Mastering Classroom Management in Community-Engaged Learning

Speaker A: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Partnerships with Purpose podcast. We're going to explore ways to engage communities through service learning projects and research. I'm Cedric Shy with the Texas Target Communities program at Texas A and M University. We're hoping these stories will highlight and inspire more community engaged partnerships. So today we have Professor Bill Isley from Texas A and M's Transportation Institute. He's been a researcher and a professor for over 30 years now and he is an expert in community engaged learning. Welcome to the podcast. Professor Bill Would you just tell us about yourself, your background and uh, what do you do, what's your why and what you do?

Speaker B: Yeah, happy to, happy to be here. Thanks for the opportunity. So, you know, I think from early on I've always had this kind of fascination with transportation. I didn't really know that that's what it was, but from an early time I always liked science, math, public service. And thankfully I found transportation probably from the back of a station wagon or a van or a camper like most people in summer getting driven around to different places. And so I was always fascinated with how people get where they go and kind of how the world works. And uh, just found my, myself going to engineering school in civil engineering and then of course for later graduate degrees getting those in transportation and then found myself at uh, TTI, Texas A& M Transportation Institute, where I've been now for 31 years. Thought I was just passing through, but here I am still and have had progressive opportunities with them and it's been a fun ride. A lot of great people, great projects and I'm currently one of our associate agency directors over all things planning and policy, freight, trade, data, science, mobility, all those different topic areas. A fairly large area.

Speaker A: Amazing. So, um, what aspect of transportation do you work on? Do you study? What's your expertise there?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, over three decades I've touched on a lot of different areas. Uh, to be honest, most recently I'm doing a lot in the freight space, goods movement, freight supply chains, helping sponsors get really people and goods and really data where it needs to be and when it needs to be there, and helping them to understand where bottlenecks are in the transportation system and what possible solutions might look like. That's really where I think me and, and our entire team excel.

Speaker A: That's pretty fascinating, I guess. I don't normally think about exports when it comes to transportation. I think more about public use and right aways and all that kind of stuff. So I actually didn't really know that that world was studied.

Speaker B: Yeah. And uh, It's a big world and a lot of people don't realize it. More recently, people have recognized it when you have a pandemic and shelves are empty. Was probably one of our best marketing opportunities is people are like, hey, why can't I get toilet paper? Why can't I get water? What's up with that? It's like, well, let's tell you a little story about this. And the other thing I often hear is people are so frustrated when they're driving down the highway, oh, there's all these trucks around. What's this all about? Well, have you bought anything on Amazon lately? If you have, you might be maybe a participant in this problem.

Speaker A: You're the demand, right? So that. So you know, your work in transportation planning has led you to the classroom. How long have you been teaching?

Speaker B: You know, it's funny, I haven't looked at that in a while, but I bet it's been close to 20 years. I've done some teaching over in civil engineering and then of course now in urban planning, similar types of classes. And, uh, it's just been a real joy for me. I really enjoy being in the classroom.

Speaker A: Yeah. So going into the class from now on, uh, what classes do you teach and can you talk to us about maybe like what's special about your classrooms and how you teach them?

Speaker B: So currently what I teach is an applied transportation studio and we work very closely with the Texas Target communities and I. That group, your group, does all the hard work. I have to tell you, the, you know, the challenges that come up, the arrangements with the local communities, et cetera. It's been a great team is what it really has been. And so it's been very enjoyable. So, so we work with communities. I'll bring in different aspects of transportation that I think the students need to understand because I typically see them right before they're about to graduate. So I get a lot of the graduate students right. And so I try to give them a lot of real world applications pro tips for how the real world's going to be in about, um, a year when they leave that classroom and give them a little bit more insight into, into that. I also take some time to challenge them and communicate to them that, hey, this is a good place to make some mistakes. Um, rather than maybe next year when you're working for a real company or a city or somewhere and you get thrown into a public meeting, if you want to lean into that and start to try to stretch your horizons a little bit, this is a good place to do That I recognize some students don't want to. And I also tell them that, look, we're going to work in groups. World is a group project and I'm big on strengths and understanding your strengths and working to those. So I certainly recognize people appreciating their strengths and just working towards those strengths too. So I stay real focused on the why, which is preparing them for the future, bringing in people that are going to help them on the projects, but also give them insights for the real world and a lot of discussion about stakeholders and making sure we're getting the input from everybody that's necessary.

Speaker A: That's amazing. Yeah. So you're, you're like saying this, this is a firm you're working for before you work for the firm.

Speaker B: Exactly. And, and I do have a lot of that. I'm glad you brought that up because I'll actually send out a first day email and it's a huge packet that probably intimidates a lot of them. On the very bottom of that, I put something in there about. Here's a good way to think about this course. Mm M. We're all consultants working for a community. Texas Target Communities is essentially, they're kind of the prime contractor. Right. Because they're doing the interface with the uh, with the client, with the community. And we're focused on more on that transportation plan. And, and I think it sets up for a good dialogue for how to approach the class and, and how it can be successful.

Speaker A: Yeah. Get students in the right frame of mind because something. We've done many, many engaged learning classes and we've learned. Oh, it's really, it's really important for students to kind of understand that this is, it's a little different working in the real world or bringing a class into the real world. It's not quite just your basic syllabus structure. And we, even in our team, we've been thinking a lot about syllabus and I know you think a lot about syllabus. So can you tell us a little bit about how you structure your syllabus before the class starts? What are some things that you're going to have to nail down? Some things that maybe commonly can get missed or some things you learned over time?

Speaker B: Absolutely. Great question. And it really does start with the syllabus and putting a tight syllabus together. I see the syllabus and I tell the students this on day one, that this is my contract to you. This is what's going to happen in this class. I pretty much nail down as many of the Details as possible. I like to think it wasn't so long ago that I was in their shoes wondering what's next and what's that le going to be about? So even though it was a long time ago, it's I think important for them to understand where we're going in the class, where we've been in the class, what's next and why are these speakers coming in. And so I lecture a fair amount, but then I also bring in a lot of professionals that are in the field doing more of what we're going to talk about in the day to day. So thoroughfare planning, or an economist from TTI or somebody who understands exactly what all those possible funding mechanisms are for the implementation of the projects. So again, going back to try to make it as real as possible for everyone. Yeah.

Speaker A: And then what are those projects? What kind of stuff do the students create?

Speaker B: Mainly working again through Texas Target Communities, we are focused on doing comprehensive plans, though typically a, uh, community will approach Texas Target communities and want to have student support for a, uh, comprehensive plan, for example. So then what my class does, they come in and they write the transportation chapter, essentially. And so it's a dialogue about what their goals are, what their vision is for the community. If we haven't tackled that yet, what that means within transportation. And then we develop for them, uh, an implementation plan of how to make that happen. So what are the, what are those goals? How do those goals tie to objectives? How do those objectives tie to specific action items? What who needs to be involved for those particular action items? And how do we get it funded? And we try to get that football we're coming up on Super Bowl Sunday. So we try to get that football down the field as far as we possibly can for the client, for the community in this case, because typically it is adopted by the city council and becomes a legal document then. And so then it's something that they can refer to, uh, to actually move their community forward.

Speaker A: So thinking about that, you know, it's this middle ground I feel like Community Engaged Learning has where, you know, our students, they're not professionals yet, so, you know, we're not expecting them to produce professional work. But also they're almost professionals. And um, so how do you go about just grading and also, um, finding that balance between, hey, this is also, you know, a low capacity community where, you know, they, they really can't afford, you know, when you go work for your big boy job. So that's why they're coming to us. But how do you find that Middle ground with students to go, hey, I want to, you know, challenge you to really lean into this. But also, you know, this is, this is still school. So I don't want you to have to produce something that's professional grade. How do you balance that? How do you explain that to your students?

Speaker B: Excellent question. So we kind of keep the end in mind. And what's nice is now we have a pretty good book of business. We have a lot of, uh, good examples of things that we have done, and we rely on those. So beginning with the end in mind, I will tell them, um, go look at those old examples. And oftentimes, the format, the content, the outline, and in some cases, the actual goals for some of these other communities are quite similar. So that takes, I think, a little bit of that stress off of just looking at a blank piece of paper. You're not looking at a blank piece of paper. Let's begin with something that we have, uh, and go from there.

Speaker A: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Because for them, they see it's attainable. Okay. My colleagues have done this, my other friends have done this. This is something for us to strive to rather than I need to be a professional.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. And again, it can intimidate some of them. But that's that part where I'll reinforce, try to challenge yourself a little bit. And if they don't want to, that's okay. And I'll say that too, that you may have skills where you're the GIS person and that is okay. You're the one that's going to do the maps. That's okay. Because odds are, if that's your sweet spot now, probably going to be your sweet spot when you're working with a team somewhere. And you may want to just have a GIS job and a map job. So it doesn't do me any good. Doesn't do the client any good to force you out there and be running the public meeting or engaging strongly with the community. On the other hand, some people want to do that, or they might be that map person and say, okay, I'm kind of interested in rolling up my sleeves and working more closely with the community on a particular aspect. It can make grading complicated. You asked about grading, and I was in high school, and I've been working on this question my entire life. So anybody listening, you can continue to listen. You can continue to noodle over this for me. I had a physics professor, well, teacher in high school, and I asked him one day, I got real frustrated and I told him I Said grades are the worst thing. They do not identify how good I am at this. It doesn't capture all the skills I have. I just don't understand the silly question. And this grading system just doesn't capture it. And he looked me in the eye. He said, you're absolutely right. Bill said, you come up with a better system, and we'll implement it tomorrow. So anybody listening to this? I've been working on that since, trying to figure that out.

Speaker A: 30 years, though.

Speaker B: 30 years, yeah. So again, making the students part of the solution. I do have them do a peer evaluation, and that's important. You know, I can't be in their team meetings all the time. I usually hear things are great or things are terrible. I don't hear things in between. Right. So then I can kind of, you know, and if there's, you, uh, know, if there's a. A bad situation or something, I can usually hear about it. And then we'll work on it, and things will be fine in the end. They always are. But that does help that I can say, hey, there's a peer evaluation, and that's part of your grade.

Speaker A: So how do you, um, kind of moving further from syllabus and over the themes of the classroom, how do you, um, put those teams together? Do you have them do sort of a strength assessment or is it more kind of like just tell me what your strengths are and then helps me think about the class. Do you do it beforehand?

Speaker B: Yeah, great question. I try to learn as much as I can about them before the first day of class, but essentially I have it all set up on the first day of class, so I try to get a sense. I'll usually meet with staff at Texas Target Communities, and we'll review who the students are, what we know about them, kind of what their skill sets are, how they would balance out in an appropriate team. I typically have, of course, mostly, uh, urban planning students. I sometimes get a spattering of land students, um, or even architects. And I've had political science students in the past, but by and large, my next biggest grouping is civil engineering. And so this current cohort, for example, I've got, I think 12 planning, three civils and a land.

Speaker A: Yeah. So a little. So a little bit of mixture. So you put together. Do your groups and your. Their groups ever switch around, or does it always just like, this is the same group? You go with that, and it kind of works out in the end?

Speaker B: Yeah, I try to, uh, I'll force. I think it's good for both the planners and the engineers to work together. So I do force them to stretch each other's minds and work with each other. And uh, essentially, especially if I have a large class, it gets a little bit difficult to break them into groups. And like, look, y' all are heading towards the same thing. Just sort of make this work. But assignments are really important too. I haven't brought that up. You know, when I first would teach this, I think I've gotten better at tightening up the assignments to be hyper focused on the project. So the first assignment now is tell me about yourself. And then the second question is get with your group and here's the topic area areas and discuss the division of labor. Start talking about where's the strengths in your group, who wants to do what. And let's make sure that we get that documented because I've got to see that you're making progress because things move fast in the classroom.

Speaker A: That's great. I think that's a great way to get students moving and going. So whenever we start making those trips, it's like, we know what we're doing, we know our roles. If you're not doing it, we have a, we have a system to say you're not doing it absolutely in place. So, um, let's just. I'm just kind of like visualizing a semester in my head and I'm asking you questions through the semester. Sure. So you start to going on, um, trips. How do you get students prepared for trips? Do these students, um, typically, have they ever had any sort of engaged learning with a real community, with a real client? And if this is their first time, how do you get them ready to go and do some facilitation?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, uh, again, relying on my friends at Texas Target Communities helps a lot. But having those meetings where they come into the classroom and say, here, here's kind of the expectation, here's the agenda, here's what we're trying to cover, here's what success looks like when we leave the room is very helpful. It's very, very well prepared. And I think with the students and working on the projects, they tend to lean into that and want to be part of that solution. And again, that's where having that conversation up front about comfort level, because some of them, as a student who was once a young engineering student, that the outgoing days, for me, I might stare at somebody else's shoes and not my own shoes. Right. So I know those people are out there and I don't want to terrify them. Right. Uh, so it's getting them Comfortable and helping them understand that there's a place for them, no matter where they're coming into this, whether they want to, you know, have an active, more extroverted opportunity, you can. Or you can have more of an introverted role. There's much like the real world. There's needs everywhere. Right. So it's kind of finding your community and what you want to want to do, and then, of course, providing them some guardrails and insights about how to behave and who you're representing and just recognizing that you're recognizing, uh, you are representing the Texas A and M University system when you're there, whether you like it or not, you may be one of the only recent interactions that some of these small communities out in the hinterlands have had with Texas A and M. And so you're wearing that badge, if you will, when you come in there. So we need to make sure that we act the part.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's great because when thinking about facilitation, I think you could. Sometimes I remember I begin interviewing interns, students who are like, well, I'm not very outgoing, so sometimes I'm a little worried that I have to be that. And I'm like, actually, no, facilitation. There's actually a role for everybody in facilitation. You do not have to be like Cedric, who can talk someone's head off and ask questions. You can be in the sight lines and you can tap me and go, hey, don't forget this. I'm like, oh, thanks, I forgot that.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Stuff like that. So I think that's a great way to, um, set the framework for students so they can all feel like they're all empowered. Because it definitely takes a team to do facilitation. It's not just an outgoing person. So along the way, you're in your class and you got your team built. You've got, um, experts coming in, you go on the trip. Has there ever been some challenges that you experienced along the way where you had to adapt or change? Or do you have any just even just like, learning stories from the past in your classroom?

Speaker B: Yeah, there always are those examples. And I think a lot of that probably boils down to the biggest concern, the biggest question we often have. Is everybody being heard? Much like anything in planning, have we reached out to all audiences? Are all stakeholders engaged?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Has everybody been able to voice an opinion? So there's some times when we'll show up at communities where it's a little light in the attendance, for example, and we're like, uh, you know, you can only do so much. But that's primarily the thing where we find ourselves pivoting the most is okay, you know, it was a little bit light. Oftentimes, even when it is light, we're pleasantly surprised. That, okay, yeah, the people that did show up, they showed up.

Speaker A: They showed up and they know.

Speaker B: And they. They know every, uh, pretty much everything we needed to hear, you know, but there's still that in the back of your head, you're thinking, boy, but did that cover everything? Are there still some voices out there that might be missing? That's probably. Honestly, the main one that's always in the back of our head is because we're plowing forward on a comprehensive plan in pretty short order. And much like the real world, making sure that we've got everybody's input is the most important thing. You know, I really. I just want to kind of double down on how rewarding and fulfilling this is for me. There's a lot of other things I could be doing with my time, but I really enjoy working with the students, and I like working on real things, and I like watching them kind of light up and learn as things go through the process throughout the semester. And it can get a little heartfelt too. We've done a lot of different projects in a lot of different places. Many of them have won APA awards, which is fantastic. But some of the more recent ones that we've done have been particularly touching. We did one at City of Rockport shortly after Hurricane Harvey, and where they were trying to start over essentially from what had happened with the, uh, with the hurricane. And being able to help them was really nice, and it was good for the students. It was great for the community. I think we put a stellar plan together for them to rebuild and really help them. And that's kind of what it's all about for me at the end of the day. And, um, did win an APA award too, which was really nice too, at the end of the day, but it was more about being able to help them out.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing. And similarly, being a part of Texas Target Communities, what brought me to it, uh, what keeps me in it, is the mission of helping bring capacity to places that want to build from within, but just don't have all the capacity they need yet, don't literally do not have the time or the tools. So being able to be that partner, that bridge for change, and also actually empowering a community to make change in their communities, it's. It's definitely really rewarding. And your students often produce, like, very exemplary work. Very much. I think they make a good name for themselves as professionals and also just A and M M in our program. Um, so, you know, having as many students as you've had been teaching this class many times, do you have any just common advice for professors wanting to do community, engaged learning and students who may be thinking about taking a class like this? What advice comes to mind?

Speaker B: Yeah, great question. It probably gives me a chance to summarize a couple of the main things that I've said, and that is for the students, it's a great place to fail. It's a great place to try out your chops and it's okay to fail. Right? You can learn some things in a safe environment because honestly, in six to 12 months, you're probably going to be doing this for pay. And if you're at a private company, you're going to have, uh, a board of directors and a profit margin and everybody else that needs to satisfy. So this is a great place to learn some of those skills. And on the professor side, I go back again, I think, to keeping it very practical, making sure you're coming back to the why of why this particular lecture, why this particular guest lecturer is coming. How does this tie back to what we're doing with the particular project and helping them kind of see where things are going? And it's mostly all, uh, much of it is all in an effort again, to make sure that we're getting the right stakeholders involved and providing that plan that can be helpful for the community.

Speaker A: That's amazing. Thanks, Bill. So thinking about the future, thinking about innovation, is there any thing in the future you think community engaged space, this community engaged learning will innovate and grow to?

Speaker B: Great question. Yeah, it's something that I think about a lot. I don't think planning itself fundamentally is going to change much what we need to do, getting everybody's voice engaged and so on and so forth. But what will change is perhaps how do we do that? I, like we alluded to earlier, sometimes making sure we're not missing voices and how are we going to communicate to everyone in the future? And I'm not real hip with the computers, but I know there's a whole lot of ways that we can do a lot more engagement online. So I certainly see that continuing, but also providing solutions. And what does that look like? Is it digital twins, where we're building environments that people can drive through, fly through, get a feel for, and better understand different scenarios and what things might look like and how that resonates with their lived experiences and captures what they are trying to communicate in the plan. I think that's where we might be able to do even more in the future.

Speaker A: I agree. Well, Mr. Bill, thank you so much for coming to the podcast. You are the gold standard of Managing Experience Community Engaged Learning classes. So it was a pleasure to get to talk to you, learn from you about it.

Speaker B: Well, I have lots of help and I appreciate everything that y' all do to make it successful, so thanks for trying to do my part. Thanks very much. Appreciate the time.

Speaker A: Awesome. If you'd like to learn more about our program, check out our Instagram at, uh, tamutxtc or head on over to our website at TX ag TXTC.