Episode 21: Dr. Kara Taczak - Reflection, Metacognition, and Transfer

Interactive Transcript

Speaker A Greetings and welcome to DWR Discussions on Writing and Rhetoric. A space for informal conversations around research and practice in the field at the university level. A place inclusive for curious novices, blossoming scholars and seasoned academics to consider and share their inquiries, experiences and passions surrounding writing and rhetoric. We are your hosts, Professors Megan Falconer, Nicholas Gardiakos with the University of Central Florida. Thank you for joining us. Now let's get this conversation started. We're joined today by Assistant Professor Kara Taszak. Dr. Taszak is currently co editor of College Composition and Communication and her award winning research examines composition theory and pedagogy with a focus on teaching for transfer and reflection. Her work has appeared in numerous edited collections as well as in three C's Writing Spaces, International Journal of Work, Integrated Learning, the WAC Journal, Composition Forum, Teaching English into youo College and Across the disciplines. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker B Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here.

Speaker A Well, and we have another voice with us today. For those of you that may be paying attention at home, we have our podcasting extraordinaire, intern Madeline Alvarez, joining us to help both, both learn the process and contribute to the conversation. So thank you for being here, Maddie.

Speaker C Thank you for having me.

Speaker A So, just to get started, because one of the best parts of doing this podcast is selfishly I get to ask my colleagues questions that I normally wouldn't have the opportunity to. So I know that you've talked about what led to your work in transfer and some of your other podcast episodes. Not that there are any that are, you know, competing or anything.

Speaker B Definitely not.

Speaker A But talk. Can you talk to us a little bit about what led to your passion about writing and rhetoric general, what led you into this field?

Speaker B Yes. So this is something that I'm actually currently thinking about and I will be writing a little bit about because I'm doing work with a couple different colleagues on intergenerational, just intergenerational people and the ways in which we approach being in the academy. And so and, and thinking about what that looks like for me, I thought about why I got into rhetoric and composition, but ultimately what led me to a PhD and I have told this story before, so if you're listening, you've heard it. Sorry. But I guess it's a good story because it's not normal or typical. I'm a working class kid, first generation, and I wrote about what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was 15, I remember Mrs. Buck who did not like me, surprisingly, because who doesn't Love me, but she didn't like me. But she wanted us to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. And I thought about like, things that I really loved and enjoyed. And there are two things in that moment. Sports, because I was a competitive athlete in swimming and writing. And so in my head, for some reason that translated to write about being a professor. Honestly, I have no idea why. I can't remember exactly why I thought about that. But I wrote about being a college professor and I wrote about being a pt. So both needed extensive training and schooling, which I probably did not realize in the moment. But I still have that paper. I was 15. And I mean, just looking back on it, the person that was writing it just had no, no idea. But as I went along in my schooling, it did become clear that this is something that I wanted to do. I love working with people. I love thinking creatively and critically. And I feel like rec comp is where you can really do that. Or that's what I was imagining because in my undergrad I started out as a creative writing major and I really wanted to be a poet. When I was 18, my. And I used to write poetry back and forth on email because texting was not a thing. And she. So she's actually the one that started me thinking even more specifically about English because she came up with a poem called Justin the Tall and Cara the Small. And this was about a guy that I was dating, very serious about. And we would like write different stanzas back and forth. And so to me that meant, oh, this is so fun with my mom, I should be a creative writer. Not even thinking, like, did I have any talent or should I pursue this? But I did and it was an eye opening experience because I was like, oh, I understand language, but I, you know, to be a poet is. I wanted to rhyme things like Diva and Fever.

Speaker C I don't know. That kind of eats right.

Speaker A Like a lyricist.

Speaker B I'll just say that my fellow poets did not appreciate me. Also, things like, I still have my notebook too. I did like, there was a toenail polish that I wore all the time called Juicy Tomato. So I wrote about Juicy Tomato nail polish. I mean, I mean, it's kind of.

Speaker D Folk poetry a little bit.

Speaker A Well, I think it's. For us, maybe it's an easy jump to see how poetry can lead into rhetoric because it's. It's understanding the impact of word choice.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A And how to like and how to utilize it to your best advantage to convey something. So even though it does seem like worlds Apart, I could. I can see that leap.

Speaker B Yeah. And I. I will say, like, in my senior year, we had to do a thesis like Mo, like most seniors do. And Bill McCully happened to come to my school. And I didn't realize that, like, there are even things called discipline. So I didn't realize Bill was in the discipline. And he taught our senior capstone and had us think about narrative inquiry. And this was brand new, but, like, really exciting to me. And I wanted to write my senior thesis on language and, like, breaking from, like, traditional forms of language. And essentially I was looking at what. What good writing is without realizing I was looking at what. What does it take to be good writing? And my senior thesis, like, was a really fun exploration for me, but it also was, I think, a moment for me to understand that language was so important. But I had a couple experiences in my undergrad that reminded me the importance of how to, like, education is important, and understanding how to be a good educator. And so I purposely decided to get a master's in education because I. I wanted to know, what does it take to be good at this job? Like, I always, in the back of my mind, knew I was going to get a PhD, but I had had these experiences where they were really negative. And I don't think the professors understood the impact it had on me. And so I thought, you know, what? Why? And again, this is. This makes sense because of who I am now. Like, I really just wanted to dig into the research behind it all. Like, how do I understand so that I become an effective educator? And my master's degree, it did teach me that in a couple ways. One, I was going to school during no Child Left behind, which was highly stressful for K12 educators. And of course, in a master's program in education, There's K through 12. And they were all, they, they were bitter and angry, and they just taught me so much about the classroom, I think, probably without even realizing it. And it also, like, solidified that I did not want to have anything to do with K through 12. And so even if I had been, like, kind of thinking about it, there was no way after sitting beside those high school teachers that I was gonna do it. So I took a break. Cause I went right through my master's and I did it in like 14 months because I was a graduate assistant and nobody told the working class kid that you couldn't take as many classes as you wanted. So I took like 4, 4, 6. And they paid for all of it. But I so burnt out by the time I hit my, my last semester. So I became an adjunct again. Like, rec comp is so small. I reached out to an undergrad professor and he suggested the University of Akron, which is, well, where Bill Thielen was at. And Bill Thielen, all of these grads from IUP, the summer IUP program, like, they're, it's like a club. What is IUP for the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. And there's a PhD that is only in the summers.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B And so this is like, it does feel like very club. Like, because there's a group of people who went in at the same time, and Bill McCully is one of them, Bill Thielen is another, and like, it just started to like solidify more about who I was going to be in this field. So I taught for two years as an adjunct at like three or four universities, including Akron. But when I got to Akron, like, they insisted, and rightly so, that I take some pedagogy classes and curriculum classes. And so I like just took a bunch of classes to learn more about writing and pedagogy. And they also, because they didn't have anybody else to do it, they stuck me inside an embedded two year college. And I worked with provisional students who. These were like the students who they were quote, giving a chance to because they had really, really low test scores. They got, you know, I think it was like under a 2.0 in high school. And so they threw me into the classroom with these provisional students and were like, go figure it out. But here's your pedagogy class that you're going to take at the same time. So it'll be fine.

Speaker A Shout out to adjunct labor. Mm.

Speaker B It, it is like my work really started with contingent factor, being a contingent faculty member. And then of course, I was really one for a long time at the University of Denver. So the amount of work it takes to go into being contingent faculty like that, that's a whole nother podcast.

Speaker A But I mean, your experience may have been very different. For me, some of my most cherished moments are with students who I know start the class outright, say, stating they hate writing. They don't see the point. You can tell they're not invested in this in any reason other than it's an obligation to get to the next thing. And seeing them at the end being like, okay, I don't love writing, but I learned a lot that's better. For me, the A students are always gonna be A students and yes, I can help them and make them better. A Students. But those are the big moments. You're like, oh my gosh, this is so meaningful. And this reminds me why I'm here.

Speaker B Yes, 100%. And that was definitely my experience, especially at the University of Akron, where these are students who. People didn't give a chance. Didn't give a chance. Like, I distinctly remember one who, he's a first year student and he didn't understand what punctuation was. And I called him out into the hallway, so we didn't have a conversation in front of other students. And I was like, just tell me a little bit about, like your experience, like how did you learn about writing? What kind of English classes did you take? And basically what he said was nobody wanted to deal with him. And so he just got pushed along and he was allowed to graduate because he had a high enough GPA and he really wanted to go to college, but he had literally no idea what punctuation was. So that is heartbreaking. And I definitely, having done. Had. Having had just done her master's in education, I definitely understood, like, the challenges that come with K through 12 education, especially in that moment when everything was so focused on teaching for the test. And I think what it did was really start to propel my thinking about what I wanted to research and what I wanted to look more deeply at without realizing it. Because when you're a working class kid, you kind of just flounder along, you know, you swim upstream for a little bit, then downstream and then across and you hope for the best. Because I just had no idea. I honestly didn't realize research was a thing, even though in the back of my head I was already formulating these ideas. And Bill Thelen did help me with that. And there is a lot of controversy that goes along with Bill Thielen. And I will just state for the record that I never experienced any of that, but that was just my experience. And we put together a research study. He's a critical pedagogue and he wanted to research something about critical pedagogy in the classroom. But what happened was it was a summer class that he was teaching, and we walked into the classroom with one set of IRB goals and we quickly had to amend them because the school, without us realizing it, started another new program which was to bring in 14 year olds, so a freshman in high school into the college classroom, because their goal was that they were going to have them graduate with an associate's degree by the time they were done with high school at a comprehensive school. What this means, though, is you have a 14 year old sitting beside a 65 year old who's just coming back to college, who has lived a lifetime of experiences so very different than the 14 year old just give because of age. So it created a lot of barriers in the classroom. And so we quickly revised it to think about what does it mean to have dual enrollment students in the classroom. And I mean, in some ways the rest, as they say, is history, because I became known for some. I did three articles with Bill and they were on dual enrollment. And one of the ones that has become important, maybe not as much right now, but back, back, back in the day, is we had the opportunity to revisit interviewing these students after they had graduated high school. And no one had done that up to that point, or at least to my knowledge, no one had done it. So we were able to see the effects of being in College as 14, 15 year olds. And if it did in fact accomplish what the school had hoped that it would. And so that was really powerful and really important to see and understand. And it really did help a lot of ways then move me into what I'm doing now because I really have always wanted to give students something. I want them to have something meaningful from my classroom. Because I think this is true because I'm a working class kid. I don't want anything to be lost. I don't want to waste my time, which is always ironic when I get like evaluations where students are like, she had us do busy work. First off, no one wants to fucking read busy work, so there's that. But second, I'm not, it's not busy work. It's like all leading towards another or bigger goal. And so that has just always been true for my classroom. It has changed in the last 20 years. The more that I've learned, the more that I've researched. But these are the experiences that really shaped who I wanted to be and who I am in this field. And a lot of it is like, you can't separate parts of your identity even if you try. And I can't separate being a first gen working class kid. And just in some ways it's about fitting in. You want to be a part of the cool crowd, whatever the cool crowd is. And that's why sometimes it does feel like you're swimming upstream, downstream and sideways because it just, you just don't know what you don't know. And my parents didn't know, so how could they teach me?

Speaker D Yeah, it's really interesting about getting students to think about and consider the value of, you know, reflective writing and reflection in their work. Because I think a lot of times, and I talk to my students about what some of their other experiences are with that kind of writing. And I think one of the themes that keeps coming up is that students feel like when they do that, no one's reading it or just kind of goes into a nothing void, and they start to not see the point of that, as opposed to wanting them to consider something about that reflection. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you help with that or how you think about when you have students consider these ideas of metacognition and reflection and the value of that to their own process and their own learning? Because that, to me is like, that's kind of the magic. Like, how do we get students to value that, that process of writing and self reflection?

Speaker B Yeah. And that's such an important question. I have given a lot of workshops across the country on reflection and with my own colleagues. And I think one of the things that always pops up is something about this. It's like, how do we teach that reflection is so meaningful to the writing process, but also to student learning. And so I have a couple to pull on. Kathy Yancy. I have three points that I want to make. She always enumerates everything. The first is just like a funny aside. I do think students feel like sometimes we don't read their work. And, Maddie, maybe you can speak to this a little bit.

Speaker C Yeah, for sure. There's also, I think, a problem with people thinking you're just like, you get graded for just doing it. And they feel like, well, what's the point of putting in all that effort if I'm just gonna get the same grade as somebody who just did it for doing its sake?

Speaker B Yep.

Speaker C So I definitely feel like people don't want to reflect because there's also so much other things going on in people's lives. And it's like, why sit down and reflect if I'm not gonna gain anything from it? Because we definitely live in a society where you're looking to just gain.

Speaker B Yep.

Speaker C And it's less about personal gain and more gaining from other people. So if, hey, I'm doing this extra work, but I'm not really going to gain anything from it, then people aren't really going to spend the time doing it.

Speaker B Yep. I think that's absolutely true. And it does connect to my second point. So thank you for providing that evidence for me, Maddie.

Speaker C Of course. I read your mind. I knew it was coming.

Speaker B The first point I want to make is I have actually had many. So students write inside their reflections. You know, you're probably not even reading this, so I don't know why I'm, like, doing this. And I'll be like, I just read that you said this, so keep going. You're doing great. I am reading, but I do. It's. It's kind of that validation that there is an audience on the other side, that someone is, in fact, engaging with their work. But the, the. To Maddie's point and to my second point, reflection is so important, but it can feel like it lacks importance or meaning if it's not given enough time in the classroom to percolate and have people understand, like, where. Where should it go? Why is it important? What can it mean to me as a writer and a learner? And. And what can I gain from this? And so for me, that means reading a little bit of reflective theory and. And then doing different types of reflections. So I love to. And this is something that has evolved the more that I've done with reflection. But I like to do all kinds of reflections. So written reflections, of course, the most traditional, but social reflections, tactical reflections, art, space, reflection. So it really. It tries to disrupt what anybody understands about themselves as a learner and learning. If you ask people to do things in different ways, especially when they. When anybody, not just a student, thinks of learning, and, like, you come into it and enter a room with, like, expectations, and when those expectations are kind of blown up, then you're going to disrupt what you're thinking. And so, and I think this, the. The back end of that is, to me, reflection needs to be reiterative, which means. And this is where I think sometimes students are like, this is just busy work, because we literally return to some of the same questions. But it's because the more you write, the more you experience, the more you understand about yourself as a writer and about writing situations. And that does and can evolve even in 15 weeks. Of course, it is only 15 weeks because you can only do so much. But returning to the same questions allows you to start seeing the value. And we know this is true from research where students will be like, yes, of course I reflect. I reflect inside my head all the time. I'm walking to class and I'm rethinking about a conversation I just had and what I should have said differently. But a lot of times you have to do something more with that reflection. So to make it meaningful, there has to be an action to it. So sometimes the action is speaking it out loud. Telling it to someone for writing. Of course, it could be writing it, writing it down, or engaging in any of these other type of reflection activities. But putting an action behind it, it starts to make that meaning take hold because the action allows you to do something with it. Because we are reflective by nature, we do think inside our head all the time. But what do you do with that? And how do you actually have it make or make it mean something so that you see the importance of reflection. And I will say, like, this takes time. I have taught classes on just reflection. And I will say students are always naysayers. They're like, this just seemed like a good class take. And like, super easy, you know, bird class. I'm going to fly right through this. And then by the end they're like, I am so sorry. I did not realize the importance that this would have in my life. And I'm like, I know.

Speaker A So it's interesting thinking about these ideas of the identities of our students. Because I was a returning student, so I did not enjoy the college experience. When I first graduated high school, I left, I was a professional for a long time, return to school. And because I was there for me at that point, it is such a different experience. So I loved reflective activities in my classes because with age you start to realize that things just remain abstract until you actually have to define them in terms. And so these ideas of like, okay, what did I actually learn? We're one of the only disciplines that we're checking in with ourselves throughout the progress of the class. Like, what am I learning? What happened during this experience of writing? And I think it's a really fantastic part of our discipline. But this idea that like, you have to kind of come to the, to having to be forced to put things down. I saw something on Instagram, I think I watch my reels on Instagram like a grown up. I'm not on TikTok. TikTok. And I saw this great little blurb the other day that was saying, your brain is for ideas. You should always write things down. Because your brain's not meant to hold ideas. It's meant to just come up with ideas. So even though we are reflective by nature, a lot of times I know my best ideas come when I'm like driving my car, washing my hair two times that I can't write anything down or do anything productive with it. But I have these fantastic epiphanies in those moments. So I do think it is essential for this activity of, okay, I need to. Even if it's just making A list of bullet points that I can come back to later and allow that space to be then free to keep generating ideas. I love that part of the idea of like both what you're talking about with identities as well as the act of having to put it down in either even speaking out loud. Making a craft, whatever it is, it's like taking it. Emptying the vessel.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A So that more can happen and come from that.

Speaker C Yeah, I mean I know I've like had an idea at like 2 in the morning, woken up and then taken out my phone and recorded it and then like in the morning listened to it, been like, wow, me at 2am is such a philosopher.

Speaker B Mind blown. Yeah, I, I, it's, I agree. It's such an important, I mean in this age we are so lucky to have technology at our fingertips because I also get like, you know, mind blowing ideas while I'm driving and I'm like, oh my goodness, this would be such a good idea for X, Y and Z. But you're never going to remind me, remember it. So you gotta put like, it's that action voice notes.

Speaker A It's a game changer.

Speaker B It is a game changer. Oh my goodness. Although, you know, I always do voice to text and, and I have a slight Ohio Valley accent. That fucking thing never understands why Ohio? It's not like a hard accent. But all of my vows sometimes run together. Like my favorite example is these are all gonna be different words. Pull, pull, pull.

Speaker A P O O L P U U L N P O L E. Okay.

Speaker D Was there another one or.

Speaker B No, there's just three polls but they all like, someone will be like, no, they're, that's the exact same word. And I'm like, no, I have a.

Speaker A Different, I have a hard time with D A W, N and the person's name. D, O N. They sound the same to me.

Speaker B Yeah, you gotta love accents and dialects. Absolutely. So fascinating. Yeah. But I will just quickly say my third point was gonna be the reflections important to transfer, which should not come as a surprise given my research.

Speaker A What is transfer?

Speaker B Oh, I'm so glad that you asked. Well, transfer is the idea that you can take knowledge or learning and effectively move it into a new context or experience. And so with us in writing classes or we want students to take that knowledge and practice and move it into a new context. And we know from more than a decade worth of transfer research that this can happen when you teach for transfer. And I'm talking about little teach teaching for transfer, not the curriculum that I developed. But Just being intentional, telling students this is going to show up again, this is going to inform other practices, and then they will use it in everything from like emailing to co curriculars to their work experience. And so reflection is important because it is the framework by which students understand how to transfer. And that action does become important because a lot of times we, because we're a visual culture, we have to see it, to understand it. So if you write it out, if you ask students to reflect upon how they might use this knowledge in another place, then they literally see it and it starts to make sense, it to make a connection. And sometimes that connection does happen after the class because as we know, learning is always evolving. It's not linear, it's very messy and complicated and. But it's. This is why reiterative reflection is so important.

Speaker A It.

Speaker B It starts to plant that seed inside your brain and it'll show up again. And that's when you start to transfer things forward or outward, depending on when and how you're doing it.

Speaker D Yeah, I think that's such a good point because it's one thing to say like a process is recursive or iterative and things like that, but then to actually do that with students, it takes time, it takes space, it takes all those kinds of things. I think sometimes students get so used to just absorbing content from a teacher from a class, like, okay, I'm here, I know nothing. Tell me the things and then I will know them. I think it's really fun in that kind of process to get them to do something like a process within the 15 weeks of a class. I think that goes back to your point of it's not just talking or thinking about it, it's then doing something with it. What are some of the other kind of. You said disruptive. And I love that idea of maybe what students expect with reflection. What does that actually, like, look like in some of the activities?

Speaker B Yeah, so I can't take credit for that word, that verb. I got it from Randy Bass. He wrote an article, and I think it was 2012, 2013, and he wrote it about eportfolios, which in the writing world we know a lot about. And basically he was saying that we need to disrupt students understanding so that they can buy into something. I think that is so important just in life. I mean, think how often we get settled into or entrenched in something and we can't see our way out because that's the only way we've done something. That's the only way that we I think of my best friend who I've known since I was 4, and like, she can't, she gets so entrenched in like a deodorant, like, she can't try a new deodorant. Like, she won't even call the company and if it's going to be discontinued to buy boxes. And it's like that idea that something becomes so familiar, so comfortable, we are entrenched inside of it. And to disrupt that can be really uncomfortable, scary. And people tend to be resisters. And Maddie, you may think about this in terms of some classes where something has happened and you're like, oh, fuck. No, I absolute not.

Speaker C I mean, for me, this was reminding me of like, I have a friend who, he learns everything the day before an exam and he, you know, he just gets it out before the exam and then he purges all that information and he's like, all right, for the next exam, I'm just going to do it again. And it's like, because it keeps working out for him, he continues to use that even though I'm like, let's think about it for two seconds. Like, are you really learning? And he goes, no. I'm like, ok, ok.

Speaker A I mean, he's pre med, I hope.

Speaker C Well, luckily for everyone, he's business. So. Yeah, but it's one of those things where it's like what you're saying. People get stuck in their way of doing things and they don't stop to think about it for two seconds and they're not really, you know, building or. To me, it's like you're not really learning anything. You're just memorizing for this one goal. But how can you then build upon that knowledge if the knowledge isn't really sticking?

Speaker B Yep, yep, A hundred percent. And I mean, Maddie, just so you know, it's not just students. Faculty can be the worst at this. Like, we get so entrenched in pedagogies and things that work that we can't see anyway out. And I'm, I'm, I'm the same. Like, I'll be like, this has worked for forever. I don't need to change. And then the one time it doesn't work, I'm like, well, you know, you write about reflection, your research, reflection. How about you be a reflective practitioner here, Kara, and step back. So the, the entrenchment just. Can we settle into that comfort? Right, we settle into it. So I, I actually, I'm going to give you a fun example that it really freaks people out, especially the students. That I make do it. Maddie's probably like, thank God I'm not in her class or ever. So when I. When I come into almost any class, but especially a first year writing class, I do want to start disrupting the notion of learning right from the gate. And. And to me, that means immediately making students feel uncomfortable.

Speaker A Love it.

Speaker B And so I, I learned this a long time ago. I. And I'm going to forget the name of the artist, but there is a performance, very famous performance artist, and she did this performance art piece in New York, and basically she invited people to come sit down across from her for one minute and just hold eye contact, stare at each other for one minute. No conversations, no. No communication, just eye movement. Now the backstory is she was in a long term relationship with another performance artist. And it was like they did these most, like, crazy pieces where they would stand in doorways naked and people would have to like, sidle past them. And they. One of their last pieces was going to be, they're each going to start on either end of the Great Wall and walk and meet in the middle and get Marri married. Right before this happened, they were doing a piece where they were, like, doing something where they're holding hands and like, trying to see how long they could hold hands for. And he broke first, and she didn't forgive him. She was very angry and hurt. And so when they did the Great Wall piece, they met in the middle, hugged, and never spoke again for, I think like 10 years. I could be misremembering the exact details, but what happened? I mean. And I get chills. Just like, telling the story. What happened is he showed up to her performance art piece in New York. She did not know this. He sat down and they held eyes for a minute. And it. You have to Google it, go to YouTube, because the amount of emotion that passes between the two of them, it is like you get goosebumps, you get chills, you want to cry because it's like 10 years passes between them. It is so powerful. Did you look up her name?

Speaker D Yes, it's Marina Abramovich.

Speaker B Yes. Yes, that is it. Thank you. Nick and I show this to show the video to students and we talk about the power of just like staring into each other's eyes because we don't tend to hold eye contact for very long. I mean, in American culture at least, we tend to be taught, like, make eye contact, you know, go around the room. I mean, I've been doing it this whole time we've been sitting here, but we don't linger. Right? We don't linger. And so you may guess where I'm going with this, but I tell students we're going to do this. So I put them into pairs. And I mean, this is early on, and they don't know each other. We move the desk, we sit down knee to knee, and they hold eye contact. And in theory, they're only supposed to hold eye contact for that minute. However, I tell them, if we can't settle down, stop, no commute. Because it's not supposed to be like any noise, talking, communication. If they can't settle down, I keep adding five minutes. And you might imagine we never do it for just a minute. It takes them a little bit to settle down because it can be so uncomfortable to sit and stare into someone's eyes that you don't know. And you're like, you're already starting to invade space and we're breaking down walls. And the longest I ever had to do it was 40 minutes. Is not like. That's not an exaggeration because one poor sweet baby child, like, she could not get it together. And 40 minutes we sat in that line staring at each other. And I know if you're listening, you're probably like, what? The absolute Kara. Like that is. You're talking about a level of discomfort that I am not willing to go. But you would be surprised at what it does. It creates this like, it just like, airs out everything. You don't have to talk to communicate. And students are suddenly, like, having conversations and feeling like they know the person in a way that they didn't before because they sat in that discomfort for so long and held eye contact. And I will say, I mean, I have 100% success rate. And of course, at one point this is going to break. But students walk away saying that this helps them to become better at learning in the class and being amongst this community because they did this together.

Speaker D Yeah. And I think if you talk about experiential learning, Right. What are the things? And even transfer, what are the things that students will remember when they leave a class? When I think about impactful moments in my education, K through 12 undergraduates, like, it's not content, it's experiences, it's feelings. It's things that I knew or experienced as an embodied experience. We talk about embodiment all the time with rhetoric. We know things and we understand things, not just with our minds, but with our whole bodies and personhoods. And I think that experience you're talking about, it's not just an idea. It's not just a concept, it's a feeling. And I think that's why it probably sticks and really tells students, hey, this is not. This class is going to be an experience. And I think that's really great.

Speaker A And it also, I know we've talked about this on the podcast before, that we're the exception in our classes in terms of class size for our student population. And they might never have another class, especially depending on their major, where they will actually get to know their peers and their instructor as, you know, for lack of a better word, intimately, as they do in any of their other classes. And to have that kind of seminal moment as an incoming freshman I think would be paramount even just to their willingness to stay as a student. We've done so many interesting studies on demographics of first year writing and its ability to be a bellwether for student success overall in academics. And I'm not sure if you're doing this in a first year class, but I imagine, you know, there's the added aspect of social awkwardness. You're in a room with strangers, you're in a place that you've never been before. You know, you're just kind of your head swirling. You're trying to figure out this whole new thing and sit down and stare into someone's eyes for a minute. That can be very powerful. And add to that, do you see them ever directly connecting that into their reflective practices? And what does that look like?

Speaker B Like I do, because afterwards we do in some reflection work. And sometimes I, because I, I'm really big into embodied pedagogies, contemplative pedagogies. Sometimes I will take them outside and so we'll sit on the ground and we, I mean, you know, there's tons of research about grounding and feeling the earth beneath you. And so we'll do that and then we'll do a little bit with like lying down to kind of like let it all out. And then we'll write about it and, and try and like clear out all of this clutter and make sense of things. And so it does go back to that action. So the activity can be powerful. But to understand why it's powerful, that that's what I think is almost more important because so we, we settled into this, the discomfort. But where does it go from here? What do we do with that? And the writing does give it an action to help it stick. So, Maddie.

Speaker C Well, I was gonna say to me, I think one of the reasons it also works is because oftentimes people are kind Of I don't want to use the word afraid, but it's like other people feel so different and it's like, well, what could we possibly have in common?

Speaker B Yep.

Speaker C And then it's like you make them sit in this discomfort together and it's like now we have this common discomfort that we both went through and it's.

Speaker A Kind of like trauma bonding.

Speaker C Like a trauma bond. It's like, like that's what I feel like it kind of works. Like it's like, hey, you guys, remember on the first day of class when we all had to stare at each other for 40 minutes? And now like we as a group, as a community, we all have a shared experience. And that especially works with uncomfortable experiences because now it's like, well, we all got through it together and you know, like, it's not a super serious thing. I mean, people are just staring at each other. But it's that same idea. That's kind of how, why I think it's so impactful.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A And I think this leads into another area that you've been doing some work in, at least within our department, where you recently had a workshop that was dedicated towards faculty and student wellness.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A Can you talk a little bit about what you, you cover maybe what led you to this area of, of research or discipline or why you think it's so important, especially now?

Speaker B Yeah, so I think it is very important now for lots of reasons, not the least because of the pandemic and trying to. I think of course we have returned to normal, but it is a completely quote unquote normal, but like it's a completely different kind of normal. And living through it, especially in modern times, made us step back and pause, even if we didn't want to. And so then you start to reevaluate things. And so I think that's one reason the exigence is there. But I mean I am, and I mentioned this like already, but I am a big proponent of like a lot things in my life just connect and overlap together. So I was an athlete from the time I was seven or eight all the way through college. Picked up other things in my 20s, you know, with like trail running, road running, CrossFit, Olympic lifting, yoga. Just, just have always been around being athletic and I think again because of being a working class baby. And also I'm a twin, a fraternal twin. My. I have a brother. So I always wanted to prove that girls are as good as boys. Like I may have won a push up contest in college against boys.

Speaker A I believe it.

Speaker B Thank You. I don't think I can do that many push ups now, but when I was 19 I could. But I think because of that, like that competitive nature, it connects to this idea that, that wellness is impactful and meaningful because it's a big part of those different aspects of my life. And that bleeds into what I do because I see how I'm going to speak specifically about American culture. But we, and Maddie, you mentioned this earlier, we're constantly on the go and trying to do the next big thing or like make our next like money point or whatever. Like we, we don't slow down. We're not really good at slowing down. I mean, it's always funny to me to, to hear about European cultures who have like extended lunch breaks or dinners where we eat at our desk and like we don't even swallow. I think, you know, some people would probably take an IV drink for food if they could so they could keep working. And I think it did change with the pandemic, but not enough. I mean we still think gotta hustle to make that dollar and we don't forefront our wellbeing enough. And it's all aspects of wellbeing and reflection of course does connect to the, the many different parts of well being. So I think it was natural because of my background, because of my relationship with my brother, and because of the work I do in reflection. And one of the things that I hope to do is like to constantly build in moments for students to consider their own well being. And sometimes that is like playing around and doing like, like I shared at that workshop. Nick, you were there trying to play with mantras. And because we know words are so powerful and we are our own worst enemies when it comes to self negative language. And so creating a short mantra and saying it to yourself in the mirror every single morning, like that little change can impact your entire day. I mean there's, there's lots of research that like what the first thing you think of when you wake up, it triggers something in the back of your brain and that sets the tone for your whole day. How many times you wake up and you're like, I just need another 10 minutes, I'm so tired.

Speaker A Okay, you want numbers, percentages.

Speaker B So it's just, it's trying to like retrain some of these habits that we're so accustomed to in this culture of like go, go, go, go, go negative. Like, oh, I have so much more to do. I got to do this today. I gotta do that. Instead of like settling into the enjoyment and like trying to figure out what really does make us happy. I think sometimes I've actually heard people say this, like, happiness is overrated. Who says happiness is overrated? Like, why are we living this life if we don't want to be happy? I know I don't. I want to be happy. I want to enjoy my life. So. Well, being is a big part of that, because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of others. You can't help others, and you can't help yourself, and you can't be your.

Speaker A Best version of yourself, and then you get down on yourself even more. I had a bit of an aha moment a couple years ago. I was in conversation with Dr. Wheeler, and the idea of, like, graduate student mental health was a. Was a topic of discussion, and she and I were talking about it, and, you know, the. The idea that we all end our grad programs burnt out and just, like, personally developed rosacea as a stress response. My hair started falling out, fell asleep standing up in the shower one. One day.

Speaker B Oh, my goodness.

Speaker A So I get it. And so we're, like, commiserating about. Well, that's. That's the expectation is that grad program is. I think when I came into the grad program, my program director described it as triage. Being a grad student is triage. And so we're, you know, we're going back and forth. And I was like, well, you know, we all suffered through it. Maybe that's the bent. Maybe that's the test as to who gets the master's or the. Or the PhD is who can actually make it through. And she goes, but just because you suffered through it, that doesn't mean that's the best way to go about it. And I was like, like, oh, my gosh, I have to check myself. Like, that's that kind of toxic go, go, go mentality that's gotten us where we are. Where. Yeah, just because we've done it and it's been somewhat successful doesn't mean that's the best way to make that happen. It's not about giving more. You know, what's the word I'm looking for? Diplomas to people that haven't done the work. It's about, like, not losing your hair or developing a skin condition because of the stress.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker D And I think it's about, you know, we create those habits at different points when we're trying to get through something like graduate school. And, you know, and I think, you know, in our world that that becomes almost like a Habit of mind and a habit of doing things. So as a, as a researcher, as a scholar in, you know, metacognition, reflection, you know, how we do things, how do we, how do we read, reprogram or create those healthier habits or what are some of the things that you do or what are some of the things that you present to people to try to again, reprogram or change our daily thinking and habits and stuff like that?

Speaker B Yeah. So when I was in eighth grade, I had a track coach say that it takes three days to break a habit and 30 to create a habit. And I'm sure he was just making that up because. Because, you know, I don't think back then we actually, like, at least in my tiny little town, we weren't like, digging into the research. I think he just said it as, like, scaring, but, like, it stuck with me. And I think it's so true because on some level, because we. Habit forming can be a challenge. And I think it goes back to this entrenchment. Right. A habit that we have, we're comfortable with. Even if it's a bad habit for us, we don't want to get out of it. And so I've actually tried this, and I am writing about it in a book chapter that should come out this year. I tried with an honors class at the University of Denver to have them research habits because I thought, wow, this is such a good idea, Kara. Like, students need to know how to create better habits for themselves. And it failed miserably, like, for lots of reasons, one of which is I had them read the Atomic Habits book, which I thought was pretty amazing because the author came to some of his realizations because he had a brain trauma in high school and it changed the course of his life. He thought he was going to be a baseball player, a major league baseball player, and that the brain trauma affected him so bad he, he played in college, but kind of. And the habits are not like, when we think about it, they're not actually hard to do, but they are the hardest to do. We don't want to change. And so for me, with, with students, it is about, like, we start out small. Like, think of something that you have a little bit of control over that you really just want to try change. In Denver, a lot of times it'll be like water because it's so dry out there. Like, everything is just parched. Your lips, your skin. And so we'll be like, okay, let's track our, our water and see how much we get in every day. And once you start tracking it, see, it goes back to the action, then you start seeing that, okay, well, 10 ounces of water is actually not that much water. So probably need to up, like, let's buy a cute water bottle. Let's carry it with us everywhere we go. And then we can get in more water. But sometimes it does have to start out that small with something that seems more controllable, like water. And then you can build out into something that's more challenging or that might seem to have a bit bigger impact. Not that water's not important. And I think sometimes for us as, like, teachers and scholars, like, like, writing can be a big part of that. Like, and not just writing, like scholarship, but writing out new activities and assignments because it takes time. But, oh, do we make the time or do we go back to. Well, this assignment worked for the last 10 years.

Speaker A Ask me that the day before class.

Speaker D Yeah, exactly. I was going to say when I'm.

Speaker A Building my web courses.

Speaker D That is my thought process right now. I have so many plans to do things. But, yeah, ask me, you know, in August, the week before we start, that Sunday night before. I've got something for this.

Speaker A Frantically publishing. This will work. It's worked before.

Speaker B Yep, exactly.

Speaker A Yeah. Not that I've done that.

Speaker B No, none of us have. Exactly.

Speaker D Well, we are closing in on our time for this episode, so I just want to kind of go around and for any final round of questions for our guest. And thank you again for being here.

Speaker A I think you should go first, Nick.

Speaker D Okay. My question is, what's next on the horizon? What are you really excited about? Either, like a question for a project that is not formed yet or something that you're wrapping up or just whatever's on the horizon that you're really excited about.

Speaker B I actually have a couple projects I'm very excited about. I feel so lucky to be here. I'm not just saying that, but I do feel very, very lucky to be here at the University of Central Florida and, and to have the opportunity to work with such great colleagues. It is a really amazing department. I have felt very welcomed and I love being able to talk about pedagogy and curriculum and things that are important to me that I also feel are important to other people. And so I have three projects right now that I'm in different stages of. One is with with Megan Velez, also a new assistant professor here at UCF in the writing and rhetoric department. We are going to be looking at AI and reflection, and we have an IRB approved study right now and we're just in the first stages of it, but we're going to do a longitudinal study and, and we're really just, you know, we, we want to be a part of the AI conversation but I think has been clear in different contexts writers need to be a part of the conversation for lots of reasons. I jokingly said to a good friend of mine, you know, if, if an actual writing expert gets in with these coders, we're in trouble because then AI is actually going to understand things like genre and rhetorical knowledge and, and you know, you probably could pay somebody enough money to help them rewrite some of the code so that the AI actually does understand that. Which is, which is a little scary. But so Megan and I are doing a lot with AI and reflection and a grad student of mine is helping with that. The second project that I'm super excited about is on well being and there are several aspects to it, but right now it is graduate students and well being and Sherry Rankins Robertson and Melody Bowden and I won a baby little Cs Grant. I mean it's a baby grant, but we, we got a little Congratulations. Thank you. Grant to do some work with grad students and well being. And they're also the ones that I'm writing this book chapter on, on intergenerational identities in the academy with three other GR students. And then I, I'm always trying to like think about new ways to test the efficacy of the teaching for transfer curriculum. And in the age of AI literacies, I think a natural next step is to consider what AI means for the TFT curriculum. And I do a lot of that work with my TFT team, which would be Leanne Robertson at University of South Florida, Matthew Davis, my co editor at three Cs and also someone I do research with at, at UMass Boston. And I mean we haven't, we haven't really thought that one through yet. But I, I think a natural next step would be what, what does it look like in the age of AI? So those are all projects that I'm looking forward to and I, I mean I, I'm a worker bee. I, I, I think a lot of people in rec comp are at worker bees, so always got like one or ten things going on.

Speaker A We didn't get a chance to talk about this in our discussion. So I wanted to ask you just very quickly because I'm really intrigued by this in regards to your experience as an editor. Is there something that was unexpected that you have learned about yourself as A writer through the role of being an editor?

Speaker B Yes, that's a great question. I think the thing that I'm always surprised about is because I think we think of ourselves, you know, as academics we always think very highly of ourselves, but as writers, we especially think very highly of ourselves. But I think the thing that editing for this long has taught me that writing does get better. The more people that give you feedback, like you can't see outside of your own writing space to get feedback is invaluable. And I know even when I, for myself, when I get feedback and I'm like these, these dumb. They totally misread everything I said. But then being the mindful, reflective practitioner that I am, I step back and I think, okay, if they truly didn't get what I was saying, and if it's only that one person, I need to try and rewrite it so that it is more like someone can understand it. So I think reviewers are just such an invaluable part of the review process and writing groups, having people read your writing to help you see it in a new way.

Speaker C Oh man, the pressure's on for me, I guess. I guess just. Do you have any last words of advice for students to help them learn how to better reflect or how to just start the practice of reflecting if they're not doing it already?

Speaker B Yes, that's a great question. I think it goes back to the idea of habit forming. And this is not my idea. I'm pretty sure it comes from writer Carol and bullet journaling. But the idea of habit stacking, because then it makes habits stick. So habit stacking just means trying to create more than one habit at the same time. Because then it's like you're, you're, you are like have multiple focuses and it, it makes your brain like almost slow down, but not slow down at the same time, if that makes sense. Because then you are like, okay, well I have my water and I have my workout and I have my sleeping and I'm also going to do some journaling and like try and make sense of my day or something like that. So trying to do a couple different like habits at the same time because really is like just teaching yourself to be, to create a space for reflection. And Megan mentioned it earlier, sometimes that reflection. I think the other thing is, is don't think it has to be something big in like 250 words and set and nicely put together sentences. It can be a list, it can be a doodle. I'm a really big fan of having students doodle in class because of all the research behind doodling and the freeing of the mind and the letting go of stress. Coloring is also a form of reflection and all of these are ways to just like let yourself pause. And when you let your brain truly pause, you start to see things in new ways because it, it's almost like it relaxes. And that's not the technical term because I'm not an md but it you will be surprised that like when you can allow your brain to relax, you can start to be more intentionally reflective. All right.

Speaker C Thank you.

Speaker A Well, it was so wonderful talking with you today. I wish we could have three more hours to just keep chatting about all this stuff. But thank you again for joining us today and taking the time.

Speaker B Thank you so much for having me. This has been really fun, really great conversation.

Speaker D Yeah. Thanks Maddie for joining us. Thank you for having me and thanks for listening everybody.

Episode 21: Dr. Kara Taczak - Reflection, Metacognition, and Transfer

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