VESC Ep12: Voices from Students and Alumni: Driving Research and Practice

Dr. Barnhart interviews 2021 NCU graduate Dr. Pascale Koayess. Dr. Koayess is the Academic Specialist for the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC).  She discusses her research on self-efficacy and its impact on burn-out and teacher retention. Dr. Pascale also shares insights into educator evaluations, cognitive load, and experiences with online teaching and learning.

Transcript

Dr. Barnhart  0:02  
And welcome back to another special edition of our best voices from NCU students and alumni driving research and practice podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Ryan Barnhart, adjunct professor in the School of Education and definitely an admitted higher education nerd with us today we have our guest, Dr. Pascal Koayess is NCU class of 2021. She is the academic specialist for the Middle East school and the Defense Language Institute located on the Presidio of Monterey, California, Dr. Koayess is welcome to the podcast. 

Dr. Koayess
Hello, Dr. Bernhard, and thank you for having me. 

Dr. Barnhart  0:37  
Absolutely. We really appreciate you taking time. I know we were talking offline, you know, you're out of your very busy schedule to join us today, we really do appreciate that. And we'll be very cognizant of that time and get right out of business. So we always like to find out from our guests kind of you know a little bit about about you how you got to ncu, your program of study, and what you're doing now in your current role.

Dr. Koayess  0:59  
Okay, great. So again, my name is Pascal co Yes, I recently finished my defense at MCU. And I'm super ready for my graduation in September, I finished my doctorate in education in general education. And I've been working at the Defense Language Institute. And some I want to say 16 years in beautiful California, and how I got into ncu, it was just that the program was really a good fit. And I was very happy and help with the helpful advisory entry team. They were very cheerful, helpful and flexible. And I was also happy to know that my homework or do all the assignments were due on Sunday. So technically, I had the weekend also to work on them. And I could start any Monday that I wanted. So it was really a good fit in my situation, basically, because I work full time and I have a career and I did not want to travel for school on the weekends. That's how I don't answer you. And it has been a really pleasant experience.

Dr. Barnhart  2:01  
That's great. And it's great to hear that experience, especially coming from another individual working in higher education that probably has to navigate a lot of the same kind of Virtual Education aspects that ncu students does with your own students. And that's kind of I think, you know why we really like this podcast and talking to our alumni. Because, you know, they've had to wear both hats a lot of times. So let's talk about that in your case a little bit. You know, in terms of the the podcast, how is your research in your dissertation important towards the field of virtual education.

Dr. Koayess  2:32  
So my dissertation was on teacher self efficacy and its impact on their retention and burnout, the topic is important for both virtual and face to face education. Without high teacher self efficacy, teachers apparently tend to leave their jobs within the first five years. So it has been a challenge not just nationwide in overseas to it's essential to have self efficacy in order to be an effective teacher in charge of your classroom, students materials, performance, and even teaching methodologies. So the field is kind of rich with literature on the topic, and mainly by the famous psychologist, Dr. Bandura. I'm sure you're familiar with him. When it comes specifically to Virtual Education, I believe that burnout tends to occur more often virtually as people might feel isolated or not really connected to a team or community. But why my research took place during the pandemic, and we had met virtually on ms teams for all the interviews, I think in the future, I'll be looking at more data pertaining only to Virtual Education. It was not the case in this study. But I believe my research is important to improve teachers performance and retain them. Therefore, it's important to both Spiritual Education as well as in person education.

Dr. Barnhart  3:46  
Oh, absolutely. I think that, you know, when we when we think about it from, you know, this aspect of self efficacy, absolutely. It's been ever more needed in the online environment. You know, I think we talk about folks being self starting and self motivated. And that's applicable not only for the learner, but for the teacher as well. So, absolutely, I think, you know, this research of yours is such, so important to the new state of online learning, you know, post pandemic, I think, also, so, so let's talk about that, in terms of using it in impact. How do you see you know, this research, impacting Virtual Education, whether that's, you know, teaching, learning, supporting learners, maybe even within your role at DLR?

Dr. Koayess  4:32  
Exactly. So I'm in the process just now in at the ally of having needs assessment in our schoolhouse and seeing the kind of training teachers need to build their confidence in their ability to teach and improve their performance, whether like live face to face or virtual. There are some language specific training mentioned in my dissertation that were really needed but also some military cultural and administrative side to the coin. Once we have relayed reliable data, I want to say And like from the findings, we can prioritize the way to move forward. But impacting the teachers and students learning face to face will also apply to the Virtual Education for sure. And self efficacy is definitely vital to the whole process.

Dr. Barnhart  5:15  
Excellent. How about recommendations for, you know, we have a lot of different listeners to our podcast, current students, alumni, faculty, staff members of NCU, what recommendations might you have for them, who are interested in learning more about your specific area of research.

Dr. Koayess
My recommendations to the listeners interested in self efficacy specifically, and its impact on burnout, of course, and teacher retention, or to also approach this topic from the supervisors perspectives, and see if the administration or the first line supervisors have suggestions related to enhancing teacher self efficacy, I would also put more emphasis on feedback and evaluations that teachers receive as they seem to have affected a majority of the of the participants in my case. So teachers like probably finding finding ways to deliver feedback and giving the teachers their yearly appraisal or evaluation is fundamental training, the supervisors may help training the supervisor on doing so or also, in addition, of course, to feeling valued, respected and needed. recommendations. Another one would be, maybe look also at the student's self efficacy instead of just teacher self efficacy, and its impact on their performance and motivation. Like in our case, we didn't have issues with students self efficacy, mainly, because our students are kind of disciplined. They're all in the military, we didn't have like behavior issues. While I have focused on teacher self efficacy, I believe Bandura social cognitive theory in general, and the construct of self efficacy that I based my research on, specifically are very interesting, when it comes to examining the psychology of the individuals and building on their resiliency and confidence. These are my two approaches that I think will really enrich the field, when you consider the supervisory perspective, and also the students of fantasy.

Dr. Barnhart  7:15  
That's great. And those are great, you know, outcomes in terms of the significance of your study, you know, we always talk about with students that we chair are going through this rotation process, in that part, we want to talk about not just the research, you know, significance, but also the practical, practical significance there. So, what kind of practical applications, maybe they came out of your study, that can add value to virtual, and in person learning, especially as it relates to burnout? You know, I think that's something that maybe a lot of us are facing now, you know, 15 months into virtual learning full time. So how did how did like maybe some of the practical applications of research come out there.

Dr. Koayess  7:58  
But it's, I don't want to be talking about self efficacy only in this podcast, I would think that like, for example, in our case, like virtual teaching took us by, like, we were not expecting to have a pandemic, or even teach virtually, this was just happening, and we had to adjust accordingly. Then we realized with time that students were having screen fatigue, teachers were having screen fatigue, if you have a lot of cognitive load, you cannot really focus too much. So in our organization, it just like Virtual Learning caught us by surprise. And one essential practice or use and trained other teachers to and supervisors around me to use is sharing expertise. When you share your stories, when you have like best practices, and you have panels, or you channel them through training events, this way, we do know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. So whatever works for your students may work for my students, if I share like a success story, some others will be able to take it. And this is where we had focused on mitigating screen fatigue and lowering the cognitive load in the virtual teaching. So as you know, like students or learners may have many distractions, and lowering this cognitive load may help them focus more on the essential message or the lesson instead of the images, the colors and distractions around them. They can you can think of yourself being in Times Square in New York, with all the distractions happening, you can't really focus. So we try as much as possible to limit the cognitive load and allow the students memory to capture also as much as possible and move it to the long term memory. So in our case, for example, cognitive load impacts the efficacy of learning a second language, and the human cognitive capacity is so limited and can hinder learning if overloaded, and that's why learning requires the smart usage of the two sorts of memories that we have the working memory and the long term memory I don't want to be elaborating too much on it. But like, probably you already know that there are three types of cognitive loads that are additive, like the intrinsic part and the extraneous part and the germane part, when information is presented in a way that reduces extraneous cognitive load, and increases the germane cognitive load, it helps the learner transfer all the information from your working memory to the long term memory. This is exactly why cognitive like reducing cognitive load will help in a practical way in our school, because like students will have will focus on the vocab retention capturing them and not be having all these distractions around them. That also helps with their self efficacy in general.

Dr. Barnhart  10:45  
Do you think that practice of cognitive load management then benefits, you know, outside of maybe students that are, you know, more disciplined and military like at the deal at the ally, but is that something that maybe can benefit other teachers, students and other classroom settings elsewhere?

Dr. Koayess  11:04  
Yes, like for us, it was not an issue when we were like dealing with face to face teaching. But we realize that this is an issue even with discipline students, and like outside, when whenever you have kids at home learning virtually, they are totally distracted. And knowing how the brain functions, you will know that you cannot move things from your working memory, from your working memory to the long term memory, unless they're they are things that are repeated, and you are focused on them. And it's not just like random things happening at the same time, you would, the first thing you will see is the image you've heard, the first thing you would see is like the colors and you'll be so distracted that you can't really function on focus, attention or wherever you are learning as a subject. So that's why we realized that it is very important to study the brain process in order for you to help them transfer all the knowledge to the long term memory and process.

Dr. Barnhart  12:00  
Excellent. So in that respect, like like thinking in this practical line, what maybe recommendations or takeaways would you have for listeners who want to implement or learn more about, you know, cognitive load management and and mitigating burnout and some of the other major themes that came from your research.

Dr. Koayess  12:18  
My recommendation, in general for anybody listening to this is to keep an open mind. And then think outside the box. All the solutions we came up with were not things that we had offered to us before. So for example, when we had a lot of students having are facing burnout, we came up with a scavenger hunt. Like you're really going for a scavenger hunt, and you are on your phone, via teams, we use ms teams here, socially distant from the rest of the class, get you had to report your classroom, on your phone, and then take a selfie and share after a while when you get all the clues and go to all the directions and follow all the directions and instructions given to you and all in the target language. So my recommendation is really totally to keep an open mind and then cooperate with the rest of the team. And because education doesn't happen in a vacuum, we all need to constantly work together on building this community and making sure that everybody is on the same page.

Dr. Barnhart  13:23  
Excellent takeaways, and thank you so much for sharing these very insightful, you know, findings and and not just the research implications, but the practical implications of your research here. Dr. Class, we're at the point where my favorite point of the podcast, it's kind of like our my favorite question, and we ask everyone this one. So you know, knowing, you know that your 15 months into, you know, Virtual Education kind of redefined? Is there one hack? You know, we're all about life hacks and making things easier here. But is there one hack that you or maybe someone calling that you know, has used or is using that has made the virtual education experience a lot easier or more manageable for you or your students.

Dr. Koayess  14:07  
And just when you say, like a hack, I can think of real hack other than having concrete issues in a virtual environment. But one educational hack that I have used it as an MCU student is using my mobile phone hotspot to connect my laptop in the nature outdoors, and work on assignments and homework. It's important to create early on in the program a sense of routine, it becomes easier to follow up on it and hold yourself accountable. So life happens and we need to have people around us who are willing to be part of this journey and continue motivating us while constantly reminding us of our duties and accountability in the sense. Another thing or hack that totally worked for me, is working out and the reward and rewarding myself after all, Homework submission. I personally never submitted my homework before Sunday 10pm my time. And before every task or assignment, I played tennis in the morning, or went for a 30 minute run on the beach this way I knew my serotonin level was high, and that I was more motivated in a happy mood. So I was able to work on my homework. So the reward system and ice cream was also like, like good, something that was motivating me. So it's always small pleasures, keep it fun, stay positive. Remember that you can do this, enjoy the process and focus on the end goal at the end, that also was worth the hassle. I'd like that we need to print that on the shirt and or a coffee mug?

Dr. Barnhart  15:49  
I dig it. I really I really like that that advice. Thank you for sharing that I can't agree more the time management aspect of the dissertation process. It can seem sometimes insurmountable. But definitely, I think as you like you said that routine that is all very helpful in helping to accomplish that goal. So thank you very much for sharing that part. And then lastly, before we leave, you know, we always like our guests, and our listeners like to connect a lot, you know, maybe it's to look at your research or see what you're doing or just to add to their professional network. So how can our Etsy community members connect and connect with you and find more about the work that you're doing?

Dr. Koayess  16:28  
Well, I don't know in what aspect but I can give you my email or like my, my number. Oh, yeah, email me, or if like you're on LinkedIn. And folks, you can find me on LinkedIn, or even Facebook. And yeah, of course, and I'm ready to help anybody in the process. And if I can mention one thing, honestly, that had helped me, like other than being grateful to the ncu system in general. And I have seen a lot of other students in other universities working on their doctorate degree. And some colleagues even here with me at work, like ncu had given so much when it comes to the Academic Center, and the dissertation Center, the proofreading service, I really have to say that this has boosted my dissertation. And it has been, like, available and amazing. But one thing that I would suggest some people use is the dissertation book that I had discovered in chapter four. In my case, my chair was Dr. Linda Bloomberg. And she's the author of a book that I never knew existed until later, it's called, I think, completing your qualitative research roadmap from beginning to end. I cannot emphasize enough how valuable this has been to my dissertation process. I had so many questions, that course content did not really provide answers to like, what do I do now? I had collected all the data, I was losing sleep, I was so excited. I had transcribed all the interviews and categorize them. But I didn't know how to move after this stage like nobody would teach you in a class, how to analyze them, what would come out out of it. So for me personally, this book was like, mini miracle. I got it from like Amazon and spent on navigating it's chapter chapters highlighting them and marking some answers. So that was just like something I wanted to mention. It has been very helpful in my case. Other than that, like I'm hoping or willing to help other students if they have questions, and also how to navigate the ncu website, because there are so many like hidden germs over there, where you're like, oh, nobody told me about this. How come they have the proofreading part? How come you can literally schedule one appointment one on one and get help with your tables? These are simple things. But they meant a lot of great things to share their practical applications and great information that current students, you know, whether they're in the dissertation process or getting ready for that process can definitely take to heart. 

Dr. Barnhart 18:51
So again, Dr. Koayess, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. We've really, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show today. 

Dr. Koayess
The pleasure is mine, Ryan, thank you so much. 

Dr. Barnhart
My pleasure. And again for Dr. Koayess. I'm Dr. Barnhart. Thanks for tuning into VESC voices from students and alumni driving research and practice. We'll catch you next time.