Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

 

Finally got around to reading this influential book, and I can see how so many others took pieces out of it and expanded on them.  A lot of it is still very applicable, which clearly shows the power of the 7 habits.  What I found most compelling was the emphasis on Character Ethic rather than the more recent interest in Personality Ethic.  It reminded me of an argument in Susan Cain’s Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking – currently, especially in the U.S., what matters is how loud, exuberant, outgoing you are.  If you cannot be that kind of personality, then your contributions may go unheard and unseen.

 

Turning this kind of Character Ethic into something that can be practiced and thus turned into habits ties in nicely with learning theories around practice and repetition in order to learn something – and that learning is hard work.  I am having a bit of a harder time with the claims around the enduring principles, as they do sound rather solidly grounded in the author’s U.S.-Christian cultural upbringing that does not question any of this kind of underlying structure.  Still, the conversation around paradigm shifts may be useful as one way to address systematic racism in places where this book would have been successful. Reminding readers that they need to change their paradigm so that others are included in their world view may be the second important lesson of this book.

 

And then giving readers the tools to form these habits that are grounded in knowledge, skill, and desire is also important  - recognizing the value of education in both its theoretical and practical aspects, combined with the necessity of intrinsic motivation.

 

I am sure most of us are familiar with the actual habits, so I will not dig into these, just list them to invoke curiosity for anyone who has not thought about them:

1.     Habit 1 – Be Proactive

2.     Habit 2 – Begin with the End in Mind

3.     Habit 3 – Put First Things First

4.     Habit 4 – Think Win-Win

5.     Habit 5 – Seek First to Understand then to Be Understood

6.     Habit 6 – Synergize

7.     Habit 7 – Sharpen the Saw

 

What are your thoughts around these habits?

Educause 2020 - completely virtual

 Educause 2020 is over, so here are some of my takeaways both from the conference and about the virtual experience.

1. The experience

The Community Day worked quite well for me as it gave a space to connect with a particular group of folks for a long enough time to get deeper discussions going.  I was surprised to see how few people took advantage of this opportunity to connect with their colleagues.

Similarly, the one Brain Date I participated in also worked quite well; however, I had purposefully signed up for a group date which did not happen.  The conversation was lovely, and I am glad I did this, but I fear that quite a few of the folks who put themselves out there as conversation dates may have been disappointed.

Having some of the session as pre-recorded presentations worked well; indeed, I am not sure why so many of the other sessions were not such a recording as there were no real attempts to connect with the audience.

Finally, the exhibit hall provided a lot of content and also opportunities to connect.  Making appointments was easy, and just getting content was also nice; it was somewhat surreal to have business meetings with folks from their living rooms.

And of course one of the big draw backs of having this virtual conference was that I really could not bring myself to ignore my work and meetings, finding myself a few times running two sessions at the same time or participating in a meeting while running a session in parallel - a lot of multitasking that, as we know, does not really do the trick.

2.  The content

Some of the ideas and questions that I found intriguing:

Biophilia:  adding images of nature to our academic spaces may be helpful for our well-being. Consider adding nature images to digital signage. 

Learning space design:  how is COVID-19 having an impact on our strategic planning when it comes to learning spaces?  

Now that everyone has taught online, can we assume that for space renovations of especially larger spaces, we can just ask faculty to teach online rather than scramble to find a surge space and work with a stressed time line?

 A Gartner report discussed Top Strategic Predictions for 2020 and Beyond:  Contemplating the Human Condition, with some prognoses what may be happening in the next few years.  Of interest to me was Daryl Plummer's discussion about:

• By 2023, 30% of IT organizations will have rethought their BYOD policies towards BYOE (E=Enhancement) to account for medical implants of various types.
• This continuing shift in medical technology will allow more folks with disabilities (by 2023, triple) to join the work force, making it necessary for a closer look at accommodations and for universal design principles in the work force- something we should model in higher ed.
• By 2024, the WHO will identify online shopping as an addictive disorder. What kind of impact does this have on supporting our colleagues, our students in terms of wellness but also financial literacy?
• This disorder will not be helped by AI technology that targets consumers more effectively through emotional tailored advertising and by behavior tracking.  What does this mean for our ethical data management policies?
• By 2023, up to 30% of world news and video content will be authenticated as real by blockchain technology - how would higher education use this technology to protect its brand?

Post-Pandemic Digital Literacy focused on different types of literacy that will be needed for the kinds of occupations the future will bring.  More importantly, we need to have a keener understanding around digital content and the ways it can be manipulated. For example, spotting machine-generated content will become very difficult. A tool like Narrative Science will help tell the story of certain data.  Video editing will allow for content to be radically changed, like in this Back to the Future video.

So, learning about digital literacy has to be pervasive, inclusive, activist and collective.

 The Top IT issues were divided up under three categories

• Restore - go back to pre-COVID states
• Evolve - shift a little
• Transform - change radically

 

I am hoping that Transform will be a key concept for all of us, with a transformation to even more student-centered redefinition of an institution.

 

 

 

 Changing for the Better from a Black Person's Viewpoint challenged us to think pervasively about inclusion, diversity and equity.  One key aspect is the job market - we need to make a more concerted effort to get our job ads out to relevant groups, listservs, job sites so that we reach different groups with talent.  The idea that there is no talent is wrong, we are just not announcing in the right places.  How do we make our job searches safer, especially at the final stage of bringing candidates to campus?  This should include a clear sense of whom they will meet, how the travel is going to be arranged.  How are we making sure that our student workers learn these kinds of job search skills and that they feel supported by us?  

I participated in other sessions, so could write more, but these were my key takeaways.

 

New Job, New Adventure

July 1, 2020 started a new adventure for me - Director of Academic Technology for Carleton College in Minnesota.

29 years in Auburn, Alabama is a long time to decide to move to a new place, with a new job, making new friends and starting over.  These 29 years have seen a lot:  two grown children who themselves are at different stages of their own professional goals; multiple degrees, lots of learning opportunities, lots of amazing friendships, and some wonderful innovations at Auburn University.

How Auburn University has shifted towards active learning with the commitment to building and renovating its classrooms towards a student-centered learning community has been the one of the great joys to participate in.

How Auburn as a community has been shifting towards a more inclusive and equity-minded community over the last few years has also been wonderful to work in, build new friendships around and feel that changing the world may be possible after all - even if the change is small and so much work still needs to be done.

Moving to Minnesota at this moment in time means leaving a lot of projects to others to continue, and I have no doubt that they will be continued well.  Moving to a smaller place with a reputation of caring for all of its students will also be interesting to see - what kinds of opportunities for change will emerge?

On to the next adventure!

Book: Small Teaching Online

While the small teaching strategies may not seem as small as they are in Lang's Small Teaching book, a lot of these are scalable - you can start with one and keep growing.
Key takeaways for me: Instructor engagement with students is as important as in a face-to-face classroom - but it has to be better planned because the spontaneous encounters will not be likely.
Empowering students to increase their motivation is essential for student success: choice is one way to do this, whether that is giving options for assignment topics, options on how many discussion posts need to be written, options on how to work through the required material, or a segment of the course that is designed by students.
Transparency in assignment design - students need to understand why they are asked to work through certain tasks. Students need to get practice in successful online learning - this may be new for us, but it is definitely a new environment for most of our students.
Encouragement - something that can happen quickly in a face-to-face classroom takes more time and effort in an online class - be an online cheerleader.

Here some more details:
1. Because we are more likely to start an online class from scratch, using backward design principles will pay off to focus on the learning objectives and outcomes, how they are connected to the assignments, and the assignments to learning activities, and these to the online resources.  One point to remember here is that students may not only need to learn the content but also the tools to access, process, and create - so giving them opportunities to practice in a scaffolded environment what they are learning is essential, but also giving them opportunities to practice with the tools that will be used to create and submit high stakes assignments is important to remove that stress.  Giving them an early opportunity to think about the final assignment, so that they have an idea what they do not know, also helps with scaffolding.
2. Because students who choose to take classes online are likely living a busy life with lots of other challenges, any task that does not hold them accountable is most likely not going to be done.  That does not mean, though, that everything needs to have a grade.  Consider conditional release:  Students need to reach a certain level in a test (multiple attempts) that, when the level is reached, triggers the next module to open.  So, instead of grades, the mastering of concepts and knowledge is the trigger. 
3. Because faculty interacting with students is so important, schedule time during your work week that is dedicated to your students.  Consider when you can schedule 30 minute segments to read and comment on discussion posts, summarize a discussion thread that highlights student ideas, and reach out to students who are in some need of encouragement.  Think about deadlines differently - will you have time to provide feedback right after that deadline or do you have other commitments?  If your life is too busy, think about a different deadline.


Lots more useful advice in this book that is especially relevant in a time where so many of us needed to shift to online for longer than we dreamed we would.  I am looking forward to hearing from you what your takeaways are from this book.

Book: The Privileged Poor

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of listening to Anthony (Tony) Abraham Jack, talking about his research and book, The Privileged Poor:  How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students.

His qualitative study focuses on interviews with doubly disadvantaged, privileged poor, and upper income students at elite colleges, primarily in the US North East.  The stories he collected from his students show not only the disadvantages poor students bring to elite colleges but also, in stark contrast, the privilege and entitlement of upper income students who take pretty much everything for granted.  He reminds us, in vivid stories, that "access is not inclusion" (24).

To see Dr. Jack in action, please check out this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXKKmPCZPDc

Here some of my key takeaways from the talk and his book that focus on how individual faculty and a higher institution as a whole can be significantly more supportive of poor students:

1. Networking with faculty:  If a student's background is that of a high school with significant problems, they will not know how to network with faculty as they do not recognize that working with others is important.  Instead, they will insist to work on their own, quietly, as that was the way to get through high school.  Better high schools, especially private ones, will have taught their students that working with faculty is necessary to be successful and also a student's right.  Faculty should consider how they are inviting students to interact with them to foster such a network that is essential for later letters of recommendation.
2. Hidden curriculum:  A high school not focused on getting its students into colleges will not spend time preparing students.  The hidden curriculum assumes knowledge of words (syllabus, blue book, fellowship, office hours).  Faculty should reflect on the language they are using - this does not mean that the language needs to change, but that all students know what the words mean.
3. Sense of belonging: To be successful as a student, it is important to feel a sense of belonging rather the sense of an outsider.  What resources does a university need to show it cares about all students?
4. Food insecurity:  If a student does not have money to go home (may not have a home to go to), then they may not have funds for food - especially over breaks when many universities close the entire campus.  Keeping dorms open may not be cost effective for an institution but a life-saver for its students, especially when there are also affordable food options available.
5. Work programs and other programs to stigmatize poor students:  Institutions that offer programs for 1st-year students need to consider what they messages they are sending with these programs, especially if only some of them are paid.  Work programs on elite college campuses also send a clear message that only some students need to take advantage of these programs - and this can translate into entitled attitudes by upper income students.

As faculty, what can we do?  Think about the language you use and what signals it might send - it does not take a lot of time to remind students what the purpose of office hours is or why they need to bring a blue book.  Make a point to meet with all students (assuming the number of students you have makes this possible) and talk about the need of connecting with faculty for work, for scholarships, for letters of recommendation.  Be mindful of your students - if you see them struggling or absent, take the time to reach out and discover what is going on.  Maybe they are working full-time, maybe they have a family with small children, maybe they are hungry - and maybe they are homesick.

As institutions, what can we do?  Making it as easy as possible for all students to know what resources are available for all students is a good starting point.  Reviewing housing and food options over breaks and changing policies around this could be a game-changer for some students.  Reviewing what kind of student work is available and considering whether any of these positions may be sending the wrong message about the value of student work should also be on the list.

Take the time to read this book - what do you see at your institution possible to change?