Instructional Ecology

Hello and farewell, my community. This is the last episode of Season 5 and of the show, Instructional Ecology (for now). Your host considers the arc of the show, the many stories we've heard, and considers the kind of perspective an ending can bring. We touch on learning, failure, growth, uncertainty and new beginnings. I tell a story of how the podcast was part of my recovery and learning to live...

We offer a bookend to the first epsiode of the season. We began with Hameen Shabazz the day he was offered a new position at the college: Student Success Coach. He was joined by three other hires to form the first SSC team the college has had.  I talk with Hameen, Sierra Oliphant, Grace Alger and Kristofer McCoy about their beginnings, how they grew in their roles and as a team. And we talk about...

As we near the end of this season and our show, we talk with another newer member of our teaching and learning community: Dr. Lamar White. Dr. White joined us earlier this year as the Vice President of Student Affairs. He has a vision that depends on great interest in and respect for students beginning their college journey with us.  We talk about his beginnings as a first-generation college stude...

In our second episode with the Building Construction program in the School of Advanced Manufacturing and Skilled Trades, I talk with Professor Ethan Reynolds. Ethan graduated the program and was immediately hired as a professor because of his natural teaching talent and excellent command of the skills he had learned.  Ethan talks about going from student to professor at nineteen years old and what...

In the first of two episodes in our Building Construction program, we talk with Robbie Sharpe, the program director. Robbie talks about how he brings everybody in his complex classes on board, getting buy-in from the start.  Robbie is the definition of a lifelong learner and uses many techniques to help his students learn and therefore succeed. Many of these are based on relational learning, creat...

This story episode follows a professor who changed the foundation of her lifestyle: she moved to plant-based living.  In my conversation with Political Science professor Heather Hawn, we talk about the fear of loss that often accompanies plans for change. As a professor, she often sees this fear in her students and we talk about how starting this journey in her personal life has brought her great...

In this episode, we talk with Geography professor and education abroad program leader Brian Grabbatin.  Brian's discipline offers students new information and perspective on the world around them: in the natural world around the college, in the study of human and physical geography in the classroom and abroad as he takes them overseas to countries they've never visited before.  We talk about first...

In this edition of our story series, we meet and talk with English professor and Pathway Coordinator Kathleen Dunley.  Kathleen is a PhD in English but recently was a raw beginner in her study of German. This conversation has a very close connection between learning and teaching. Kathleen describes how she pulls out all the learning skills she's gathered over the years to succeed in her German stu...

In this episode, we get into the nuance of the difference of being a beginner and beginning something new. We talk with Benjamin Gaston, the college’s Dean of the School of STEM; someone who has a complex brief that includes oversight of multiple departments and many employees, both faculty and staff. Benjamin is an engineer by training and trade and taught for the college before moving into admin...

We continue with our story series with English professor Sylvia Hayes. Sylvia talks to us about beginning a small market farm with her husband: Love and Honey Farms. We hear about aquaponics and raising ducks, turkeys, lots of chickens, and goats. Hear the story of the first time Sylvia midwifed the birth of twin goats! We explore the benefits she sees of helping new students build a supporting co...

In the summer of 2024, the college gained a new president: Dr. Gregory Little. At the time of this conversation, Dr. Little was in a moment of great beginnings: beginning his first college presidency and his time at a new institution and being in the process of meeting many new people and work partners.  We talk about what drew him to this new part of his career and what his first weeks were like....

We begin our story series for this season: I Am Beginning. As we shine the spotlight on beginning, this story series showcases some of the beginnings that are happening at the college right under our noses but that might not be visible. This story series features people from all around the college telling the story of something new they’ve recently begun, something at which they were a compete beg...

Sandra Jackson is the Chair of the MTC Commission, the college's highest governing body, whose members are appointed by the governor of South Carolina. She also began her higher education journey here at the college. She joins us to tell her personal origin story when, at 17, she was denied the career she wanted because her widowed mother could not afford to send her out of a state to the program...

We're so back. Our first episode opens the new season by following the flow from a season on failure and a season on the skills of learning to learn. Failures usually force new beginnings. And being a "good beginner" is definitely a distinct and important set of skills in a learning journey. What if we made these truths more visible in our instruction? This episode begins an extended inquiry into...

Hello, again! Season 5 is about to begin! Listen in to find our the topic and some of the guests we'll be talking to in our new season. Join us for new voices and stories and explorations into teaching and learning.

Josh Vincent, Art professor and guest in episode 13, asked several of his classes to think about the meaning and experience of failure. He created a dropbox in his classes so that students could anonymously submit their ideas.  In this bonus episode, Josh reads his students' thoughts, jokes, and meditations on how they experience failure in Art classes. We consider their ideas, respond, and think...

In our season finale for Season 4: Facing Failure, we have a conversation with Art professor Josh Vincent about the inevitability of failure in ceramics classes and the joy the intertwining of success and failure can bring. We’re at the stage of a journey through the underworld where we have returned to hearth and home. We sit back among our family and friends and tell our stories of suffering and...

We begin to think about return from the underworld. In myths of journeys to the underworld, the protagonists must always figure out how to return alive. So, what’s the trick to allow you return safely and bring whatever treasure or knowledge back with you to use in life on the surface, in the sunlight?  Today, we spend time with a part of the college that depends on constantly engaging attempt and...

Instead of a story of failure, today’s episode is a story of grief. It is a literal story, a work of fiction, based on an actual event. I’m in conversation with English professor Andrea West because when I was asking anyone who came within earshot of me about whether there was a place for loss and grief in higher education, she said something unusual. She said, well, I think there’s a story we cou...

Hello, my community. Your host will be out on medical leave for a few weeks, so the Failure season will experience a short delay. Listen in for details.

This episode is another chance for us to consider the emotion around failure, which most of our instructional community acknowledges is something that higher education would really rather avoid dealing with. The guiding question is: what is the place for loss and grief in higher education?  We return to three voices about failure: Professor Elena Martinez-Vidal, counselor Cyntrell Legette and, fro...

This is our final stand-alone failure story of the season. We added this story series to this particular season because we found that a number of faculty and staff are quietly telling students their own stories of failure. We want to amplify and encourage this thoughtful practice. With this episode, we’re going straight to the top of our college to our current college president, Dr. Ronald Rhames....

The next FSL Common Read Zoom is January 26th and we'll be talking about Chapter 4: Expectations Matter! Here, the authors define what they mean by establishing and effectively communicating high expectations and we look at a few of the questions our community can take up from the book. These questions may guide our conversation on the 26th so this is a jump start! Text from pages 47, 48 and 58.

Happy new year, my community. Today’s episode is the first of a pair that brings our questions of this podcast season to administrative leadership. I wondered – what does failure look like from that vantage point? Instead of looking at student success on an individual level, on a class level or even a program level? What if we looked at it from a holistic, institution-wide context from the adminis...

In our third story of failure for the season, on the shortest day of the year, we spend the core of the year with someone who is at the core of this season. William Golston is an advisor for the School of STEM and has been thinking about our questions since last season when he and Professor TJ Kimel shared with us how they talk about their own failures with students.  In this story episode, we hea...