In the vein of the Society for Teaching of Psychology, which runs a blog of the same name, I have decided that this semester I will be working on characterizing my own teaching style and values. I've been teaching full-time for the last decade and have written a few different Teaching Statements, but none of them really encapsulate where I am now. In the last decade, I have gone from part-time in-person Community College teaching and adjunct online classes, to full-time tiny SLAC teaching and chairing an academic department and college division, to full-time teaching at a larger SLAC, dividing my time between online teaching and in-person teaching. 

Teaching is teaching, right? Except that "how I teach" is not just about learning outcomes. It's about knowing my students and their needs and professional goals. How I run my classes and the assignments I design is different if I've got primarily adults going to college for the first time, working adults "going back to school" to complete a degree or start a new career path, first-semester 18-year olds, or graduating seniors unsure what their next step will be.

Teaching can also be a really isolating practice, if you let it.  If you don't have a teaching mentor or something, which I had exactly one semester in my first year of adjunct work, it's likely that nobody has ever observed you, and you've never observed anyone except for your own professors when you were a student, and you're left to the sometimes-harsh, sometimes-amazing feedback left in course evaluations. It can lead to a distorted view of  how you're doing! Fortunately, there are so many professional development opportunities for University faculty of all levels to identify strengths and weaknesses. But it takes time to really develop a sense of who you are and what you're doing.

My career has looked lots of different ways over the last 10-12 years, and it will surely continue to evolve. I want to take the first pass at using this blog space to explore my values and approaches to my slice of the higher ed world.

September 24, 2021

I had a great coaching session this morning in which I was working to uncover the beliefs and values that drive my teaching philosophy. It's amazing what happens when you take a minute to think deeply about something, even if it's something you do every day.

One thing I totally missed, though, as I was listing my beliefs about teaching, is the total joy it is to be in the classroom and working with students as you shepherd their learning and eventually their academic goals. Not only is it fun to be "in the classroom", but it is also a deep source of joy to connect with students, see what they want, help them to go after what they want, and witness their successes along the way. It's a joy to be a source of support as people go from "not really knowing what they are doing" to having a clear vision to move forward.

After a year of mostly-teaching-online-and over Zoom, that first Fall 2021 day back to in-person classes, even if masked, was just fantastic. It just felt *right* to be back where we are supposed to be, and to have that feeling shared by the others in the room. You could sense the feeling that everyone was happy to be there, even if the excitement is tinged by apprehension as it normally is on the first-day-of-school.

It's my sincere hope that the joy of teaching is matched by joy of learning. In a room full of joy-ful people we can work our way to building community, belongingness, and a sense of being known - all of which help the flourishing of the humans in my classroom.

September 28, 2021

Since defending my dissertation in my late 20's, I've gotten the repeated experience that sometimes, you get asked a question that you have no idea the answer to... in fact you never even considered the question to be able to answer it. This surely happened at my dissertation proposal and defense, at job interviews, when raising preschoolers, and when in a classroom full of college students wanting to explore big ideas.

First of all, the scientific posture of "humility" is a great place to start. It's okay to not know something. It's also okay to take an educated guess based on your existing knowledge base. It's okay to pull in other experts, research something together, or admit to people that you'll have to get back to them on something. After all, being in the business of asking questions means there's always a direction for future research!

Not knowing the answer to a question didn't sink my dissertation defense. I'm still Dr. Spivey! Not knowing doesn't tank my class discussions either. It's important to reflect that even experts (especially experts?) recognize the limitations of their knowledge and expertise. It's better to outsource when it gets to that limit, rather than imagine ourselves experts in all-the-things. As my stepdad once said, "Sometimes you know just enough to be dangerous," which at the time I thought was insulting but the longer I think on that phrase, the more accurate it becomes.

As yet another set of graduating seniors (the third group, now) is affected by the societal and professional fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, I am certainly aware of my limitations as a professor. For instance, advice about graduate school, job market outlooks and career pathways are largely informed by "the before times". I'm using my professional network on social media to stay abreast of how people in my field are thinking and working through this with their own students, and seeing what new things are happening. It's okay not to know, but it's also important to keep looking for solutions, answers, responses, and strategies.

Last, and maybe I should include this in its own entry, but part of the benefit of a liberal arts education (at a small private Christian school, for instance) is learning not just the facts, which are subject to change with time and further inquiry, but how to think about the information we have access to. Learning *how* to think is its own value, in addition to the content we have available to us at any given time. You can get comfortable not-knowing something, if you are comfortable with how to think about the things you don't know yet.

October 7, 2021

I had a great experience last week using an instructional tool from a recent Lunch 'n Learn at our CTL. I'm not here to share the tool but I wanted to express what a huge boon to my teaching it has been to have access to resources that improve my teaching. Here are some of the evidence-based changes I've made over the last decade to support student learning:

1. Removing high stakes multiple choice tests in favor of low stakes multiple choice quizzes

2. Making the final for my classes more project-based (with some sort of deliverable) rather than exam-based

3. Structuring my courses to have frequent opportunities for discussion with peers

4. Structuring said discussions with specific instructions, low-stakes assignments, or "difficult dialogues"

5. Including meta-cognitive activities where students assess their own learning (both in the individual course and in the capstone about the major)

6. Changing my language in class from "yes/no" to "say more" or "tell me how you arrived there"

7. Assuming that my students have knowledge they are bringing to the table, rather than blank slates to fill

8. Telling stories about myself and my research and professional experiences to illustrate the concepts

9. Examining the Learning Outcomes at the end of the semester to determine when and how they were met, and which ones might need attention

10. Transparency overall in how much time is expected to complete activities

11. Low-stakes drafts due before major writing projects so students get feedback on how to fix errors before they become problematic

12. Explaining some of the "hidden curriculum" and language that functions as signposts in the discipline

13. Adopting some "coaching" mentality to ask questions and help students arrive at their own conclusions

14. Developing relationships that allow me to be a cheerleader when they meet milestones or accomplish

15. Structuring my course work and in class activities such that students attending via Zoom because of accommodations are still active participants in the class.

16. Name tents for in person classes (especially after Zoom, when their name is always in the corner)

17. Currently working on incorporating the QFT for discussion days

This is not exhaustive, but I want to highlight the Center for Teaching and Learning at Lipscomb, the Catalyst Coaching program at Lipscomb,  "Teaching Naked Techniques" by Bowen & Watson, "Make Just one Change" by Rothstein & Santana,  "Connected Teaching" by Schwartz, "Visible Learning" by Hattie, the Competency-Based Education principles used by Lipscomb Online, and various of my STP colleagues who tweet about their teaching, like Regan Gurung and Lindsey Masland.

February 9. 2022

After just completing my 10th year of full time teaching (My 12th in total), I was blessed to be able to attend The Teaching Professor Conference in Atlanta this year. It's been a hot minute since I was able to go to a conference outside of Zoom or Nashville, so I thought I'd include a few things I picked up from the presentations I went to:

1- Online learning has so much value, and paying attention to student perceptions of online classes, and how they can be used to strengthen a program (and the student experience of that program) is worth the time!

2- People who do online learning are often constrained by infrastructure, such as rural internet access and data caps for cell or home wifi. Examine what content you're asking your students to download and/or access and make sure you're not asking too much.

3- Ed Tech has made a lot of strides since "emergency 2020 shift to Online". Tools like Flipgrid, Wakelet, Padlet, and even Google Blogger have capabilities now that are worth revisiting.

4- Education is freedom - and there are lots of ways to ensure that we design our courses (and our communications) inclusively,  so that we maximize student access and promote liberation (for both students and faculty) at every step. Many of these liberatory strategies mirror the "SCARF" features of coaching.

5- As a woman in higher ed who leans toward leadership roles, now is a good time for me to reach out to a variety of mentors, both men and women, who are not in my direct reporting line. Informal mentoring with a variety of individuals is most likely to lead to successful outcomes for me and my institution.

6- Mentoring and advising is important work, so it's a good idea to set expectations on the front end and work on cultivating positive affect between parties. The more approachable I am, the more likely to develop strong advising relationships with better outcomes.

7- Online nontraditional/posttraditional learners have many needs and report some of the highest perceived stress. There are a whole lot of ways we as teachers and programs can reduce stress on our students without putting quality of programs at risk. Things like after-hours tech support, affinity groups or clubs done online can help connect online students to each other!

8- Most of us with terminal degrees in the sciences don't learn how to teach, really, until we do it and we are constantly learning about good practices. Connecting to teaching-specific conferences (STP ACT / PET for me), Academic Twitter, or the Center for Teaching and Learning at your University are great ways to fast-forward your teaching practice and promote great student learning experiences.

June 6, 2022

23-24 Year in Review

It was a good year for Lipscomb Psychology. Here are some highlights of things I was pretty proud of:

0- We brought on Dr. JP Miller as a full-time faculty member and could not be more happy to have him as part of our team!

1- I finally figured out how to use the departmental budget and we used a lot of it on celebrating our graduating seniors. We ordered some mugs, stickers (shown left) and had a nice taco bar dinner for the Spring graduates. 

2- We also figured out a way to hang up Student Scholars posters out in the hallway for display. It's great to promote our projects in a public way and for guests to see what's going on in Psychology, Family Science, and Social Work!

3- We inducted a small group of 15 into Psi Chi, the international honor society of Psychology.

4- Several of our students presented at off-campus conferences and some even won awards for their posters!

5- We conducted a departmental self-study program review which uncovered some fascinating statistics, including that over half of enrollments in the psych department are actually not psych majors -nursing, biology, education, among others, are taking our classes and thriving!

6- Out of my SMART goals for the year, I managed to:

a) nominate myself for a teaching award through the Society for Teaching of Psychology, 

b) add a Transparency in Learning component to all my regularly occurring assignments, 

c) organize a database of internships and structure information about this to streamline for psychology undergrads, 

d) complete one manuscript for publication (though it did not get accepted, we can try again!), 

e) sponsor Psychology Club and Psi Chi, and meet with the student leadership to help organize activities,

f) take the first step in organizing the curriculum, which was the departmental Self-Study followed by populating a curriculum map, and

g) participate in professional development workshops offered by the Lipscomb CTL, including Six Types of Working Genius, Spiritual Formation of Joy, and a research group developing curriculum plans for the discipline-specific inclusion of faith and learning at Lipscomb.

7- Dr. Jan and I set aside weekly time in the library study rooms to get stuff done, with a side of light coaching. This was easily the most productive hours of my week, uninterrupted by class time, meetings, or drop-in chats. Highly recommend this use of time!

To cap off this delightful series of events, I was awarded one of the Outstanding Teacher awards this year (Along with Dr. Jan Harris and Dr. Scott Bledsoe), and I recently found out that my application for promotion to Full Professor was approved by the Board. Took me 12 academic years to go from Assistant to Full, and I'm so pleased!

But as of June 1, I'm no longer a "new guy" - a tenured, full-professor who serves as lead faculty for the undergraduate psychology program. This is my profession and I'm settling in to what I hope is a long career in Christian higher ed.

May 9, 2024