A Transformative Webinar (Recording & Slides) and Mental Health Awareness Month
Also, what are you reading this summer?
Welcome to Newsletter Nineteen of Once More, With Feeling.
It is spring again, and many faculty are wrapping up their academic years. Here and over in The Chronicle of Higher Education, I wish you all a summer of rest and a next academic year focused on joy.
BE THE SPARK - Thoughts on Teaching and Learning
Over the last year, I’ve been working with a tremendous network of educators, biologists, and faculty developers on a National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network in Undergraduate Biology Education (NSF RCN-UBE) incubator project, and on May 15th we presented some early results from our work together in a webinar with ~ 200 educators and biologists.
You can find the recording of the event here, our slidedeck here (with animations preserved, in presentation format) here, and a powerpoint version of our slides (with alt text) here.
(Note: my Zoom settings unfortunately recorded oddly and so it overlaid the video thumbnails on top of the slides in a strange arrangement and only ever showed the first 6 people who logged into our webinar - which means one of our speakers doesn’t show in the recording when he is speaking! Argh. Apologies).
Our TUnE-Bio incubator year involved a national survey (n = 297 introductory biology faculty) and a series of qualitative interviews aimed at understanding the current state of play in UBE—practices, challenges, and barriers to innovation, as well as a meeting of the network to consider insights and brainstorm a path forward. The full proposal will devise and test new solutions.
Speaker Sarah Rose Cavanagh discussed the pivotal nature of biology education, problems and inequities inherent to weed-out culture, and introduced our survey.
Speaker Joshua Eyler introduced the audience to some reasons to critique traditional grading (e.g., pits students against each other, decreases intrinsic motivation, magnifies existing inequities along lines of race and gender), some evidence that it also does not accurately measure learning, and some data from the survey regarding intro biology faculty’s awareness of and degree of interest in alternative practices.
Speaker Bryan Dewsbury encouraged us to take a step back and think about the entire ecosystem of a classroom, where students and instructors are all learning and providing feedback to each other in multiple overlapping ways. He also provided some data from the survey regarding degree of satisfaction with assessment, feedback, and grading practices.
Speakers Michele Lemons (also co-PI of our grant) and Linda Fergusson-Kolmes presented information on both perceived barriers to innovation and also the interaction of aspects of positionality with all of these questions and considerations. The top three barriers to innovating with assessment and grading were, unsurprisingly, time (to plan and make the necessary changes), time (perception that these practices are too time-consuming), and time (to explore options).
Finally, speaker Jim Lang wrapped us up by taking another broad perspective on how we might improve the entire classroom experience, as well as how to extend these findings beyond biology to other disciplines. He noted (amusingly) that this was the first webinar he had been to in months in which ChatGPT was not brought up (but then brought it up).
We’d love to hear from you! Our next step is to write up these findings, and decide on the shape of our full grant proposal. We are still collecting information about what type of resources you would like to see come out of a full version of our network in this menti poll.
Someone at the webinar asked about a listserv for the network - we’re in the process of setting that up, perhaps through QUBES. Stay tuned!
OUR MONSTERS, OURSELVES - Uncertainty, Challenges, Mental Health
My new book on supporting youth mental health through learning environments of compassionate challenge was released two weeks ago. It is nerve-wracking having it out in the wild and knowing some people are reading its words—including one of the teens in my life who is listening on audiobook and live-texting me reactions. Talk about exposure therapy!
Releasing this book during mental health awareness month was not intentional, but so it fortuitously happened. I was honored to be included in Beacon Press’ recent round-up of their books supporting mental health awareness, including one of my writing (and thinking) heroes, Viktor Frankl.
If you’d like to understand the content before (or without) reading the book, I’ve assembled a series of essays and podcast interviews in one convenient linktree landing spot, which you can find here.
At Literary Hub, I argue that if we as a society truly want to support youth mental health, we’d get serious about supporting the mental health of the adults around them by addressing structural barriers to security and well-being.
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, I reflect that one of the most powerful moves to support student mental health would be to provide rest and joy for professors.
If you like to listen rather than read, I had wonderful podcast conversations about the book with Bonni Stachowiak at Teaching in Higher Ed, improv great Kelly Leonard at Getting to Yes, And, and the always-lovely (and tea sipping) John Kane and Rebecca Mushtare at Tea for Teaching.
If you would like to watch rather than read or listen, there is still time to register for my book launch, open to all. Quick book talk, treats for Boston area folks!
EMOTION & MOTIVATION - Feeling and Striving
I was lucky enough to unbox a second book this month - the new edition of Emotion & Motivation (OUP), with co-and-lead-author Lani Shiota.
While we’re talking new books on emotion, check out this interesting new book on the history of emotions by Thomas Dixon.
INCIDENTALLY - Summer Reading List
I worked as a children’s library technician from ages 11 to 22 and one of my favorite parts of the job was collecting the local schools’ summer reading lists and crafting a display of the books.
The dawn of summer months means a little more time in my schedule for catching up on my own fiction reading.
The best things I’ve read in the first half of 2023 are below - I’d love to hear your suggestions in turn!
Kelly Link lives near my older brother and writes (and hangs) with my teen’s favorite authors Cassandra Clare and Holly Black, and this profile of her was so intriguing, as was her receiving a MacArthur “genius award” despite writing speculative fiction (awards folks are often snobby about “genre” writing). I finally read this book and was enthralled.
I know, late to this book! But glad I finally carved out the time for it—ironically, on vacation with my mother. I was already appreciating the time together but reading this reflection of Zauner’s cut-too-short relationship with her complicated but loving mother made me even more appreciative.
This book was entirely unlike anything I've ever read, and I very much mean that as a compliment. It's a slippery book - you think you know the genre and then it changes, the perspective slips in and out of characters' heads on the same page, then pulls back and is omniscient - you cannot relax. I thought of it falling asleep at night and throughout my day, like it was calling me back to the story.
What are you reading this summer? Or what have you already read that you’d like to recommend?