Ixchell Reyes 0:05
The DIESOL podcast,

Brent Warner 0:07
Developing Innovation in English as a Second or Other Language

Ixchell Reyes 0:10
Episode 91: 13 Scary Student Habits

Brent Warner 0:29
Welcome to DIESOL, this is episode 91. We are your hosts. I’m Brent Warner,

Ixchell Reyes 0:34
and I’m Ixchell Reyes – Hey, guess what? I’m so excited!

Brent Warner 0:43
What are you excited about?

Ixchell Reyes 0:44
Transcription now recognizes my name.

Brent Warner 0:48
Yes. Okay!

Ixchell Reyes 0:49
It spelled it correctly. Um, no more, Michelle, or…

Brent Warner 0:53
Well, hold on. Let’s be a little bit careful. It got your name right one time… which is great.

Ixchell Reyes 1:00
Yeah, that’s that’s a – it’s learning.

Brent Warner 1:02
That’s a little learn, right.

Ixchell Reyes 1:06
How long did it take?

Brent Warner 1:08
90 Episodes. Spell it. So it didn’t get your name right. Saved. It really? spelled your name out, right. And I looked at I was like, Oh, my God. And so then I went searching. I was like, okay, there are a couple other ones I still had to find, but like, one step at a time. So we’re happy that I’m happy. Yeah, we’ll take we’ll take the web. Yes. Anything else going on for you?

Ixchell Reyes 1:34
Um, it’s Halloween month. And which means we’re a whole like four degrees lower here in Texas. So every little win is a big win.

Brent Warner 1:47
Take it take it.

Ixchell Reyes 1:49
Yeah. Some stuff.

Brent Warner 1:52
Yeah, I’ve been, it’s been a busy couple of weeks here. But I think the biggest thing that was great, I did a presentation for TESOL. So their first webinar on AI and artificial intelligence, and it was really quite well attended. I think there was something like 150 or more people on a Tuesday night or something like that. So really good. Lots of people were interested and shared some ideas and good conversation in the chat and everything. So I was just really happy to see that there’s a lot of teachers who are kind of saying, Okay, let’s, let’s take a look at it. Let’s start embracing these things.

Ixchell Reyes 2:24
Kinda the thing where you cannot ignore AI. And I think this is the one where we’re actually I don’t know if we’re up to speed. But I think that we’re actively as you know, as a, as an organization. TESOL is actively seeking, you know, what, guidance and working through it. So that’s, that’s great.

Brent Warner 2:44
Yeah. And I think the teachers are really kind of recognizing that we’re not talking about a fad here. We’re talking about a big shift. So that’s great. All right. So I think it’s time to zombie walk on over to the topic today.

Ixchell Reyes 3:01
Let zombie walk! All right. So last year, Brent, we covered scary teaching practices. So this month, I mean, and I don’t know that they, they’ve stopped. But…

Brent Warner 3:19
Oh no! That episode is so great. So 13 Scary Habits that Teachers Need to Stop. Right. The best thing about that is that once we did the episode, every teacher in the world stopped doing those bad habits.

Ixchell Reyes 3:32
We cured we cured bad practices!

Brent Warner 3:36
It’s amazing! Just by one episode, just talking about, like, who knew the power of communication? So So I think so we decided we need to do the student version, right?

Ixchell Reyes 3:46
Yes! And so this time, we’re going to talk about scary habits that students have, and how to prevent them.

Brent Warner 3:58
This is a very scary episode. So alright, so 13 bad habits. We’re not. I want to clarify though. This, these are not the bad habits that are like, oh, you know, my student threw a stapler at my head, you know, like not not. So one like, like, full on, like behavioral issues. We are not qualified. But I think we’re talking we’re trying to talk about

Ixchell Reyes 4:23
I have some of those behavioral issues I throw.

Brent Warner 4:28
Yeah, well, then that is scary, for sure. So when that stapler comes flying at you, but we’re talking more about, you know, learning behaviors and those types of things, so, Ixchell you have the first one?

Ixchell Reyes 4:42
Yeah, I think this one just is one that happens all the time to me is not correcting each other. So one of the things that I constantly have to introduce when I have a new group of students is the a culturally that may not be appropriate, right? And they’re not used to it. And this can lead to As students getting used to hearing the same type of error, and then unlearning, it becomes more difficult because they’ll say, but I heard it this way. And I’ve, I’ve never heard it that way. And it’s like, trust me. No one corrected you, and you guys are all making the same mistake. So how to how to mitigate this? Well, I think it’s encouraging your students to be open to learning from correction. And I think if it’s introduced with the right activity, and they can verbalize what the purpose of that correction is, then they’re more likely to help each other and not feel attacked. I think that there’s a there, the way we give feedback, and also teaching students how to correct each other is, is important to empower them really to do it themselves.

Brent Warner 5:47
Yeah. And I think one way to maybe deal with that, too, I have not done this, but I’m just thinking about it as we’re talking is maybe actually role playing, making mistakes and giving, giving feedback, right, so you can actually sit down with the class and say, like, Hey, this is an English lesson, but we’re also going to learn how to help each other. And so then when they’re kind of intentionally know that they’re going to be making mistakes, and then intentionally trying to get the feedback, it feels a little bit more comfortable. Plus, they learn the correct polite language, where it’s not like you’re wrong, you know, like, it’s like, oh, maybe, maybe try saying it this way, or, you know, say, so you can build in language lessons at the same time. But that will kind of lower the barrier to being able to talk about it and being able to share with people as well.

Ixchell Reyes 6:29
Right. And I think, Brent, we often it’s easy for us to say, because we’re from a culture that is very open and direct about these things. But how difficult is it for someone whose first 24 years of their life? They don’t correct? You know, even if they’re burning inside with the right answer, or so I think, again, just reminding them of the purpose that this is cultural, I think that that will help fixing that habit. But do you have?

Brent Warner 6:59
Okay, so I think that one thing that’s interesting is that a lot of students that believe that like when they’re not intrinsically motivated, that the only extrinsic motivation for learning is grades, right, and it’s like, well, I just have to do this because of my grades, right? Like, the grades matter. So one, you know, I mean, that’s its own whole issue, we can talk about the value of moving to an on grading system if you want to. But also, the other thing to this is that we have this kind of idea that extrinsic motivation is bad motivation. But actually, a lot of it can be really well implemented. And so if students kind of start seeing that, hey, I’m not necessarily intrinsically motivated, but I can build my own extrinsic motivation to do these things, or to get through this work. There’s actually a lot of ways to adjust your thinking. And so one of the, I think I’ve talked about him in the past Cal Newport, he’s kind of like a, you know, a thinker in the field. And he has, he has all these books on like, how to be a successful student, and how to, you know, how to, how to stop using email, all sorts of great things, but, but he really talks about these ideas. And he’s got, I will put a link to the blog post that he wrote about this many years ago. But excuse me, but he’s really talking about, you know, they’re these ways that you can use your own psychology to build success for yourself. And so, so one of the examples that he says in there is, if you choose a deep question that helps you out, so if you’re like, maybe I don’t want to, I don’t really want to take a writing class. But if you find a question that’s interesting to you, and you say, Well, what makes great writing great, and, you know, or if you’re taking a science class and says, what are the laws that explains nature’s marvels? And so then it becomes like a question that you want to answer. And then you’re building towards figuring out what the what that particular zone of interest is, right? And so you can say, hey, I don’t really love learning how to write, but I am interested in what makes writing great, right? And so, so you can kind of play around with the way that you’re approaching these things. And students, and if you help your students see those things, then they might find some other ways to build some extrinsic motivation rather than just chasing a grade.

Ixchell Reyes 9:10
Very cool. Yeah. You mean, I need to find ways of figuring out how to be motivated to teach basic electricity.

Brent Warner 9:19
Yeah, well, I mean, it really

Ixchell Reyes 9:20
I’m still like holy moly, how am I gonna get through this? But again, even as teachers, we have to do that. So

Brent Warner 9:28
yeah. Oh, for sure. This, this applies to us very well.

Ixchell Reyes 9:31
So I signed up source,

Brent Warner 9:32
But I think we don’t we don’t normally say hey, I’m going to spend 10 minutes thinking about this just to figure out a way to get myself going. And instead I’m going to just burn hours and feel like I’m you know, just stressed out about this whole thing. And so I think it’s worth just spending that time upfront and going well, let me take a different approach as to what I’m doing with this. So instead of just saying I don’t like it, and I’m don’t want and I’m just gonna, you know, barrel my way through it because I have to so I think that’s that’s a big part. RT, I’m going to connect this one. Yeah, can I park the next one here is is, is connected. So it’s also kind of came from some of his ideas, but you know, a lot of students and and I think especially, you know, postcode or you know because of COVID. And through COVID They feel like they’re chronic procrastinators. And you know, and I think the truth is that a lot of us all, you know, students themselves, but a lot of people who train themselves into procrastination, and they can train themselves out of it. So. So doing units on productivity is one way to deal with this. So, I have in my class, we actually do a full on unit on like, you know, study habits and motivation and those types of things. But our students actually get a lot of value. So of course, not every student is going to get value out of this, but I do have students who are like, Oh, I, you know, I, I just procrastinate, I put things off, I didn’t really do these things. And then we would do some activities through learning about study habits, and about how to be more successful as a student, and one of those ones that we did was, we would get a journal of weekly activities. So it was like an hourly journal all seven days, put on a spreadsheet, and students could then for every hour of the day, they would just write in what they did during that hour, right. So just kind of keeping it not not perfectly, but like, but they would kind of follow along with it and say, and set their alarms on their phones, you know, you can set 100 alarms on your phone. So I’d say hey, set it to go off every three hours, just fill in the last three things that you did during those three hours, it could be playing video games, it could be you know, eating with your family, it could be whatever it is, right. And then that we would break those down afterwards. And they would they would look at them and say, Okay, how much time was spent on schoolwork, how much time was spent on work, you know, my job, how much time was spent with my family, how much time is spent with my friends, how much time was spent just wasting time, you know, playing, you know, wasting time, however, they want to define it for themselves. And a lot of the students really have taken taking value out of it. And they go, Oh, I didn’t, I didn’t realize that I was doing this so much I didn’t, I didn’t notice that my time on my phone was so high or you know, whatever else it is. And so, not every student does this successfully. But I think the students that can help out, they really kind of go, Okay, I’m gonna figure out better ways to use my time. So that was one solution. And then the other part is, again, kind of going back to Cal Newport, he makes a suggestion says every time you have a meeting a class, whatever it is over schedule your calendar by 20 to 25%. And he’s a 20%. But I’m gonna say 25, because time is easier 25%

Ixchell Reyes 12:38
During that the 5% for cultures that are, whose time is a little more flexible.

Brent Warner 12:44
Yeah, but like, but the idea is like, Hey, if you’re gonna have an hour long class, or you’re gonna have an hour long meeting, you put on a chaser right after it for 15 minutes, because one, you might want to talk to that person a little bit longer, until you might need transition time to get yourself prepared for the next thing or whatever else it is. But people don’t do that. They go back to back to back, right? Or they think they don’t have anything to do. So they have a two hour class and it goes from nine o’clock to 11 o’clock, for example, if they set up in their schedule, and in their mind, no, it goes until 1120. And then every day, when class finishes, they go okay, well, I still I’m still gonna do 20 more minutes of work on this class, whether that be review, taking, you know, cleaning up your notes, you know, checking the information going and talking to the teacher, all those types of things, they can be a lot of work in helping you stop your procrastination, because you’ve already set the time in to get started on the next part of the work.

Ixchell Reyes 13:39
Yeah, and again, I’m gonna go in with the whole fact that this is a new culture for many of our students, in terms of planning things out for some of our students coming from overseas, studying in the United States may have been their last chance at something because they weren’t able to do it back home. And so having, again, this, it’s sort of like a safety net to help them at the university when they transition or wherever it is. It’s just life skills. Really.

Brent Warner 14:11
Yep, absolutely.

Ixchell Reyes 14:14
Okay, here’s another one. And this one is thinking that there’s a tried and true grammar rule to solve it all. And a lot of students are used to you know, having studied grammar overseas, and they’ve memorized and they know, this can only have be used with this and this verb, and they know all the you know all of the jargon. But then they arrive here and the reality is that we’re not using it that way. Native speakers, maybe maybe your your grammar teachers are, but that does happen. Most of the time, we’re going to be speaking informally. And so you need to be able to have those transactions sound natural. So I think to mitigate this or help reduce that or unlearned or maybe be open minded is to share formal and informal language pieces with the target. grammar structure used or language used in many contexts so that students can start seeing the complexity of language and also learning to appreciate that there’s so much more to fluency than a grammar paradigm.

Brent Warner 15:22
Yeah. You know, and when you when you said this, I was thinking that you were talking about, like, the different ways to express the same idea, you know, and when sometimes I’ll get students in there, like, in class, you know, someone says it, and they’re like, What can I also say it this way? And I’ll be like, yeah, you can say it that way. And then, inevitably, there’s like, some students that like, their eyes go wide, and they’re like, wait, you can say the same thing in different ways. And it’s like, they’re not linguists. And so and they’re, you know, like, even though they’re studying another language, they’re not linguists. And so they’ve never really thought about the idea that like, oh, there’s lots of different ways, even in your own language to express one thing. And so that can be a big eye opener to students. When when you start saying, like, yes, it’s okay to say things in other ways. And I go, which one’s the right one you go, there’s not a right ones. There’s the one that you choose to use, you know, amongst these things. And so you have to be, so it helps them to become a little bit more flexible in their thinking, I think. Yes. Yeah. Okay, so my next one is too much passive learning. Yeah. So it’s like, I think we’re actually kind of guilty of this, partly because of being a YouTube generation too, right? Where it’s like, I’m just gonna sit back and watch this thing, and then I’ll learn about it. It’s like, did you really learn it, right. And so, I mean, all students forever have done this, but sitting in the back of the class, and you’re not speaking up, right. And so if you’re in a program like mine, like my adult adult ESL program, I get a lot of students that just kind of never really get better, you know, like, they’re, they’re like, Okay, well, just kind of hanging out just kind of making it work. And, and, and it’s, it’s a bummer, because it’s like, well, you know, you could be working on all this stuff. And they just kind of sit in the class and don’t participate. And, and I get that they might be shy, of course, you know, like, I’m a shy person. But my solution for this for myself and language study was, I need to be proactive, right? Even though that’s not really my, my, my fundamental personality, I was like, Okay, well, I want to sit in the back, but I know that I’ll participate, I’m gonna sit in the front of the class, right, or when the first front or two or two or three, I never sit in the very front, but second row, or the third row or something like that. And then also, I would set a goal for myself as a student to say, Okay, I’m going to try and speak up three times during class, if the teacher is calling on people, or, you know, I’m going to make sure that I talk to, like, try and get into a study group with some of the people who are seem to be active, right? Like, really, you have to be that proactive learner and not just think that things are going to magically fall into your brain just by sitting in the room.

Ixchell Reyes 18:03
And I think this reminded me of when I was an undergrad student, and I was taking chemistry, was it chemistry or biology, and it was chemistry with a lab. And I remember we had about 300 people in the just the regular lecture. And I remember thinking, holy crap, how am I going to learn and like, you can’t really interact in that class. But there was this girl, who later became one of my best friends. This girl who kept asking all these really good questions, and she said, sort of in like the T zone, you know, the T zone of a lecture hall, where you look like down the center, she said, in that center. area. So I said, I’m going to sit next to her. And I may not ask, but I can ask her and I know she’ll have the answers. And that made it safer, because I knew she was asking questions. And I did and we became friends. And she helped me through a lot of the the chemistry problems I didn’t understand, etc. So now I tell my students, okay, if you’re too shy, or if you’re in one of those large halls, find a person who’s asking lots of questions in class, because then they’ll, the teacher will also be directing the talking in that direction, so you’ll get a lot more FaceTime. And that’s important.

Brent Warner 19:15
Absolutely. That’s great. Yeah, love it. Okay,

Ixchell Reyes 19:18
so that takes me into my next scary habit. And that is, again, I think it’s tied to culture. Not asking questions out of fear of being disrespectful in class. And it could be that, again, not wanting to challenge the teachers authority, or the not the perceived knowledge or authority that the teacher has because of knowledge. So encouraging students from countries where this may be a taboo, by having them write out predictable questions before they ask them really helps. I’ve done that with several students individually. I’ll say like, here’s a question you can ask and it could be a predictable question like, can you repeat that again? that’s predictable. That’s a safe risk, right? You’re gonna get an answer. And you don’t have to be paying attention to the answer. You’re just practicing questions, right? And then making it a class routine, and then asking students to check each other’s questions for grammar, and then for different ways of asking the same thing, because question formation, um, is, can, can let go, having good question information can make it difficult for students. Once they go into mainstream classes, teachers just don’t understand what they’re trying to ask. And so a lot of the times students will, when I have them do an activity with questions, they’ll say, Oh, I asked the same thing. And I’ll say, I still want to hear it, because you probably asked it in a different way, and I want to hear it. And sure enough, I’ll get like three or four ways that they asked for the same information. But once I’ve written it down, it’s like, adding to their language repertoire for questions.

Brent Warner 20:55
Yeah, that’s great. I think that’s really, really powerful and useful for the students. And so many of them think that they can’t, you know, they can’t ask questions in class or, you know, differences. And it’s like, it’s a shame. And and there are some, some teachers who are, you know, guilty of perpetuating that too, right? Like not making it easy for students to ask. But if you have a

Ixchell Reyes 21:18
large class, it’s hard. So you’ve got to be proactive as a teacher to identify those students who can benefit from like, I’ve had sometimes on the students desk a little post it, and I’ll say, here’s a question, I want you to practice tomorrow. And they’ll have it ahead of time. So they don’t have to let the rest of the class know, or they already have it. And then I asked them to write their own question. And so that it’s kind of, you know, still giving them some attention. But it’s gonna be hard, right? It’s gonna be hard. And if you’re tied to a curriculum, that’s, that’s got time constraints, and you’re gonna leave that out, for the sake of,

Brent Warner 21:54
yeah, that’s great. So my next one is waiting too long to come to the teacher for help. This is, like such a bad habit for students and, you know, again, ties in with a lot of those same ideas that we’re talking about. But, you know, I get so many emails that start with like, I’m sorry to bother you, I know you’re very busy, but blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, No, this is my job. Like, you don’t need to apologize to ask me a question or to come, you know, to come up with these things. And, of course, yes, I’m busy. And all of those things and things as well, right. There’s work and, etc, to do but my priority as a teacher should be helping that student out, right? And so, so I get the students who come and it’s like, way too late, right? It’s like, Hey, you’re, you know, you’re coming the day before the deadline. We’ve been working on this essay, for example, for four weeks, and you’re, you’re coming to me now. And it’s like, you know, you should have come in again, this might be ties back to the procrastination but it’s like, but I don’t think it’s always about procrastinating, I think it’s much more about the fear of reaching out to the teacher, and saying, Hey, I need help from you, all those types of things. And so there’s a couple parts to this, I think, maybe some solutions for us as teachers, that we might be guilty of perpetuating this, right. So if in if during class time, we talk all the time about how busy we are, and how we’re running from this to this, right? Students are going to pick up on that, right, and they’re gonna say, oh, okay, you don’t, you don’t have time for whatever, right and so, so teachers can help solve that, that for the students, you know, on a subconscious level where they stop talking about their, their busyness or their inability to get things done, and just say, you know, you can just leave it and not mention those things. But you can also, one thing that I did that made this a lot easier, and it reduced it a lot was I moved my office hours into the class before the class. So it was like, I’m always here, 30 minutes before, I don’t have anything else to do, just come and chat with me. And so that really opened up a lot of that. And again, I know not everybody has the flexibility of a classroom schedule to do that. But you could be, for example, sitting outside of the class and saying, like, I’ve seen teachers, you know, sitting on the benches outside of the class, and they’re just kind of hanging out there waiting around, whatever. There’s all sorts of different versions of ways to do this. And so. So one, students, of course, need to learn how to go out and talk and say, like, reach out for help as early as they can, or make sure for clarification as early as they can. But also the teachers need to set up a scenario where that makes it a part of the classroom culture to do that.

Ixchell Reyes 24:32
Yeah. And again, we’re talking about very often my students will be extremely apologetic, and they’ll start with not that I’m sorry, they’ll say, I know I’m bothering you, but it’s like, oh my gosh, my You’re not bothering me. I want the questions. I want to know how I can help you if I can help

Brent Warner 24:47
y’all look at me by phrasing it that way.

Ixchell Reyes 24:51
So giving them the sentence stems to here’s what, what what seems respectful to you, but here’s a way of better way to practice asking for help. Simply say I need help. When is a good time? Is today a good time and give it more toward? Let’s talk about that and find a time. If Now’s not the time. Let’s find a time. Great. Okay, so the next one is trying when students try to take down notes on every single thing that an instructor says, even after we’ve told them, You don’t need this on in your notes, sometimes they’re they’re just like, so focused. A better strategy is to have students summarize, in their own words, and I, again, not every group is used to doing that they they want to copy everything that’s on a slide. And if it doesn’t match what you’re saying, they want to say, but that’s not on the slide, where they’ll take a picture, and then they’ll want to record what you’re saying, I think exposure to Cornell note taking style, if that’s already built into your curriculum, or if that’s if it’s not a university style class that helps to support students in synthesizing and also students, from whose cultures or don’t have this style of note taking or synthesizing, where they’re just regurgitating. And that takes a lot of practice, if you’re, sometimes with my Arabic speakers. They’re just not used to this kind of synthesis. And I’ve got to push it in there. It’s not necessarily part of the curriculum note taking, but I’ve got to help them to be able to navigate through that so that they’re not wasting their energy, you know, trying to write everything down.

Brent Warner 26:32
Yeah, yeah, well, there’s definitely a tendency to want to like try and take down every single word. Right? So that’s, that’s tricky, for sure. So I think we can connect that to my next one, which was not following up on completed work. So, you know, it’s like they, they take these notes, and they’re like, Oh, what did I get? Right? Or what did I understand or not understand? But this one is, you know, teachers give so much feedback, right? We probably too much for sure, we’re guilty of over doing too much feedback. I’m definitely guilty of that. But but you know, the student, the all these studies show that like, students don’t really look at it. And the more the more feedback there is, the less likely they are to spend any time looking at it. And so students need to find a way to ensure that they’re actually looking at them and applying them to their future work, right. And so some students do, or some teachers set up things like, you know, logs on like, Okay, you’re gonna take notes on the feedback, and you’re gonna say, what are the three things that you notice the biggest, the biggest keys that you notice, and you’re going to keep those notes and then on your next assignment, you’re going to show me how you made the changes from the previous previous assignments, not even the same assignment, but how you applied the feedback from that assignment to this one, so you’re gonna write a paragraph, or you’re gonna write about these three different things or something like that. So, so think of ways to encourage students to understand that the feedback is there for their benefit. And in fact, you know, this, all studies also show that feedback and the faster the feedback is, is the best way for students to make improvements on their work, right. And so when, when they’re skipping that whole part, they’re missing a huge chunk of their education. And so, so I think that that is, you know, if they’re not following up on their completed work, if they’re like, Okay, I did that assignment, now it’s done, I’m not going to think about it anymore. It’s like that is probably one of the worst approaches you can take to everything because that final chunk is where it all kind of locks in place, helps you make the big moves forward. So So I think we also as teachers need to help students find ways to, to recognize and to ensure that they’re, they’re finishing. And one thing I’ve always wanted to show with this with, with, with Canvas is or with an LMS any kind of LMS system is like, How about how about the system locks and doesn’t give a grade doesn’t actually give the grade until the student shows that they’ve gone back in and done the reflection piece on an assignment or something like that, like that would be huge. And it would take way bigger steps towards their learning than a lot of the small things that Canvas does and makes all this effort for so I haven’t seen that but I love it.

Ixchell Reyes 29:22
I’m just thinking we didn’t actually include giving too much feedback as a security teacher practice. Because that’s scary. And I’m thinking what if your LMS only allows you to give per paragraph three suggestions and then it locks in you’re gonna want to give love that line? Fine line here. Okay, so the next scary student practice or student habit is students trying to use you know, in the in the thinking that they’re going to learn better and remember better they’re trying to use every GRE or LSAT or AWS Word from a list without really understanding the context in which are normally used. And we’ve talked about idioms in this case, but it’s gonna result in really awkward or unnatural phrasing. And then they get used to it. And then they think no, but I’ve seen it, it’s on my list. It’s a vocab is it’s not my translator says, but more, helping the student to check for context on their own with tools such as you glish or skill. Coca for example, or play phrase me where they’re able to type it in, and then now see it in different contexts and identify which one comes up the most often. So which one do you think they’re more likely to expect you to use? Obviously, if it’s a gr e word, you’re gonna get maybe lectures, maybe speeches, maybe very technical type examples.

Brent Warner 30:52
So what skill? I haven’t heard of that one,

Ixchell Reyes 30:54
I thought you shared skill with me? Did I? Um, if it wasn’t you, then I don’t know. Because skill is you. It’s, it’s a search engine, you type in a word, and then you get several examples in different contexts. So it’s almost like a COCA version. Let me see.

Brent Warner 31:15
Okay, so it’s kind of like a simplified version.

Ixchell Reyes 31:18
Yeah, it’s more of a friendly, I guess if you know, COCA, the corpus is a little bit more intimidating. But you get all of these I forgot. I don’t think you can choose the corpus, but it takes everything that’s out there, and text, and then it’ll give you several, several examples. And you can see where the word placing is, etc. And then what type of text it’s giving you. Looking at how often

Brent Warner 31:47
it’s super simple, right? So that again, you know, the corpus, the menu, the like, coca is just so complicated for to start,

Ixchell Reyes 31:54
you gotta be a word, geek, and you know, and, but you can look at collocations and at the sorrows once you type something in and so it’s, it’s kind of a good, a good tool to have up your sleeve. If you’re not going to use you glish or play phrase me. Okay.

Brent Warner 32:16
Okay, so next one is, I think this is a more of a reason, bad habit. But a recent scary one is just

Ixchell Reyes 32:23
I started noticing, I started noticing it, just like in a day. So Wikipedia.

Brent Warner 32:28
Yeah, over trusting what chat GBT, or you know, any of these, these programs say is a fact. Right? So this idea, it’s like, we have to teach the students that everything has to be verified and trust traced back to some original source. Source to Yeah, legitimate source, right. So we have, you know, this is all digital literacy. But like the students, you know, the real scary habit here is that students don’t have digital literacy to understand these things. And I think one of the big things, I was actually talking to a colleague of mine earlier today, and she’s like, you know, the problem that one of the problems that people don’t seem to understand is that whether or not it knows the answer to what you’re asking, it’s going to give you an answer, right. So when you talk to a person, they’ll, you know, like, Yeah, something like that. But But no matter what, these programs like the the AI chat bots are going to give you an answer, right? And we’ve talked about this, like, this confidence, this idea that, you know, the they respond in a way that so confident that it feels like it must be true,

Ixchell Reyes 33:33
raised a certain way, right. Especially it’s like an A, give you a unless you explain like a five year old. I was just talking to one of my students, he’s got little kids. But we’re talking about AI. And he said, I was just watching a video where I it showed, you know, to political figures, shaking hands, and it was fake. And I could not tell that it was fake. That so how am I supposed to teach my kids to look for stuff, that’s falsified? And so we just sort of, you know, you have to realize that this is this is it? We don’t we have to be cautious about it.

Brent Warner 34:12
We’re gonna have to be vigilant, really, I mean, very vigilant. It’s a lot. And it’s a big demand of people too, because it’s hard to kind of go every single thing that you see don’t fit, you know, you can’t trust like, unless you see it with your own eyes in front of you. It’s like wild. So yeah, absolutely.

Ixchell Reyes 34:28
And also, the fact that once you find something, someone might share it and advertently or without fact checking and that’s it. You’ve now spread misinformation. Yeah. So. All right. Well, I was talking earlier about taking notes on everything, but I’ve also had students who have resorted to just thinking that they can record lectures, just the straight lecture and I’ve had students who have very, you know, fancy transcripts. Certain programs now. So they they’re thinking, Okay, now I’m going to listen again. And I’m going to get better because I’m going to have everything that the teacher said in addition to my notes. But again, what the step they’re missing is being able to synthesize immediately after they’ve received that input. Either by practicing note taking skills, whether it’s digital or other, or by talking to someone about or asking questions or in a study group. But then students, what ends up happening is they become overwhelmed, because they realized that was singing, listening, again, is great for listening practice, but it is not time efficient. So then they set themselves up for failure. So it’s almost like a

Brent Warner 35:41
well, it’s suddenly a crutch. I think it’s a problem because they go, Oh, well, I don’t have to pay as much attention right now. Because I’ll be able to catch up with it later. And it’s like, well, when’s that later going to be? Now is the time to be doing it. Right. So. And I’ve been guilty of that in the past, too. I was like, Oh, I’ll kind of pay attention. And I’ll, I’ll figure out a time to do a little bit more focus later. It’s like, no, no, no. Yeah. Right. And that’s

Ixchell Reyes 36:03
it, because it takes the brain, the brain. The practice that your brain is doing at that moment, that’s where you’re getting the value. That’s where it’s going to stick later, because you practice at that moment.

Brent Warner 36:17
Okay. So final the 13th best scary habit? Oh, my gosh, this one is, you know, long in the making, but not taking personal responsibility for your learning.

Ixchell Reyes 36:33
Oh, that’s creepy and scary.

Brent Warner 36:35
Yeah. So. So I had a student, I think it was last semester. And she came up to me and she, she kept saying things like, you know, Brian, I don’t like the, you know, the other teachers organize Canvas in a different way. And I cannot follow along with what you’ve got going and what you’re doing in the canvas. And I, you know, like, and she kept saying these different things. And she wasn’t doing great in the class. And like, she was struggling with a lot of different parts. And then all of a sudden, I’m like, she was putting this on me as though it was my responsibility. And I said, Well, you know, I’m happy to make adjustments, but the rest of the class is doing fine. And this organization is linear. So it’s just like, this week, we’re doing these, these, these just go right through them all you have to do. And so. So anyways, but the idea, the problem was that she was, you know, basically saying, like, the responsibility of all of the learning, and whatever else is coming is the teachers responsibility. But the truth is, of course, that the student has to do the work, right, like, like, the teachers can do a lot to facilitate it to make things happen to make things easier. And we should always be focusing on those things. But I think that, you know, even more recently, there’s been a big shift in thinking from students that like, all, everything has to be done done for them, so that they can go through the slides smoothly, right, and like, and if it’s not set up totally perfectly for them, then it’s not their fault. And it’s someone else’s fault for not building it in the right way, or whatever else that is, and I think that the big the big thing that students need to learn is like, you’re never going to live in a world where things are perfectly set up for you need to be able to navigate the changes and say, hey, this person does this way that person does it that way, if I’m gonna get the most out of it, then I need to be able to make adjustments for those things.

Ixchell Reyes 38:21
Right? We’re not cookie cutter. Teachers may have been using shell setup for them, of course, but that doesn’t mean every school, every university and then transitioning to the workplace or any projects that it’s gonna work that way. In fact, the ability to to deal with those unpredictability is a great skill to have. And that comes from knowing that you are not a disorganized person. So I understand

Brent Warner 38:50
that Well, I think the other part to this to the that can really be a big help. And a mind shift that I took when when I finally kind of said, this class is not working, like I don’t get anything out of it. And then I was like, Well, let me readjust my thinking to this and say, it’s not like what can I learn? Even though the class isn’t doing this, right? What can I learn out of that? Right? Like, what do I remember? What am I reflecting on? The problems with what I’m doing? And then say, Okay, well, that doesn’t make any sense to me. So what do I think about that? And then I’m, it’s slightly off topic from whatever the focus is, but I’m still understanding something and go Well, that wasn’t explained, well, let me see if I can find another way to get an explanation or to figure out how to talk about it or whatever it is, right. And so

Ixchell Reyes 39:31
I mean, regardless of there’s always going to be something that’s the necessary evil that you have to overcome, whether it’s a course that you’re not interested in, whether it’s teaching electricity, basic electricity course, or, or any kind of tasks that you’re you didn’t choose for yourself, right, but but you’ve got skills beyond that, that can help you get through it and get something out of it. And that’s the thing and I remind my students because we’re once in a while they’ll say, I don’t know why I’m taking this class. I don’t know why they make us take this class. We don’t need it. I don’t need it. It’s useless. It’s like Holy moly. Chill out. I’m gonna show you how it might not be in the way you think but I’m not a cookie cutter teacher either. So

Brent Warner 40:15
yeah, so so we do need to kind of get a little bit of that back so students take the responsibility for their own learning. And that’s

Ixchell Reyes 40:24
one must in plants those neural link neural link things in there. We could just boost up the learning.

Brent Warner 40:32
Yeah. Just plug that USB stick right into your forehead it’ll be great so that was scary.

Ixchell Reyes 40:43
Woohoo All right, it is time for our fun finds. And this time I have Monster Hunter now app. What’s up? It is the Monster Hunter series. The mobile version which is very similar to those we actually have started with it’s a game. It’s a game.

Brent Warner 41:09
The game okay, find

Ixchell Reyes 41:10
these scary looking dragons and monsters and you hunt them. And you collect armor and you it’s just a lot of fun. You can play with your friends.

Brent Warner 41:20
Oh, I saw this commercial. I saw this capsule in Japan, okay.

Ixchell Reyes 41:27
Yep!

Brent Warner 41:27
Do you?

Ixchell Reyes 41:28
There’s several of them.

Brent Warner 41:30
Just to clarify with this game, is this something that is a kind of like a Pokemon Go type of thing? Do you actually go out and play or do you just play sitting?

Ixchell Reyes 41:38
No, you go out and play it and it’s again it’s geotagged. So different habitat monsters can be found in different locations. And you can’t so so I think they’re trying to get there’s a huge following for Monster Hunter. So they expected tons of people to be out there hunting monsters sort of in the in the same way that PokemonGo attracted so many fans and they have they have gotten a lot of people out there so and the game has not developed enough but it’s so cool. So if anybody out there is playing Monster Hunter now find me so that I can share…

Brent Warner 42:15
Is there a way to connect to you?

Ixchell Reyes 42:16
Yes, there’s a I’ll put my QR code on the show notes so you can add me as a friend

Brent Warner 42:23
this might be good for like motivating me to go on some more walks and stuff.

Ixchell Reyes 42:26
Oh yeah, it’s fun sound of slashing appropriate for this episode (laughter)

Brent Warner 42:34
I mean, I did have a problem with the Pokemon thing because it was like people were so like just in their phones walking around all the time that it’s like

Ixchell Reyes 42:41
Staring at a wall trying to catch them?

Brent Warner 42:42
Yeah, it’s like “Look up! look at the world around you” like there’s you know so anyways, but that being said, Maybe Maybe if I dedicate myself to light play on a on a key Yeah. Might be good. So

Ixchell Reyes 42:52
Yeah, it’s not as involved as Pokemon. But it’s fun.

Brent Warner 42:55
All right, well, I guess this is a Halloween monster themed one. So my my fun find is it’s not really a find. I mean, I’m making it but it’s I’m doing Godzillaween.

Ixchell Reyes 43:05
So So first, you “found” New York. And now you’ve created “Godzillaween”. So Godzillaween has to become a thing or a hashtag, man.

Brent Warner 43:17
Yeah, so I’ll be sharing on it. So basically, there is a monthly or sorry, every every October, there’s, there’s been this hashtag out there. It’s like 31 Nights of Halloween. And so you watch a different horror movie based on it. And I’ve done this for some data about

Ixchell Reyes 43:34
That’s how you found out about Shrunken Heads.

Brent Warner 43:36
Yes, right. That’s right. Shrunken Heads… (laughter) Okay, so, so, so anyways, I’ve done this for many years. And just so you know, like, I follow the themes, and then sometimes I’m like, No, I’m gonna make like a little bit. I’m gonna adjust it to my own themes or things that I want to do. And so this year, I thought, you know, I’m in Japan, maybe I could do like, straight up super scary, like Japanese movies. But I was like, You know what, let’s go with Godzilla. And I’m just gonna do every Godzilla movie. So there’s like, 33 Godzilla. Oh, my God. And so I’m like, Well, I can get one for pretty much one every day a little bit math to do one or two on extra ones. And then I went on to I think Variety has a ranking of like the worst to the best one. So I think I’m gonna start off with the worst one, which is like all monsters attack. And it’s like these terrible things. Yeah, and then working its way up. But and then at the end, we were the good thing for the timing here in Japan, I think on November 1, or November 2. So just after the brand new Godzilla movie comes out in the theaters, which is, you know, Godzilla minus one or something like that. It’s and it’s a historical like it’s a it’s a just post war story of like Godzilla erupting and everything so so I’m doing a Godzillaween. And if anybody wants to watch all the Godzilla movies in October, together with me, you are welcome to join in.

Ixchell Reyes 44:57
Very cool. I can’t wait All right guys, we are on YouTube. Share the show, buy us a coffee support us through Patreon, leave a review or give us a shout out you could win a one of a kind diesel pin. We are on all the platforms. So be sure to tag us

Brent Warner 45:17
almost all the platforms, the shownotes

Ixchell Reyes 45:21
percent of the platforms yeah, there’s one that we’re not better named platforms.

Brent Warner 45:26
Show Notes are available at DIESOL.org slash nine one and we’re also available to listen on at voice at Canada that’s v-o-i-c-e-d.ca You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at DIESOLpod and I am on many of the socials at @BrentGWarner

Ixchell Reyes 45:48
and I am on many of the socials at Ixy_Pixy that’s I x y underscore p i x y

Brent Warner 45:58
in Maori thank you is tēnā koe. So tēnā koe for tuning into the DIESOL podcast.