Honors 397 C - Discussion Posts

Introductions- Our Community & Our Classes

Mirchandani describes a liberal arts education as fostering her ability to see things
holistically, to zoom out as well as in. This is similar to how I think of Interdisciplinary Honors;
as Mirchandani discusses, “science and humanities cannot survive in isolation”—it’s important
to have people who have an understanding of both and can communicate well with people
of different specialties. Of course, in Interdisciplinary Honors, we still have our fields of focus
because the program is an addition to our majors, rather than our education primarily
consisting of a broad understanding of everything. However, the point still stands that having
an understanding of fields outside one’s focus will help one understand one’s environment
and engage with it better. When I describe Honors, I mention how it’s not necessarily just
diving deeper, but learning from other people’s perspectives who are in different majors and
taking classes that can allow one to explore outside of one’s focus, making it easier to
contextualize one’s personal work and education.
One of Roger’s strategies that particularly stood out to me is to make sure to start and
finish on time. This is something I don’t normally think about—of course I would want to start
and finish on time. But in the moment, if people haven’t arrived on time at the beginning of
class, it can be tempting to wait just a couple minutes, as she noted (in fact, some of my
professors have done this). However, one should be apprehensive about this because then
people can lose respect for the class and timely arrivals. I think it can make sense to start
maybe a minute late on the first day for people who may have had difficulty finding the room,
but to do so with care.
Roger also mentioned including icebreakers and other ways for students in the class
to get to know each other, to facilitate community. This has definitely been common among
my previous smaller classes, and I think that activities where people work in teams work
particularly well. For example, in some previous courses I’ve had, everyone writes a fun fact
about themselves on a sheet of paper, the classes are set up in two teams, and then the teams
try to successfully match up the most people from the other team with their facts. In others,
I’ve played “Extreme Rock, Paper, Scissors,” where people pair up and people chant the name
of the person who beat them, and winners continue to face off until there’s one person left.

Teaching the Honors Curriculum

I bring to teaching a belief that everyone has something to say, and that everyone
needs to know both when to speak and when to listen. In the classroom I see myself as
someone who guides and helps bring out others’ voices. I believe students are best served
in an environment that inspires thoughtfulness and engagement. I seek to foster in students
curiosity about the subject, with the motivation to ask questions, share their perspectives, and
seek to improve. I think learning is an ongoing process, facilitated by continued investigation.
As Peter Filene discusses, this type of reflective thinking can help both a teacher and
their students. For the teacher, not every good teaching style is for every teacher. So, by self-
reflecting in this way, one can determine the values (which are not necessarily static) that one
would like to impress upon one’s students, which will help in designing a course that
communicates these. For the students, this makes it easier for them to understand what is
expected of them and accordingly work well with the teacher.
In Christopher Edmin’s TED Talk, he describes the “magic” that some teachers have.
One teacher I’ve had who had this was always bouncing around the classroom, describing
what he was teaching with a lot of energy and jokes, and sometimes relating his personal life
to the chemistry class. This made people feel comfortable as well as confident in his ability,
and because he was also strict and had clear expectations, people both wanted to and knew
how to do the work for his class properly. Another teacher I’ve had who also made class feel
engaging also was strict with clear expectations for students, but skipped right past the jokes
and dived deep into the content. This isn’t to say her class wasn’t fun or that she didn’t have
humor—she would sometimes be sarcastic—but she was very real and open, called people
out, and asked follow-up questions to really challenge students’ thinking. Both teachers
would sometimes call on people who were raising their hands to answer a question, and
would at other times ask a question of someone who wasn’t participating as much that day.
I wouldn’t say that I relate to one of these teachers more than the other, especially
since they have a lot of similarities despite their different energies, but I do relate more to
certain aspects of each. I strongly believe in setting clear expectations and holding people
up to those standards, as well as asking more from students, which was the case for both of
the teachers I described above. I relate more to the story-like humor of the first teacher, but I
don’t think of myself as a person who bounces off the walls. Instead, while still bringing that
positive energy, I am somewhat more grounded and have stronger organization, like the
second teacher.

Classroom Dynamics- The Fun & Challenge of Teaching

From my mini teach, I think I like to teach based on demonstration and interaction.
When I share information, I want to show how people can start using it. I believe that
choosing to do an activity during the whole time worked well. Even if people weren’t
supposed to directly interact with each other, people talked among themselves as they
engaged with the activity. I also think that bringing in examples that I showed at the
beginning made it easier for people to have a vision for what they would like to do
themselves, since people tried new ways of creating the pop-up cards that weren’t exactly like
the one I was making alongside them for demonstration.
If I could do this teach over again, I’d make sure to explain more verbally. While I
believe it’s helpful to show by example, some people learn better from hearing what to do—or
at least it can be helpful to learn in both ways. Additionally, in a different setting or with more
people, it could be difficult to see what I was doing. Another person in my group shared fun
facts/stories that weren’t directly related to their mini teach, which made it more fun and
engaging, and is something I would like to see about incorporating into my own teaching.

Value of Creating Community

One main way that I have found community at UW has come from third places which
facilitated genuine dialogue. Particularly in my first year, a large group of my classmates from
a couple shared classes in fall quarter (which had a lot of teamwork in group projects) would
always come to Allen Library in between our classes, which continued throughout the rest of
the year. Sometimes people would even bring food to share, but essentially, there were
always people there. It was a place to drop by, hang out, and study. We had been originally
connected by a class, but we continued to grow as friends from spending time together, and
this provided a way to have genuine dialogue as well. Even though we had different classes
and a variety of interests, we were able to talk without a particular direction and just be
ourselves, and feel acceptance from the group.
I hope to foster community with my Honors 100 students by incorporating teamwork
and collaboration, under the superordinate goals of learning about Honors and creating a
class community. From this, I believe the other implications will be easier to achieve. For
example, having people discuss a question with a few others before sharing with the class, so
the question acts as a launching pad for people to feel comfortable talking with each other.
With a scavenger hunt in particular, even though there is an overarching goal of finding
certain locations on campus, there is also a lot of space as people are going to and from
locations for genuine dialogue.

Retreat Reflection
Thinking back to brainstorming for a group project this past fall quarter, I believe I
facilitated a conversation well by asking a lot of questions. In particular, one group member
had a tendency to talk a lot—they had great ideas, but this initially appeared to make some
quieter members in the group less comfortable speaking up, prompting them to just go with
the flow. When I would ask general questions, not just about what to do next but also
evaluating ideas that had been said to improve them (as in, “What do you guys think about
this?”), they voiced their opinions more, which ultimately led to better work from our group.
A strategy that stood out to me had to do with not prescribing an answer, something I
would like to make sure I incorporate in my own teaching. I’ve had many teachers where they
ask a question and people give perfectly reasonable, correct responses—and yet, the teacher
says, “sure, but I’m thinking of something else.” I’ve found this guessing game frustrating
before, not only because there’ no true way to know what a teacher is thinking, but also
because just because the teacher is thinking of one particular answer doesn’t mean the
others are any less valid. Accordingly, I want to make sure that I avoid this behavior by
listening with respect. Rather than each contribution being a stop on the way to a destination,
they can each be worth exploring. It makes me think of something I’ve heard about having
regular, day-to-day conversations. Sometimes one won’t fully listen to the person they’re
talking to because they’re too busy thinking about what they want to say next. Instead, it’s
important to be fully present and hear the other person properly, then see where that takes
the discussion.
Another strategy I would like to incorporate is summarizing. Sometimes when I’m
feeling tired in class it can be difficult to keep track of the main takeaways of what a
discussion is covering, and just in general, hearing someone’s idea of a summary can be
useful. It can help to either contextualize everyone’s thoughts and string them together, or to
learn that something needs to be better clarified because it wasn’t understood as intended.
Additionally, being open and asking for class input on what the main point is or where the
discussion should go next could also be valuable to incorporate.

Group Facilitation Techniques

From the four quadrants leadership style activity (and later reflection on it), I learned
that I most fit into the "Driver" category. While I do share characteristics with the other listed
leadership styles as well, I most identify with being direct and do need to be careful not to
over-lead. I do often ask for the opinions of others in a group setting to try to take those into
account, but I have a tendency to make decisions based on that information in a relatively
quick manner, or to not wait long enough if there's not a quick response from everyone
before sharing my own thoughts. This is something I have been aware of, but I relate to the
"delta" bullet in the style description, "often will urge 'let’s decide' as indecision can drive
them crazy." I think that having these words to put my feelings into context will hopefully help
me as I continue to work on this point. Based on my "good experiences" feedback, I hope to
capitalize on my "community-oriented" and "collaborative" strengths to do this better. I would
also personally like to reflect on more such experiences. I found it pretty difficult to come up
with ideas, even when given ten minutes to cover my first ten years, but I do think this could
be useful in the future for having stories to support my dependable strengths (or Clifton
Strengths from UW Leaders).
One activity from the retreat I'd like to incorporate into my class is, during a later week
if the energy of my class supports it, the Pterodactyl game. I think this can be a fun way to get
out some stress, especially during midterm season or leading up to finals. Additionally, I think
the speed write would be useful to do. I actually remember disliking it during my own Honors
100 class because I had so much difficulty coming up with answers. However, not only did
most other people seem to enjoy it, I was able to do this better during my second attempt,
and I think it's useful to turning off one's internal filter to become more self-aware and
reflective.

Identity & Teaching

The results of these studies were not necessarily surprising, although they were
interesting to see! It definitely makes sense that fear of confirming a negative stereotype
would lead to “over-efforting,” and that any fear would make it harder to perform, which
would instigate a cycle of fear and lower-performance. Additionally, it makes sense that
people doing well under stereotype-threat would perform even better, because they don’t
have that fear. Something that wasn’t necessarily surprising, but not expected, is the tendency
noted to protectively isolate oneself when confronted with difficulty in an effort to improve,
rather than seeking help from others.
It’s difficult for me to think of a time when I was under “stereotype threat.” For me, it’s
easier to think of times when I was trying to live up to expectations, rather than live them
down. As a Caucasian person who grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood, I haven’t
faced the same sort of negative stereotypes that others have. While I’m Cherokee, I’m still
look and am white, and this element of “passing” has presumably influenced my experience,
as it did for my Cherokee ancestors who also “passed.” Perhaps the only vague instance I can
think of was when I was young, all the way back in elementary school, and feeling like I
couldn’t like pink or other “girly” things or I wouldn’t be taken seriously. I used to not want to
be seen needing help and would prefer to not raise questions in class, but rather present
myself as someone who knew all the answers. I would usually limit myself to occasionally
asking questions of my parents and generally working independently. However, I still don’t
know that I would connect this to being under “stereotype threat” as opposed to simply
wanting to live up to the expectations my family had for me. However, I think just generally as
I've grown as a person, I've become more comfortable with difficulties that I face, and so I
also feel more comfortable reaching out to others for help.
In my Honors 100 class, as we’ve talked already, I definitely think it’s important for me
to implement group activities. Along this same vein, making sure work time is in groups by
setting up the room in tables groups to reflect that could also help. I also think it’s valuable to
imply that questions are natural, such as by saying “What questions do you have?” rather than
“Do you have any questions?” And as always, it’s important for me to be observant and open.
On the observant side, it could be useful to reach out to people who may be struggling, and
figure out what to do from there (maybe implementing more group activities). On the open
side, it’s important for me to present myself as an approachable and accessible resource.