Zach Diamond  0:00  
Steve, welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. Each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other, so this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast.

Avery Balasbas  0:27  
Thank you, Zach, for that wonderful introduction. Everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Avery belaspas hehim pronouns, a partnership manager here at modern classrooms, and today we have a special episode for you, featuring some of my old students who are now freshmen in college. Just before I have everyone introduce themselves. A little context. For those of you that don't know me, you can hear more about my pedagogical and curricular practices on episode 139 teacher and learner reflection practices, where Tony Rose and I talk about the importance of reflection in the classroom for our students and ourselves as we advance through our teaching careers. So again, my name is Avery Velasquez. I was the former English department chair and an English teacher at Abraham Lincoln High School in the San Francisco Unified School District. I was also a DMC and implementing the MCP model over the last few school years, and I was fortunate enough to have a cohort of students who were willing to experiment alongside me and help me become the teacher I am today. So everyone that's here, thank you for being here today and saying yes to the podcast. It's exciting to share a space with you all once again, because we used to do that every Thursday. So without further ado, we have a large group today comprised of what my students used to call themselves, our little Thursday crew. So if you guys can introduce yourselves, name pronoun major in school, we'll start off with Alex. Hello.

Speaker 1  1:45  
My name is Alex, or my full name Alexander Kai. I use hehim pronouns. I'm a first year data science major at University of California. Davis. My name is Brandon. You can also call me Berger. My pronouns are he him. I am an economics major at Community College of San Francisco, and I plan to transfer to UC Davis under managerial econ in two years from now.

Eva  2:08  
Hi, my name is Eva. I go by, she, her. I'm a statistics major at UC Davis right now.

Jimmy Chen  2:13  
Hi, I'm Jimmy. I'm a freshman aerospace engineering major at Cal Poly Pomona, and I go by, he, him,

Julian Paradise  2:24  
hi. My name is Julian paradise. I am a studio arts major at City College. And my first year and I go by, he, him, hi.

Kelly Chan  2:34  
My name is Kelly. I go by, she, her pronouns. I am a first year undergrad student at UC Davis majoring in environmental engineering,

Avery Balasbas  2:41  
hi. My name is Matthew. I go by hehim pronouns. I'm a first year statistics major, and I go to UC Davis.

Eva  2:49  
My first class was also calculus and, like, the classroom was huge. It's literally our auditorium. I was like, oh, there's so many people, and it's really on here, the way that your class was structured, like, how everything was, like, your own pace. I feel like it's also like that in college, because your class, like, taught me to really hold myself accountable and like, like, do my work before the due date. Like, even like, the professor wouldn't remind us, though. So I feel like your class, like, really helped me with that, like, just remembering to do my work and things like that.

Jimmy Chen  3:27  
I think time management again, this was it was it was it was a really big thing that I got out of your class. But, yeah, I really wish that the you know, my professors would have would implement some sort of model that allows for like students to go back and re, not re watch the lectures, because every lecture is, like two and a half hours long. But like, just to get, you know, the main points out of the lectures.

Julian Paradise  4:06  
But I got more of the feeling from when I was in modern classroom in my color class, like I got that feeling like my teacher was very flexible. She was like, you can turn in, like the projects and anytime you want, just make sure it's before the end of the semester, meaning you essentially had infinite time. And she's also was like, Okay, you have to make sure to do the discussion post, because once they're gone, you can't do them anymore. Like, she was very flexible. She communicated, well, I that's like, one of the like classes, I felt like it was like, I'm like, I was back in modern classroom. It's like, I didn't have to worry about all too much, because I could just do anything at any time. I didn't have to stress about all my different classes. Like, okay, I can focus on provenance that this day and then do art another day. I

Kelly Chan  4:52  
was also in a huge calc lecture. There's always the options of, like, re watching lectures, but it's not really the same, because I feel like with professors, they. Kind of just introduce the new topics, and it's really up to you to kind of learn to master them, either by doing the homework, which can be hard, and, like some might go into detail, but that's about it. My Chem professor, however, he has these, like, really, really old YouTube videos that would show you him walking through, like, the equations of what we were learning. And I feel like that's was sort of like modern classroom, like you have the option of, oh, it's kind of also your own personal choice to re watch these videos that he has, and they were kind of helpful. But I think if more professors did that, I might have learned better and kind of just doing it their style.

Jimmy Chen  5:39  
Am I allowed to bring up the the audio? The MP three files, and the the reading stuff.

Avery Balasbas  5:46  
Oh, you mean, yeah, totally, that's definitely not like an MCP thing. That was like a me thing, but I incorporated it into Yeah, good, good. No, I think

Jimmy Chen  5:55  
college professors definitely go really fast, and for some reason, we were always behind all the way up until finals week. I don't know how much material we still have left, but yeah, um, I think you know, the option to pick between a video an audio file and like reading was really helpful. Because sometimes it's, you know, sometimes I didn't want to sit through a video, even though I could put it on two times speed. Other times I just, you know, I wanted to read, you know, use my literate abilities for a bit. And I think the way that parents are seeing it. I get where they're coming from, but I think one thing that they're not really putting too much focus on is that if your kid isn't motivated, then they could just space out during the lectures. I think having those videos gives them an opportunity to eventually come back if they wanted to. You know, do well in the class again. And I think that's just what it takes for some people to start going, Hey, I need to pay attention in this class. I need to focus up.

Kelly Chan  7:19  
I hate to say this to the parents who think that it's not real learning your kid is probably learning from O Chem tutor, or black friend, Redfin, whatever math YouTuber is out there. I've definitely watched them, and it's probably how I learned. But I agree with you guys saying how that you can always go back and re watch the videos, and if you like, if you're like, in class, and you're like, wow, I just can't learn today. And you have the option to re watch it. It really helps. And you can always, like, ask the teacher if you're really stuck. It's not just like, oh, I only have these videos. No, the teacher is still there. I also really liked what Jimmy brought up, the whole you also read us the book. I used to listen to those while I did the dishes. So it's like, if there was like, an aha moment, it's like, stop doing the dishes and, like, write that down.

Avery Balasbas  8:05  
I definitely can see both sides of like, why some people would enjoy learning from video, and then some people, like parents thinking that, you know, learning from videos aren't real, but it's not like you're you went over the material in the video, so you were still teaching us anyway. But what I'm trying to get to is I think it was for some people, it would be much better, because, you know, like me, you can go back and watch the video over and over over again until you understand it, or until you you know you might have missed something during lecture. You have the video to go back to, or something like that, compared to, of course, the teacher teaches it once during class. If you don't get it, or you're not paying attention, or anything like that, you just, you won't get the material. And then you have to email and do all this, bend your back over all that stuff, and then, like, yeah. And then if you miss that, or you miss a day, anything like that, you have to catch up. It's just, I do think there's a lot of positives from learning from videos, and especially, you know, one of the things that you really put on to us at the start of the year was, you know, sometimes you're not feeling it, having a bad day, having a lazy day, woke up late, had a bad test, or anything like that. Sometimes you might not be wanting to pay attention in class. You might just want to chill and hang out at the end of the week or later in the week. You can just watch the video when you're feeling it, and then, you know, all is well,

Alexander Cai  9:37  
there's a lot of different ways to learn. You know, I think before any of us took this class, the common perception of teaching and learning was coming to class on district and time at this day, meeting this classroom, hear this teacher talk about this concept, here's your homework or here's a work she could do while in class. And that's the repeated process. Throughout, you know, and then maybe some days you get, like, a nice little video or documentary that you to watch once your questions. But with this class, it was something clearly fresh and new, you know, it was just really refreshing. It was the teacher saying, here's just all these assignments that you can do. There's going to be assignments are locked because I don't need to go too far ahead. But here's a bunch of these resources I offer you do these search and assignments for an assignment, like a reading, for the questionnaire or discussion that we have for the week, and keep her resting if you feel like it. It was just really interesting to learn through a video or through, I guess, as Keller mentioned and Jimmy podcast, just being able to listen in instead of reading something was really new, and has helped me kind of translate that into like, college. Sometimes, again, a lot of us mentioned our professors talk really fast, and sometimes we get lost in the shuffle because we don't understand one called something. Oh, look, there's like 20 more other concepts that are now being introduced to us all at the same time. So being to go back and just learn through a video or a podcast was something that was somewhat new, but I feel like that was something I continue to do past modern classroom, you know, something I still do today for whether that's calculus, whether that's for any other class I take, like a science class, anything I really enjoy just learning through different ways. And modern classroom obviously introduced

Julian Paradise  11:31  
it. I kind of just had like this, like, realization is, like, learning like can be non stressful, you know, because again, like, like, throughout my history of classes, it's like, like, it was like, at fine, at first was more like, when I started high school, that's when things started to get more difficult. And then it's like, my it was reflecting in my work. It's like, I think, at least, I think I produce good quality work. I'm just like, there's stacks upon stress that I worry about. School included that, like, like, fundamentally, like, made, like, my education, like, kind of stressful itself. I feel like, again, like modern classroom presents like this, like opportunity to just, like, like, not like, lay back, just like, chill for like, a second, you know, do the things that you need to do, like, in the class, in like in for like MCP, and then you can also branch off to do other things like that, like for your, obviously, your classes, it's like, it relieves stress.

Eva  12:33  
I think, like what Alex said, definitely like, not as test heavy, because right now, this quarter, for two of my classes, I have a test every Friday, and I think I'm losing hair because of it. I'm so strong, but yeah, definitely not as test heavy. But also, like going back to the videos, I think the videos are just so helpful. So, yeah, I think

Jimmy Chen  12:57  
offering multiple forms of learning. So, like I said earlier, you know, having a video but then also giving them the option to read or listen to an audio book. I think giving students, you know, multiple forms of taking in information would definitely be really helpful. And would, I think, encourage a lot more students to participate

Julian Paradise  13:27  
again, like saying as, like, said earlier, like, I feel like kids again. Like, don't be afraid to, like, communicate with your like, students, like, again. I feel like communications like, really, like, good to have. Like, not only to just like, you know, get to know them, but also just for like, you know, to also, like, understand them.

Kelly Chan  13:47  
For me, it would just be, take the feedback. There's always room for improvement. It might not always work the first time. Just really listen to like, what your students say, because it could definitely benefit other students. As for Professor, I'm not sure I understand, like, especially with quarter system, it's really rushed, and they're really just trying to, like, shove as much material. So I think, like, maybe multiple videos.

Zach Diamond  14:15  
Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode, and remember, you can learn more about our work@www.modernclassrooms.org and you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course@learn.modernclassrooms.org you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at modern classproj, that's P, R, O, J, we are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms project podcast. You.

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