In this episode,  we discuss and chat with a few of our Teaching Professor Conference presenters. First up, Mary Norman and Lisa Low talk about radical empathy and burnout, and how you can use empathetic strategies to empower yourself and students for success. 

“I think that radical empathy is something that's very important to talk about, because it's so needed right now. Our students are really being inundated with stressors that we've never before seen,” Norman says. 

Additionally, both Norman and Low add empathy tactics to help read their classroom and ask questions like, “How are you feeling about this class today?” and “How are you feeling right now?” This helps students be seen and heard both in class and within their personal lives. 

Julia Osteen, another Teaching Professor Conference presenter, also uses the analogy of menus, master chef, and ingredients to guide engagement strategies that work in her class. 

“So, just like great chefs create menus with a variety of ingredients, teachers need to put together a variety of strategies and techniques to reach today's learner,” says Osteen. “What's oftentimes overlooked is an end reflection. And this would be like complimenting the chef. It’s much like when you're in a restaurant and a server comes to your table, and they say, ‘How was it?’ and you say, ‘Oh, it was delicious,’ right? But this encourages in our students the development of metacognition.”

Recommended Resources:

• The Teaching Professor Conference, June 3-5 in Atlanta