The Ethics of Motivation: Let Understanding Lead the Way (or How I Learned to Stop Teaching and Embrace the Cow)

In this episode, Sage Faculty Partner Dr. Ryan Button, a sociology professor at Tyler Junior College, discusses the importance of values and ethics in education. He highlights the shift from values-based learning to a belief-based system driven by standardized tests and performance metrics. Additionally, Ryan emphasizes the need for a growth mindset, where effort and perseverance are praised over innate abilities. Ryan also shares examples of integrating tools like ChatGPT and Sage Vantage to foster personalized, structured, and collaborative learning environments while stressing the importance of nurturing curiosity and ethical awareness in students.

Transcript

Stephanie Tacquard, Engagement Program Manager, Sage Publishing: 0:00

Thank you everyone for joining us here today. My name is Stephanie tackard, and I am the Engagement Program Manager here at Sage, and one of the programs that I oversee is our faculty partner program. And I'm very excited to introduce you to one of our faculty partners today as he gets into his presentation. Please. If you've got any questions, if you've got any comments, feel free to put them into the chat or into the Q and A and I'll be moderating some of those questions and answers at the end of the session, there'll be plenty of time for that, so no worries. So it is my honor to introduce to you today, Dr Ryan button. Ryan is a sociology professor at Tyler Junior College here in Tyler, Texas, and during his academic journey, he has had the privilege of CO founding the Presidential Honors Program at Tyler Junior College, which was an initiative aimed at nurturing and challenging high achieving students. For the past several years, he's been an avid user of the sage Vantage platform, leveraging its capabilities to spark curiosity and engagement among his students, and he's always working towards nurturing a culture of lifelong learning in his courses. And on a more personal note, about Ryan, he is an avid long distance hiker. He's a mountaineer, and he's a traveler who enjoys gridmark fantasy and Tetris. So Ryan, without any further ado, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Dr. Ryan Button, Sage Faculty Partner: 1:33

So much, Stephanie. Well, first, let me say thank you to Stephanie for blessing me with this opportunity to meet all of you today. Many people I know have had to, I guess, claw their way to have access to opportunities like this, getting to meet all of you. But I know that I've done so only by the grace of a team of great leaders, department chairs, moms and dads and coworkers and partners and well, even a golden doodle at my house, who I think has forgotten my name. So I'm here to tell you guys a story, but before I start, I want you to know that I did run this presentation over to a brilliant sociologist and a friend of mine. She's also happens to be my ex wife. She's a big part of this treaties, and she cautioned me against the kind of oversimplification of systems and and situations that I might not have enough time to this time period to explain some of the connections that I've drawn from this simplification. And I would like to go on a record that she is she's right, and I am guilty, so hold your critiques till the end. I may be wrong about all this, and it's a reward if I am, but I'm on a journey because I've been socialized to value curiosity over any conclusions that I may arrive at today. I'm not here to be right. I'm not here to be wrong either. I'm just saying that I'm on a journey looking for well, traveling partners that allow understanding to lead the way. So what do you see? I start every semester off with this picture. I walk around the class. I spend my time pointing out to students in the crowd. What is a picture of what do you see? And I've heard it all, trust me, trees, a pirate. I think it's a skull. It's amazing. It only takes a minute until they are all kind of involved. It's it's a map. It's my roommate's side of our dorm room. You know? I let the curiosity build, and I I keep doing this until I come across someone who sees, well, a cow. What I always tease them about this, a cow. You know, when I first came across this picture, I too, saw a cow, and I missed out on a wonderful, you know, earned experience just because I, to no fault of my own simply saw a cow, a cow that, well, I cannot unsee. I have to pretend that I see a skull or a map or even a pirate. So this story begins many years ago, but officially, it starts when I was in a sage faculty partners meeting, when the subject turned to ideas for sage talks, and the idea started to pour in. You know, I'm blessed to be surrounded by such great minds from all around the country, dual credit, navigating first year college student emotions. That was really one that caught me Generation Z. I was feeding off of their enthusiasm. I started to get excited, when suddenly, without kind of conscious pause, you know. Thank you. Andrea, I blurted out someone should do something on ethics. It seems to be one of the the big points right now, you know, it got a little quiet in the room, and then I kind of realized that everyone on their laptop screen wasn't facing their cameras. They were, you know, they. Were looking at me, and I was the someone who was going to be writing a presentation on ethics. So before we dive in, let me kind of conceptualize some of these terms we'll be working here with. We all know what they mean, but the details matter, right? So let's go working definition of ethics. Ethics refers to a set of values that govern the behavior of individuals or groups. It involves distinguishing between right and wrong, uh, actions and decisions and considering how one should act in uh, various uh social situations and constructs. Right ethics are value based approach. So let's keep that one word in mind, values. Ethics are a values based approach, and values are what hold or we hold as important. So let's keep values in mind while I demonstrate how my two worlds kind of intersected. I've been substitute teaching that K through 12 every Friday for about three years now, and it's been both a rewarding, enlightening experience, but some of the rumors are actually true. Standardized tests lead the way. The entire structure is an ends based approach. So from the student side, most everything that's excited me as a young scholar, whenever I was growing up, interaction, problem solving, discovery, Curiosity has been replaced with a kind of a methodical system of lesson plans, checking boxes and managing behavior issues. Students had little skin in the game and frustrated. Kids could easily call on their parents to mitigate any responsibilities or accountability to navigate through that system. From the teacher's side, you have equally frustrated professionals, emotionally laboring as they were now given the Sisyphean kind of task of providing instruction motivation and constantly asked to take on more administrational duties to continuously demonstrate their own accountability of student progress, trust me, I I understand. I am married to a first year teacher, and I constantly watch her navigate through the harsh realization of what she through teaching was going to be when she experiences a scholar and what it is now her worst day, I won't recall for you, but her best day was when she came home and announced that she would be receiving almost 6000 bonus, $6,000 bonus because she had motivated enough of her students to be recategorized as meets expectations. That's enough of them had demonstrated significant growth as a qualifying percentage of them had moved from the category of does not meet expectations to meet expectations. Now it would have been a large enough reward if she had met the qualifying percentage of exceed expectations. Trust me again, she is now motivated to earn her bonus, or what I call her partial salary, next year. I guess money is motivational. Now, there are two important principles that that come out of this relationship. First, I'd like to bring up that, first and foremost, that we have an ends based approach to education. The test and correct answers are the goal. The means to an ends are strictly enforced by structure that rewards answers. Second, we have the system where teachers have been monetarily incentivized to become students motivation by tying teacher salary to end results, teachers, not students as much, are the ones that have skin in the game. Further, by tying students identity to answers and growth, I am arguing that we have created a culture where we have nurtured students self worth by what they know to be true rather than how they arrived at gaining that knowledge. Now anecdotally, this attitude is easily demonstrated at the collegiate level, when students raise their hands and their predominant question asked of me as an instructor is, will this be on the test? Now, let that sink in for a second before you know we kind of explore the contrast between values and beliefs I ask you. Or are we nurturing lifelong learners, or are we constructing savvy test takers recall values for a second now, values are principles or standards of behavior that individuals or groups consider important in life. They represent what is desirable or important to a person or society. Values often guide decisions, actions and judgments, for example, positive ethical values such as honesty, integrity, fairness, compassion and loyalty are commonly held as important in many cultures. The key words here is, values are what we consider important beliefs. Beliefs are. Specific convictions or opinions that individuals or groups hold as well true. If values are what's important, beliefs are what one holds as true. They're often based on acquired knowledge or subjective experiences, upbringing, culture, religion or other sources of influences beliefs shape how people perceive the world and interpret events. The key here is beliefs are what we consider as true. Now, values and beliefs are intertwined, and we know this and and like one kind of a, what I call a one way, kind of dependent, uh, influential, independent relationship. So like, money in banks, right? You don't need banks, or even a particular bank, for money to exist, but if you get rid of money, there is absolutely no reason for banks to exist. So I ask you, which of these does our current system emphasize values or beliefs? What I believe is that we have is a system that emphasizes results the ends. I'm arguing that by training or educating, by design or even happenstance, we've constructed an educational culture that rewards beliefs or what is true over values what is important. So first, let us try to understand what happens to an individual socialized under the importance of beliefs or what we know right to do this, let's delve into the difference between values and beliefs. Beliefs are essentially what we hold to be true about the world ourselves and specific issues. They're shaped by our experiences, upbringing, influences, like the culture and so forth. Now the principles that they guide and the decisions and our behaviors. This is contrast is really crucial, because you see, when we base our identity and self worth on our beliefs, what we think is true, it can make changing our mind or admitting that we're wrong really kind of challenging. It becomes a big blow to our self esteem, our confidence, because we've tied so much of who we are to being right. However, when we identify with values, things that we hold important, like curiosity or open mindedness or being a life lifelong learner, changing our beliefs isn't seen as a threat. Instead, it's viewed as a moment of growth, an opportunity to expand our understanding. This perspective actually builds confidence, because we're more focused on getting things right than just being right. In my mind, is the difference between a student and a scholar. Answers are obviously important, but they're not an end in themselves. Each answer is just a new opportunity for an exciting new question, where the collections of who's and whats and whens and how oftens and how much leads to a better understanding that understanding is always why. In essence, it's about letting understanding guide us, rather than cleaning stubbornly into static beliefs where process takes front stage. Embracing a growth based mindset not only fosters personal growth, but also strengthens our confidence in navigating the complexity of life and obviously learning. Now this link or connection comes from kind of a fascinating article, alright, so there's this interesting study by Dr Carol Dweck praising intelligence cost to children's self esteem and motivation. And this study looks at how praise affects students from different cultural backgrounds. In her research, she compared how Asian students, particularly and Western students, respond to diverse kinds of praise. In one version of the study, the Asian students were praised for their hard work, like being told you're a hard worker. You know, meanwhile, Western students were praised for their intelligence, like being told you are so smart. The goal was to see how these different types of praise influence their motivation and academic performance. Now, basically, she gave some students a math problem that was, you know, above their grade level, right, the answers were unattainable, and she observed their reaction to how they dealt with this problem, how long they worked on it. Did they look towards others for help? Did they attack it by themselves or as a group? The Asian students tried all the above, and after an hour had passed, she finally had to stop them, and the students laughed when they found out that they were told that it was an impossible problem. Now, Western students did not find it as funny that they were given this impossible kind of a problem to solve, and the longest that one group of students worked on the problem was only five minutes. One group thought that all they had. Had to do was work harder and they could find the solution, while the others were left questioning their aptitude, instead of Well, considering that it might be their attitude. What Dr Dweck found was fascinating. Believe when students were praised for their effort, it tended to encourage what she calls a kind of growth mindset. This means they believe that their abilities can improve through effort and practice. Now, on the other hand, praising intelligence often led to what she called a fixed mindset, where students believe their abilities were just well, innate traits that could not be changed much. So this study really highlights how the way we praise and encourage students can shape their their values and beliefs right about themselves and their abilities. It's not just about what we say, but how it affects their motivation and their willingness to tackle well challenges and to keep learning, to keep persevering. When we consider how praise and feedback, you know, shape our motivation and identity. It's clear that environments emphasizing values over beliefs, processes over answers, can have profound effects and values based kind of environment where effort and perseverance are praised and celebrated, individuals tend to develop a resilient kind of mindset. They see challenges as opportunities for growth and setback as well temporary obstacles to kind of overcome. Now this fosters, in a sense, a self rooted to continuous kind of improvement and learning. Now, on the other hand, an environment focused primary on belief answer based where success is often tied to innate qualities like intelligence or talent. Individuals may develop a more fixed mindset. They might fear failure more intensely because it threatens their sense of inherent capability. This can lead to reluctance to take on new challenges, or to view setbacks as indicators of well, personal inadequacy, right? Therefore, by cultivating a values based approach that encourages effort, resilience and learning, we not only support individual growth, but also nurture a mindset that thrives on faces, overcoming challenges. This approach helps build a kind of a solid foundation for motivation and self confidence through their kind of their educational journeys. So as content creators involved in collegiate education, it's imperative that we recognize our young scholars as products of the value kind of embeddedness within the educational systems and immediate kind of classroom environment to effectively assist them on their journey as lifelong learners, we must quickly examine what falls under our control from the classroom, environments we cultivate to the medium through which educational content is presented by fostering environments that prioritize values like resilience and ethical awareness, we power students to navigate complexities and thrive, both academically and yes, personally, research into influencing students, motivation, engagement is clear on four essential points, this environment must be supportive, it must be personalized, it must be structured, and we'll talk about that one intently, and it must be collaborative. Now, building on Dr Carol Dweck, insights into praise and motivation, a values focused approach integrated with ethics. Enhance these critical aspects by fostering engaged learners. And this approach prioritizes creating supportive environments, tailoring learning experiences to individual needs, establishing clear frameworks that guide without constraining and promoting collaborative learning opportunities. Now, by aligning educational practice with these principles, educational and cultivated an environment where students are motivated to learn, they're motivated to grow to feel that awkwardness that entails growth and succeed both academically and socially and personally. So this is kind of based on kind of five pillars that I've kind of brought together that deal with both these four and add in some administrative ones, but the ones I want to focus on today first is supportive. Now values based approach, prioritizes creating environments where students feel emotionally, intellectually and socially supported now by celebrating effort and perseverance rather than innate abilities, educators cultivate a culture that values each student. Student's journey and encourages them to risk and learn from challenges. Example B, in high school science classroom, the teacher I see introduced a growth law where students can share moments of progress, like when they solved a tough problem or overcome a challenge in an experiment, Instead of praising correct answers, only, the teacher encourages to reflect on what they learn from their mistakes and acknowledge their perseverance. You know, this fosters an emotional kind of safe, you know, space where effort and risk taking are celebrated. In a college classroom, we can accomplish the same thing by entering into group reflection at the end of class, or at the beginning of class, where we bring in the previous lectures, kind of summaries and sharing that class openly and new ideas, personalized in a values driven kind of educational setting. Personalized Learning acknowledges that every student has unique strengths, challenges and learning preferences. I know the first thing that pops into my mind is, where am I going to have the time now this approach tailors education to individual needs, enhancing students engagement, ownership of their own learning kind of outcomes in this one, a history teacher provides various project options for students to demonstrate their understanding of historical events. You know, some students can choose to write a report, others might create a video, and others might build a diorama or timeline. Now, each student chooses what format that they aligns with their strength and interest, fostering kind of the deep personal connection to the material, enhancing engagement and papers in the college classroom can incorporate the same diversity when it comes to presentation and formats that they choose structured it is crucial right to construct classroom environments that provide clear guidelines and expectations without overly restricting students, and I put emphasis on overly restricting students, classrooms high in structure, but low in top down control allow for academic ownership and even the illusion of autonomy now providing freedom within a framework that guides students towards success. It's the difference between lectures and becoming a facilitator in English class, students are given a clear framework for a writing assignment, including step by step breakdown of the process, right, such as brainstorming, drafting peer review. However, when the framework within that framework, students are given the freedom to choose their topics, writing style and even pacing of each steps. This balance of structure and freedom encourages autonomy while ensuring that students are guided towards completion. This same philosophy can apply to group discussions, where students notes can be used to both personalize and create the discussion of topics within the class, transforming the instructor to more of a kind of a facilitator role. Finally, collaborative collaboration is central to a values focused education, promoting teamwork, communication skills and mutual respect among students through collaborative process, projects and discussion, learners not only deepen their understanding, but also develop crucial interpersonal skills essential for future academic and professional endeavors. In a math classroom, students are placed in groups to tackle complex word problems. Each group member has a specific role or is handed out, such as problem solver, strategist, communicator, encouraging them to collaborate effectively. Now, after solving the problems together, groups share their approaches with the class, discussing different strategies and learning from one another and insights that have been applied, this promotes teamwork and respect for diverse perspectives by aligning educational practices with values that emphasize effort, resilience and ethical considerations, educators foster an environment where engaged students feel empowered to explore, innovate, achieve. This whole kind of approach not only supports their academic growth, but also nurtures the development of well rounded individuals who are motivated to take on challenges and contribute positively to their communities and and beyond. So what can you do to kind of cultivate this, this growth mindset. I've got two examples that I've kind of brought in today to well, to give that, to give to you, but also to kind of demonstrate how we can meet these criteria. So I want to give you something to take back to your classrooms to help kind of cultivate this growth mindset by helping your students be a. Of praise for the process of learning, not just their outcomes as educators, believe it or not, we can utilize AI driven content curation to highlight case studies ethical frameworks and best practices by fostering informed discussions and awareness among educators and students you can contribute to a culture ethical awareness and decision making. So let's look at one such of these type learnings. So what this is, is that, well, returning back to our previous problem, where we talked about chatgpt writing papers, right? So what I wanted to do was to actually see if there's a way that I could incorporate chat GPT, but have chat GPT take on a different role. So let's look at one such as this machine learning right now, in the first prompt that the student puts into chat GPT, it states, you know, I would like for you to enter into a Socratic conversation with me as my tutor. I will be the student, and you will ask me single questions to help me understand the topic of the sociological imagination. The conversation should include me arriving at a better understanding of the definition key points of the perspective and give personal examples. Now, first, let's look at this prom at the beginning of the semester. I always give my scholars the prom, but the goal is always to help them understand how to construct one themselves. I have three rules. First, they have to tell the AI the role that they want. The AI to take. In this case, the scholar has instructed the AI to take on the role of a tutor. Second, they tell the AI in detail the task that they want them to complete. In this case, enter into a Socratic dialog to lead them into a better understanding of a topic, one question at a time. Finally, they asked the AI to ask, to ask them at least two clarifying questions for them to answer before they begin. Now the scholar in this example didn't do this, so it will be a great time for me to actually step in explain why that part of the instructions was so important, right? I can even take off points if I wanted to. But let's see how chat GBT handled the situation, right? So chat GBT said, Great. Let's begin. What do you think it means to view your personal experience as being connected to a larger social forces? Response from student, oh, maybe we should start with the basics, right? Uh, like helping me understand what social forces are. Chat. GPT, that's a good starting point. What do you think social forces could be, and how might they influence individuals in society? Students answer, are they, uh, forces outside of us that have an impact in our lives. Chat, GPT, exactly. Social forces are external factors like culture, institutions, norms and social structures that shape our behavior, opportunities and experiences. Can you think of an example of how one of these forces might affect your daily life? Well, I've always been curious about how I would be if I grew up in a different location or within a different family I am adopted, and sometimes wonder how much I am like my bio mom and dad. Chat. GPT, that's a powerful example. Your family background, including being adopted is influenced by social forces like family structure and cultural expectations. Now how do you think your experiences, like growing up in particular families location might be connected to broader societal patterns and norms? And this keeps on going on and on and on until I give them the final prompt. Once they finish the conversation with chatgpt, they enter the final prompt, which is, thank you for assisting me in this thought experiment over the sociological imagination. It's key points in helping me develop examples. Can you please use our conversation to construct an outline that I can submit to my sociology class. Now, if we go over this example, this is supportive, it is definitely personalized. It is structured with autonomy, and it is collaborative. In fact, slightly change this prompt to have your scholars meet required points about the sociological imagination, and you could end with a prompt that tells the AI to construct an outline for their paper. Now AI isn't writing their paper for them further. It's giving them 24 hour access to me, as I can now review the AI log history that they've constructed. And it gives me a detailed record of their thought process to better understand how I can be of assistance to them and help them as a facilitator as they're going on their journey. So here's another example or our gift. I really hope that someone from Save Vantage development team is in attendance, because when you guys constructed your note app advantage, you really knocked the ball out of the park. They have could. They could have developed an app that allowed for highlighting right that have been easy. They could have allowed for any highlights to be tagged with the students comments. That would have been awesome. But when they did, when they did all of this, and allowed for the app to keep a log of all their highlighted material and comments and letting students download as a PDF. Well, okay, let me introduce phase to you real quick. Phase stands for F formulate a question. Actively engage the text to find the answers. Summarize the answers in their own words and end with a personal example, kind of basically the same format that you saw above whenever I was having them work with AI as a tutor. So in this example, first, scholars turn the title into a question. So if we look at here, it says dimensions of social stratification, they will highlight that and they will also tag it where they turn that title into a question. In this case, what are the dimensions of social stratification? And what is social stratification? Now that they've got this question at hand, the students then have to actively engage the text define and highlight the answers to this newly constructed question. Now, once they highlighted it, they tag it with their own summary of the answer in their own words. And can they get to add an example? Well, when applicable, right? The great thing is that vantage keeps track of all these tags, highlights and comments in order. So basically, students are constructing notes that they can download and turn in for a grade they can use as a study guide. I even have them answer three questions at the end of notes, where they state, what was the most interesting question that they created, what question Were they the least interested in? And what question or answer to a question Do they need some more clarification now I use those answers to the questions from the class to personalize their lectures and even create their exams for the end of the class. I dive deeper into areas that they were interested in. I showed them why questions that they were least interested interested in are interesting, and I take time to help them work through some of the more confusing concept. Once again, this is supportive, this is personalized, this is structured and it is collaborative. So don't tell me that this system can't be built. It's a system where scholarly identity is built on values that nurtures growth and beliefs, because we build it earlier when we're just using a picture of a cow. Imagine that classroom where students are empowered to say what they think they see, a map, a tree, a skull, and listen to what others see and take from their perspectives, allowing for these new perspectives to challenge their own. As a facilitator talking with your class, rather than instructor professing at them. You focus the class curiosity on that one scholar who doesn't think they saw Cow, cow. They don't kind of see a cow. They see a cow, and all evidence points to it being a cow. In fact, they can't unsee cow, the cow now that they that they see it. One watch as they point out to other students and scholars in the classroom the shape of the ears where the nose is the eyes are right here, the guiding their fellow classmates on a journey until, well, excitedly awakens another student from their face and they don't think they see something. They now see a cow. Watch as more and more students speak without raising their hands. It's beautiful and adding to the fuel of curiosity as other students join the journey. Watch as understanding leads the way. Watches you help construct an environment focused on nurturing the values of ethics, supportive, personalized, structure, collaborative, where the only end is developing a more informed question. And individuals remember that they were made into students, but like every two year old who can't stop asking questions, they were born truly scholars. Thank you so much for being a part of my journey today, and I hope to continue the conversation. Conversation with those that want to continue it in the future.