Episode 22: Building a Reservoir of Trust: Early Semester Tips with Greg Downey
Guest: Professor Greg Downey
As the start of the semester nears, Jonathan Klein and Molly Harris talk with Greg Downey, Evjue-Bascom Professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication and the Information School. Greg shares how he sets students up for success in his courses by building trust, intervening early, and communicating transparently.In this episode, we speak with…
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Unpack This Episode
Grab a drink, gather your colleagues, and discuss.
- What opportunities for student growth, learning, and community do you see within large enrollment courses? How might you take advantage of these unique opportunities?
- What is the value of trust between students and their instructor? How might you foster trust early in the semester with your students on an individual and communal level?
- Greg takes a caring approach to reaching out to students who have missed class or assignments. How do you intervene if you notice a student is off-track? What plans do you have in place for providing support to students after intervening?
- Greg speaks to the value of a teaching team for building community and intervening with care. How does your teaching team work together to support students? If your course has separate sections, such as a discussion and lecture, how do or might you ensure that these parts complement each other?
- How might you encourage students to get to know each other within your courses and support the formation of classroom friendships?
- What do you find fun about teaching a large lecture course? How could you demonstrate your enthusiasm to your students?
Further Reading
In this episode we mentioned, were inspired by, or wondered about the following resources and topics.
- Successworks is the career center for the College of Letters & Science, offering advising, programming, courses, and other resources to help L&S students explore and pursue career goals.
- Our own L&S Design for Learning Series features research-backed articles about teaching topics with examples from L&S instructors. Several existing articles relate to ideas from this episode. Keep your eye out for more articles to be published this year!
- Support Student Connection Early in the Semester: Greg talks about the importance of engaging students early in the semester. This article provides strategies for helping students connect with you, other students, and course content.
- Plan Flexible and Efficient Makeup Exams: Greg states that it is important to follow through on supporting a student after you reach out to check in. He mentions setting up his courses with multiple paths for student success. Makeup exams are one way that instructors can offer this structured flexibility for students.
- Hold Effective and Inclusive Office Hours: Greg shares how he encourages students, especially first-year students, to talk to their instructors. This article presents 5 strategies for promoting positive and productive student-instructor communication through office hours.
- More Transparent Canvas Assignments & Grading: Greg narrates for students the purpose of his course readings, sharing why they are assigned and how students should approach completing them. Such transparency helps students feel included and learn. This guide shows how to carry transparency over to your Canvas site.
- The Course Demographics Profile shows the percentage of enrolled students in a course section by gender, aggregated race/ethnicity, tuition residency, and first generation status. This data is available to UW–Madison employees, and requires WiscVPN for off campus access.
- Learn@UW is hosting free online trainings about Considerations for Large-Enrollment Courses on August 23 and August 29.
Shout Outs
- Thank you to Dr. Laura Stephenson for introducing our team to the book Design for Belonging: How to Build Inclusion and Collaboration in Your Communities from the Stanford d.school, available through the UW Libraries.
Acknowledgements
The L&S Exchange Podcast is brought to you by L&S Teaching, Learning, & Academic Planning and produced by the Instructional Design Collaborative. This podcast is recorded on ancestral Ho-Chunk land, a place their nation has called Teejop (day-JOPE) since time immemorial.
Production Credits
- Producer: David Macasaet
- Associate Producer: Molly Harris
- Audio Engineer: David Macasaet
- Audio Editor: David Macasaet
- Website Support: Laura Schmidli & Molly Harris
- Development Producer: Jonathan Klein
- Planning Group: Jonathan Klein, David Macasaet, Molly Harris, Laura Schmidli, Antonella Caloro, Maria Widmer
- Communications: Maria Widmer
- Executive Sponsorship: Shirin Malekpour