Hi Timothy,

I know what you mean about placing “mindfulness” categorically into the bin with meditation. It is a term/concept that is used often in many disciplines that the meaning changes with context. I liked how you were reflecting on your experiences in your early education and considering what will be the next generation, based on how we are currently educating people. The part about how the current culture of education (where one must sacrifice sleep, food, or social relationships for “success”) is harmful is very on point. I think that higher ed is starting to pay attention to this issue and there are many who champion for students thriving in graduate school (a big part of Dean DePauw’s message, for instance). It is wrong and unsustainable to ask people to put their health behind their scholarship. I liked where you were talking about leveraging gaming to increase mindfulness and positive outcomes for students. When we make learning fun for students and present it in a mindful way, there is no doubt in my mind that the result and impact on students will be great.

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Hi Connor,

Your description of the dairy farm management/assessment course sounds really interesting. What you describe is a valuable skill: the ability to see a place (i.e. components of the dairy farm), understand what it is and then know what the best practice should be given the goals and values of their client. Excited to see the spark from Langer’s mindfulness essay got you thinking about how you can improve your teaching in the future. It will no doubt have a positive impact on your students and the people they work with in their careers.

In response to your question about how others are teaching in a mindful way in their disciplines, I wanted to share a little bit about an approach we use in Landscape Architecture. First, like what you described with the “nutrition, housing, milk… systems, we often teach about the landscape in terms of different living systems as well: ecological (biotic), physical, & cultural. We emphasize a holistic understanding of the world. So knowledge in each of these domains is necessary to understand how any particular place comes to be as it is today. And when we teach about site design, for instance, we introduce students to a site and ask them “what does the site want to be?”

The answer to that question changes dramatically depending on if there was a historic event in that place, if it’s a vulnerable ecosystem, if the client wants a high-end outdoor kitchen & pool, if a neighborhood is planning a community garden, if a city is planning a new trails system… what I’m getting at is that the possibilities are infinite.

Yet, a well designed place responds to this constellation of factors in a very mindful way. One can’t just declare a design upon a site; it won’t be successful. A true designer uses improvisation to understand what they have in their site. Then, to respond to what has been given to them (landform, vegetation, history, etc.). That’s what I believe to be important about teaching students how to design in studio: to approach sites in an open way such that they can really experience that place, understand it and develop their ideas into the tangible: plans and drawings representing their ideas.

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Hi Riya,

I really appreciated your post, especially lines you drew between education and this long history and tradition of education that is largely ignored today. Your three takeaways are on point: it’s about sparking creativity, there’s never just 1 answer or a right/wrong answer, and the gift of peer-learning (for students and teachers alike!)

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Hi Vibhav,

I see your point and I agree that there are certain (harsher) aspects of life that all people learn as they age and gain experience; but I would argue that the point of an education is to help an individual reach their potential, and a positively proven method for this to happen is for students to be engaged on an individual basis where they have room to exercise both creativity and empathy with others.

You’re right, jobs are not typically personalized for an individual (sometimes they are)–but I think real point Sir Ken and the message we were trying to send home by sharing his talk is that when we are learning in our formative years this is time where students should be dreaming big, fearless to explore, discover and learn what it means to find joy in their life, in their chosen discipline, in their work and in their lives outside of work.

I strongly believe that there is plenty of room to let learners be so that we all can benefit from the new ideas and innovation wrought by a fresh set of eyes and a heart full of aspirations (because I’ve witnessed it). Life has its way of driving home the more serious points of your argument, does that mean that school has to be as sobering as “real life” instead of a reprieve from it and an opportunity to dream? I hope you would consider the thought that there is space in the equation for new approaches in education and seeing students in an individual way.

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Hi Heather,
Thank you for sharing your experience with tutoring Chemistry students in higher ed. I appreciate how you are thinking through how to work with each of your students on a very human and individual level as a peer-learner; meeting them where they are and being committed to active listening and engagement. Your ideas about changing student expectations of how course material is used is a great way to grab the attention of your students and motivate them to participate. If they know their their success is directly related to the amount of work they put in (VS passively being present for a lecture), they are surely going to either rise to the challenge (or find something else to do with their credits)!

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Hi Ben,

Thank you for sharing your story with us in your post. One of the things I really appreciated about your post is how you reflect on the role of educators as student mentors and guides. It might be a universal truth that all young people struggle with discovering their interests and strengths (to some degree). Providing solid mentoring will have a lasting effect in the lives of our students; like a ripple effect our meeting them on their terms as individuals will teach them to do the same when they are the mentor one day.

Double triple bonus points for the in-text shout out to your colleague Adbhut and his VR post during your VR discussion. Like you, I am excited to see the future of VR and AR as applied in the design disciplines. Have you gotten a chance to visit The Cube or see what’s happening over in ICAT? I had an opportunity to learn about some of the different applications of VR/AR on campus last semester and it was really exciting stuff. You should push your program chair to get industrial design over there for a tour & demos of their projects if you haven’t.

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Hi Ben,

Thank you for sharing your story with us in your post. One of the things I really appreciated about your post is how you reflect on the role of educators as student mentors and guides. It might be a universal truth that all young people struggle with discovering their interests and strengths (to some degree). Providing solid mentoring will have a lasting effect in the lives of our students; like a ripple effect our meeting them on their terms as individuals will teach them to do the same when they are the mentor one day.

Double triple bonus points for the in-text shout out to your colleague Adbhut and his VR post during your VR discussion. Like you, I am excited to see the future of VR and AR as applied in the design disciplines. Have you gotten a chance to visit The Cube or see what’s happening over in ICAT? I had an opportunity to learn about some of the different applications of VR/AR on campus last semester and it was really exciting stuff. You should push your program chair to get industrial design over there for a tour & demos of their projects if you haven’t.

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Hi Adbhut!

Thanks for sharing your experience of the “cheap” VR glasses with us. I’ve always wondered about them, but never had the chance to hear a testimonial from a user. Do you know if they are cumbersome for people who wear corrective lenses?

You’re bringing up an interesting idea for the future of active classroom learning. How cool would it be to have even a cheap set of VR/AR glasses for every student in the room? I am excited to see and play around in the future of virtual and augmented reality, especially in education. The comments on this post are really great, too.

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Hi Andrew,

From the tone of your post, I bet you’d get a lot from Hani, whose post I read just before yours: http://haniawni.science/blog/2019/02/week-3-digital-era-teaching/.
Like you, he is in support of lecture when it makes sense, and he is also an advocate for recording lectures and having them available online.

I can say from experience both as the TA in the course and a student in the course, that recorded lectures are a boon to student learning. When my prof. was recording his lectures and providing videos on how to work the complex problem sets, we had better student turnout because they could watch the videos over and over to understand the process and get them really right. (See my long comment on Hani’s post for more detailed description of how that worked out.) I took Fluvial Geomorphology in BSE a few semesters ago and our prof. recorded her lectures and had them online. It can’t be overstated how helpful that was for me as a non-major in the class to be able to watch and re-watch the technical content of the lectures as many times as it took for the ideas to sink in. It was an interesting class–taught mostly online with a face-to-face component (where students were supposed to bring their questions) and I found that I ended up working way harder in that class than others I have been in simply because the breadth and depth of content presented to us was expanded due to the online platform.

I know there are likely many contexts where recording a lecture may not be ideal for an individual, but I think that whenever possible, this is a great teaching tool and asset for any instructor. Recording lectures (and then archiving them, etc.) may take more time on the front-end, but once you’ve created it, it’s done and it’s there for your continued use. If you need to add/edit/change the content, there are several different programs available that can enable a pre-recorded lecture to evolve with changing theory and times.

I’m a big fan and I’m excited that you are, too. Have you thought about what kinds of content you might like to record and offer to your students?

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Hi Michael,

I agree that without openness and desire to exchange collaboratively with our global colleagues, we would certainly miss out on opportunities to advance discourse and improve knowledge base within and across diverse disciplines. There is so much to gain when we work together and we are limited by what we can achieve when we silo ourselves. With this in mind, how do you think you will approach this issue with your students so that you can help instill values of collaboration and developing scientific partnerships?

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