Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Josh Eyler Discusses Learner-centered Higher Ed
162 Plays2 years ago
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/josh.eyler.5
Twitter - https://twitter.com/joshua_r_eyle
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-eyler-88583338/
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Joshua-R.-Eyler/author/B07DX8463B?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
Guest survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQbOHl3-uy2eX_TAoIZcmvb-Zj30YTJj6p4Zrpvo0sZ6Va4Q/viewform?usp=sf_link
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Goals
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio. And I'm one of your hosts, Star Saxton. I'm another host, Emma Chapeta. And I am Crystal Frommert. In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom.
00:00:29
Speaker
This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts, or education at large. So get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guests.
Meet Josh Eiler, Ph.D.
00:00:53
Speaker
Josh Eiler, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Director of the Think Forward Quality Enhancement Plan at the University of Mississippi, where he is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Education. He previously worked on teaching and learning initiatives at Columbus State University, George Mason University, and Rice University.
00:01:16
Speaker
a sought-after speaker for his expertise about the science of learning and about compassion in education, especially in connection with students, grades, and mental health. He has spoken at colleges and universities across the country, including Yale University, University of Texas, and Johns Hopkins University. Eiler is the author of the acclaimed book, How Humans Learn, the Science and Stories Behind Effective College Teaching.
00:01:44
Speaker
published by West Virginia University Press in 2018, which book authority named 100 best education books of all time, called a, quote, splendid repository of ways to rethink how we teach college, end quote.
00:02:00
Speaker
by the Los Angeles Review of Books. It was named Book of the Year in the Chicago Tribune. His forthcoming book, Scarlet Letters, How Grades Are Harming Children and Young Adults and What We Can Do About It, published by West Virginia University Press, is about one of the most urgent issues in education today, grading and alternative assessment. In his free time, Eiler coaches his daughter's youth softball team and tries valiantly to perfect his gumbo recipe.
00:02:29
Speaker
Please welcome Dr. Eiler to our show today.
Josh's Educational Journey
00:02:35
Speaker
Morning, Josh. It's so great to talk to you this morning. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, the role that you're in, your location, some interesting facts maybe that folks might not know?
00:02:46
Speaker
Sure and thank you all for having me. I really appreciate it. So my name is Josh Eiler. I currently work at the University of Mississippi where I'm the director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. I'm also on the faculty in the School of Education but my route to this position has been pretty circuitous. I grew up in a small blue-collar town in Pennsylvania and
00:03:11
Speaker
really a very rural town, very working class, really intended to go to college and go back to that town and be a high school teacher and a coach originally. And in college, I had some professors who sort of led me to a different path and I wound up still very interested in teaching.
Building Bridges in Education
00:03:34
Speaker
but decided to try out higher ed for that and went to graduate school at the University of Connecticut. After that, I took a position as a faculty member at Columbus State University, which is a regional, mid-sized university in Georgia in the English department.
00:03:54
Speaker
After I got tenure, I decided I wanted to be involved in teaching and learning issues at the institutional level and kind of with the conversations about teaching and learning at the national level. And so that led me to
00:04:09
Speaker
work in what we call centers for teaching and learning, which are pretty common in colleges and universities. And they focus on helping faculty and graduate students to develop the teaching skills and to become more effective evidence-based teachers. So I first went to George Mason University in Virginia as an associate director of their center. Then I moved to Rice University to help them start a new teaching center.
00:04:38
Speaker
And so I was the founding director there for a number of years and more recently I've moved to the University of Mississippi, drawn here both by the mission of the university, which is very equity minded and is invested in social change for the state and the nation.
00:04:58
Speaker
And also just the challenge of rebuilding a teaching center and working on a critical thinking initiative that I'm involved with here. So it's been kind of a winding path, not linear in any way. And so I often think more about what is the next challenge that I can work on rather than what is the next step up the ladder.
00:05:23
Speaker
And I couldn't help but notice a shout out for Houston, Texas with Rice University. So owls. Thank you. Yeah. So you have this background in higher ed, which is different than a lot of our listeners. So I'm really curious about your perspective, um, on what a learner centered space is, what does it look like, feel like sound like?
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. And I do have to say that, you know, one of the things I'm really invested in is building more bridges between the K-12 world and higher ed. You know, I think there is so much that higher ed can learn from the amazing work of K-12 teachers far more than is often given credit for. And so I think we need more conversations across those sectors. And so I think that this is an important work that you all are doing.
00:06:14
Speaker
I think probably a learning-centered space looks fairly similar in higher ed as it does in high school, but sometimes the scale is a little bit different given the number of students in a particular classroom in higher ed.
Defining Learner-Centered Spaces
00:06:33
Speaker
But, you know, I think in some ways what defines the learning centered space for me is students doing things, right? And sometimes that means a lot of activity, a lot of hustle and bustle and buzz as they share ideas and
00:06:48
Speaker
you know, go to whiteboards and write things down or move around with sticky notes and things like that. But sometimes also students doing things doesn't sound like anything. What it means is that students are working on beautiful big complex problems just on their own and trying to create networks of knowledge, webs of understanding,
00:07:11
Speaker
and really build that work. So I think there's a misconception sometimes, at least in the higher ed space, that active learning has to be noisy, loud, and boisterous. And certainly sometimes it can be, and sometimes it should be. But it's not always like that. For me, it means students who are grappling with ideas. They're doing things. They're actively working on particular problems or concepts or issues.
00:07:42
Speaker
That's so great. I love the kind of dichotomy that you've just painted for us between the hustle and bustle classroom and the like drill down and think about a hard problem because some of our best thinking is done silently. Yes, absolutely. It's really nice to appreciate both sides of that. Yes, I agree.
The Role of Assessment
00:08:03
Speaker
Thank you for that I love that and necessary part of teaching and learning is assessment. And I'm curious, how does assessment play a role in this learner centered space that you're describing, right. Well, you know, in order to.
00:08:18
Speaker
In order to help students progress on their learning journey, they have to have feedback as to their checkpoints along the way. And that, for me, is the role of assessment. True assessment means a teacher who is invested in a student's learning is giving productive feedback that that student can use to take the next step. So assessment writ large for me, that's the heart of it.
00:08:48
Speaker
You know, but assessment means a lot of things in education and I think if we fold grades into assessment, what that means for students is that assessment is often something that happens to them, not something for which they feel like they have any agency.
00:09:05
Speaker
And so, you know, from my perspective, assessment should be something that helps students develop their own sense of themselves as thinkers and learners, should allow them to see where they still need to grow, give them a roadmap for doing that, should give them ample opportunity to fine tune their internal barometers for the strength of their work, what they still need to do, you know, that sort of thing.
00:09:29
Speaker
And that means really reorienting, I think, the more common ways that the assessment is done in the classroom and helping students to see assessment and grading as not something that is designed to take away their agency, but something that should feed into it.
00:09:51
Speaker
I don't think that traditional grading practices are well positioned to do that. And so as you all well know, there are lots of people experimenting with different approaches to assessment that I think more ambitiously, more naturally fit in with helping students to grow rather than just to evaluate students.
Rethinking Grading Practices
00:10:20
Speaker
Josh, I'm really excited that you work at the college level on this. Some of the greatest pushback I got while I was in the classroom doing different kinds of grading and removing grades altogether was the big piece about, well, colleges don't acknowledge this practice as a means for helping students
00:10:43
Speaker
be successful when they get there and especially at the high school level, that's something we hear a lot. Can you speak a little bit to how the program you're working with now as well as others specifically addresses grading and assessment for new teachers and what we could tell high school guidance counselors and high school teachers about
00:11:07
Speaker
grading at the post-secondary level. Sure. That's such an important thing. And interestingly enough, where we get to push back in higher ed is at the other end of it, which is employers and graduate schools and medical schools are not going to like this. So it's kind of similar.
00:11:25
Speaker
So I'm writing a book called Scarlet Letters, which is about all the problems with grades and ways to fix it. And one of the things that I did was talk to admissions counselors in college about alternative transcripts at the high school level. And kind of universally, I got the message that it's not a problem, that alternative transcripts, alternative grading practices in high school are not a problem for admissions.
00:11:54
Speaker
because they have means to translate those transcripts. They have rubrics that they use internally to assess those transcripts. And I think most importantly, students who have experienced and who have been a part of alternative grading schemes in high school
00:12:14
Speaker
are better able to talk about what they know and can do than someone who just has an A for AP History or whatever. And so I think that is the biggest message to send to high school guidance counselors or any place that you're getting pushback that it's not and it does not impede
00:12:35
Speaker
admission to college. In fact, I talked to an Ivy League admissions counselor who said it takes a little bit more time, but it's not an obstacle, in other words, right? And so that part of it, I think, is about is about messaging. And I think there's a lot that we can do together to send that message.
00:12:54
Speaker
I think the way that we're approaching the grading conversation in higher ed is through the lens of equity, first and foremost, and to stress that inequities have been a part of the foundation of education in America for a very long time. And our traditional grading models are reinforcing those inequities rather than mitigating them. And so that some of,
00:13:22
Speaker
some of the approaches that we can recommend in terms of reorienting those grading models help to reduce the effects of some of those inequities. And so, you know, if you're seeing opportunity gaps for incoming students in college that are mirrored in the grades that they're getting in Gen Ed courses,
00:13:46
Speaker
the solution is not to keep grading like you have always been grading because those are then reflections of those students past educational experiences rather than a picture of what they are able and what is possible for them to do. And so that resonates with faculty and with administrators in higher ed.
00:14:11
Speaker
they want their universities to be more equitable. There's always resistance about changing anything in education, but I think we're starting to see movement based on just a sense of we want our departments, our majors, our disciplines to be more open and equitable and
00:14:34
Speaker
and just welcoming to students from all educational and demographic backgrounds, and that means rethinking traditional practices and grading is right at the center of that.
00:14:47
Speaker
So if you were going to speak to somebody, either a colleague of yours or K-12 educators, what advice would you give them to put them on this path?
Aligning Grading with Values
00:15:01
Speaker
Sure. Well, in the first conversation I tend to have with folks, and I think it would be the first piece of advice, is to look inward, to be introspective about your values as an educator.
00:15:14
Speaker
What do you believe is the purpose of education? What do you value most about education? And do your grading practices currently align with those values? At the same time, to be realistic and to lay out on the table, where do you feel the pressures that shape your teaching approaches?
00:15:38
Speaker
Do you feel the pressure from your colleagues in your department? Do you feel pressure to make sure that students are
00:15:52
Speaker
have a handle on a wide body of material in a particular course, where do you feel the pressure? Put them on the table and really assess them and the degree to which those are perceived or those are actual and to assess kind of the impact that has on the decisions that you can make as a teacher.
00:16:12
Speaker
I think that every decision that we make as teachers, but especially about traditional practices like grading, has to start with us and that introspective look. Before we can make informed decisions about practices and before it helps to anchor then any conversations that we have to have with colleagues about why we're doing what we're doing.
00:16:38
Speaker
From there, the next piece of advice, and I think this is true of grading as it is for any teaching practice, to be armed with research on why you're doing what you're doing. The decisions that you're making are not arbitrary, but that they are grounded in evidence
00:16:55
Speaker
both the kind of evidence that you get from your students every day, but also from research that people have done on the practices themselves and their efficacy. And I think the combination of those two approaches can really set a foundation for success.
00:17:15
Speaker
The third thing that I would then say is that you can start small. You can start with an assignment, or you can start with a piece of a course, like participation, something like that. You don't have to revamp everything all at once. It can be intimidating. Sometimes it can actually work against you. But starting small, built on the foundation that we were just talking about, I think can set a path for success.
00:17:46
Speaker
Thank you so much for that really thorough kind of Kickstarter guide to getting started here.
Grading Reform Influencers
00:17:52
Speaker
You mentioned doing research and we have a lot to learn from you and we look forward to reading your book, Scarlet Letters. Is there anyone else that you'd like to shout out that we could learn from?
00:18:04
Speaker
Well, there are so many in this world of alternative grading, one of whom is one of my own people I look up to, and that's a person on this column, that's Starr, who has really shaped this conversation in so many ways, and I think is a leader in this grading reform movement.
00:18:27
Speaker
But, you know, the people that I look to in this sector in K-12, you know, Arthur Chiarevelli, who does the teachers going gradeless community. There's Nick Covington and the Human Restoration Project, who has done a lot of
00:18:47
Speaker
work toward moving toward more authentic assessment practices in K-12. In higher ed, there's Jesse Stommel, Susan Bloom.
00:18:58
Speaker
There's so many. My own colleague here, Emily Donahoe. There's, let's see, Courtney Sobers. There's just a huge community, Drew Lewis, Katie Natiani, that I look to help spark my own ideas to offer support as we go about this work. So there's an ever-growing community. In fact, in my time in higher ed,
00:19:26
Speaker
There are more people talking about this now than there ever have been before. And I think there are lots of reasons for that. But we're at this really exciting moment for the reform of grading approaches that I think we haven't really seen before. And it's really great to be a part of.
00:19:49
Speaker
Wow, I'm very impressed with your list that you had. It was almost like you were prepared for an Oscar acceptance. You had so many names and you said them so clearly.
Where to Follow Josh Eiler
00:20:01
Speaker
I personally follow you.
00:20:04
Speaker
on LinkedIn and Twitter, and I've learned so much from your post. I'm a middle school teacher, and to see what you're posting from higher ed is inspiring and helpful to me when I communicate with parents and other educators. But where would you suggest that educators find you? Would you say LinkedIn and Twitter? Is there somewhere else they should go? I think LinkedIn and Twitter are the best places. I'm very active on Twitter and pretty active on LinkedIn.
00:20:32
Speaker
and always welcome any kind of conversation about this or any issue. So I think the only way we make progress is to work together on this and that can only happen with conversation. So. All right, Josh, this has been wonderful. I think that what you have to say will inspire so many educators from K through higher ed. So thank you so much for your time today. Thank you all. I really appreciate the invitation and thanks for all the work you're doing.
00:21:05
Speaker
Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio.com. You can follow us on Twitter at masteryforall and on LinkedIn on our Mastery Portfolio page.
00:21:27
Speaker
We'd love for you to engage with us. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or know someone who would be an inspiring guest, please fill out the survey found in the show notes. And we'd love your feedback. Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.