Do you ever think about this re: your teaching: what will my students remember about this class session a week from now? Let’s assume it’s lecture-discussion. Maybe they’re not even taking notes. What will they remember about an hour of their time this time next week?  I sometimes evaluate my experience at conferences in this way.

I spent the early part of last week at the Educause Learning Initiative conference in Austin <insert love letter to Austin> and listened to several enlightening conversations and systemically-minded thinkers. So now, a week later, what do I remember? The memory I’ve returned to each day since is actually a pseudo- memory–it’s one I crafted by merging pieces from two sessions¹, which both had something to say about the difficulty of being a “novice learner.”

And as I think of it now, perhaps I remember pieces from both as one because each asked me to do something, and I’ll now ask of you the same.

Activity 1:

Clap your hands in front of you.

Now rub them together.

Now fold them and place them in your lap.

Which thumb is on top?²

Now interlace your fingers so that the other thumb is on top. How awkward does that feel?

Activity 2:

Using the image below, say aloud the color of the word, ignoring the color that the word spells.

This should be challenging or similarly uncomfortable (you’re experiencing cognitive overload).

I’ve done a mental merge on the memory of these two exercises because they are related categorically. Both mimic the difficulty of learning something for the first time–whether it’s something entirely foreign or learning to approach a subject in a new way. The act is awkward, uncomfortable, cognitively consuming, and only tacklable in short periods (for cognitive overload, apparently 10 minutes at a time).

While the immediate reference is something like, ‘This is what it feels like to be a student coming to the material you teach for the first time, even though you know it like floorplan of your home,’ there’s an additional way to think about this. That is, What is it like for an instructor (or anyone else for that matter) to change? Once you’ve got a general structure in place for the courses you teach, what is it be like to learn something new about “pedagogical effectiveness” <blah, blah, blah jargon> and attempt to delve into that, to implement it? <And if you want to get specific, the speaker from the first session talked about the discomfort of switching your default thumb position as the way that some people feel about technology + education.>

Tomorrow’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten Season. Religiosity aside, I’m willing to argue that the exercise of self-discipline in its varied, individualized forms offers a valuable growing experience: 40 days in which to cross your thumbs the other way and read the color, not the word. It’s an opportunity for attentiveness as much as change <or say that the other way around if it makes more sense to you>.

So for the next 40 days³  <this probably isn’t where you thought I was going>, I’m dissertating for Lent. <If I were a motivational speaker, this might have taken a different turn, but alas.> The uncomfortable part is that I’m chronicling the process here–which means being open about ideas as well as obstacles and forcing ugly, stilted sentences onto a page for the sake of the process. In theory, this will chart the forming of the articulatory loop–a thing that happens for PhDs as much as undergrads as much as toddlers.

To be gendered about the affair, sometimes it’s hard to go out in public without wearing makeup⁴, but it’s probably unhealthy to be cosmetically obsessive.⁵ Wish me luck or chastity. Whatever works.

1. One on…? <see what I mean about the week thing?> and the other on learning and neuroscience <link not found>
2. Here are some fun facts about your thumb placement c/o the speaker. If your right thumb is on top, you’re a “sexy person”; left thumb, “sneaky person.” Yes, these are evidently Science’s terms. If you place your thumbs next to each other–about 1 person in every 100 does–you’re a bit sexy, a bit sneaky. Cursory googling of the thumb test returned nothing novel, and any attempts at also including including “sexy” and “sneaky” only returned content that we’ll just call unrelated. So, best of luck determining the broader meaning of those descriptors, though please do share if you know.
3. Save weekends and such since, 1, I have a kid, and 2, I make the rules.
4. I know. But c’mon
5. Erica Speegle, student and friend, this cite’s for you.