Student-Centered Teaching with Kelly Spoon

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Learn practical strategies to teach with purpose, innovation, and heart.

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Let’s get one thing out of the way: Yes, Kelly Spoon is a math faculty member. But no, this isn’t just a “math thing.” Whether you teach biology, sociology, English, or automotive technology, you’ll benefit from what she brings to the classroom. Kelly Spoon of San Diego Mesa College isn’t just teaching derivatives—she’s reshaping how students experience learning itself. In this episode, we translate her powerful practices into actionable strategies any faculty member can use, with a special focus on designing your classroom and professional development around care, curiosity, and continuous improvement. Here are action steps to achieving ten key topics Kelly discussed. 

1. Reframe "Rigor" to Reflect Learning—Not Compliance
Big Idea: Grades should reflect understanding, not compliance. If your course is “rigorous,” make sure that rigor measures what students know, not just how well they followed instructions or turned things in on time.
Action Steps:
• Audit your gradebook: What percentage of a student’s grade is based on things like homework completion or watching videos? Is that measuring learning or behavior?
• Remove or reduce grades tied to compliance (e.g., attendance points, participation checklists).
• Prioritize mastery. Let students show understanding even if it’s not on the first try.

2. Let Students Show Their Brilliance, Not Just Yours
Big Idea: Teaching isn’t about showcasing your expertise—it’s about discovering students' thinking. Spoon shifted her goal from “showing brilliance” to understanding student brilliance.
Action Steps:
• Use open-ended problems that allow for multiple solution paths.
• Try reflective prompts like, “What made you approach the problem this way?” to center student thinking.
• Regularly spotlight great student work or solutions in class.

3. Embrace Productive Struggle with Thin Slicing and Whiteboards
Big Idea: Students learn best when they’re just outside their comfort zone—what Vygotsky called the “zone of proximal development.” Spoon facilitates this using Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms model.
Action Steps:
• Use whiteboards or non-permanent vertical spaces to promote group problem-solving.
• Start with familiar problems and “thin slice” them—gradually add complexity.
• Let students look at others’ work for inspiration and revision.

4. Redefine Assessment with Standards-Based Grading (SBG)
Big Idea: Spoon uses a standards-based approach that values where students land, not just where they are on a particular quiz day. And students can reassess—because growth matters.
Action Steps:
• Create clear learning targets using frameworks like ESIL (Existence, Supported, Independent, Lifetime).
• Let students reassess. Change the questions slightly to test understanding, not memorization.
• Only grade what matters—what students know, not if they did busywork.

5. Flip the Classroom Strategically
Big Idea: Flipping isn’t about videos—it’s about creating time for meaningful in-class learning. Spoon flipped her classroom to make space for inquiry, problem-solving, and collaboration.
Action Steps:
• Use asynchronous materials (text, video, slides) to free up class time.
• Start small—flip just one topic or week.
• Provide students with multiple ways to engage with pre-class material.

6. Foster a Culture of Reflective Teaching
Big Idea: Spoon’s journey was built on a steady stream of learning from others—especially on social media. She sought out communities that challenged her and pushed her to grow.
Action Steps:
• Follow faculty leaders and pedagogical innovators on LinkedIn, BlueSky, or wherever you scroll.
• Start or join a professional learning community (PLC) or community of practice.
• Regularly ask yourself, “What’s one thing I could tweak or improve?”

7. Redesign PD to Include All Faculty, Even the Resistant Ones
Big Idea: Spoon doesn’t write off resistant faculty. She brings them into existing spaces—department meetings, school meetings—and designs sessions that invite participation without pressure.
Action Steps:
• Embed short teaching demos or puzzles into required meetings.
• Avoid “here’s the right way” PD. Instead, share “what worked for me” and open discussion.
• Make changes feel doable—start with five-minute activities, not overhauls.

8. Close the Loop on Professional Development
Big Idea: Professional learning doesn’t stick without follow-up. Spoon and her team use simple reflection prompts to encourage iteration—not just implementation.
Action Steps:
• After PD, ask: What did you try? How did it go? What’s next?
• For longer PD (like cohorts), ask participants to share “before and after” versions of their materials.
• Offer coaching that gives specific, non-evaluative suggestions, like Spoon’s “Three Ideas” model.

9. Believe in Every Student—and Show Them They Belong
Big Idea: Equity isn’t just about curriculum. It’s about how we see students. Spoon makes space for students to see themselves as capable thinkers—even if they weren’t labeled “good at math.”
Action Steps:
• Validate student thinking—even when it’s not fully correct.
• Share stories or metaphors that demystify academic language.
• Offer multiple pathways to demonstrate learning—papers, videos, projects, presentations.

10. Keep Growing, Keep Reflecting
Big Idea: Spoon’s teaching is never “done.” Her approach is iterative, grounded in curiosity, and powered by community.
Action Steps:
• Attend just one PD event a semester with an open mind—and take notes on what might work.
• Identify one trusted colleague to swap ideas with regularly.
• At the end of each term, write down one practice you want to improve.

Final Thought
Kelly Spoon’s approach is grounded in care, curiosity, and craft—and it’s highly contagious. Whether you’re a math instructor or teach history, her reflections offer a reminder: Teaching is a profession. One that deserves continual reflection, collaboration, and care. You don’t need to do everything at once. Start with one thing—and keep going.

Key chapter markers

00:00: Intro: Welcome and framing: why Kelly Spoon’s approach benefits all faculty, not just math instructors.

01:05: Meet Kelly Spoon: Background, teaching at Mesa College, and work in faculty development.

02:47: Kindness in the Classroom: Centering students as whole people and honoring their lived experiences and thinking.

04:01: Productive Struggle and Student Brilliance: Using the zone of proximal development and student choice in how they demonstrate learning.

05:55: Building Thinking Classrooms: How Kelly uses whiteboards, random groups, and thin slicing to foster deep engagement.

08:04; Responding to the “No Rigor” Critique: Debunking false dichotomies: lecture vs. active learning, rigor vs. kindness.

11:49: Standards-Based Grading: Grading for understanding, not compliance, and letting students grow over time.

14:44: Flexible Learning and Reassessment: Using the ESIL framework and allowing multiple attempts to show learning.

20:34: Bringing PD to All Faculty: Strategies for engaging resistant faculty through low-stakes, high-interest approaches.

25:55: Creating Non-Evaluative Coaching Spaces: Using feedback tools like “Three Ideas” and aspirations for peer observation.

32:06: Closing the Loop on Professional Development: Building reflection and iteration into PD to increase its long-term impact.

36:30: Addressing Equity Gaps in STEM: Centering student voices and identities in math to foster belonging and growth.

43:53: The Power of a Learning Community: How social media and peer influence helped Kelly take risks and evolve as an educator.

47:23: Teaching as a Profession: Closing thoughts on the depth, difficulty, and rewards of being a truly reflective teacher.

Kelly's episode resources:
Dan Meyer: https://danmeyer.substack.com/
Zone of proximal development: https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-development.html
Peter Liljedahl: https://www.buildingthinkingclassrooms.com/about-peter
Robert Talbert: https://gradingforgrowth.com/
David Clark: https://substack.com/@dcclark?
Jesse Stommel: https://www.jessestommel.com/
Josh Eyler: https://substack.com/@josheyler
Grading for Equity: https://www.corwin.com/books/grading-for-equity-2nd-edition-281503
Maria Anderson's ESIL framework: https://edgeoflearning.com/esil-a-learning-lens-for-the-digital-age/
Robert Kaplinsky: https://robertkaplinsky.com/
Plickers app assessment app: https://get.plickers.com/
The Grading Conference: https://www.centerforgradingreform.org/grading-conference/

Also, check out Kelly's wonderful resources:
Classroom blog posts: https://accelerationproject.org/blog/
Workshops: https://www.kellyspoon.com/presentations-workshops

About Kelly Spoon
Kelly is a math professor at a two-year college in San Diego, where she focuses on helping students succeed in calculus—regardless of their starting point. On this episode, she shares how she brings creativity and equity into her classroom, rethinks grading, and supports faculty through professional learning. Beyond teaching, Kelly leads workshops, writes about course design and OER, and helps educators build more inclusive, effective learning environments.

About Dr. Al Solano
Dr. Al Solano is the Founder and Coach of the Continuous Learning Institute, where he partners with colleges and universities to strengthen student success and equity through sustainable, campus-driven practices. A strong believer in the power of kindness, Al coaches higher education teams using his signature framework—the “Three Cs”: Clarity, Coherence, and Consensus.

With decades of coaching experience, Al has worked directly with more than 50 institutions and trained thousands of educators nationwide. His widely used, practitioner-focused articles on student success strategies, institutional planning and implementation, and educational leadership are embraced by campuses across the country.

Al began his career in K–12 education, later serving in roles at two community colleges. A proud community college transfer student, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a doctorate in education from UCLA.

Transcript

AL: 0:01

Welcome to the Student Success Podcast. If you work in higher ed and want to learn ways to support students, check out today's episode.

Kelly: 0:09

[Quote teaser] If rigor, whatever that means, matters to you as an instructor, your grades really need to reflect student understanding and not compliance.

Kelly: 0:20

[Quote teaser] I don't care if they know week four how to use the chain rule to take a derivative. If they figure it out by week six, I'm still happy, right, they still shown that they've met that standard. And so then you realize, ok, there's this whole world of standards- based grading that values this learning progression and where students end up, as opposed to where they are at that moment and maybe how they were feeling on that particular day that they took a quiz, that idea of just like, oh, I don't, I don't think I care about, I mean, obviously I need it by a certain time because math builds on itself, right, so I might have to have some cut off for when they have to learn it, but maybe it doesn't have to be so rigid.

AL: 1:05

Welcome to the Student Success Podcast, Kelly.

Kelly: 1:07

I'm happy to be here, Al.

AL: 1:10

So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Kelly: 1:12

So I'm a math faculty member at San Diego Mesa College, where I've been lucky enough to also be part of our teaching and learning team. We have this Mesa's Ongoing Support for Teaching, our MOST team, which has been really fulfilling, and then I've also worked on some stuff at the district level in terms of OER, open educational resources. It's been nice to be able to do a little bit more than just teach math but also help other educators realize things like zero textbook costs in their classes and how to do anything they want to do in their classes like working on course design

AL: 1:48

So I've been a fan for a while. I would check your notifications for your social media and I've been to at least one of your webinars, and one of the things I appreciate about you is that, in my view, you center kindness in your craft. You truly, genuinely care about students and you do this by so many ways. But I really appreciate how you are always looking to continually improve your craft and then sharing that with your colleagues. So for today's episode, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about what you do in the classroom, and it could be whatever you want, and I'm sure that, yes, it's going to be math, but we have so many listeners from different disciplines, it doesn't matter. They're going to learn something from you because you're a teacher at heart. You know we use the word faculty in higher ed. I still kind of like the word teacher, but anyway, love to learn about some of the things you do in the classroom.

Kelly: 2:47

Yeah, thanks for that question. I think when you say kindness, I think of like I don't know, like that's not what I think is happening in my class necessarily. I think it's more just caring about students as a whole person, and I guess that is kindness, right, to want to know what students are interested in, what they're doing in their lives, what things they value. Thinking about your comment about just like following folks on social media, that's part of what has made my journey. The journey that it has been is the folks that I've followed. And thinking about this brings me back to a really old Dan Meyer post on Twitter, like a thousand years ago I mean, I have no idea how old this is, but he basically said that his teaching journey started with phase one I want to show students the brilliance of my thinking. And then, phase two, I want to show students the brilliance of math. Phase three was finally to this point that I think I'm finally out of my career, which is, I want to understand the brilliance of your thinking like no longer centering themselves, no longer centering even the content, but more the students thinking about that content. In my classroom I feel like that looks a lot like me. Stepping to the side.

Kelly: 4:01

I do a lot of what I realize now is probably putting my students in that zone of proximal development, if you want to like, use fancy terms, right, where I'm constantly giving students problems that are just beyond what we've talked about in class, just beyond what they've previously seen, and putting them in this sort of space where they have to get used to being uncomfortable and not knowing, and then seeing what resources they have, both within themselves, like what do I know? And then what did my peers know? Like how can I solve this problem? It highlights their brilliance, right. It highlights that they can do things that are beyond what they've seen before. And then I do ask them a lot of questions about themselves. I do really try to value their progression and their learning by doing things like reassessments and giving them options when I think things don't need to be an exam. To how would you like to show me you understood limits in a calculus class? I don't think that that needs to be an exam. Here are four options for how you could show me that you understand this.

Kelly: 5:10

And then, if you think of something better, feel free, pitch it to me, I'm happy to have you create something that you feel like is something that showcases what you understand.

AL: 5:21

That was beautiful. Zone of proximal development. Oh, I haven't heard that in so long. And a lot of the quality research around pedagogy comes from our K-12 brothers and sisters, so we learned a lot about that there. And also there's a lot of really good research around productive struggle in the sciences, especially math. So I would love to learn, if you wouldn't mind, could you give us an example of that productive struggle. If you have with a particular math problem or concept or topic? Just to kind of unpack that a little bit more.

Kelly: 5:55

Trying to think what were we doing in class today. So in class today I've just taught Calc 2. Today I would not say it was a great example. We started with simple problems and then we just kept adding more and more complexity to them, so it wasn't like it was more of what Peter Liljedahl, there's this whole building thinking classrooms. You mentioned K-12. I feel like I have learned so much more from K-12 than I have ever learned from the higher ed folks in terms of teaching, because they actually have time to do all this PD and that's part of what they're really assessed on, I think, as teachers, and evaluated on. There's so many brilliant ideas from them, but one of those ideas which is now gaining a lot of traction in higher ed is the Building Thinking Classrooms movement of Peter Liljedahl.

Kelly: 6:43

The way I think he frames this is as thin slicing. So you have students and this is what's happens in my classroom. I have whiteboards all around the room and students are randomly assigned to a group and they go to those whiteboards, and I have Google slides that just have math problems. Essentially, usually it'll start with math problems they've seen before and then they'll slightly transition to things that are beyond what we've seen, but still right at the cusp, where I know that they can add something to it and they can get there, and so he calls that thin slicing.

Kelly: 7:17

A lot of us might call it scaffolding, but I mean that's all students being in that zone of like just putting them right in the like. You don't know this, but you have to actually think and pull out all the information that's in your brain. And when they're at the whiteboards it's really lovely because they can look over and see another group start and get an idea that maybe, oh, I should do that, or see that some other group has a different answer and then try to compare and contrast and do some of those metacognitive strategies that you just can't accomplish with a lecture right. Like you can't show students all the possibilities and have them make mistakes and try things in a lecture quite as as beautifully as you can in this like thinking classrooms approach.

AL: 8:04

Oh, Kelly, that sounds like a lot of hooey. You're not preparing our students. They're going to fail. There's no rigor in what you're doing. You're oh, I'm so disappointed in you. You're not preparing them. So that was my worst sarcastic voice ever, but I think you get the idea. How do you respond to that?

Kelly: 8:22

So this is one thing when I run professional development and webinars for math faculty, I think we tend to make dichotomies of things that are not really dichotomies. Right, like the lecture versus active learning and anyone you talk to who's an active learning advocate, Right, someone who's doing similar board work? This, you know, some people call it 360 whiteboards, some people call it like non-vertical, like whatever non-permanent vertical spaces. Is the thinking classrooms language for it has using a flipped classroom, they have videos that they want their students to watch. Almost everyone I've heard present on this. They're doing play posit and so they're requiring their students to watch those videos and providing points for watching those videos outside of class. So those faculty are still lecturers at heart. Right, they're still wanting their students to see an expert speak about the actual math. And then when you talk to a lecturer right, I have a lecture down the hall, a good friend and a colleague of mine and I listen to him talk to students and he'll tell students you need to go home and practice this. You need to do like just problem after problem until this, because, and that faculty member is also an active learner like, they're telling their student you need to engage in active learning and they'll even be like explain it to someone, like any friend, a dog. Just find someone to explain the math to and you'll understand it better.

Kelly: 9:54

The way I teach is I'm doing both. I don't lecture as much as somebody who might be lecture based. I provide a lot of that outside of class. But also I find that if you let students play with the ideas before you lecture, you don't need to explain every possible situation. And when you're comfortable knowing that your students are going to be successful with questions that don't look exactly like the ones you've done, you don't need to do every single iteration.

Kelly: 10:20

Because I think when I first started teaching, I really believed I have to show them every possible thing that might happen, like my lecture has to cover everything that could go wrong. And now I'm like I don't need to show them everything. I need to give them the tool and then the tools to understand what to do when things fall apart. I think there's that false dichotomy there of like, oh, if you're having them work on stuff, you're not, but I don't grade my students on that classwork. Their only grades in my class are based on understanding, so their grades are solely based. I mean, I'd say 70 to 80% are quizzes and exams, things that they have to do in front of me with you know, maybe no notes, things like no formula sheet, none of that. I've heard from colleagues who teach the higher level classes, who teach physics, that my students, even my C students, are doing really well in those classes. So I think I'm doing something right. I'm doing something right even if it sounds fluffy.

AL: 11:19

No, you are. And I want to touch on grading. Then, right, the way, the way you assess because and look, I, in the same way, I don't have a student deficit mindset. I don't have one for faculty, because it's how they were trained, right, this is how they learned in graduate school and they then pass on a lot of those, I'll call them antiquated practices, but they don't, because that's all they know, and so, and grading has been an issue.

AL: 11:49

I did a little study at a college that I coach, I worked with the researcher, and it was really fascinating. We did a survey of how faculty in pre-calculus grade. Long story short, after all these questions of how they weigh and how they don't, do they drop a test or not, we saw that it's basically a lottery for students. So if I'm lucky enough to take pre-cal with Kelly, I will probably have an 80%. But if I'm not lucky enough to have Kelly and I have this other instructor who weighs things differently, who's more about points than the learning he or she may not know that, but that's really what happens, you're going to have like a 40%. I mean, the data was fascinating. And so tell us a little bit more about how you assess learning.

Kelly: 12:41

Yeah, so I'm really influenced by Josh Eyler, Jesse Stommel, Robert Talbert, David Clark, all these kind of big names that thankfully I ran into early on Twitter when Twitter was still Twitter. I've had a lot of opportunities to read the book Grading for Equity with different reading groups, like different groups of faculty. So I read it with a group of just statistics faculty as part of the electronic conference on teaching statistics. I read it with faculty here at Mesa and there's just so many pieces and points that Joe Feldman makes that really resonate and that one of them is grading on understanding instead of compliance. And to me, if rigor, whatever that means, matters to you as an instructor, your grades really need to reflect student understanding and not compliance. So like I have still like a little bit of a visceral reaction when those really amazing faculty were telling me how they require their students to watch those play posit videos and they're giving points for those play posit videos that count towards their grade, because I'm sitting there going, but like that's just, did they watch the lecture? Like yes, but they should be intrinsically motivated to watch that lecture because they want to come to class and know what's going on and be able to engage with what we're doing in class for me, not every student is going to find me the best teacher for them, right? Like? And maybe video is not the best method for them, like, maybe they know that they'd much rather they're me, they'd much rather just read some text and be able to scan. And it's a lot harder to scan a video, right? A video is a set amount of time, even at two times speed, that I have to sit through, whereas, like, I can scan a PDF, try a problem, see my understanding and move on. There's no real universal design for learning, right, in the way that these other faculty are doing that. And the same thing for homework, right? Not every student needs the same number of practice problems. Not every student needs the same type of homework, right?

Kelly: 14:44

Sort of realizing that a long time ago, especially because there was a big movement in like K-12 to not assign homework grades, and I think that was one of those moments where I was like I never liked homework as a student. I never needed to do all of it. All it did was lower my grade because I refused to do it. And we all, like all of us as faculty members, I'm sure I've had the situation where you have a student who turns in all the homework and still fails the test, and yet the student turns in like none of the homework and aces the test, and so you know there's no correlation between the homework and the test scores, like the understanding score. Whether the test is a good measure is another question, and so I think that was the first thing that resonated with me of that book was I need to get rid of all the things that are grading, compliance, grading, students just doing things and focus on do they understand?

Kelly: 15:37

Another huge piece, and this, all of this he does with nice little examples in grading for equity of like two different instructors, sort of what you talked about, the Kelly versus the not Kelly, like the lottery of going into a class of like what, what matters is that they learn the thing. It doesn't matter when they learn it. And so when you go yeah, that's true, I don't care if they know week four how to use the chain rule, to take a derivative if they figure it out by week six, I'm still, I'm still happy, right, like they still shown that they've met that standard. And so then you realize, okay, there's this whole world of standards-based grading that values this learning progression and where students end up, as opposed to where they are at that moment and maybe how they were feeling on that particular day that they took a quiz. That idea of just like, oh I don't think I care about. I mean, obviously I need it by a certain time because math builds on itself, right, so I might have to have some cutoff for when they have to learn it, but maybe it doesn't have to be so rigid was a really big idea that resonated with me.

Kelly: 16:44

And then I've been lucky enough to go to the Grading for Growth conference that they do online every summer a couple of times, and having a bunch of folks who've experimented with this and can kind of tell you if you want to go into the ungrading or alternative grading world, there's no right way to do it and you can take little bits and pieces that work for you. So for me, from standards-based grading, you come up with all your standards that you want students to be able to do and then you decide okay, what is my metric? Like some folks are, like, I need them to pass a standard twice. I need them to show me not just once that they can do something, but twice, or is it just once? Finding those standards was a fun activity. I was actually lucky enough to be in a like a community of practice, a faculty inquiry group with other faculty where we came up with our whole list of topics from calculus.

Kelly: 17:40

We came up with the things that we actually were our standards by ranking everything as E is they They just need to know its existence. This is all based on Maria Anderson's work. It's an ESIL ESOL framework. I'll get you all these cute references. E is like existence. I just need them to know this exists. I don't need to ever assess it, but I should probably mention in a lecture. They might need to see it. S is they need to be able to do it. They can do it with support. So this might be on a homework or a group quiz or a project, something where they can go out and get some support. They could use AI if they want. You can use their peers a tutor I'm fine with that. I just want to know that they can do it with support. I is independent, so something I want to know that you can do independently. So this is going to end up on a quiz in my class or an exam, and then L is lifetime. I need you to have this skill for the rest of your life. Like this, you gotta know these things and those need to be like on all of the things, right, and then probably a final exam.

Kelly: 18:40

But we ranked as a group, we ranked all of these ideas in our calculus class, using that framework, and then had a discussion when there was a disagreement, when we weren't all aligned, as like, oh, this should be just existence. And then that person who was kind of off would maybe sell us on why, like Gina Abbiate was in my, in this group, and she had rated uh, the epsilon delta proofs this precise definition of a limit, uh, which I think across the board we had all done, existence. She put supported, and we were like, justify, justify this. And so she, you know, she was like, let me explain what I think this is really important, it's their first formal definition. And so she's explaining it and we're like, okay, we're not convinced. But you know, maybe I'll move a little bit that direction next time, I don't know.

Kelly: 19:26

But all those things that we said were I ended up as our standards, and then we decided those are going to be our quiz questions, we're going to quiz those every week and then we'll reassess them the following week, and those reassessments are not going to be the same.

Kelly: 19:41

I'm going to make my students do a slightly harder problem. I'm going to maybe change it up a little bit so that they're not just looking at my key, memorizing and regurgitating a procedure, but they have to really show their understanding in that second attempt. And then, since I teach supported calculus, I actually give my students a number of attempts because for me I have students coming in with really varied skills and so I can't assume that you know, after two weeks they're going to get something down. It might take them a little bit more time going back and reviewing material, but that's just the only thing I do. Standards-based are my quizzes. So it's an interesting idea that I'm still doing these weighted grades, because I'm kind of it's uncomfortable to move away from something you've used for so many years. But I'm just doing one little pocket of it as the standards-based where I'm doing these reassessments and letting students show their growth in that one section.

AL: 20:34

Oh my gosh, that is so beautiful. And the unfortunate part about higher ed is it can be such a lonely profession. And you had the space to do this activity with your colleagues and create this standards based grading oh my gosh, I wish that can happen everywhere. So I have a question for you, because when Twitter went to this hellscape, a lot of educators moved over. It was funny because you would think, isn't this a platform for jobs? And no, not really. It's become much more than that. There's a lot of educators that moved over to LinkedIn, actually.

AL: 21:13

And it was funny because I saw one of your posts going to a particular college to do some kind of engagement with math faculty and I wrote as a comment. I said I don't know if you remember. I said, oh, were you able to leave unharmed? Right? And the reason I say that is because I've been put in as a coach and as a facilitator in spaces with math faculty. And boy, they can be so effing brutal.

AL: 21:43

And here's the thing, right. So you have this group of faculty like you, right, that are willing to try things. Right, they understand that our institutions are not only places of learning for students, but they're places of learning for us like you're trying some stuff right and then you're not ready yet to like overhaul. Your waiting, that's fine, but you're doing things. Little bits and pieces here and there, right how, and I don't know if there's a right answer to this. I have an idea of how to do it. I've done it over the years, but I'm wondering your perspective. What do you do when it's always the same people that go to the PD who are willing to change, but you still have a significant percentage or even if it's only one faculty member that's one faculty member too many that just don't want any of it. They're still going to do what they're going to do. And is there a way to help those faculty, to kind of bring them on board? Do you have any experience of something that might've worked?

Kelly: 22:51

I will say as a facilitator, when I work with a campus where I know there's going to be faculty who are not in the camp, right like the Luke Wood and Frank Harris used to have this four quadrant thing, you have your allies, you have your choir, the people who know what to do and are doing it, or your choir are willing to do it but don't know what to do. They're your allies. And then, like there was resistors, like what do you do with that group of faculty that's just resisted? They don't know what to do and they also aren't really willing to change. And I think the only thing you can do is as a facilitator. Hopefully you're in a space where the department has brought in everyone, right, like you actually get them to show up and I think for me part of that is doing PD within spaces that they're already there, right, like making that a regular part of your department meetings, of your school meetings. Too often it's not, and our school meetings and our department meetings,- are just completely informational.

Kelly: 23:55

Get people who are not going to ever sign up to show up to a here's how to teach right, or here's an idea for teaching, and then I think, once you get these people in the room, a lot of it is just putting them in the shoes of a student. So for me, I tend to have a bunch of really fun math problems, whether it's the open middle questions that Robert Kaplinsky has on his site, or a card sort or something that's more of like a puzzle meets a math problem, or just a really interesting math problem that you lead off with, you'll find the resistors kind of open up, because we all fell in love with math, we all love math, right, or whatever the heck we might be talking about. And so when you give them that puzzle that, they just naturally kind of become a student and see, oh well, this could be fun. And then, if you can tie it to the curriculum of like okay, here's how I use this in my calculus class, here's how this is like a really good lead off, and if you keep it something tiny too, like a lot of the I did a whole blog post on like warmup routines and I think if you can do something that you're going to be like this is only going to take 10 minutes of your class time A lot of faculty will kind of buy in on this idea of all I have to do is five minutes and I thought it was fun. Like, if you have them, participate, you sell them on.

Kelly: 25:08

It's not like overhaul, like it's not doing the whole thinking classrooms, you don't have to give up all the control and let your students go to the boards, right? I think those things help a lot. And then letting faculty really have space in those places to voice concerns, because I think too often as people who run PD, we go in and we're just like here's the right way to do things and we don't really acknowledge that this is the way I do things and it works in my class in these, these constraints, and it might not work in your class. Like, if you have reasons you think it's not going to work, let's chat about them, because I can't problem solve things that you don't get to vocalize. Right, you're just going to internalize oh yeah, this doesn't work for me and you're just sit back and not have a conversation.

Kelly: 25:55

So giving folks that space where they're not taking the whole room down, so giving them a way to share, maybe in a smaller group setting, maybe in an asynchronous or not asynchronous, but like a separate note-taking space, is a really nice way to be able to hopefully bring them in, but I think you need to treat those faculty as experts, right? You're doing something amazing. Let's pull out what you're doing and have that conversation.

Kelly: 26:20

I mean, there are some that are just it's never going to move. We know that. I mean the tenure is a problem.

AL: 26:26

Yeah, and that's the reality, right, that we have to realize that some won't change and some campuses, what where they're doing, they're taking drastic measures to work with counselors to make sure that especially our most disproportionately impacted students don't go to those sections. I mean, I'm telling you that's actually happening.

AL: 26:45

And here's the other thing again. It's higher ed. It's not really set up for us to be learners as educators. So, I work with campuses where they actually don't have department meetings anymore, so they've lost that space. In some ways. I understand it, because it used to be just these meetings that you're talking about. That could have been an email, right, but now there's zero settings and all they rely on are these once in a year, the beginning of the school year, they're often called flex days and every campus has different right. Some campuses have one day of flex. You get your PD for one hour out of the year and you better, like, go do something with it, right. And then you have campuses that have an entire week dedicated to that right. That's the difficult part, and I think if we can somehow embed in our practice I don't know, this may end up being contractual, but can we build a community of practice where we meet almost at least biweekly, where we just discuss our craft, what we're doing, what works, what doesn't, and we're not pointing fingers. One of the things that I love way, way, many, many moons ago, when I was doing my doctoral work, I wanted to know what other countries were doing, and I became very interested in Japan, because faculty there do something you might've heard of it called lesson study, and they actually take the time to observe each other teach.

Kelly: 28:13

A non-evaluative observation, like that's the key right, undefined this is not part of the evaluation process, it is just let's go like see what the other people are doing.

AL: 28:33

I think that's such a beautiful way kind of to frame it. But in the United States are you crazy? We can't even get our department meeting to talk about teaching and learning, let alone observe one, although I got to tell you I am working with a campus and that is what they're doing. Their math department put together a formal they call it learn from your peer program, and we came up with this whole schedule of opting in faculty who want to observe other faculty, and so, but that's rare.

Kelly: 29:01

Yeah, well, it's something that does exist in the US in K-12, right, I think they call it like pineapple charts or something. There's some weird name for it.

AL: 29:10

You know, at first they used to call them data teams because I have a background in K-12, right, and I used to, years ago, I used to visit this data teams and I go, oh my gosh, come on, come on, people, because all they would do is look at data all day long and never, never, actually do anything with it. Right, and they are PLTs professional learning teams that's what they call them in k-12 and they try to do what I tell you. But, again, sometimes without the right facilitation, without the right process, it ends up being kind of complaining sessions.

Kelly: 29:46

But, it is rare and it's something we wanted to get off the ground here as, like our MOST team, because we do a asynchronous coaching option that we call three ideas and the idea are capitalized for instructional design, and what happens in that situation is we three of the MOST coaches get put into a development shell of a faculty and we just give them three ideas. We each give them an idea for how they might change their course that we think would help students and that's it, and they can take them, they can leave them. It's like a non-evaluative like. We just provide you some feedback. Here's what I would do. I might reorganize the modules this way, or I'd consider using the transparent assignment template or whatever we want to suggest, and then that's it. And we really wanted to do something like that with, like, the actual on-campus classes, like invite coaches in and ask them, because even as part of that three ideas, you can put what you want feedback on.

Kelly: 30:44

If there's something in particular like I'm really interested in, like is my course accessible? Can I get accessibility feedback? But I can imagine doing the same thing in my class, like hey, today I'm doing this board work. I'd love for someone to come in who's not me and look and say, like are there students who are not engaged? Like is there something I could do better? Could you give me some feedback on what you're seeing, because I'm only one set of eyes and ask for that sort of information? It would be really, really helpful, but we just never got that off the ground this semester. This is probably our last semester with that team, because we're completely block grant funded and we're out of funds, and so we'll see what happens in the future, but I do still think that some version of that is like the right way to open up the conversation about teaching.

AL: 31:37

I think so. I really wish we can structure that somehow. And the fact that you had a, you had a grant right, that it's not embedded in our practice is is a problem, right? It's a challenge. I want to ask you about how can we be pragmatic about closing the loop on PD. So I mentioned earlier some places, it's a one-time shot. Here's a brown bag lunch PD. Try this out. Or your three ideas.

AL: 32:06

My pet peeve has always been well, how do we close the loop? How do we know that they actually did something? Can we do a simple reflection form? It's not evaluative, we just want to know your reflection on how it went. Like three questions, right, what did you try from your three ideas? How do you think it went, what evidence do you have of how it went, and what would you do next? So and it's not about oh well, you should have done it this way or gosh, darn it, you should have done it that way. It's just a learning right. Closing the loop, because we really don't know if people are doing the things that they learned in PD. Do you have any suggestions on how we might be able to close that loop? It's another challenge in higher ed.

Kelly: 32:49

Well, and I like that. You didn't, I mean you call it a loop but, like you actually said as one of the tasks, like what would you do next? Like so that you are making it iterative, right, you are making this a reflective teaching process about how are you going to continue this or how would you refine it. Like maybe it doesn't work, like what, what are you going to do next? I mean for that, three ideas. We do actually have a closed the loop where they can to get their flex credit for it, they have to submit that, basically reflection, like hey, what did you change type of a deal. And most of our workshop offerings here, I would say probably not in workshops, that's a little bit harder to close the loop on because those are so one off. You're just hoping that somebody gets a good idea, right, like, if anything, you maybe are asking them in your evaluation survey, like what's something you're going to try based on this? Why do you think it's going to make an impact? What support might you need to make that a reality? So, just a quick little what's going to be changing? Was this the right level for you too, but for most of cohorts, after each, at the end of each module of learning, they have to post something that shows where they were originally right, like so, here's this week in our humanized course. Right now, we're doing a humanized course and this week is all about student to student interaction online, and so one of their options is to improve a current discussion board, and so faculty have to post what the original discussion board was, what idea they were inspired by within the content of the week, and then what their updated discussion board looks like now that they have used, like infused, that idea. So that might be providing options for replies, right, instead of just saying reply to two students, it's you know, when you reply here's, here's what I'm looking for. I'd like you to know, provide another example of what they're talking about, or I'd like you to contrast that with what you said, or whether that's just making their discussion board more authentic in general, having students tie something back to their real life. So those to me, and they're like, not only are we closing the loop, but, these faculty members are getting something that they can immediately put into their course, there's no, they're not doing busy work, right, they're kind of right away having something that they can change in their course, and so that's something that's part of those bigger cohorts that we run.

Kelly: 35:13

I think it is hard, though, how do we do that in something that's more one-off right, that's more of a workshop, right? We're running a community practice right now, and every week it's sort of like we're just sharing ideas. And you've got me thinking now about like, okay, how do I have us close the loop on what we learned in the previous week? Like, did you take anything away? What were the changes you made? Because it's happening, we're just not capturing it necessarily.

Kelly: 35:44

Like our first meeting, a bunch of folks were inspired like, oh, I love the idea of a card sort. Oh, I love this idea of one of our faculty shared plickers, which are the yeah. And so another faculty member was like, oh my gosh, I love the idea of a plicker, because, again, he's more of an old school lecturer. But this example that she provided is like it takes you like three minutes to do a plicker activity and now you have an idea of where your students are in terms of an understanding on something and then you can launch into your lecture. And so for him, it was a no-brainer and he was super excited about it. And the very next meeting was like can I actually share about plickers and the things he had made between the two weeks between our meetings. So it's really hard with one-off things, but I think with the other pieces we can close the loop on what we're doing.

AL: 36:30

I want to ask you about issue in STEM of equity gaps. They tend to be a bit more stark in STEM when you look at the data across the country. Depending on the year, I work anywhere 60 to 70% with faculty. That's my jam. I developed this inquiry and action process.

AL: 36:52

The Community College Research Center recently featured it just a brief Q&A and this is about taking a group of faculty to, they come up with a homegrown practice and I call it a treatment. We're going to try this treatment. We're going to be scientists and we're going to do these things and we're going to come back and actually look at student work and make the connection between some sample student work and what we said we were going to teach. And we asked the question, the strengths that we see in the student work, what do you think our instruction led to that? In addition, if we see some continuing needs in the student work, what can we do with subsequent instruction? Right, and in this work, what I'm finding when we elevate our practice, when we continually improve, it doesn't happen all the time, but in this so-called all students approach, when we try to elevate our pedagogy, I have worked with faculty that closed equity gaps and I'm wondering if you have experienced that. I don't know it can vary by year and section, but have you experienced that by bringing your pedagogy, your assessment, to this level that you have significantly reduced or closed gaps from your experience?

Kelly: 38:08

So I haven't looked at my data in a bit, but I would say I would hazard to guess that I have reduced but not closed, right. I still think that those equity gaps persist and some of those it's more institutional, right or, like, just structural. These poor students are overcoming other life hurdles and it doesn't matter what I do in my class if a student is unable to make it to class for whatever reason that might happen. But I will say I think letting students, valuing students thought process and showing them that they belong in the field, like, or that they matter, their ideas matter in the field, is a huge key to reducing those equity gaps, especially in STEM. Because I think too often when we do that, what Dan Meyer said where his first two phases right to bring that back of focusing on my ideas or focusing on math's ideas my ideas and math's ideas are pretty white centric, right, I mean, it's pretty Eurocentric in general and so which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's about connecting students' ideas to like okay, your ideas are beautiful, we just need to add all this communication that is really it's just learning a whole new language math and so why does it matter that we do these things, like let me explain why this communication matters, why what you wrote could be ambiguous and why we would need to clean it up. But, all of your thinking is brilliant, right, like having that moment to sit there with a student and be able to say, hey, you're doing great things. To do that, cheerleading that, yes, and of like this is some good work and we could improve it, right, um, I think really helps students see themselves in the material in ways that I can't do. When every single math thing is named after some European dude, or like I'm a white woman standing at the front of the room, I can't, I can't make a student feel like they belong in any way other than letting their voice be heard, making sure that they realize that the things that they're saying are really smart, right, like they're doing great math.

Kelly: 40:12

I think that's the key is like not only letting students see their own brilliance, see that they belong in the subject in that way, but also believing that students can belong, because I think too many of our, too many faculty, have a deficit mindset in STEM of like who can, who can be prepared, who, and it's like I mean if you come in with that mindset, of course they're going to struggle, like you, you have to believe that your students are capable of doing this, at least until they've proven to you, like 10 times, that they're not right.

Kelly: 40:43

Make them prove to you that they can, as opposed to making them prove that they can't, which I think is where the mindset that most faculty come from is this like well, and then they only end up teaching to those students who are well-prepared, and that's not many of our students in this day and age. Not with the COVID learning gaps, not with AB 1705 and AB 705. We have students who are missing some of these skills that we're used to them having, and we just need to believe that they can overcome that and learn those skills as they also learn the course material. And let them make the mistakes so that we can actually discuss and have those moments to say oh wait, here's why we can't do that thing you just did algebraically.

AL: 41:25

Yeah, no, and you're right, Equity gaps are stubborn. I have to sometimes remind some of my colleagues who work at the university level, they're my theorist buddies who get mad. Actually they're like " got to close and be like hey look, we can work on what we have control over. We're going to elevate, we're going to improve our pedagogy, we're going to rethink, but these gaps are stubborn. For what you mentioned, right, it's funny.

AL: 41:55

Just the other day I was looking at the three-year completion rate for one college versus another. So this particular college has something like a 9%, right. And, by the way, we can say, oh well, you know, part time, they're mostly part time well, the six years, not that much better. And then another college was like 35%. Here's the thing, the institution that had a really low, it's in a super, super economically depressed zip code, right. And the other college was in a very, very high income area, right. So I don't want to make excuses when we have, you know, a 10% and just blame it all on oh well, it's the zip code.

AL: 42:40

But there is the reality that there are things we cannot control that happen to these poor, disproportionately impacted students. It makes our mission at these institutions that are in these kinds of zip codes, that much more critical, mission critical, if you will. And, by the way, when you're in a very, very high-income area and the highest is 35, that's still not the best right. So in fact, I'd love for some research to come out there. Maybe the RP group will do it.

AL: 43:10

I'll ask them is I'd love to see where you have higher completion rates in those very economically depressed areas, 'cause if we can find those, we have so much to learn from those campuses and what they're doing. So the point of me saying this is yes, equity gaps are stubborn, and two context is important. We can't just look at the data and think that, oh, the faculty, they're must be so much better. By the way, I know these two campuses and no, they're not. As we wind down here, Kelly, do you have any other parting thoughts about your journey, your continuous journey, that you would like to share?

Kelly: 43:53

I would say one thing that came out the other day. I was part of a panel at an accessibility week session and one of the questions is asked, how did you end up learning as much as you've learned about accessibility and I think you can replace that with grading or active learning or what you know insert topic and the other folks were like, oh, I went to a lot of workshops, so I went to a lot of webinars and for me, yes, I've done that, but I think most of the learning that I've had that has been the most impactful is finding those voices that are into the thing that I'm curious about and following them on some sort of social media, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's, you know, even, Instagram or Facebook or you know, Blue Sky, whatever it is finding wherever you are already have that trickle in all the time is really, it makes you constantly think, it makes you a more reflective person and it gives you those little ideas that maybe in that moment you're not ready to to do right.

Kelly: 44:58

I think back to I think one of the biggest impacts of like my teaching was I was at a workshop and seeing a bunch of really great stats activities from Roxy Peck and I raised my hand. I was one of those stubborn pain in the ass faculty members, um, that I hate now as a facilitator. No, I don't hate me, but I was like how am I supposed to do this with the three unit stats class? I can't even cover the curriculum. Our curriculum is a mile long. I cannot cover stats curriculum and do these, these activities are fabulous. I'm not gonna. They're great, but I can't do it. And in that moment, um, most everyone else in that room had a four unit stats class, so they all just sort of went. Well, I don't know how you do it in three. I have four.

Kelly: 45:42

Um, and at the break, my friend Ambika, who taught at College of the Canyons, where this was, came over and she's like you got to flip your classroom. She's like the only way you're able to do this stuff is if you flip your classroom. You got to put your lectures online. You've got so you can actually make time for this. I didn't do anything in that moment, but the next semester I was like I think I'm going to try this. I have this pile of activities for stats and I can't use them. I'm going to try to flip my class, not only putting yourself in a space where you're going to get ideas constantly, but also surrounding yourself with people who are going to make you question and, who will tell you the harsh truth of you know, you're going to have to do work if you want to do these activities. You need to flip your classroom because I think when you surround yourself by people who just tell you you're doing great, you don't see any reason to improve.

Kelly: 46:33

Right, do everything the same, as you find those folks right who maybe you can both push each other to be better, and then just realize this is all reflective work, right, it's all iterative. It's all thinking about, okay, that went well, could it have gone better? Did it go well for every student? Being really intentional as you look around your class and seeing, especially if it's not, thinking about that disproportionate impact, who's not actively engaging in this class and how could I fix that? Because I think too often we focus on the students who are actively engaging, right, the ones that are smiling and nodding or giving us their input or chatting and we don't pay attention to who's not talking and sort of why and really figuring out ways to interrogate that.

AL: 47:23

So outside of education, unfortunately, there's so many stereotypes. You hear it all the time for K-12. Oh well, they get to work from eight to three and have their summers off. And they have no idea that when you are a good teacher and you care, you're putting in 70, 80 hours a week. And the same thing in higher ed. Oh well, they just teach two semesters. They can have the summer off, no winter session, whatever.

AL: 47:52

But when you take great care, like you, to continually improve your craft, to take this teaching and learning as a profession, I see it really no different as a doctor. But in society we elevate, we think doctors right, well, I mean right, it's important, they try to keep us healthy, right, although in my opinion they give us too many drugs, which there's other ways, like can we just eat better sometimes? Anyway, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go there. Point is, I think teachers, faculty, that profession, that teaching profession, is so difficult. It is so difficult and people outside of education don't really understand that, but yet rewarding. I said in the beginning that I was a fan and I'm even a bigger fan now that we've unpacked what you do. Kelly, thank you so much for participating in the Student Success Podcast.

Kelly: 48:43

Thank you for having me Al.

AL: 48:45

Thank you for listening to the Student Success Podcast. You can subscribe to the show and newsletter on the Continuous Learning Institute link below and, of course, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.