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The ideal learning expereince fosters thoughtful discussions between educators and students. These collaborative conversations, dialogues, and even debates can empower students to develop and grow their ideas and perspectives. It is important to remember that conflict is normal, and there are effective [healthy] ways to navigate difficult conversations with your students. By adopting an open and proactive approach to conflicts, you can reduce the frequency with which conflicts arise and their impact. Here are some strategies to help you both prevent and manage conflicts in your teaching:
Preventing conflicts

Be credible. Credibility is built from the first day of class and is continually judged throughout the term. On the first day, establish your credibility by providing some background information about your experience with the subject matter, your experience as a student, your research, etc. Show that you are focused and prepared. Keep this up throughout the term by coming to lectures prepared and sharing your lecture goals with your students. Organization, enthusiasm, solid knowledge of the content, and fairness all help to build and maintain credibility. Finally, you do not need to be perfect to be credible. If you make a mistake or don’t know the answer to a question, acknowledge the situation and focus on ensuring that the students get access to the required information as soon as possible. Defensive reactions tend to build conflict instead of preventing it.
Set clear expectations. Provide expectations from the start, both by writing them in your course outline and stating them in class. You can describe the goals of the course and outline roles for you and your students. You can also clearly emphasize your expectations for student behaviour and the consequences for prohibited behaviour, stressing mutual respect as a rationale for any ground rules. You can also include University policies towards certain behaviours (e.g., plagiarism) in your course outline. What this looks like in practice:

Listing expectations in your course syllabus. 
Discussing the expectations in class at the beginning of the semester. 
Reminding students of the expectations throughout the semester when teaching and during office hours.


Develop rapport and listen for understanding. Strengthening your relationships with students can help prevent conflict. Students work better when they feel that their instructors care about them; therefore, try to reduce anonymity and use students’ names whenever possible (e.g., in lectures and when grading assignments or papers). Be present a few minutes before and after class to answer questions and chat with the students informally. If students feel comfortable sharing their concerns with educators, every effort should be made to take those opportunities to listen. Employ these tips for productive conversations: 

Enter conversations with an open mind. 
Recognize that there may be something going on in the student’s life outside of academics that is impacting them. 
Express empathy for how a student’s life experiences can impact their behavior. The student’s reaction may differ from your interpretation of the conflict. 
Acknowledge and validate the student's feelings by listening fully without judgment. 
Help the student feel heard and valued by asking questions to clarify what they are trying to say. 


Use a dynamic teaching style. Good presentation and facilitation skills as well as enthusiasm for your teaching are assets that will keep students’ attention focused and help prevent distracting classroom behaviour such as lateness, talking, sleeping, etc. Using interactive teaching methods also helps to prevent distracting behaviours by involving students in the lecture.

Responding to conflict situations
Not all conflicts can be avoided with proactive measures. The following six steps describe a flexible response to many conflict situations. To practice implementing these steps, remember a conflict you have experienced and think about how these steps could be adapted to help you respond to that situation.

Don’t take it personally (but reflect on your impact). Conflict situations can make the participants feel upset, threatened, frustrated, and/or angry. These emotional reactions are unpleasant and they can interfere with your ability to respond constructively. Educators are in a position of authority when dealing with students and how you react/respond matters. Be aware of the power dynamic and take responsibility for initiating the conflict resolution process. Help to control your emotional responses to challenging situations by changing your perceptions of them. Due to this power imbalance, there may be times when your intentions do not align with your impact. Take steps to evaluate your actions and rectify the situation. What this looks like in practice:

Reframe your reaction...think to yourself, “That student is really upset – I wonder what the problem is?”, or “This is a distraction that needs to be addressed.”
Consider the impact of your words and actions on students.
Ask yourself if your message or delivery was disproportionately demanding or hurtful. 
Take responsibility for the harm caused and discuss actions you will take in the future to ensure it does not happen again.  You can serve as a role model by showing students a positive example of taking ownership of your impact and working to repair harm.
Ask yourself if you are the best person to discuss the situation with the student. Would other faculty, staff or students be better suited to respond? Sometimes asking for help to initiate a difficult conversation can be beneficial.





Choose when and where to deal with the situation. Responding immediately to student concerns, distress and inappropriate behaviour demonstrates that you are attentive to your students’ needs and reinforces your expectations for student behaviour. For example, if students are noisy in class you can respond immediately by pausing until you regain the students’ attention, making eye contact with the disruptive students, or asking if there is a problem you can help resolve. Some situations can not be fully addressed immediately. For example, addressing a serious disagreement in class can distract the students, undermine your authority and take time away from the planned learning activities. The best response can be to note that there is a situation that needs to be resolved and suggest when and where it might be further investigated. Try to be attentive to both your needs and the student’s situation when picking the time and place. If you sense that a student is intimidated by authority, you may want to meet in a neutral location, like a conference room, rather than in your office. By meeting at an appropriate time and place, you can facilitate open communication between yourself and the students.


Follow up, listen, and find common ground. When you meet with students, indicate that you are interested in hearing their perspectives by keeping a positive tone, and asking them open-ended questions, like “What part of the marking do you see as unfair?” When the students explain their situation, really listen: focus on their communication, don’t interrupt, and let them finish. Consider asking:

What outcomes do you and the student each hope come from the resolution? 
How can you and the student work together to meet each other’s needs? 
What steps can you and the student take to achieve these goals? 



Check your perception. It’s very easy to misinterpret someone, especially if either of you are at all emotional. To ensure that you understand your students, you can check your perception of their accounts by describing your understanding and asking them to correct any misinterpretations or elaborate on anything that you find unclear. When describing your understanding, reframe their points as positive comments using non-blaming words. For example, “If my group members think they can do this to me again, they’re mistaken!” can be rephrased as “It’s important to you that your rights are respected.” Rephrasing the problem reassures the students that you are listening to them and it ensures that all the parties understand the problem. You can also ask lots of open-ended questions until you have enough information to understand the problem. Ideally, the feedback process would end when the students’ comments and body language confirm that they are sure that you have completely understood their message.


Select and explain your position. Now that you understand the students, you are in a good position to select a course of action. Be sure to choose an action that is in line with your teaching goals for the course. Tell the students what you have decided and give them your rationale for your decision. For example, when responding to a mark dispute, you might choose to review the assignment with the student by making reference to the marking criteria. In explaining your position, you might want to show an example of an assignment that better meets your expectations.


Discuss next steps and document your decision. When you have explained what you have decided to do, you can discuss possible next steps with the students. Finally, in many cases, you will want to document your decisions and, where appropriate, the information upon which you have based your decision.

If your plan of action requires follow-up on your part, you may want to briefly explain the process. For example, if you agree to review an assignment, you might want to indicate when they can expect to receive your comments.
You may want to direct students to other resources on campus, including counseling or health services, to get support and/or documentation.
If the students are not satisfied with your decision, it is good practice to direct them to an appropriate avenue for appeal (e.g., department chair).



Responding to highly emotional students

Schedule an appointment. If a student is too emotional to communicate his or her situation, it may help to schedule an appointment for a later time. This delay gives both parties a chance to calm down and to review the problem.
Open your door. This gives a chance for neutral, outside observers to witness the event. Leaving the door open protects both the student and the instructor.
Acknowledge behaviours and emotions. You may want to recognize the student’s emotional state at the beginning of your meeting. For example, you could say, “I can see that you are really upset. Can you tell me what you find especially frustrating?” If a student’s behaviour becomes inappropriate, point it out to the student.
Get assistance. If you don’t know how to approach a conflict situation, get assistance from a colleague or one of MSU's relevant offices (IDI, Ombudsperson, CTLI). If a student becomes very aggressive or threatening, contact the Michigan State Univesity police.
Keep others informed. If you are concerned that a difficult situation is developing, consider notifying others immediately. For example, if you are a teaching assistant, you could notify the instructor, the department chair, and the Graduate School GTA-Development staff.

Ineffective ways to deal with conflicts

Conquest. Trying to win an argument will turn a disagreement into a battle for dominance. Intimidation tactics can cause students to challenge you further and discourage their participation.
Avoidance. Ignoring problems does not make them go away.
Bargaining. Compromise can be a laudable way to resolve a conflict, but not when your teaching objectives get subverted by the resolution process. For example, asking a student to be less disruptive in class in exchange for a better grade on an assignment rewards unacceptable behaviour, harms your credibility, and is unfair to your other students. Make sure that your response to conflict situations is consistent with your teaching and assessment goals and is equitable to all in your course.
Quick fix. A band-aid solution, like changing a grade to get rid of a student, can not solve a conflict. This strategy also rewards unacceptable behaviour, harms your credibility, and is unfair to other students.

Thank you to colleagues in university educator development at the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo, the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder and others for their materials that informed or were adapted into this resource. Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Here is the recording of our 80-minute Blended and Hybrid Learning webinar presented by the CTLI.Here is a link to the Blended and Hybrid Learning slide deck which includes further links to resources on slides 27-30. The main external resources we recommend are:

Multimodal Instructor Guide https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:46633/  
List of Big Class Discussion Strategies https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/speaking-listening-techniques/ 
Educause (7 Things You Should Know About the HyFlex Course Model) https://library.educause.edu/resources/2020/7/7-things-you-should-know-about-the-hyflex-course-model 
Online Learning Consortium (The Blended Institutions of Higher Education) https://www.everylearnereverywhere.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Blended-Institution-for-Higher-Education.pdf  
Blended Learning Guidebook https://www.blpmooc.org/guidebook 

Please feel free to follow up with Jay Loftus or Ellie Louson from the CTLI with any questions or to request a consultation.Image from Pexels by Kampus Production.

Introduction to Spartan StudiosThis is the first article in our iTeach.MSU playlist for the Spartan Studios Playkit.
Spartan Studios are experiential interdisciplinary courses at Michigan State University where students respond to real life situations or wicked problems and design solutions in partnership with local stakeholders. Faculty members design and plan these courses with support from the Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology, and we want to expand the number of experiential course offerings across campus. By experiential, we mean that students learn through experience as well as reflecting on their experiences. Studios experiences support student success by providing more accessible high-impact educational practices. Interdisciplinary courses are co-taught by multiple faculty members coming from different disciplinary backgrounds and/or departments across campus, exposing students to approaches/methods not normally part of their major. These courses are a response to the problem of the siloed university and complement students’ developing disciplinary training.
About the Playkit
This playkit, a combination of playbook and toolkit, is a resource for faculty interested in developing their own Spartan Studios course or expanding aspects of their interdisciplinary, experiential teaching. This resource was developed by the Spartan Studios project over 2020-21 with extensive feedback from MSU faculty members, external partners, and consultations with experiential education programs at other institutions. You will find descriptions of: 
▶️Plays: our best practices for planning, implementation, assessment, and evaluating your experiential course.
🔧Tools: resources for developing elements of your own experiential interdisciplinary course
How to Use this Playkit
We encourage you to approach this Playkit in a spirit of experimentation and to play with these suggestions as you think through your own potential Studio course and reflect on how these components could inform your teaching and impact your students. Our research suggests that the arrangement of components we present here following the Studios model can lead to transformative student outcomes, and we’ve compiled an Appendix of emerging scholarship on these benefits. We’ve also observed that faculty members who incorporate a few or only one of these evidence-based practices can still generate benefits to student outcomes. If designing an entirely new experiential course is too much, you have the option to treat these as à la carte suggestions for experiences that students tell us matter to their learning and growth beyond MSU. 
The Hub runs yearly workshops on experiential, interdisciplinary teaching and how to plan and teach your own Studio course. You are welcome to connect with the Hub if you have questions about elements of the Playkit or how to apply them in your own teaching.Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

MSU Technology Support and Course Consultation
There are several organizations on camous that can provide technological, pedagogical or design assistance.
Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation

Course Design 

Description: Support for designing or redesigning individual courses.
Staff Available: Dave, Jay
Bookings Calendar




Online Programs: Design & Build

Description: The Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation works in collaboration with academic programs, units, departments, schools, and colleges on learning experience design. The scope of this work could be specific to an individual assignment, an individual course section, or as large as the curriculum for an entire credential.
Staff Available: Dave, Jay, Alicia, Brendan
Bookings Calendar


Online Courses: Quality Review & Improvement

Description: Quality Matters (QM) is a nationally recognized, faculty-centered, peer review process designed to certify the quality of online courses and online components.
Staff Available: Dave, Jay, Brendan
Bookings Calendar



IT Services - Educational Technology
Request assistance at MSU IT Service Desk
Services:

Course Design
Technology Integration Consultation
Software Training
Classroom Technology Training
Accessibility Consultation
Video Production

IT Services - Technology Training Team
Training and assistance with MSU's collaborative technology Open Office Hours
Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash

Educational Videos: Best Practices
This document uses learning theory and research to suggest best practices in creating educational videos.
Audio

Don’t read out loud. If you want to create a script, do it. Read it a few times. Put it away and try and speak as naturally as possible when you record. You won’t (and shouldn’t) stick to the script word for word while recording, but it should help you sound articulate without reading from a script.
Don’t speak too slowly. Research shows that speaking slowly results in learners thinking the speaker is less credible and having less interest in the materials. Speaking slower does not increase retention (Simonds, Meyer, Quinlan & Hunt, 2006).
Keep language informal. Speak in a conversational way, avoiding jargon, technical terms, and “academic-speak.” Put concepts in your own words. Use first and second person (I, you) to create a personal connection. This is referred to as the personalization principle in multimedia learning theory (Mayer, 2009).

Visuals

Change visuals often. If you are recording a screen-share of Power Point, use more slides and change the slides more frequently, spending less time on each slide. Visuals (photos, images, and diagrams) are better than words.
Omit needless words. On PowerPoint, that is. Use more images than words because people learn better when they hear the words and see images. This is referred to as the redundancy principle in multimedia learning theory (Mayer, 2009).
Include your face? Maybe! This could help create a connection with learners and help you retain viewer attention by letting you switch between a visual and an image of the speaker. Research shows students may prefer seeing your face, but it doesn’t necessarily help them learn (Kizilcec, Bailenson, & Gomez, 2015).
Recording via Zoom? Select options to record both the active speaker and the shared window (Power Point) so that you can edit the video in a way that includes both. You can do this in Zoom Settings by using Zoom Cloud Recording and selecting to “Record active speaker, gallery view, and shared screen separately.”
Informal settings are fine! High quality production backgrounds don’t engage learners more. Relax and find that balance of professional yet personal (Guo, Kim, Rubin, 2014).
Use tablet drawing. Learners are more engaged by Khan-style videos that show “live” drawing than by static images (Guo, Kim, Rubin, 2014). If you have the tools to do this, great! If not, consider using annotation tools in Power Point.

Content Considerations

Leave off speaker intros and objectives. This type of material can be presented in the description or in the materials preceding the videos. Jump straight into the content. This helps you keep videos short.
Keep it short. Research with MOOCs suggests 6 minutes or less is optimal (Guo, Kim, Rubin, 2014). In addition, it is harder for learners to use a longer video to review specific content. Keeping videos under 6 minutes isn’t a hard rule, since context matters, but shorter usually is better.

Hosting Considerations

Provide background information. Introduce the topic, the speaker, and tell the learner how long the video will be in the video description or in the material preceding the video.
Provide a take-away for more technical content. An example would be a fact sheet or a fillable PDF form with a note-taking outline that learners can fill out while watching and then download and save.
Consider interactive videos. Camtasia lets you add simple interactions to your videos to keep your viewers engaged. MediaSpace allows for interactions as well.

Before, During, After

Frame videos with a task before, during, and after. If you are hosting the video in an online course, have your viewers do something related to the topic before watching it to activate their background knowledge and build schema. Give them a task to do while watching the video, and then give them a task after to check their comprehension or to relate the content to their life experiences. Some basic examples are below.





Before


During


After





Discuss a question about the topic in a forum




Listen to answer specific question(s)




Transform the material into another form (perhaps write a summary)






Reflect on the topic by considering a question




Take notes




Answer comprehension questions






Read related content




Complete a partially filled-out outline




Discuss the topic in a forum






Take a poll related to the topic and notice how your peers answered




Fill in a chart or graphic organizer relating to the content




Share an experience from your life that relates to the material






Learn related vocabulary




Write down one thing you heard that is new and one thing you heard that you already knew




Apply what you have learned by responding to a posted scenario





 
Final Thought: Not everything needs to be a video.
Not everyone likes video. Presenting materials in different ways and including variety is important. Some material is better read, or presented as a job aid, a table, or a visual. In addition, making a change to a produced video is much more difficult than updating text. Be strategic in choosing how to deliver information.
References
Guo, P. J., Kim, J., & Rubin, R. (2014). How video production affects student engagement: An empirical study of MOOC videos. L@S 2014 - Proceedings of the 1st ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, 41–50. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556325.2566239
Kizilcec, R. F., Bailenson, J. N., & Gomez, C. J. (2015). The Instructor’s Face in Video Instruction: Evidence From Two Large-Scale Field Studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 724–739.
Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Simonds, B. K., Meyer, K. R., Quinlan, M. M., & Hunt, S. K. (2006). Effects of instructor speech rate on student affective learning, recall, and perceptions of nonverbal immediacy, credibility, and clarity. Communication Research Reports, 23(3), 187–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824090600796401
 
 
 

According to the Office of Medical Education Research and Development (OMERAD), "Amy Ward is joint appointed as an Academic Specialist in Academic Achievement and OMERAD. In Academic Achievement she develops programming and resources to support student learning, and engages in one-on-one coaching with medical students. In OMERAD she works directly with faculty on teaching and learning projects that focus on teaching effectiveness, supporting students in their transition to medical school, and supporting metacognition in both teachers and students."
 

 
Here's what one Spartan had to say about Amy:"Amy Ward is a Medical Education Learning Specialist in the College of Human Medicine. In her role, she designs workshops, webinars, and programs to enhance medical student academic performance. Additionally, she provides one-on-one coaching focused on helping students set ISMART goals, learn and implement effective learning strategies, and transition successfully to medical school. She will customize her work with students to meet their needs, whether it is via a Zoom session at night or by way of a few quick check-in sessions during the week. Due to her commitment and approach to coaching students, many students refer others to her. In all of her pursuits, Amy is enthusiastic, curious, humble and professional. I am thankful that Amy is a member of my team in the Office of Academic Achievement, and I know that her work and service to students will contribute to their success. "
 
You can find more about Amy and her research and interest areas, check out this page: https://omerad.msu.edu/about-us/faculty-and-staff/ward

It is often considered best practice for faculty to set aside a couple of hours each week for office hours and then provide a note stating that students can reach out to the instructor to make an appointment if the times do not work for them. Why not cut out this first step and just have students make an appointment instead? Providing an easy means to make the appointment shows students that you really do want them to make an appointment. Moreover, using an appointment platform saves time for both you and your students. There are different platforms that can be used; this tutorial describes how to set up office hour appointments in Google Calendar. I have liked using it because it provides more flexibility; that is, I can set appointment slots to repeat but also easily adjust those times each week to better fit my schedule.The following steps describe how to create a bookable appointment schedule in Google Appointment Schedules. 

Using your MSU account on a computer, open Google Calendar.
Make sure that you are in Week view or any Day view.
Click on "Create", located in the upper-left corner of the window.
A drop-down menu will appear. Click on "Appointment schedule." This allows you to create a new bookable appointment schedule.  
A new menu appears. The instructions below indicate what to enter and some tips for each part of the menu. 

Enter the title of your office hours, such as "Office Hours," “Tutoring Sessions,” "Instructor-Student Meetings," "Meet the Instructor," etc.
Appointment duration: Choose the duration of the slots. I choose 15-minute time slots because the meetings that I have with students are rarely longer than 10 minutes.
General availability: Although your schedule may vary week-to-week, set up when you are generally available Monday thru Friday. Specific dates can be changed in a later step or in the calendar. 

If you are only setting this up for a few days, then change "repeat weekly" to "does not repeat."
The time zone will be what your calendar is already set up for, so it should be correct, but change it if needed.


Scheduling window: Set up how soon in advance students can set up the meeting (I tend to keep this a long period but it is rare for students to set up a meeting more than a week in advance). Also select how close to the scheduled time they can set up the meeting (I do 12 hours so that I can look at it that morning to see what I have for the day but 24 hours is also a standard practice).
Adjusted availability: Either change your specific availability here or do it after completing this booking form right in the calendar by dragging the start and end times.
Booked appointment settings: Add a buffering time between meetings if needed. I don't have a lot of meetings, so I never need this buffer, but you might find that you need this, especially right before exams.
Calendars: Select which calendar will host your office hours (maybe have a calendar just for office hours). Then (this is one of my favorite options), check off which calendars you want it to check your availability. I like this because if I add a meeting to my calendar, it won't allow for students to set up an appointment at the same time as my meeting. If it is a face-to-face meeting, though, add another time slot for traveling back to your office for your student appointment.
Co-hosts: It's unlikely that you will have a co-host for office hours, but if you are co-teaching and have a shared calendar, it might be helpful to have this and add a question later that asks the student who they would prefer to meet with.


After completing all of the steps described above, click "next." Add the following on the next page:

Book page photo and name: personalize your booking page by adding a photo to your Google account.
Location and conferencing: If you are meeting in person, then add your room and building information here. Otherwise, select "none/to be specified later."
Description: Describe how students attend office hours. If it is online, provide the meeting information. Also consider adding information about office hours, such as your expectations on what can be discussed during office hours.
Booking form: This contains the questions that students will answer when they set up a meeting. The default is their first name, last name, and email address. You can add a question, by selecting "add an item" and then "custom item." Type in the question, such as "reason for the appointment."
Booking confirmations and reminders: I recommend keeping the default setting of sending an email reminder to the student a day before the meeting and a few hours before the meeting.


After answering the questions on that page, click "save."
Now you should see the appointment schedule populate your calendar.

If you need to change your availability for a specific date, you can edit the appointment schedule by dragging the boxes around or dragging the end time to make it shorter or longer on specific dates.
You can also single-click on one of the appointment boxes and select the "edit" button, which is the shape of a pencil.


To share it, single-click on any appointment box, click on "share" and then "copy link." 
To see what students see when they set up a meeting, single-click on any appointment box and click on "open booking page." 

 

GORP for High Impact Experiential TeachingThis is the third article in our iTeach.MSU playlist for the Spartan Studios Playkit.
🔧 Earlier phases of the Studios project developed a framework for experiential learning with the acronym GORP: Gravity, Ownership, Relationship, and Place (Heinrich, Lauren, & Logan, under review). The acronym GORP stands for “good ol’ raisins and peanuts” and emerged from one of the researchers’ background in outdoor education. The GORP framework is a key aspect of how we have designed Studios courses. We have seen how its 4 elements can lead to transformational learning experiences for students in Studios courses. (Heinrich et al. 2021). We encourage you to consider how the following 4 elements of the framework might fit in your own experiential course. They aren’t all-or-nothing, and course instructors can decide in what ways to incorporate them into your course design. 
▶️Gravity: Give students a challenge or opportunity that matters to them and they’ll be motivated. The primary motivator for student work in a traditional course is usually the assessment or grade. By organizing your experiential course around a significant challenge, a wicked problem, or an opportunity for students to meaningfully participate in or affect their world, you can offer students an alternative motivator: making a difference to communities affected by these challenges. A course description that includes this gravity can help attract students who are passionate about that issue. Keep gravity central as you design your course and students’ interactions with community partners. A holistic approach to grading, where students are assessed on their overall participation, processes, and reflections about their experience, helps to prevent the course grade from reasserting itself as the gravity. In other words, shift the point of gravity for students away from the grade.
▶️Ownership: Give students autonomy throughout the experiential course, from the design of their projects through their implementation. Let them manage their teams and be accountable to each other for their work. Having this ownership movitates high levels of engagement with the course material and assignments and increases participation. In a course with high ownership, students see themselves as creators and contributors to real conversations with the course’s local partners. This could even extend to giving students autonomy over elements of your course design. Include opportunities for emergent outcomes  that aren’t predetermined in the course design (for example, be flexible about the kinds of projects that are within the scope of the course, or students being able to pivot their approach based on new ideas) and for students to steer the instruction. 
▶️Relationship: Experiential courses give instructors the opportunity to reset the traditional teacher-student relationship. Be a coach in addition to a lecturer. You can support students’ work on their teams and be a resource for them as they solve problems that emerge during their work. This could look like instructors circulating as student teams explain their project plans and giving feedback or suggesting alternatives the students hadn’t considered. Even something as simple as putting yourself at the same literal level as your students, instead of lecturing from the front of the room, can contribute to a more even relationship. Learn from the students outside your discipline, and encourage students to learn from each other. By removing yourself as the gatekeeper of acceptable solutions, you empower students to learn from their choices. These reconfigured relationships require trust within student teams, within the team of co-instructors, and between students and faculty. And although instructors ultimately do have power over students’ evaluations, try to avoid sudden reassertions of that power which can undermine student ownership and trust. Students (and faculty!) may be uncomfortable at first with such a dramatic shift in agency; you should be explicit that this will be a different kind of learning experience. We suggest making reflection on the new relationships part of your classroom culture. Instructors should be empowered to facilitate student-driven learning while also providing the benefits of their expertise, knowledge, and judgement. We offer more advice and examples in “Coaching” below.
▶️Place: Because Studios courses connect to local needs or partners in specific places, you can focus your teaching on those places and connect them to students’ work. These places can be elsewhere on campus, in the local community, or even abroad. Visit it if you can (physically or virtually), and have students experience and reflect on their time outside the classroom. Places resonate, even if they can’t visit in-person. Encourage students to form their own connections with the place: What does it mean to them or to the community impacted by the course’s challenge?  Also, think about your teaching space. Early Studios courses were held in the Hub’s flex space, a room with moveable furniture and whiteboard walls that students could reconfigure based on their teams’ needs. A flexible and collaborative mindset open to new and radical student-driven possibilities is part of the conceptual space we want to build in these courses. This flexibility and connection is also possible in virtual classrooms and workspaces. Consider the learning affordances of both physical and virtual spaces that can enhance your students’ experience.Photo by Pratik Bachhav on Unsplash