has access to
that.
They're making their owndecisions within this area that
I've set out.
But it's also a reallymanageable process.
Two or three days, catches thevast majority of student level
(11:41):
needs for more time.
It allows everybody to do alittle bit of an adjustment if
they need it.
But it doesn't usually disruptmy grading schedule very much.
I don't usually sit down rightthe moment all those essays come
in and start grading all ofthem.
And, it doesn't put very manypeople too far behind in the
class.
And so being able to schedulethat as a policy helps me manage
(12:06):
both the equality and the equitythat I'm aiming for.
Rachel (12:11):
So this also sounds like it's, it's not just about the
students, it's about everyone inthe space.
So it's about the instructors aswell.
So not only managing theirworkload, but also looking at
workload in terms of how manymaybe emails you're getting,
asking for individual extensionsand things like that.
So there's a lot of maybe morebroad inclusion going on here in
(12:32):
the space.
Shelley (12:33):
I think absolutely, and in fact, I have to say that I
started this policy in part,entirely for selfish reasons.
I just found it a real struggleto have to determine which
version of a student's situationwas worthy of an extension and
which one wasn't.
And there's a lot about studentlives that even if they want to
(12:53):
tell me, I don't, in fact, needto know.
I don't need to have aforescreen email explaining that
they need 24 hours.
I just need a one line thatsays,"I'm using my life happens
past this date, Professor Reid."And I say,"Great, we're good,"
moving on.
Rachel (13:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that's where a lotof instructors get a little, a
little bit stuck, what you weretalking about there in
worthiness.
You know, what's worthy of theextension.
It sounds like a great policy, agreat approach.
Really, you're exploringdifferent kinds of fairness,
then fairness in a standardpolicy and fairness of enabling
students to succeed, even whenthey don't all have the same
(13:29):
resources.
And so it kind of makes me thinkabout other maybe different
scales.
And so I wonder if that approachwould work at a larger, you
know, course wide level.
So if we're thinking aboutcourses as a whole, for
instance, we often hear aboutwhat are called like weed out
courses or gateway classes intoa specific discipline where the
(13:50):
sentiment is really just seeingwho survives, making it as
challenging as possible, makingit as obstacle filled as
possible, if you will, andseeing who's still there, who's
getting a decent grade at theend of the semester.
So how do we shift theconversation or focus then into,
instead of these maybe weed outcourses, but into more
(14:11):
responsibly enabling learning?
Shelley (14:15):
You know, there's a really nifty 2023 study by
researchers at Carnegie Mellon,and it documents that at least
in some areas of learning, theidea that there are fast
learners and slow learners mightbe a myth.
And in the study, the studentswere provided instruction and
then asked to work problems inmath and science and languages.
(14:36):
They got feedback on how wellthey did and then option to keep
trying again until they passed.
Although individual students haddifferent initial rates of
success, so say one studentscored 55 percent correct on a
quiz, and another scored 75percent on the same quiz.
The students tended to improvetheir accuracy at the same rate.
(15:00):
So each student got about 2.
5 percent more accurate eachtime they took the quiz.
So it didn't matter, the 55percent student wasn't a slower
learner, they just came in withless knowledge.
And so if all students arecapable of getting better at a
similar rate, then oneimplication of this study is
(15:20):
that a weed out approach to acourse isn't really separating
good or smart students from pooror incapable students, that
these courses separate lessprepared students from more
prepared students.
And they may also cut outstudents who are having a bad
week or a bad month, or who arefacing other barriers to
(15:40):
successful schoolwork.
Rachel (15:43):
That's really an interesting study.
And so one of the things that itmakes me think about is in some
of these professions that are,or disciplines that are more
known for having these weed outcourses, for instance, the STEM
fields, but certainly not onlythe STEM fields, that we're
really just looking atperpetuating who's in the
profession based on who'salready a little bit more
prepared coming in.
(16:03):
And so can we avoid justmaintaining the unequal
experiences that students havehad?
Shelley (16:11):
I think that's a key focus for people in higher
education right now.
We can't go back 12 years andfix what happened to students
before they got to us.
But I think, you know, whileit's true that while sometimes
students poor performance ismaybe related to their effort or
to their commitment, for me it'sgame changing to enter a class
(16:31):
knowing that with support andtime, every student in the room
could fully succeed at learningthe material.
And so maybe it's not that thereare C students because of their
intelligence or their capabilityor even their dedication, but
that there are C studentsbecause of poorer prior learning
experiences.
(16:52):
And that shifts the challengeback to me.
What if there's a C student thatI think of based on the results
of the first exam or the firstassignment who could be super
successful in the professionwith just a little extra help?
And it helps me start to think,what can I do, still given my
time and my resources, to helpmore students reach a little bit
(17:13):
more of their potential?
Rachel (17:16):
That's a great point, but it also sounds a little bit
overwhelming.
It sounds like, you know, Ican't make an individual course
for all 75 or all 300 of mystudents in the class, right?
I mean, if it's shifting a lotof that over to the instructor,
we see some potential workloadissues there.
We see some potential concernsthere of individualizing to a
(17:37):
really huge extent that mightnot be scalable.
So how do we, how do we navigatethat as an instructor?
Shelley (17:45):
Absolutely, we don't want to take all of the burden
of learning and put it back onthe instructor's shoulders.
This is still a partnershipbetween the instructor and the
students.
But I can use some lowinvestment strategies on my part
that are designed to help allstudents.
So, let's imagine an exam ormaybe another kind of major
assignment.
(18:05):
And I can talk about kind ofthree parts where I might be
able to provide a little bit ofextra support for a lot of
students without putting a lotof burden on my own shoulders.
So first, leading up to theexam, I can take 15 or 20
minutes of class time to coachstudents about study skills, or
if it's an assignment, we canwork together on one of the
(18:26):
preparatory steps.
What we know from research aboutstudents is that the skills that
most of them think are usefulfor studying for exam, like
rereading the highlighted partsof their textbook, or going over
their notes, those aren't nearlyas helpful as the more active
strategies that research showsreally help aid memory and
(18:46):
comprehension, like making andusing flashcards, predicting and
answering sample questions, oreven writing out their own study
guide.
And so right around the exam, Ican take another approach.
I can use what's called an examwrapper technique.
That's wrapper with a W, notwrapper with an R.
I can ask students to start theexam by answering a few
(19:08):
questions about how they studiedand what they think they know
best or know least well.
And that puts them back in thatframe of mind of owning this.
Because then I can come back atthe end of the exam, this is how
it wraps around the exam, and Ican ask them to identify what
actually went well and what theycould try differently next time
(19:28):
based on the results.
And this helps foreground thatwhole arc of learning.
So it's not just the exam.
It's how you study for it.
It's how you prepare for it.
And simply by making thatvisible to students, I'm
engaging them in that process.
So finally then after the exam,maybe I could reach out
personally to invite, say, the10 percent of students who
(19:49):
struggled the most to come intooffice hours if they want some
more strategies or help.
Now, they should do this just ontheir own, but we know that
students still are a littlefreaked out by instructor office
hours.
They're not quite sure why theywould go.
They're pretty sure they don'twant to feel ashamed of their
performance.
And so, giving out theinvitation here is a great way
(20:11):
to help them is a strategythat's inclusive.
Now I don't want to writepersonalized emails to 75 or 150
students but I could write thesame kind of email and
personalize just the start andfinish of that for 15 or 20
students just to see if I canput some time or energy right
where that's going to be mosthelpful.
Sometimes I hear faculty saythese kinds of efforts feel like
(20:32):
they're giving out too much helpto the students or maybe you
know,"That's not really my job,"but when my job is not only to
deliver the content, but toenable the most learning, these
kinds of steps createopportunities for students to
gain the knowledge, confidence,habits, and skills that they
need to succeed.
Rachel (20:52):
That's great.
Thanks, Shelley.
I mean, these are some greatstrategies that we can consider
and really think about what'sscalable, what applies, what
works for our individualcourses.
And so since there's not one,say, template on how to teach,
and not every strategy isperfectly scalable, how might
instructors go about consideringdifferent things like
(21:14):
enrollments or other factors orinfluences, like, for instance,
teaching one section of a multisection course?
Shelley (21:24):
Right.
So now we're back to thinkingabout those multiple kinds of
fairness and balancing all thediverse preparation of students
with that need to have thatmanageable workload without a
wild hodgepodge of policies andtimelines that really nobody can
keep track of.
So, in a small graduate course,I might be able to help five or
six of my master's students eachcreate a timeline of due dates
(21:45):
that makes sense for their finalproject.
And that makes sense to mebecause they're on their way to
being independent learners, andwith a small class, I can adapt
to allowing that much variance.
In a large enrollmentintroductory course, though, I
can't give five or six differentfinal exams, and that wouldn't
really help novice learners ifthey were all over the place,
(22:06):
right?
Rachel (22:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
That seems like we're, we'rereally thinking critically there
about what's working not onlyfor us as instructors, but also
for our students as learners,and even just the logistics of
the, the enrollments there.
Shelley (22:21):
Yeah, so, but I can still consider a course design,
even in that undergraduatecourse that balances that high
stakes final exam with a fewmore shorter mini exams or
quizzes, so that there isn'tjust one big cliff that students
might fall over if they'rehaving a bad day, and grading
several shorter exams or quizzesshouldn't take me more time than
(22:45):
grading one great big huge one.
And so I can figure out how tobalance that time out.
I'm investing my time in shorterbursts, but I'm really trying
hard not to invest a lot moretime overall.
Or maybe if I'm teaching onesection of a course and I don't
have any control over the examor assignment structure, I might
(23:05):
still be able to change the waysI help students prepare for the
exam or an assignment.
Let me give you an example ofthat.
Several years ago I taught twodiscussion sections of a 300
person course.
And all of the final grading wasset and common across all 300
students, except I had 15percent of the grade that I
(23:27):
could use for my discussionsection.
And a lot of my colleagues usedthat 15 percent for a single,
long essay assignment.
And that was pretty typical.
Instead, I broke my 15 percentinto five 1 percent weekly tasks
that I quickly graded, complete,incomplete.
And then 5 percent for studentswho participated in writing a
(23:49):
short draft early and peerreviewing it.
Again, with a lot of some reallyquick feedback, but not
extensive grading for me.
And then 5 percent for aslightly shorter essay.
So, my students grumbled alittle bit about having all the
extra work assigned to them andthree points for this and two
points for that.
(24:09):
But I could sit down and explainto them why what I was doing was
giving them credit for theusually invisible uncredited
work they should already bedoing.
And so it's helping them buildbetter habits and supporting
their success.
In the end, I didn't have tograde 25 long projects, and I
enabled more learning for morestudents, and the students still
(24:30):
showed me that they could writeinterestingly about our class
questions.
Rachel (24:35):
That sounds great, Shelley.
It sounds like it was a greatapproach for you and the
students once they, they maybeunderstood the approach there,
even with that thinking it wasextra work, for instance, or
more work than their, theircolleagues were having in other
sections.
So with this, I, you know, Iappreciate your time.
And as we wrap up for today, Iwas wondering if you could just
(24:58):
kind of give us a little bit ofrecap here.
So how does this conversationrepresent a keystone concept in
teaching to you?
Shelley (25:07):
So, any discussion of fairness seems to me to connect
really strongly to assessment.
That's really where the rubberhits the road, where we feel
somebody has treated us withrespect and with fairness, or we
feel that that hasn't happened.
A key concept for doingassessment well is to be assured
that you're assessing studentson the most important learning.
So, if being exactly on time, orgetting something right on the
(25:31):
first try, from memory, with nohelp, is the most important
learning, and maybe for like anemergency room nurse, it's
absolutely important that thathappens, then we want to measure
that.
But often professionals in afield succeed in projects or
tasks that they have by tryingit a couple of times, by having
(25:54):
multiple tasks, by performing inmultiple areas of their
workspace.
And even more importantly to me,in a learning situation, even
those ER nurses need some safespaces to try things out, to
struggle with it, and maybe evenfail, where it's not a life or
death situation.
So when we're learning, creatingspaces for that opportunity to
(26:18):
try, to be flexible, toexperiment in ways that balance
out with what the students aredoing and the instructor's own
workload are really important.
That's why I like the idea ofthat standardized flexibility,
along with supporting studentsin achieving the goals that I've
set for them, as a way of havingthat teaching that I'm doing be
(26:40):
inclusive and fair, and justsuccessful for as many learners
as possible.
Rachel (26:46):
That's great, Shelley.
And we see not only so muchsuccess for, like you said, as
many learners as possible, butfor as many instructors as
possible.
You know, a lot of the thingsthat we're doing that are good
for our students are also greatfor us as instructors.
So I really appreciate yourtime.
You know, thank you for yourinput and your expertise and
joining us for thisconversation.
(27:07):
And I look forward to connectingwith you again in the future.
Shelley (27:11):
Thanks, Rachel.
Rachel (27:13):
Please join us for our next episode where Dr.
Crystal Anderson from theStearns Center for Teaching and
Learning joins us to talk aboutactionable and practical
strategies of teaching foreverybody.
Welcome to Keystone Concepts in Teaching, a higher
education podcast from theStearns Center for Teaching and
Learning, where we shareimpactful and evidence based
teaching practices to supportall students and faculty.
I'm your host, Rachel Yoho.
In this episode, I'm joinedagain by Dr.
Shelley Reid, the ExecutiveDirector of Engaged Teaching at
the Stearns Center for Teachingand Learning.
Shelley (00:30):
Thanks, Rachel.
It's great to be back andtalking with you again.
Rachel (00:34):
In our previous episode, we talked about active learning
and engaged teaching, as well assome teaching techniques to
support all students.
In this episode, we'll dive abit more into how to teach to
support all students, as well asthe instructors, and focus also
on aligning with universityinitiatives.
So when we're starting ourconversation today, we want to
(00:55):
talk a little bit about equityand equality.
These are often
incorrectly
used interchangeably.
So when we're talking aboutequity, we're really talking
about two things here (01:04):
fairness and justice, particularly in the
practices and policies that areensuring all campus community
members can thrive.
So this might be applied in theclassroom, in policies, and
practices that we're doing tosupport our students and help
our classes continue throughoutthe semester.
(01:25):
And so when we're talking aboutequity, equity and equality are
actually different thingsbecause equality implies that
we're treating everyone as iftheir experiences are exactly
the same, that they're cominginto the learning environment
from exactly the same ways, andthey're having all of the same
experiences.
And so when we're talking aboutequity and equality in teaching
(01:45):
and learning, what might some ofthe topics we want to start
thinking about, Shelley?
Shelley (01:49):
So I really like the way you set this up, and part of
what we talked about earlier isthat inclusive teaching has to
do with recognizing the nearlyinfinite ways that a group of
students can be diverse in theiridentities, their situations,
and also their preparation orresources for any given learning
situation.
You know, Faculty often say tome,"You know, the hardest part
(02:09):
about teaching my class is thestudents are all over the place
in what they know and how readythey are to do the work." And I
often say back,"You know, Ithink that's actually the
hardest part of teaching ingeneral." There might be like
this mythical class out therewhere all the students are
equally prepared and equallyenergetic and ready to show up
(02:31):
at exactly the same day.
But I've never seen that class.
Rachel (02:35):
I haven't seen it either.
I imagine it probably doesn'texist.
Shelley (02:40):
I think it's a myth, but I also think that that's for
me the most fascinatingchallenge.
It's what keeps me coming backto the work of teaching.
If it were easy, everybody woulddo it, right?
So, I think we can meet the ideaof giving equal treatment by
pitching our class somewhere atthat middle level of
preparation, keyed to theaverage student, and then
(03:01):
saying, everyone has the sameassignment and the same criteria
and the same deadline, so I'vedone my best.
But as you say, Rachel, thatgets us equality, but maybe not
equity.
And so I think we can ask,"Arethere ways that I can still hold
high standards, but I canconsider how to enable the most
learning for the most possiblestudents?" And that's really how
(03:24):
I see equity.
The path that enables the mostlearning for the most people.
Rachel (03:29):
That sounds like a great goal, but honestly, it seems
like another tricky balance in aplace where instructors are
balancing a lot of values, oftheir own values:"Well, I want
to do this, I want to do this inthis other way." So really
looking at consistency andflexibility.
So can you expand a little bitand give us some examples of
maybe how we can do that?
Shelley (03:50):
Sure, so we might look at a couple of different places
where this shows up.
So, for instance, we could lookat course policies like a due
date for an assignment.
Contrary to what we tellstudents, not all deadlines in
the real world are firm.
Lots of them are sliding scaledeadlines, and that means that,
(04:11):
you know, some people can getextensions, and some extensions
have more consequences, but someextensions have fewer
consequences.
I think it helps us to ask,"Would using a different
deadline policy enable morepeople to learn without either
limiting other students orsabotaging my ability to stay
(04:31):
organized and keep themlearning?"
Rachel (04:34):
Yeah, absolutely, because when we're thinking
about some deadlines, I mean,some of those deadlines are
important to us for ourworkload.
They're important for thestudents for scaffolding their
learning.
And sometimes deadlines are,like you said, more or less
flexible.
So I know if I submit a grant tothe National Science Foundation
late, they're not going toreview it.
But other things in life aren'tquite as firm, perhaps.
(04:56):
So how do we balance that?
Shelley (04:59):
Right.
And so I think that we want tokeep thinking about how those
balancing acts work.
And maybe we can talk a littlebit later about how that works
with particular late workpolicies.
I think those same kinds ofquestions come up as we start to
look at the way we structure orthe way we give out steps to an
assignment.
And we can wonder, is givingstudents more topic choices or
(05:22):
more ways to complete theassignment, is that going to
help show what they've learned?
Is that going to help motivatethem or help them feel that it's
relevant or connected to the wayreal world experiences really
happen?
Sometimes it makes sense toprovide just one way to do one
assignment for everybody, butwhat if changing the assignment
(05:44):
would enable more students tohave and to show more learning?
And I think a third space wherethis comes into play is thinking
about grading, right?
It's another space where we'retrying to think about being as
fair as possible.
So if we have an assignment andit's worth 30 or 40 percent of
students grades, we might wonderwhat happens if this assignment
(06:05):
comes during a week whereseveral students are struggling
with life factors beyond theircontrol.
And so maybe they struggle orfail at that assignment even
though they might actually havethe knowledge or skills.
And so again, there aren't a lotof real world professional
situations where we succeed orfail based on a single day's or
(06:25):
a single hour's performance.
So I think we can ask, didhaving one high stakes
assignment for a group of verydiverse students living very
diverse lives, did that enablemore learning to happen?
And did it reveal all thelearning that did happen?
Or is there something that wecan adjust and still find a way
to balance the needs of allstudents and our own workload?
Rachel (06:48):
So again, what we're really looking at here is how we
have some structure and somechallenge and how having those
are a good thing, but really nottrying to create unnecessary
barriers to learning, right?
Shelley (06:59):
Yep, exactly.
Rachel (07:01):
Yeah, so that matches really well with one of my
favorite images illustrating thedifferences between some of
these key terms.
For instance, like equality andjustice.
So in this figure that we'lllink in the show notes, we see
three people trying to watch abaseball game over a fence, and
the three people are ofdifferent heights.
And in reality, one of them'sstanding on a bunch of boxes.
(07:24):
We can't even see the personthere anymore.
And one of them is standing onone box to see over the fence,
and one can't see over the fenceat all.
So when we think about equality,we're giving everyone the same
number of boxes, and so two ofthem can see over the fence
because of their heights, andone of them still cannot.
And then if we continue thatout, we think about applying
equity in this, in this space,we're giving people the exact
(07:48):
number of boxes that they needto be able to see the baseball
game.
So we see one person standing ontwo boxes, one of them doesn't
need a box at all.
And so now they can all see thegame, which is great.
But then we can also thinkabout, if we think about justice
in this space, is reallythinking about these systemic
barriers.
What is the barrier here that'screating this?
(08:09):
And in this case, it's thefence.
So we don't need any boxes atall if we just take away that
fence.
And so when we're thinking aboutthis, we often hear about
instructors trying to be fair intheir policies and practices in
the classroom.
And it's really quite astruggle.
It's an ongoing conversationthat I have with a lot of people
of, well,"What is fairness?
(08:30):
I want to, I want to be fairhere," or"I want to be, you
know, equal or equitable." Andso Shelley, what do you consider
to be some of the considerationsfor instructors about creating
overall fairness?
Or basically consideringequality and equity in the
classroom?
Shelley (08:47):
I think it's a really interesting question, and
there's never going to be asingle answer, but I think that
the equity equality balance mapsonto some really interesting
conversations about distributiveand procedural fairness.
And so fairness can be what getscalled procedural.
That's the same policy foreveryone.
(09:08):
This has an advantage of beingreally straightforward.
We go back to that idea of a duedate.
If an assignment is due on the22nd of the month, everyone
knows the expectation, andeveryone's asked to complete the
task in the same number ofcalendar days.
It's equal, it's the same, butfairness can also be
distributed, adapted so thateveryone has a fair result,
(09:31):
which is an approach that alignsmore with that idea of equity.
So if you've ever given anextension to a student who had a
documented health crisis, you'veacknowledged that there are some
cases where giving the samedeadline to everyone It isn't
really fair, but that kind ofone at a time justice can bring
about a lot of stress in tryingto determine fairness on a case
(09:54):
by case by case basis.
It's stress for the student,it's stress for the faculty
member, it's not always clear tothe rest of students what's
going on, and it can requirestudents to have to reveal more
about their personal lives thanthey might want to do in a
learning situation.
Rachel (10:10):
Yeah, that's a great point and what, what students
feel compelled to share indifferent situations.
We also see sometimesinstructors going all the way
the other direction, that theysay they throw out all of the,
the deadlines or, orexpectations or all of these
things.
So we're really looking at awhole spectrum here.
So Shelley, how do we negotiatethis without just giving up on
(10:32):
any kind of common expectation?
Shelley (10:34):
That's a great question.
One approach I've been using isa kind of standardized
flexibility.
So in my case, one of the thingsthat I use, I call a Life
Happens pass because we knowlife just happens sometimes.
And in my class, this is anautomatic, no questions asked
extension.
Depending on the class, it mightbe for 48 hours, or it might be
(10:56):
for 3 or 4 calendar days.
So, I often give my English 101first year students two 48 hour
Life Happens passes for thesemester.
I see this as inclusive becauseof all the reasons that somebody
might be running late, all ofthose are included.
So that might be family issues,it might be illness, it might be
(11:18):
workload overwhelm, it might bestudents who just need a little
bit more time to master aconcept.
It can even be just a bad hairday and everybody has access to
that.
They're making their owndecisions within this area that
I've set out.
But it's also a reallymanageable process.
Two or three days, catches thevast majority of student level
(11:41):
needs for more time.
It allows everybody to do alittle bit of an adjustment if
they need it.
But it doesn't usually disruptmy grading schedule very much.
I don't usually sit down rightthe moment all those essays come
in and start grading all ofthem.
And, it doesn't put very manypeople too far behind in the
class.
And so being able to schedulethat as a policy helps me manage
(12:06):
both the equality and the equitythat I'm aiming for.
Rachel (12:11):
So this also sounds like it's, it's not just about the
students, it's about everyone inthe space.
So it's about the instructors aswell.
So not only managing theirworkload, but also looking at
workload in terms of how manymaybe emails you're getting,
asking for individual extensionsand things like that.
So there's a lot of maybe morebroad inclusion going on here in
(12:32):
the space.
Shelley (12:33):
I think absolutely, and in fact, I have to say that I
started this policy in part,entirely for selfish reasons.
I just found it a real struggleto have to determine which
version of a student's situationwas worthy of an extension and
which one wasn't.
And there's a lot about studentlives that even if they want to
(12:53):
tell me, I don't, in fact, needto know.
I don't need to have aforescreen email explaining that
they need 24 hours.
I just need a one line thatsays,"I'm using my life happens
past this date, Professor Reid."And I say,"Great, we're good,"
moving on.
Rachel (13:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that's where a lotof instructors get a little, a
little bit stuck, what you weretalking about there in
worthiness.
You know, what's worthy of theextension.
It sounds like a great policy, agreat approach.
Really, you're exploringdifferent kinds of fairness,
then fairness in a standardpolicy and fairness of enabling
students to succeed, even whenthey don't all have the same
(13:29):
resources.
And so it kind of makes me thinkabout other maybe different
scales.
And so I wonder if that approachwould work at a larger, you
know, course wide level.
So if we're thinking aboutcourses as a whole, for
instance, we often hear aboutwhat are called like weed out
courses or gateway classes intoa specific discipline where the
(13:50):
sentiment is really just seeingwho survives, making it as
challenging as possible, makingit as obstacle filled as
possible, if you will, andseeing who's still there, who's
getting a decent grade at theend of the semester.
So how do we shift theconversation or focus then into,
instead of these maybe weed outcourses, but into more
(14:11):
responsibly enabling learning?
Shelley (14:15):
You know, there's a really nifty 2023 study by
researchers at Carnegie Mellon,and it documents that at least
in some areas of learning, theidea that there are fast
learners and slow learners mightbe a myth.
And in the study, the studentswere provided instruction and
then asked to work problems inmath and science and languages.
(14:36):
They got feedback on how wellthey did and then option to keep
trying again until they passed.
Although individual students haddifferent initial rates of
success, so say one studentscored 55 percent correct on a
quiz, and another scored 75percent on the same quiz.
The students tended to improvetheir accuracy at the same rate.
(15:00):
So each student got about 2.
5 percent more accurate eachtime they took the quiz.
So it didn't matter, the 55percent student wasn't a slower
learner, they just came in withless knowledge.
And so if all students arecapable of getting better at a
similar rate, then oneimplication of this study is
(15:20):
that a weed out approach to acourse isn't really separating
good or smart students from pooror incapable students, that
these courses separate lessprepared students from more
prepared students.
And they may also cut outstudents who are having a bad
week or a bad month, or who arefacing other barriers to
(15:40):
successful schoolwork.
Rachel (15:43):
That's really an interesting study.
And so one of the things that itmakes me think about is in some
of these professions that are,or disciplines that are more
known for having these weed outcourses, for instance, the STEM
fields, but certainly not onlythe STEM fields, that we're
really just looking atperpetuating who's in the
profession based on who'salready a little bit more
prepared coming in.
(16:03):
And so can we avoid justmaintaining the unequal
experiences that students havehad?
Shelley (16:11):
I think that's a key focus for people in higher
education right now.
We can't go back 12 years andfix what happened to students
before they got to us.
But I think, you know, whileit's true that while sometimes
students poor performance ismaybe related to their effort or
to their commitment, for me it'sgame changing to enter a class
(16:31):
knowing that with support andtime, every student in the room
could fully succeed at learningthe material.
And so maybe it's not that thereare C students because of their
intelligence or their capabilityor even their dedication, but
that there are C studentsbecause of poorer prior learning
experiences.
(16:52):
And that shifts the challengeback to me.
What if there's a C student thatI think of based on the results
of the first exam or the firstassignment who could be super
successful in the professionwith just a little extra help?
And it helps me start to think,what can I do, still given my
time and my resources, to helpmore students reach a little bit
(17:13):
more of their potential?
Rachel (17:16):
That's a great point, but it also sounds a little bit
overwhelming.
It sounds like, you know, Ican't make an individual course
for all 75 or all 300 of mystudents in the class, right?
I mean, if it's shifting a lotof that over to the instructor,
we see some potential workloadissues there.
We see some potential concernsthere of individualizing to a
(17:37):
really huge extent that mightnot be scalable.
So how do we, how do we navigatethat as an instructor?
Shelley (17:45):
Absolutely, we don't want to take all of the burden
of learning and put it back onthe instructor's shoulders.
This is still a partnershipbetween the instructor and the
students.
But I can use some lowinvestment strategies on my part
that are designed to help allstudents.
So, let's imagine an exam ormaybe another kind of major
assignment.
(18:05):
And I can talk about kind ofthree parts where I might be
able to provide a little bit ofextra support for a lot of
students without putting a lotof burden on my own shoulders.
So first, leading up to theexam, I can take 15 or 20
minutes of class time to coachstudents about study skills, or
if it's an assignment, we canwork together on one of the
(18:26):
preparatory steps.
What we know from research aboutstudents is that the skills that
most of them think are usefulfor studying for exam, like
rereading the highlighted partsof their textbook, or going over
their notes, those aren't nearlyas helpful as the more active
strategies that research showsreally help aid memory and
(18:46):
comprehension, like making andusing flashcards, predicting and
answering sample questions, oreven writing out their own study
guide.
And so right around the exam, Ican take another approach.
I can use what's called an examwrapper technique.
That's wrapper with a W, notwrapper with an R.
I can ask students to start theexam by answering a few
(19:08):
questions about how they studiedand what they think they know
best or know least well.
And that puts them back in thatframe of mind of owning this.
Because then I can come back atthe end of the exam, this is how
it wraps around the exam, and Ican ask them to identify what
actually went well and what theycould try differently next time
(19:28):
based on the results.
And this helps foreground thatwhole arc of learning.
So it's not just the exam.
It's how you study for it.
It's how you prepare for it.
And simply by making thatvisible to students, I'm
engaging them in that process.
So finally then after the exam,maybe I could reach out
personally to invite, say, the10 percent of students who
(19:49):
struggled the most to come intooffice hours if they want some
more strategies or help.
Now, they should do this just ontheir own, but we know that
students still are a littlefreaked out by instructor office
hours.
They're not quite sure why theywould go.
They're pretty sure they don'twant to feel ashamed of their
performance.
And so, giving out theinvitation here is a great way
(20:11):
to help them is a strategythat's inclusive.
Now I don't want to writepersonalized emails to 75 or 150
students but I could write thesame kind of email and
personalize just the start andfinish of that for 15 or 20
students just to see if I canput some time or energy right
where that's going to be mosthelpful.
Sometimes I hear faculty saythese kinds of efforts feel like
(20:32):
they're giving out too much helpto the students or maybe you
know,"That's not really my job,"but when my job is not only to
deliver the content, but toenable the most learning, these
kinds of steps createopportunities for students to
gain the knowledge, confidence,habits, and skills that they
need to succeed.
Rachel (20:52):
That's great.
Thanks, Shelley.
I mean, these are some greatstrategies that we can consider
and really think about what'sscalable, what applies, what
works for our individualcourses.
And so since there's not one,say, template on how to teach,
and not every strategy isperfectly scalable, how might
instructors go about consideringdifferent things like
(21:14):
enrollments or other factors orinfluences, like, for instance,
teaching one section of a multisection course?
Shelley (21:24):
Right.
So now we're back to thinkingabout those multiple kinds of
fairness and balancing all thediverse preparation of students
with that need to have thatmanageable workload without a
wild hodgepodge of policies andtimelines that really nobody can
keep track of.
So, in a small graduate course,I might be able to help five or
six of my master's students eachcreate a timeline of due dates
(21:45):
that makes sense for their finalproject.
And that makes sense to mebecause they're on their way to
being independent learners, andwith a small class, I can adapt
to allowing that much variance.
In a large enrollmentintroductory course, though, I
can't give five or six differentfinal exams, and that wouldn't
really help novice learners ifthey were all over the place,
(22:06):
right?
Rachel (22:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
That seems like we're, we'rereally thinking critically there
about what's working not onlyfor us as instructors, but also
for our students as learners,and even just the logistics of
the, the enrollments there.
Shelley (22:21):
Yeah, so, but I can still consider a course design,
even in that undergraduatecourse that balances that high
stakes final exam with a fewmore shorter mini exams or
quizzes, so that there isn'tjust one big cliff that students
might fall over if they'rehaving a bad day, and grading
several shorter exams or quizzesshouldn't take me more time than
(22:45):
grading one great big huge one.
And so I can figure out how tobalance that time out.
I'm investing my time in shorterbursts, but I'm really trying
hard not to invest a lot moretime overall.
Or maybe if I'm teaching onesection of a course and I don't
have any control over the examor assignment structure, I might
(23:05):
still be able to change the waysI help students prepare for the
exam or an assignment.
Let me give you an example ofthat.
Several years ago I taught twodiscussion sections of a 300
person course.
And all of the final grading wasset and common across all 300
students, except I had 15percent of the grade that I
(23:27):
could use for my discussionsection.
And a lot of my colleagues usedthat 15 percent for a single,
long essay assignment.
And that was pretty typical.
Instead, I broke my 15 percentinto five 1 percent weekly tasks
that I quickly graded, complete,incomplete.
And then 5 percent for studentswho participated in writing a
(23:49):
short draft early and peerreviewing it.
Again, with a lot of some reallyquick feedback, but not
extensive grading for me.
And then 5 percent for aslightly shorter essay.
So, my students grumbled alittle bit about having all the
extra work assigned to them andthree points for this and two
points for that.
(24:09):
But I could sit down and explainto them why what I was doing was
giving them credit for theusually invisible uncredited
work they should already bedoing.
And so it's helping them buildbetter habits and supporting
their success.
In the end, I didn't have tograde 25 long projects, and I
enabled more learning for morestudents, and the students still
(24:30):
showed me that they could writeinterestingly about our class
questions.
Rachel (24:35):
That sounds great, Shelley.
It sounds like it was a greatapproach for you and the
students once they, they maybeunderstood the approach there,
even with that thinking it wasextra work, for instance, or
more work than their, theircolleagues were having in other
sections.
So with this, I, you know, Iappreciate your time.
And as we wrap up for today, Iwas wondering if you could just
(24:58):
kind of give us a little bit ofrecap here.
So how does this conversationrepresent a keystone concept in
teaching to you?
Shelley (25:07):
So, any discussion of fairness seems to me to connect
really strongly to assessment.
That's really where the rubberhits the road, where we feel
somebody has treated us withrespect and with fairness, or we
feel that that hasn't happened.
A key concept for doingassessment well is to be assured
that you're assessing studentson the most important learning.
So, if being exactly on time, orgetting something right on the
(25:31):
first try, from memory, with nohelp, is the most important
learning, and maybe for like anemergency room nurse, it's
absolutely important that thathappens, then we want to measure
that.
But often professionals in afield succeed in projects or
tasks that they have by tryingit a couple of times, by having
(25:54):
multiple tasks, by performing inmultiple areas of their
workspace.
And even more importantly to me,in a learning situation, even
those ER nurses need some safespaces to try things out, to
struggle with it, and maybe evenfail, where it's not a life or
death situation.
So when we're learning, creatingspaces for that opportunity to
(26:18):
try, to be flexible, toexperiment in ways that balance
out with what the students aredoing and the instructor's own
workload are really important.
That's why I like the idea ofthat standardized flexibility,
along with supporting studentsin achieving the goals that I've
set for them, as a way of havingthat teaching that I'm doing be
(26:40):
inclusive and fair, and justsuccessful for as many learners
as possible.
Rachel (26:46):
That's great, Shelley.
And we see not only so muchsuccess for, like you said, as
many learners as possible, butfor as many instructors as
possible.
You know, a lot of the thingsthat we're doing that are good
for our students are also greatfor us as instructors.
So I really appreciate yourtime.
You know, thank you for yourinput and your expertise and
joining us for thisconversation.
(27:07):
And I look forward to connectingwith you again in the future.
Shelley (27:11):
Thanks, Rachel.
Rachel (27:13):
Please join us for our next episode where Dr.
Crystal Anderson from theStearns Center for Teaching and
Learning joins us to talk aboutactionable and practical
strategies of teaching foreverybody.
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