Lilly Conference reflections: 2018 edition

I spent the last three days at the 38th Original Lilly Conference on College Teaching at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This is the fourth time I’ve been able to attend this conference and have been privileged to present at the conference all four times as well. If you can afford the time and money, I highly recommend attending this conference held the weekend before Thanksgiving every year.

At my first Lilly (2013), I presented a poster with three of my colleagues (Rebecca Pierce, Lynne Stallings, and Petra Zimmermann) titled “Classroom Interaction Redefined: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Moving Beyond Traditional Classroom Spaces to Promote Student Engagement.” We translated this into a journal article, which was recently published online.

In 2016, I talked about helping computer science students explore the issue of lack of diversity and inclusivity in our educational programs and profession. The last two years, I’ve talked about my experiences combining specifications grading with learner-centered teaching. I've blogged about specs grading here and here.

Every time I’ve attended Lilly, I’ve come away from the experience rejuvenated. When you spend time in conversations with others excited and interested in finding the best way to teach, how can you not become excited yourself? The conference attendees are a very friendly group of people. One has a sense of attending a homecoming and getting reacquainted with old friends when one attends Lilly.

Rather than try to detail everything I absorbed at the conference this year, I’m simply going to provide a list of very briefly annotated quotes I wrote down while listening to presenters. I’m not going into depth partly because I don’t have the time to do so right now, and partly because I’m yet to fully process most of what I experienced. They are presented here in the order in which I experienced them.

• “Get more sleep.” We have to have adequate sleep for our brains to make memories.
• “We can't solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.”  Time to think outside of the box.
• “Give authority to students and be prepared to be amazed.” I’ve had this experience many times, as recently as a week ago with honors colloquium students.
• “Memorizing is what you do when something doesn't make sense.” To truly learn something, it has to make sense.
• “What would students do if we gave them wrong or missing instructions?” Should we do this to make them think and question?
• “Students must have past knowledge to which they can connect the new information we give them.” Our brains store new information by attaching it to previous knowledge and experiences.
• “Test for what you want your students to know a year from now.” If it’s not important enough that you want the student to know it a year from now, why test them on it? What does it matter if they know it now?
• “Peer feedback should be thought of as reciprocal teaching, not an evaluation.” This changes the nature of the conversation.
• “Flipped learning may not be evidenced by short term assessments gains but will be reflected in long term knowledge.” Learners can cram for a test and do well but are much less likely to remember it later. True learning is for the long term.
• “We can’t change what we cannot see.” If we don’t know there is an issue, how could we know it needs changed? We have to look and observe.
• “What are the things going on in our students lives? How might those things affect their learning? How could it change our teaching if we knew?” We must do more than simply teach content.
• “Everything we do is a rehearsal for the future.” Extremely few things are ever done only once. Always strive to do better.
• “Impatience is the enemy of empathy.” Take time to understand.
• “Grades should be indicative of the quality and quantity of learning.” The key here is measuring learning, not testing.

Share your thoughts below. What quotes resonate with you? What ones raise questions? Do you find fault with any of them?