I’m a bit late for last week’s post, but I laughed right out loud when I read the suggested topic for last week as I tried to clear my creativity block.

As many of you know, I’m the campus lead for course-level assessment. I’ve been involved with assessment to various degrees, seeing all the changes that have transpired, for the last 15+ years. What a ride it’s been!

I think our campus has made enormous strides in guiding assessment to a place where it is more relevant and inclusive over the last 2 years, under the direction of Julie Morrison, but there is so much more to do!

Last week, I ran into another example of a faculty member who doesn’t see the merit of documented assessment. I have fought long and hard against the mindset of “it doesn’t matter anyway,” and yet it persists.

The thing is, I *know* that we all assess, practically 100% of the time, with every passing moment of class. The problem is that we have to prove it to “higher powers.” The only way to do this is to document the progress being made. I understand the viewpoint of those who fund colleges (etc) wanting to see progress. Yes, I know it’s nearly insulting to have to prove that we’re helping our students learn and grow as individuals, and that’s the frustrating part. But it is what it is. The sad part is that apparently it won’t “matter” to some people until money gets tied into the equation. And that is where I’ll be most unhappy – if we literally have to prove our “worth.”

I actually find joy in assessing my students, both qualitatively and formally. The reason I teach is to get the “a-ha” or “lightbulb” moments from my students. I just want to show others the joy of that too and to show those “others” out there how AWESOME we really are!!

As I sat thinking about this weeks topic on student learning and assessment, my mind went to my 141 class and the experiences that I have had this semester and last.

In my MAT 14X class, we cover a variety of topics. The students that enroll in this course are usually in their last semester of math and we discuss many topics that are useful to them in their everyday life. One of my favorite chapters to teach is the financial chapter. We discuss buying a house and the interest associated with it along with saving up for retirement. These are areas that I have found students to be most interested in and I end up getting a lot of questions from them in this chapter.

Many have expressed their appreciation for this chapter because they are in the process of buying a house and have a better understanding of what they could do to save money. While some will tell me that they have started saving for their retirement. I have even had some of my returning adults discuss the importance of retirement with the students right out of high school.

Student learning not only comes from the material we discuss in class, but from the questions and answers from their peers. This, to me, is the most valuable type of student learning because it directly relates to their lives and they can connect to it.

Witnessing the learning of students as it happens is a wonderful experience and a major part of why I became an educator. Sometimes I must get creative to help facilitate student realization.
Recently, I was teaching the novel Invisible Man to my AP students. Most might be able to relate to the ideas/concepts that are relevant to the novel on a surface level, but they do not have the life experience to truly comprehend the depth of the novel. We were about five chapters in when I wanted to have a discussion on some of the motifs within the novel but needed a platform for them to dig deep.

We had discussed the historical concepts that impact the novel, but the students need more to get to higher level thinking. To begin I started by asking students what freedom means. Most stated definitions such as begin able to do what they want, not having people judge them, and other concepts that are important to 17 and 18-year olds. The asked me what I thought freedom was and I told them I would tell them the next day. I wanted them to come to some conclusions the next day.

I had come across a docu-series The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman where he takes big concepts such as peace or freedom and does interviews from around the world for each episode. To help the students think about the concept of freedom on a deeper level, I showed them the first 15ish minutes of the episode. The students were enthralled by what they heard—one was a slave in North Korea who escaped, and another was a person spent the longest time in solitary confinement in U. S. history. We discussed the effects of the two interviews they saw and how they apply to freedom.

The next day, I explained that I thought freedom was a state of mind and showed the rest of the docu-series episode that focused on the Declaration of Independence phrasing, and two additional stories of people who gained freedom on their terms.

Afterwards the students had a Socratic Discussion on freedom, and most could connect the idea of it being a state of mind with the novel. They were seeing beyond themselves (which is difficult for students of this age). It allowed them to dig deep.

Sometimes students need a connection that allows them to see things in a new way.

I am fairly certain I am the only person who does this, but sometimes I will watch a YouTube video with a specific purpose in mind, and an hour later I am still watching videos that are not related whatsoever to my original video. It’s true. Recently I sat down with the purpose of learning how to operate a verticutter and an hour later I was watching music videos of 1970s diva Helen Reddy! There are days when I wish I could have that wasted hour back.

Not always do these video sessions result in wasted time. Last week my purpose was to watch a tutorial of the online lesson-builder Softchalk^TM. As I was viewing, out of the corner of my eye, I could see a suggested video called 10 Lessons I Learned My First Year in eLearning by Tim Slade. I could not resist. I fell for the bait. The next time I had a spare 44 minutes I watched the video. I was not disappointed. The audience for the video was focused more towards instructional technologists, but the content was still valuable. All ten lessons were interesting and I would like to explore some of them more deeply, but the one that caught my interest was lesson #5: Think Like Your Learners. I Have been a CPA and an accounting professor over 30 years. I know my discipline well. It was one of the reasons I was hired. However, Slade suggested to not focus so much on being a subject matter expert and design a course based on the needs of the learners and the motivations of the learners. The motivations of learners? The longer I let that sink in, the less I understand what those motivations are. As an experienced educator, I know with which topics students will struggle. I adjust my lessons and spend more time on the challenging topics. I believe this is the purpose of assessment, both formative and summative. But understanding students’ struggles with content is not the same as understanding their needs and motivations. I do not even know where to begin to understand student motivation.

Coincidentally, the same week I was viewing and reflecting on Slade’s lessons, an invitation to attend Reimagine Teaching and Learning appeared in my inbox. Reimagine Teaching and Learning is a workshop sponsored by the CTLE that allows faculty to step back, re-think, and imagine how their courses could operate to increase teaching satisfaction and student engagement. The workshop is based on Purdue University’s IMPACT transformation. IMPACT is a 13-week transformational program which guides faculty through the process of purposely creating a course designed to meet student needs. IMPACT is based on self-determination theory which suggests that a student-centered learning environment will be created when students feel connected to the class, when they have mastered the material, and when they take ownership of the learning process. Hmm. So, Slade is suggesting a course be designed based on student motivations and then this perfect opportunity falls in my lap to learn how to re-design courses to increase student motivation. I believe the Greek goddess of luck, Fortuna, was smiling upon me and sent me this opportunity. I look forward to attending and hope for guidance as we transform education to meet the needs of the learners.

Fortuna, goddess of luck and fate.

One of the greatest hindrances to creativity is the desire for perfection. I phrase it this way, “desire for perfection,” on purpose because perfection really is determined through individual judgment. In other words, perfection is a determination and not a state of being. Is a child who is born with eight toes imperfect?  Is a grammatically flawless novel intriguing if the plot itself is boring?  We humans get to decide when something is perfect, and so we also decide when it is not. And in this determining and desiring, we often use perfection to let ourselves off the hook. We might find ourselves having thoughts like, “Well, I’m not going to get it perfect, so why try it at all?” This, in truth, is simply a way of avoiding having to attempt something, especially if we feel unsure about doing it and living up to our own standards. What we forget, sometimes, is that we often have the power to shift the standard. We can give ourselves permission to try something and not be good at it.

We also might find ourselves taking another tact and declaring: “I’m not good at _____.” I hear people say this all the time. I tell them what I do for a living, and they say, “Oh, I’m not good at English.” And I think, “If English is your primary language, and you’re communicating to me right now using that language, and I’m understanding you, how are you not good at it?” I think what that person means to say is perhaps one of the following:

• “I don’t enjoy writing.”
• “In the past, I haven’t experienced the results I wish to in my English classes.”
• “I have other, stronger, natural abilities that fall into other disciplines. And I have been rewarded for those.”

In general, we don’t like to do what we’re not good at  because we haven’t been rewarded for it in the past. However, not being rewarded doesn’t actually mean that we’re not good at that given task. My poetry is rejected by publishers on a regular basis. But any poet’s poetry is. In the world of contemporary poetry, regular rejection is part of the process. That rejection doesn’t mean the poetry isn’t good. It means that that publisher isn’t interested in publishing it.

When we aren’t good at something, that in itself is a different kind of invitation. Not being good at something doesn’t mean we must banish it from our lives forever. Here’s an example:

My drawing skills arrested at about the third or fourth grade level. I have trouble drawing anything but stick figures.  And when I color, I don’t like to stay in the lines. One time, about a dozen years ago, I was in a writing workshop, and we had to storyboard (draw) our topic. What I realized is that with no one to judge me, I really enjoyed the drawing process. Was I good at it? No. I hadn’t elevated my fourth grade skills. Did I enjoy it? Yes, greatly. It felt contemplative. It was tactile, and I am a tactile person. Did I see the story I was about to write differently for drawing it out? I did; the process made me use a different part of my brain., and I was able to expand my approach. Did it matter that I suck at drawing? Not at all. Did I have to stay in the lines? Nope.

Giving ourselves permission to do something that we are not very skilled at is a way to encounter creativity because we are inviting our brain to do something it either hasn’t done in a while, or it hasn’t done at all. Doing something we’re not good at fires up new neurons which gets us thinking and seeing the world in new ways.

My suggestion? Give yourself some low stakes: draw for yourself. Play a round of golf on a public course. Go bowling by yourself. Doodle in a meeting. Try something you think you’re not good at and leave the self-judgment behind. What does it feel like to give yourself permission in this way? What does it feel like to do something and enjoy the process without worrying about the outcome?  My hope is that it will be freeing, and in the freedom will come new ideas and impulses, which is the very heart of creativity.

I usually have my students take a quick brain break midway through class to help take their minds off of thinking too much and sitting waaaay too much.

One favorite activity begins with me asking what a basic happy face looks like. Simple: A circle, two dots and a curve.

Then I have them go to the board and draw their own version of a happy face…

What

is

your

happy

face…?

Keep an eye out… you just may see some of these students walking around campus – You’ll recognize them by their smiles…!