Plus One Podcast Episode 1 Jennifer Lynch

So, welcome to the +1 Podcast, and today is the first episode, and I'm thrilled to welcome a lady, Jennifer Lynch, who I got to know over the last couple of years and has actually been the inspiration for this podcast. She's going to talk about some of her work today, and particularly the area of Universal Design for Learning, UDL, and that's where the name for the podcast came. So UDL incorporates this idea of +1, and Jen is going to perhaps tell us about that and some other aspects of UDL today. So welcome, Jen. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Hi, Joe. How are you?

Super, I'm good.

Very honoured. I don't know how to follow that.

Well, I mean, I thought you had to be the first person on the podcast because, as I say, you brought me into UDL and it's where the podcast has come from.

So you're another one of my disciples that I've brought along.

Absolutely, that's it. So, I mean, cue everybody up to just tell us who's Jen Lynch and kind of what's your journey into education, I suppose, and into this whole area?

Yeah, so I suppose I returned to education as a mature student, actually, and I always wanted to do a degree. So, like, my background is as a dental nurse. I was a dental nurse for a long time, and what I always had this, I suppose, draw inside me that I really wanted to a degree, and to be honest with you, I never felt clever enough or academic enough to do a degree the first time round. And then when I was in my 30s, I decided to go back to education, so I did a degree in English and History. And as soon— well, actually, I did an Access course first of all, and as soon as I did the Access course, I thought, oh, This is me, this is me. I found my tribe, and I just wanted to teach adults. So I did my degree, and then I did my H Dip. So when I left university, first, I suppose I thought I kind of wanted to get away from dental nursing altogether. But the funny thing was, like, I suppose life has a way of kind of bringing you back to things. And I came across an advertisement as a dental nursing teacher. So I thought, oh, okay. So I ended up working in Marino College of Further Education. So I've been working there for the past 5 years. So it's kind of been really great. Well, before I started in Marino College, I worked in the disability sector as well. So I worked in the National Learning Network. So I was like career guidance there, and I also worked as a support teacher. So that was a huge kind of, I suppose, inspiration for me at the start of my career. It was a great kind of learning for me. It really taught me— I'm so grateful for being in the disability sector and, you know, seeing the innovation behind the disability sector. It's definitely a different pace to what I'm doing at the moment, either, you know, in the further education sector, but definitely when I see the way teachers teach in the disability sector. And I suppose, you know, that's the whole thing with the UDL. That's what kind of encouraged me to start looking at the UDL. It was, how do you bring everybody through, you know, a program altogether, you know, people with different needs? So to start having that, I suppose, on, you know, having that educational journey at the very beginning of my career has been quite, I suppose, it's, you know, it's kind of set me up to be the teacher that I've turned out to be, I suppose.

Yeah, and that's quite a teacher. I mean, last year you won the John Kelly Award for Universal Design for Learning. Tell us a little bit about that and what is Universal Design for Learning to start with, and then what's all this award, you know, how did that come about?

Well, if I'm being perfectly honest with you, I kind of found UDL by mistake. I thought I was signing up for a different course, and I signed up for UDL. So to be honest, I had no idea about UDL. And when I signed up for the course, and when I was accepted onto it, I thought, oh God, I better go and find out about this course. But as soon as I read about UDL, my mind was blown. I thought, this is just amazing. absolutely amazing. So UDL, as you know, Joe, because you're one of my disciples, Universal Design for Learning, it's how you— I suppose it's how the brain works and how everybody's brain is different and how we all learn differently. So I think that's really important for us as teachers and lecturers to understand that everybody learns differently. So it's really about offering students choice. And if you think about when you're, I suppose, designing a building, you don't just design a building with steps up to it, you know. If you look at, you know, universal design, you're going to design a building with a ramp up to it as well. And what that does is that's like, it's part of an inclusion process. So that will help not only people with, you know, a disability, but also like the elderly or, you know, a pregnant woman. with a pram. So that's the whole premise really around Universal Design for Learning. It's that, you know, it's like designing a curriculum for everybody and to offer people choice in the curriculum as well. So I actually was really intrigued by it, and in fairness, I think a lot of people kind of do UDL without thinking about it or realizing there's a framework about it.

Yes.

So that's why I thought When I did the course and I did win the John Kelly Award, and the reason I suppose that— one of the reasons I won it is that I kind of combined my journey with another education, which was actually the National Learning Network. So I overlapped a module that I was teaching with a module in the National Learning Network, and I kind of wanted to bring all the students kind of through with the help of the other tutor that was involved as well. So it was a really It was a really kind of, I suppose, exciting and innovative process that we kind of went through together.

So tell us about the course before UDL. So what were you teaching and who were you teaching it to? You know, tell us who the students were and then tell us what, when you applied UDL, what did you do differently or make changes?

Yeah, so I suppose what I applied it to, so the courses that I do in the further education, so we do like level 4 Level 5, and Level 6 courses. And I suppose, you know, you're kind of doing a Level 6 course, and for a couple of years I was kind of frustrated by maybe people going from a Level 5 to a Level 6 and kind of—

And for people who don't know what Level 4, 5, 6 are, I mean—

It's on the QQI framework, so Level 4 would be like a return to learning, So it's kind of like, I suppose, maybe the Junior Cert. Level 5 is like the equivalent of the Leaving Cert, and then Level 6, it's a higher award. So it's the QQI framework.

Okay, so this is kind of towards the end of school and the beginning of college. It's that kind of— for people who aren't in Ireland, for instance, who are trying to place these things.

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, like, you know, when people finish their Leaving Cert, they can choose to apply to the CAO, which we have— I think in this country we have a bit of an obsession of applying to the CAO and getting into university. Or the other alternative is to do a course in a PLC course. So I suppose what I found was our students were very diverse. So we have students that maybe didn't get enough points to get into university, Yeah. so they have chosen to come back and do a a PLC course, and that's kind of like, that will bring them into university the following year, you know, and there's a progression route there. Or we had students coming back to education after, you know, a long time away from education. So you might have young mothers with kids that will decide, you know what, it's my time now, I want to go back to education. And then you have a lot of you know, foreign national students are coming in and they want to get themselves an education, but English isn't their first language. So if you have, you know, all those different cohorts in your class, how can you bring them all through successfully? And that's where Universal Design for Learning comes in.

So you're not talking about just disabled people, you're talking— I mean, whatever disability means, you're talking about quite a wide spectrum of what, mostly adult or all adult learners?

Yes, I mean, I would say Universal Design for Learning enables people, you know, it's not just for people that are disabled, but we all have some form of disability, every one of us have some disability, and I mean, I wouldn't be fantastic at maths, so I would say that that gives me trouble, you know, in my life, that I can't work out a percentage off the top of my head, and that was something that I struggled with in school, and, you know, maths was wouldn't be. So we all have— and I'm not trying to poo-poo this— but we all have challenges, you know. So whether it's that person who has 2 or 3 kids and they're returning to education, and that's a challenge, you know, for them that they're coming back to education. Somebody that English isn't their first language, somebody that has dyslexia, somebody that has dyspraxia. So how do you offer them an even, a level playing field? And bring people through at the same time.

So, you know, do educators not do that anyway? I mean, is this not built into modern education anyway, that we give everybody a level playing field, or is it something that we still need to do work on?

I think the curriculum is built around this idea of an average student, you know. I think that, you know, module descriptors that we get and we use, it's this idea that people are at a certain level, and this is why they call it Level 4, Level 5, or Level 6. and you're supposed to be at that level, but what happens if you kind of— you're not at that level, you know? How and who are you to say that I'm not at that level, or who am I to say somebody else is not at that level? So again, it's about kind of offering choice to people, and in an ideal world, we'll all sit in a classroom and we'll all be academically the same, but that doesn't happen, you know? And some people, you You know, some people would struggle more academically with some subjects and not other subjects, you know, and some people would struggle with writing English. And I mean, I'm sure you know yourself, Joe, if you sit down to a computer and you're told to write a 2,500-word essay, you know, it takes people a long time to get their head around writing a 2,500-word essay. So why not offer someone the choice? You know, so instead of focusing on the written word, why not focus on a little bit of creativity? So offer the students choice of doing something alternative to that.

So what might be an example of— I mean, what's an alternative to writing the essay? Because, I mean, that's a standard ask these days, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely, and that's the thing. But I suppose an example for that would be the project that I did for the John Kelly Award. So on the module descriptor, it was a 2,500-word essay, and I thought, you know, some of the students, as I said, English wasn't their first language. I had 2 students in my class with dyslexia, that they'd always struggled, and I had a couple of different kind of challenges in the class. So I thought, how can I ask them to do something differently? So what I asked them to do was I gave them the option of doing the 2,500-word 2,500-word essay, or they can choose to present their work as a PowerPoint, and they could talk over the PowerPoint as they're presenting it. Obviously, you have to give them different criteria, so they have to talk for 10 minutes and they have to have 10 slides. That's the equivalent of 2,000 to 3,000 words. So what's the difference between somebody writing it and somebody orally expressing themselves? And sometimes people can orally express themselves a lot, you know, better than what they can, you know, and particularly if English isn't their first language or someone that has dyslexia. So I kind of feel like sometimes offering students choice gives them that freedom, you know, and not focusing on word count makes students actually give you more words, you know.

And I mean, you're also, I suppose, with with something like PowerPoint, for instance, you're engaging visuals, you're engaging imagery and stuff like that, which perhaps uses different learning centres to writing stuff down on a page.

Yeah, I mean, I have to say, even this year with the online learning, a lot of my students this year presented, I'd say, 99% of their work through PowerPoint, and some of the PowerPoints that I received back blew my mind because the creativity involved in it. I was looking at them going, how did they do this? This is amazing. And, you know, as a teacher, I was being taught, you know. I was going back to the students to say, show me how you did that, you know.

Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that a great place to be? I love it when that happens.

Absolutely, it was brilliant. And I mean, I was looking forward to— so instead of getting these, you know, 2,500-word scripts that you're like, oh my God, I've just spent the whole of my Easter correcting it. You're looking forward to receiving this work and seeing how creative your students are. And actually, sometimes your students will get back in contact with you and say, actually, would you mind if I add a little bit more because I missed out on this? So offering them, you know, a creative outlet, yeah, and I think it's really important. So stop focusing on, you know, that narrow-minded 2,500-word written essay, you know, and I think there's more to life than that.

So it seems from what you're saying, and I mean correct me if I'm wrong, are the students themselves feeling more engaged with the material and what they're being asked to do as a result of being given choice?

I think so. I think giving them the freedom to choose definitely, you know, I suppose they they feel like they're authors of their own work, you know. And like, another example that I have is this year, because I teach on the dental programme, I teach on the Level 6 dental programme, reflective practice is very important for our students, and it is in all science subjects. And they have to write a diary entry every single day, and we found that this is really, really taxing. So what we've got them to do is They were— they now have the option of recording their diary entry, either visually or verbally. So, you know how great they are, like, students are on WhatsApp and SoundNotes, and, you know, so we kind of encourage them, pick up your phone and record into your phone and then upload it, and that's worked really, really well. So, and again, you're getting more of the creative side, and I suppose they are the authors of their own story there, I think, you know, and there's not this focus on just sitting down at the end of the day and typing out, you know, a diary that everybody doesn't like doing.

So that sounds a bit kind of like maverick, doesn't it? So you're asking people to use their phones?

Yes, well, I mean, I feel like you know, at this stage in our lives, why are we fighting against technology? You know, why not go with technology? So, and I mean, I've incorporated that a lot this year. Obviously, we've had to be online, but the last couple of years, you know, sitting in a lecture hall and you're watching the student and they're, you know, scanning through Facebook or Instagram, or— so why not use this technology that's in their hands? So, you know, use it to their advantage. So encourage them to take out their phone. You know, we're not the oracles anymore. We don't know everything. And I think we're like— Google has definitely outdone us from that part of it. So encourage them to, you know, participate in the class using technology as much as they can. So, you know, if the technology is there to record notes, record it. You know, why not? You know, if you can take a video— I'm often asking my students for evidence. So if they can take a video of a tray that they've set up in the dental surgery, Why not? Why can't they upload that as evidence? You know, what's to say they can't do it? So I think rather than fight against technology, because I think at this stage of our career, if we're still fighting against technology, you know, it's a losing battle at this stage, you know. So I think encourage rather than, you know, discourage, really.

So going back to something you said a minute or two ago then, so are you not a fan of kind of sage on stage? of you being the fount of all knowledge?

I think that's the worst thing in the world. I suppose the thing— I am the eternal student. I was kind of laughing to myself because although I returned to education in my 30s, I have been doing courses ever since. Since 2011, every year I've been doing courses. So for me, I think, as a teacher, I have a lot of empathy for students, so I don't feel like I know everything about a subject. And one of the first things I always say to my students is, listen, I might know something about this, but I'd really love you to come in and tell me something that you know. So, you know, because I'm dealing with adults on a daily basis, I, you know, you don't know their background, you don't know, you know, what their experience has been, and they might know 100 times more than you do on a specific subject.

Yes.

So why not kind of bring that forward into your class, you know? Why not encourage that, you know, dialogue with them? And instead of me saying to them, I know everything and you know nothing, so you need to sit there and listen to me, it's like, you know, come into the class, show me the new technology, you know, or let me show you something, go off and learn it and come back to me and show me more, you know. And so I don't have to be the expert in everything, and I think that's been a revelation for me as a teacher, that I don't have to be the expert at everything. The students, you know, that they can be just as expert as I can be, you know.

Does that not— I can imagine, and I mean certainly for me, that might be quite scary for some teachers or some educators that that they're in a situation where perhaps their students know more than they do about certain subjects, and if so, does that invalidate me as a teacher? You know, does it make me less important or less viable, if you like, in the role that I see myself in?

Well, listen, I'm sure there's plenty of teachers that will feel like that, but I think the good teachers will never feel like that. I mean, We all love to see somebody in the class, maybe a mature student that knows a lot about something, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, I know personally I do. Like, for example, this year, even in my class, we basically— what we do is in the dental nursing, we train students that have never stepped foot into a dental surgery. They've no experience, so they're going to get work experience 2 days a week. So they're called the PLC students, but then we have Skills to Advance students. And some of these women and girls have been working as dental nurses for 10, 20 years. So who am I to say that I have like all the answers? And I love them coming in and saying to me, oh, we use such and such material, or we find this is great, you know. And, you know, if I kind of got offended every time I was, you know, educated by a student, I think I'd be in the wrong job, to be honest. You know, as I said, I think, you know, really for me, I love being a student, and, you know, I love learning off my students too, you know.

Is this phrase that I've come across kind of reading the literature and being on a few of these courses myself, this co-created learning, is this what you're talking about? Is kind of like it being a journey together rather than a journey where you're telling people to go that way and that's the only way to go.

I think we're all on a journey, aren't we? Like, I think we all— I think education is a journey, you know, and I think if we were lucky enough to be on a journey with our students, you know, we have— I, you know, feel like I have the greatest job in the world sometimes, you know, and I think that if I can be in a class and go on a journey with our students and co-create with our students I think that's fantastic, you know, and every day I go into my job and, you know, I am taught new things. As I said, when you get a PowerPoint presentation that you think, oh my God, I didn't know you could do that, like, that's unbelievable, that makes me curious and that makes me want to go and learn more, you know. It doesn't stop me in my tracks and say, oh, I don't know that, so, and they shouldn't know that, you know. It makes me more curious and I think that Nobody should stop learning. I think everybody should, and I mean, I got this opportunity to go back to education and I'm so grateful for it, you know, and I suppose for me it's to pass that opportunity on to other people, and like, education for me is more than about learning about a specific subject, you know, education is multi-layered, you know, it's about self-esteem, it's about confidence, it's about giving somebody a chance at a new life, you know, and sometimes people take the chances and sometimes the time isn't right for people, that they'll start a course and then they think, actually, this is not for me, and they'll leave. Well, hopefully they'll come back to it, you know, and I think personally for me, education has totally changed my life, you know, totally. Like, I suppose when I went back to education, I'd just gone through like a marriage separation, I had 2 young kids, and I kind of thought, what am I going to do with my life? How am I going to get through this? And I wanted to, I suppose, to make something positive out of something negative, you know, and maybe to inspire. I think maybe for me it was to go back and inspire my kids, but it's just been— I don't think I've inspired them, by the way, at all. But I think for me it's been such a mind-blowing experience, you know, when I look at Jennifer from 2011 to Jennifer now, I don't recognize that person, you know. I will say that's all down to education.

That's amazing. And I mean, whether you've inspired the kids or not, you've certainly inspired me, you know, and seeing what you were doing when we were on our course together with the Innovation Academy and stuff. I mean, that's why we kind of got together and, you know, have done some and working together and stuff as well. So, but I mean, are all your students like super motivated and want to be there and stuff, or do you have to work at this? Because I mean, I guess there's teachers who are listening to this and thinking, you know, the kids in my class don't want to be there, and, you know, they don't want to come on Zoom and nobody will turn cameras on and all this kind of stuff.

Yeah, I mean, I suppose I worked very hard. I worked very hard at the start of the year to, I suppose, bond the students together a lot. And, you know, at the start of the year, even with COVID we could bring the students in for one day a week, and I worked very hard for them to kind of bond with the classroom. And at the beginning of any year, all students, I would say, well, the majority of students are quite motivated. You know, this is something new, you know, they want to change their lives, it's a new challenge for them. And maybe by October or maybe November, you can see people are being demotivated.

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly, and then you can see whose mammy has sent them to do a course or who kind of picked a course not really knowing what it was about. So of course, I mean, look, we all have motivation, you know, moments of motivation and moments of demotivation, you know, but I think online what I found particularly really important this year, and I mean, we did a lot of training actually, myself and yourself, but the importance of getting the students at the beginning of the year to turn on their cameras and be present in the moment. And I think that's the feedback that have come back from my colleagues, is that a lot of people are teaching to blank screens and they find it very difficult, whereas my students all leave on their cameras. But I suppose what I did was I kind of created moments where they wanted to come on, and so you would give them little challenges to do before they came to class, or sometimes what I would do is I would open up the Zoom meeting half an hour early and encourage them to come on with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee.

Right.

So if they wanted to have a chat beforehand, they'd come on. So it was more of a social thing, you know, and like it is— I will have to say it's It's much harder to motivate people online, I will totally agree with you, but it's not impossible to motivate people online, you know, and there is a lot of pastoral care involved, I found this year, you know, there's a lot of kind of checking in on people, making sure they're okay, and whether that's sending an email to say, I'm a little bit concerned I haven't seen you in class, or maybe you've been to class but the camera wasn't turned on, and, you know, so it could be just that little follow-up or, you know, picking up the phone and ringing students, which I've done. I've spent the year kind of doing, because you don't know people's situation, and particularly this year it's been difficult for, you know, mammies, young mammies who've been at home with their children, or maybe somebody was caring for someone at home, or a lot of the kids had you know, part-time jobs that they were trying to keep up with. So, you know, trying to keep people motivated is harder, but as I said, I think it's more pastoral care. That's where that comes into.

Yeah, yeah, and I would agree. I mean, I think as a teacher and an educator myself, if you like, I've always believed that pastoral care is really important in that mix. I know some teachers just want to come in, teach their subject and kind of go home and not necessarily, you know, engage with the students from that perspective. But I think, and certainly in the year that's in it, you know, we're recording this, what, at the end of March 2021, when hopefully the COVID is starting to recede and the vaccines are kicking in. But we're all still working from home, we're all still on Zoom, there's virtually no connection with our students physically at the moment for most teachers and educators, and it's been a difficult year. It definitely has been a learning, hasn't it?

Yeah, and I mean, I think that's maybe, you know, something that the students really miss. It's like, it's the social aspect, and sometimes that's kind of taken for granted. I mean, when you look at the universities and the colleges and these fabulous big campuses and lots of amazing facilities and you know, people can't access that. And there's a reason that, you know, I suppose universities have these fabulous campuses, because it is about bringing students together, and it is— the social aspect is so important. And I mean, like, you know, when I went to university, I made some great friends there, and I'm still in contact with these friends. They're, you know, and we have a Facebook page from our HEICIP that we still keep in contact with. So That was really important. Like, I think we can't underestimate the importance of the students leaving the class and going for a coffee and having a conversation going, did you know what your man was talking about? Joe didn't make any sense in that class. And for someone to say, well, actually, I think this is what he's trying to say. So, you know, sometimes the process, you know, and the thinking doesn't always happen in the class.

No.

Sometimes the thinking can happen Outside the class, you know, and I think that's really important. And I think that's where, look, Zoom can never, you know, Zoom has been a great thing to use this year, but it, you know, it can never kind of take over that. But I think it's really important to use breakout rooms and give the students the opportunity to go in and talk in breakout rooms and, you know, vent if they need to, you know.

You mentioned social media there, you know, Facebook and stuff like that. Have you used any other channels apart from, you know, Zoom, for instance, as part of your teaching and learning?

For this year, so I've used Jamboards a lot this year, like collaborative kind of boards. I have to be honest with you, I'm not great on social media as such. I mean, I do like technology, And, you know, well, for example, Twitter and stuff like that, I'm not great, and I don't really like to use Twitter as a teaching tool. I think at the start of my career I thought, oh, this would be great to use Facebook and Twitter, but I find there's a lot of negativity, you know, with social media. So, but I do like to use collaborative tools. I'm actually doing a course at the moment in NCI.

Nice.

on learning and technology. So that's really interesting as well. But yeah, I mean, I've used a lot of technology this year to try and bring the students together, like, you know, again, as I said, inside the class but also outside the class as well. So to create this collaborative space for them.

So maybe tell us one story about how you've used some kind of technology to help the students. kind of get something, or, you know.

Yeah, so like, I suppose at the start of the year I started to use Jamboards. And, you know, for anyone that has used Jamboards or who hasn't used Jamboards, it's in the Google Suite. And I'm a big fan of Jamboard.

And it's a free tool, Jamboard, is it?

It's a free tool, yeah. It's fantastic, and it's a collaborative board. And I suppose I started at the start of the year using Jamboards, introducing them, and showed the students the benefits of the Jamboards. And then actually, the college got a license for Padlet, so I moved to Padlet as well. So that's exactly more or less the same. I know some people either love Padlet or hate it, but because we had the license for it, I could do everything on it. So what I've used Padlet for this year, and the students loved it actually, was at the end of modules I embedded it onto the page, onto Moodle. So we use a Moodle site, and I kind of used it as an evaluation board, and it was a very public evaluation board, and the students could choose to be anonymous or not. I asked them very specific questions about the course because, again, I wanted to see what I could do better going forward, what they liked, what they didn't like, what I could do better. what they felt like they learned and what they wanted to learn. So I used that, and the students— it took them a couple of days, but once they started to put things up, and from that, that was a really good learning tool for me also, you know, to get that feedback. And then they started to kind of collaborate on that. And then also what I do is I use it as a glossary board as well, Padlet. So I embedded it into Moodle And a lot of, I suppose, the theory, the language that they'll hear this year, you know, be quite scientific. And so I encourage them to investigate words, you know, the first time they hear a word, go off, investigate it, look it up, and put it on the glossary board so we can refer back to it. So that's a kind of a live glossary board, and then they can use that for a revision tool as well. So that kind of worked really well because they could embed YouTube clips They can embed, you know, lots of different websites, so that worked really well as well.

So I suppose you see what terms they're putting up there, so that informs you that that was kind of a knowledge gap that they had.

Absolutely, that's it. And sometimes, you know, when you're online and you're asking people at the end of the class, did everybody understand it, there's lots of people in the class that don't understand it, but they're, you know, that maybe they're too embarrassed to say, well, actually, I didn't get that. But by offering this, they can say, you know, they can kind of put up these statements, I didn't understand that, or, you know, this word I don't understand, so I'm going to go off and investigate it. So that really worked so well this year, you know. Yeah, so that's kind of just one of the technologies. I tried not to overwhelm the students too much with too much technology this year. I think that's one thing I was very mindful of, because although I find discovering technology very exciting and I can see a million ways of using stuff, you know, if a student goes into my class and I'm showing them 5 new platforms and then they go into another teacher's class and they have 5 different platforms, very quickly I think they get very tired.

Yeah.

Yeah, very overwhelmed by it. So this discussion we had at the start of the year in our department and the dental department was that we all agreed to use the same platforms. So we picked 3 platforms that we wanted to use and use it really well, and that we could see potential to use it throughout the year and we could build on it. So the students, you know, they got to use Moodle, they got to use Jamboard, they got to use Padlet, and the other one that we used— I used a lot this year was like EdPuzzle as well. They loved that, you know. YouTube is fantastic. As well. But yeah, I tried, and I think that would be probably a tip I'd probably give teachers: try not to overwhelm students with technology, you know.

Okay.

You know, again, it's like we all assume things sometimes, so we assume people have, you know, access to Wi-Fi and they have access to all these, you know, laptops, and, but often students don't, you know.

Yes, so we've got to be more inclusive and aware of the fact that maybe they only have a phone to come in on.

Absolutely.

Or they only have a tablet to come in on or whatever.

Yeah.

That's super. Right, well, we're kind of 40 minutes in and it's incredible the ground we've covered. I'm just going to kind of ask you a few more specific questions and I know you gave me some information before we started today. So one of the things, one of the questions is, are there any books that we should all read as educators? And I think you put down The Hidden Lives of Learners by Graham Nuttall. So why The Hidden Lives of Learners? Why should we all read that book?

Well, I came across this book actually, believe it or not, when I was in college, when I was in my H-Dip, and I was reading all sorts of books for education. I was reading Ferrer and everyone else. So, but I— this book kind of really stayed with me. And I, I love reading, I read a lot, but the thing about me is I forget, I forget things really quickly. So I'll, I'll never remember the author and I'll never remember the name of the book. But I actually revisited this book, and I never revisit books because I just feel like there's too many books, you know. And but this book really stayed with me, actually. And, um, again, if you look up YouTube, there's a really good clip on YouTube as well about this book as well, but I kind of went back to it when I started in Moreno, and I had it upstairs and I went back. So basically the whole premise of the book is, I suppose, as like, as a teacher, there's 3 areas in teaching, you know. So as a teacher, you go into a class and you have this information that you have to give to your students, so we're focused on the curriculum. We're focused on our module descriptor, we're focusing on, as you said, being sage on the stage and pouring this information into, you know, that's really our job, you know. But the next part of education then is the social aspect, so how much the students learn from each other, you know, so what goes on, you know, with each other, the social aspects. And then the third part of education is when students actually are interested enough to listen to the information the teacher has given, you know, learning through their peers, but how they become independent learners outside as well. So they're interested enough to say, actually, that was something interesting, and so I'm gonna kind of leave, and, you know, I'm gonna go off and do research. And to create that independent researcher is what we all want fundamentally of our students, you know. And again, I just, I loved reading that book. It was just, just some book that kind of stayed with me because, you know, as I said, as a teacher, we think that's our responsibility, is to teach. But as a student, there's so much more to it, you know.

And you seem to build that into your process in a way that you share ideas with your students, but then you give them the opportunity to go off and build on those ideas and come back to a Jamboard or a Padlet or whatever. So that seems to be taking those 3 ideas and incorporating them into your teaching.

Yeah, probably. And I think maybe that's why the book kind of sang to me so much, because remember, I read it as I was doing my HTIP, so I was a student, but I could really see the benefits of it. And I thought, this is actually really great because, you know, I can go in and sit in a philosophy of education lecture and like, what do I actually know about it or what do I want to know about it? So, you know, you can come in and lecture me for an hour, am I interested enough to sit down and have a coffee and talk to my peers about it and then go over to the library and find a book about it?

Mm-hmm.

And so how do you ignite that spark in somebody? And then I suppose that flipped for me then as a teacher because I was on the other side and I wanted to create that independent learner, you know. And I wanted to kind of give people that, you know, that need, you know, to go off and learn, you know, to kind of expand your mind, you know.

Isn't that what real innovative educators do? They act almost as a catalyst, don't they? They're a spark.

Absolutely.

Light the fire, I suppose.

And, you know, Joe, sometimes it's just about, you know, a teacher having a kind word for a student or saying to a student, I believe in you, you know, I can see you're struggling, but I know you're going to be great and I know you're going to, you know, overcome this challenge. I know, look, like a lot of people listen to this, no, that's all well and good, but if you have 40 students in a class, you know, that's hard to do, and it is hard to do, but, you know, it is sometimes just about having that kind word and not criticizing. And, you know, we're so quick to criticize, you know, as human beings, you know. I think it's kind of, it's a really nice thing to offer a kind word to someone, and sometimes as a human being, that's all you need is for someone to say to you, I believe in you, I know you can do this, you know.

Or even just, I see you.

I see you.

Sometimes in a class of 40, a student can feel invisible, can't they?

Absolutely.

I've found that with Zoom particularly. I mean, Zoom lets you call on Yes. I think that's one thing that I've learnt about teaching online this year is I've got everybody's name in their little window at the bottom of the screen and stuff, and so whenever I ask a question, I always say, right, Jen, tell me what you think about whatever, and you've got that connection, which perhaps in a regular classroom, you know, it's early on in the term and you've not learnt everybody's name. And stuff, and you're just kind of pointing at somebody and saying, what do you think about that? And it's not the same, is it?

No, it's— look, it is sometimes a personal touch, you know. It's, as you said, as a student, being seen and being heard, you know. And a lot of people come back to education with such bad experiences, whether they're a 17-year-old that has just literally, you know, like, I spend the first couple of months when I'm teaching and people putting up their hand and saying, you know, Miss, can I go to the toilet? I'd be like, okay, first of all, my name's Jennifer, and second of all, yeah, of course you can go to the toilet, you're an adult. But, you know, when— and I totally get why in secondary school they have to do that, I mean, you know, it's all about discipline and classroom management— but, you know, as an adult, some people return with this negative voice in their head saying, you were never good enough, you're not good enough, you're still not good enough. You know, and sometimes they just need someone to flip that switch and say, you're totally good enough, I can see your potential, you know, you amaze me every day, I can't wait to see your PowerPoint presentations, you know. So I think that's, you know, really important as well.

Fantastic. So I suppose to round off, the podcast is called +1 Teach So what's your actionable plus one, if you like, that you'd like to give the rest of us as educators and as listeners, if you like? What would you like us to do?

Well, again, I suppose because I'm associated with UDL and because I believe in it so much, I would love people to go off and kind of read up about UDL. As I said, just put it into Google if you've never heard of it, and if you have heard of it or if you've done the course, you know, implement one thing, you know, give one form of choice during the year. It doesn't have to be directly related to an assignment, it can be something that you do in the classroom, like look at the framework, see how you can change your teaching, because it really does change your teaching. UDL blow your mind, and it really is. So, you know, that would be my plus one. If you're feeling weary or you feel like, I really want to make a change, you know, I've been doing the same thing for 10 years, you know, my students are very demotivated, what can I do? Look up UDL, you know, and there's great courses that AHEAD and UCD do, and they'll be rolling them out again next year, so, you know, look them up. And, you know, read the framework. It's— that's the other thing about the framework of UDL is anybody can read it. You know, it's so user-friendly. It's in plain English, simple English, that people can have that aha moment and go, oh yeah, actually I really get this.

And it's kind of— it's open as well, isn't it? I mean, they've shared it. They want people to pick it up and run with it.

Yeah, there's so many YouTube clips on it. This, you know, I've done lots of courses online of UDL. I've done CAST courses, and so they do— they want people to spread the word, you know, and get into it. I suppose if I have a plus 2, Joe— am I allowed to have a plus 2?

You're allowed to have a plus 2, yeah.

Yeah, I suppose for me as well, it's never stop learning, never stop being a student, you know. I think there's so much joy in learning and so much joy in feeling like you've achieved something and you've accomplished something and you've learned something new, you know. And like, you know, even in like as an elder teacher, you can still say, actually, that's something new and I didn't know that, you know. And so yeah, keep learning and have empathy for your students, you know. That's the way.

I mean, I'm definitely— Yeah, absolutely.

Look, I'm the biggest procrastinator known to man. I'll do everything to avoid You know, handing in an assignment, or, you know, I know that something's due tomorrow, I better sit down and do it. Like, that's exactly what students do, so we're all the same, you know. So never stop learning.

That's fantastic. Well, look, I think we'll wrap it up there. Thank you so much for giving your time today. I think that's been a great start to the podcast, and I think you've given us some super food for thought. And as always, I've been inspired by listening to you. So thank you very much for coming on.

Thank you for having me on.

Okay, all right, and we will draw a close there. Thank you so much.

Great, thanks.