(upbeat music)
(clapping)
- Alright, good morning everyone.
My name is Juliet Wahleithner
and I'm an assistant professor in the
Literacy, Early, Bilingual, and Special Education Department
in the Kremen School of Education and Human Development.
The title of my talk is,
"Communication As The Key To Connecting With Students"
So, when we just start off thinking
about what communication is,
I have a definition for you.
Communication is a two-way process
of reaching a mutual understanding
in which participants exchange information, news,
ideas and feelings,
and they create a shared meaning.
Communication really is about building connections.
So, I have this image here,
which I love,
that shows just how we make connections.
I feel like this is what we really want to think about
when we think about our students at Fresno State.
We want them to feel connected to us as faculty and staff.
We want them to feel connected to one another,
and we want them to feel connected
to the services that Fresno State provides,
and Fresno State as an institution.
When we make those connections with students
and students feel those connections,
really what happens is we develop relationships.
The students develop relationships with one another,
they develop relationships with us,
and they develop relationships with Fresno State.
So, I come to you today,
this is my 20th year in education.
I started my career as a high school teacher
at Tokay High School in Lodi,
and that is a group of my students in 2001
that I actually brought to Fresno State
for a journalism competition,
never imagining I would one day work here,
and there they are with their awards.
In the time that I've been at Fresno State,
I've only been here four years,
but I've had this really unique opportunity
that I have been able to teach
first year students in the First-Year Experience Program,
upper division undergraduate students,
credential students working
to become multiple subject elementary teachers,
and then doctoral students in the
Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
So, that's given me this really unique perspective
to think about teaching.
One of the things that I've realized
we have to really remember with teaching
is that there is this power differential.
As much as we might try to erase that
and make students feel comfortable,
we have to remember that we are the ones in charge.
We are the ones that stand between them and their degrees.
So, it's really important for us to think
about how we communicate with our students.
I think that one of the first ways
that we open up those lines of communication,
is through the syllabus.
That's where we set out our expectations for students.
That's where we set out our expectations for ourselves.
That's how we begin to communicate with them,
how we will support them.
A lot of times the content in our classes,
for students it seems really complex,
and it may seem like it's gonna be impossible
for them to master over the course of the semester.
But, in that syllabus,
we set out for them,
how we're gonna make that impossible,
possible.
Yes.
So, ultimately, the syllabus is
a contract between us and the students.
Where we're laying out exactly what we're gonna do
and we're also laying out what we expect of them.
So, it's important that we think about
how can we be as clear as possible
in that communication with them?
Another way that we communicate with students
is through our feedback to them.
I teach a lot of writing courses,
and that means I do a lot of feedback for my students.
When we're providing that feedback,
part of it is helping students to understand
how they can improve and what they can do better.
Another big part of it is showing our belief in them.
Showing them you've got this,
you can do this,
I believe in you.
I just think that's a really critical component for
those communications for building up students
to lead them to success with the work that they do.
I've talked a lot about
what faculty can do to communicate with students,
but it's also important to realize
that communication goes both directions.
We communicate with them
but our students also need to communicate with us.
However, when we think about that communication,
we need to remember that power differential
and remember that, often, we are scary to our students.
They may not want to approach us because,
again, we are the ones
that bubble in those grades at the end.
So, we need to think about how we create
safe opportunities for our students to communicate with us.
So, I have just a couple things I want to share
that I've done that I've found helped open up
those lines of communication with my students.
One thing I do, is at the end of each class,
I take five minutes to invite my students
to reflect on their learning.
I ask them,
"What have you learned today?
What's something new you've learned?
What questions do you have?
Share anything else that you think I should know about."
This has been really beneficial to me as an instructor
because I learn so much.
I learn what new things,
what stood out to them from the day's class session?
I also learned what questions they have.
So, what holes were there in my instruction
that I, then, need to fill in?
Maybe with that student individually,
or with the whole class.
I also learn about my student's lives.
As president Castro said,
"Our students have so much going on in their lives."
We don't always have a chance to learn about that,
but when they feel like they have this safe space to explain
what's going on,
we can learn about them
and then learn about how to support them.
Really, what I want to do
is create a welcoming environment for my students
to come to me to share their thoughts,
or to share what's going on in their lives.
This is kind of my unintended consequence.
When I first started at Fresno State,
I was teaching in the First-Year Experience Program
and I realized I wanted to know what was happening
with these students throughout their time at Fresno State.
So I started a research project.
Over the last four years I've tracked 13 students
that I've interviewed three times a year
for 25 to 30 minutes each time.
The unintended consequence I talked about,
is I've developed these really close connections
and relationships with those students
and I didn't realize when I started
but I have become a guide for them.
They'll text me on the weekend
"Hey, Dr. Wahleithner, what do you think about this?"
I have written so many letters of recommendation for them
because we've developed this really close relationship.
We have that communication that led to those connections
that led to that relationship.
I'm excited to be able to share that of the 13,
six are graduating this semester,
four are graduating in the fall,
and the remaining three will be graduating next spring.
Thank you so much.
(clapping)