Episode 4: Teaching the Whole Student with Shazia Nawaz Awan
The Kates sit down with their colleague, Dr. Shazia Nawaz Awan (educational developer, Internationalization & Intercultural competency) to talk about her portfolio at the Centre, and what it means to “teach the whole student”.
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
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Speaker 1
Hello. Welcome back, listeners. This is Kate's discuss. I'm Kate Crane.
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Speaker 2
And I'm Kate Thompson.
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Speaker 1
We are educational developers at the Center for Learning and Teaching at Dalhousie University.
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Speaker 2
Dalhousie University is located in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq. We are all treaty people.
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Speaker 1
In this podcast we discuss various topics surrounding pedagogical practice in higher education. Today we have our colleague Shazia Nawas. I won with us and we were discussing teaching the whole student. But we also learn a little bit about Shazia and what she does here at the center. So Shazia, you are our educational developer in internationalization and intercultural competency.
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Speaker 1
Can we start there and just learn a little bit about what exactly that is? And what you do at the center in this portfolio?
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Speaker 3
Yes, sure. So, first of all, thank you, Kate and Kate, for inviting me.
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Speaker 1
Um.
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Speaker 3
Yes. So I am an educational developer and my portfolio is internationalization and intercultural competency. And it's the it's the first of its kind at the Center for Learning and Teaching. So there is a lot for me to experiment, but also to kind of relate to the work that has already been done. Mm hmm. So I mainly work with faculty members on internationalization of curriculum, on culturally responsive pedagogy, on intercultural and teaching competencies.
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Speaker 3
So bringing in all these frameworks. But also connecting it to the work that they're already doing, for example, in universal design, for learning how they're approaching their online pedagogy from those principles and so on and so forth. So well, we'll discuss and talk more about how I do my work with faculty, but it's based in global engagement, internationalization, but also internationalization at home.
00;02;18;08 - 00;02;43;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. So yeah. So yes. And we're going to ask you, what does it mean to teach the whole student? Oh, yes. And I think this is this is particularly important when when we're thinking about international students. There's all there's a lot of us, but also domestic students. There's a lot of ourselves that we bring into the classroom. Do you want to say a little bit more about what internationalization is?
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Speaker 1
Because I know you talk about that a lot because it's not necessarily obvious what that means, although we think it's obvious, it might appear to be obvious, but it's not maybe not so obvious. Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, you're right. So internationalization is from the economic point of view. It's the process of acknowledging that students come from different academic backgrounds, different geographical backgrounds, and that those experiences and both learned and lived are part of the teaching that we are doing so through pedagogical practices, but also classroom environment. But the other aspect of it is not just focus on international students, but also our domestic students.
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Speaker 3
The world is so interconnected, you know, and since pandemic, all of us came to know of it in a more realistic way. But giving students those experiences, the work that they're going to be part of is more diverse, that the knowledge is come from different resources, that there is a world out there where the socio political elements might be different from what we are experiencing.
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Speaker 3
Students travel a lot for both work player and, you know, kind of for other reasons as well. So bringing in all those elements to the classroom, so both the international students and domestic students are exposed to those sources of knowledge but also practices. Does that make sense?
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Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. Really interesting. Yeah, it's that what is internationalization or even just the term international mean for domestic students? And now that's something that isn't so clear. I think, for for us.
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Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I one of the studio courses that I did in the beginning, I challenged the faculty to think about not the way international is defined in the academic settings from geographical point of view, but also that all students by way of living in this world are international students in one way or the other. So how do we bring that to the classroom?
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Speaker 3
Yeah, so that it's contextualized, both like the immediate context, but also kind of the wider context.
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Speaker 1
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So teaching the whole students, which is why we're here today, we're going to ask you, what does that mean and what's our what might be? Why is it important? What might be some of the stakes for teaching to the whole student or encouraging the student to bring their hostels into the classroom?
00;05;41;06 - 00;06;13;11
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's such a whenever I think about the whole student and I kind of think about, you know, the practices that are now, but also thinking, thinking about students in a way that they are they're not just number in the classroom, but they are human beings with experiences and with prior knowledge and with cultural characteristics and with ways on how they learn or how they have been taught to learn.
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Speaker 3
So the whole student approach to learning, I would say that it's a teaching philosophy, but it focuses on students intellectual, emotional and physical wellbeing. And we're doing that quite a bit. You know, in our classrooms we are talking about accessibility and accommodation and we are talking about how students react to different things that are happening either in their live on on campuses, but also their intellectual wellbeing.
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Speaker 3
Because a lot and as well as their academic wellbeing. Mm hmm. So what happens in the classroom is not to kind of critique of worldly is mostly about academic excellence and not so much about intellectual, emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual, kind of all those elements. Right? So the whole student would be all those elements in, in teaching and kind of exploring their intersections, but also letting students discover, you know, how they how they learn and be them who they want to be as they graduate, you know.
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Speaker 3
So I wouldn't say use the word effective or impactful, but how they would like to contribute to the society as they graduate. Yeah, something like that.
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Speaker 1
Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Um, and I also think that why we would do it. Like, why teaching the whole student as important is that it takes the student beyond the textbook, beyond the content. So it's about understanding themselves, developing a sense of purpose in in their work that they do at the end. Why am I learning this? How am I going to be applying this to my future learning or other courses?
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Speaker 3
They actively participate in their own learning. So, for example, how they get engaged in group discussions, group projects for that matter, how they interact and communicate with their with their peers. But then also they leave university, which is what we are kind of lacking a little bit at the moment, is with a sense of greater personal development.
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Speaker 1
Mm hmm.
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Speaker 3
So that I hear a lot like I that students would say, oh, I didn't learn that at the university until I went to do a co-op or until I started my work. I wasn't taught this.
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Speaker 1
Mm hmm.
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Speaker 3
So, yes, it's it's kind of bringing, um, bringing those, you know, students strengths, building on their existing skills. Um, how do I. How do we as instructors, situate our teachings in their own lives? Because that would make it relevant, right? Mm hmm. Um, acknowledging the impact of culture. Yeah. You know, um. And then assessing growth in different learning experiences, not just by some metrics that we have.
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Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. And also different types of growth. Yes. In those different realms.
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Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. So we're not just talking about. Yeah. Academic growth. Right. And one thing before I kind of handed back to you, I was just reading this this morning about those that can students be whole unless educators are.
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Speaker 1
Oh, what a question. Right. Wow.
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Speaker 3
Okay. Yeah. Back to you.
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Speaker 1
That is. That's so interesting. Yeah. So it's it's we're talking about teaching the whole student, but this is that's such an interesting provocation because it is it is the other side of the coin, you know, teaching the whole student is also teaching with the whole self is that the two things depend on one another. Ooh, that's so.
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Speaker 2
Yeah. And how can you expect students to engage that way if you're not able to yourself as the instructor. Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Yeah.
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Speaker 1
Right. Yeah. Well, that's that'll be a fascinating future podcast. So it was a bit of a tease out.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, it kind of intrigued me as well because yes, students are the recipient of whatever we are doing. Right.
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Speaker 1
Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Um, and it's kind of but at the same time, it's a, it's a three way relationship that there are instructors and teachers and there are students. And the environment that we exist. And so how are these dots connected to each other? Yeah. Right. That'll make the whole picture, right?
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Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I'm wondering now about we talk a lot about teaching in a culturally responsive manner or culturally responsive teaching with which is a, I think, a distinct teaching framework. How would you relate the to sort of teaching the whole student CRB? Is there are there differences? Is it is it is it similar? What's what's the relationship between those two terms?
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Speaker 3
Yeah, it's very interesting. Like even the pedagogy of internationalization, internationalization of curriculum, culturally responsive pedagogy or culturally responsive teaching and then intercultural teaching competency, the framework that I have recently started working on. So Gloria Ladson Billings in the nineties, so it's not new. She was the one who coined the term CERP, the culturally responsive pedagogy, then Geneva game later, I think in the nineties, but also in the early 2000s.
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Speaker 3
She brought the framework of how culturally responsive pedagogy could be done. But if we look at kind of this holistic definition of all these frameworks and that integral to teaching competency, Chicago and London under Demetrius of the West Room in Canada. Um, that these are teaching philosophies, methods, frameworks, practices that use students experiences, characteristics, their perspectives and customs to improve classroom instruction.
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Speaker 3
Some of the strategies could be building relationships and that and we hear that in indigenous ways of knowing as well. We hear that and internationalization of curriculum and culturally responsive pedagogy. But when we talk about this whole student, how do you know your own student unless you build that relationship right. And kind of when students arrive we were talking about just before the podcast about adult learning, um, that how do we activate prior knowledge?
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Speaker 3
What do they know about the topics that we bring to the classroom. Right. And then validated acknowledge it as well. Mm hmm. Um. Making learning contextual. Mm hmm. What is it about? Where is it about? How does it apply? How our students connected to it?
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Speaker 1
Where did it come from?
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Speaker 3
Where did it come from?
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Speaker 1
Its legacy.
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Speaker 3
The big question. Yes, um, Yvette Jackson, I think from Columbia. She talked about pedagogy of confidence so that the instructor comes with this confidence that all students can learn. They each get to that learning in a different way, but walk in the classroom with the confidence that students are going to learn. And that would make a lot of things easier because then we will start asking questions about why the learning is not happening while learning is happening in this way, how they're applying the knowledge and kind of all those things, right?
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Speaker 3
And then also thinking kind of bringing in those stories of how students use their cultural capital. Students learn by storytelling, students learn by kind of connecting to their own past history progression, you know, kind of allowing them to bring in that that capital of knowledge to to the classroom as well. Right. Talking about diverse perspectives, resources, you know, so much.
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Speaker 3
And one thing that kind of intrigues me is that try to vary teaching methods. It's like I'm going to experiment this new thing in the classroom and see how it goes. It's going to taking that risk on part of off the instructors as well and see how it goes. Right. Um, so yeah, so these would be different tenants and you would find like a lot of intersections do probably, you know, kind of the work both of you do, you know.
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Speaker 3
Oh yeah.
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Speaker 1
Right, definitely. So there's.
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Speaker 3
Lots. Yeah, it's kind of finding that those connections within the portfolio, like one of the things that I am kind of these days and I'm working with another educational developer closely and we're, you know, share a lot of what we are working on in winter with with Dell community is how is our work connected to each other and how that can be that can help students understand and making you know that connections can be made through different disciplines, through different learnings.
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Speaker 1
Oh yeah.
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Speaker 3
A kind of that.
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Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.
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Speaker 2
I was just going to say I really like this part of the conversation because what I'm hearing and I love experiencing this and I do experience it all the time, what I'm hearing is that there are these kind of similarities across all of these different kinds of things that we're trying to incorporate into our teaching practice. And so those exactly are the things that you need to look for so that you're not like trying to teach the whole student and trying to do intercultural competency and trying to do culturally responsive pedagogy and UDL and, and, and like that sounds like a lot of things, but when there's these through lines that hit all of those
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Speaker 2
things. Yeah. Those are.
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Speaker 3
Yeah.
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Speaker 2
That's really, that's like a sign to you that it's a really high value practice that you can incorporate. Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 1
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Very interesting that you're saying that kind. This is this is kind of what you know, I've recently started working on that all these things that are introduced to frameworks and pedagogies because faculty are either interested in or they've been mandated to or, you know, they they just need to because this is what they are faced with in their classrooms.
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Speaker 3
But but it's not like it's not a it's not a menu of pedagogies.
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Speaker 1
Mm hmm.
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Speaker 3
Right. It's actually a very tasty hodgepodge of. So it's like it's like a potluck. Yes, it's like a potluck. So it's like well, end up with helping the student develop wholesomely. Mm hmm. But we don't need to kind of do one thing and the other thing or one thing or the other thing. So it's something beyond and in or it's like, you're already doing this.
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Speaker 3
You just need to be probably a little bit more intentional about it. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. To continue to develop in the ways that are already exist organically in your practice. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Absolutely. It's very interesting. So I have our last question for you and maybe it's two questions and one, what could faculty and instructors on campus come to you with or what kind of questions do people come to you with and or what are some of the techniques or strategies or even risks that are experiments that you've helped faculty and instructors take in their in their classrooms?
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Speaker 1
So what can people do with you, Shazia, when they visit the center and they want it, they say, I want to see Shahzia. What what can happen?
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Speaker 3
Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Interesting question. So kind of this reincarnation of me as an academic, professional and becoming like a full time educational developer. That wasn't easy in the beginning because I was a full time classroom instructor or a curriculum developer, or I knew if I was working with the faculty that this is what I'm working on. But now it's like those, you know, kind of paths that have already been carved.
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Speaker 3
I'm walking on them, but I'm leading them to different other directions as well.
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Speaker 1
Yeah, interesting.
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Speaker 3
So it's not only some of the questions that faculty would come in. So I'll take that first. For example, if they have students who are either culturally diverse or learn differently.
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Speaker 1
Mm hmm.
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Speaker 3
Or. Or faculty feel the need to assess students in multiple ways. And they're like, my students are doing really good at writing, but when it comes to multiple choice questions, they're not. Mm hmm. So I would work with them. So, for example, I work with someone in the faculty of nursing, and we looked at the language of the questions.
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Speaker 3
We look at how the student takes those questions. What is it that they are reading, right? What can be brought to the fore so that they know that this is what is being asked of them? So it's kind of changing the way things are presented to students. Other things are that they are engaged in international projects or are collaborating internationally.
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Speaker 3
They would be like, I'm going to be teaching a group of you know, international students or international partners globally. How can I do that with with the existing resources? So I go in and and work with them on that. But then I also try to like seasonally. So the flavor of the season is intercultural teaching competency. And that's what I'm taking in different places, integrated with universal design for learning.
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Speaker 3
So it's like language that they already know. For example, they know would universal design for learning is then talking to them about intercultural teaching competency, giving them these strategies and tools that they can implement in their classroom, how they're looking at academic integrity, how they are supporting their students through workload, preparation of classrooms, you know, kind of the exams and such.
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Speaker 3
How they're presenting their course outline. Mm hmm. I wrote something on humanizing core syllabus outline.
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Speaker 1
That's right. Yeah, it's a blog and focus. Yes. Yeah. Link to it. And yeah. Description marks and.
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Speaker 3
And it's kind of bringing bringing that human approach to our work as well. Mm hmm. Well, with one of the props I worked with, they had a lot of assessments because they're doing a lot of work. And I was like, Do they all have to be graded? Can some of them be just proficiency assessments? So it's looking at those alternative ways.
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Speaker 3
So there are different things that the faculty come to me for. I've recently got a request and I'm going to do work in January with one faculty on language proficiency of students. We know that they are first generation English has an additional language speakers, students.
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Speaker 1
Right.
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Speaker 3
There are programs that don't have language requirement, but the students end up in these programs who don't speak English as their first language. It's just like, what do I do? Yeah, because it's it may be different for faculty. So I would say if there is something in the classroom that is happening and you are you're uncomfortable with, you're like, I don't know how to do it.
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Speaker 3
Yeah. Because I have students that I had never before counted. Garcia. Right. And we'll figure out how we can do it. Um, so, yeah, that's some of the work that I'm doing. A lot of work is also about how students communicate with each other as well.
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Speaker 1
Yeah. Big thing.
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Speaker 3
Yes. Yeah. And developing awareness for domestic students to be mindful, respectful, open to difference so that that kind of comes into play. But the world that we live in, I think it's important that students are socio politically globally aware. I recently kind of give you an example of I recently did a lecture with sustainability students and here's what in sustainable policy development.
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Speaker 3
Listening to Diverse Voices. So we talked about kind of the geopolitical aspects of it as well. I brought in a few things that they were intrigued by and, you know, kind of the way sustainability or sustainable living is viewed in the West opposed to what it is globally. Yeah. While the decisions are being made in certain places. So yeah, it's kind of it's provoking that critical thinking that can be done through these different pedagogical frameworks.
00;25;29;05 - 00;26;03;26
Speaker 1
Yeah. Amazing. That was a very nourishing Tuesday morning chat. We're so happy to have had you here, Shazia. Get a little glimpse into your work. Yes. Excellent. And very diverse work you do. You do. And think a lot of things. And the Kates definitely encourage all of our listeners to send Shazia a line. If you're. Yeah, if you have any kind of struggle in the classroom, can.
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Speaker 3
I plug in my studio courses, please?
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Speaker 1
Plug it. Yes.
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Speaker 3
So hopefully in spring I am designing as I speak right now a studio course to kind of bring these different pedagogical aspects from a critical thinking point of view. So I'm going to look at critical thinking, not from Western point of view, but all these how it's positioned in different pedagogical principles. So it's going to be about if you want your students to be critical thinkers.
00;26;43;26 - 00;26;45;20
Speaker 3
This course is going to be for you.
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Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh. I can't wait to hear more about this. Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Yeah. We're going to look at indigenous perspectives. We're going to look at universal design for learning. We're going to look at intercultural teaching competency. What kind of thinking? Yeah, it's it's kind of opening doors with a critical thinking that sits on a lot of rubrics. Yes. And problem raising it got be funny.
00;27;15;06 - 00;27;25;15
Speaker 1
So excited about that. Yeah. If think if ever there was a black box of something that we just haven't poked hard in a while. It's critical thinking.
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Speaker 3
And and I think it follows nicely to your relational your course through the.
00;27;33;00 - 00;27;53;05
Speaker 1
Relational course design. Yes sounds like a wonderful yes sort of I don't know. Follow up. Oh, sister course. Yes. So exciting. So that is spring 20, 25. Yes. There will be information on our website. Yes. Thank you so much, Shazia. So happy to have you.
00;27;53;05 - 00;27;54;18
Speaker 3
Thank you so much for having me.
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Speaker 1
Thank you.
00;27;56;03 - 00;27;57;27
Speaker 3
Bye bye.
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Speaker 2
Thank you for listening to the Keats Discuss podcast. We would like to thank Kip Johnson for creating our music, and Jake Nissen, our producer.