EPIC Newsletter:
October 2020
|
|
|
Welcome to the 2020-2021 academic year! As we settle into the fall, we hope that you have the information and resources you need for another quarter of remote teaching. We, of course, are here to help with your pedagogical questions or to troubleshoot instructional concerns that may arise throughout the year. We are also available to provide or point you to additional resources on inclusive teaching to create equitable learning environments for students.
Towards this end, Beth Goodhue (Center for the Advancement of Teaching) and I are reprising the Interrupting Bias to Cultivate Inclusivity workshop on Thursday, October 22 at 10:00 am-12:00 pm. We offered this workshop during the Fall Teaching Forum co-organized by CAT, CEILS, and EPIC so if you missed it then, please consider coming this time around. For more information and to RSVP please, click here.
This fall, we are welcoming two GSRs to the team. Anne Le, PhD student from the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies joined as the EPIC year-round GSR and Sal Vazquez, PhD student from the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies will be with us for the fall as our pedagogy GSR. We are excited to have them on board as we continue to provide instructional support to the Humanities.
Finally, this newsletter is dedicated to student engagement in the era of remote learning. We hope you find these insights and resources useful whether you are a faculty member or TA. As always, if you have ideas for future newsletter topics or would like to write a feature on a pedagogical topic, let us know at epic@humnet.ucla.edu.
Thank you for joining us this month, and we wish you the best this fall quarter.
Lisa Felipe
EPIC Program Director
|
|
Why Addressing Students' Emotions Matters
|
|
|
As much as some instructors may wish that students could manage their emotions at the lecture hall door (or the Zoom waiting room), we know that that is simply not possible. Students’ emotions are relevant in all educational contexts, and they are especially relevant when it comes to their engagement in our classrooms. Due to the many obstacles that our students are now facing—be it that many of them have lost their sense of autonomy by having to work from home, are unable to socialize with their friends in person, or are distracted by the racial and political climate of our nation—students are struggling to engage with their courses.
There are several ways that negative emotions can negatively impact student engagement and in turn affect their ability to learn. The first has to do with students’ cognitive engagement, which has to do with mental processes related to attention and memory. Emotions take up cognitive resources that are typically used to pay attention and process the lectures and material they are learning. If a student is preoccupied with feeling frustrated that their internet is cutting out during class, they are less likely to be able to concentrate on the task at hand, even after the internet begins to function properly. Negative emotions can also affect a students’ motivation to participate in class or to persist on challenging class assignments and exams. Another important factor is a student’s ability to self-regulate their learning and behaviors. Positive emotions tend to promote analytical thinking—something that is vital in humanities courses—while negative emotions can lead to more rigid thinking which is more suitable for simple rehearsal learning strategies. Lastly, emotions also impact the social interactions that students have in class which in turn can affect their relationship with their professor and their ability to work with their peers. Positive emotions promote active listening and group cohesion, while negative emotions can lead a student to withdraw from social interactions altogether. This is especially important in online learning where the isolated nature of how students are learning in remote learning situations can lead to negative feelings of loneliness which in turn can promote less engagement.
So as instructors, what are things we can do to promote student engagement by addressing students’ emotions?
- Give students choices in their learning and assessments. Given the current state of the world, there will be days when students are just not ready to be fully engaged. Remote learning provides opportunities to address this issue. For example, instead of relying on live lectures, provide recordings or guided modules that give students the option to participate when they are emotionally prepared to do so. Seminar courses can also be recorded and posted for students to view at a later time, but an additional short written response to the discussion could be another way for students to remain engaged if they are unable to attend the seminar. Assessments should also come with options. Provided that faculty have the resources to grade the material in a timely manner, you can experiment with allowing students to submit recorded video responses, presentations, or other projects in lieu of written or multiple-choice exams. Providing choices can not only allow students to choose to be engaged when they are emotionally prepared, but it also gives them a sense of autonomy that can translate into positive feelings towards the class.
|
|
- Check in on students’ emotional state. As the instructor, you can use polling software such as Poll Everywhere, Mentimeter, the polling feature in Zoom, or an anonymous questionnaire in CCLE to assess the collective emotional state of the class before proceeding with the lesson. Using a simple metric, such as a happy face, neutral face, and sad face, might be sufficient to give you a sense of how the class is feeling. You can also use a word cloud to have students say exactly how they are feeling. For example, if the students report feeling nervous, it may be because of an upcoming exam and that would give you an opportunity to talk about the exam and perhaps help alleviate some of their anxiety. Instructors could also have students partake in a simple breathing exercise or a short meditation at the beginning and middle of class to help students alleviate their negative emotions.
- Help students build a community. Building a community in a remote learning situation can be a challenge, but luckily there are forms of social media that might be able to help. UCLA recently purchased a subscription to Slack. Unlike CCLE, Slack is designed as a replacement for email in collaborative settings. You could create a Slack channel for your class or you can encourage students to use Slack to communicate with each other about the course. Discord is very similar to Slack but is most commonly used in settings outside of professional situations. Your students will most likely be more familiar with Discord though. You can also find a way to incorporate Instagram into your curriculum by creating a class account or having students post items with a special hash tag for the course as one of their assignments. Many students on campus already use a service called GroupMe, which is a group messaging application that works on nearly all devices. Creating a GroupMe for your class could be an easy and familiar way for students to meet and collaborate with each other throughout the quarter.
Student emotions and engagement operate in a reciprocal manner. Once students are engaged, they are more likely to feel positive emotions about the course and that can feed into students becoming more engaged in the class. By acknowledging students’ emotions, they will more likely to focus in class and be better prepared to do their best.
|
|
|
EPIC reached out to two Teaching Assistant Consultants (TAC) who are extremely qualified to speak to the unique challenges that remote learning environments present for student engagement. According to them, creating a sense of community in the digital classroom – though a difficult task – is key to increasing student engagement. Students who feel included, acknowledged, and empowered are more willing to participate.
|
|
|
|
Elyse Brusher, a TAC for the French language program in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, generously shared her insights from having taught remotely during spring and summer 2020. A TA’s relationship to their students in a language classroom setting is a bit different than that of a TA who is tasked with a discussion section that may complement lectures. Language TAs are effectively the face of the classroom, and they are responsible for teaching students the ins and outs of the target language. Students must also participate a great deal in class to practice and demonstrate their language capabilities. Elyse has had to adapt elements of language pedagogy for the Zoom classroom:
|
|
- There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Also, be ready to think quickly on your feet. “Whatever strategies you use to solicit participation," Elyse shares, "it is important to get to know your class and what works best for them and to have a variety of strategies in your back pocket so that you can quickly and easily convert to a different method if your initial approach is not working.”
- Teamwork makes the dream work! In Elyse's experience, cold-calling can get things moving forward. She elaborates that, “Students get used to it and appreciate the accountability. It also creates a sense of teamwork and camaraderie. Finding the correct answer to a question can become a team effort. Each student gives as much information as they can, and the following students add to it until – together – we arrive at the solution. I also favor the Socratic method of asking students to explain grammar concepts rather than explaining them myself.”
- There’s more than just Zoom. Elyse shares that it is "also important to offer students various ways of participating during and outside of class. In addition to activities based on oral expression, I like to do think-pair-share activities where students write a collaborative response to a question.”
- Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from your students. Elyse says, “I think it is more important than ever to give students multiple opportunities to give feedback on the structure of the course. I give a pre-quarter survey, mostly aimed at understanding the students’ remote learning environment and any challenges they might face during the quarter. I also give a mid-quarter survey to allow students to assess how they have been doing in the class and tell me about anything I can do to better support their learning.”
- Smile for the camera! “It’s best if students have their cameras on – especially in language classes – so that we can all interact with each other face to face," Elyse elaborates, "If there is a student who seems reluctant, I have a causal chat with them after class about their learning environment and what I can do to make them feel more comfortable about having their camera on. Oftentimes, we can find a solution together.”
|
|
|
Spencer Robins, a TAC for the English Department, echoes many of Elyse’s tips. Despite the physical distance between TAs and their students, it’s important to make create opportunities for informal intellectual and social conversation. Spencer cites these are elements that are key components of the typical college experience. Students may be feeling isolated, and he suggests the following as ways to help students feel part of a broader learning community:
|
|
- Your digital classroom can be a space for meaningful exchange. “The sections and small classes that TAs often teach are one of the very few places where conversations can happen. So as much as possible, I’d encourage TAs to build in time for that kind of more causal conversation," Spencer says, "Consider starting section with a question about students’ lives, then transition into a question about course material that leaves room for person connection and informal thinking: ‘Have you read anything outside of class recently that you enjoyed? Have you read anything in this class that you really enjoyed?’ Of course, we want our instruction to be rigorous and helpful, but these moments are also a chance for students to get to know each other in class the way they “normally’ might over a meal or a coffee.
- Take steps to make the community happen. Like Elyse, Spencer welcomes digital applications and tools beyond Zoom to build a sense of intellectual community among his students. He encourages students to use Google Docs or other similar programs that allow for collaborative writing, note-taking, discussion planning, and even peer revisions. He even goes a step further by encouraging students to use chat platforms like Groupme, Slack, or Discord. “Overall,” he continues, “give students the time and encouragement to work together rather than alone.”
- Zoom Chat can be your friend. Spencer insists, “The chat function is one of the best things about digital teaching. It can be a place to have students share thoughts before discussion starts; a place for students to respond to or reinforce each other’s ideas in a low-stakes way; and a place where students less comfortable with verbal participation can nevertheless share their ideas. In other words, I think it gives the Zoom class an advantage over in-person classes, because it opens possibilities for expanded, simultaneous participation.” Elyse also uses the Zoom Chat to her advantage. She even makes it a bit of a game. “Tell students to type their response in the chat but not to send it,” she shares. She allows the allotted time for an activity to pass, counts down from three, and has the students submit their responses at the same time. “This method serves to reduce anxiety about participating because everyone shares at once,” she notes. From there, she can then look through the chat, select a response, and ask students to elaborate upon their input. She adds that “this is a great strategy to use if you solicit participation from the group and students seem hesitant to respond.”
|
|
|
While remote teaching is far from ideal, these tips from Elyse and Spencer have produced some significant results and are relatively easy for TAs (new and experience) as well as faculty to implement. Students can feel included and be given various ways to participate – ways that are not possible in the tradition, in-person setting. Embracing the various tools available to us can help pave avenues for students to feel empowered and more confident to participate in class.
|
|
Author: Anne Le
Graduate Student Researcher, EPIC Program
PhD Student, European Languages and Transcultural Studies
|
|
|
On (Remote) Teaching and Learning: Resources Round Up
|
|
|
There are a TON of resources, scholarship, and advice for instructors out there. Here’s just some of what we have been reading and exploring this month.
|
|
This set of resources comes from the workshops offered by CAT, CEILS, and EPIC for UCLA’s Fall Teaching Forum held this past September. Among the many inclusive and equitable teaching resources, the workshop information from the Engaging Students Remotely & Equitably session is helpful for those looking to ensure inclusive student engagement.
CCLE and Zoom have many features to help engage with students both synchronously asynchronously. From using break-out sessions via Zoom to creating a more interactive CCLE course site, HumTech has several resources for using tech as a way to engage students. Check out this guide for active learning strategies and this one on community building.
Remote Teaching Good Practices: Beyond the Tech from Dartmouth College is a good guide especially for those teaching remotely for the first time or as a refresher. The Building and Sustaining Community section has tips and additional resources to help foster community and a sense of belonging while teaching remotely.
|
|
Have a great fall quarter!
|
|
|
|
|
