Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Professors, instructors and educators, class is in session. I am Dr. David Heredia, professor of English and communications and I'm here joined by my co host, Dr. Amy Lund.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Of the philosophy department.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: And we are here to film our first episode of the Excellencia podcast of teaching and learning. Your go to source for practical tips, fresh ideas and deep dives into what really works in the college classroom. So grab your coffee and let's talk teaching.
I'm thrilled to welcome today's guest, Dr. Adam Hopfield, professor of philosophy from Miami Dade College, Kendall Campus. Dr. Adam Hopfield has been teaching philosophy at Miami dade College for nine years. Originally from California, he earned his PhD at the University of Miami, writing his dissertation in epistemology of perception. In his personal life, he reads lots of books, drinks lots of coffee, dabbles in the Python program language, and is awaiting the birth of his first child in April. Be sure to come to his Kindle Arts and Letters day talk on the philosophy of metal music. Welcome, Adam. How are you today? Adam?
[00:01:16] Speaker C: Hi David. Hi Amy. Great to be here with you.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Hi Adam.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Awesome. We're happy to be here and kind of just have this nice conversation on teaching and learning. So I guess to kind of start this conversation, what brought you to teaching?
[00:01:30] Speaker C: Ah, that's a great question. Well, that answer has to involve what brought me to philosophy, because what brought me to teaching ultimately was an addiction to thinking about philosophy and the joy of sharing it with people that I say would be the simplest way of answering it. Right. As I grew up wanting to study philosophy. Philosophy, actually when I did my undergraduate degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I was originally a political science major. And then we read some philosophy of politics and social philosophy and I realized that those questions animated me more because I was confused about how society works and why it works well when it works well and when it breaks down and doesn't work so well. And that turned me on to what we call continental philosophy, like existentialism and post structuralism, which very confusing stuff that I don't understand. But it brought me to logic and philosophy, language and epistemology, and I just loved it. And I wanted a career that gave me an excuse to just keep reading as much philosophy and thinking about as much philosophy as possible. And if you want to continue to learn about something, teaching it is a great reason to keep learning.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Awesome. That's great. I love that. Let me ask you, and this is just a random question, was there ever a professor who you had in your journey that maybe sort of inspired you to maybe go into teaching? Or was this something that you just kind of just due to the exposure to the content, it just kind of ignited inside you? What was it that really.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: They were professors.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: They were professors.
[00:03:06] Speaker C: One professor in particular, he taught my philosophy of science class. Dr. Paul Roth. Yeah. In Santa Cruz. Just the passion that he brought to it, just watching him teach and how much he enjoyed the teaching. And then I also just really enjoyed the content. And I don't. Well, maybe I still do this, but he was a pacer while he taught. He would just pace back and forth in front of the whiteboard. And I definitely do that. I think I maybe, like, modeled that off of him, maybe even if just unconsciously. But that's something that I think about is the teacher as somebody who has to be a model for the students. Not a. I mean, maybe we use the word role model, but I'm thinking more of, like an intellectual model. Somebody who goes up there and goes through the thought process to understand the material, which involves a little bit of acting. Right. Because I already get it. And sometimes I'll go up there and I'll teach and I'll pace back and forth, and I'll act more confused than I really am in order to then go through the thought process that I think my students must be thinking in order to then get to that conclusion. And sometimes I'll even realize, oh, I actually am confused. Like, I thought I understood this, but, oh, there's actually this problem to, say, personal identity or to the question of skepticism, that there's this, like, dimension to the problem that I didn't appreciate previously. And so that just goes to show you, if you want to keep learning about something, teaching it is absolutely a great career choice.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: I like what you said there, because I also find that so much of our job is making students realize there's a problem or a complication, because a lot of times they would prefer the world to be unproblematic and uncomplicated. And I think the pacing sort of is reflective of what you want them to be doing intellectually, too, is kind of like walking through an idea. And my favorite pacing professor one time paced so much that he paced his foot right into a metal garbage can.
It took, like, 10 minutes to get it off of his foot. And that was. I. That's a very strong memory for me, is how funny it was to watch him fumble. Poor guy.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the. The getting up and walking around the classroom is key because it's almost like the. The academic environment. Right. You always have this podium Almost like this barrier, this computer that is easy just to kind of like sit behind. And it just creates this barrier between you and the students. So I think when you get up, when you walk around, I like to walk around the back and kind of just flip the entire model on them. You know, when they're just like looking at me, especially if they have their computers out, they're just like, hey, what's he doing? You know, and it just creates more of a, I think, a friendly conversation where you kind of become one of them, you know, And I think students tend to like that. So that's cool. Thank you for bringing that up. All right, so we're going to go ahead and go over a few other things. How long have you been teaching here at the college?
[00:05:59] Speaker C: It's my ninth year, if you include my adjuncting, which was actually at Wolfson. Okay. And then I adjuncted here at Kendall for about a year and then got the full time job back in 2018.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Awesome. So you have a little bit of adjunct experience. I think that's something that we can, you know, kind of bring into the conversation too. How was it to go from being an adjunct to a full time professor?
[00:06:22] Speaker C: I was grateful for it.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:24] Speaker C: It was better being a full time professor.
I started adjuncting while I was still a graduate student at the University of Miami.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:33] Speaker C: Because you can start adjuncting once you have your master's, which I actually, once I qualified for the master's, they didn't just give it to me. I had to go like, jump through some hoops and be like, oh, well, you have to like, sign these papers to get this. But I did that because I knew that I wanted to start teaching to get that experience.
Yeah. How is it different to teach full time versus this? Adjuncting?
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: I was going to say you're less stressed, but I don't think that's true.
You go from teaching one or two classes to teaching. I teach six classes because I teach that overload. And it forces you to streamline the techniques you use to reach your students because you realize, oh, I can't just wing it every time. Which sometimes you do as an adjunct or just you do it when you're in your early teaching career where you realize, I have to go teach for an hour and 15 minutes, but I don't think I can talk for more than 20 minutes expertly on this sort of stuff. But now in my ninth year, I teach these online classes that are three hours long and I just talk for three hours straight.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: I mean, I'LL do a breakout session every once in a while with my students. But, like, oh, I actually definitely do have, like, more than three hours content in, like, a given lecture. I mean, definitely one of the big changes of moving from adjuncting to full time is I don't think it's about the full time move so much as. It's just that now you're just doing it so much more that you quickly develop all these different lines of thoughts. And instead of thinking about, oh, how do I fill up the time, it now becomes, how do I pare things down? Like, what's actually the core ideas I need to get to, and which techniques have I used that really make it sink into the student?
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, definitely. I like the idea of streamlining and just being able to give it more thought is definitely key. So, yeah, absolutely. That's great. So you've been teaching for nine years. I'm sure you've had multiple experiences with students and with classes. What are some important skills students need to be successful in today's classroom or specifically in your classroom?
[00:08:36] Speaker C: Well, I'm glad you. You're asking me that question because I think reading comprehension is such an important skill that, I mean, I think of maybe, I wonder to what extent this resonates with you. But I think of my philosophy class as kind of just a reading comprehension class. But instead of reading about Huckleberry Finn, we're reading about social contract theory or about Aristotle's ethical theory. But the primary task, before you even start to evaluate, hey, do I think Aristotle's views are correct? Like, what do I find inspiring and what do I feel wrong about them is just understanding what he's saying. Right? Something that I address in my class, because I think this is part of the obstacle to reading comprehension is when you read, it's like a meeting of two minds, right? You have the author's mind that's coming through the words on the page. But then you also have, of course, your own mind that's making all your own interpretations and associations and emotions with what you're reading. But those kind of meld together in your head. And I think just something that students need to practice, which is like a mega cognitive skill, is teasing apart their own thoughts and interpretations from what the author's literally saying, which is in some ways, I think it's been so long since I've been in a high school English class. But I suspect that's kind of almost the opposite of what happens in a high school English class where they are teaching you to make your own connections, to make your own interpretations on some Robert Frost poem. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. In nonfiction, in philosophy, you have to just first literally understand what is the author actually saying so that you can evaluate it properly instead of evaluating. Just what's the word I want to use here? Like a straw man. Just the way that you've interpreted it, right?
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that that's something that students are struggling with. And I come from college prep, which was basically developmental education. And I used to teach a course when I first started that was just reading. It was REA 0017. REA 007. And that's what we focused on. Metacognition, how to break down tax.
And now, unfortunately, that's not. Doesn't really exist anymore for our students. They're all coming in, and they're going straight into comp one and comp two. So as comp one and comp two, I talk to a lot of my colleagues, and we do a lot of that remediation and that metacognition and that main idea and the inferencing and all those skills that are so important that students need. So it's just so refreshing to hear someone who doesn't come from that background still value the importance of that, you know? And I think if that's one thing that professors can grab from this conversation, like, that would be such a gold nugget.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah. When Adam asked about it, I realized, I think when I first started teaching, however many years ago, I probably would have resented being told I should teach reading to my students.
And now I see what passes for reading these days and realize they really. I can't teach any of my philosophical goals without teaching them how to read. And so there's a movement called the slow reading movement.
And I always thought, oh, well, a student, if they feel like they're smart, they feel like they can read fast. And I've had to really make them investigate that assumption and say, look, if you're gonna get everything you want out of reading, you have to practice slowing down and actually reading and re reading sentences. You can't do philosophy and read a sentence one time.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: The chances that you're going to get it are close to zero. And it's sort of meant that way because it's complicated stuff. So in my class, I actually reward them pretty heavily for slow reading by using an app called Perusal. And I find that having them read socially goes a long way toward them actually committing to doing the reading. In a meaningful way.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Awesome. Here's a question, since we're on the topic of reading. Do you find that your students do the readings before coming to class, or are you facilitating the reading in the classroom?
[00:12:44] Speaker B: For me, it's a little bit of both. They never used to do the reading before they came to my class.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: And then it was so much harder than I anticipated. But I took my syllabus, and I moved it around a little bit. So the reading assignments that are for a grade are due before they show up in the classroom. And now more of them. They maybe haven't done slow reading or deep reading, but their eyes have been on those pages, and that's. It's a much nicer place to start from.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, no, that's. That's definitely important stuff.
So, moving on, any other skills that you think that students need to have to be successful in the classroom? What comes off the top of your head?
[00:13:26] Speaker C: You know, I don't think it's a skill.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: I think it's an attitude.
Maybe it's maturity or confidence. I mean, and I tell my students this, the very first lecture of class. The number one reason why students fail my classes is they just don't turn things in. Right? That's just zeros. Just think you're great. And I just let them know that right away.
And I think our students are incredibly busy. I try not to drown them in work, but at the same time, at the end of the day, for grades to mean something, they've got to turn in quality work.
And students who don't prioritize doing even the homework that I give them aren't going to pass. And so if you sign up for the class with the intention of getting the credits, they also have to have the attitude that says, oh, this class isn't free. I'm going to have to actually demonstrate some comprehension in order to pass this class.
And something that I do to help motivate them for that is at the beginning of the semester, the very first writing assignment I give them, and I don't even consider an essay. It's one page, maybe, is I make them set a goal for my class, and then they have to come up with an obstacle plan for the class. In fact, this is something that I got from some MDC professors at North Campus. Professors Brucato and Abascal. They've maybe retired. I'm not entirely sure, but they have this assignment where you set a goal, like I said, and you have to come up with maybe four or five obstacles. That could possibly get in the way of you reaching that goal.
The example I give them is being distracted by video games, because Lord knows, that was something that I struggled with when I was trying to finish my dissertation. Because video games are more fun. They're more exciting. They pump that dopamine more than writing that dissertation does.
Or even another obstacle might just be kind of like what we've been talking about, Just reading something and not getting it. Obviously, if you just don't get the assigned reading, that's a pretty big obstacle to passing the class.
And then they have to do bullet points where each one says, if I run into obstacle X, then I will do Y to overcome it. And the idea is that's supposed to just get that plan into their head in a very simple, straightforward way. So then when they run into that obstacle, that's going to stop them from doing what they need to do to pass.
They've already thought through it. Their unconscious already suggests, like, oh, this is what I really should be doing right now. I should be unplugging my Xbox, or I should be writing down a note to ask the professor about this confusing passage.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: And do you find that that makes them feel more empowered in the class, that they're like, wait, I'm kind of in control of my fate in this class?
[00:16:01] Speaker C: Yeah. I've gotten very positive feedback about that assignment. I wish I came up with it myself, but it's a good one.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So I really like that idea because as a gatekeeper course.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Enc 1101 know, semester one. I think that that would be a great conversation to have with students. Give me an example of a goal that students may have, and how do you facilitate that process? Is that something you do on the first day of class? Do you give students an opportunity to share their responses? Do you have, like, reflection on that? How do you embed that into a heavy course? Which I know you both have already. Right. Because I think that sometimes comes with wearing the many hats. Right. We have so many things to do, but yet we have to meet our students where they are. Right. And it sounds like that's what you do. So if you could just kind of, like, build that a little bit.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Meeting our students where they are is something that I knew what that meant when I first started teaching, and I think that's so important. But it keeps changing, because where our students are. I've only been teaching nine years. That has changed in those nine years. Right. But more to your question, the very first real lecture that I give after, like, you know, syllabus and going through the canvas, which we can talk about canvas, if you want.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Want.
[00:17:12] Speaker C: But I just straight up tell them this is a philosophy class. But our first lecture is going to be psychology, where we talk about the psychology of motivation, the psychology of learning. We talk about Carol Dweck's growth versus fixed mindset, which half of my students have already heard about. So I'm grateful for that. Maybe that's the Psychology for Personal Effectiveness class. Sticking with them. Right. And then I just go through. It's called the swoop assignment. That's the one about the setting goals. Because there's this acronym, it's Success, Wish, Outcomes, Obstacle and Plan, where we talk about the way motivation works and how we aren't motivated by what we rationally know is best for us, but rather we're motivated by what we feel like we want to do. And I give examples of that. I want to always eat ice cream for breakfast every morning. That's what I really want to do. And I know rationally I shouldn't, and so I don't.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Ice cream in the morning, Really?
[00:18:06] Speaker C: I love ice cream. I could eat that every single meal.
And that's kind of like the lead into then thinking about, well, I think something pedagogically useful is to activate their vulnerabilities. And you have to be careful about that. And I think part of that, in order to make that comfortable, is you yourself sometimes being a little bit vulnerable with the students, talking about your disappointments or your own flaws. And, you know, again, I don't use my class as therapy, but that's a way. Human beings are emotional creatures, and getting them to care about something means, in a way, having to, like, pull on their heart. And when I include this discussion of the obstacles that get in the way of our achieving our goals, I think we all have experiences where there was something we wanted to achieve and we didn't achieve it, and it disappointed us. And then we're like, but, but why? Why didn't I do that? Why didn't I get there? And that's then a way of introducing, like, there are strategies you can use. You don't just have to be confused or frustrated. There's actual science out here that gives us real advice about how to be more effective in achieving our goals. And since you all have. Well, the most popular goal that I see written down is just, again, a. In my class, which many students do perfectly good goal. Some students even just make their goal just doing actual the reading for the first week. Right. I Have students who are taking my class for the second, third time because they failed previously. And in those cases, I asked them to reflect on, like, what went wrong the first time you did it make fixing that your goal, right?
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah. That's great. And I think that doing that on day one is so important. And you mentioned something about being human, and I think that's something that is so important for faculty to make sure that the students understand. Right. Showing that human side of us. Right. Using our own battles, using our own testimonials, letting them know, hey, you know, I was once a student because I graduated from Miami Dade College. Not sure. Fun fact. Did you do that?
[00:20:11] Speaker B: That's wonderful.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Go Sharks.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: So I'm a one. I am a product of Miami Dade College. I came here, I. I straight outta high school, not sure if college was for me. Did my first two years at Miami Dade College, and I was there, and I. And I tell my students all the time on that first day of class where you're sitting, I was sitting there once, and I know exactly what that's like. And I know what you're thinking, I know what you're feeling. And then by having this conversation that you're having, you're facilitating that. And at that point, you become human and you become approachable. Right. And you're building a relationship and you're connecting with your students, which is, I think, is our ultimate goal. Right. So love that. Awesome.
All right, so let me ask you a few other questions here. You've kind of covered a lot as far as skills. Right. Is there any other skills that you think that students need besides the ones you've kind of shared with us?
[00:21:08] Speaker C: Well, I said the skill I think I mentioned was reading comprehension.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Right, Reading comprehension.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: But then there's the other side, of course, as well, which is the writing.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: Which is what they're here to gain.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: So if they don't already come with it, that's, you know, understandable, but it sure would be nice if they came with it.
So I also teach. I also teach a little bit of writing. And I don't mean to step on the English professor's toes, of course, but my class is a Gordon rule class. Right. I assign essays, and I did not train in how to teach, like grammar or syntax or. Or how to write. So I just stick to what I know, and I teach my students how to think about paragraphs.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: One of. One of my favorite questions I ask my students is, how many sentences do you need for a paragraph? Because it's a trick Question, of course. And they don't realize it's a trick question. And I get, you know, five, I get eight. I ask them, what's the smallest, what's the most, you know, 3 to 10? And I'm like, nope, you can have a one sentence paragraph. Go get a newspaper. You'll definitely see one sentence paragraphs in there. Because I want to switch them to thinking about paragraphs in terms of how many main ideas are in a paragraph, which is one. And then thinking about like, what is a paragraph really? It's not just a bundle of sentences you stick together to make the page look pretty. It's a way of organizing the thoughts. Right. That each paragraph has its main idea, and then every other sentence in that paragraph is for somehow supporting that main idea. And then I give them a list of all the things that you can do in a paragraph to somehow, like, support or illustrate or define or give context to that main idea.
And that has definitely helped at least some of my students turn in better essays. Without a doubt. It at least makes the writing process itself easier because it transforms it from something that I think for a lot of students, just kind of this chaotic thing, they don't know where to even begin to. Then giving them something like a formula to how to write their essays.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: I mean, I think that's great that you're having that conversation with your students because they know that you're actually paying attention to the writing. Right. That writing is something that's important to you and it's. And it does affect their grade 100%. And I think that that's amazing. It's not like, oh, only in my English class, so I have to be this perfect writer. Like, no, we're all looking at writing and we all value writing and we know the importance of writing and we know that writing is going to help you be successful. Right. Do you have any resources or anything that you use that you maybe provide students with, or do you direct students to resources on campus? Like, let's say you have a student that you know, you could tell that the student is struggling in writing and that's really hindering their progress. What do you do as a professor, aside from giving these little workshop mini workshops that it sounds like you embed in your courses, but what else do you do to give students to kind of practice and work on?
[00:23:53] Speaker C: Well, I definitely make sure they're aware of the writing lab.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:57] Speaker C: Right. Yeah, I send them the link to that because you can do that online now. I let them know that you can go in Person. I think it's probably even better to go in person if they can.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:06] Speaker C: Right. I also. This is not always what's. What. What's called for, but I also make sure that my students know about Single Stop and the opportunities that Single Stop has for supporting students, which I think a lot of our students can take advantage of that.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, you mentioned all the great resources that we have on campus. Do you have an example? And I know you've been teaching for nine years, but have you ever had a student that you're like, wow, this student really needs some support or some assistance or some help, and you've kind of, like, sent them to Single Stop?
[00:24:36] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, of course. The one that pops into my head immediately. I mean, he was homeless.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:41] Speaker C: And he wanted to go to Single Stop, and he asked me to go with him. Did you? Yeah, of course.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And how was that?
[00:24:48] Speaker C: I didn't go into the meeting with him.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: I just walked because I think Single stops in building are here at Kendall campus.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:53] Speaker C: So I just walked with him to building R, because we're all the way on the other side of campus. Where? Building M. Yeah. And, you know, I just waited with him there until somebody came to get him to.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah, you got him there.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah, you got him there.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Got supported.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Because you probably. If you would have said, hey, go to this building and do you go to this. You know, they probably would have been like, no. You know, but the fact that you took the time out of your busy day to walk with him and take him there, I think that that says a lot.
[00:25:19] Speaker C: He. He did end up petitioning to have my class removed from the transcript.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:25:23] Speaker C: Because he.
He did fail the class.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: He did fail the class.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: I mean, it's. I've never been homeless myself. I can't imagine dealing with that and also taking classes.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I think I'm always happy to let students know about the petition process because there's a time and a place for it.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. I remember also having a homeless student, too. And I remember I might have been, like, in year three or year four of teaching, and it was just so. What's the word? Just. I don't know. It was hard for me to understand what that student was going through. And I think sometimes as professors, you're like, oh, you know, you got to do this, and you got to do this, and you got to do this. But then you really have to, like, we go back to meeting students where they are.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: And trying to help them as much as possible.
So. And I think as professors at a community college, like, you don't really know what's in your classroom. Right. You have from, you know, the 50 year old grandmother to the 20 year old student who took the gap year.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: I had an 85 year old once. It was his first degree.
[00:26:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, good for him.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: He used to point it out a lot and I was like, you're just another one of my students. Because I didn't want to treat him too differently. And then I thought about it later and I'm like, yeah, wow, that's pretty remarkable that you're in the mood to be in a classroom full of 19 year olds when you're 85.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: And I always feel like, you know, I, I, I go to conferences, national conferences a lot and stuff and I think that the perspective that we bring to the table and the experiences that we have, like, I'm glad we're having this podcast because it's very unique. Right. You almost have to be a jack of all trades. You do, you know, and the pacing, the moving, the meeting with students where they are like, it's all part of that, you know, and it's just so important and it's, I feel like it's kind of not talked about as much. Right.
[00:27:14] Speaker C: But I think we. Sorry.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Yeah, no, go ahead.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: I think we have to be like web administrators too now.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:20] Speaker C: Right. I never thought that being a teacher was going to involve me like building a website. I know Canvas gives us a lot of tools to do it, but a lot of my time is just spent making sure that my learning management system website is like, all the dates are set, all the materials there and that students can find, find what they need and repeating.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Please don't use Safari. No, I'm not joking. Don't use Safari. Really? Not Safari.
[00:27:45] Speaker C: There's a lot of technical problems. Oh, absolutely. Where they don't know how to upload the document. And you're like, oh man, there needs to be tech support for this.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's you, it's you.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: That's one of the many hats that we wear. Right?
Yeah. It's funny because that was gonna be my next question. Like, what do we assume students know about you, about the course, about the college? Right. And it's just there's so many things that we think they know. Reading is one of them. You know, being tech savvy is another. Knowing how to construct a paragraph is another. Right. So there's just so much remediation and so much student support that we constantly are providing to our students.
[00:28:24] Speaker C: You know, I. I had a question for you. Since you're an English and communication professor. For those of us who teach the Gordon Rule classes, right, where it involves assigning essays. Do you think that there's something that distinguishes a good student writer? Or I guess maybe the question I really want to ask is, is there something that we could be teaching our students about how to write that is like, the easiest, most straightforward, like, advice we could be giving them for a student who just hates writing and has no idea how to even begin writing.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Their essays and would, like, dovetail with what the English English department is telling them so that they don't feel like they're working at cross purposes. Right. Because sometimes I'm worrying, like, am I unteaching them what they just learned in ENC 1101?
[00:29:12] Speaker A: I mean, it depends. I feel like we model a lot. We show a lot of examples. So I think that that would be something that you can do in your class, too.
And just breaking down the writing process, right? From brainstorming to drafting to editing and kind of like showing them what that looks like.
We do a lot of peer editing in our courses. That's something that you may want to consider too. Where, let's say they are having. It may not even. It doesn't have to be an essay. It could be something where they're comprehending something, but then putting them in groups and then providing them with maybe guided questions that are going to kind of give you the responses that you want. And then that. That collaboration, too. I do a lot of that. Editing circles really help students learn from each other as well, but it's kind of being facilitated by you.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: It sounds like it really helps to break it up into, like, baby steps are little, manageable, digestible chunks.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: You do, you do. And I know that we all do that. And I could just imagine what that looks like in philosophy, right? Because it's such abstract concepts. And how do you do that? You know, and going back to student engagement, like, what happens when you have the student who. They're just taking the course because they have to, but they don't really like it. How do you. And this really piggies. Back to my next question, which is great. How do you excite your students about what you're teaching them?
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Good question, David.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: This specific generation that we know has kind of like that minimal attention span. They're used to scrolling. They were born with the iPad. Right. How do you excite your students? And I'll answer it too. I think that's. I'll Give it a shot.
[00:30:57] Speaker C: Something that I did just this week that I think excited my students. And I took note of that. Part of it is you just have to pay attention to, oh, what did I not expect to excite them? And then it does. And like, okay, I'll do that next semester, right? So one thing that I'm definitely doing next semester is in my lecture on political economy, I have a chart. Well, it's not chart. It's a. It's a map. It's a map of the United States. And the data is the prevalence of interclass friendships in different parts of the country. Like. Like, how popular is it for, like a rich person in a middle class or a poor person to be friends? Like, and the map generally shows that in dense urban areas, that's pretty common. Maybe not very common, but pretty common. And then in rural areas, it's a lot less common. Rural areas tend to have much more segregated friendships. But there's one exception to this rule. Well, there was like, maybe two or three, but there's one big glaring exception to this rule. Miami. Miami is a big urban area that also is very class segregated. And there's very little interclass friendship in Miami. And that's something that got my students excited. That's something that they felt personally. It's something that's about them and the 305, and they want to talk about that. And so we were like, does this resonate with you? Does this seem right?
I personally do actually have a millionaire friend, so I am not represented in that dot. I have an interclass friendship. But yeah, they were talking about Miami. That did resonate for them.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm curious to see how did it resonate? What were some of the examples or what are some of the things that were some of the takeaways from the conversation with the students? What did they say?
[00:32:42] Speaker C: Hmm. Well, let me try to remember.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: Well, you think about it. I agree that you never quite know what's going to spark their interest when it's philosophy. And as David said, it's really abstract. So. So I always am trying to lead off the class discussion that day with a seemingly easy question that is really actually related to, in this case, theory of knowledge or epistemology. But just yesterday I did two questions, and one that gets students really nervous and excited is I ask them to just point in the direction of Homestead. And a lot of them live in Homestead, Florida. And it's really interesting to see the varying degrees of confidence they have about what direction Homestead is in, because not only are they iPad kids, but they're like, you know, Google Maps kids.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: Ways. Waze.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Yes, Waze. Yeah. So it hasn't even occurred to them that maybe if there's a hurricane, they should know which direction their home is in in case their phone doesn't work. So we had that discussion. And then I do my own spin on the. There's a big debate about whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich, which is. Which is very much a meme. But it's also kind of important for philosophy.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: It is not.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: I think it is.
[00:33:56] Speaker C: Oh, no, here we go.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: The philosophy professors are going to debate this one.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: I'm not proud of my conclusion, but I think it's irresistible that ultimately it is. But too bad. But then this one is much more divisive for our students, which is what is the boundaries of what an empanada is? And some students say if it's a piece of dough that's baked or fried and is a half moon shape and it has a savory filling, it's an empanada. You put the half moon shape in there, and you're pretty close. But most kids realize that they're defining empanadas that would include a calzone and a gyoza and a Jamaican patty and on. And an uncrustable. If you remember those Smuckers peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, my kids love them.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they're delicious. Right?
But they will, like, almost come to blows over what's an empanada. And it's a kind of sneaky way to get them into. Okay, so now we have to define what's the difference between an opinion, a guess, and knowledge.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: I love that. Yeah, that really goes back to just breaking it down and getting something that's just so familiar and so relevant to them, and that really sparks the conversation, and you kind of take it from there to where you want to be, Right?
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I love it. It's just. It's true. It's really the art of teaching. Doing things like this and talking about it and sharing them is just awesome. I would say, for me, I would say it's more of just creating intentional assignments. So anything that's on my syllabus, instead of saying, hey, this is what we have to do, because it's a competency. It's more like, this is. This is what we have to do, and this is why it's going to help you specifically. So I kind of break down English, and we kind of contextualize it in a way as to, like, how Will writing help you in marketing? How will writing help you as a construction manager? How will writing help you as an entrepreneur? And we tend to create little learning communities in the class, too. I think connecting students is a great way to keep them engaged and get them excited. I hate sitting up and talking in front of the board the whole day. I just can't do it anymore.
It's exhausting. Yeah. So I flip it and I do a lot of just interactive classroom discussions, and I think that works for me.
[00:36:16] Speaker C: Well, I love that you connect writing to all these different careers that students probably think, oh, it doesn't really matter.
I tell my students, oh, you want to go be a nurse? That's very common. Or you want to go be a cop? I have a lot of criminal justice majors, and I said, like, you're going to be writing on that job. You're not going to be writing essays, but you still need to write things that make sense because people are going to be judging you based on your writing. One of the things that I teach my students is how to send me emails, because a lot of my students send me emails that are like texts where there's no proper punctuation. They don't capitalize their I's, and I just tell them, no, please send me a professional email. This is, you know, it might not technically be your job, but it's my job, and, you know, I appreciate that. And then when you go and you get a job, your boss is going to want you to send emails more professionally. And then I also emphasize that even if you're going to go get a job where you don't expect writing to be a big component of your career, you don't know that you're not going to want to write a memoir, or you don't know that you're not going to want to write, you know, an article for Time magazine about something that happened on your job, maybe you're going to go be the cop who says, like, okay, I need to tell you what it's really like to be a cop. And then you need to be able to communicate that because you don't know what you're going to want to tell the world in 20, 30 years.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:37:37] Speaker C: And you need to have that skill.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Just giving. Giving students their voice and helping them find it. I think that's basically why I come to work.
Yeah. Awesome. Great combo, guys. So I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up, and I want to do something specifically for our episodes moving forward. Is you know, first of all, thank you so much for coming, Dr. Hopfield. We really appreciate you taking your time. Well, thank you.
[00:38:02] Speaker C: Thank both of you for having me.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: But I. I want to kind of close this segment with if you could give us a recommendation. Doesn't have to be academic. It could be personal, it could be personal development, it could be professional. Whatever you think, just a recommendation, something you've been doing. It could be a hobby that you've taken up that you think is pretty cool. Because, you know, we have to think about the professor as a whole. Right. So just give us a recommendation and then also tell us what's next for you. What's next?
[00:38:29] Speaker C: Can I do two recommendations?
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, man.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: Okay, so it's all you.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:38:33] Speaker C: The first recommendation is for the early career teachers. If you're just starting. Something to keep in mind is all of these questions and tasks that you want to give your student that to you seem like they should just be like conversation starters that start some like, great class conversation, turn it into an activity, even if it's just a handout. Something that I do when I start my philosophy classes is I ask them to write down just four things that they believe.
And that's something that I originally did just by asking students to just raise their hand and tell me, no, no, no. Print out a hand sheet, have them write it down, have them do a think pair, share with their fellow students, and then have them share with the class. Having something official like a handout, it just works somehow. It just motivates them in a way that something more casual doesn't, at least in my experience, work quite the same way. So that's my advice for early career teachers.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: Okay, so just kind of archiving everything, organizing everything, having this, like this toolbox of resources.
[00:39:34] Speaker C: Take things that you thought could just be like casual conversation starters and turn them into something official, like formal. Yeah, something that, you know, has a physical reality and like, at least on a piece of paper.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:45] Speaker C: And then my advice for professors who've been doing it for a little bit longer is I would say learn how to program. Learn Python. Python's not that hard. That's a programming language that's meant to at least be similar to English and similar in syntax and its vocabulary. I've learned it and I use it on my job. I create myself programs that help me organize my files, that help me evaluate student papers. They don't grade for me, but it pulls the metadata out of the documents for me and I use that and it's given me the ability to understand the digital present that we're in in a way that without that language, I didn't know what computers were doing. And even though I don't teach computer science, we live in that world now. And I'm very glad that I spent that one semester just taking a Python class. Okay. With Professor Cruz at Hialeah, by the way. I want to give him a shout out.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Awesome. So let's say I have no idea what Python is. Where would I go to get started? How would I. Is it something I need to search up? Is there a website I need to go to? What would be like, step one for me?
[00:40:52] Speaker C: I say take the Introduction to Python class here at mdc.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:55] Speaker C: That's. You know, I used my faculty benefits to take our Python class.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Really glad I did.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: That's great. That's great. And it's kind of changed your day to day job pretty much functions. It's just changed a lot because of that.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Week to week, at least.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I use it once a week.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: All right, cool. So next question. What's next for you? You know, here we are, year nine. Right. Are you a full professor?
[00:41:19] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I am assistant professor because I came in as instructor.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:24] Speaker C: Yep. What's next is. That's a great question.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: I know there's a baby coming pretty soon.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: There is a baby coming that in theory, could be coming today.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: Really?
[00:41:35] Speaker C: We're in that window. Yeah. It could happen. We're less. Less than three weeks away at the most. That's graduation.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: That's so amazing that that is really going to change your life. Like, you have no idea. And talk about purpose and. And just motivation, like, what comes from seeing that baby is just unreal.
[00:41:53] Speaker C: I guess next is going to be me squeezing as many pieces of fatherly wisdom as I can into my classes now.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: And it sounds like you'll have that all written down, too.
Great. Great. So thank you so much again for being here. It was such a great, rich conversation. And thank you, Amy, for helping co host this episode.
[00:42:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Thank you for leading the charge. I really appreciate it, David.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. Thank you, guys. Appreciate.
