All The Nice Things I'm Doing For Students (Fall 2023)
On improved syllabus zines, & taking care of engineering students.
The new semester starts in less than two weeks! That means that very soon I’ll have the privilege of meeting 40 brand-new students for my lecture on Process Control theory, as well as a small handful of students in my brand-new elective on sustainable chemical engineering. My teaching philosophy is very much inspired by a radical tradition of care, healing, transformation, and restoration, but these things are rare in a field like chemical engineering. So, I thought I would share with you all the things I’m doing to give my students the best learning experience possible. Enjoy!
Before Day 1
Making a healthy, wholesome learning environment starts long before the first day of class. Prior to the start of a new semester, I spend weeks thinking about how every element of my course serves one another.
For example, if I’m trying to have my student develop the skill of solving ODEs analytically, how many derivations should I show them before having them try it for themselves? How many times should they try it for themselves in a non-graded context before they try it on a homework? In what cases is it appropriate to provide them the first and last equations to have them show the middle steps, and when it is appropriate to provide only the starting point so they can have that final “a-ha” moment for themselves? I do my best to think about how to best align my learning goals, learning activities, and learning assessments (homework, quizzes, etc.) This is also why I’m strongly against exams; they aren’t conducive to cultivating the skillsets that engineers need after they graduate.
This, of course, means creating a list of learning goals that are more than a list of which equations they need to learn. Engineers are the problem-solvers of the world, they are meant to help people, meaning they need to have a strong understanding of empathy, social injustice, and how technological solutions don’t always serve the most marginalized. As such, the learning goals for my class on sustainable chemical engineering are taken directly from the Engineering For One Planet educational framework:
Fans of mine knew this was coming, and I’m pleased to share that I’m once again using a syllabus zine for Process Control. This year, I’ve improve the zine by quite a lot, condensing it down from 26 pages to just 18, adding a complete equation sheet to the back, and most importantly, adding MUCH more color.
The hyperlinks are now a bright Barbie pink, and the most relevant links come with a QR code for easy access when students are on the go. There footer of each page features rainbow sine waves, produced in MatLab no less, which demonstrates the software, drives home a running course theme of process stability (iykyk), and is pretty gay too (the colors are the exact hex codes of the pride flag). Images throughout the zine range from actual control schemes to reminders from bell hooks about the importance of cultivating learning communities, giving slightly more of an impression that this was cut together from scraps (as real zines are) rather than being built entirely in Microsoft Word.
Finally, in the days leading up to the start of the semester, I am practicing diligent self-care. How can I expect students to take care of themselves when I can’t serve as a model for them? So far I’ve treated myself to a massage, taken significantly more baths, and have been spending as much time around my community (Western MA queers) as I possibly can. The most important thing I can do for my students is come into the new semester with feeling refreshed and ready for action, rather than burnt out on summer work!
On Day 1
My ideal first day of class doesn’t jump in head-first into theory. I’m a believer in the “syllabus day”, an opportunity to introduce myself as a person and share my teaching philosophy with my students. After all, teaching is a two-way street; I need to ingratiate myself into these students’ lives if they’re to take me seriously, and I need to get to know them so I can most effectively “teach” them (or, as I’m saying more often these days, learn with them).
Here’s my favorite slide to show on Day 1:
I believe that teachers shouldn’t have an adversarial relationship with students. That leads to so much harm, from condescending and combative attitudes that make students feel afraid to ask questions or be creative, to outright surveillance and false accusations of cheating. I have no interest in pitting students against each other or against me. I have no interest in ranking students in a spreadsheet so a future employer can deem them worthy or unworthy of a living wage. All students are worthy. All students have talents that can be cultivated into something productive and beautiful. And as long as all my students can collaborate, then all my students can win.
As much as possible, I tell my students to “please let me give you an A”, that if they submit all their work on time and try hard enough, they will receive a good grade. I even express that I, like them, suffer from anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues, so that they know I’m a safe person to talk about their struggles with. By disclosing that I’m queer, trans, and (recently) disabled, I’m making myself known as an advocate/ally/accomplice for all the resources they need to access on campus.
I also reveal their very first homework assignment: help me get to know you. By completing this in-depth survey and by introducing themselves to me (either by coming to my office during a specific window of time or writing my a short email), students receive 100/100 on their first Homework. The survey asks practical questions about their chosen name, pronouns, when office hours should be, their current skill level with MatLab and other course tools, their typical strategies for completing assignments, their educational experience at UMass so far. It also asks about their fears, their hobbies, whether they’d like to pick their own project group, whether they have Internet access at home, their favorite places to eat, and their favorite music.
All of this is in service of getting to know my students on a personal level, so that I can make their educational experience better. And we haven’t even gotten past week one!
During The Semester
I try to practice my values best I can, but sometimes, working at an Institution demands compromise. While I’m very much into Ungrading—the practice of giving students valuable qualitative feedback instead of point values—I am sometimes required to give students such point values and ultimately a final grade.
Being an ABET-accredited engineering college, faculty in our department have to report quantitative data as granular as grade averages for specific homework problems for core department courses. This forces me to break down my Process Control homework sets into fractions; Problem 1 is worth 20 points, Problem 2 is worth 30 points, etc. I still don’t give exams, because nobody can force me to choose which type of traditionally-graded assignment I give, as long as I can report how well my students did at meeting ABET Student Outcomes (1) through (7).
That said, I do give my students multiple opportunities to learn, practice, and demonstrate knowledge of the course material. Every new skill or concept they need to know goes through the following process: First, I show them an example of the problem being solved correctly, sometimes two or three times. Then, I allow them a chance to try it in a few non-graded contexts—by themselves, with a partner, or in small groups. This can include open, collaborative problem-solving sessions during class, or with a non-graded quiz at the beginning of Friday’s class. Only after multiple chances to try this problem—each with opportunities for feedback from me or the TAs—do I then give them a graded, take-home assignment. My hope is that these shorter, more frequent, low-stakes leaning assessments will help solidify the course material more strongly (and allow me to get a better sense of what’s working or not working about my teaching style) than the “two midterms and a final” commonly found in STEM courses.
In my elective classes, I’m allowed to be a bit more experimental. Last semester (and this summer), I had great luck with labor-based grading, a deliberately democratic and anti-racist form of ungrading that decenters myself (the faculty). I had students complete reading annotations and weekly reflections in an eBook, which was both easier for me to monitor or give feedback on, and resulted in a learning portfolio for students to look back at with pride over how far they’ve come.
Regardless of the class I’m teaching, I constantly emphasize the fact that I am there for students. My first question in every eBook reflection is simply, “How are you?” and a link to a wellness check-in if students need one. I start class with memes and music, with songs curated from my Day 1 survey to give a sense that students are co-constructing the learning space. I’ve made my office as cozy as possible, complete with snacks, stim toys, pride flags, and an offer to make anyone who comes to office hours a free latte or hot chocolate. My number one job is student support, after all!
At The End of The Semester
As far away as it seems, it’s always good to “begin with the end in mind”. As a means of increasing student agency while having students engage in critical self-reflection, I try to provide students some form of summative self-assessment.
In Process Control, students not only have a semester-long project to turn in, but they have an opportunity to boost their grade in what I call a “renegotiation process”. Much like how a worker should be able to renegotiate their salary with their to earn a raise if they demonstrate improvement over time, my students (workers) have a chance to meet with me (the “boss”) at the end of the semester to boost their grade (assuming they haven’t already earned an “A”). This might take place with a student who starts the semester off slowly—earning low grades on individual assignments or failing to turn them in—but who “gets their act together” by the end—turning in consistently high-quality work for the last few homework sets. That student can discuss with me what was going on earlier in the semester, how they adapted, and what their overall takeaways from the course were. Everybody deserves a second chance!
In my electives, I allow students to self-grade, using the logic of labor-based grading and providing them a rubric with which to assess their learning progress. Many students do simply give themselves an “A”, though they also have to justify their grade with strong reasoning. Some students also humbly accept an “A-” or “B+”, to which I oblige unless a student is clearly selling themselves short (this has only been done by women so far), in which case I give them a slight boost on their actual transcript. Only once ever have I had to lower a student from an “A” to a lower grade; this was because they didn’t turn in any assignments all semester and failed to give a serious reason as to why they should earn an “A” for that lack of effort.
Self-reflection and self-grading have worked out great for me, as have all of these other teaching methods! If you’re teaching this year, how are you being kind to students? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you want to chat more deeply about instructional design, feel free to email me!
Stuff to Buy
If you love zines, Clementine Morgan just shared the results of her 2023 perzine challenge! Go collect some physical copies of these great-looking art pieces!
I had the privilege of meeting M Rudder, a Western MA-based artist, at a Greenfield Gallery opening event this weekend. They have a Substack, and they recently contributed to an oracle deck with illustrations done entirely by trans, two-spirit, and gender non-conforming artists. Buy now—only 238 left!
Go support Maui if you haven’t already! Big organizations like The Red Cross are mostly bad at executing direct aid, so please give directly to organizers on the ground.
Currently Reading
Related: a podcast and a reading about why the Maui fires were inevitable given our current colonial society.
A call to action by Shay from Black Girl In Maine, where neo-Nazi groups are rising in power.
A summary of new research showing that period discs are far superior than tampons or pads at retaining blood. Apparently, most studies up until this point were done with water, not blood, which sadly was surprising but not shocking to many.
A new development in the story of the professor who shamefully pretended to be Indigenous.
An opinion piece on “crazy plane lady”, media culture, and mental health.
Watch History
Intelexual Media’s passionate plea for us to be more critical of the memes we use.
F.D. Signifier’s unpacking of right-wing radicalization by social media algorithms, and how corporations aren’t 100% to blame for men becoming hyper-misogynists. To some degree, these men (and some women) seek out this kind of content because it’s something they’re already curious about.
I’ve decided on a new special interest, and to my own surprise, it’s coffee brewing. The videos of certified Weird Coffee Person James Hoffmann have been crucial in informing me what my first purchases should be—after all, my only goal is to make the perfect home latte without buying a $300 bean grinder and $500 espresso machine—and Net Shaq has helped temper my expectations while also giving me some clever ideas for more recipes.
Bops, Vibes, & Jams
I posted my 2nd “kitchen dance party mix” was posted recently, though I had a bit of a problem. I wasn’t aware of the severity of copyright until posting my own mix with multiple unusable songs. Tragically, I had already made a whole cooking video to this music, so I didn’t want to just throw it all away. So, the responsibility rests on you, the viewer, to sync the video and the audio (which Soundcloud somehow allowed).
Cannons released my favorite album of 2022, and they’ve been continuing to kill it! Check out their new songs “Desire” & “Loving You”.
A dance jam that’s 100% making it into a future DJ set.
And now, your weekly Koko.
That’s all for now! See you next week with more sweet, sweet content.
In solidarity,
-Anna