*A note: this blog post follows emerging recommendations from autistic people and advocates to use “identity-first” rather than “person-first” language. The post uses the term “autistic person” rather than “person with autism” to affirm autistic identity. However, individual preferences may differ and this is still an area of discovery as the language around autistic identity is shaped over time.

Nicole Richard Williams asked us to begin by discussing our own experiences with autism or neurodiversity. As we went around the room, we spoke of autistic children, friends, or other family members. Faculty mentioned wanting to better meet the needs of their students, or even understand what those needs were. Everyone in the room agreed that, regardless of diagnosis or neurocognition, we all wanted more tools for reaching a diverse set of learners. This presentation provided us with just that.

Nicole began by helping us understand three major areas of neurocognitive differences that many autistic people experience: neuroconnectivity, sensory processing, and inhibition and movement. Compared to neurotypical people, autistic people have fewer neural connections between areas of the brain that are further apart, and more connections with closer areas of the brain. This pattern of connectivity could lead to specific areas of interest and expertise in autistic individuals, but can also underwrite some communication challenges and make it more difficult for some autistic people to understand connections between new material. Autistic people often experience sensory information differently, either as amplified or diminished relative to most neurotypical people. This experience of sensory perception means that eye contact, fluorescent lights, or everyday noises can feel overstimulating (or not stimulating enough). Finally, autistic people often have lower Purkinje cell volumes relative to neurotypical people, which is a cell responsible for helping us inhibit movements. As a result, autistic people can also sometimes move or speak in ways that are considered inappropriate in a neurotypical setting.

Nicole helpfully gave some tips to help us design a course that would be welcoming not only to autistic people, but to many of our students:

1. Connect with students over the main areas of interest. When possible allow them to shape assignments to be personally meaningful or relevant.
2. Provide multiple ways to access information, such as closed-captioned videos.
3. Use literal, direct information, and understand that students communicating directly with you may not be unkind—assume sincerity.
4. If possible, keep fluorescent lights off and doors closed to minimize outside noise.
5. Provide fidget aids to help students stay engaged.
6. Give students time to as questions or respond to information.
7. Create stable and predictable class structures by posting all assignment information in advance.
8. Give students explicit instructions about how to understand when they have done something right (for instance, in a theater class, what does excitement look like specifically in the body).

As is so often the case in sessions attending to individual learning needs, I found myself thinking about University Design for Learning (UDL)—an area of SoTL that Nicole herself mentioned in her presentation. UDL holds that small changes we can make in the design of our courses can benefit not only those students needing special supports, but all students, including students we may not be able to identify. Like curb ramps, often installed for compliance with ADA requirements for wheelchair access, they can also make life easy for a whole host of people the law did not originally intend to benefit, including those with other mobility issues, or more simply with strollers, shopping carts, or just an unusually heavy load to carry. Spotlighting autism can help us better see the needs of individual students, but designing for autistic students and other neurodiverse individuals can help everyone.

Find Nicole’s slide presentation here.

The session began with a bamboo chime. The presenter, Dr. Doreen Dodgen-Magee, walked around the tables while soft tones filled the room. Fifty harried professors breathed in and out. The moment modeled a larger point: all of us (faculty and students alike) live in a world in which technology has diminished our ability to be present with ourselves and others. In this context, our classes need to create not just opportunities but also supports for recentering and reconnecting. The bamboo chime gave our brains and bodies something to focus on, which provided a sensory on-ramp to centering better than simply asking us to breathe might have done. Doreen believes that our classes have enormous potential for providing countercultural islands of connection in the sea of physical and emotional dysregulation created by technology. And yet, she cautions that we need also to provide students with structured, guided opportunities for social connections and critical thinking. This sort of embodied presence doesn’t come naturally for anyone, and for our students, who spend more time with technology than any generation before them, it is only natural that they may need more supports when we ask them to disconnect from technology in the classroom. In many ways, I think of Doreen’s recommendations as a kind of emotional and physical complement to Jose Bowen’s work Teaching Naked. Both argue that solid learning happens well (although not exclusively) in low-tech environments. And while Bowen’s work gives good advice for the intellectual activities that might help students navigate low-tech learning in the classroom, Doreen’s talk helps teachers understand the physical and emotional habits that students need.

A few recommendations that stuck with me:
1. Allow and encourage movement through walking and/or fidget toys. Attend to students’ bodies when lecturing.
2. Create social norms in class by writing or discussing community agreements.
3. Talk about awkward moments and reactivity vrs. responsiveness (she recommends the “oops/ouch” approach to difficult moments in the classroom)
4. Take pauses when needed in class.
5. Assign work that builds internal loci of control and encourages growth mindsets

Finally, she recommends we reserve judging students (and ourselves!) for our use of technology or generational differences. True growth might best happen in the classroom if we accept who are students are and meet them there. Find Doreen’s slideshow in the Belmont Digital Repository for more great tips!

Cognitive wrappers are small self-reflective assignments given before and after homework, class activities, labs, lectures, or assessments to help students focus on the preparation they did. It asks students to reflect on questions such as “how often did you review your notes before class?” or “what tasks did you do to prepare for this exam?” As a metacognitive process, it illuminates the scaffolding that students often don’t realize they use to achieve their learning.

We recently heard from Dr. Ashley Scism about a cognitive exam wrapper that she adapted for her course and that I’m sharing here with permission. Her lunch presentation covered general approaches to wrappers, as well as the impact they can have on student learning, from increasing student confidence to improving grades by engaging a process of critical thinking and self-reflective analysis that ultimately culminates in performance improvement. Most importantly, though, cognitive wrappers help students review their own preparation and study skills more objectively. Ashley reported that cognitive wrappers were especially useful in framing the conversations she had with students following an exam. She shared with us one case study in which one student, in danger of failing out of the program, discussed their exam wrapper with Ashley. Using the wrapper as guidance, Ashley offered study strategies and pre-exam activities that the student might try. In a future exam, the student performed highest in the class.

Feel free to look over Ashley’s powerpoint, her general strategies for cognitive wrappers, and her template for cognitive wrappers here (please note this link requires a Belmont account–email the Teaching Center if you’re having trouble accessing it.

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education notes that students aren’t able to work independently as much these days, especially for significant and complex work such as research projects. Glad to see they got the memo.

The article’s initial approach is to frame this as a “problem” that needs to be “fixed,” which has me wondering: why are generational differences in learning proclivities problems? And why are they problems of learning (students can’t work in the same way) than of teaching (our current modes of teaching aren’t adequate to the needs of our learners)?

I grant that being able to navigate a complex issue independently is an important life skill to develop, and I agree that students would benefit from having more of this life skill than they currently do. In fact, I think that teaching them to become independent learners is one of the most important skills that college can give to students. I understand that their disengagement is informed by a host of very real deficiencies and challenges that repress their academic and personal flourishing: stress, insufficient academic preparation, increased life demands, jobs, servile approaches to learning. The list goes on.

And.

I also suspect that there are affordances here that we are missing. Our students are motivated by different priorities than they once were. They care about the world differently today. They want the tools to become change-makers and drivers of positive solutions. They want to learn how to encourage flourishing for themselves and for others, to become people who nurture cultures of care. They want to “do” something with their learning. They want to be in the communities and industries that they will one day fully join as professionals and citizens.

Their disengagement from our classes is, in other words, a behavioral request: they are asking us to leverage these strengths in our classrooms. The “problem” is also an invitation.

As I approach my classes this semester, I’m wondering how my students and I can ground our thinking in application, collaboration, and mutual care. For me, this looks like offering assignments that build bridges into communities and professions, typically known as “authentic assessments.” It also includes offering group work that cultivates teambuilding as well as knowledge development. It means teaching study skills like annotating, notetaking, and even arranging their study environments with intention. It means following up with methods of accountability that sometimes revive old practices: in-person quizzes, exams, journals. I am transparent with students about the purpose for these exercises: I want to teach them how to learn independently.

By reframing “problem” as “invitation,” I have the opportunity to deepen both my pedagogy and my understanding of my own field, and even imagine my way forward in both.

I chanced upon an article from my colleague Jessica Riddell the other day that I thought worth sharing. The title caught my eye: “There is no such thing as a naturally gifted teacher.” Jessica calls out the pedagogical hypocrisy in academia that would commit us to a growth mindset for our students (as learners) while subtly encouraging a fixed mindset for ourselves (as teachers). We expect our students to stumble with new tasks, to learn as they go, to develop unevenly. And yet, when we see teachers who are particularly adept, we tell ourselves they are simply “naturally gifted.” Here is the important question that Jessica asks: “Why do we believe that we can help our students master difficult concepts over time with effort and careful training, but fail to devote the same attention to developing our teaching capacities?” Jessica’s corrective is drawn straight from the academic’s playbook: pick a pedagogical area, read the research on it, test out approaches in class, and iterate.

Here at the Teaching Center, we are in the middle of conducting formative reviews that help our faculty to do just that. I rarely turn down an opportunity to conduct one of these reviews in my own classes—they have been the single most encouraging and helpful tool in my toolkit. I encourage you to reach out to one of us if you would like to schedule your own review! And in the meantime, consider the ways you have grown and continue to grow as a teacher. After all, we’re all always learning.

Now that the Spring semester is in full swing, I wanted to post our calendar and opportunities for faculty this semester! Also note deadlines for travel grant applications below.

Other Dates to Note:

Formative Reviews for Spring 2023: February 7 – 24

Deadline for Spring 2023 Teaching Center Travel Grants: Tuesday, February 7 @ 4:00 p.m.

Teaching Center Team:  Mike Pinter 460-6044, Jayme Yeo  460-6233, Nanci Alsup 460-5423

Location:  Second floor of Ayers Academic Center, Rooms 2049/2051.

Leaves are falling, there’s a snap in the air, students seem more exhausted, stressed, and overwhelmed, and faculty are strained and spread thin. It must be midterms. The hopes of the beginning of the semester always seem to dissolve into the time constraints of academic life this time of year. My best intentions—to embrace active learning, to be present and vulnerable with my students, to create a supportive community in the classroom—all bend a bit these days. In the business and busyness of mid-semester life, I find myself losing sight of the core of my teaching as peripheral objects crowd my vision and pull focus.

In this context, I’ve been thinking about encouragement.

The word comes from the Latin for “heart,” as in, “to instil heart-ness.” It is a close cousin of the word “courage,” a kind of bravery born out of acting from the core of one’s being. I like to think of it as “whole-heart-ness.” Midsemester is the time of year when I—and my students—begin to lose heart.

In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer writes about good teaching:

“In every class I teach, my ability to connect with my students, and to connect them with the subject, depend less on the methods I use then on the degree to which I know and trust my selfhood—and I am willing to make it available and vulnerable in the service of learning.”

Palmer wants to remind us that the subjects we teach are more than dry facts floating around somewhere “out there.” They are immediate in us. They touch us, shape us. Our ability to see the connections between what we teach and who we are is at the literal and figurative heart of what we do. It’s what opens us up to transformation and renewal.

This connectedness is also, not coincidentally, at the center of some of the more rigorous understandings of deep learning, advocated by folks such as Stephen Chew and Ken Bain. Put simply, being able to understand the connections between our fields and our lives is the result of and results in thorough articulations of our academic fields. Far from being some touchy-feely approach to learning, teaching with courage requires a committed investment in our disciplines.

In this space, I want to be a source of encouragement for my students. I want to create space for them to find the heart of their learning and themselves. This requires that I first make space for myself to rediscover—or discover for the first time—the heart of the subjects I teach. I have no easy answers here. It takes time, connection, and curiosity: three things that are in short supply these days. And yet, the need to find these resources is imperative.

I encourage you to join me in resisting the urge to lose heart. I’m going to be cultivating small practices: setting aside 20 minutes to get lost in an idea, picking up a good academic or pedagogical book, having lunch or taking a walk with a colleague to talk about what’s happening in my classes. I’m hoping these small acts of self-encouragement will branch into my classrooms and inspire my students. I invite you to join me.

Want to read Palmer’s book? Read it for free online at Belmont’s library!