Dr. Lynette Carlson collaborated with one of her athletic training students to create comic strip panels that help her discuss topics like inclusion and bias in the context of patient centered care. Now, she is studying how effective it is, and our panel talks about what they like about her idea and other ways to get students to develop cultural responsivity and sensitivity.
See our full episode notes at
https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/kapow-comic-strip-conversations/
This month, we talk with Lynette Carlson, who has created comic strips to help her athletic training students discuss topics like identity and bias. Associate Professor of Human Service Studies, Vanessa Drew-Branch, Exercise Science student and Center for Engaged Learning student scholar, Tiffanie Grant, and Associate Professor of Learning Sciences, Ty Hollett embrace the idea of using a fun, visual medium and meeting students where they are in their learning. The panel discusses what they like about this approach, the importance of representation in the classroom, and think of other ways to co-create learning aids like Dr. Carlson’s comic strips.
This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by Matt Wittstein in collaboration with Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning.
Matt Wittstein (00:00:11):
You're listening to Limed: Teaching with a Twist, a podcast that plays with pedagogy.
(00:00:22):
Hey, listeners, before we get into the episode, I want to ask you to rate, review and share our show because A, we want the feedback, and B, we know there are more teaching stories, innovations and challenges that need to be talked about. We are always looking for new guests for the show, and you can express interest in participating in any of the Center for Engaged Learning podcasts using the link on the bottom of our podcast webpage, www.centerforengagedlearning.org\podcasts. Thank you.
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This month we talk to Lynette Carlson, assistant Professor of Athletic training at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, about how she's using comic strip panels to focus future clinicians on patient-centered care that is also culturally responsible and sensitive. Associate professor of human service studies at Elon University Vanessa Drew-Branch, Elon Exercise Science student and Center for Engaged Learning student scholar Tiffanie Grant, and associate professor of learning sciences from Penn State University, Ty Hollett share what they love about this approach and provide some thoughts on how to evolve this activity while honoring both student voice and the marginalized cultures we are teaching and learning about. Enjoy the episode. I'm Matt Wittstein.
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Hi Lynette. Welcome to the show. Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself to our audience?
Lynette Carlson (00:01:51):
Hello, I'm Lynette Carlson. I'm a clinical education coordinator and assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. I work primarily in the graduate athletic training program, so that is in our health and human performance division.
Matt Wittstein (00:02:08):
So we've talked a little bit before, and I know that you are using comic strips to help teach your students how they might interact with some of their patients. To get started, what attracted you to comic strips?
Lynette Carlson (00:02:22):
Well, I grew up with comic strips. My dad would read comics to me on Sunday morning when the pretty colorful comics came out. But I really got interested in using comic strips as a form of pedagogy when I was taking a hike with a friend of mine that teaches at Pepperdine and she is in communications and marketing. As part of her doctoral work, she created comics to help talk about business ethics. And in my profession in athletic training and other healthcare professionals, we all have a broad topic of talking to our students about ethics and how to deal with patients and how to treat patients. And so I thought it'd be a really cool idea to use comics in doing this with my students. And I found out that this idea is not unique. I am not the first one to discover this, but it's been around for a long time in nursing education, as well as in medical schools.
Matt Wittstein (00:03:29):
That's super cool. I really like that you're sort of taking something from a friend that's in a different field and seeing how it applies to your teaching context, so I really appreciate that piece. So can you tell us a little bit more about what you're actually doing and who you're doing it with? Tell us a little bit about maybe your class and your students.
Lynette Carlson (00:03:48):
I work with graduate athletic training students and so they're getting their masters of science degree and I developed comics with the help of one of my students and these comics were specific to talk about bias and stereotype, and how our biases can impact patient care. Again, I always bring it back to patient care and how we're treating others.
Matt Wittstein (00:04:19):
So you said a student helped you create some of these comic strips and you're using it to teach your students about biases and stereotypes. Can you give us an example of an actual comic strip that you use and how you use it in the classroom?
Lynette Carlson (00:04:32):
Yes. One of the most basic comic strips, we are just recreating everyday events that happen to anyone, and one particular comic strip is a person in an airplane where another person is asking for their help putting the luggage up above. Presumably the person asking for help is an elderly person, and the person being asked to help is a big strong person. And so how this plays out in the classroom is these are just four panel comics, so very short, and the students are visualizing, they look at the comic, I ask them to read it silently to themselves, and then I open up the floor for discussion.
(00:05:21):
I ask the students, "How did you interpret the facial expressions? What are the characters' feelings? How did you hear their voices?" And it's really interesting to see how the students differ in their perception of reading the exact same four panel comic strip. And that opens the door for us to have conversations around how we can view the same event, and interpret it very differently.
Matt Wittstein (00:05:55):
I want you to reflect on before you used comic strips a little bit, and I'm kind of curious, what strategies did you use as an educator to have these types of conversations, and how have the comic strips been changing that experience for you?
Lynette Carlson (00:06:10):
That's a great question. Before comic strips, I mostly lectured and discussed about the different types of biases for example, so implicit bias and what it means, and it was a PowerPoint probably, and a discussion. It was a little bit more challenging to get into a deep discussion about differences and similarities with the students. And so using the comics have really opened up the door, again, to ask those harder questions of the students and ask the students to share their personal experiences. Has this ever happened to you? Have you observed this ever happen to you? Why do you think it happened to you, etc. So we're asking the students to share their personal experiences, where before if it's just a PowerPoint and we're just spewing information at them, they're not really massaging and working with the material, so it's really opened the door to have open conversations and that's why I'm really excited about this idea.
Matt Wittstein (00:07:21):
How do the students perceive the activity? Have you gotten any feedback from them?
Lynette Carlson (00:07:25):
Yes, I have, and I'm in the middle of analyzing some data, because I've been studying this specific to athletic training students. But again, I'd like to open it up to a more broad audience, and overwhelmingly the students enjoy the activity, they prefer it over other more common pedagogies like lecturing or reading case studies. I have asked students for honest feedback, so there are some negatives that have been identified, and some of those were that a student wasn't comfortable speaking out or sharing their personal experiences, which is not that surprising to me.
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However, that's one of the reasons I was interested in talking to you and the panel, is because I was interested in how can we help students become as comfortable as possible, talking to one another about personal experiences, and making it a real safe and brave space for our students.
Matt Wittstein (00:08:34):
I always think of that feedback and you seem to be doing this in a little bit more of a research, methodological approach, but I always see that feedback as that reminder that we're not going to 100% satisfy every single student in the classroom. So I love to have you here so maybe our panel can think about what you're doing and think about ways to adjust it. So that's a great segue. What are you hoping that you can learn from our panel?
Lynette Carlson (00:09:00):
I have thought a lot and talked to a lot of people about getting their ideas on creating that safe and brave space. So we have implemented some steps, to include creating group norms prior to the activity, just getting all the students on the same page with what to expect and how we're going to have open conversations. We also very much believe in forming a community. I wouldn't put 20 strangers in a room and do this activity, so we want to make sure we foster that community. But beyond that, I'm very interested in other techniques that can create that space so that students are comfortable.
(00:09:47):
The second thing that I'm really interested in learning from the panel with ideas would be on the flip side from the professor's standpoint, or the facilitator, whomever is facilitating this discussion, I'm starting to share the comics with people that have asked for them because they think it's an exciting idea and an exciting method, but I'm also a little nervous that they're going to feel comfortable talking about uncomfortable conversations.
(00:10:18):
So how do we get the professors on board with talking about this, and have them prepared to have the conversations where students, they'll say the darnedest things, kind of like that TV show, what is it? Kids Will Say the Darnedest Things? Similar to that, students will share a lot of their experiences if we have that space. So we have to be prepared when they do that. And so I'm interested in how we can create that idea that even though we have fancy letters behind our names, we don't have to know all of the answers, and we have to be okay with that.
Matt Wittstein (00:11:00):
As you're thinking about sharing this material and preparing other faculty and professors to use some of this material, what are some of the challenges that you anticipate yourself having in sharing the material or in them having and using it? Maybe just because they're a little bit less familiar.
Lynette Carlson (00:11:19):
I guess when you put something out in the world, you don't have complete control of it. And so these are kind of my babies that I help develop with the help of others of course, but I do want to make sure that if a professor is willing to practice this activity and participate in this activity, that they're prepared and they're really doing it justice. So that's what makes me a little bit nervous. But again, I just have to trust that the people that are interested in having these conversations are coming from the right place. One of my group norms is that I'm going to assume the best of people. And just because we may blunder and make mistakes in our speech or say something wrong or offending, I'm going to hope that you're going to interpret it in the best way.
Matt Wittstein (00:12:13):
So I know it's always difficult to have some conversations in class and I can imagine asking students to reflect on their own biases, think about stereotypes they hold, think about stereotypes people close to them might hold, could definitely be one of those challenging topics. Why do you find this important within your field of athletic training?
Lynette Carlson (00:12:37):
As I talk about empathy, that's something all healthcare providers are having to balance the care for their patients and the treatment of their patients versus the empathy and how they're recognizing how they're connecting to patients. And so to really do self-evaluation of our biases, of our stereotypes, and to recognize that we carry these things around as humans and normalize it, that it is normal and common to have stereotypes of people, but we need to check ourselves and recognize them first so that it doesn't impact our patient care.
(00:13:21):
So the studies that have been developed in medical schools, for example, have looked at is empathy increased by reading graphic medicine or comics? And the answer is yes, and they think that has to do with, again, reading facial expressions. There's space between panels and comics. In that space, time advances. And so it's up to the reader of the comic to decide what happens in that space. And so that means we're interpreting comics. So everyone interprets a little bit different. And same thing happens in the real world. We're interpreting the intentions of our patients, we're interpreting their expressions, the way they vocalized their aches and pains, et cetera.
Matt Wittstein (00:14:22):
When you're doing this activity with your students, how often do you do this activity? How robust is the conversation? Are they in small groups? Is it the whole class together? Can you tell us a little bit more about how you implement it in your course?
Lynette Carlson (00:14:36):
Ours is a two-year master's program. In the first year, we will do two of the comics. In the second year, we'll do another two comics. On the day of the activity, we would go over our group norms and agree that we're talking about topics like stereotype and bias and make sure everyone's comfortable with the group norms or the rules if you will. Then I project the first comic on the screen. Our cohorts are relatively small, from 12 to 18 students. They already have community because they come in as a cohort, so they'll read the comic silently. And then I just throw out a prompt question, which may be, "What do you think happens next in this comic?" Or it may be, "Can somebody describe to me how they would summarize this comic." And we'll discuss each comic for 20 to 30 minutes. I've done this activity multiple times, and it's surprising the path that each activity takes.
(00:15:43):
It's never been the same. Students are still bringing up new concepts that I've never thought of before, and different interpretations that it never occurred to me that they would. So the conversation is always very unique. And then at the end I have some key points. I do provide the definition of stereotype and bias, or if there's anything specific, one of our comics is called Disability Equals Adaptability. So it talks about the disabled community and so we identify or kind of define different disabilities, so there's that little educational component at the end. So each class period, it takes about an hour to do two topics. So it's pretty deep conversation. Sometimes I have to pull it out of the students a little bit to get them to open up, and other times we could talk for hours.
Matt Wittstein (00:16:46):
I can really visualize that conversation going in different directions. And you learning a lot through that experience too. What are some other ways that your students are interacting with this type of material in other classes?
Lynette Carlson (00:17:01):
Throughout many of our courses, we'll weave in patient-centered care. I keep going back to that because it's such a staple of what we do in medicine. And so because we have that big umbrella, I teach therapeutic exercise as well. Well, of course we talk about we could prescribe them doing five exercises at home three days a week, but if they're not interested in doing those five exercises at home, they're not going to do those. So we do bring up patient centered care and how we have to adapt to and get the patients on board and adapt to if they have some restrictions to doing what we may prescribe to them. So the patient is always part of the conversation when it comes to their treatment.
Matt Wittstein (00:17:57):
Lynette, I think that's all the questions I have for you today. I'm really excited to talk to our panel and discuss this a little bit further. I think you're doing such a cool, fun thing, and I'm excited to see what they have to say about it.
Lynette Carlson (00:18:10):
Thank you. I'm excited for it as well. I have talked to a lot of different people, but any help that the panel can provide would be wonderful. Again, the more voices that are heard and adding and contributing to this idea the better.
Matt Wittstein (00:18:37):
Vanessa, Ty, Tiffanie, I'm really excited to have you here to talk about Lynette's coursework where she's working with some comic strips to talk about what might be difficult conversations in a classroom to introduce yourself to our audience. I would love to know an example of when pop culture was super effective in teaching you something, but specifically in a classroom setting.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:19:01):
Hi, I'm Vanessa Drew-Branch, associate professor in human services studies at Elon University, and all of my friends call me V., or Dr. V on campus. So hey y'all. One of the things that I've always used is music. In my classroom, particularly setting the tone for what the classes are going to, the tone of the classroom. So back in the day, I used to use Notorious B.I.G.'s, Big Papa to Juicy to really have my students think about what is he saying? Beyond the dope beat, beyond the context, what is the context in which he's rapping? After the election of President Obama, we had a lot of conversation around are we living in a post`-racist society? Have we eradicated racism? And one of the songs that I've used to have our students analyze and think about is Neighbors by J. Cole. Really, have we gotten to the space where race does not matter anymore.
(00:20:11):
And that song has really been a good pop way, pop culture way of thinking about do we live in a post-racial society? Another example is I teach a mental health course. It's a two-hour course here at Elon because most of our courses are four hours, so it's a full semester once a week course. And in that course we use movies such as Black Swan. We've used the Joker to come up with a diagnosis. I think one of the coolest ones that the students have used, it's a TV show that Zendaya is in. They use Euphoria and they use the characters in order to come up with some really cool inferences, mental health inferences. And so I think that pop culture can be utilized in all sorts of ways.
Ty Hollett (00:21:05):
I'm Ty Hollett. I am an associate professor of learning design and technology at Penn State University. And first thing that comes to mind in terms of pop culture is actually and a learning environment for me is actually my dissertation. So I study youth interests, and I began graduate school thinking a lot about video games and learning and video games, learning settings. My dissertation ended up being about the video game Minecraft, so not just about people playing Minecraft. I developed a small program at a public library where youth were using Minecraft to think a bit more about urban planning issues.
(00:21:45):
So at this time it was in Nashville Tennessee. We started off just trying to build Nashville and trying to imagine new possibilities for the city, and realized that scale was just so big, there's just way too much to think about. So we brought it down to the scale of just a neighborhood and imagining what does it mean to design a neighborhood that's either accessible in terms of access to parks or to schools to green space. What does it mean when it's inaccessible? Who's it inaccessible for? Just kind of getting into some of those questions, but using that love and that real expertise that the kids that I was working with had with Minecraft to be able to just imagine some alternative possibilities for the city that they've lived in and for the community.
Tiffanie Grant (00:22:27):
Hi, my name is Tiffanie Grant. I am a rising sophomore from Elon University. I'm majoring in exercise science with a minor in psychology and pertaining to pop culture, the one thing that I can think of per se would be in my sociology class when we examine different institutions and also music itself. And I find that music has a great contribution when it comes to telling people's culture, when it comes to evaluating values, and understanding all around the music itself, but it also helps with the mind as well when it comes to focusing and in the classroom, you find that teachers use music as a way to keep students focused to try and even retain things as well.
(00:23:16):
I find that whenever you're teaching and even so when there is background music that can also click on something in your brain to say, okay, that was played when we were doing this activity or when we were learning this. So it will help when it comes to sparking, maybe even just thinking about when it comes to taking tests I would say. But all around I find that pop culture music helps in various ways and even so when it comes to reestablishing values and introducing values to those who don't understand certain things, and even so, allowing people to be culturally aware of things as well.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:23:56):
I love that sentiment Tiffanie, because I remember in the third grade I was struggling to memorize my times tables and our teacher had this record, at that point it was records, so I'm dating myself, where she would play a song with the Times tables in it. I think it's really important that you said that it does help. Music does help with mindfulness. I was also thinking recently there was, my children are slightly older, but there was an episode of Gracie's Corner where Big Freedia, the huge pop culture icon from New Orleans was on there and was, they were just rapping row, row, row your boat. But it was a great way to introduce diversity into values and equity into children who were starting early. And some people would call that indoctrination. I would just call it equity. And so it was a beautiful thing for me to see. And so I was row, row rowing your boat with Big Freedia and Gracie for probably two or three days.
Tiffanie Grant (00:25:02):
And even though when you brought up the idea of the multiplication tables, it made me think about in Sunday school when I had a Sunday school teacher who told us that if you memorize the books of the Bible, you get $50. And I missed out on that chance. I didn't know it at the time, but I went back home and listened to a whole song and learned the books of the Bible. And in every beat you can pin in the books of the Bible and memorize it right throughout. So it does help when it comes to retention, definitely.
Matt Wittstein (00:25:33):
Well, welcome to the episode. What I love about some of your responses is that there seems to be this connection between pop culture, what's actually happening in the world around us that relates to our values, and our underlying culture that informs those values and allows us to do things like problem solve and learn in different ways. And I think that relates really well to Lynette's context where she is taking some comic strips that she has developed to help facilitate conversations that center cultural humility and quality patient care while thinking about things like students' biases that they may have based on their positionality. So to provide a little bit more information, Lynette is a athletic training instructor, clinical professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. And in a seminar course that the graduate students take at UT, she has four sort of scenarios that she uses to help them discuss what might be some difficult conversations.
(00:26:39):
And the way that she does this is she pops it up on the big screen in the front of the classroom, lets her students read those panels and think to themselves quietly and then opens up with a question of, Hey, what happens in the next panel in this? Or can you summarize what happened in this comic strip? Her goal is to create a safe and brave space that our students can share their actual experiences and values in non-judgmental ways, but still teach them to center what's important for patient care. So I just want to get a quick feel of what are some of your initial thoughts of what Lynette's doing in the classroom?
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:27:22):
So whenever this topic was brought to me, I immediately thought of a quote by Bell Hooks, the classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy because you're using something that seems so, but it makes complete sense when I think about, I'm a huge Marvel fan, huge DC fan. When I think about the political discourse that was behind those initial comics, thinking about mutants and Professor X and what that all meant and thinking about Stanley's envisioning for his Marvel universe that comics have always been connected to the political discourse, to the social discourse. We just haven't used them in the classroom in those same ways. And so as tools, and so when I think about the use of these comic strips, I'm kind of excited by the idea because it really does tap into that this is a radical space where we can use outside tools to have these really good conversations around what is going on, what is happening in our contemporary society.
Ty Hollett (00:28:36):
Yeah, I think just kind of picking up on that Vanessa, I mean what stands out to me is just the power of visuals. And so we kind of began here with thinking about pop culture and led to a conversation about the importance of music for us, for instance. And so I think just having these alternative modalities to engage with any kind of material is powerful, be it music, be it visuals. I think we do exist in a contemporary pop culture and cultural moment in which the visual holds all kinds of weight. Kind of seeing the shift from a typographic, I don't know, dating myself a little bit here, but in 2005, six when I was on Facebook, how that gradually became a place to share images, but that sort of gave way to Instagram. Instagram has given way to TikTok.
(00:29:26):
So I think the classic phrase of meeting students where they're at, I mean I think there's always some danger in just trying to do what is the new cool thing, but I think what has continuously persisted over time is the power of a simple image. And so I think that's what comics can do is they can provide at the very basis one simple visual way of capturing a moment and then being able to engage and discuss that moment in a classroom setting I think can be incredibly powerful.
Tiffanie Grant (00:29:51):
So I can definitely agree that both Ty and Vanessa, you guys brought up some really great points. As in visual pictures can help when it comes to getting the word out because it's one thing just to say the word and just let people hear about it, but seeing it from your own eyes and understanding a visual perspective of, okay, what are they painting on the picture? It'll bring awareness to what Lynette is trying to bring out. And I find that just the visual aspect of it with the comic books, I find it a brilliant idea. Even so I remember when I was younger, I wasn't as interested in comic books, but I enjoyed looking at it as well. So just looking at it and understanding, okay, what is the message out of it rather than just reading it off from words is a great way to approach what Lynette is trying to get at.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:30:46):
I think Tiffanie, and then this kind of idea that storytelling in a very different way is also very powerful to shift the narrative. So when we think about black liberation scholars and also black feminist scholars, this kind of idea around the counter narrative, so what is the narrative, what's the top layer, but what is the other narratives that could be possibly happening in this comic strip? What are the mainstream things, but then what can be behind the scenes? And so I think that those images are really important and can be a powerful tool kind of in my genre, in the feminist kind of lens to say what also is happening, what other stories could be happening in the undercurrent, that we may not always be so readily to see because of our own positionality. One of my guiding mantras is we cannot dismantle the master's house with the master's tools by Audre Lorde.
(00:31:43):
So we cannot continue to use the same methods of teaching if we are trying to teach from a socially just pedagogy. The idea is for us to incorporate different ways of knowing and being. I tell people all the time, I'm super literate, but audiobooks are probably one of my favorite ways to consume materials. Also, watching a YouTube video for me taught me how to crochet for example. Traditionally in higher education, we have relied too heavily on the written text, and I would challenge anyone to say that we haven't, that has been our main source of how we access information, but there are so many different ways, and I think that I'm personally glad to see that these ways are being highlighted.
Ty Hollett (00:32:29):
Yeah, and that's what you're saying, it reminds me of, so I sit on all these dissertation committees and I see one, all these text-based dissertations after dissertation, and I think you're hitting the nail on the head in the terms of there's this, I mean, really the way I think about it, white supremacy saturates all of higher education and the ways in which we produce texts and we reproduce texts and we expect texts to be produced. And so I'm always thinking somebody please give me something different, but to even break that down is so challenging. So I seek out the places where they're doing that. I think Duke actually, I just remember years ago somebody submitted a mixtape dissertation and I was like, that's what I want. Somebody give me a mixtape, somebody give me something. Or let's just imagine how do we work within the constraints that we do have of a dissertation that's got to look a certain way and start to mix that up a little bit, get our own little mini mixtape in there.
(00:33:22):
And so I think visuals are one way of playing with that of either presenting material in different ways. I know that in my research, I've used comics to some degree, oftentimes taking still videos, video capture, having some sort of animated component to it as in the layer that I use, the way I can present that. But I've always sought that out as ways of telling these stories of not having some transcript that's just this text-based transcript when there's so much movement, so much energy, so much action and time and space, all these different things are coming together in any sort of learning environment. So I feel like comics are one way of getting at that and thereby also one way of getting away from the textual dominance that is in all aspects of the kinds of materials that we have to read and write and present and all of that.
Matt Wittstein (00:34:13):
So I think one of the challenges that Lynette is experiencing with this is finding that balance between having a difficult conversation, but also meeting students where they're at and helping them build trust in that. So Tiffanie, I'm going to ask you, does having a conversation that might involve topics such as racism or discrimination or ableism through comics, does that any way cheapen the lesson, or does it make it more approachable to having that conversation? I'm really curious from your perspective, what that might feel like.
Tiffanie Grant (00:34:49):
Yeah, so definitely I find that shifting away from the traditional ways as in lecturing and reading off text per se is a great way to approach it and especially to get the word out. I find that even as a student, it is obviously a little bit easier when it comes to just looking at a picture, okay, you're creating your own meaning per se, and then trying to interpret what they were trying to get at. And I find that it is a great approach when it comes to making a comic book. And even so when Vanessa was saying that too often in the institutional ways, I would say it is very traditional or it could just be written down on text and we just read and regurgitate what we understood. But looking at it from a comic book perspective, I find that you're more just looking at the pictures and you're trying to evaluate what exactly are they trying to get at.
(00:35:42):
In a way it's a different learning technique, and I can definitely see that as well as to correlate to my sociology course. Last semester, I found that my sociology teacher did not use the typical lecturing style where they just read off the PowerPoint and give us the information. He would allow us to give him examples of how it correlates back to sociology, or how the sociological terms can be found in our everyday life. And the way that the comic books are being used, you're allowing the students or the audience to portray what they feel or how it correlates back to them and how they can contribute to this matter.
Ty Hollett (00:36:24):
I feel like Tiffanie, what you're saying too is kind of hitting on just the idea of agency in a classroom. And I think to even draw back to what Vanessa was speaking about in terms of you can't change the ways classrooms look if you endlessly reproduce some instructor delivering a PowerPoint. So I think providing visuals like a comic is one step forward. But I do agree that I wonder what it's like to have students creating their own comics to them sort of guiding what that kind of conversation looks like, not just of the visual as an entry point, but one in which the ones that are creating what they're going to be talking about, the ones who are able to guide what that classroom session is going to look like. And then I think from there you can explode outward in terms of really diving into the power of comics as well. But I think that shift in agency is huge and just one initial movement towards creating more of a student-centered student-driven classroom setting too.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:37:22):
And I also think Ty that it helps to increase the sense of belongingness that a cohort is experiencing. So what I mean by belongingness is this human need to be affiliated with other folks and to be accepted by those people, these comic strips, but also other kind of alternative methods of engaging with the material have an opportunity to increase the sense of belongingness among the cohort if multiple voices are in charge of creating these comic strips or these alternative methods of approaching the material.
(00:37:59):
I think it's important that the comics are great, as long as there are different people who are contributing, right? Folks who are from historically marginalized groups, if they're contributing to the co-creation of the strips, because there are different languages, there are different cultural codes that can be communicated, but if you don't have someone from these groups participating in the creation of the comic strips, we can just be once again reproducing the same cultural narratives and we don't want to do that. And so it's a beautiful opportunity, I think in order to really engage marginalized groups in telling their stories and to increase that sense of belongingness.
Tiffanie Grant (00:38:44):
I can definitely say that you brought up a really great point because it's one thing to write a comic book and say that you're trying to do it for the best of that culture, but if you don't have someone there to guide you along the ways of the codes or to understand the visual aspects of telling about the culture with that message, I would say you need the support of the people who you're trying to get at I would say.
Ty Hollett (00:39:11):
Vanessa, it's kind of fun to imagine even alternative possibilities here. I think hearing about this comic, I sort of imagined it still gets put up on a screen and then that's a conversation starter. So now it's like, well, let's just actually disrupt what the entire classroom setting looks like. And it's not just we use comics in this class, but comics are a means of creating new forms of dialogue and actually say, getting out of this classroom. So what does it mean to co-produce comics alongside, as if I hear what you're saying, Vanessa, the very communities in which you're trying to depict visually in some way. So now this isn't a classroom and this isn't just a thing that you're looking at up on a screen, but now it's a conversation, it's an ongoing dialogue, it's a community-based learning setting, and the classroom is a space where we meet and we have that sense of belonging, but there's not just a teacher and some student voices here, but perhaps entire community's voices, maybe folks are present as well. Entirely new stories are generated and just using comics as the fulcrum to get that going.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:40:14):
I think you're right. And there is an example that came to my mind that where it's really important if you're attempting to increase the exposure to diversity, increase the exposure to marginalized communities and what their experience is, their voice is. I'm sure most folks are familiar with Beyonce's Lemonade visual album, the idea around it. Most folks ingested and was like, oh, that's really cool, some good music. You had a lot of Black feminist scholars who were like, no, you all aren't seeing the imagery. You're not getting it because you're not a Black female who grew up with these kind of images and these cultural codes. And so I think it's important, this is why it's important. Because her telling a story, yes, it was good music, but there were also, there's a lot of significance that comes in it that if you don't have those voices that it won't be present, right?
(00:41:11):
It's almost like translating languages. There's a lot of things that get lost in translation. And so unless you have a native speaker of that culture present and engaged in the co-creation, you're not going to hit it. And this is where we get into where things can become offensive, where things can totally miss the mark and become very harmful as when our intentions are to do good, but if we don't have those voices present, those native cultural speakers present, it can do more harm than good. And so that is kind of one of my cautionary tales around that.
Tiffanie Grant (00:41:46):
It even just makes me think about when moving away from the cultural perspective, but the student perspective, when professors and teachers want to speak on how to best suit students in the academic setting, it's best to take the students in with you and try to talk about these things and hear about what they're thinking about it as well to address some of the issues that happen in the academic setting. So hand in hand, it's great to include the group who you're trying to evaluate or who you're trying to address or change.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:42:25):
Right, because culture is dynamic. So I was a student back in the day and I'm sure there have been a lot of things that have changed culturally with how students engage in information. I like to call myself an elder millennial. Elder millennials have our way of engaging materials that I'm absolutely sure is different than Gen Z or the Alpha generation, which is my daughter's generation. Just thinking about how you all can, technology is evolving. We have this introduction of AI and all these things. It's very, very different. So even the student culture, how to be a student, this life around students is very different and it's always changing and it's very dynamic.
Ty Hollett (00:43:10):
Maybe it's time to talk about AI a little bit more there. I mean that's exactly one thing I was thinking about. I mean, the fact that I can basically generate any image right now, I throw in a prompt into Midjourney and I can start getting various depictions. And so I think that's, one thing I thought about in terms of it makes comic creation potentially more accessible, but the technology is not neutral. The AI is not neutral. It has been designed, it has been taught in a very specific way with specific materials from specific cultural perspectives. And so I think that's where then in terms of what's happening in the classroom, you get the chance to alongside students, interrogate some of these depictions that the AI itself is generating. You get a chance to see about whatever artificial intelligence is spitting out in terms of visual production says something about the culture that it's coming out of. And then you get to start imagining, okay, so what's it missing? What's not there? Who's not there? What voices aren't present, whatever it might be. And I think that leads to an additional conversation as well.
Matt Wittstein (00:44:14):
I want to pull us back a little bit. Very often when we think of our goals for teaching and learning is that in some ways we want our students to understand themselves better so that they can interact with the knowledge and skills that they're learning in the most appropriate way once they're not in that safe academic setting. And to me, in an activity like this, sort of getting some comfortability with discomfort and being vulnerable is really key to having successful conversations both with yourself and with your cohort mates. So I'm curious if y'all have things that you look for when you know that a class setting or an activity is actually a safe and brave space that you've done your due diligence to make it safe and brave or Tiffanie from your perspective of how it's actually okay to share what you really think.
Tiffanie Grant (00:45:11):
I keep correlating back to my sociology course, but when I came into Elon as a freshmen, Elon is a predominantly White college, so I was expecting only White professors, my naive mind I would say. But Elon has increased with diversity over the years from what I've been told, and entering into my sociology course and seeing, I rated my professor trying to see where are the nitpicks and what do I need to know about the professor? And I wasn't expecting him to be a Black professor until I walked in and it was just like, okay, wow. So I can actually maybe talk. Because I am a shy person, so I like to keep to myself and just get my business done with classes and do what I need to do. But when I saw the Black professor, I was just like, okay, maybe we can talk. And even so it made the room comfortable seeing that another professor who looked like me was in the classroom.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:46:12):
I think one of the things that I've attempted to do is, one, I try to show up authentically, and I think that people can feel when you are being genuine. And so if that is the tone that I'm setting, that's the environment that I'm attempting to create, folks with all sorts of diverse opinions feel like they can also be their authentic self. And I've had all sorts of, all across the spectrum in terms of student beliefs, ideologies, and values.
(00:46:46):
The other part of it is I attempt to create a syllabus, which is the bane of my existence, but that incorporates many different voices. So we have indigenous voices, we have Black feminist voices, we have traditional academic voices, we have all of these voices so that folks can see themselves in my syllabus, they can feel like their folks are represented in some way, and I think that adds to the value of the course, but the access point for many students. I want them to feel like there is an access point. I think that is one of the ways that I have attempted to create a space I'm allowing for students and allowing means so that they can show up as their authentic selves.
Ty Hollett (00:47:38):
But as I hear in the syllabus, I mean in terms of just a lot that it perpetuates, it makes me think that I try to craft a syllabus. If we just talk syllabus, we talk about the thing that's on paper, what does the introduction to it look like? What are the kind of questions you ask? Does it already position this as a teacher knows everything, our instructor knows everything, and you're going to receive all of this knowledge. What opportunities are there for students to actually craft the syllabus themselves? How does student interest and what they bring to the table, how is that recognized actually by the syllabus? To what degree can they actually bring themselves there? And I think a syllabus does signal that in certain ways, the policies that are there, readings, all of that. If you cheat on this, we will detect plagiarism using whatever plagiarism detective software that our university has bought.
(00:48:33):
So those are all sending signals, and so yeah, trying to eliminate that stuff. I know in my courses I try to call that out. I'm not sending the signal to you that I already view you as somebody who is looking to cheat. So what I'm going to do is create a dialogue with you. I want to engage in conversation with you. If there's any issue that comes up, let's talk about that. Let's develop a relationship. So I think in terms of what I try to do in my classroom is make it as relational as possible.
(00:48:56):
Again, at a place like Penn State, enrollments continue to rise up. Of course that used to be 20 people, now it has 45 to 50 people. That relationship is harder to build. And so throughout a class period, I'm still, based on what I learned as a student teacher long ago, I'm trying to talk with each person every class period, try to have at least one little bit of individual contact to help create that sense of belonging and thereby create that sense as Matt alluded to earlier, that sense of safety of being a part of that classroom community as well.
Tiffanie Grant (00:49:32):
Immediately when you said relation, it made me think about this one instance where in my fall semester I had a professor who recognized that I was the only one in my classroom that looked like me and she pulled me aside at the very end, she was just like, "Hey, I just want to let you know that if any topics make you uncomfortable, please just let me know. I do not want to offend anything at all." And that felt very welcoming to me. I was just like, okay, wow. She actually recognizes before I even have to say anything. Coming into college, I knew that, so I wasn't going to do that because I'm not the person who represents my culture. I don't need to speak on matters per se. And she recognized that, she came to me and was like, "Hey, so I recognize this. Just please let me know if I come off offensive or if the topics are a little too much or if someone else has offended," and I felt that was very welcoming.
Matt Wittstein (00:50:26):
So one of the things that Lynette's doing with this is she's actually conducting some research on how her students are experiencing this type of activities, and I just kind of wanted to go around the room and ask what questions would you have, like research type questions would you have for this type of activity, whether it's student perspectives, whether it's learning outcomes, and how might you approach that?
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:50:51):
I think I am interested in if students are more culturally sensitive and culturally responsive. So what I mean by culturally sensitive is in the comic strip, are they asking themselves what am I missing? What are the subtexts that are happening here that I may not have been aware of prior to having the comic strips? I want them to, if a patient says, my sugar's been acting up, I want them to know what that African-American or black person means by their sugar. And so I think that I am curious to see if they are being able to be multilingual in terms of cultural sensitivity and cultural responsiveness, and this is based on the data that we have around medical care responsiveness and the racism that exists, racism and sexism that exists in that sector with our medical helping professionals. Are you able to hear beyond your own cultural perspective? And then what in fact is that patient saying?
Ty Hollett (00:52:14):
Yeah, I'm thinking a bit too now about what this looks like in a given semester when these comics are integrated. I guess to go to the comic book concept of the monster of a week from a CW TV show. Is it the monster of the week? Is it the new thing each week then, which we're trying to use these visuals to depict in some way? And I guess I err on it shifting away from that to a bit more of I guess a deeper engagement over time with a related issue, almost like refrains on a theme in terms of trying to understand how students are engaging with these visuals and some of that growth in terms of their own, if we call it cultural responsiveness or sensitivity.
(00:53:03):
I feel like that and having, again, engaging in dialogues around this, looking at how small groups are talking to each other as opposed to, again, we all look at if there's 20 students looking at something together and trying to gauge it, and I certainly hope it's not on some test or anything like that, but I think the more dialogic you can create this about having groups or pairs discussing, interrogating, questioning things together. I think it's maybe at a deeper sense of some of this growth over time. But that said, I think all this is for me, time comes into play here. It depends if you just move on to the next classroom setting after this, to what degree does this kind of approach or at the very least, do these kind of issues become woven throughout a longer term curriculum?
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:53:51):
I think that's great. So how is this scaffolded right throughout there because we know that one and done is not going to stick, right? So are these concepts, even if it's not the strips, are they scaffolded throughout their curriculum because we want to know if five years from now did this stick, did this help to increase your awareness, increase your personal and professional growth? So I mean, I really like that idea of how else, what are the other ways that this is being done within their curriculum? The seed can be planted with the comic strips, but then how else is this curriculum watering and nurturing the growth of these outcomes, these certain student learning outcomes?
Tiffanie Grant (00:54:34):
Also, it's just like how can they apply it to their own lives and take it out into the world as well? Yes, I definitely agree that it's not just enough just to write the comic books, but also how to apply it throughout the athletic training program.
Matt Wittstein (00:54:50):
Well, I think we've had a really good conversation. We've talked about a wide range of things, and I want to thank you all for taking the time to today and have this conversation with us all together. Thank you.
Vanessa Drew-Branch (00:55:00):
Welcome, anytime.
Ty Hollett (00:55:01):
Thank you. It's great to be here with you all.
Tiffanie Grant (00:55:04):
Thank you. It's nice meeting you all.
Matt Wittstein (00:55:22):
Hi, Lynette. Welcome back. It's great to see you.
Lynette Carlson (00:55:24):
Thank you. Thanks for having me back.
Matt Wittstein (00:55:26):
Well, we had a really deep conversation with Vanessa Drew branch Associate Professor of Human Service Studies from Elon University, Tiffanie Grant, a sophomore exercise science major, and a student scholar for the Center for Engaged Learning's Research seminar on mentoring meaningful learning experiences and Ty Hollett, an associate professor of learning design and technology at Penn State University. Our panel really loves your approach to these conversations and learning goals, and especially stress the need for teachers to find innovative ways to connect with our students and try new modalities to maintain high levels of engagement. And I think you're doing a really awesome job towards that already. So kudos to you. If I could stress one thing from our panel, it's simply to partner. As we develop conversations around bias or inclusivity or equity or other sensitive topics, it becomes more and more important to ensure people we are talking to and about are part of that creation process, and that we present stories and narratives and perspectives that we may not fully understand from our own personal experiences so our students and the world can experience those other stories.
(00:56:33):
Vanessa offered a great example of when an African American says, "My sugar's acting up." It's really possible that a clinician doesn't know what the patient means by that phrase and they need to ask. Your activity seems to have the opportunity to get students to be more sensitive and responsive and curious about what they're not yet aware of. Tiffanie echoed this by suggesting asking your students or maybe recent alums simply what are the best ways that you can serve them in the classroom so that they can provide patient-centered care. Ty suggested asking students to maybe even create their own comics at the end of a session to possibly provide some new narratives that you hadn't thought of yet. Our discussion really focused more on making a strong connection with students rather than how you might support other faculty using your material. In fact, the panel was empathetic to how difficult it can be to trust others to use something we've created, especially something that could potentially be misused.
(00:57:27):
As our conversation shifted towards exploring the research side of this, our panel was really interested in ways to get to student change and growth. One suggestion was to explore this longitudinally to see one, if students are engaging more deeply during in-class activity, or two, if reflection on clinical rotations are connecting with any of these learning activities. Tiffanie wanted to know more about how students might be interacting with this material and activity beyond the classroom, and reflection might be a good skill to develop in students that align with this research goal. While student change and growth is maybe more difficult to study, it was the area that our panel was the most interested in exploring. Overall, I think our panel really wants to see you lean into this type of activity, and maybe even stretch yourself to try other modalities and means to approach these topics.
(00:58:14):
At the start of our conversation, I asked the panel about examples when pop culture made an impact on teaching and learning experiences, and it uncovered the potential for personal connection to significant topics as well as the relationships to values and culture that may be different across your students. While seeing themselves in the professor or classmates may not always be possible to curate for your students, you do have this awesome opportunity to make sure students can see themselves in your stories and push our teaching approaches towards new ways to create dialogue and conversations that need to happen. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you might partner with others to continue creating new scenarios for you to discuss with your students and colleagues.
Lynette Carlson (00:58:56):
Thank you for sharing that. That sounded like a really exciting conversation and I took furious notes to try to talk through or capture the ideas that were presented. As far as partnering, certainly I thought about that in the development of the comics themselves. I worked with a student and they just graduated from our program and I knew the student was a doodler and could do some artwork. So we sat down and we talked about different themes and what our comics may look like and what kind of stories the comics may tell. And I would say that we came up with an overall theme and then I handed over the keys to the former student and now colleague and friend. And so the comics do reflect many people's ideas and input. For example, when I developed the Disability Equals Adaptability comic strip, I have done a lot of volunteer work in organizations here in Chattanooga, and I've had some people with disabilities come into our class and discuss really common questions that students have.
(01:00:15):
And through these conversations, one of my friends would say, for example, when I'm grocery shopping, "I don't want to ask if I need help getting items off of the shelf." And another friend of mine in this conversation, she will say, "Yes, please ask me if I need help getting items off the shelf, if that's something that I don't have to ask for, that's one less ask." So as much as I try to incorporate different voices, we do have to acknowledge that not everyone is going to answer the questions the same, and we're going to be looking through different lenses, and we just do our best to incorporate as many voices as possible knowing that in four panels, we're not going to represent all people and all thoughts. More importantly, I hope that it opens a conversation for those different feelings and thoughts, and that's what I'm trying to create, that atmosphere of inclusivity and the ability to say, well, I see that differently.
Matt Wittstein (01:01:24):
Now, you had shared with us that you start this during the first year of your graduate students program, and some of the questions that our panelists had were about the longitudinal, is it changing how they're doing this? Have you actually gotten any feedback from students as they're going through clinical experiences that connect directly back to the comics or conversations around that?
Lynette Carlson (01:01:46):
Well, as an assistant professor, this is one of my research lines, if you will, and I adapted a survey to look at cultural competency. It was originally developed in nursing program, and I wanted to find out just that, are we moving the needle, so to say, in cultural competency and hoping that we move towards cultural humility? And so I have done some research along with other institutions where I've shared these comics, and we are currently analyzing that data to prep it for publication, and I don't have those answers yet. I've looked at some of the qualitative information, and we have learned that students do prefer discussing comics over reading a paragraph, for example, or being lectured to, which probably shouldn't be surprising. As far as really being able to capture is their cultural competency growing and expanding, that's a little bit harder to see, but certainly looking at it longitudinally over a two-year graduate program, we hope that students, through their clinical interactions with real patients in the real world, as well as through classroom conversations, we hope that they're moving forward.
Matt Wittstein (01:03:17):
I have one last question. You sort of hinted at the limits of us being able to actually have every single voice in perspective just because of the time constraints and the ability to do everything. So I'm curious, how do you see yourself pragmatically expanding this activity for your students?
Lynette Carlson (01:03:38):
I think expansion is key. I would like to create more comics. Right now we just have four comics, and there are many, many scenarios that could open up this conversation. I believe that there has been discussion about having students create their own comics, and that is something that I recently tried this summer actually, I was a guest speaker at a STEM program for middle school girls, and it was a summer camp, and after reading a book that described asking students or participants in these discussions to add additional panels to the end of the comic to describe, well, what do you think happens next? I actually implemented that this summer, and it was very interesting to see how now the students get to give their perspective. I interpret this comic heading this direction.
(01:04:40):
And again, that opened up a discussion so that we could talk about our similarities and our differences and how we are looking at the same piece of paper, and one person may read it ending sort of happy, and maybe somebody else interprets it as it's going to turn into an argument. So that's one way that with the current comics created, that we can elaborate and expand and get our students' voices heard and seen through further discussions.
Matt Wittstein (01:05:15):
Lynette, I want to thank you just one more for sharing your comics with our podcast. It was awesome conversation and I can't wait to see what else you do with it.
Lynette Carlson (01:05:24):
Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed the discussion and I look forward to implementing the suggestions that the panel made. I am open to collaborating with others in athletic training as well as other healthcare professions in education and in professional practice, so thanks so much for having me.
Matt Wittstein (01:06:00):
Limed: Teaching with a Twist was created and developed by Matt Wittstein, Associate Professor of Exercise Science at Elon University. Dhvani Toprani is Elon University's assistant director of learning design and support, and serves as a producer for the show. Jeremiah Timberlake is a class of 2024 Computer Science and Music in the Liberal arts double major at Elon University and Summer 2023 intern for Limed. Music for the show was composed and recorded by Kai Mitchell, a class of 2024 Music Production and Recording Arts student at Elon University. Limed: Teaching with a Twist is published by and produced in collaboration with the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University. For more information, including show notes and additional engaged learning resources, visit www.centerforengagedlearning.org. Thank you for listening, and please subscribe, rate, review, and share our show to help us keep it zesty.