Whitney Clay: Welcome to the West Valley College TEACH Center podcast.
Michelle Francis: TEACH stands for training educators advocating change.
Whitney Clay: I'm Whitney Clay, Instructional designer.
Michelle Francis And I'm Michelle Francis, Professional Development Coordinator and Instructor in Child Studies.
Whitney Clay: At the TEACH Center, we support faculty as they cultivate excellence in teaching and learning and welcome their students with engaging pedagogies.
Michelle Francis: In this podcast, we discuss hot topics in teaching and learning. We interview educators about what they are doing in their fields, and we talk to learners about what inspires them.
Shamini Dias: It is, yeah.
Whitney Clay: Welcome to the final episode in our series about academic rigor with our guest, Dr. Shamini Dias. In this episode, you will learn how to practice academic and ethical rigor with assessments that promote equity and support students to engage in deep and meaningful learning.
Shamini Dias: And, you know, there's the assessment area. And one of the big things that faculty are struggling hard with is but if I don't do rigorous exams and often that translates into the closed book timed exam because there are many assumptions that, oh, they'll cheat if it's open book, you know.
Michelle Francis: Oh, yes, we hear that a lot.
Shamini Dias: So many assumptions. And we say, why in the, ungrading movement, Jesse Stommel, who really champions this. He says, start by trusting our students. And it’s what you did. You said, I don't really have a deadline. I have a guideline. Right. Because you do need to give them dates to self-manage. So I have a guideline, not a deadline. What a word goes with rigor mortis. That is founded on, I trust you that you want to hand in stuff. I trust you that you really want to learn. I trust you. That you want to be your best self. No student starts out by saying I'm going to be a crappy student. That trust and the assumptions that people come to learn because sometimes they have to learn. They have to take your class. But no student wants to feel bad. They want to feel good about what they do. Based on those levels of trust, what happened was, that trust was fully returned with learning, with performance, if you want to call it that, with maybe better work. We can do the same with exams. So one of the things that really, really made me think about justice in examinations is in a closed timed exam. And if you care about the data that comes out of the results of those exams, then this student who got an A who had a tutor, the good night's sleep before the 9:00 in the morning exam, how does that student's results and smartness and mastery compare with the student who got a B-minus but couldn't get time off? Work has two jobs and the child was sick the night before, so not much sleep before the 9:00 exam. What are we comparing here? And where? What do we mean by rigor? The structure might be seemingly rigorous. But the measure is actually really bad. You’re comparing multiple variables here that can't be compared. So those results actually don't mean anything. And what it only means is the student got a B minus might end up thinking, you know what? Maybe college is not for me. I can never get a good grade because my life is like this. Whereas if you had a well-designed open book exam. And students could turn in work, or if you didn't even use exams but use portfolios, you get to see what every student is capable of. You can still have incredibly high standards. They must all be able to do factor analysis, multiple regression and read their printouts from SPSS. Well, they must all be able to write a very cogent academic essay that argues a particular historical perspective and is using a particular style, APA, and is well cited. They can still do all that. You can still demand all that. But our methods of our rigorous methodology needs to be deeply examined. Because that's where the injustice happens.
Michelle Francis: You know, I keep trying to convince people if they can Google it, maybe that should not be your exam, because in the real world they could Google it. But can they actually use their Google results and think about the content?
Shamini Dias: Yeah, that's why open book, open Internet exams are very good. In the real world when somebody assigns us a project. The first thing I do is I Google it. I ask a few friends, I say, Hey, can I pick your brains? I want some ideas. I brainstorm with people, I look things up. I show my drafts to someone and say, What do you think? Before I hand it in? And give me feedback. We know how to collaborate, network, do information searches, select good information. It's not just info. Which one is valid? Which one is good? All of that. That is what we could actually use to even increase what we mean by academic rigor. I now show the Bloom’s triangle with Google right across the bottom, to say these areas are important, but remember that they can Google it. And so how are you going to use that and not try to fight against it?
Michelle Francis: I love that idea of really embracing their natural tendency to want to Google. I mean, think about how powerful that tool is. You know, we went to graduate school. You remember the microfiche machine?
Shamini Dias: Yeah, the basement, the library.
Michelle Francis: Yeah, we were. We were searching for information in this. What was available to us in that minute? In that place?
Shamini Dias: Yes.
Michelle Francis: Now we can Google anywhere and bring out anything.
Shamini Dias: Yeah.
Michelle Francis: So why wouldn't we want to embrace that? That is access to incredible amounts of knowledge. And so really the skill we should be teaching is integrating our own knowledge that we possess, the knowledge that our instructor has, the knowledge our colleagues have in our room, and figuring out how do we evaluate what is quality knowledge and what how does that change our own thinking?
Shamini Dias: Right?
Michelle Francis: You know, nothing is more powerful than when a student tells us, Hey, you changed my mind about something. I really, I had thought it this one way, and now I'm thinking this other way because I've learned all this other information.
Shamini Dias: That's rigorous learning. You've just described a good example of it. So, you know, it also makes us and comes to assessment to start questioning what do we mean by rigorous knowledge? Is it all memorized knowledge? Is it the knowledge I brought to the class? Rigorous knowledge is multiple literacies, information literacies. You know, you say literacy no longer read and write. It is find, evaluate, verify, connect, synthesize, consolidate. There is a lot to ask. And we could bring that as our rigorous standards into everything we teach. And it goes right back to then what are we having to change in our methods? And I think testing is a big, big area where we can make huge changes in our approach that will actually increase the rigor of learning. But also be very equity minded. That is a really good dance.
Michelle Francis: So if we have some people listening today thinking about, okay, I love what Dr. Dias is saying, this all make sense to me. It resonates with me. But listen, I've been teaching this way for a long time and I don't think I can change what are two or one or two things that I could do right now. I mean, I got the deadlines, I got the attendance, I got participation. But what can I do right now in my classroom that is going to really make a difference for that ethical rigor?
Shamini Dias: You can do three things. One is whatever you're already doing, how clear is it to your students? Share the vision. So whatever you're doing, doesn’t matter if your methods are old fashioned or newfangled. Make excellence that you want incredibly visible to students. I go back to Snyder's work on hope. Share the vision clearly. What does it look like? Maybe five examples of what you mean by excellence. So that's the first thing. Whatever you're doing, make sure your students share the same vision. If you think of learning as a journey, not a contract, show them the map. This is where we're going. Destination. That's the first thing. Have very explicit as part of that showing the destination. The next thing is the pathway. So the second thing you do is ask yourself, okay, I have these things I want them to do. Even if you're doing okay, very traditional, they're going to write five essays. Have you got pathways and flexible pathways to get there? Do you have a rubric, not filled with jargon, but a rubric that. I like to write rubrics as if they are steps for my students. So they really are a set of guidelines. And do you give your rubrics out way in advance, like with the syllabus, so that when they start an assignment, you can say every step you need to take is actually in this rubric. I'll be using it to look at your work. You use it to create the work. Something as simple as that, very explicitly given to students. So you've created the vision and a pathway that will take you a long way. In addition to that kind of a pathway, whatever you're doing, no matter how, how long you've done it, check. Do you allow have made space for process remembering the growth mindset of not yet? Is there at least one opportunity for students to receive a little bit of feedback and sharpen the work, improve it? That makes a big difference. It's a small thing to do. You may not be able to do it for every single assignment. Can you do it for two major assignments? Right. So the one of the big principles in all of these methods is edge in. You know, like when you go to the beach and you stand at the edge of the waves and you go in, it's a little bit at a time? Do that. The other thing with pathways and process and giving feedback is, let the students give each other feedback. It’s an incredibly empowering thing to do. And coming back all the way, and we've talked about this already, the deadlines and the policies. Just check, is the work non-punitive? So if you're having process and giving them feedback, that's non-punitive. But should you average out the early drafts with the final draft for the final grade? Should you dock points for learning? Because if you think about it, if I have two drafts and my first draft, I'm a beginner, I'm a novice, I'm not so good. Should you even grade the drafts? Because if you average it out, then my last draft is really good, but because my first draft wasn't so good I’m not going to get that grade. So I learned that I demonstrated my mastery, but my early work as a novice is being held against me. Not fair. So just giving that thought to where you are counting and grading now. So you don't even have to change your methods that you've done for 30 years. You just have to think about plugging in a few of these little movements. Being explicit and sharing the vision, creating a pathway with the rubrics, creating flexible pathways with non-punitive processes, allowing learning to happen rather than judging performance. And I hope that helps. You know, if people are thinking about, Oh my God, but I've been doing this for a long time, that those are small moves. They're little catalysts. They're small moves that have a huge impact that we could all do tomorrow, actually. There is a book I like by John Holt. It's called What Do I Do on Monday? And it's that kind of a question. You know, I listen to all of this good stuff. It's theory and exciting, but what do I do on Monday morning? So that that comes from a practical heart. This is all well and good, but what do I do tomorrow? And I think you can do these small things tomorrow. Clear the vision, share the vision, create the pathways, be formative, don't be punitive. And if it helps, don't think of it as a judgment of performance based on a contract. Think of your class as a journey to a particular destination, and people are going to walk slightly different paths to get there.
Michelle Francis: I think what impacts me the most, as I think about that, when I look at what you're asking. Setting the vision. Helping students clarify the vision. It's going to not only change the quality of the work you're going to receive, the rigor of the work. You want to say it that way?
Shamini Dias: Yeah.
Michelle Francis: I could see how it would go a long way in changing your relationship with students.
Shamini Dias: I'm so glad you said that. You're so right. Yes.
Michelle Francis: That you are actually going to engage. When you talk about the map, you know, I think of people on a driving trip, right. And they go off the rest stop and look at a view and then go back on the highway. And they have these moments together, these memories of being on this journey together. Really what we're asking is that students are engaging in this journey of learning with us. And we have moments where we're connecting with them in their learning journey. They're connecting with each other and they're learning. And these are simply ways that we invite them to the dance. We invite them out to the dance floor, to dance with us and learn together. And I think that's a powerful message. That's a way different message than punitive and punishment. But it's, it's a joy. It's joyful.
Shamini Dias: It is joyful. And, you know, when we say, oh, the burden of doing equity minded work, it's so hard and it's so new. It's not actually that new. It it is exactly what you say in learning and teaching is a relational thing. And, you know, we touched on it earlier that the teachers, too have a journey.
Michelle Francis: Right.
Shamini Dias: It's relationships. That of trust, of courage, of exploration, of faltering and falling and getting up and helping each other get up. That kind of a journey. It's deeply relational and that is human centered education.
Michelle Francis: And this is exactly what we're talking about here at the TEACH podcast, really that human relationship we have with students. And I just want to thank you today for joining us. This conversation is so wide ranging and there's so many things that go into this. But I think really the picture I keep getting from you is that if we only focus on rigor and only one kind of rigor, we're never going to have that relationship with our students. We're never going to have the human centered approach that we are all searching for. And for me, when I look at these things, you're asking about these policies, these procedures that, the process of learning, and that is what you're advocating. So, Dr. Dias, I just want to thank you for your time with us today on the TEACH Center podcast. It's really thank you so much for joining us today.
Shamini Dias: Thank you, and I have enjoyed my time. Thank you for having me on the podcast.