In this week's episode, guest expert Ann Gagné, Educational Developer at the University of Toronto-Mississauga, joins us to talk about exhaustion, embodied pedagogy, and why we shouldn't require cameras on for students. We wrap up with our takeaways from the conversation. Feel free to share your thoughts and responses with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and tag us @university_of_venus on IG and @UVenus on Twitter or post it on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/UVenus/ and we will share, retweet, and amplify! Find University of Venus on Instagram @university_of_venus , Twitter @UVenus , and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/UVenus/
Topics Discussed in this Episode:
Resources Discussed in this Episode:
Music Credits: Magic by Six Umbrellas
Sound Engineer: Ernesto Valencia
View from Venus, Season 3, Episode 3
Mary Churchill: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. And welcome to this week's episode of the View from Venus.
[00:00:07] My name is Mary Churchill and on today's episode, I am joined by cohosts Meg Palladino, Lee Skallerup Bessette and guest expert, Ann Gagné, educational developer at University of Toronto. In today's episode, we'll be talking with Ann about her work with embodied pedagogy during remote teaching and learning.
[00:00:28] We asked Ann to join us on the View from Venus because we wanted to hear more about her work related to embodied pedagogy and universal design. Thank you so much for joining us and
[00:00:40] Ann Gagné: [00:00:40] Thank you for having me.
[00:00:42] Meg Palladino: [00:00:42] So today's question is if you were sent to live on a space station for three months and allowed to bring one personal item with you, what would it be?
[00:00:51] I've been thinking about this all afternoon. The best thing I came up with was lip balm. Well, I'm assuming that the space station would provide our basic necessities, but would they give us like good lip balm or would they give us terrible lip balm?
[00:01:02] Ann Gagné: [00:01:02] So, I'm such an academic, my mind first went to- so, what book do I bring? So, you know, if it's, you know, three months, I can reread Michael Cunningham's The Hours for, you know, the 17th million times So that probably would end up being my thing, I guess, because I really loved that book.
[00:01:27] Mary Churchill: [00:01:27] I thought iPad. I instantly was like; I can't go anywhere without my iPad. Even if it's not connected to the internet, it would be the place where I write, and I would have some downloaded books.
[00:01:38] Lee Skallerup Bessette: [00:01:38] So I was, I immediately went to, oh, are they going to get me pen and paper? Does that count as one personal item or is that two personal items? If the pen comes in the notebook, is that okay? And since, and so like maybe a pack of them, right? A pack of notebooks and pens. But if that was already being provided just out of like, is this stuff that just comes with supplies? I would say my iPhone, because I still need to play Candy Crush and I have like the biggest iPhone you can get. And I would just load it up with audio books. So just like download all the audio books, get my audible account and then just like abuse it and then like disappear for those three months and listen to audio books and write in my notebook.
[00:02:28] Meg Palladino: [00:02:28] I guess I thought that like, I'd be busy working or something with like studying space or just reading, but it's probably dry, right?
[00:02:37] Mary Churchill: [00:02:37] We’re guests on that space station. Okay. Into the heart of the podcast. Ann, you recently wrote at your amazing blog, All Things Pedagogical about exhaustion, and it really resonated with me and I hope our listeners give it a read. We'll put the link in the notes. Do you think exhaustion is different for women? And, are women more likely to compete in what you called the exhaustion Olympics?
[00:03:10] Ann Gagné: [00:03:10] Yeah, that's a great question. I know that since the pivot - and I use that word sort of loosely because I don't necessarily like it for all the connotations, but since the pivot to remote teaching and learning that a lot of the work that has been done, It has been work that was, has been done by women identified people and by people of color. And you know, this has been noted by people in the professional development seminars and webinars that I facilitate or that I attend. This has also been noted by folk in the virtual conferences that I've attended as well.
[00:03:52] And so, and even the literature, you know, you could just look at the literature and really demonstrate how, especially around remote teaching and learning that a lot of the work that's being done right now is, in terms of, you know, not even just the academic work, but just the sustaining of the household has been done by women.
[00:04:11] And that really does, you know, we could just look at that April edition of the article in Inside Higher Ed that talks about how that shift has really put a dent in the kind of productivity that that has been seen in terms of research output. So, I think that there's a lot at stake for women, there's a lot at stake for, for BIPOC people in this.
[00:04:35] And yeah. And so that exhaustion really does creep up. For sure.
[00:04:41] Mary Churchill: [00:04:41] To follow up to that. Yes. No, I just I'm exhausted listening.
[00:04:47] Ann Gagné: [00:04:47] It's true, right?
[00:04:48] Mary Churchill: [00:04:48] Yeah. Well, and you know, I was talking to an editor, early this fall around acquisitions, and he said that he's gotten a record number of submissions for book proposals over the summer and predominantly from men, right? And so, some of us are exhausted and some of us are a lot more productive than we would be if we were in our normal lives. And so, not only are some of us doing more, some of us have more time on our hands.
[00:05:24] Ann Gagné: [00:05:24] This is true. It's very much about positionality of, you know, your own, you know, social location. That's what I, you know, always go back to is like, what's your social location? I'm very reflective on my own personal social location and how that affects, you know, my output and what I do and what I can participate in.
[00:05:45] Mary Churchill: [00:05:45] Yeah. Well, and so kind of a follow-up question to all of this is -What are you doing to protect your time and space?
[00:05:53] Ann Gagné: [00:05:53] So, and I think Lee would probably really understand this as when we moved to remote teaching, I'm an educational developer and on the campus that I'm at, I was the only educational developer for right at the beginning, you know, all from March until, you know, pretty much now. And so, there was a lot of work.
[00:06:12] And so those that know me well know that Saturday is my day off. And so, I try to make sure that every Saturday I just kind of carve out that time. And that's my reflection time. It's my time where I think about things that need to be solved, try to be creative about things. And it's also time where I start thinking about ideas for things that I want to write.
[00:06:31] So that's why the blogs come out on Sunday. So, because I think about the blog ideas on the Saturday, and then I do that, but I also know that I have the privilege of being able to do that because I don't, you know, I don't have littles. I have a black and white furry little who's very old and keeps me busy.
[00:06:48] But you know, I know that the fact that I can take that Saturday time to reflect is a privilege of also of my social location.
[00:06:57] Mary Churchill: [00:06:57] I love that kind of planning for time to reflect. So, I grab mine at 4:00 AM because no one in the house wants to be up atfour. So, but I think it's true, there's finding that time for yourself so you can process, right? Like all that's happened from the week or the day, and really have the brain space to sort it out. And for me, it happens in writing. And I know for some, you know, it happens in running or there are lots of ways of doing it, but just giving yourself some kind of space so you can do that process.
[00:07:31] Ann Gagné: [00:07:31] So, and that's usually my, sort of my next step in terms of thinking about where my advocacy work would go to as well as I use that time on Saturday to say, okay, well, what needs to be pushed forward in terms of the things I'm really passionate about?
[00:07:46] Lee Skallerup Bessette: [00:07:46] On that note, as a fellow faculty developer, I'm sure you have, I've been dealing with all of the questions of faculty and good practices around this online pedagogy and one of the things that has come up a lot is this debate around seeing students, of having your cameras on, making sure that we're seeing students, monitoring their attention as well. Not just seeing them, but like, you know, really seeing them like, look me in the eyes as I'm doing this.
[00:08:15] And so what is this? Why is this so important to educators? And even sometimes parents I think are looking at this too. And, is it different for women as well? In particular or just other different kinds of populations?
[00:08:32] Ann Gagné: [00:08:32] Yeah. Yeah. So, this question is really interesting to me because I wrote my dissertation on tactility in 19th century. So, I'm a sensory scholar. So, I love thinking about, you know, how the sensory plays in pedagogy. And I just, actually, this week I had an article that came out with a colleague of mine who's based in Perth, Australia. And we talked about the sensory aspects of pedagogy. And we talked about, at least for me when I'm thinking about it, as I think that this sort of movement towards the visual is because we have now removed the tactile, right?
[00:09:09] Like we've now removed the sort of physical contact, we've now removed the sort of closeness. And so, we need to replace it with something. And so now we've sadly sort of replaced it with this sort of like visual epistemology. And so we don't, we can't have a physical epistemology anymore, but we can have a visual epistemology and as someone who's very passionate about accessibility, you know, having something be so kind of framed in one sensory is really like, sort of ableist, because what are you saying about you know, our blind educators and students, right? Like if you can't see, then you can't learn. Like that's, that's ridiculous, right? So ultimately I think the reason why this happened is that there's been this sort of conflation between like literal perception as like being seen as a marker for engagement or as a reason for, you know, to monitor the sort of taught thought process, right? And in that same article, well, I talked a little bit about how, like the actual etymology of theory is from the Greek for looking at, and so there's, again, this sort of, somehow this pedagogical theory has been sort of crouched in this idea that you need to be looked at in order for learning to be solidified or to ensure that, you know, are you learning right?
[00:10:32] And there's a lot to be said about that, about how that, like reinscribes trauma like it, Karen Costas has got a great Twitter thread about this, about, you know, trauma awareness and trauma informed practice and how, you know, just being on zoom for five to six hours is really difficult for folk that, you know, have difficulty with, you know, PTSD or have PTSD, for example. And so, to kind of bring it back to that gender piece of, for me, it's it really resonates and I bring it home because a couple of years ago, when I was still teaching in the college system, I was teaching communications in a program - it was an assaulted women and children counselor advocate program. And so, all of the students that were in that program were either survivors or they were studying to work in, you know, centers with survivors. And one of the really important things of, you know, being in that educational frame was to have that educational space be one of, sort of social justice mindset, equity, mindset, anti-oppression, but also to have that sort of trauma-aware lens about visuality, about lights, about the space. And I think that's really, that aspect is really lacking when, you know, we're telling people, I need to see you to make sure that you're learning, right? So
[00:11:59] Lee Skallerup Bessette: [00:11:59] What I say is that faculty are used to being the arbiters of engagement, right? And so, they think that they see the engagement by being in the room with them and that it's really difficult for them to let go of that role. I still need some sort of, I still need to be the arbiter of this and how am I going to do that? Well, I'm going to force you to, I’m going to force you that I can see you, which it also made me think around, you know, they say this particularly with teenagers, the best time to have conversations with them is in the car because you're not looking at them, right? And so that they don't feel nearly as like, they don't want to sit down and talk to you face to face looking you in the eyes. They're like happy to talk to you when you can barely pay any attention to them and see them. And I mean, I notice that in my own kids, I notice that in other, like, you know, I coach, and so I drive kids around the swim meets, you know, when you notice that level of engagement that they have, when there isn't eye contact is actually better than when we're sitting across the dinner table from each other, let's say, and looking like, okay, look at me. And they're like, no, I'm not doing that.
[00:13:15] Ann Gagné: [00:13:15] Right.
[00:13:17] Mary Churchill: [00:13:17] Ann, when you were speaking and then, Lee just kind of confirmed it too, I was instantly brought into a physical classroom and thinking of all the faculty, I know who first off, right? You know, you take attendance, does the person physically show up in your classroom and can you see them and mark them present? But second, so many of them get so annoyed when students are, you know, kind of now everyone's got a computer, so you don't know what they're doing, right? But when students would be on their phones or kind of in the K-12 system, particularly in high school, no phones allowed in the classroom, you know, kind of this, not only do you have to be physically present, but you're not, you know, to Lee's point, I want to define what your engagement looks like. And the people who were most likely, really annoyed by people being on their phone now want to monitor through this very flat visual environment, what these, what they think the students are doing. That's intense.
[00:14:19] Lee Skallerup Bessette: [00:14:19] Yeah. And it brings up issues of consent as well, right? And, I've actually, I've written about that in an essay around how like schooling in our, in our current form actually teaches us the opposite of consent, right? It teaches us compliance, right? And that our comfort is not something that we should take into consideration or be taken seriously, right? And so, it's this really interesting way that we, you know, police schooling, police the behavior of students and under an ethics of care, right? That surveillance equals care. When I worked at, you know, in the school that their primary population were, you know, at risk students, right? We didn't have a really great completion rate and we were told like for the good of our students, we had to take attendance and force them to come to class and be punitive. You know, really punitive because we know from the literature that attending class regularly is one of the indicators of persistence and graduation. And you're sort of like, well, okay but like there's, there are other issues. There are other life issues that like attendance is a symptom, not necessarily, you know, distractability is a symptom, not necessarily the underlying cause and, but it's hard to have those conversations.
[00:15:46] Meg Palladino: [00:15:46] So can you explain what embodied pedagogy is for us and our listeners and tell us what are some ways that we take the physical space of teaching and learning into considering this time of remote work?
[00:15:55] Ann Gagné: [00:15:55] Yeah, that's again, it's a great question. For me, embodied pedagogy is really having an awareness of your own, like, as we were mentioning before our own social location, but also an awareness of how bodies mark, and, in turn, are marked by pedagogy and by the spaces that there that they are in, right? And because I'm someone who's so invested in accessibility, I'm always thinking about it. When I'm teaching, when I was teaching in a physical classroom, I'm always sort of aware of the physical space, right? And how the physical space plays itself out in teaching and learning. And that's still the same in a remote environment too, right? So. like we can, we should still have that sort of awareness of how our embodiment or our positionality is affected in a remote teaching and learning situation. And so, this, it's about, you know, thinking about the barriers to participation. It's thinking about things like, you know, captions and transcripts and all of that stuff. And so how those sort of pedagogical choices that are made by whomever, both sort of mark the learner’s body and the participation of the learner’s body and affect the way that the learner can actually participate, you know, effectively in a course.
[00:17:17] Mary Churchill: [00:17:17] Wow. That's intense. That's like a whole other conversation. Because you know, it's just like every, as a teacher, every decision you make, and to me, it's also like very Foucauldian, right? Like there's this you're creating, you're marking the body and creating the space of what counts as learning, right? You know, kind of all of your decisions are marking that space and marking the bodies within that space. Wow. That's intense.
[00:17:49] Ann Gagné: [00:17:49] So we need to be a little bit more cognizant.
[00:17:52] Mary Churchill: [00:17:52] That's why you need Saturdays for processing time. Yeah. Well, that is, we, you know, we had Padmini, you reminded, I'm reminded of our conversation with Padmini in the spring around the gendering of space in India, and really kind of how bodies move in time and space and how we need to think of that just a lot more, right? And the flatness of this world doesn’t make that easier. It actually makes it more challenging.
[00:18:27] Ann Gagné: [00:18:27] Absolutely. There's this tendency to want to sort of, you know, glaze over this. But I think that flatness that you mentioned is absolutely right, right? It's we're in a flat space right now and we really need to, you know, be more invested in how we interact in those spaces.
[00:18:48] Mary Churchill: [00:18:48] We'd like to do this wrap up of kind of takeaways.
[00:18:51] Meg Palladino: [00:18:51] Yeah. So, you know, I was just thinking about, about all this flat space that we have. And even when I'm talking about administrative meetings with my peers, there are sometimes people who won't turn on their camera and it becomes this very big deal that we can't see them. And I don't know how to feel about that, but you're making me feel like maybe it's fine.
[00:19:13] Lee Skallerup Bessette: [00:19:13] And this conversation with is making me think of it just such important work that is being done in faculty development. Both that has been done previously, but it is being done right now in real time. And, you know, it's just, I hope you share the link to the article you were talking about too, that you just published so we can put that in the show notes, but like this is the sort of stuff that it is so important that we, and I love podcasts like this too, that we can surface, right? And so, my takeaway is, is the takeaway and the challenge I need to remind myself is how do we surface this more for faculty? Because we surface it for ourselves in the faculty development community, and we read all of those journals, but then, you know, beyond the work that we do as faculty developers disseminating it, how do we help faculty surface it, make sense of it and incorporate it, you know? And it comes back again to that question of being exhausted because, you know, I have a piece, a piece just came out in EdSurge about instructional designers getting burnt out. And I have a piece about staff generally in higher education right now being burnt out where suddenly we're being asked to like, with - you’d appreciate this Ann, right? As the sole person - we're staffed to serve the whole campus.
[00:20:35] Ann Gagné: [00:20:35] Yeah, no for sure. I mean, I'm encountering service areas that I had never encountered before and folk asking me to run workshops and just on basic things, like how do I facilitate a webinar? Which is a skill set that, you know, unless you're doing webinars, you probably wouldn't have. And so, you know, it's not just faculty that we're supporting right now. It ends up being the service areas as well. So yeah, absolutely point well-taken and yeah, absolutely.
[00:21:04] Mary Churchill: [00:21:04] Well, this has been wonderful. And I feel like we could go for hours because there's so much to unpack but thank you so much. And we may have to have you back in the spring.
[00:21:16] Ann Gagné: [00:21:16] I would love to, and thank you so much for having me
[00:21:22] Mary Churchill: [00:21:22] As always, thanks for joining us. And we'll be back next week with Nicola Blake talking about her work at Guttman Community College in New York.