Amy Ogan

We all have so many questions!

I canceled my @PittsburghPG subscription today over this. I was paying for it to help keep local journalism alive, but not when it looks like this...

This year will have a devastating impact on black students and other students of color for education equity: naacp.org/coronavirus/co… - I'm donating local to @assemblepgh and @BloomGarCorp

Tomorrow @hciprof & I are coming home from an unforgettable semester at @cmu_africa. Wish we could have finished as planned. Thanks to @USAmbRwanda for getting my student Vikram home with us despite border closures!!

@KateMfD @jennlynnjordan @Jessifer I don't think one solution should work for all, so of course what works for (the very large cohort taking) physics won't necessarily work for everyone! But we have certainly worked across STEM fields, in modern languages, economics, public policy and seen similar issues....

The makers of this “FitBit for teaching skills” should be ashamed of themselves. “EduSense is minimally obtrusive. It senses things such as students' posture to determine their engagement, and how much time instructors pause before calling on a student.” eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2…

@KateMfD @jennlynnjordan @Jessifer Perhaps not surprising given the systemic issues that @Jessifer notes with higher education pedagogy.

@KateMfD @jennlynnjordan @Jessifer Oh I see. We're talking university instructors, and yes, from our research (and others) this is definitely a problem. Not for all, but for many!

@KateMfD @jennlynnjordan @Jessifer Why is student voice in the classroom good? Do I understand correctly what you're asking?

@KateMfD @jennlynnjordan @Jessifer I would say that one of the assumptions is that instructors allowing space for student voices is good. So if the instructor is the only one talking, we could present that data and literature on the benefits of student participation. But we would still ask if they want to change.

@KateMfD @jennlynnjordan @Jessifer In general? Or...

@Jessifer So useful. I think the 'don't mean to' part is critical - I really don't mean to display biases in my own classroom, but I'm sure I do. I do admit to a belief that there are ways that data can help us see and address these issues.

@amyogan Speaking of the gender bias issues you mentioned earlier, if you haven’t seen this piece it has a plethora of really useful links to studies on gender and other kinds of bias. I’m sure you’ve already seen a lot of these studies, but just in case: time.com/3705454/teache…

@Jessifer Mm, yes. While we provide lots of resources/summaries of pedagogical practice, we've been wondering about requiring a Teaching Center workshop first - or in the spirit of 'invention as preparation for learning' (schwartz 2004) letting them try things first & follow with workshops

@amyogan Because they needed to talk about teaching (which is shockingly rare), and because they needed time to engage the long history of work on higher education pedagogy. The video was a distraction because it led to an instrumentalizing of teaching, reducing it to behavioral quirks.

@RCMeg @Jessifer I love this approach but want all instructors to have access & to have it frequently to see change - if they want it. Human observation is inherently limited so let's work in combo with teaching centers to do both! Surveillance is absolutely a risk we need to mitigate to do so

@Jessifer @humanrightsprof We currently only look at student data in relation to teacher behavior: e.g. you stood on the left & only looked left & students on the right appear far less engaged. For me a bigger issue is neurodivergent instructors & supporting them. Does reflecting on this help (prob not)

@amyogan @humanrightsprof I do still worry about assumptions about posture (or attentiveness) being made that don’t account in for disabled or neurodivergent students or teachers. In some ways, aggregating results can make difference even more invisible. How are you all accounting for this?

@303 @Jessifer Good point! One example is instructors who spend >90% of class facing the whiteboard not the students. Is that desirable? The professor should decide, but giving them the chance to reflect on this (in combo with pedagogical support/information) is the impetus for a solution

@rdshipley @sig225 @Jessifer We would say that the teacher is *far* more than a sensor (a guide, a support, a motivator) and those are the things we want to enable the teacher to focus their time and energy on while reducing (not eliminating!) the sensing job

"Today, the teacher acts as the sensor in the classroom, but that's not scalable." 😱 Perhaps, the solution is not making bigger and better "sensors," but recognizing that the role of a teacher (or teacher of teachers) is not to be a sensor.

@RCMeg @Jessifer I agree, this is a very legitimate concern. The same is true of any data used to measure student abilities (e.g., tests). Is there a way to navigate these concerns if the data is useful and productive for formative approaches to development?

@Jessifer I would love to understand why, from your point of view. Because teachers noticed different things in it? Irrelevant things? Because they already knew what their own behavior looked like? Understanding the why I think is really important.

@amyogan The reason for abandoning it was because the discussion about teaching was what worked. The video data was a distraction.