Given that we three, like everyone else, are working under stay-at-home directives to address the COVID-19 pandemic, we thought it was a good moment to reflect on our experiences doing this podcast and working in this experiential area in general. We figured our conversation would take 10 minutes. What happened was a lively conversation of more than twice that length. And it happens in the middle of a vital season with two good podcasts already produced this winter/spring and more to come. So, have a listen and get into the heads of the pod-casters on this critical topic of how experiential education enhances what students learn in college.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
Music Credits: C’est La Vie by Derek Clegg
ExperiencED Season 2, Episode 3
Jim Stellar: [00:00:00] Welcome to the ExperiencED podcast. I am Jim Stellar.
[00:00:12] Mary Churchill: [00:00:12] I am Mary Churchill
[00:00:13] Adrienne Dooley: [00:00:13] and I am Adrienne Dooley.
[00:00:15] Jim Stellar: [00:00:15] We bring you this podcast on experiential education
[00:00:18] Mary Churchill: [00:00:18] with educators and thought leaders
[00:00:20] Adrienne Dooley: [00:00:20] from around the country and the world.
[00:00:23] So here we are a few months into the pandemic and looking for light at the end of the tunnel. I have to ask you to university denizens. How is it affecting you and your universities?
[00:00:35]Mary Churchill: [00:00:35] It's a huge answer, Adrienne. I think Boston University really made some major decisions very quickly while our students were on spring break. And so that was challenging because our faculty were also on spring break.
[00:00:51] And, faculty don't get vacation, you know. They have the summer, but during the year they really only get those spring breaks. So, I think it was on a Tuesday of spring break when faculty were with their families and enjoying their vacation. And we contacted them and told them that we were taking all of the face-to-face courses remote.
[00:01:12] And so that they needed to start working on that transition plan immediately. And we contacted the students and said, if you can go home to your families, go home. This was particularly true for undergrads and don't come back. If you have to come back, we can make exceptions for folks who have to come back.
[00:01:31]And we hustled and took folks remotely. At the same time, later that week, on that Friday, the mayor of Boston announced that Boston public schools would also be going remote, until at that point it was April 27th. So, this was, I think March 13th. And then, BU was asked to really keep the students on campus to a minimum.
[00:01:58] So they had to go back to the students and say. No, you actually can't stay here anymore unless there's a hardship and that you apply for the hardship. So, that all happened within three or four days, all of these changes. And then, we were supposed to come in as staff and have a skeletal crew supporting the students who were still on campus.
[00:02:19] But then we were told by the governor and the mayor and our president, nobody is coming to campus. So, so this is really happened very, very quickly. and now we are housing, kind of emergency responders in some of our dorms. And so are many of the universities in the city. I think over 10 of us are housing, either healthcare workers or, homeless shelter workers.
[00:02:45] And we've really transformed what we do and just kind of an interesting little story about that. The students didn't come back, right? So, their rooms are filled with their stuff and to clear out those rooms. They had to photograph every single thing in the room and go to the two roommates and say, is this yours? Is this yours? to pack it up, to clear it out, to get the homeless workers in. And so, this has all happened in, I mean, the homeless shelter workers in and so this is just kind of the level of craziness that we're dealing with. I did want to speak to, because I'm in a college of education and human development, we have, practitioners out in the field, and so when we knew this could potentially come to remote work, we hustled to make sure that they had fulfilled all their requirements in terms of hours. and really, especially for the teacher candidates who would be graduating this spring and going into the, going into their jobs this summer and next year. And we did that, but we also have done a lot of remote work with the candidates helping their, their presiding teachers continue that work remotely with their students, which is really interesting.
[00:04:01] I think we have in the special education area; we're working with teachers in 40 different districts for continuity of operations to help them finish up the school year. So, a lot of changes really quickly. People have been amazing, and it's really been, a full community coming together. So
[00:04:21] Jim Stellar: [00:04:21] The same thing happened at the University at Albany. We have a slight advantage because it was announced on a Wednesday of the week before spring break. And so, everybody got to commiserate a little bit with all the same things that Mary talked about happened. Where I used to park my car to go to my office is now a testing site for the COVID virus with its tents and the city came in. You know, we're a state university, so it's naturally we'd have partnerships. And I think the issue with the housing hasn't really happened, but the students have been asking the housing people, can I come back and get my laptop, which I left in my room or something like that, and they've been letting them do that on a case by case basis.
[00:05:04] They sent us all a note saying that if you come to your office and you're not supposed to, there's some blue tape on your door, take it off, and go in and get whatever you need and go home and leave it off. Because that's the signal to the housekeeping that they have to go back in and sterilize that room again because they've done it once and that way, they can keep track of which rooms have been contaminated. So, it's pretty crazy. I will say that it's, been a big transition for me as someone who's teaching a couple of courses. The courses were hybrid.
[00:05:35] Adrienne Dooley: [00:05:35] Jim, you were actually teaching a course that was trying to use the principles of experiential education before the shutdown happened.
[00:05:45] How's the course going, now that you went totally online?
[00:05:50] Jim Stellar: [00:05:50] Yes. Well, that's interesting. Thanks for that question. In the experiential education part is maybe relevant to this podcast as opposed to COVID which is relevant to everybody. So, we sat out, two of us, to teach this course. I call them RAs and, but they're like TAs.
[00:06:07] So the course is a Tuesday - Thursday course. It is psych one. There are two sections, a morning and afternoon. But it doesn't meet on the Thursdays. They do these exercises and the exercises are designed to engage the students. So, for example, we have an online textbook that is free, Open Text. It has at the back of each chapter about 20 multiple choice questions.
[00:06:27] We give them those questions on Blackboard and the answers to those questions and ask them to skim the chapter. We actually tell them, don't read it, just sort of go through it. Then go to question one. And if the question was something you really get the answer to, e.g. Freud studied frogs, the unconscious, etc. then you would, be okay.
[00:06:46] But if you didn't understand it, then use the search function and hunt it down in the text of that chapter and find the right answer. This ensures that you're not just passing your eyes over the paper. Why would you do that exercise? Because when you get to the exam, there's going to be half of the test from these multiple-choice questions.
[00:07:05] Now, by the time the exam rolls around, there'll be about a hundred of these questions and I'll put like 15 of them on the exam. But if you don't do this exercise and other people do it, you'll be at a disadvantage because they'll recognize the questions. So, this is trying to use the real-world test, which I can control, to get the students to do something that's really engaging.
[00:07:28] It says in the top of the syllabus, we want you to engage with us and the material. So, we think engagement is the way to learn. Now when the course went online, to go to your question, you can't do that anymore because we have to give open book tests and you don't have to learn anything like this. You could just print out the questions in the answers and quickly search and find question 13 is the one that's the first question on the exam, so there'd be no learning involved. So, we switched to totally essay.
I think my experience is that it's very convenient. I can be dressed in a sweatshirt, and not have to put my suit on to go to class. I tend not to wear a tie anymore since I'm no longer an administrator, but I don't have to get dressed and I don't have to drive, but it's not quite the same.
[00:08:12] I, for example, cannot have the students required to take my classes on zoom. because some of them can't do it. So, we have optional zoom discussions of the online PowerPoints that I now audio annotate, which fits together with a book, to be their learning material. I'm glad I had seven weeks with them to develop personal relationships and to get to know that we're all in this together, establish the tone, because I think it's really carrying the course now that everybody's fully online. So yes, it's working, but thank goodness we had that first half. And even though we're hybrid, there's a lot to be said for face-to-face encounters. I think universities really like that interaction between the students themselves and the students and the faculty, which is why I think that they'll always be a role for face-to-face universities, even though the online is so much more efficient.
[00:09:08] It might not be as effective when it comes to experiential, like things like figuring out who you are, whether you're really interested in this field. So, it's been a challenge and, I think like the rest of the world, I'm a little stir crazy, but we're doing it.
[00:09:26] Mary Churchill: [00:09:26] I just want to add one thing.
[00:09:27] Jim. I think that kind of, that emotional and relational piece is, especially for those of us who are not digital natives, is challenging. You know, I watch my 15-year-old son and even though he is a digital native, he really misses his friends. He's an only child, right? And so. I think even those who've been raised in this completely online environment or a totally online environment are missing the face to face interactions.
[00:09:54] And I think that we haven't given that enough value, haven't really expressed that value. And I think this is highlighting the importance, particularly for experiential ed.
[00:10:05] Jim Stellar: [00:10:05] I think that's a great point because I'm old enough now to have heard for 20 years that online education is going to wipe out real world of bricks and mortar campuses because of its price, and even though we've got tremendous student debt, in America, and that's a problem, there's still this value.
[00:10:21] There's a reason I think that while we have tons of online and a lot of students doing online, while they're in the real world, they really want to come to campus, be together, look each other in the eye, figure out things from what's my major to should we get married or should we date or what's my gender orientation?
[00:10:40] I mean, I think those things are really priceless and make a better world, frankly. So maybe you're right. Maybe this a side effect of this crisis will be a deepening of interest in experiential education.
[00:10:53] Mary Churchill: [00:10:53] Yeah. And really taking advantage of the times we are face-to-face, right? I think some of the hybrid international programs I've designed in the past are low residency, so mostly online, but we would bring them together either in their country or in the U.S. for maybe an intensive week or two in the summer or during a break and that was enough to carry them through the year. And, but we really took advantage of that limited time together to make it really, really meaningful, right? Rather than you have to come to class three hours a week and sit there and be bored or whatever, you know, kind of that routine, that routinized piece. It's more really valuing that face-to-face time and making it, it's more precious now, I think.
[00:11:33] Jim Stellar: [00:11:33] That's a good object lesson for us. I think, and I just want to tie in that we had a podcast at the end of the fall season by a guy who runs a company that specializes in bringing virtual mentors to class. So, they're you're in the class with your team of eight or nine students, and you're doing some cybersecurity project like you were a company trying to solve a problem for Goliath Bank. It's one of those free phrases they use that had a cybersecurity break. And there's all these roles and they're at the bottom of the screen is that guy who is an important person or that woman, from, Capgemini or Deloitte, a real company.
[00:12:10] And you can see something happen to the kids because they're thinking, wow, this is real. My professor is not going to be able to hire me when I graduate, but this person could.
[00:12:19] Mary Churchill: [00:12:19] Yes.
[00:12:20] Jim Stellar: [00:12:20] And they dress up a little bit and they try to be more present. And if it gives them anything, it gives them at least some experience of what it would be like to have an interview for an internship and maybe for a job.
[00:12:34] So there's lots of ways in which I think we have models that are out there. And another one that we interviewed was the K12 people, Shaun McAlmont with that podcast and that company is dedicated to providing online education in the K to 12 space. But his specific job in the company, as you remember from the podcast, listeners, is to bring experiential education activities to help those students get ready for their careers, using something else besides the content learning.
[00:13:02] It's really great. so,
[00:13:04] Mary Churchill: [00:13:04] Switching gears.
[00:13:05] Jim Stellar: [00:13:05] Yeah.
[00:13:07] Mary Churchill: [00:13:07] Adrienne is going to bring us an international perspective. So, Adrienne, you moved to St. Thomas in January to continue your speech pathology career. You had no idea when you set it up, or maybe even when you went that a pandemic would hit. What is it like now in paradise?
[00:13:24] Adrienne Dooley: [00:13:24] You know, it's very like the rest of the world in so many ways. And then, you know, we veer off and have so many other opportunities down here to entertain ourselves. When I came down here, of course I had no idea this was going to happen, and it happened very quickly. So just as I started getting the practice up and running and getting clients in the door and making relationships with schools where I would be working, it all fell apart, let's be honest.
[00:13:51] So, a lot of the demographic of people I work with are children, you know, maybe eight and younger, and a lot of them are on the autism spectrum. So, drawing in a child in that demographic into a computer screen to get, you know, to communicate with you is extremely challenging. And for the most part, you know, parents need to be more involved than usual, I mean, to say the least. And they're facilitating a lot of this therapy and it's really tricky. You have to have the right client with the right parent involvement. And that's baseline. And then a lot of this community here, you have to have access to internet, you have to have access to zoom and computers and things like that.
[00:14:39] And a lot of the people that I work with just don't have that access. So, I went from having plenty of clients to one. And even for him, his tolerance for the length of therapy that he can sustain just by looking at a computer screen and talking with me, it has been reduced by half. You know, we cut the sessions in half because he just can't, and I don't blame him.
[00:15:01] You know, it's an eight-year-old focused on a computer screen, just talking. We can't play games. There's no laughter. There is no banter. We're not taking a two-minute break to look at something else or you know, shoot a ball or things like that that we usually do to break up how hard and how much focus therapy can be for some children.
[00:15:22] So it's, you know, a huge battle and I think a lot of people notice that I spend my time doing other things. Like I'm very lucky to have time to indulge in my hobbies, like scuba diving because it's isolated. We don't, you know, you have your own air supply. But I'm the person, I mean the demographics that's really going to pay for this financially when I do have to go back to work or if the pandemic lasts too long or when the money runs out, you know. I am considered an essential worker, so I could be working more but a lot of the families are too nervous to come to my office even though I assure them I will sanitize just as much as anybody. But, and a lot of them, sometimes in this world of helping their children learn online and all of the other uncertainties, I fall to the bottom of list of importance to that.
[00:16:21] I mean, I know, I think that I'm at the top of the list. But when we look at what these families have to deal with and what they have to adjust to right now, I understand when they just don't want to add learning the internet and zoom in therapy with their three-year-old, to that list. And a lot of them have more than one child.
[00:16:39] You know, I have a family with four kids under five years old. How are they going to take an hour to help their one middle child, you know, with their speech and language therapy over a computer screen while trying to keep the other three quiet, you know, and it doesn't translate as much as it does if you work with adults or you have a different type of therapeutic practice.
[00:17:02] So I'm definitely going to have to get creative if this a pandemic lasts a lot longer, which it looks like it will. A lot of people are looking for second jobs, but the fields that second jobs are in aren't hiring: retail, restaurants, things like that. So, it's going to be very interesting as people like me have to get pretty creative.
[00:17:26]You know, in the beginning I was very excited to be labeled and essential worker. But when you look at the people you work with, you know, if they're not willing or able to meet you in the middle. How do you work? You know, it's not all on me, but I also have a very genuine understanding of their position right now.
[00:17:45] They're scared. They have to work. They have children, and not all of their children are, you know, at the same neuro-typical level. So, it's an added stress when it comes to saying, okay, now let's add therapy to the mix. It's, it's a lot.
[00:18:02] Mary Churchill: [00:18:02] I think that the challenge, we're seeing that too here in Massachusetts, if you haven't read the kind of guidance that has come out from DESE, from the Commissioner Riley, on kids with IEPs, it's actually really interesting because they've been doing webinars and everything.
[00:18:17] It's the most, it's the biggest challenge we have in Boston, especially those who are, you know, at the poverty level or, food and housing insecure. And also. on the autism spectrum, right? Kind of have this really hands on team approach within the schools that they're really struggling to replicate that online.
[00:18:36] And it's a challenge. I would say it's one of the top challenges that we're facing as a district.
[00:18:44] Jim Stellar: [00:18:44] So, so I would say that, if you think of yourself as a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. So maybe I'm doing that right now, but it sounds like these kinds of things that are not working, that could be working, that did work in the real world, are very experiential. To go back to our, our theme, it's your presence. It's your ability to look that kid in the face and say, all right, let's go shoot some hoops, or whatever it is you're doing to take a break to get back the concentration that we need.
[00:19:10] Or the fact that they come to your office, the parent drops them off. The other three kids might be sitting in the car or going out for ice cream or something, but they're not distracting the student and these people really need this. They really need this experience of touch. So, Adrienne, I was going to ask, do you think there are lingering changes?
[00:19:28] Let's say the pandemic is over and you're back to work, things that you might do, or are you just going to snap back to the old ways with these people who really need your presence?
[00:19:37] Adrienne Dooley: [00:19:37] I mean, that's an interesting question. I do think, right now the health insurance companies have put a temporary allowance on teletherapy so we don't know how long that will stay.
[00:19:45] You know, that means they're going to pay, reimburse us for our services, whether we do it over the computer or not. And that's something to consider. If they go back to not reimbursing teletherapy at the same rate, then we're more motivated to get everyone back into the office. But it is interesting, you know, I have a client who takes off from work to make sure her child comes to therapy.
[00:20:07] If she were able to figure out how to get him in front of a computer instead of taking off work with his caregiver, then that's something that works better for her. It's just going to. A lot of it's going to be affected by how the health insurances, company react after all this is over. I, my demographic, and how I feel most successful is with that personal touch with the child in my office.
[00:20:31] You know, we have toys and we can banter, and I can tell if they're having a bad day and I'm not sitting behind a computer begging them to come back to the screen, you know? So, I know for me. I would much rather be in my office with my clients. This experience is nice for comparative purposes, but it's certainly not something that I feel I would like to pursue after this.
[00:20:54] I have friends that feel differently, especially those friends who work with adults because adults are self-disciplined, you know, and their motivation to learn or to work on speech and language therapy is different because they have, you know. The mindset that this is something they want for themselves, and they understand what the possible outcome is.
[00:21:15] So if you work with adults, I can foresee your practice going online, especially for adults who have the access to internet and maybe aren't able to drive a car or something like that. But for those, for my demographic of children, I think for working with children, like we see in the school systems.
[00:21:34] Having them in front of you. It makes all the difference.
[00:21:38] Jim Stellar: [00:21:38] Adrienne, I'm curious whether you think, there is any effect like that for the college age population, which has a certain personal need maybe to be in front of a professor, but maybe don't, I mean, my course was hybrid to begin with before the pandemic it, but, do you think that this will, make us more online and if so, how much?
[00:22:02] Mary Churchill: [00:22:02] Well, I think that, I've been saying this about faculty that those who have never taught online, that is not accidental, right? And so that was a choice and so now that all the folks who did not choose to teach online are being forced to teach remotely, it's challenging.
[00:22:24] I would say the same thing for students. Students have had lots of flexible options of mixing it up and taking hybrid, online, face-to-face, particularly at the grad level. And if they were on-ground students, unless they were international and international students can't really take a lot of online classes.
[00:22:41] So if they were not into, if they were domestic students and they were not taking online classes, that was a choice. They wanted to be in a face to face environment with their professor and with other students. And so those who stayed away from online. I think this is, this is a really challenging environment for them.
[00:23:01] Jim Stellar: [00:23:01] So do you think they'll snap back or do you think the people that the, there, the faculty for example, is take them, who know, have to have experience teaching online will be more sympathetic and interested to those who want to do this? I mean, I'm thinking that more students might take some online courses while they're in the dormitories, the residence halls, because of the changing experience of the faculty because the faculty clearly are now experienced with doing this. Because if they weren't, they'd be dead in their profession. Yeah. In the real world.
[00:23:36] Mary Churchill: [00:23:36] Well, I think the majority of the classes that students take are based on their schedule, not with the faculty member, but even though faculty like to think they are, but then it's about you know, what fits in their schedule or what requirements they have to fulfill. And so. Again, and as you know, mental health issues are on the rise, created an environment where we don't know if they've increased or that we've just gotten better at being accepting and supportive of folks so that they're more open about those.
[00:24:08] But, they were able to have those needs met on campus, and a lot of times their parents don't even know about the challenges they're facing. And so, for folks and you brought up kind of, gender transition issues, right? Who are kind of discovering or trying to figure out their, how they identify.
[00:24:28] Often they're at odds with their families and campus is the only safe space where they can actually explore those issues and have support. And so. we often think vulnerable students who can't go home are folks who are financially vulnerable, but there are emotionally and psychologically vulnerable situations too, where we've sent them home to a situation that may not be supportive.
[00:24:51] Jim Stellar: [00:24:51] So growing up from living on campus is something that I'm familiar with. I think even though I didn't do a gender transition or something as radical as that, I still think I needed that experience in space in that time. It was a way to grow up and in sort of a general way, and I think that requires much more than being in your bedroom with a Nobel Laureate lecturing you on a small screen.
[00:25:14] Mary Churchill: [00:25:14] Yeah. Well, you find yourself, you really discover yourself and kind of break away from your family of origin and you know, have your own identity.
[00:25:24] Jim Stellar: [00:25:24] So this is perfect. This might be a good place for us to stop because we have this wonderful synergy now between the autistic, speech therapy, client of Adrienne's who might be eight years old and their real genuine connection through the emotions and, and whatever, we think of is going on.
[00:25:40] And when you learn experience to college students who are finding themselves, even if it's the smallest thing as a, should I be an accounting major or do I want to go into education as a field? much less the larger life issues that our students face. So, I think it's really an interesting conversation.
[00:26:01] Anybody want to add anything?
[00:26:04] Mary Churchill: [00:26:04] I just want to say that I, you know, the, we're not going back to what it was. And so, I think that what I said earlier about really taking advantage of and valuing the face-to-face interaction when we have it is going to be extremely important in the future.
[00:26:22] Jim Stellar: [00:26:22] And that is where I think experiential education gets that special real-world presence feel. That the professor in his or her office, the therapist in his or her office can be real world in a way that might not be quite met by online. Well, let's end there.
[00:26:40] Mary Churchill: [00:26:40] Thank you for listening. We hope you will come back soon for the next installation of ExperiencED,
[00:26:46] Adrienne Dooley: [00:26:46] as we continue to talk about the neuroscience and sociology of enhancing higher education
[00:26:52] Jim Stellar: [00:26:52] by combining direct experience with classical academic learning.