group 3 podcast

A collaborative podcast discusses various topics related to individualism in education. Topics include neurodiversity, instructor interference, linguistic backgrounds, and study environments. In-person learning allows for better student-teacher relationships and focus, but lacks accessibility. Online learning offers convenience and access, but may lack focus. The podcast also explores accommodating neurodiverse students, balancing instructor interference, and the impact of linguistic backgrounds on learning. The importance of choice and communication in supporting students with diverse needs is highlighted. Alright, and welcome to our collaborative podcast show. We're going to be talking about individualism in education. My name is Greg, and I'm going to be talking about neurodiversity. My name is Christian. I'm going to be talking about instructor interference in education. Yeah, and my name is Eli Conway. I am researching students that come from a linguistic background and their personal learning experience. And my name is Shisu, and I will talk about the student study environment and compare it. Hello, everyone. My name is Shi, and my topic is about the study environment. The topic I'm going to talk about today is students choose the compare of learning environment, such as online class and the traditional class. I'm interviewing for Professor Juanyi Li. She's my UNIV 1080 professor, and this is her perspective of the topic. We can get started with the in-person learning. So I think for in-person learning, if you're thinking about college education, then it is more likely that students and professors are able to build a more successful relationship with each other. So, for example, like when I was a student, I will be able to attend in-person classes and make friends or ask questions to my professors about what they are thinking. And what I am teaching right now, it's the same thing. I got the chance to build a better connection with my students, and I believe they will be able to ask more questions comparing to what we are learning online. And the second thing is students and professors are very likely to be more focused or pay more attention to the subject or to the moment. I think I will be less likely get distracted when I'm actually physically in the classroom comparing to what I have to learn or teach online. That's why I'm teaching online. There are so many things around me. And without the environment, I find myself harder to keep focused. So for disadvantage, there are definitely a few things. The first is definitely it's not as accessible to students or teachers as online learning. So just like our meeting here, whenever you need, we can just schedule a meeting and then we can have a conversation. But if we have to do in-person, then it is not very likely that this meeting is going to happen because I'm in San Francisco and you're in Connecticut. This is so far away. Oh, yeah. And this is the advantage of online or learning through Zoom because you can access the education or you're able to talk to whoever you want whenever or wherever you're at. And I will present below myself. I think it's need different between the course. For example, some PE education courses, which must be studied traditional class and such as some modern courses such as computer class. I think you can study online because it's a good way to save time. The fundamental reason for my topic is to help students to get a better education. And I will ask you guys a question about which part you prefer to study at home or online. I say for me, I definitely prefer the in-person experience. I enjoy the aspect of socialization, talking to friends, something that I miss in online. You don't get via Zoom. The best thing you can do via Zoom is just make faces at your friends. You can do that in person so much better. I feel like an environment to study in and like a library is like a lot. It keeps you a lot more focused because when you're just in your room, your phone is there, you might have a TV. Your bed is there. Other things, your bed and you just like a lot more casual work. If you're like in a library, like a student union, you're like, you know, you're out. You're like in school mode and like it just keeps you a lot more locked in. Yeah, I would agree with both of you. I think it's more healthier to learn in a like a school environment like a library or just like, you know, just being in class. But then again, I think it's I think students, some students should have the option depending on like like what their college experience is all about. Like for me, I have all classes. I have all my classes are in school in class. So sometimes I'm traveling with soccer and stuff. So it's hard to attend those classes. Therefore, say if it was online, I would be able to take my classes online. And then I don't know. I just feel like having the having the option of either online or in school is important. And yeah, in my say sake, it's important. OK, that's cool. Yeah, a major, you know, component of studying in like a school setting is the access to, you know, like teachers and other instructors and other resources that you would have outside of just your room, which is kind of what relates to my topic and instructor interference, which I'm talking about, like, you know, how how much a teacher holds your hands through assignments and the various expectations that like come along with different subjects and different grade levels and everything. So the topic is like, like balancing, you know, instructor interference with letting students like learn material on their own. So it's pretty much just like a general concept. First, like, what would you think about that? I think there's a there's a balance that needs to be struck. You can't hold people's hands through anything. If you hold their hands too long, they're never going to learn from themselves. They're never going to develop critical thinking skills. But on the other hand or on the other side, you know, I'll say that a lot of times people come through and their high school simply failed them. And I have to do some deep digging to figure out what skills are they missing? What previous concepts do they not have? I didn't I didn't expect to have to review algebra so much. And it's OK. A lot of people take it like eighth grade and forget most of it. But I think that. I mean, I've been in flipped classes. I'm not a huge fan. I think that like there's still you're still a teacher. And you need to build skills for people. You need to I think it's called it's called scaffolding. If you if you Google scaffolding teaching, you basically you walk them all the way through the problem first time, present it again, have them interact more and then just keep giving them more of the responsibility of solving that problem. And like until they can do it all on their own. So like you will hold their hand through it like the first time and you gradually pull away kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Like you show an example. And I do all the work the first time. Yeah. You know, like when I get up there, I'm like, here's how you solve this. Yeah. And then I start asking you guys more questions and then I start pulling you guys up to do it yourself on the board. OK. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a really good way to put it. That's like exactly what I'm looking for. What would you guys say? Like, have you had any experience with like, you know, a teacher that either like coddled you too much and you didn't really learn anything or when they just kind of left you off on your own and like you didn't learn anything at all or that way? Yeah. So I mean, I've definitely experienced both sides of the spectrum. And I just think like a healthy equilibrium with everything is important. Also, the ability to choose whether you want more independent learning or more instructive learning is important. I think that's a reoccurring theme we're going to see among our topics is that the choice is more important than whether we choose one thing or the other. What was the question? Just like if you had a teacher that like, you know, held your hand too much that like you got the work done, but you didn't like actually learn the topic or like if you had a teacher that's just like you didn't learn it because like, you know, they didn't teach it to you at all. It's like threw it up on a board or whatever. Just like find like that balance or something, you know, are you actually, you know, retain the information? Yeah, I think it depends. Like certain teachers, I would say, are like just better at teaching and, you know, like delivering the information. And I think that's when you learn best as a student. But I think like some teachers that are like a bit laid off and like you say they're better because they're like laid off and they're like, you know. Yeah, they're easy. Yeah, easy going, you know. I think those teachers can sometimes be worse for you because I feel like you're not able to like retain like enough information for the topics. Right. I just, yeah, I feel like that's my thought. Yeah, for me, I think it's the most important way is take a good conversation. Yeah. So depending on one's individual needs in terms of neurodiversity, that may impact whether they prefer an in-person environment, a more hands-on approach, hands-off approach. And so my topic, I talked to a professor of mathematics, Matthew Plante, who's a doctor in mathematics. And we talked about neurodiversity in STEM and specifically in mathematics, how that's addressed and how that impacts the learning environment. Wait, what are we doing? Yeah, you know, that's certainly a stereotype. And I think the stereotype is true at times just because it's a very results-oriented field. And maybe getting those results don't always require the networking and the, you know, social, the normal social relationships that other fields require to advance your ideas. Like communications. Yeah, yeah, the communication. So maybe there is some truth to that and where people who are more closed off or, like you said, on the spectrum who might have a harder time, you know, meeting the right people, they can still work on the right problems and get the right results. And that puts them in positions of power that they might not have been able to get to in other fields. Though I think that stereotype might be a little bit over-exaggerated as far as I can tell. But, you know, it's there for a reason. It does happen. All right. Yeah, thank you for that answer. And the penultimate question is, do you believe that traditional teaching methods and curricula are well suited to accommodate the needs of all learners? And if not, what changes could be made to better accommodate that? I know you talked about giving different, like, you know, one third of the class time to a different thing, but do you want to elaborate on that? So is traditional learning enough? I think that can't be true. I think if you look at the history of traditional learning, it's not designed to fit all learners. Right. So that definitely can't be the case. That's my first impression hearing that question. How can we accommodate more learners? Well, this is definitely a very challenging task. And I think instructors really have to modify the way they engage with their classroom. You know, this is like a per classroom question, per student question, you know, as the semester goes on. I certainly change depending on which class I'm in, depending on which class I'm teaching, you know, whichever helps engage the students more. Just like getting to know and learn your students, which is hard to do if you just lecture the entire time. So methods that can be employed. I think there are a bunch of resources that people have created over the years. I like worksheets for mathematics. There's lots of like, you know, think, pair, share ideas that people have been throwing around for years. And those are good. But you certainly can't go wrong by just trying a bunch of methods. Right. And then finding the ones that work for the individuals that you're teaching. It's harder the larger your class sizes get, but I think if you vary it up enough, it helps. I mean, I guess a fundamental, I don't know if dichotomy is the right word, but, you know, these two options, at least in my opinion, to solve the problem of like, you know, education needing to be individualized. Should it be the lowest common denominator or should it be differentiated to the point where every person receives a different treatment and potentially even like not segregation, but differentiation of students at a different level of skill? So I definitely think that there is a medium that you have to try to hit. And it's certainly a moving point. Like, I don't think you can find it and be happy there. It's a challenge, even in a single math course, like differential equations removed from topic to topic, people's strengths are going to change and the way that they have to accommodate for those changes in strength are going to be different each time. And the student who who has a hard time remembering derivatives might have an easier time in a section of this course where derivatives are, you know, or integrals, they might disappear altogether as we find methods for solving differential equations that don't require integration. And then all of a sudden it comes back and now they have to almost feel like they have to catch up. So now they need they can't interact with the course the same way they did before. They have to do, you know, additional work outside where they're lacking. So it's definitely like instructors can only do so much. Students do have to take a bit of responsibility in that part. Like students and teachers, they should work together. So my question to you all is what accommodations for neurodiverse students do you think really helps them? Have you seen in your experience helps them or maybe would even help you? Yeah, I think definitely like, you know, in high school, the kids that needed a little extra support when it came to teachers, they had like someone had an aide with them that was just, you know, following around from class to class. And I think having that like personal instruction with them like at all times definitely helps. And the aide also benefits like, you know, the rest of the class because they don't only stay with that one student. Like if the teacher is busy and someone has a question, the aide can come over and help too. So like it can benefit everybody. Yeah, I would completely agree with that. I think having an aide for neurodiverse students really helps them. And I think them being in an environment, like a normal, say normal environment, like learning environment really helps them and maybe their mentality because, you know, like I don't know if they would know that they're like, you know, like not like any normal student, but say if they are aware of their disability and they are in a normal environment, that can really like give them confidence and make them better students. Yeah, I'm agreeing with Elias' opinion. And I think maybe we should use the society to help them add some money or some food for the poor person or another way. Now one thing to note is that neurodiverse people do not necessarily have to be those with learning disabilities. It generally refers to people with, you know, diverse learning needs, whether that be less instruction, more instruction. So when I talked to Professor Twont, we talked about people on the spectrum often excel in the STEM field and mathematics. And, you know, we'll listen to that interview and he'll explain why because like I'm not going to say it. All right, now our final topic is going to be Eli. Let me give it away to Eli so we can talk about what is your topic? Linguistic background. All right, now connecting to Greg's topic on neurodiversity and the way specific students think, I believe it's important to pick out like what could be really affecting that. And what I picked out and we'll talk about is the natural appearance of a student. My topic is the way students think that are international or come from a linguistic background and how that like learning experience is like. In my research, I found that a student's linguistic background has specific positives and negatives on their individual learning in the classroom. And this includes the development of like empathy as citizens, improved cognitive ability, confusion, stress, while learning and stereotyping. I think growing up speaking more than one language can widen a student's perspective on life and like help them appreciate the beauty of diversity, I'd say. Learning a second language gives students access to a new world of literature, music, art, you know, which can aid in their understanding of various cultural viewpoints. One negative that comes from students from linguistic backgrounds that I will talk about that I was talking with Jennifer, the woman that I interviewed, is that they try to individually learn, that they try to individually learn includes the fact that students whose native language is not the same as the language of teaching may find themselves confused or like anxious. They might not understand the guidelines provided in class or the information covered in textbooks, which may result in annoyance, a lack of enthusiasm, and effort in studying. With this idea, I interviewed my student-athlete academic counselor, which I mentioned, Jennifer, Jennifer Holowaty. She gave me her insight to the topic and what she's seen with student-athletes coming in and just trying to adapt to an environment that is much different than theirs. She explains her personal experiences with her student-athletes and is a primary source of the topic. And here is the segment to her interview. What do you think professors or UConn as a whole needs to be better at, like, welcoming students that are coming from linguistic backgrounds? Or if there's nothing to be improved, do you believe like they're doing a good job with this already? I think it depends. I think it also depends on the students, because I get the students' perspective. So it's always, or it could be slightly skewed, because students sometimes have a different perspective than the professors have. I think, in all honesty, one of the major pieces that I see, and it's kind of a weird, you know, because I don't get the full story all the time, but I think one of the biggest struggles doesn't necessarily have to do with language, but it has to do with culture, with U.S. history classes. Yeah. Because our international students don't have that U.S. history background, but they're expected to have it, so they struggle with the U.S. history classes. Okay. And it's not a language thing per se, so I think, I just recently had a student that struggled on the paper, but once he went and talked to the professor, the professor said, oh, I didn't realize, he said, I didn't know how to structure a paper and I wasn't taught. So the professor then was willing to work with him a little bit. So I think most of the time, if a professor is aware, a student communicates that there's a challenge, the professors are pretty good. We also have an English language learning program in the summer that some of our students do. But for the most part, if a student communicates that they're struggling, the professor tends to work with them. We have had professors that have said that I can't do anything about that. Yeah. You know, because they're not privy to any kind of accommodations. Like, they can't get extra time on a test or any accommodations that a student with a documented learning disability could have. But oftentimes, they kind of could benefit from those things. But some professors will give you a little bit longer, but they are not required to. Okay. So it basically has to do with communication. The biggest thing is the student communicating with the professor. Okay. So the question that I have for you guys is, how can the learning environment be changed to support students with a linguistic background in order to enhance their learning experience or make it better? Like, what do you think can be done in their learning environment to help them out? I mean, definitely, like, just having other teachers available that can, like, you know, speak other languages. Yeah, for sure. Someone gets here and they can't communicate with anybody. Like, they're just screwed. So having just, like, resources available. Like, just maybe, like, at least one person, like, in each department so they have at least somebody to go to. Like, making appointments to, like, study or tutor or anything with these specific people. And just, like, at least have a couple people, I guess, that just have, I don't know, common languages like Spanish, Italian, Chinese. Like, things like that that can just really help these students along. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, of course. I mean, having an environment that's accepting of multiculturalism and of having substantial expat populations to have people, you know, regardless of what language they speak, they have a community for them. I think that's something I'm happy to have at UConn here where if you speak Mandarin or Spanish or Portuguese or German, there are people you can talk to in that language. Yeah. You know, this is such a big school. Definitely having those academic resources available for people who are struggling with the linguistic transition is definitely something worth our while. Yeah. Yeah, for me, I'm a national student. I'm a non-native speaker, so my English is not good. When I read it, I will, if I don't understand, I will ask a teacher and a professor will help me to do it. So I think professors need to help the non-native speaker students. So as we, you know, have spent some time talking about each of our topics, whether it be differences in learning environment, linguistic background, neurodiversity, all these things show the need for differentiation in education. You know, individualism, focusing on every student at every given time, you know, you can't treat every individual the same because we have so much diversity among even a small school. So I think that's really the common lesson we can count from our research, talking to these professors and scholars, is that you really do need to take an individualistic approach to every person that is teaching. Every person that is learning has a different path. For sure. Yeah.