Author: yshahtaheri

Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority!

This week I would like to reflect on the “Dear White America” speech from Tim Wise. His speech last semester here at Tech opened my eyes to many different perspectives of the issue with the current regulations in higher education institutes. Reading the inclusive pedagogy articles: from safe spaces to brave spaces, identity and intellectual performance, and reducing the stereo type threats I cannot say that I disagree with their presented methods. However I am not sure if they are sufficient to address some of our current issues… Yes, changes in the educational system/exams/etc. can help, but this will not impact what students learn outside of school from the community that they are in contact with. We cannot neglect the fact that the interaction of students with each other is a major part of this equation… If a student does not feel comfortable in a classroom setting because of gender, race, or other categorization issues, restructuring the exams or the educational system will definitely have an impact on the performance of such students. However how are we moderating the interaction of the students with each other? How are we making sure that they are understanding of each other?  I think that it is very important to educate the teachers with the background and history of the ethnic minorities that they will be mentoring. I believe that this should be a requirement for all teachers and professors which will help them understand how some of these issues are impacting the society and how they can be best conveyed to students. Most probably I will be teaching a course in my last year of PhD here at Tech and I think that it is necessary to have a discussion with my students to open their eyes to some of these problems. As most people (alike myself) may think that this problem does not relate to them and since this problem may not be near and dear to the hearts of people who have not experienced it, they are less likely to learn more about it or work their way to finding some potential solutions to these problems.

One way to implement this change in higher education is to offer one mandatory course for all majors which discusses the background, culture, and history of various ethnic minorities and how the future of the nation depends on equal rights and opportunities for all current minorities which might be the majority of the population of the United States in the future (here’s an additional resource). Students enlightened with the true history of various ethnicities are more likely to perform better in their courses and therefore are more likely to perform better when they work in today’s global environment. Our graduates are the future generation of the CEOs, employees, teachers, professors, policeman, and policy makers. Although I think that this problem needs to be fixed from much higher place in the hierarchy of regulations. We in higher education can also impact this problem in many ways by understanding that our population blend will look very different in the future and that we need to find better ways of understanding and serving the minorities by both training our teachers and students…

 

Explore a World Richer than what is Offered in the Printed Books . . . !

What is authentic teaching and how can we find our teaching style? I certainly believe that teaching styles is dependent on ones personality and capabilities… I have seen many cases where professors are adapting some good teaching practices in the wrong way! One good teaching practice is to ask questions in order to guide the learner to the solution instead of just presenting the solution. This could be done by posing questions such as what do you think? Why do you think that is? Are you sure? What are we missing here? etc. As much as questioning the learners is a good practice,  asking too many questions will confuse the learners! I took a course last semester in which the instructor would answer most of the questions with a question! And whenever someone responded to a question  he would say are you sure? I found that too confusing and it seemed like he was not well prepared for the class…

This is when teaching styles should be adapted to ones personality and capabilities! You cannot just try to employ teaching techniques without customizing them to your teaching style… Maybe this professor was trying to guide us to the right solution however he could have better implemented this by accordingly planning his questions rather than  questioning everything and confusing the students… Maybe he loses focus whenever he poses a question and has to ask more questions so that he can make time to get his focus back… Yes, questioning is good but the questions should be leading the student to right path!

As teachers we should have the ability to connect the theories with the reality… An interesting article in the Faculty Focus  mentioned six paths to a more authentic teaching.

  1. Being sincere
  2. Being true to oneself
  3. Acting in the interests of learners
  4. Care for the subject
  5. A process of becoming

A great example of these practices was mentioned in the reading as we need to find ways to draw on the child’s vast experience of oral mathematics not teaching them things that computers can do! If we want to pose questions frequently, we should do this while we consider what the learners will be getting out of responding to these questions… Where are these questions taking them? Instead of just mindlessly posing questions so that we can convince ourselves that we have “employed” this great practice! So let’s take some of the great practices that are adaptable to our major and sincerely employ them in our teaching while we are aware of our circle of knowledge, are staying true to it, and considering what the learners need to be/are getting out of this process. Most importantly the road to success is always under construction (Lily Tomlin) so always ask for feedback from students and try to find places for improvement. One great thing that I liked about one of my Professors last semester was that he would not just rely on the departmental evaluations and would directly ask us for suggestions. I find this a great practice since it shows ones genuine care for improvement…

Becoming literate means thinking differently than one did previously, seeing the world differently, and this suggests that there are many different literacies!

The Triggering of Human Imagination

I should start by saying that I am definitely not a gamer and I cannot understand how games could trigger the human imagination! I believe that gaming connects us to a fake unrealistic world which at some point might separate us from our real life! There are so many other useful practices which could trigger imagination… Some of the ones that I personally relate to have been mentioned in a very interesting blog  by the Fast Company and they include:

  1. Thinking in metaphors
  2. Thinking in pictures
  3. Borrowing from other domains
  4. Introducing unrelated ideas
  5. Reversing polarity
  6. Finding the paradox 

As researchers I think that we have all used some of these practices for triggering our imagination and coming up with new ideas… I personally found reversing polarity and finding the paradox very interesting! By reversing polarity we can release conceptual energy and that would open our eyes to new solutions… As an example consider that the sink in your workplace is always filled with dishes… and you cannot tell whose dished they are! So trying to solve this problem you will think that it is hard to tell whose dishes are in the sink… Now what if you rephrase the problem as it’s easy to tell whose dishes are in the sink… Then this might open your eyes to an easy solution which is if it’s easy to tell whose dishes are in the sink then maybe they are personalized with the employees initials… The second interesting point for me was finding the paradox. Consider a city where people would dump motor oils into sewers and they would flow into the bay and pollute the fish habitats. Also the warnings posted near the drains are not working… instead of looking at the problem in the way that is was proposed to us we can ask can the sewer grates and signs be the same? yes! How about a grate in the shape of a fish with an unambiguous message of whatever you put down the drain goes right into the fish!

The 20th century made us believe that everything of value can be bought in a store, that the answer to the question lies at the back of the book, and that design is something only designers do. But in the 21st century, we are being nudged forward—by our customers, our employers, our economy, and by the robots nipping at our heels—to be original.

Realizing That Passing the Exams Wasn’t the Hard Part!

I think that the main issue for using the wrong assessment techniques is the fact that we have lost the big picture! Why are we assessing the learners? What are they getting out of this assessment? and what are we preparing them for?

The first question is why are we assessing the learners? 

Well, the answer to this question seems pretty straight forward! Learning is a process that needs practice… I might think that I have learned a concept however as soon as someone asks me to explain what the concept really is about, I start to understand that maybe I have not fully understood all the aspects of this concept! One important factor in the learning process, is involving group work since how others observe and understand what we have learned will definitely open our eyes to a lot of things that we might not have thought of.

The second question is what are the learners getting out of this?

Now let’s take a step back and think… Does the leaner need to learn how to solve a system of non-liner equations? or learn why this solving method is being used from the first place? How about if we ask them to consider two cars driving towards each other, and ask them to find out at what exact time they will hit each other considering that we know the speed and acceleration of both cars. This is called sideways learning which triggers the creativity of students and motivates them to look for methods for solving this problem. This might even lead them to finding something new! Also, if they are going off on a tangent we can guide them to the right direction by giving them clues such as asking questions like what do we want to find? How can we simplify this problem? Such examples exist in all disciplines and will excite the learner and motivate them to learn new concepts.

Now what are we preparing them for?

At the end we are preparing the learners to solve real life problems with what they know while being creative and practical. This approach can solve both old and new problems, wheres the conventional method is mostly preparing the learners to solve the previously solved problems. This is what they should be assessed on… Can they solve the problem? Can they adapt what they have learned to new problems? Can they use new techniques and think outside the box? Does their solution make sense?

Of course this makes it very hard for the instructors since now they need to fully understand the topic that they are teaching, the problems that can be solved using the tools that they give to students, the alternative approaches to what they know, potential creative approaches that might make sense, etc… A rubric which requires you to take 2 points off if a student has 0.28 instead of 0.2 will definitely not do the job! I would say that at least in my case I can say that this conventional approach increased my stress level and forced me to just study for the exams, instead of looking outside the book and understanding why I am learning what I am learning . . . Coming to graduate school, I realized that there is so much more to what we learned and the exams did not really prepare me for what I need to do at this stage of my life! I am not sure if they were a useful life skill at all! Today I look back and think passing all those brutal engineering exams wasn’t the hard part! Applying all those concepts to my research problem today is the hard part! I wish I was prepared for applying my knowledge and not for solving a problem during a timed period which I studied so hard for to make sure that I have a rubric for it in my mind so that I can wrap it up during the timed period!

Professor=Teacher=Facilitator

As Ellen Langer beautifully states: “The simple process of mindful learning, of actively drawing distinctions and noticing new things-seeing the familiar in the novel and the novel in the familiar-is a way to ensure that our minds are active, that we are involved, and that we are situated in the present.” 

I definitely think that working my way from undergraduate to graduate school, learning has been a much more pleasant and active experience for me. Being in engineering, I think we have all experienced those professors which just write a bunch of equations on the board and finish the class with some examples which they might provide the answer to right away or during the next session! The main reason that I attended classes like this was to take notes so that I can go home and study from notes after class! This approach is the “top down” approach which relies on discursive lecturing to instruct students. I should say that I find this method beneficial for students who just want to familiarize themselves with the topics which are introduced in a course and maybe take the time themselves to dive deeper in the topics that they find beneficial to their life/work/research. This is the same concept as auditing a course. I definitely think that if we are taking courses for credit we should be very hands on with that course and not just familiarized with some concepts and methods of that topic. This ties well with the “bottom-up” approach which relies on direct experience and repeated practice of the new activity in a systematic way. Some of best courses that I have had in my life shared two common guidelines which I find very useful:

1) The professors always mentioned not to worry about the grade. This semester I noticed that all professors were required to put a grading scale on their syllabus! I do not know if this is very useful! Since it puts extra stress on the students and also all the professors ended up mentioning that they were required to include this grading scale on their syllabus and that they will curve the class to help students focus on learning and not their grade. So why include the grading scale on the syllabus?

2) They always tied the theory with some great life examples. As as example I took a decision theory course last semester and as part of the course requirement we had to learn how to play poker and participate in a poker playing session in class! I mean how much more hands on can we get with decision making?! Everyone had to consider their (and other player’s) probability of winning, and then figure out how much it is worth for them to bet according to their chances of winning in a limited amount of time! Not to mention that at some point emotions will get involved since you want to win so badly, or you have already bet so much that you have “nothing to loose”, or are pressurized by another player! You should also consider that other players might be bluffing! This tied very well with most of the topics that were introduced in the course and helped me adapt the skills that I learned to a real life example which could also be further adapted to trading stocks, important life decisions (i.e. at a personal or job level), etc.

I also think that redesigning your syllabus (which I wrote a blog post about last semester) is a fun and creative way for enhancing the learning process and making the class more active and interactive. Why not look back at our best learning experiences and try to adapt those methods to what we are teaching? Another example in my field (civil engineering) could include some hands on work, preferably in the lab with designing structures and testing them under various types of loads. Yes, I know how to design structures for bridges, houses, etc on a piece of paper. However this is just like another example introduced by Ellen Langer which was someone teaching you methodologically how to perform CPR on infants and adults. Now imagine that you are walking by a pool and you come across  a 7 year old who needs CPR. What do you do? How do you adapt your CPR knowledge to this 7 year old?

As teachers, we should introduce concepts and theories, and design activities and group projects which allow the learners to engage in the content by exploring, debating, creating, practicing, and imitating rather than just receiving! We need to facilitate the learning process so that learners are prepared to adjust and adopt what they have learned to real life scenarios rather then teaching them to be mindlessly sequential.

 

Let’s not repeat history! Don’t be boring teachers! Be fun,  be creative, be dynamic, be inclusive . . . !

 

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Connected Learning Principles

A report on connected learning introduces focus on learners, individual interest, continuity in learning, and the future of the learners as principles of connected learning. By Focusing on the learners we will allow them to develop life-long skills which would allow them to succeed in today’s economy. As this report states that learning is powered by individual interests and supported by peers, connected learning can also be achieved through digital media by connecting academics to the learner’s interest and therefore inspiring both mentors and mentees.  Moreover due to the fact that learning is continuous, digital tools facilitate this process in various settings in home, school, and the community. Last but not least this process will transform the learners to future producers which can be successful in today’s global environment.

The core properties for a connected learning experience can be defined as production centered, shared purpose, and open networked environments . It is also worth mentioning that as higher education is moving towards globalization, connected learning has the ability to cross the boundaries which have separated cultures, universities, and the community.

“CONNECTED LEARNING IS NOT ABOUT A SPECIFIC TECHNOLOGY, TOOL, PLATFORM, OR TECHNIQUE, BUT INSTEAD SEEKS TO DESIGN EXPERIENCES FOR LEARNERS THAT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TODAY’S ABUNDANT LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES.”

 

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