Harriet Schwartz featured on ThinkUDL podcast

“ThinkUDL is a podcast about Universal Design for Learning where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies in post-secondary settings with learner variability in mind.

Join host, Lillian Nave, as she discovers not just WHAT her guests are teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but HOW they design and implement it, and WHY it even matters!”

In this episode, Harriet Schwartz joins host Lillian Nave to discuss Relational Cultural Theory and UDL. Harriet and Lillian consider authenticity, power, social-cultural identity, the role of relationship in teaching and learning, and teaching and emotion, and more. Harriet shares a variety of teaching experiences including a class activity that feel apart, scrapping a module guide after hearing student feedback, and dealing with frustration experienced by faculty when they think they’ve explained something clearly and some students still don’t seem to understand.

In this excerpt, Harriet discusses dealing with frustration when students struggle: “How can I bring the humanity to that, regardless of what the context is? How can I still not lose track of the fact that these, you know, students are humans with emotions, and whether they’re working hard at it or not? Like, how can I bring a basic appreciation for their humanity in mind to all of this and, and part of it might be dealing with my own frustration and sadness, like I really like I can just see this student’s potential and they’d be great in the field. And I just so wish they could do it, but I have to come to terms with the fact that right now, maybe there’s just something going on in a student’s life that they just can’t make it work right now. And I need to be okay with that, and not let it tear me up. And at the same time, in certain disciplines, like if students can’t, you know, show a certain level of, of knowledge, competency, whatever, that it’s not okay for them to move forward. And so how can we support that student with respect and regard?”