Hello and farewell, my community.This is the last episode of Season 5 and of the show, Instructional Ecology (for now). Your host considers the arc of the show, the many stories we've heard, and considers the kind of perspective an ending can bring.We touch on learning, failure, growth, uncertainty and new beginnings. I tell a story of how the podcast was part of my recovery and learning to live with vocal paralysis. I consider the wealth of teaching I've been privileged to witness and hear about at the college. Join us for a short episode to say goodbye to the project, for now. More soon, my community. I hope we meet each other again and again. 

We offer a bookend to the first epsiode of the season. We began with Hameen Shabazz the day he was offered a new position at the college: Student Success Coach. He was joined by three other hires to form the first SSC team the college has had. I talk with Hameen, Sierra Oliphant, Grace Alger and Kristofer McCoy about their beginnings, how they grew in their roles and as a team. And we talk about what it means to no longer be a beginner. What is it like to be at the end of the beginning? What's next? Listen to hear about all of these questions and answers, to hear some stories of joy and disappointment and the many ways that "student success" can look. 

As we near the end of this season and our show, we talk with another newer member of our teaching and learning community: Dr. Lamar White. Dr. White joined us earlier this year as the Vice President of Student Affairs. He has a vision that depends on great interest in and respect for students beginning their college journey with us. We talk about his beginnings as a first-generation college student, making the leap of faith from Compton to Atlanta. We talk about his career path in higher education. And we uncover an incredible treasure trove of a lifetime of active and benevolent mentors..Join us to set one foot in a world where every time a hand reaches out for help, another hand is there to catch and hold and help. 

In our second episode with the Building Construction program in the School of Advanced Manufacturing and Skilled Trades, I talk with Professor Ethan Reynolds. Ethan graduated the program and was immediately hired as a professor because of his natural teaching talent and excellent command of the skills he had learned. Ethan talks about going from student to professor at nineteen years old and what his first year of teaching was like. We explore the uncertainty of taking up authority in the classroom and the importance of self-reflection not only as a beginner but also as a teacher at any stage of a career.

In the first of two episodes in our Building Construction program, we talk with Robbie Sharpe, the program director. Robbie talks about how he brings everybody in his complex classes on board, getting buy-in from the start. Robbie is the definition of a lifelong learner and uses many techniques to help his students learn and therefore succeed. Many of these are based on relational learning, creating connection between himself and between learners. We talk about Robbie’s own learning practice and how he offers his students many opportunities to achieve deep learning of crucial knowledge and skills. We talk house construction, mistakes, math, and knitting!

This story episode follows a professor who changed the foundation of her lifestyle: she moved to plant-based living. In my conversation with Political Science professor Heather Hawn, we talk about the fear of loss that often accompanies plans for change. As a professor, she often sees this fear in her students and we talk about how starting this journey in her personal life has brought her great wisdom in the classroom.

In this episode, we talk with Geography professor and education abroad program leader Brian Grabbatin. Brian's discipline offers students new information and perspective on the world around them: in the natural world around the college, in the study of human and physical geography in the classroom and abroad as he takes them overseas to countries they've never visited before. We talk about firsts and the stress and excitement of travel in the mind and the body. What is it like for students to begin to explore our world through his classes and as tourists? What does he do to help them succeed in these explorations? We talk about his own experience as a first-generation college student as a young man and what that brings to his teaching. Join us for a rich conversation about teaching practice that helps build the "messy networks" of interconnected knowledge that students slowly construct as they progress in one of his Geography courses. 

In this edition of our story series, we meet and talk with English professor and Pathway Coordinator Kathleen Dunley. Kathleen is a PhD in English but recently was a raw beginner in her study of German. This conversation has a very close connection between learning and teaching. Kathleen describes how she pulls out all the learning skills she's gathered over the years to succeed in her German studies and that includes facing the hardest and most discouraging moments in learning.

In this episode, we get into the nuance of the difference of being a beginner and beginning something new. We talk with Benjamin Gaston, the college’s Dean of the School of STEM; someone who has a complex brief that includes oversight of multiple departments and many employees, both faculty and staff. Benjamin is an engineer by training and trade and taught for the college before moving into administration, first as Chair of Engineering and now as dean. We talk about being a true beginner at a hobby (he recently learned to ride a motorcycle from the CCE part of the college) and beginning new projects as an expert. What’s it like to oversee complex and far-reaching projects at the college? We talk about the Mav in Space program that Benjamin organized that sent MTC student research to the International Space Station and an important new partnership with Scout Motors. 

We continue with our story series with English professor Sylvia Hayes. Sylvia talks to us about beginning a small market farm with her husband: Love and Honey Farms.We hear about aquaponics and raising ducks, turkeys, lots of chickens, and goats. Hear the story of the first time Sylvia midwifed the birth of twin goats!We explore the benefits she sees of helping new students build a supporting community and manage their time, two things that Sylvia herself learned the hard way, through need. She talks about her college struggle with cancer and homelessness, the lessons of which she offers to her students to ease their journeys.Spend some time on a farm and in an English classroom as we hear another story of beginnings.

In the summer of 2024, the college gained a new president: Dr. Gregory Little. At the time of this conversation, Dr. Little was in a moment of great beginnings: beginning his first college presidency and his time at a new institution and being in the process of meeting many new people and work partners. We talk about what drew him to this new part of his career and what his first weeks were like. We also delve into the skills that make him a flexible and effective leader who tackles new issues constantly. We further enrich our skill set of being a practiced beginner. Join us to get to know our president better and get a glimpse of this crucial beginning phase in the life of our college. 

We begin our story series for this season: I Am Beginning. As we shine the spotlight on beginning, this story series showcases some of the beginnings that are happening at the college right under our noses but that might not be visible. This story series features people from all around the college telling the story of something new they’ve recently begun, something at which they were a compete beginner.Our first storyteller is the program director of our Pharmacy Technician program, Channon Watkins. She tells her story of having a weekend to prepare to become a mother to a toddler.Join us to hear how she went from auntie to parent in the blink of an eye, what she learned in that steep curve and what lessons she’s taken into her teaching from this incredible experience.

Sandra Jackson is the Chair of the MTC Commission, the college's highest governing body, whose members are appointed by the governor of South Carolina. She also began her higher education journey here at the college.She joins us to tell her personal origin story when, at 17, she was denied the career she wanted because her widowed mother could not afford to send her out of a state to the program she wanted to join. Crushed, she turned to MTC for an alternate path. It was here that her hurt feelings revived and she became alive to the possibilities that higher education can bring to someone just starting out. She talks about the necessity of change and has words from the wisdom of experience and perspective for our students just starting out who become discouraged and uncertain as they navigate a college education. Join us to hear her words to students, faculty and staff about the courage to begin and begin again and to build the life and communities of our dreams. These beginnings are our mission.

We're so back.Our first episode opens the new season by following the flow from a season on failure and a season on the skills of learning to learn. Failures usually force new beginnings. And being a "good beginner" is definitely a distinct and important set of skills in a learning journey. What if we made these truths more visible in our instruction? This episode begins an extended inquiry into and exploration of these possibilities.In that spirit of linking and flow, we talk with one of our failure storytellers from Season 4: Hameen Shabazz. Hameen will talk about how he sees people beginning their college educations with us and also beginning again in their lives and careers.Hameen also talks about a beginning he is embarking on: he's moving from Advising into the new role of Student Success Coach. This is a completely new position at the college so it's a big beginning for Hameen, the students he serves, and the college ecosystem as we work to incorporate these new services and possibilities.We also introduce the new story series for the season: I Am Beginning. We'll hear stories from people all around the college who have recently begun something entirely new in their lives and talk about how it's going and what it's brought to their lives. Join us as we begin a new semester and a new season and look closely at what it means to be a beginner. You can hear Hameen's full story from Season 4 Here: https://sites.google.com/view/iepod/s4-episode-5

Hello, again! Season 5 is about to begin! Listen in to find our the topic and some of the guests we'll be talking to in our new season. Join us for new voices and stories and explorations into teaching and learning.

Josh Vincent, Art professor and guest in episode 13, asked several of his classes to think about the meaning and experience of failure. He created a dropbox in his classes so that students could anonymously submit their ideas. In this bonus episode, Josh reads his students' thoughts, jokes, and meditations on how they experience failure in Art classes. We consider their ideas, respond, and think about ways forward in facing failure in higher education and life.Join us to hear some student perspective on failure as our season ends.

In our season finale for Season 4: Facing Failure, we have a conversation with Art professor Josh Vincent about the inevitability of failure in ceramics classes and the joy the intertwining of success and failure can bring.We’re at the stage of a journey through the underworld where we have returned to hearth and home. We sit back among our family and friends and tell our stories of suffering and adventure. We tell stories to give our lives meaning and Josh talks about his experience teaching in a number of higher education institutions and what he’s learned about the importance of creating a learning environment and tearing down barriers students experience.We also add up some of what we’ve learned this season about failure in higher education as we look back on our journey. And also tease a bonus episode with student perspective on failure that will follow in two weeks’ time! Join us for our final conversation of the season. 

We begin to think about return from the underworld. In myths of journeys to the underworld, the protagonists must always figure out how to return alive. So, what’s the trick to allow you return safely and bring whatever treasure or knowledge back with you to use in life on the surface, in the sunlight? Today, we spend time with a part of the college that depends on constantly engaging attempt and failure and revision and new heights: our college writing classes.Our guest is Michael Kennedy, new hire in the English Department, and an instructor who is deeply invested in teaching students where they are. Michael talks about writing as a chance for learners to "fall in love with their own mind" because through writing (and writing again and again) we come to better understand our own ideas and thoughts about complex subjects. If students are willing to explore the darkness of uncertainty through writing without fear that they’ll be judged or given a failing grade for trying, what might become possible? We also explore another guide for our season in the underworld: the scholar bell hooks. Her ideas about ethical relationship to one another could be another way to face failure in the classroom and turn it into resilience. 

Instead of a story of failure, today’s episode is a story of grief. It is a literal story, a work of fiction, based on an actual event.I’m in conversation with English professor Andrea West because when I was asking anyone who came within earshot of me about whether there was a place for loss and grief in higher education, she said something unusual. She said, well, I think there’s a story we could ask about that.Andrea and I talk about a very short story by the Indian American novelist Bharahti Mukherjee called, The Management of Grief. begins in the aftermath of the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985. The flight was traveling from Montreal to Delhi and Bombay by way of London. It exploded off of the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. This podcast will not go into the further details of the incident but there are some resources on the web page that you can explore if you’d like to know more. This story is many things but relevant to our concerns, it asks questions that we ask at the college: if we have official processes to follow, what happens when a person’s emotions and life circumstances don’t fit inside of what we expect?This episode was tricky to make and perhaps it fails to convey what we hoped. Your host meditates on the constant risk of failure and the worth of completing a project even if it is an imperfect thing. 

Hello, my community. Your host will be out on medical leave for a few weeks, so the Failure season will experience a short delay. Listen in for details.