Adon Moskal [11:25 AM]
Elise, how do you keep up to date as a teacher?
Elise [11:26 AM]
I think there are so many ways, that the challenge is finding some kind of direction. For example, Ako Aotearoa offers short courses - perhaps that’s a good place to start?
Adon Moskal [11:26 AM]
Do you currently do any of the courses? Or more a future planning thing?
Elise [11:27 AM]
I have done one before - I think it was an Ako one - about engaging Māori learners. But I get emails about upcoming courses and some of them look very useful.
Adon Moskal [11:28 AM]
So they are typically about peripheral things to do with teaching and learning? E.g. engaging Māori learners… or are there general ones (learning theories etc…) - because like you said, there’s so much to this ‘teaching’ thing, what exactly does remain current even mean?
Elise [11:30 AM]
They often target a specific area, for example about literacy development in the trades.
Adon Moskal [11:31 AM]
Ah… so thinking more generally, how do you keep up to date on, say, current trends in assessment, or latest innovations in technology, etc…?
Elise [11:32 AM]
I think it’s important to engage across the organisation, for a start. For example, as an EdTech person, I get to find out what other people are doing with new technologies. How about you?
(Also, Ako has online content too, like the knowledge centre: https://ako.ac.nz/knowledge-centre/)
ako.ac.nz
Adon Moskal [11:34 AM]
Mostly research I guess… reading articles and attending conferences… But, it’s a tricky one I think… it’s a bit of give and take, balancing some general study from the UK with 10,000 students for example, with our specific context (e.g. 30 students)… I find talking to other people in the department to be really useful, and then sort of finding some middle ground with what I read about (we think X, and the research says Y, so maybe I’ll try a bit of XY)…
Elise [11:35 AM]
I think you’re right - talking to colleagues is a good first step
I went to the Edutech conference in Sydney and the best part of it was meeting the other people from OP who were going.
Adon Moskal [11:36 AM]
Did you meet people from other places too? Like, bounce things off them and see if there were commonalities?
Elise [11:37 AM]
A bit, yeah. But as you pointed out before, many people there were from big universities where the context of what they do is really different.
Adon Moskal [11:38 AM]
Definitely
Elise [11:38 AM]
More useful was probably when I did some research with AUT and some other smaller institutions about learners using mobile devices - I got to talk to people doing the same sorts of things we do.
What methods can we use to make sure we keep getting opportunities like this?
Communities of Practice?
Adon Moskal [11:41 AM]
Yesss…….. but I think those need to be carefully curated… more so than one might think… I’ve seen CoP form with a lot of enthusiastic people, they all want to learn from one another, share their practice, share their stories, successes, failures, etc… but, you kind of also need to ensure some ‘experts’ are in the mix too… I think that’s the tricky part… almost like a mentor sitting on top, guiding the rest
Do you have a mentor, Elise?
Elise [11:42 AM]
Not right now, but during the D4LS stuff we did for the CIT programmes I found that the facilitators we had, for example Richard, Helen and Ray, were really good mentors.
How about you?
Adon Moskal [11:43 AM]
No, not really… I used to, at the uni… I worked closely with a senior lecturer, and it was very useful at the time… kind of ‘channeling’ my raw energy in productive directions… does that make sense?
Elise [11:44 AM]
It does. So what specific strategies do you currently have in place (or intend to put in place) for keeping abreast of trends and theories?
Adon Moskal [11:46 AM]
Well, I suppose two sides to that… for the educational side, mostly conferences I think… and not usually the presentations, but the conversations at morning tea etc… for the IT side, the technical stuff, it’s mostly hand-on… like I ‘do’ web development myself still, so I keep learning web development stuff, and then that feeds into my classes…
You?
Elise [11:48 AM]
I’m pretty similar. I try to keep a community project or two going, and sometimes these are both IT and education related. For example, helping to get the Cadet Forces hooked up on Moodle and also developing a personnel management system as part of a web dev team. I think my involvement with a youth organisation informs my practice a lot, and I’m lucky enough to be able to do courses and conferences through that organisation too.
Adon Moskal [11:49 AM]
That’s really good… that link with actual ‘young people’ (i.e. students…)
I find that helpful too… because you can have (a) educational theory (big picture), (b) context-specific (vocational, small class sizes, NZ) etc… but then there’s (c) these actual people I see everyday, and that brings yet another lens to the craft
Elise [11:49 AM]
Yeah, and oddly enough I find our students are always really keen to discuss educational trends and theories.
Adon Moskal [11:51 AM]
I think getting to know the students, inform them on why we do things, get their perceptions, all helps to shape the classroom experience… it’s my main gripe with the diversity stuff we do here… like, the “Māori” way of learning… or the “Pasifika” way of learning etc… I try to do the “individual” way of learning… I care not which demographic box you ticked, I’m going to get to know you personally, see what works for you, and try to teach to you that way as best I can
Elise [11:52 AM]
And young people are always changing - you can’t apply the knowledge of one cohort and expect the same things to work for the next cohort or next year…
Adon Moskal [11:53 AM]
Yep
Elise [11:53 AM]
Not to mention the more mature learners, who are almost even more aware of the educational things going on
Adon Moskal [11:53 AM]
Well, yeah, more aware and also, maybe, less receptive to new things… so a weird dichotomy happening there…
Elise [11:53 AM]
Very true
I think another specific strategy to keep up to date is to actually try out new things, always evolve your teaching practice in different ways. I like the way OP allows this flexibility – kind of autonomy over our classroom allowing us to develop as practitioners.
So, more than researching and reading - you actually have to do things in practice too.
Adon Moskal [11:55 AM]
Yeah, and then, communication with the students is crucial… I try new things and if I don’t explain why I’m doing these things, they interpret them negatively (sometimes…) e.g. I don’t tell them the answers because I want them to find them out for themselves, but maybe they think I just can’t be bothered helping
Elise [11:55 AM]
That’s right
Adon Moskal [11:55 AM]
So, I guess we’re both saying “students” as another source of currency
What do they respond to?
What works
Elise [11:56 AM]
Yeah, funny how most of our really good strategies involve face-to-face conversation. Reading and doing courses and PD is good, but talking about stuff is crucial.
I think it sort of counts as an informal CoP too.
Adon Moskal [11:58 AM]
I find courses and workshops etc… the least useful. I think those are best for completely new things, or inexperienced people… like if I wanted to learn how to overhaul an engine, maybe best to take a course or something to get a grounding, rather than talk with an experienced mechanic and get the nuances
But for our day-to-day stuff it’s more evolution than revolution, so workshops etc are usually too blunt… we want to tweak, gently, subtleties, etc
Elise [11:59 AM]
I was thinking about this the other day - a great way to get new ideas for your own practice could be to take a course taught by someone else in another department. I’d like to learn how to weld, or how to train dogs. I think I could learn a lot about teaching by being a student in a context like that.
Adon Moskal [12:00 PM]
Yeah, I think back on my own student experiences and think about what worked for me, what I would have liked more of etc… and try to not do too much of the bad stuff, and more of the good stuff…
Elise [12:00 PM]
Same
Adon Moskal [12:01 PM]
I think that’s the best we can aim for… take all the information, gauge the students, and try not to do too much bad stuff… it’s not a science, it’s an art… it’s like playing a piece of music… you can know all the notes, but every time you play it, it will be different
Elise [12:01 PM]
I know some musicians who play the same way each time, but they’re not the ones you’d want to listen to
Adon Moskal [12:01 PM]
Ha…
Elise [12:02 PM]
They’re considered to be very proficient though!
Adon Moskal [12:02 PM]
I have to park the conversation just for 30 mins… I have to meet someone about something… but I shall return… perhaps we can pick up where we left off
Elise [12:02 PM]
Good plan. I’m going to grab some lunch.
See you in a bit
Adon Moskal [12:02 PM]
:slightly_smiling_face:
Adon Moskal [12:34 PM]
I am returned, whenever you’re available
Elise [12:48 PM]
I’m just heading back upstairs
Adon Moskal [12:48 PM]
:sunglasses:
Elise [12:50 PM]
Hi
I made it - sorry, lunch took longer than expected
Adon Moskal [12:50 PM]
That’s ok… you are allowed a lunch break - work/life balance
Elise [12:51 PM]
Something like that :slightly_smiling_face:
Adon Moskal [12:52 PM]
So, I thought I’d ask you about student feedback, since we were talking about students being integral to the idea of keeping up to date with teaching… I’m currently reviewing some of mine and trying to pick out the useful bits to inform my practice… How do you use student feedback?
Elise [12:54 PM]
The first challenge is to gather enough meaningful feedback in the first place. I tend to do this by starting a conversation in class to get people thinking about the course. That way, they have some ideas about feedback before they start the formal survey. How do I use the results? It really helps to keep things like the pace of the course in check.
Time spent on each topic for example
Learning design, I guess that is
Adon Moskal [12:55 PM]
Right… so yours is more your own system of feedback, less the institutional questions around being organised etc
Elise [12:55 PM]
Both really. I think student perception of teaching can be useful, but mostly where you get lots of comments that agree with one another.
It’s surprising helpful to know what to do more of, in fact.
I was once watching a lot of YouTube and found that the style of presentation crept into my teaching style, and then comments came back about how interesting that was to the students. Sometimes improvements in practice can come from unexpected things (although it does make sense that students respond well to YouTube style of explaining things)
For the record, it was mostly Chase Reeves and Kylecraft :slightly_smiling_face:
Adon Moskal [12:59 PM]
Ha, yeah… I’m torn with some things in the feedback… like, I will get mixed ratings on some questions (which makes you sad) but then you read the comments and see that some people were complaining about the course being challenging, requiring them to do their own research, etc, etc… and you think “But that’s what I want them to experience”… so you have to sort of balance their wants with what you think is best for them…
Elise [1:00 PM]
I know, and this ended up being the conclusion to my teaching philosophy. What do you, personally, do about that though?
Adon Moskal [1:00 PM]
Uh… suck it up… :confused: I don’t know the answer to that… like how about a comment like this:
“I have found this paper to be too hard. I appreciate that, being third year, it is suppose to be very hard…. The paper is good and, to be fair, I’ve learnt a lot. I have enjoyed the
learning experience.”
Like, it’s a complaint, but at the same time, a positive statement… so do I make the course easier or not?
Elise [1:02 PM]
I had similar stuff from multimedia. I’ll dig one out…
“I loved the variety of things we covered, however, it doesn’t work very well for the time frame of one semester. There was way too much content to cover in very little time.” and this is after taking a whole lot of stuff out from how it used to be taught
Adon Moskal [1:05 PM]
So, we’re hitting a problem between theory and practice… they should do A, B, and C, but in reality they only get through A and B… do we drop C, or push C? How do you compromise with something as important as ‘learning’?
Elise [1:06 PM]
Well yeah, like this one is even more worrying: A lot of time was
wasted on unimportant things compared to what was needed for the assessments. I understand it’s to try get more coverage on everything that is out there but if the subject is not a passion and more a purpose, the wasted time can be frustrating and demoralizing.
That’s basically a request to only be taught to the assessments.
Adon Moskal [1:07 PM]
Yep, and that’s the biggest problem… working within the institution… my biggest complaint of all - teaching and learning happen all the time, everywhere, with me, without me… but try and wrap that in rules and regulations and consequences and money and politics
Higher education seems to be its own worst enemy
Elise [1:09 PM]
One mo…
Elise [1:16 PM]
Helping students for a sec there. Back now
Adon Moskal [1:17 PM]
Nice
Elise [1:18 PM]
Higher education seems to be its own worst enemy is right!
Adon Moskal [1:18 PM]
I think team teaching is a great help as well
Elise [1:20 PM]
I am finding working with Martin (does that make me a mentor?) really helpful for improving my own teaching. It makes me think of things in more detail, trying to think like a new teacher and questioning everything.
Adon Moskal [1:21 PM]
Same with Nathan (I’m not sure who the mentor in that relationship is…) - it’s just good to get different perspectives… whether they are totally different approaches, or just a different interpretation of the same approach
Assuming you aren’t perfect is a good way to start… being open to new ideas, I think, is what we’re saying - remaining current means being open to new ideas
Elise [1:21 PM]
Nathan has some really interesting insights into teaching/education theory
Yeah, good summary
Adon Moskal [1:21 PM]
Aw thanks
Elise [1:22 PM]
So… if you could pick one goal to aim for starting now (regarding staying current etc) what would you pick?
For me it’s definitely trying to get to more conferences.
Adon Moskal [1:24 PM]
I think mine is closer to home… I’d rather develop a better understanding of what’s happening within our department and at OP… I get bits and pieces from chatting to people, but I feel like I could approach it more systematically, and not rely so much on happenstance… put in some processes, maybe to observe some other peoples’ teaching etc, throughout the year
How do you think you might achieve your goal?
Elise [1:26 PM]
I need to get my own research a bit more momentum. It’s hard to find funding to go to conferences as just an attendee. I think you’re right about us needing a more systematic approach to sharing knowledge about teaching practice. I wonder if forming a CoP within our department would help?
Someone would need to drive it though
Perhaps a bit of guest teaching too?
Adon Moskal [1:27 PM]
The problem for me is also (I’m ashamed to admit it) but some of this ends up falling into the “nice to have” basket (should I be this honest??)
Elise [1:28 PM]
I’m totally the same!
Adon Moskal [1:29 PM]
For example, there are those Friday “debrief” sessions, that I never attend… so, like, that could be the CoP you are talking about, but I can’t justify it to myself to spend the time… I think I’m at the stage where things are going well 80% of the time, and there are other pressing things to attend to, so that last 20%… I’ll get to that some time, but not now…
Elise [1:29 PM]
Those sessions can be pretty useful, but not every time.
I wish they started an hour later!
Adon Moskal [1:30 PM]
Even like you’re saying - attend more conference - yeah, great, who’s paying for all these conferences?? How much time are you going to take off from day to day teaching to upskill… even, (dare I say it) things like the GDTE… they all take time. There are only so many hours in the week
Elise [1:30 PM]
Exactly, and the “need to have” takes up almost all of it. I manage to squeeze in a bit of “procrastiworking” at times, but that’s the best I’m doing at the moment.
I’m procrastiworking right now doing GDTE when I should be marking…
Adon Moskal [1:31 PM]
Yeah - it’s why we double-dip with our research so often… let’s try to improve my teaching AND publish something out of it at the same time
Elise [1:32 PM]
That’s a good way to do it
Adon Moskal [1:32 PM]
I don’t think that was the original aim of research-informed teaching… it may accomplish the same thing, but the reason for doing it is slightly different…
Elise [1:32 PM]
Teaching-informed research
Adon Moskal [1:33 PM]
you got it!
Elise [1:33 PM]
My pet thing at the moment is trying to make marking/assessment more sustainable.
I feel like I could do much better at assessing and make it more useful to students if I could only work out how to cut the overheads (and avoid the KPI issues) and focus more on the learning.
Adon Moskal [1:35 PM]
That’s a very good aim… if you crack that one, do let me know…
Elise [1:36 PM]
I’ll be publishing like mad if I work it out :slightly_smiling_face:
Adon Moskal [1:37 PM]
I feel like a lot of what we do is spinning plates… and you can’t spin them all at the same time, so you hop from one thing to another and nothing ever just works holistically… like you spend a lot of time tweaking your assessments, getting them all in order and moderated and all that jazz… but your content starts to slip out of date… so you switch to that and update all the content and look up new stuff and try it out… but then your research is lagging…
and on and on
for some reason, it never seems to all line up perfectly
Elise [1:37 PM]
Or you manage to focus on the big picture for a while and then all the plates start to wobble at once!
Adon Moskal [1:39 PM]
I feel (sometimes… maybe this is not a good approach, who knows…) that the jobs should be split along functional lines… like, someone on the team is in charge of assessments, and keeps an eye on all the assessments for the department, keeps them in line with the policies etc… and some of us are the “teachers” or the “performers” and we do the classroom stuff… and then some of us are the researchers, and we go out and collect and bring back the ideas and disseminate them to the team…
Is that crazy?
Elise [1:41 PM]
Might not help the holistic thing, but it could certainly improve the quality of the plate spinning. Perhaps it’s silly to expect every individual teacher to be equally good at all those things, yeah. But it could result in silos of a different kind. Maybe you assign one person to constructive alignment…
Adon Moskal [1:41 PM]
I feel like I’m supposed to design my courses, deliver them, assess them, do my own administration, keep abreast of policies, new innovations, new research, pastoral care, etc, etc… and it’s like, how?? How is one person expected to do all of it? And like you say, kind of be expert in all things…
Dunno… ‘tis the age old question… centralised or decentralised
Elise [1:44 PM]
The admin is definitely something that needs to be taken off us! Pastoral care - it would be good if that took care of itself but I can’t see how that could work. But yes, I feel the same way, and I too end up spending more energy on the bits I like and feel good at, and less on the rest. I’m not sure there’s a strategy for fixing this, because then you’d have to shift that energy again (e.g. if I decided to find and attend a course on sustainable assessment, I feel like I would fall way behind on everything else).
I think course design and delivery could easily be done by different people, but in practice you never end up with a product that matches the description.
Another example: I’m currently both teaching and doing a GDTE assessment at the same time.
Adon Moskal [1:46 PM]
Some of it is issues of control and trust… for instance, if I’m delivering one way, and then the ideas/research person comes back with some new thing… I kind of have to have enough faith to put aside my preconceptions and try this person’s new thing out…
(I’m doing the GDTE while writing my promotion cover letter……….)
Elise [1:47 PM]
Mine ended up being around 3000 words or something :flushed:
Adon Moskal [1:48 PM]
oh wow… I’m currently at 1200….
hmm I have some way to go it seems!
Elise [1:48 PM]
Now I see why you’re going through student feedback :slightly_smiling_face:
Adon Moskal [1:48 PM]
shh
I’m doing it for my professional development
Elise [1:48 PM]
Exactly
Can we extract any pearls of wisdom about improving our teaching, or have we really just identified more problems than we know how to solve?
Adon Moskal [1:50 PM]
Well, both… I mean, at least we are fairly consistent on what the problems are… that’s good, because it means you aren’t missing something personally… so you can kind “relax” a little on those…?
Elise [1:50 PM]
Unless we’re both missing it…
Adon Moskal [1:50 PM]
:open_mouth:
Elise [1:50 PM]
lol
Adon Moskal [1:51 PM]
I think since we both identified students as a good gauge of our own teaching context, maybe some kind of sharing of feedback?
See if the comments being raised in one class are being raised elsewhere?
Might help identify those problems that are teacher-specific (can be fixed) and those that are student-specific (cannot be… so easily fixed)
The CoP thing is a good idea too… that one just suffers from time allocation… if everyone has to be present at the same time… maybe we have some kind of social network approach… set up a Slack channel to share teaching insights… build a sort of IT knowledge base?
Elise [1:54 PM]
The more data we look at, the better picture we’ll get. I wonder how to motivate people to contribute. We’re all in the same boat - need to spend all our time just doing it so no time left to sit around and talk about it/put energy into writing it down online.
Adon Moskal [1:55 PM]
Maybe departmental development days… not doing those institutional SWOT charts or whatever… but everybody brings some student feedback to share (in a non-judgmental way), some innovations they tried out… and we just talk once a semester about all this stuff… outside of teaching time…
like our D4LS days, but smaller… more personal changes, rather than big programme document changes
Apologies, but I (once again… so unreliable!) must depart to my next meeting :slightly_smiling_face:
Elise [1:59 PM]
All good. We might have enough material by now?
Adon Moskal [2:23 PM]
I think so… good conversing with you, colleague
Elise [2:25 PM]
Likewise :slightly_smiling_face: