"White Awake: An honest look at what it means to be white" by Daniel Hill

White Awake: an honest look at what it means to be white
Daniel Hill

Awakening
What are the mile markers that indicate I'm experiencing authentic awakenings? (p. 142)

1. Becoming theologically awake
Luke 4:18-19, 21 .. "He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free..."
2. Recognizing the kingdom battle over the Image Dei
3. No longer being defensive about white supremacy
4. Dismantling white supremacy trumps the seeking of diversity
5. Changing the evaluation of growth from "What am I supposed to do?" to "How well do I see?" 
6. Recognizing privilege faster and with greater precision

Active Participation
1. Continue to education yourself
2. Get proximate to suffering
3. Explore ways to share your social network
4. Find a place to serve consistently
5. Place yourself under the leadership of people of color
6. Invest in white people
7. Learn to locate yourself
8. Become a change agent within  your sphere of influence
9. Find some young people to build with
10. Commit to strong, persistent, and determined action
11. Follow in the footsteps of the pioneer (Jesus)
   Heb. 12: 1-2 "Therefore since we are surrounded... great cloud of witnesses"

Cultivating Resilience: A Personal toolbox

Notes from May 15, 2018 workshop

Resilience is "bouncing back" from difficult experiences.
Major stressors
Resistance is human, we all feel that way at times.
-physical exercise increases resilience
-chronic stress -- brain is always sounding an alarm
-a positive self concept and confidence in  one's strengths and abilities

Caring for others creates resilience

Have a confidant in your work team
A small distraction may be helpful
Most important thing that makes a team effective: psychological safety

Suppressing feelings isn't healthy
Make decisions that are value-based
Practice self-compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness.

Manage energy NOT time
- Interval training, recovery is key!
Decrease screen time -- Be present
Determine your peak hours
Create habits and fuel your energy

Recommended reading: The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal

Teaching & Learning Day 2019

Jim Lang

PART ONE

"Teaching Distracted Minds"

Book to be released in 2020

Small Teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning (2016)

Distraction has existed for years:

-External--distractions like at a coffee house, or any interruption

-Internal--trains of thought that just goes on and on

All distraction is not equal, our ability to establish high level goals is the pinnacle of our brain evolution (or the way we were created)

Why do we crave distraction?  We are information-seeking creatures, at the very core of our being

3 principles:

1. A human mind is easily distracted.
2. Our current technolog intensifies a pre-existing condition.
3. Cultivating and sustaining attention requires deliberate effort.

Need to create FLOW

1. Goal is clear.
2. Feedback relevant.
3. Challenges and skills are balanced (feel that they can do it).
4. Collaborative social nature, so that they need to pay attention.  (Without goals and without others to interact with, students lose motivation and concentration, a wandering mind goes to unresolvable problems, even anxiety. 

How do we cultivate curiosity? (enjoyable)
-We tend to pay attention when we are curious, puzzle or mystery

How to do this:

1. Articulate the problem.
2. Explain significance or relevance.
3. Give students opportunity to answer.
4. Provide answer (could be the whole course or just a part of it).
5. Conclude with a problem or question.

Multi-tasking-- can't do it, mentioned the same study from last year (See previous blog post.)  it degrades our performance in each thing we are working on.

--Other students are distracted by your multi-tasking.

***The pathway of creativity looks a lot like the pathway to distraction.

Books he mentioned:
What the best college teachers go by Ken Bain

The ecology of attention  by Yves Citton  (information overload can turn to astonishment when confronted by the excedence of curiosity that occupies the human mind.

Make it stick: The science of successful learning by Brown, et al

PART TWO

"Using prediction to increase comprehension"

Small teaching interventions

--brief (5-15 min.) interventions into individual learning sessions

--limited number of interventions or activities over the entire course

--minor changes to course design, assessment structure or communication with students

Activate prior learning:

--prompt them to write essay or presentation on learning from prior courses

--definitions or explanations

--discipline-based autobiographical reflections

e.g. for me: What have you learned so far about research for this subject?

Best way to learn/study:

Low utility

--summarization

--highlighting

--underlining

Medium utitility

--elaborate interrogation

--interleaved practice

--self-explanation (students explain it to their neighbor)

High Utility

--practice testing (!)

--distributed testing

PART THREE
"Giving Feedback that builds motivation"

Growth Mindset

What is the best way to encourage your child/student?

A. Praise for their natural ability

B. Praise for their effort and strategies 

Answer is B

A fixed mindset means that we think our IQ was stamped on our forehead.

A growth mindset means we believe we are capable of getting smarter.

We tend to have both, especially in different areas.

Our attitude toward learning greatly influences our actual learning.

Mindsets can be changed.

Normalize help-seeking behaviors (important for librarians, encourage students to ask for help with research, etc.)

Promote active study strategies.

His column is in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Small changes in teaching

Teaching Learning Day (2018)

Adult Motivation -- relevance is very important

Teaching Naked

1. Build upon prior knowledge.. how know? Just ask them.
2. The average  human attention span typically maxes out around 15 min. 
3. Humans do not fully become self-regulating until around age 25.
4. Successful multi-tasking when two tasks require cognitive attention is not possible.
   See: Sana, Weston, Cepeda. "Laptop multitasking hingers classroom learning for both users and nearby peers" i Computers and Education, 62:24-31. 2013.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003
5. Performance and Feedback are important.
6. Social interaction (Constructivism)
7. Recall promotes learning
8. Cognitive processing "processing" of learning material tend to resulrt in greater learning gains.

Solid basic formula:

1. Design instruction based on human cognition.
2. Build upon prior knowledge.
3. Leverage social learning opportunities.
4. Performance with feedback
5. Foster recall
6. Promote processing.

** Failure is important

Library Publishing Online Workshop #1

Library Publishing Curriculum
https://educopia.org/library-publishing-curriculum/

"Content"
Pre-Reading:  

• Narrative: Content Strategy:
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QWobQNcZ8GTC2twaGrNmfM560qWZx3mhAdBFh76gPqI/edit

• https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/11/27/strategic-planning-and-the-not-for-profit-publisher/ 

• https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/structure/strategic-planning/vision-mission-statements/main  

Drake Memorial Library's Mission and Values:
https://www.brockport.edu/library/about/mission.html(It is the reverse of what is taught in the workshop).


Homework: 

SUNY Brockport eBooks:

Vision: Empower our intellectual community in the creation of open access eBooks

Mission:

• Promote the scholarship of our intellectual community by providing a platform on which to publish longer pieces of scholarly and professional work.
• Support the creation and development of eBooks through clear communication of the editorial process, the copyright requirements, and the SBeB workflow.

Current Language: https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/sunybeb/
SUNY Brockport eBooks considers for publication on The College at Brockport’s digital repository, for free and open access, quality work produced by:

• Brockport faculty and staff (current or emeriti)
• Brockport students (current or alumni)
• Authors/editors whose work relates to The College at Brockport or its neighboring communities

Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization

Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization 
by Cia Verschelden, 2017

Her summary (p. 59): "Poverty and racism rob our students of mental bandwidth so they have limited cognitive resources for learning. Poor people are physically and mentally less healthy than people who have adequate resources; they suffer the physical consequences of chronic stress.  People who experience racism every day experience similar stress and negative health outcomes. Physical and mental illness take up mental bandwidth, leaving less available for everything else, such as making good choices, being effective workers or parents, and learning."

If our students are struggling with these other issues, how can they focus effectively in the classroom?  What types of interventions might help make them more successful for graduation and their careers?

• Encourage a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindest 
• Neurobics (have students try something new that is a new experience to stretch their brain, and have them report how it felt to overcome their fear (e.g. going to a yoga class with a friend or eating alone in a restaurant)
• "not yet" vs "not" -- give feedback that they can achieve learning outcomes with more effort, instead of feeling "not good enough"
• Self-esteem vs self efficacy
• high-hope syllabi (my favorite thing):  instead of one long research paper, give students steps like topic proposal due, outline due, feedback on those, first draft with feedback, then finaly draft
• Belonging
• Affirm students' values
• Pecha kucha life reports (so they get to know each other)
• relationship building in the classroom
• Helping relationships, like peer mentors
• Academic and Social counter spaces
• Institutional structures and processes
• critical mass 
• images
• financial needs
• Conversations and actions 
• (above need to reflect the student body-- students need to see images of people who look like them, and a more diverse faculty)
• GSU's interventions
• Block scheduling
• Micro-grants to help students in poverty
• pre-session before the fall (like our EOP)
• Better academic advisement, dedicated advisors, over 800 "incidents" that can be triggered as needing help in the online system.
• "Supplemental instructors" -- students who act as peer mentors, on work-study
• Student learning communities
• "meta-majors"  e.g. STEM, arts and humanities, health sciences

Ready. Set. GOAL! Workshop

Ready. Set. GOAL! Workshop with Jill 

from Tastefully Simple

1.  For what do you feel most grateful? List at least 10.  (Choose a goal buddy)

2.  What are my top ten strengths?

3.  What do I really, really, really want to be, do or have?

• Financial
• Family & Friends
• Career
• Physical
• Entertainment
• Spiritual
• Mental
• My home

4.  What is my #1 goal?

          Select on thing from you really, really, really want list.  

5.  How do I want to feel in 12 months?

6.  Steps to my goal:

• Today's date
• What one thing do I really, really, really want?
• When will I accomplish this?
• Why do I want this? Why will my life be better because of it?
• How will I achieve my goal? What actions will I take?
• What are possible challenges, and solutions?
• Challenges .................................. Solutions
• Challenges .................................. Solutions
• What knowledge do I need?
• With whom do I want to work in order to achieve my goal?
• What actions do I want to take: Daily, weekly, monthly?
• Action   ......................................  Deadline .................  Complete
• Action   ......................................  Deadline .................  Complete

7.  My weekly Planner

• Dates
• Top three results
• Most important tasks
• Check your actions on Steps to your Goal
• Schedule tasks on your calendar