April 30, 2025 • 26 mins
Drs. Raven Russell and Laurel Marsh join your host, Dr. Rachel Yoho, to discuss some of the key stressors and big issues for new and “less new” faculty today. We explore strategies to make teaching easier and better for everyone in the space.
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Rachel (00:08):
Hello and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in Teaching
podcast.
I'm your host Rachel Yoho, andI'm very excited to be joined by
two super cool engineers today,and we're going to be talking
about a number of pressingissues for faculty.
So today I'm joined by Dr.
Raven Russell, who's anassociate professor focused on
(00:29):
teaching from computer science,and we're also joined by Dr.
Laurel Marsh, who's apostdoctoral fellow and
occasional adjunct facultymember from the Department of
Bioengineering.
Thank you so much, both of you,for joining us.
Raven (00:44):
Thanks for having us.
Laurel (00:45):
Yeah, excited to be here.
Rachel (00:47):
Yeah.
So let's kick off our questions.
You know, in this episode wewanna talk about some of the
pressures on faculty and how wesupport ourselves and how we
support others.
So can you get us started bytalking about some of the main
pressures that faculty face?
Raven (01:04):
I think there are probably a million things that
faculty face, especially whenthey're first starting out.
It can be anything from justgetting the material together
to, especially if they're new,first time speaking concerns.
So it's really a huge amount ofpressures and most of us aren't
(01:24):
trained how to teach in thefirst place, so we're also
learning how to teach while onthe job teaching.
So, I think the challenges ofall new teachers are our
challenges, but we're far enoughin our careers that people have
great confidence in our abilityto communicate.
Rachel (01:45):
Yeah, we see that the challenges are for new faculty,
but we also see different andchanging challenges for more
experience.
Laurel (01:51):
Yeah, and one of the things as a new faculty that I
was really trying to focus on,and that I had heard many of my
teachers, even in my undergradcareer talking about was like
assessing knowledge, likeassessing the prior knowledge
and then the gain knowledge fromthe course.
Rachel (02:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's something that weperhaps don't talk about as
often as we should with teachingis that we focus so much on just
our course, but it's really howit fits in the sequence.
What are the students coming inwith?
How do we build upon that?
So when we're talking about somany different things, like you
pointed out, Raven, how can we,how might we expand on how we
(02:29):
could look at a framework ofsmall changes or little
improvements?
Where would we even begin?
Or what might we consider?
Raven (02:38):
Well, there's, again, there's so much that can be
changed that it really isn'tpractical for any of us to make
major revamps every semester.
So what you can do is try andfocus down on one or two most
important things for thissemester because theoretically
(02:59):
you're gonna keep doing this formany, many semesters and you
have a lot of time to make thoseimprovements.
The nice thing about that is ittakes some of the pressure off
of you to fix everything.
But it allows you also to assesswhether those changes you've
made actually changed anything,or whether they just make you
feel better.
(03:19):
You feeling better is important,but if it doesn't impact the
students, but it's a lot of workfor you to do this particular
change, sometimes it's a changeyou go back on.
But you can also see when smallchanges have had a big effect if
you're focused down on thosecouple of small things.
Rachel (03:39):
One of the things that, you know, I include in one of my
workshops is really thinkingabout how we could plot time
spent on changes.
Basically the effort and theimpact.
Where are we putting our time?
High effort, uh, low impact isnot the space we wanna be in,
but are there low or mediumeffort types of things where
we'll have at least some low ormedium impacts?
(04:00):
Um, ideally high, but we can'thave those all the time.
Right?
Laurel (04:03):
I wish I would've had that framework too going in
because I was definitelythinking, okay, what changes
should I make initially to thecourse?
And I did eventually becomeconfident with, okay, let me
just kind of teach it as it wasshown to me in the initial way.
And I was like, okay, this isgood.
And then just throughout thatsemester I spent it as my, you
(04:24):
know, my learning time.
I was like, what smaller impactscan I make?
But yeah, I wish I would'velooked at it like that.
Where it's just like, okay, whatcan I do?
What simple changes can I maketo have the highest impact?
And in the end, that's what Iwent for, especially because of
timing issues and just otherresponsibilities being a
postdoc.
But it worked out really well.
But I was, for a while, I wasputting so much pressure on
(04:47):
myself.
I was like, do I have to changethis course?
Do I have to make everything myown and revamp it?
And the answer was definitelynot like it worked out really
well how it had been going.
But yeah.
So that's a beautiful frameworkof that you teach in your
workshops and that Ravenmentioned of what can I do
that's low effort and medium tohigh impact?
Raven (05:05):
I think a lot of people, especially when they start out,
it's a great advantage if youcan be paired up with someone
who has taught the coursebefore, or at least have fairly
extensive conversations withthem and just to follow what
they did because they've workedfor many semesters on it and
they've created a course that'ssort of customized to how they
(05:27):
like to teach.
That may not be how you like toteach the first time, but it
gives you a nice starting placeand that.
You know, like, alright, I'llstart here and I'll slowly
migrate it over to things I likeand things I want.
It's also sometimes an advantageif there had been multiple
people teaching it, and you cansort of take in your first try,
(05:48):
take the best things from oneperson and another and kind of
put'em together into a niceshape and sort of see how that
first role goes without havingto start from scratch.
I think one of the hardest onesreally is, this course hasn't
existed and I'm new to this.
That's gotta be one of thebiggest challenges.
Laurel (06:09):
Oh, for sure.
It was definitely invaluable tome being able to reach out to
the former professor who hadtaught for several semesters.
And what also helped me breakout of just, oh, I can't make
any changes, that mindset, wasbeing able to talk to my
advising professor who had oncetaught this and a few others,
and realizing like, okay, itdoesn't have to be this one
(06:31):
teaching strategy and seeing howthey taught the class was also
really, really valuable for meto help me not feel too locked
in.
It's like, oh, there are otherways to present this.
And so yeah, both having astrong, solid starting point
from the previous classes, butthen building in these other
mechanisms is really helpful.
Raven (06:51):
I think actually taking inventory of what is locked in
about a course versus what is apreference or a style about a
course is actually reallyimportant.
Especially if you're going to beone of a set of people working
on the course.
Having that inventory of whatreally makes this course, this
(07:13):
course, no matter who teaches itand what is totally
customizable, gives you a lotmore freedom to be comfortable
trying certain things out, andthen knowing that you can change
them in the future if it doesn'twork out.
And I think that as a firststep, what is the core of this
(07:33):
course, is a really goodstarting place when you've
looking at a brand new coursethat you've never seen before.
Rachel (07:40):
You know, I think here, the more talking with others we
can do about the course, whetherthat's a course coordinator,
program director can really shedsome light on that.
You know, we're not out herechanging learning outcomes or
something like that.
Those are pretty set.
But where are the spaces forcreativity and individual
contributions?
You know, our students lovehearing our experiences.
(08:01):
Is it, you know, can weintegrate some of our research
or past professional experienceor just cool things from the
news?
Where can we make unique,memorable learning experiences?
So one of the other things,Raven and Laurel, you both and I
have talked about in the past isreally how we document from
(08:22):
semester to semester, whatworks, what doesn't work.
'cause you know, we can think asbest we can, oh yeah.
I'll remember what worked wellin week four and what I wanna
change for next time, and thenwe get to the next semester and
it's like, no way.
That was too long ago.
So can you tell us maybe whatmight notes on what worked or
what didn't work look like inpractice or what it looks like
(08:42):
for you?
Raven (08:45):
I can speak to what I do personally and what works for me
and what I've heard some otherpeople do.
I've heard everything frommaking like, just like a long
single document of all thethings that they want to do, and
like a loving to-do list for thewhole course.
Rachel (09:02):
Hey I've done that.
Raven (09:05):
I've know some faculty who have used like, bug
reporting tools or Kanbanboards, which is just think
about your post-it notes up withtracking.
And they actually like put inbug reports about their course.
So I've seen everything fromlike the least formal to the
most formal way.
And I think really what it comesdown to is making sure that the
(09:28):
notes you have are in front ofyou when you need them, and
whatever that means to you iswhat you should be doing.
I think it's the mentalequivalent of putting things in
front of the door so that youtake them with you when you
leave.
I personally will write forlectures, I keep a text document
(09:51):
in with the lecture folder, youknow, that has my slides and
like little whiteboard examplesof things I've written out for
students and stuff for sort ofinspiring things.
And I just have a little textthing and I have in there.
It's just like, this needs tochange or just timings.
And I'll look at them as I'mprepping the lecture ahead of
(10:12):
time, I'll decide whether thechanges I've suggested to myself
are something I can do thissemester or whether they're
gonna have to wait till nextsemester.
Which gives me a freedom thatthe note isn't lost if I don't
do it, it just gets copied overto the next semester.
And so that's what I tend to doon lectures.
On homeworks, I tend to keeptrack of the common questions
(10:36):
from our discussion board.
And, as for an organization asthis is, I will go and take
those questions and sort of putthem in for the next revision of
the homework or if we do asimilar one in the future.
And so for me it's keeping thenotes attached to the individual
document I'm editing, as in isin the same folder, and doing
(11:00):
that consistently.
This also lets me take notesafter I give a lecture when I'm
too tired to make an edit now,but I can write down, haha, I
should not have done that.
Remember next time.
Laurel (11:13):
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (11:14):
Yep.
Raven (11:16):
So I've heard the full range, but that's my personal
system.
Rachel (11:20):
Yeah.
Laurel (11:21):
Yeah, I definitely take a twofold approach where my
course is like specificallycomputations for computational
methods for bioengineers, and soI can heavily edit my slides or
my code and comment those reallywell.
So what I really do is keep abig notebook, like a physical,
(11:43):
I, I love OneNote for Microsoft,but I also keep a big physical
notebook and have all my classlecture notes there.
No matter if I'm gonna go offthe PowerPoint or coding or
writing on the whiteboardsometimes, I still have my
notebook and I'll make all thechanges there.
And so I use that and that'salways really helpful.
'cause then next semester whenI'm going back to review, it's
(12:04):
right there.
And very much like you said,it's like putting it right by
the front door, which I also usein my real life.
I will forget things if they'renot right there.
So that's a really easy, clearway.
And I picked it up from workingin a lab where you have to note
down everything and then whenyou go back to that experiment,
you look it up.
So that was reallystraightforward for me.
And then kind of like I said, Ican make straight edits on my
(12:28):
slides, put in my notes.
I love using the notes functionsfor when I'm reviewing for next
semester.
There are better ways, but Ireally loved making drafts in my
email and then sending orsnoozing them so that it will
pop up next semester.
Like I said, definitely betterways, but that's what works for
me as up and coming professor.
Rachel (12:49):
Well, and I think that's what's key here is the first and
the biggest hurdle is just doingsomething, making some sort of
notes no matter what it is.
One of the things that we'vetalked about just briefly here,
is lecturing, and that's kind ofa big hot topic.
But one of the pressures,particularly on faculty, is that
(13:09):
showing versus doing.
So can you tell us a little bitmore about this particular
instructional challenge?
Raven (13:18):
So I've explained this to my students a few times because
I think there is an inclinationto prefer, especially when
you're tired and at a 9:00 AMclass you, you know, or you're
at the end of your day to reallyjust want to watch and to do
sort of learning appreciationrather than to actually.
Rachel (13:42):
Ah! That's great learning appreciation!
Raven (13:44):
Go through the effort and I understand that it's a strong
inclination of all of us andstudents have a lot going on.
And so I've tried explainingthis to students a bit along the
lines of this, if I were to be aviolin instructor, you could
watch me play the violin and youwould be like, yeah, that's a
(14:06):
violin being played.
I can appreciate that.
It sounds great.
I wanna do that.
And I could explain to you,while holding the violin and you
know, how to angle the bow andhow to use your fingers.
You would be like, yeah, I thinkI really understand what she's
talking about.
That makes sense.
Holding down the strings makesthem shorter and it'll change
(14:28):
the pitch.
That makes sense.
But it's very different when Ihand you the violin.
So they're very inclined tobelieve that in watching and
understanding somebody else'sexplanation, they have learned
to do this.
They have not been handed theviolin yet.
And the second you hand them theviolin, they realize that the
(14:52):
idea doesn't translateautomatically into physical
actions that they should take.
And that it's a time consumingfor them to do the practice
necessary to be able to dothings when asked.
All of a sudden there's somebodywalks by and says, play the
violin now.
(15:14):
You shouldn't need prep work todo that if you know how to play
a violin.
So I think that that's gettingthe students over that hurdle
and remembering that it's animportant step in the learning
process for them to get themover that hurdle is a big sort
of reason why we've had a lot ofthe more active learning,
(15:37):
flipped classrooms were verypopular, and those types of
activities because you get towatch, you've handed them the
violin and you get to watch themgo through that struggle and you
see that the presentation wasn'tsufficient for their learning.
Laurel (15:56):
Yeah, that analogy helps me so much.
I've never even had to learn amusical instrument, but that
really puts things inperspective to me, and it's so
practical sometimes to just givethem a fill in the blank code
and just like, okay, watch mecode.
But that helps me realize toothat sometimes that could be
applicable if I just kind ofwanna get to the output of the
(16:17):
code, and I wanna run throughthe code with them and make sure
they understand it.
But like to actually teach them,they have to have more of that
hands-on experience.
Rachel (16:25):
But then that hands-on can look a little bit different
in each field.
In a lot of fields, so whetherthat's engineering or other
areas, we have this phenomenon,that we might consider like a
black box.
You know, what students know ordon't know, especially when
we're talking about usingdifferent types of tools,
whatever the tool might be inyour field.
(16:46):
So it could be AI related ordifferent other programs and
tools.
So how do you help studentsframe their learning and
approach with this and not havesomething be just a complete
mystery in the middle?
Laurel (16:59):
So one thing I love to do is start out by showing how
bad the outcome can be.
So whether that's using ChatGPTor running a really
computationally expensivecomputational fluid dynamic
simulation, like whatever it is.
I like to show them that if youput in what we say in CFD a lot
in engineering, if you putgarbage in, you'll get garbage
(17:22):
out.
Just conceptually, I really liketo emphasize something I learned
as an aspiring engineer is that,I can teach anyone to write a
script, run a software, or dothese complex simulations with
our engineering codes andeverything, truly we can teach
anyone to do that.
The value added is engineers orscientists or anyone in any of
(17:43):
these studies, what we add isunderstanding why we ran that
simulation or understanding ourinput and then interpreting
those results and translatingthat into something useful.
So I really like to add oremphasize like where we add our
value.
It's not just being able to runchat GPT or run these softwares
(18:04):
and simulations, but it's ourinterpretation, and it's our
understanding of that knowledge.
So you have to have thatknowledge base too.
So they have to come with me onthis journey and they have to
learn with me.
You can't just, can't justexpect to throw it in and then
have your homework be done.
Raven (18:21):
I think that there's two situations.
One is they're treatingsomething as a black box and
they don't understand how itworks, but they're able to
assess both the input and outputof it, and that's okay
sometimes.
Sometimes you want to, look, nowis not the time for you to learn
how this particular system worksand you're going to have to
(18:43):
accept that this is themechanism but you still need to
be able to know that what yougot out of the black box is an
appropriate thing.
You can't just, oh, wellwhatever it said, it must be
good.
That doesn't work for anysystem.
And so the other time is whenthey actually do need to know
(19:06):
the internals of the black box,and that's two scenarios.
You need to sort of decide in alot of cases for the students,
which of the two they need to befocusing on, and make them know
that it's okay in the situationwhere it's gonna stay a black
box that they don't understandand make them comfortable with
(19:27):
that, but that they can't thenskip the last stages.
It's not input black box magic.
Input black box, assess whatcame out.
Rachel (19:39):
Right.
Raven (19:39):
And so I've started talking to my students a bit on
systems like chat GPT, andthere's also copilot, which
helps with coding.
And I've talked to'em about thefact that the way that these are
trained is they're trained onmillions and millions of
millions of pieces of thingspeople have already written.
The way you get millions andmillions of pieces of things
(20:01):
that are already written is thisis the stuff everyone already
knows how to do.
You also need to know whateveryone already knows how to
do.
This is a way to speed thingsup.
This is not a way to, well, itshouldn't be a way to replace
you.
If it's a way to replace you,then you're going to be
(20:24):
replaced.
Normally can read it and belike, that didn't make sense.
Try that again.
But if what you've come out withyou don't understand.
So this happens a lot with, youknow, the people trying to
generate, say research papers orsomething like that, and it's
got a bunch of citations thatare nonsense.
(20:45):
Well, if you don't know whatcitations are supposed to do,
you can't assess that thosecitations are nonsense.
So it's one of those challengesto get them to understand that
yes, we've got this cool thingthat can do some stuff for you,
but you're still gonna have tocheck that that makes sense.
And you have to know that youput in the right things in the
(21:07):
first place as well.
So a little bit with the idea ofcalculators.
When calculators were now andeverybody's like, oh, well why
should I learn how to do thistype of thing?
Like, well, did you put theright thing into the calculator?
Like you need to know that inputpart.
But in this case, you also havethe calculator will definitely
(21:30):
answer your question.
Many black box systems do notdirectly, it's not a
straightforward computation.
If it was, there wouldn't havebeen a whole giant black box
system made to build it.
So I think I described this theother day to someone as, I like
the term AI slop because it's abit like somebody says, okay, I
(21:54):
need you to paint this room.
Somebody walks in with a bucketof paint, throws it at the walls
and says, there you go, thewalls are red, and you say.
Okay, but the floor is also redparts of the ceiling.
There's gaps here.
And as someone who knows what apainted room is supposed to look
like, you need to be in chargeof saying, we're gonna have to
(22:18):
take some additional steps tomake this practical.
So I think, these systems are alittle dangerous for students
because again, they don't knowthat it's not okay, not to at
least be able to assess theoutput, even if they don't
understand the internal workingsof a system.
Rachel (22:38):
Yeah.
Raven, I think you have the bestcomparisons.
These are, these are excellentand memorable.
As we wrap up our conversation,you know, I think here we're
really looking at a couple ofkeystone concept ideas.
And so here from ourconversation, it really seems
like communication andtransparency So that can be for
(22:59):
instance, even communicating toour future selves about our
course and actually making surewe do that, not relying on, you
know, six months from now whatwill I think I did in week five
or whatever.
But also how we communicate withour students, not only the need,
the practical value, the processand really going through that
process, but increasing thattransparency.
(23:20):
You know, it's not just,engineering or STEM fields, but
across all fields.
How do we do this?
And so, I guess let's leave thiswith, you know, any last
thoughts, any parting words thatyou'd like to share?
Raven (23:32):
I think as teachers we need to remember that we are
also humans who sometimes needhelp, it's okay to ask for help.
It's okay to find other peoplewho know.
We don't have to actually be theexpert in all things all the
time.
We can go find other experts whocan answer questions and who can
(23:56):
help us out with our coursework,and also to make that humanness
sort of apparent to the studentsas well.
We are knowledgeable in ourfield.
We know what we're talking aboutfor what we're currently
demoing, but we don't know allthings.
And even things like tellingstudents like, yeah, I'm not
(24:17):
actually sure about this.
I'll get back to you on it.
I'll go find somebody who canclarify this.
And then going back to them andshowing that that was what you
did.
So I think everybody reallyneeds, especially new
instructors, need permission tosay, wait, I don't know what I'm
(24:41):
doing, and that's okay.
I will go find out.
And I think it's something thata lot of people worry that
they're now supposed to be theauthority.
They're an authority, not theauthority.
Rachel (24:57):
Yeah,
Laurel (24:57):
Yeah.
Rachel (24:57):
That's such a great point.
Laurel (24:59):
For sure, and just going off what Raven said, like that
was the one of the biggest, youknow, most imposter syndrome
type things for me was I'mteaching all these different
computational methods in myclass, not just the one I
research and am most familiarwith.
So the scariest thing was, whatif they ask me a question I
(25:20):
don't know?
And anyone that's gonna be newto TAing or teaching or anything
like that, that was some of thecoolest questions I got was when
the students were just like,what about this part of the
process?
And I was like, actually, I haveno idea, but let me look into
that and we'll talk about thatnext class.
And they come up with theseinteresting things that I had
(25:41):
never thought of'cause I hadnever dug too deep into these
methods.
And then it provided excellentdiscussion for next class.
So just to say to all the up andcoming professors and teachers,
it doesn't have to be scary.
You don't have to be the expert.
And what I had been told a lot,but didn't believe it until I
saw it in action was, you cansay, I don't know, and they'll
(26:02):
still respect you.
You can come back and be like,let me look that up because I
know how to research things andwe'll talk about that next
class.
And so that was, that was reallyhelpful.
Raven (26:13):
I think it's also good to show them that you are excited
to still learn stuff, so you'relike, come back and you're like,
okay, it turned out to be reallycool.
It works like this.
And you are still excited, youknow, much further in your
academic studies than they are.
Rachel (26:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
I don't know, can be one of thehardest things to say.
So thank you both so much foryour time, Raven, Laurel, thank
you for your insights.
And we look forward to sharingour next episode with you every
two weeks for the KeystoneConcepts in Teaching podcast.
So thank you so much for yourtime.
Raven (26:51):
Thanks!
Laurel (26:52):
Yes, of course.
Thank y'all.
Hello and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in Teaching
podcast.
I'm your host Rachel Yoho, andI'm very excited to be joined by
two super cool engineers today,and we're going to be talking
about a number of pressingissues for faculty.
So today I'm joined by Dr.
Raven Russell, who's anassociate professor focused on
(00:29):
teaching from computer science,and we're also joined by Dr.
Laurel Marsh, who's apostdoctoral fellow and
occasional adjunct facultymember from the Department of
Bioengineering.
Thank you so much, both of you,for joining us.
Raven (00:44):
Thanks for having us.
Laurel (00:45):
Yeah, excited to be here.
Rachel (00:47):
Yeah.
So let's kick off our questions.
You know, in this episode wewanna talk about some of the
pressures on faculty and how wesupport ourselves and how we
support others.
So can you get us started bytalking about some of the main
pressures that faculty face?
Raven (01:04):
I think there are probably a million things that
faculty face, especially whenthey're first starting out.
It can be anything from justgetting the material together
to, especially if they're new,first time speaking concerns.
So it's really a huge amount ofpressures and most of us aren't
(01:24):
trained how to teach in thefirst place, so we're also
learning how to teach while onthe job teaching.
So, I think the challenges ofall new teachers are our
challenges, but we're far enoughin our careers that people have
great confidence in our abilityto communicate.
Rachel (01:45):
Yeah, we see that the challenges are for new faculty,
but we also see different andchanging challenges for more
experience.
Laurel (01:51):
Yeah, and one of the things as a new faculty that I
was really trying to focus on,and that I had heard many of my
teachers, even in my undergradcareer talking about was like
assessing knowledge, likeassessing the prior knowledge
and then the gain knowledge fromthe course.
Rachel (02:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's something that weperhaps don't talk about as
often as we should with teachingis that we focus so much on just
our course, but it's really howit fits in the sequence.
What are the students coming inwith?
How do we build upon that?
So when we're talking about somany different things, like you
pointed out, Raven, how can we,how might we expand on how we
(02:29):
could look at a framework ofsmall changes or little
improvements?
Where would we even begin?
Or what might we consider?
Raven (02:38):
Well, there's, again, there's so much that can be
changed that it really isn'tpractical for any of us to make
major revamps every semester.
So what you can do is try andfocus down on one or two most
important things for thissemester because theoretically
(02:59):
you're gonna keep doing this formany, many semesters and you
have a lot of time to make thoseimprovements.
The nice thing about that is ittakes some of the pressure off
of you to fix everything.
But it allows you also to assesswhether those changes you've
made actually changed anything,or whether they just make you
feel better.
(03:19):
You feeling better is important,but if it doesn't impact the
students, but it's a lot of workfor you to do this particular
change, sometimes it's a changeyou go back on.
But you can also see when smallchanges have had a big effect if
you're focused down on thosecouple of small things.
Rachel (03:39):
One of the things that, you know, I include in one of my
workshops is really thinkingabout how we could plot time
spent on changes.
Basically the effort and theimpact.
Where are we putting our time?
High effort, uh, low impact isnot the space we wanna be in,
but are there low or mediumeffort types of things where
we'll have at least some low ormedium impacts?
(04:00):
Um, ideally high, but we can'thave those all the time.
Right?
Laurel (04:03):
I wish I would've had that framework too going in
because I was definitelythinking, okay, what changes
should I make initially to thecourse?
And I did eventually becomeconfident with, okay, let me
just kind of teach it as it wasshown to me in the initial way.
And I was like, okay, this isgood.
And then just throughout thatsemester I spent it as my, you
(04:24):
know, my learning time.
I was like, what smaller impactscan I make?
But yeah, I wish I would'velooked at it like that.
Where it's just like, okay, whatcan I do?
What simple changes can I maketo have the highest impact?
And in the end, that's what Iwent for, especially because of
timing issues and just otherresponsibilities being a
postdoc.
But it worked out really well.
But I was, for a while, I wasputting so much pressure on
(04:47):
myself.
I was like, do I have to changethis course?
Do I have to make everything myown and revamp it?
And the answer was definitelynot like it worked out really
well how it had been going.
But yeah.
So that's a beautiful frameworkof that you teach in your
workshops and that Ravenmentioned of what can I do
that's low effort and medium tohigh impact?
Raven (05:05):
I think a lot of people, especially when they start out,
it's a great advantage if youcan be paired up with someone
who has taught the coursebefore, or at least have fairly
extensive conversations withthem and just to follow what
they did because they've workedfor many semesters on it and
they've created a course that'ssort of customized to how they
(05:27):
like to teach.
That may not be how you like toteach the first time, but it
gives you a nice starting placeand that.
You know, like, alright, I'llstart here and I'll slowly
migrate it over to things I likeand things I want.
It's also sometimes an advantageif there had been multiple
people teaching it, and you cansort of take in your first try,
(05:48):
take the best things from oneperson and another and kind of
put'em together into a niceshape and sort of see how that
first role goes without havingto start from scratch.
I think one of the hardest onesreally is, this course hasn't
existed and I'm new to this.
That's gotta be one of thebiggest challenges.
Laurel (06:09):
Oh, for sure.
It was definitely invaluable tome being able to reach out to
the former professor who hadtaught for several semesters.
And what also helped me breakout of just, oh, I can't make
any changes, that mindset, wasbeing able to talk to my
advising professor who had oncetaught this and a few others,
and realizing like, okay, itdoesn't have to be this one
(06:31):
teaching strategy and seeing howthey taught the class was also
really, really valuable for meto help me not feel too locked
in.
It's like, oh, there are otherways to present this.
And so yeah, both having astrong, solid starting point
from the previous classes, butthen building in these other
mechanisms is really helpful.
Raven (06:51):
I think actually taking inventory of what is locked in
about a course versus what is apreference or a style about a
course is actually reallyimportant.
Especially if you're going to beone of a set of people working
on the course.
Having that inventory of whatreally makes this course, this
(07:13):
course, no matter who teaches itand what is totally
customizable, gives you a lotmore freedom to be comfortable
trying certain things out, andthen knowing that you can change
them in the future if it doesn'twork out.
And I think that as a firststep, what is the core of this
(07:33):
course, is a really goodstarting place when you've
looking at a brand new coursethat you've never seen before.
Rachel (07:40):
You know, I think here, the more talking with others we
can do about the course, whetherthat's a course coordinator,
program director can really shedsome light on that.
You know, we're not out herechanging learning outcomes or
something like that.
Those are pretty set.
But where are the spaces forcreativity and individual
contributions?
You know, our students lovehearing our experiences.
(08:01):
Is it, you know, can weintegrate some of our research
or past professional experienceor just cool things from the
news?
Where can we make unique,memorable learning experiences?
So one of the other things,Raven and Laurel, you both and I
have talked about in the past isreally how we document from
(08:22):
semester to semester, whatworks, what doesn't work.
'cause you know, we can think asbest we can, oh yeah.
I'll remember what worked wellin week four and what I wanna
change for next time, and thenwe get to the next semester and
it's like, no way.
That was too long ago.
So can you tell us maybe whatmight notes on what worked or
what didn't work look like inpractice or what it looks like
(08:42):
for you?
Raven (08:45):
I can speak to what I do personally and what works for me
and what I've heard some otherpeople do.
I've heard everything frommaking like, just like a long
single document of all thethings that they want to do, and
like a loving to-do list for thewhole course.
Rachel (09:02):
Hey I've done that.
Raven (09:05):
I've know some faculty who have used like, bug
reporting tools or Kanbanboards, which is just think
about your post-it notes up withtracking.
And they actually like put inbug reports about their course.
So I've seen everything fromlike the least formal to the
most formal way.
And I think really what it comesdown to is making sure that the
(09:28):
notes you have are in front ofyou when you need them, and
whatever that means to you iswhat you should be doing.
I think it's the mentalequivalent of putting things in
front of the door so that youtake them with you when you
leave.
I personally will write forlectures, I keep a text document
(09:51):
in with the lecture folder, youknow, that has my slides and
like little whiteboard examplesof things I've written out for
students and stuff for sort ofinspiring things.
And I just have a little textthing and I have in there.
It's just like, this needs tochange or just timings.
And I'll look at them as I'mprepping the lecture ahead of
(10:12):
time, I'll decide whether thechanges I've suggested to myself
are something I can do thissemester or whether they're
gonna have to wait till nextsemester.
Which gives me a freedom thatthe note isn't lost if I don't
do it, it just gets copied overto the next semester.
And so that's what I tend to doon lectures.
On homeworks, I tend to keeptrack of the common questions
(10:36):
from our discussion board.
And, as for an organization asthis is, I will go and take
those questions and sort of putthem in for the next revision of
the homework or if we do asimilar one in the future.
And so for me it's keeping thenotes attached to the individual
document I'm editing, as in isin the same folder, and doing
(11:00):
that consistently.
This also lets me take notesafter I give a lecture when I'm
too tired to make an edit now,but I can write down, haha, I
should not have done that.
Remember next time.
Laurel (11:13):
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (11:14):
Yep.
Raven (11:16):
So I've heard the full range, but that's my personal
system.
Rachel (11:20):
Yeah.
Laurel (11:21):
Yeah, I definitely take a twofold approach where my
course is like specificallycomputations for computational
methods for bioengineers, and soI can heavily edit my slides or
my code and comment those reallywell.
So what I really do is keep abig notebook, like a physical,
(11:43):
I, I love OneNote for Microsoft,but I also keep a big physical
notebook and have all my classlecture notes there.
No matter if I'm gonna go offthe PowerPoint or coding or
writing on the whiteboardsometimes, I still have my
notebook and I'll make all thechanges there.
And so I use that and that'salways really helpful.
'cause then next semester whenI'm going back to review, it's
(12:04):
right there.
And very much like you said,it's like putting it right by
the front door, which I also usein my real life.
I will forget things if they'renot right there.
So that's a really easy, clearway.
And I picked it up from workingin a lab where you have to note
down everything and then whenyou go back to that experiment,
you look it up.
So that was reallystraightforward for me.
And then kind of like I said, Ican make straight edits on my
(12:28):
slides, put in my notes.
I love using the notes functionsfor when I'm reviewing for next
semester.
There are better ways, but Ireally loved making drafts in my
email and then sending orsnoozing them so that it will
pop up next semester.
Like I said, definitely betterways, but that's what works for
me as up and coming professor.
Rachel (12:49):
Well, and I think that's what's key here is the first and
the biggest hurdle is just doingsomething, making some sort of
notes no matter what it is.
One of the things that we'vetalked about just briefly here,
is lecturing, and that's kind ofa big hot topic.
But one of the pressures,particularly on faculty, is that
(13:09):
showing versus doing.
So can you tell us a little bitmore about this particular
instructional challenge?
Raven (13:18):
So I've explained this to my students a few times because
I think there is an inclinationto prefer, especially when
you're tired and at a 9:00 AMclass you, you know, or you're
at the end of your day to reallyjust want to watch and to do
sort of learning appreciationrather than to actually.
Rachel (13:42):
Ah! That's great learning appreciation!
Raven (13:44):
Go through the effort and I understand that it's a strong
inclination of all of us andstudents have a lot going on.
And so I've tried explainingthis to students a bit along the
lines of this, if I were to be aviolin instructor, you could
watch me play the violin and youwould be like, yeah, that's a
(14:06):
violin being played.
I can appreciate that.
It sounds great.
I wanna do that.
And I could explain to you,while holding the violin and you
know, how to angle the bow andhow to use your fingers.
You would be like, yeah, I thinkI really understand what she's
talking about.
That makes sense.
Holding down the strings makesthem shorter and it'll change
(14:28):
the pitch.
That makes sense.
But it's very different when Ihand you the violin.
So they're very inclined tobelieve that in watching and
understanding somebody else'sexplanation, they have learned
to do this.
They have not been handed theviolin yet.
And the second you hand them theviolin, they realize that the
(14:52):
idea doesn't translateautomatically into physical
actions that they should take.
And that it's a time consumingfor them to do the practice
necessary to be able to dothings when asked.
All of a sudden there's somebodywalks by and says, play the
violin now.
(15:14):
You shouldn't need prep work todo that if you know how to play
a violin.
So I think that that's gettingthe students over that hurdle
and remembering that it's animportant step in the learning
process for them to get themover that hurdle is a big sort
of reason why we've had a lot ofthe more active learning,
(15:37):
flipped classrooms were verypopular, and those types of
activities because you get towatch, you've handed them the
violin and you get to watch themgo through that struggle and you
see that the presentation wasn'tsufficient for their learning.
Laurel (15:56):
Yeah, that analogy helps me so much.
I've never even had to learn amusical instrument, but that
really puts things inperspective to me, and it's so
practical sometimes to just givethem a fill in the blank code
and just like, okay, watch mecode.
But that helps me realize toothat sometimes that could be
applicable if I just kind ofwanna get to the output of the
(16:17):
code, and I wanna run throughthe code with them and make sure
they understand it.
But like to actually teach them,they have to have more of that
hands-on experience.
Rachel (16:25):
But then that hands-on can look a little bit different
in each field.
In a lot of fields, so whetherthat's engineering or other
areas, we have this phenomenon,that we might consider like a
black box.
You know, what students know ordon't know, especially when
we're talking about usingdifferent types of tools,
whatever the tool might be inyour field.
(16:46):
So it could be AI related ordifferent other programs and
tools.
So how do you help studentsframe their learning and
approach with this and not havesomething be just a complete
mystery in the middle?
Laurel (16:59):
So one thing I love to do is start out by showing how
bad the outcome can be.
So whether that's using ChatGPTor running a really
computationally expensivecomputational fluid dynamic
simulation, like whatever it is.
I like to show them that if youput in what we say in CFD a lot
in engineering, if you putgarbage in, you'll get garbage
(17:22):
out.
Just conceptually, I really liketo emphasize something I learned
as an aspiring engineer is that,I can teach anyone to write a
script, run a software, or dothese complex simulations with
our engineering codes andeverything, truly we can teach
anyone to do that.
The value added is engineers orscientists or anyone in any of
(17:43):
these studies, what we add isunderstanding why we ran that
simulation or understanding ourinput and then interpreting
those results and translatingthat into something useful.
So I really like to add oremphasize like where we add our
value.
It's not just being able to runchat GPT or run these softwares
(18:04):
and simulations, but it's ourinterpretation, and it's our
understanding of that knowledge.
So you have to have thatknowledge base too.
So they have to come with me onthis journey and they have to
learn with me.
You can't just, can't justexpect to throw it in and then
have your homework be done.
Raven (18:21):
I think that there's two situations.
One is they're treatingsomething as a black box and
they don't understand how itworks, but they're able to
assess both the input and outputof it, and that's okay
sometimes.
Sometimes you want to, look, nowis not the time for you to learn
how this particular system worksand you're going to have to
(18:43):
accept that this is themechanism but you still need to
be able to know that what yougot out of the black box is an
appropriate thing.
You can't just, oh, wellwhatever it said, it must be
good.
That doesn't work for anysystem.
And so the other time is whenthey actually do need to know
(19:06):
the internals of the black box,and that's two scenarios.
You need to sort of decide in alot of cases for the students,
which of the two they need to befocusing on, and make them know
that it's okay in the situationwhere it's gonna stay a black
box that they don't understandand make them comfortable with
(19:27):
that, but that they can't thenskip the last stages.
It's not input black box magic.
Input black box, assess whatcame out.
Rachel (19:39):
Right.
Raven (19:39):
And so I've started talking to my students a bit on
systems like chat GPT, andthere's also copilot, which
helps with coding.
And I've talked to'em about thefact that the way that these are
trained is they're trained onmillions and millions of
millions of pieces of thingspeople have already written.
The way you get millions andmillions of pieces of things
(20:01):
that are already written is thisis the stuff everyone already
knows how to do.
You also need to know whateveryone already knows how to
do.
This is a way to speed thingsup.
This is not a way to, well, itshouldn't be a way to replace
you.
If it's a way to replace you,then you're going to be
(20:24):
replaced.
Normally can read it and belike, that didn't make sense.
Try that again.
But if what you've come out withyou don't understand.
So this happens a lot with, youknow, the people trying to
generate, say research papers orsomething like that, and it's
got a bunch of citations thatare nonsense.
(20:45):
Well, if you don't know whatcitations are supposed to do,
you can't assess that thosecitations are nonsense.
So it's one of those challengesto get them to understand that
yes, we've got this cool thingthat can do some stuff for you,
but you're still gonna have tocheck that that makes sense.
And you have to know that youput in the right things in the
(21:07):
first place as well.
So a little bit with the idea ofcalculators.
When calculators were now andeverybody's like, oh, well why
should I learn how to do thistype of thing?
Like, well, did you put theright thing into the calculator?
Like you need to know that inputpart.
But in this case, you also havethe calculator will definitely
(21:30):
answer your question.
Many black box systems do notdirectly, it's not a
straightforward computation.
If it was, there wouldn't havebeen a whole giant black box
system made to build it.
So I think I described this theother day to someone as, I like
the term AI slop because it's abit like somebody says, okay, I
(21:54):
need you to paint this room.
Somebody walks in with a bucketof paint, throws it at the walls
and says, there you go, thewalls are red, and you say.
Okay, but the floor is also redparts of the ceiling.
There's gaps here.
And as someone who knows what apainted room is supposed to look
like, you need to be in chargeof saying, we're gonna have to
(22:18):
take some additional steps tomake this practical.
So I think, these systems are alittle dangerous for students
because again, they don't knowthat it's not okay, not to at
least be able to assess theoutput, even if they don't
understand the internal workingsof a system.
Rachel (22:38):
Yeah.
Raven, I think you have the bestcomparisons.
These are, these are excellentand memorable.
As we wrap up our conversation,you know, I think here we're
really looking at a couple ofkeystone concept ideas.
And so here from ourconversation, it really seems
like communication andtransparency So that can be for
(22:59):
instance, even communicating toour future selves about our
course and actually making surewe do that, not relying on, you
know, six months from now whatwill I think I did in week five
or whatever.
But also how we communicate withour students, not only the need,
the practical value, the processand really going through that
process, but increasing thattransparency.
(23:20):
You know, it's not just,engineering or STEM fields, but
across all fields.
How do we do this?
And so, I guess let's leave thiswith, you know, any last
thoughts, any parting words thatyou'd like to share?
Raven (23:32):
I think as teachers we need to remember that we are
also humans who sometimes needhelp, it's okay to ask for help.
It's okay to find other peoplewho know.
We don't have to actually be theexpert in all things all the
time.
We can go find other experts whocan answer questions and who can
(23:56):
help us out with our coursework,and also to make that humanness
sort of apparent to the studentsas well.
We are knowledgeable in ourfield.
We know what we're talking aboutfor what we're currently
demoing, but we don't know allthings.
And even things like tellingstudents like, yeah, I'm not
(24:17):
actually sure about this.
I'll get back to you on it.
I'll go find somebody who canclarify this.
And then going back to them andshowing that that was what you
did.
So I think everybody reallyneeds, especially new
instructors, need permission tosay, wait, I don't know what I'm
(24:41):
doing, and that's okay.
I will go find out.
And I think it's something thata lot of people worry that
they're now supposed to be theauthority.
They're an authority, not theauthority.
Rachel (24:57):
Yeah,
Laurel (24:57):
Yeah.
Rachel (24:57):
That's such a great point.
Laurel (24:59):
For sure, and just going off what Raven said, like that
was the one of the biggest, youknow, most imposter syndrome
type things for me was I'mteaching all these different
computational methods in myclass, not just the one I
research and am most familiarwith.
So the scariest thing was, whatif they ask me a question I
(25:20):
don't know?
And anyone that's gonna be newto TAing or teaching or anything
like that, that was some of thecoolest questions I got was when
the students were just like,what about this part of the
process?
And I was like, actually, I haveno idea, but let me look into
that and we'll talk about thatnext class.
And they come up with theseinteresting things that I had
(25:41):
never thought of'cause I hadnever dug too deep into these
methods.
And then it provided excellentdiscussion for next class.
So just to say to all the up andcoming professors and teachers,
it doesn't have to be scary.
You don't have to be the expert.
And what I had been told a lot,but didn't believe it until I
saw it in action was, you cansay, I don't know, and they'll
(26:02):
still respect you.
You can come back and be like,let me look that up because I
know how to research things andwe'll talk about that next
class.
And so that was, that was reallyhelpful.
Raven (26:13):
I think it's also good to show them that you are excited
to still learn stuff, so you'relike, come back and you're like,
okay, it turned out to be reallycool.
It works like this.
And you are still excited, youknow, much further in your
academic studies than they are.
Rachel (26:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
I don't know, can be one of thehardest things to say.
So thank you both so much foryour time, Raven, Laurel, thank
you for your insights.
And we look forward to sharingour next episode with you every
two weeks for the KeystoneConcepts in Teaching podcast.
So thank you so much for yourtime.
Raven (26:51):
Thanks!
Laurel (26:52):
Yes, of course.
Thank y'all.
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