While moving to an online format, I struggled with how to maintain the integrity of using multiple-choice as a tool for student learning versus making it into an exam. During the conversion, I realized that having a teaching style that focuses on "cheaters" and how to catch them is not conducive to closing equity gaps. Towards the end, I talk in detail about what I did to make sure that I am using my multiple-choice questions the way I had originally intended.
Apr 16, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 36
It has taken me 4 episodes and COVID 19 to realize what is bothering me so much about the sarcastic and demeaning remarks that many of my colleagues made in a teaching group chat that I am part of. I realize now, that some of my colleagues believe that their class is more important than the global pandemic that is happening right now. If this is the case, then this is a HUGE part of why we cannot close equity gaps. Listen as I continue to talk with Susie and Melissa, two intelligent, motivated a...
Apr 09, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Some things were easier than I thought, while other things were harder than I imagined when I started teaching again after a two-week break. Switching to distance education has made me rethink everything that I do with my teaching, from how to do multiple choice questions to office hours. Everything is different and yet the fundamentals of an equity approach are always the same: empower ourselves to create a better way, do everything with passion and purpose, focus on how to build and maintain r...
Apr 02, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Many of us are being driven to find/create content for the distance education format and I want to encourage us to allow our passions to drive our content. My passion for hip hop lead me to develop into a spoken word poet, but more importantly, it helped me construct a curriculum that empowers historically marginalized students by helping them center their beliefs, culture, and perspectives in an academic environment. Quick points: - Pursuing your passions as an instructor allows the content to ...
Mar 26, 2020•22 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Some quick tips on how to look better in a video: 1) Clean the area you will be recording in 2) Look through the camera to see what is behind you 3) Purposefully choose a camera angle: up, down or straightforward 4) Look at the camera by using a picture or posting your outline over the camera 5) Create a brief outline so it does not look like you are reading
Mar 21, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Some quick pointers on how to sound better in a podcast format: 1) Short podcasts do not need an intro/outro, but longer ones should 2) Throw a blanket over your head if you cannot record in a sound booth 3) If you need a mic, Blue Yeti's are "plug and play", easy to use and have a TON of YouTube videos that will show you how to use them 4) Use a pop-guard and/or turn the mic sideways to avoid harsh "p" sounds 5) NEXT-LEVEL: use Auphonic to equalize your sound levels and eliminate background noi...
Mar 21, 2020•18 min•Season 1Ep. 31
As COVID 19 is essentially forcing many professors to shift to a distance-learning modality, an age-old question arises, what format would be more useful to me as a professor: Podcasts or Videos? However, the real question is not which format is better, but rather, which format will help me accomplish my teaching goals more successfully? I speak about both options from personal experience and a LOT of trial and error.
Mar 19, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Amidst the current COVID 19 pandemic, schools are switching to a distance learning modality across the entire world. If your personal health and/or safety is not at risk, I believe that this is an opportunity for professors to seriously rethink our teaching strategies as they relate to student success and equity-related practices. This will give us an opportunity to wrestle with the "minimum" level of instruction that students need to be successful in class, to rethink attendance/grading policie...
Mar 19, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 29
I was blessed to have Melissa and Susy, two student advocates, and we continue to talk about emailing professors and how traumatic that can be for students when professors do not respond kindly or with respect. Both students share heartfelt stories about how they continue to struggle with email etiquette and how it has negatively affected their lives. This one went way longer than I thought it would, so I am splitting this into two episodes.
Mar 12, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 28
This is part two of me talking about an email that a professor posted in a sociology group chat that I belong to. The student asked, "Will I miss anything important?" I reflect on why this question seems so offensive to professors, what my own response would be, and analyze how other professors responded. I then demonstrate how the content and tone of our correspondence to students can negatively affect underrepresented minorities.
Mar 05, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 27
I talk about an email that a professor posted in a sociology group chat that I belong to. The student asked, "Will I miss anything important?" I reflect on why this question seems so offensive to professors, what my own response would be, and analyze how other professors responded. I then demonstrate how the content and tone of our correspondence to students can negatively affect underrepresented minorities.
Feb 27, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 26
This poem is a continuation of the episode, The Need for Black Excellence . Excellence is not big enough to explain and quantify black excellence. This discussion touches on how history needs to expand in order to include black history and how black graduations need to exist because it celebrates something noteworthy in a black person's experience within the education system.
Feb 20, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 25
I commentate on a poem that I wrote about black excellence to give a deeper understanding of this concept and why it is so important. Excellence is not big enough to explain and quantify black excellence. This discussion touches on how history needs to expand in order to include black history and how black graduations need to exist because it celebrates something noteworthy in a black person's experience within the education system.
Feb 13, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 24
As I find myself frustrated about how my hybrid Camry is grading me, I use this experience to reflect on how we can apply an equity lens to the way we grade our students. The three things that my Camry inspired me to think about are 1) being transparent about how we are grading, 2) being as objective as possible when we are grading, and 3) becoming aware of the hidden curriculum in how we are grading.
Feb 06, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Community building and connecting students to the services on campus it the focus of this episode. I talk about a quick and effective ice breaker that I use and then I walk the students around campus. I have found that taking them around campus increases the chance that they will actually visit the space in the future.
Jan 30, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 22
In this episode, I go over four key elements that you want to make sure you accomplish on your first day of school. You need to let students know the "flow" of your class. Tell the students things about you that help them understand that you are human. Let the students know that you are passionate about what you do. And lastly, make sure you let them know that you care about their success.
Jan 23, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Although there may be a reason to give students a cumulative final, I argue, that these types of exams are an abomination to student learning. In this episode, I explain how cumulative finals punish students that depend on their jobs (i.e. poor students) for no good reason at all. This episode concludes my Fall19 season. I will be back Thursday, January 23. Enjoy your break!
Dec 20, 2019•24 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Looking at group work projects through an equity lens helps us understand that students who are dependent on their jobs are at a huge disadvantage if we do not fully integrate this assignment into our teaching design. What this means is that we must introduce group projects early in the semester, be purposeful while introducing group members to each other, create time for groups to work together during class and allow students to critique themselves and their group mates.
Dec 20, 2019•28 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Do we assume that students know how to write a research paper? Do we assume that students will be able to figure out how to write a research paper if we assign one? This assumption negatively affects student equity groups, but there is something we can do about this. If we are going to give an assignment, we MUST invest in teaching our students the skill set that is involved. In this episode, I break down how to "scaffold" a research paper in a way that positively affects student success....
Dec 12, 2019•29 min•Season 1Ep. 18
In this episode, I looked at how I used to grade classroom participation through an equity lens. I noticed that I overvalued students that talked in class, which made it unnecessarily difficult for low socioeconomic students, students with different ways of processing information, and students that do not speak English as a first language to participate during class. This process made me think about why I value classroom discussion/participation, helped me create a more equitable system of measu...
Dec 05, 2019•29 min•Season 1Ep. 17
In this episode, I talk about 4 topics that I wanted to give some quick (relatively speaking) equity-inspired advice about. Those topics are classroom participation, final papers/presentations, group-work projects, and cumulative finals.
Nov 21, 2019•18 min•Season 1Ep. 16
This episode focuses on how having a STEM professor with a fixed mindset could affect how they teach and what they communicate to their students. Believing and perpetuating a culture of genius may facilitate focusing on math to weed students out, rather than developing ways to excite students about STEM so that they will be motivated to work through the tough parts of the discipline. Also, fixed mindset professors may be more likely to encourage students to drop a class rather than encourage the...
Nov 14, 2019•26 min•Season 1Ep. 14
New research has found that ALL students do worse in STEM classes where the professor has a fixed mindset, which means that professors believe that a student's intelligence is fixed and that there is little that can be done to improve academic success. The bright side is that equity gaps were approximately 50% less in STEM classes where the professor had a growth mindset, which means that professors believe that the hard work and determination of the student can positively affect academic succes...
Nov 07, 2019•30 min•Season 1Ep. 13
I talk about white teachers that I had at MiraCosta College and UC, San Diego and the things that they said or did to change my life. Some things were very big, but most things that were done were relatively small. I hope this is encouraging to white teachers that struggle with their place in the effort to close equity gaps.
Oct 31, 2019•28 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In this episode, I speak about two specific events in high school that socialized me to believe that I was a bad writer. Later at UCSD, a white teacher helped to undo much of that trauma by grading me on content rather than grammar and/or regurgitation. Teaching takeaways: 1) Introduce historically-marginalized authors early and often 2) Create low-stakes writing opportunities to encourage students to write freely 3) Show appreciation when students express themselves in culturally and/or emotion...
Oct 24, 2019•29 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Again, I talk about how white teachers have changed my life. This episode is a constant reminder to all of us that we all need to contribute to closing student equity gaps. This episode emphasizes how some of the littlest things may have a huge impact on helping historically marginalized groups do better in college and in life.
Oct 17, 2019•24 min•Season 1Ep. 11
In this episode, I give alternative interpretations of why students may seem "out of it" in our classrooms. I talk about how a student's lack of engagement may be the result of going through high stress/traumatizing events. Therefore, we need to be kind to our students by acknowledging their realities and letting them know that they are always welcome in our classrooms. This will have a student-equity effect if we acknowledge that we interpret different bodies differently, e.g. male/female/nonbi...
Oct 10, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Have you ever told students to move up to the front of the class as a learning strategy? Although we give this advice all the time, Sean and I argue that doing this creates a "ghetto" in your classroom, which is a space that you do not interact with either intentionally or unconsciously. We then give practical advice on what you can do to shrink your classroom or expand your teaching presence.
Oct 03, 2019•27 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In the battle for student-equity battle, I acknowledge how this may be alienating to white people in general and white teachers specifically. So in this episode, I talk about how three white elementary school teachers changed my life. Some by doing tremendous acts, but most by doing really simple things.
Sep 26, 2019•22 min•Season 1Ep. 7
I revisit the trauma I endured in 3rd grade that socialized me to not try hard at school. I remind listeners that historically-marginalized groups have these experiences socially, economically and institutionally reinforced throughout our lives making them harder to overcome. I end by stating that we need to reteach ourselves how to see the potential in all students, especially the historically-marginalized, in order to close equity gaps.
Sep 19, 2019•26 min•Season 1Ep. 6
