Inquiry Oasis Season 2: Lia Falco

In this episode of Inquiry Oasis, Dean Robert Berry interviews Dr. Lia Falco, an educational psychologist and school counselor educator at the College of Education. Dr. Falco discusses her passion for her work, focusing on three key words: kids, school, and opportunity. 

She elaborates on her background in educational psychology and school counseling, emphasizing the developmental lens she uses to understand how K-12 students develop academically and emotionally, specifically in mathematics. 

Dr. Falco also highlights her research interests in self-efficacy, social persuasion, and readiness, particularly in relation to STEM education for girls and underrepresented populations. The conversation provides insights into how educators and school counselors can support holistic development and foster opportunities for students to realize their potential.

Transcript

Jeffrey Anthony:

Welcome to the Inquiry Oasis, the University of Arizona College of Education's podcast here in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. We bring you conversations with our esteemed faculty members and staff, whose research impacts lives from southern Arizona to the far reaches of the globe. We explore the transformative power of education in this border town, where diverse cultures and ideas converge, weaving a tapestry of innovation with compassion and a sense of wonder.

So, join us as we journey through the sands of curiosity, unearthing insights that enrich and inspire. Sit back and relax as we invite you to dive into the inquiry oasis. 

Dean Berry:

Hi, I'm Robert Berry, and I'm the Dean of the College of Education, and welcome to the Inquiry Oasis. Today, we have Dr. Leah Falco. 

Dr. Falco is an educational psychologist and a school counselor educator in our Department of Educational Psychology here in the College of Education. Today, we'll be talking with Dr. Falco about her work and her interests. And there are a couple of things I want to touch on. She's going to be talking about self-efficacy, social persuasion, readiness, and her connection to STEM and particularly her work around STEM and working with girls and underrepresented populations. And so, I'm excited to have this conversation with Dr. Falco and let's go ahead and get started. So welcome to the Inquiry Oasis Dr. Falco. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. 

Dean Berry:

All right. So, you know, I'm going to start off with some, you know, some words, right? And I'm just going to ask you to share three words that represent why you are passionate about the work you do.

Dr. Lia Falco:

Oh, that's good. Okay. Couple, three. 

Dean Berry:

Three? Three. Or more. How about that? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Okay. Kids, school, opportunity. 

Dean Berry:

Kids, school, and opportunity. Are you, are you willing to elaborate on those words? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah. So, um, my background is in educational psychology, but also school counseling. And those two things overlap a lot in the way I think about research and my work, broadly speaking.

School counseling is fundamentally an educational endeavor, so I'm always thinking about how K 12 kids are developing in school, what educators and school counselors as educators can support their development holistically. I'm also thinking a lot about their academic progress, not so much in terms of how well they're learning the content, but how they're learning to learn the content.

And all the identity work that goes into that, all the emotional development, uh, that occurs from when a kid Well, even before they begin school, sort of in the pre-K years, as they progress through their schooling and then think about their next steps and what will happen after school. So, I, I really take a developmental lens.

I think about their decision making, I think about, um, how they're thinking about themselves and the world around them. How they're learning to learn, and that's what I mean when I think about, um, opportunity. So, I am fundamentally concerned with how kids not only develop, but how they think about what's possible.

Dean Berry:

So, if I heard correctly, kids, school, and opportunity. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah, it’s a lot.

Dean Berry:

So, you know, I. I wrote down a few things as well in terms of words because I had an opportunity to read some of your work and from your work I wrote down a few words and can I share those words with you? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Please.

Dean Berry:

So, I wrote down self-efficacy.

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yes. 

Dean Berry:

I wrote down social persuasion.

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yes. 

Dean Berry:

And I wrote down readiness. And so, we're going to talk about those words a little bit later because I'm intrigued by those words, and they're related to the questions I will ask later. But let's just kind of back up a little bit. Tell us about who you are and what you do in the College of Education.

Dr. Lia Falco:

Okay. Um, I am actually a graduate of this college. So, I go way back, um, in terms of my own schooling and, and development and thinking. And I think that that really informs my, my position now as an associate professor. So, I, I earned a master's degree and a Ph. D. in this college, and I began my faculty career in this college in educational psychology and, uh, always as a school counselor educator though, so, so much of my work as a researcher is connected to my work as a school counselor educator and actually my work prior to earning a Ph.D. as a school counselor. 

So, I think about myself, um, sort of in, in two parts. So one is as a, um, a faculty member but also as a lifelong learner and now an, an educator and I think that those things kind of come full circle. You can't really teach well without learning. Those things continue to work in concert for me as a faculty member.

So, I am now, um, in educational psychology, where I began my doctoral work. And, um, I spend still a significant amount of time thinking about how to best educate school counselors to meet the needs of the community and to meet the needs of um, in terms of what public school needs, um, are in, in this socio-political moment. But I also, um, sort of take an expansive view, uh, in terms of my own identity, um, as a researcher and as a scholar and as an educational psychologist.

So that's where I start to pull in things like self-efficacy and motivation and social persuasion, which is connected to self-efficacy. Um, those are really, sort of, born of a rich tradition within educational psychology and those kind of those things kind of all fit together for me as a Faculty researcher.

Dean Berry:

All right. All right. Well, you know, so an alum and a faculty member at the same time. Wow. So, let's just jump into your work. So, You know, I'm a math educator, you know that, and so I love talking about math, so one of my first questions is going to be about mathematics, is that okay? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Sure. 

Dean Berry: 

And so, um, so what is math, mathematics self-efficacy, and why is it important?

Dr. Lia Falco:

So, I think this goes back, um, my interest in math and math learning and how students learn to form identities around math goes back to the time when I was working as a school counselor in a sixth grade, um, classroom. Well, I was working as the sixth-grade counselor, and I was spending a lot of time in the sixth-grade math department, and I started to really wonder, what is that about?

So, I got really, really interested in how learning about math changes over time and what happens, especially during middle school and especially for girls at that age. And that was sort of the beginning of my interest in exploring self-efficacy as a psychological construct. 

I got really, really interested in how kids We're thinking about their math experience and their math learning at that age and really noticing some profound changes, um, some real dips and interest and, um, confidence and, um, a lot of stuff happening, um, sort of not around their ability to learn the content, but how they were thinking about themselves and their willingness. And that's where I really got interested in, um, self-efficacy as a construct.

And it really just has to do with, um, how confident kids feel in very discreet abilities within very discreet domains. Um, it's connected to agency. It's connected to confidence. It's connected to motivation. And ultimately those things are connected to a lot of other things that are very, very important in their educational trajectory.

Dean Berry:

So, you know, I have this T-shirt. So, I used to be, I was the president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and I have this T-shirt that says, “we are all math people.” And, you know, I love to engage people around this notion of their mathematical identity. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah, nothing pains me more than hearing a young person say, “Oh, I'm not, I'm not a math person. I'm not a math person.” I'm like, oh.

Dean Berry:

We’re all math people.

Dr. Lia Falco:

We all are. 

Dean Berry:

We have to find that space where people can see themselves in the mathematics, not only just from a content perspective, but also from this efficacious perspective as well. The willingness to engage, the willingness to stay connected, not only to the content, but also to people.

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah. 

Dean Berry:

Yeah, you know, because math is a community endeavor and, and, and sometimes I, I, I wish we can elevate that in classroom, the community endeavor of mathematics. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah. I'd be really curious to talk with you more about this. I know I'm not the interviewer, but, um, the way, the way that we as educators and as a society generally talk to kids about math and talk to each other about math is qualitatively different than we talk about other subjects, and I'm curious about that. I'm really curious about that, but I think it definitely has something to do with the way kids, um, do the identity work in in their math learning. That's so important to me. 

Dean Berry:

Yeah, I mean when we look at like professional mathematicians or even careers that are related like engineers, they work in community they work on teams, you know, even in those spaces you go to the math department here there's usually a team of geometers.

There's usually a team of algebraic theorists they're working on similar or same problems and same issues. And so, you know what happens in schools is somewhat different from what happens in those spaces. And I'm wondering how can we, you know, make children or students, people more broadly, see those connected tissues that, it's a community endeavor, you know.

It is, we work in collaboration with one another, but sometimes we see it in isolation when we're just in school, when we're in school. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah, and I would really like to, and this was important for my students when I was a school counselor, I would love to dispel this idea that somehow math is some innate ability, that you're either good at math or you're not, and if you are, then great, and best of luck to you, and if you're not, then oh well, you're not a math person, and then your trajectory somehow looks different that that really was evident to me in the way the kids that I was working with at the time we're talking about their math and their math experience and their math learning and I really felt like there was um, some good work to be done, uh, the social emotional level that a school counselor could do to, to change that and to really disrupt that. And others have done this too, right? Like the, the idea of a growth mindset or the idea of grit is tapping into that, that idea. Um, but I think that school counselors as practitioners, not necessarily as math teachers, I wasn't going to go in and help them learn math, but I could go in and help them learn to learn math better.

Dean Berry:

So that leads me to this next, uh, kind of framing, this notion of social persuasion. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah. 

Dean Berry:

I mean, I'm intrigued by that. Can you define that for us, you know, um, as folks who are listening, because I, I think for some, this might be a new, relatively new term for some, because it was for me when I first read about it.

Dr. Lia Falco:

It, it actually comes out of Bandura's work. So the, the idea that, um, there are sources of self-efficacy that individuals can either tap or possess, utilize, um, in thinking about, um, self-efficacy is just how, how certain you are that you can accomplish a goal that you set out to do, that in its simplest form way of understanding self-efficacy. 

So, people develop their efficacy usually through four main sources and social persuasion is one. So that just connects to the people around you. Your, your social network, for lack of a better word. Usually when we're thinking about it in, in this way, we're thinking about teachers, we're thinking about peers, we're thinking about, um, caregivers. So, the people who kids spend the most time with, family members or whoever, um, is, um, providing their care in the home. And those, um, tend to be overlooked as a source of self-efficacy in terms of intervention. We know that, um, generally just trying to convince somebody that they're good at something or convince somebody by telling them, “Oh, you're good, you're smart, you're talented, you're wonderful.”

That's not unimportant, but it's not generally considered one of the strongest ways to help somebody develop their self-efficacy in a particular domain. Um, But I really wondered about that, um, for early adolescence because we also know that in early adolescence, like around age 10, 11, 12, 13, middle school, my favorite time, um, peer influence is very, very important for a lot of things, for a lot of areas of development.

And so, I wondered if maybe our dismissive view, our in the research, dismissive view of social persuasion as a source of self-advocacy was perhaps, um, overlooked or under tapped.

Dean Berry:

 Wow. Well, and so much of my work focuses on black boys in school mathematics. And one of the things I noticed when I was doing my work, um, was thinking about, and I'm going to use the term swagger, just not a research term, 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Could be.

Dean Berry:

But it's, you know, swagger meaning that, you know, the confidence that, yeah. Uh, that the boys I work with carried in other spaces that they didn't particularly carry in the classroom. And so I was always interested in, how can you have swagger in this space, but not in this space? And what, is it transferable? You know, is it transfer? And what can we do to help make those connections?

And oftentimes it is that social network. Or that, that, that collaborative group that they're interacting with. And so, I was interested in, how can we take the swagger that may happen on the ball field or the basketball court and transfer that to the classroom? and walk in the classroom with all the confidence that one may have in other spaces.

Am I tapping into social persuasion in that way? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Uh, you certainly are. That's exactly it. 

Dean Berry:

Oh! 

Dr. Lia Falco:

That's exactly it. It's, it's how we talk to each other about things and, and either on accident or on purpose, we create spaces for that to occur or for that not to occur. Right? like teachers, friends, parents, role models, mentors can create environments that really foster that swagger or that interest or self-efficacy, whatever we're going to call it, but it's that willingness uh, to, to see your strengths, to see your skills in, in a way that elicits confidence or at least takes away the fear of risk taking, um, and, and for math, that's really crucial.

Dean Berry:

Wow. You know, one of the things I used to say to my students, “participation is risk taking.”

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah. 

Dean Berry:

And how do we lower the, the, the perception of risk taking and increase confidence? The confidence to be participatory and, and thinking about the things that we do to support that, you know, so that notion of risk taking, I'd love that you bring up risk taking into the conversation.

Dr. Lia Faclo:

And there's something about math that I think really, it inhibits, I think, for a lot of kids, that willingness to, to engage and take risks. And I, I think part of it is just the, the fear of, of, you know, making a mistake. And how do we, I, I'm particularly concerned with how can we help them navigate some of that.

Um, and that's, that's really where a lot of my work is focused. So, it's on the, sort of the metacognitive components of learning. Yeah. 

Dean Berry:

All right, well, so, we've talked about self-efficacy. We've talked about social persuasion. I want to jump into this notion of readiness. And, and I noticed in your work that you talk about, uh, college and career readiness.

And so, can you talk a little bit about the factors that influence college and career readiness? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah, there's a lot of, uh, good research that has looked at, um, College, like post-secondary planning, college and career readiness standards are ubiquitous now and in school, um. Really around preparing students for decision making that will carry them forward either through their education in K 12 or pre-K 12 and beyond.

So, there's been some work done more recently that's trying to distinguish between preparedness and readiness. Preparedness tends to focus more on the academic part of the educational experience. Just making sure that kids have like their basic skills in place Like can they can you know, are they progressing with their English language learning? Are they progressing with their mathematics content knowledge? And so on and so forth. And those things are important particularly for students who are going to pursue an education beyond high school, um, but there's also this readiness component, um, that school counselors like me are particularly interested in, and that's more the developmental piece.

Are you mature enough? Are you able to make decisions? Are you efficacious in your decision making? And do you feel like you belong? Do you feel like you're able to envision a future? That involves higher education and that looks really different for everybody and, uh, that's, that's where that idea of readiness really comes in and where school counselors have a lot of work that they can do to help students develop their readiness.

Dean Berry:

Wow. And so, one of your papers you, you talk about this notion, uh, and how, how does this influence girls in particular? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

So I, I'm very interested in gender and gender disparities, especially around, um, motivation. What, what is it that happens? Probably very similar to your interest in, in Black boys, that there's, there's something about the world that shapes their experience and, and this is true for everybody.

I'm just particularly interested in, in gender. Um, but there's just something about school and schooling and the world and the way the world, uh, exists and the way that girls and young women experience the world that is fundamentally different and informs everything about their experience, particularly around math.

Math, as you well know, is the cornerstone for a lot of economic opportunity. And we can have all kinds of discussions about whether or not that's a good thing, whether or not that's important, uh, whether or not STEM matters, um, but it's, it is just a reality right now if we're thinking about the economic landscape and we're thinking about access to opportunity and access to jobs that pay well, that give people inroads and access to social mobility, like the, the economic structure that's fundamentally wrapped up in our idea of what is the American dream, um, is all connected to economic opportunity, educational opportunity, and other opportunities in, in society, so that's really where math comes in and I'm very, very interested in understanding what happens to girls and not just girls.

It's really every student from a demographic group that is underrepresented in, in STEM. Um, and girls in particular. So, I lost my train of thought because I got a little bit on my soapbox, but I'm trying to make the connection between my idea of what creates opportunity for students, what happens to students along the way in their educational experiences, and how we can better shape those experiences to give them every advantage that allows them to connect to the opportunity structure.

Dean Berry:

Well, well, thank you for that because one of the things I think about when I think about STEM fields and mathematics broadly, I mean, we often hear in, in, in discussions and policy calls, you know, we need more diversity in the STEM fields. We need more women in the STEM fields. And one of the things that I'm critical of when I think about this are the STEM fields doing the work for the diversity that they desire. You know, and that's significantly important that we have to think about because we can do the readiness work with the students, but if the field is not ready for the change that's going to happen when you diversify the field, there may be some tension there.

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yes. 

Dean Berry:

What are your thoughts on that? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yes. I'm so glad you mentioned that because, um, I, I actually was able to do some work with a former student, uh, with a group of high schoolers, uh, where we did an intervention, a career intervention, um, with young Latinas at the high school to do just that, to help them prepare, help them become ready to enter a field or an education that may not be ready for them.

And, and again, this is the work that school counselors can do. So it wasn't, it wasn't just a matter of saying, well, you need to take more math courses. You need to take really rigorous math and science and do, and that is also really important. But there's also this other, this whole other part of learning that occurs, um, that maybe teachers aren't best equipped to do, maybe we shouldn't be asking teachers to do that as much, but school counselors certainly can come in and say, “you know, what would it be like to, to work, to be in a college and to have a major where most of the folks in your classroom don't look like you, and the professor doesn't look like you, and where you might experience microaggressions, and what might that be like? And how can we navigate that? And how can we give you Some skills and some tools and some ways of understanding that can help you persist when that might be the case?” And I think that's really important now on the back end, what the professions are doing, what higher education is doing, um, I would love to tackle that to my focus is really more on the K-12 end of things and thinking about how we can help students prepare and become ready to do to do all those things.

Dean Berry:

Yeah, I really appreciate that because I do think that we're, you know, I do think the fields and universities really do have to think about, are we ready for the diversity that is desired? And, um...

Dr. Lia Falco:

I'm going to guess no. 

Dean Berry:

Well, you know, it's a, I would be with you on that guess, but it is also, you know, you know, we have these institutions that are steeped in these histories.

You know, what do you do to push in on that to make sure whether it's whether it's a college or university or even just a workplace? You know, because there's a social history in those spaces. Um, and we know that the pool of participants is becoming more diverse. And there has to be some shifts there to be prepared for that diversity.

And I think there's work to be done. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

There's a lot of work to be done, and I'm, I'm here for that, that part that I can, can do and can contribute to. It's really, really important. When we talk about students who are underrepresented in STEM, that's every student, really, except white and Asian males. So that's really the majority of students.

Dean Berry:

Right. Absolutely. So, I know I've asked you some questions and I touched on a couple of words here, but I do have a question for you. Well, maybe not a question. What question did I not ask you that you would like to answer? 

Dr. Lia Falco:

That's a great question. Um, I came here prepared to talk about all the things that we have just touched on. But I do, I guess want to just come, come around full circle and talk a little bit more about how I view my work as it relates to STEM and STEM engagement because STEM is a buzzword.

It's, it's, um, It's ubiquitous among policy makers and researchers and educators. Not because it's not important, but I think sometimes maybe we make assumptions about why it's important. And I want to be really clear and explicit about why it's important to me. And I, I touched on it a little bit when we were talking earlier.

STEM stands for science, technology, education, and math. I use that acronym and not STEAM. And that's intentional for me only because of what I was talking about earlier with math being kind of a cornerstone of, of STEM and STEM fields and students’ facility with math and their ability in math is really crucial. So that they can remain in the pathway for that opportunity that I was talking about.

So, it's not necessarily that I value math above other subjects and other subject learning. It's not necessarily that STEM careers and STEM education is more important than other disciplines, um, because that is certainly not true. But what is important to me is that students don't foreclose on options early on, especially around that time in development that I was talking about.

Those middle school years are really, really crucial where we see pretty strong divergence in interest and engagement and continued participation in math. For reasons that don't have to do with ability. And to me, that's the most important thing in thinking about STEM. That it's not necessarily that STEM is more important than anything else.

It's not, it's not about that at all. It's just that I, I hate to see kids, um, opt out. When they don't need to and to.

Dean Berry:

Absolutely.

Dr. Lia Falco:

And to foreclose on options, especially options that will give them great economic advantage in the current, um, economic climate and job market, uh, when they don't need to. And think about what you can earn with a bachelor's degree in engineering, um, and to do that, you need to have a lot of math and be capable at math. And those things are really important to me in terms of tapping that opportunity structure. But it's also it's a social justice issue for me too for women and for every other student who might not view themselves as a math person I say, “well, let's, let's revisit that.”

Dean Berry:

Well, you know…

Dr. Lia Falco:

Let's think about that…

Dean Berry:

It is interesting…

Dr. Lia Falco:

Let’s think about what it can do for you. 

Dean Berry:

Because I think we can use mathematics to help kids read and write the world. And when we say using math to read and write the world, it is, you know, using math to critique, using mathematics to understand, and using mathematics to, uh, you know, as a part of humanity. You know, and so sometimes we see mathematics apart from humanity. I think there's a way that we can use mathematics for social justice.

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yes!

Dean Berry:

I think we can use mathematics to make connections to Develop arguments to do all the things that we it's everywhere. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yes.

Dean Berry:

Right? And sometimes we narrow that space of math. My goal is to broaden that space of math. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Expand the space. Yes, mine too. 

Dean Berry:

If we can broaden that space, um, I think, you know, I still will wear my shirt, “we are all math people.:

Dr. Lia Falco:

We are all math people! I want that shirt!

Dean Berry:

But I do think that, um, you know, we have to support and bring voice to that, and also make sure that people can see that mathematics is embedded in a lot of spaces, beyond just the STEM spaces, because I do think sometimes we're limited in that way. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Yeah, I agree.

Dean Berry:

So, one last question. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Okay.

Dean Berry: 

And I just, you know, as you think about your work, what has been some of the most surprising outcomes from your work?

Dr. Lia Falco:

My focus on math, math learning and self-efficacy really is reflective of me as an early career researcher. And those studies, those early studies, and my early work, and my early thinking, um, is still with me, very much so. But, I have become more expansive in, in my thinking, and trying to, um, wrap my head around What is it, beyond just the self-efficacy, beyond just, um, helping kids become more agentic, um, as early learners and early learners of math, what is it that, um, we as educators haven't yet tapped, haven't yet put our fingers on, haven't yet identified that can really create spaces for learning that are truly motivating and truly engaging, um, and truly forward thinking for students? For all students. 

And that's where I, I started to pivot a little bit to, um, sort of a newer framework, a newer understanding for, for motivation. Um, and that's what has taken me into this sort of newer, um, more recent research around purpose, and helping students, um, trying to understand what, how young people are thinking about their life purpose. And, um, how we as educators can really create environments that infuse their lives with, with purpose and propel them forward, that it's really intrinsic, that it's really meaningful and that it's also connected to a goal that's larger than themselves as individuals that's really connected to others and problem solving and helping and, um, and pro social in nature. 

Dean Berry:

Wow. So, purpose. That's another word. Alright. So, purpose. So, you know, I want to thank you for your time. You know, here on the Inquiry Oasis. Again, I'm Robert Berry. I'm the Dean of the College of Education.

And we just had a conversation with Dr. Leah Falco. Who's an educational psychologist, a school counselor and educator in the Department of Educational Psychology. So, thank you so much, Dr. Falco, um, for your work and thank you for, you know, new words. All right. Thanks a lot. 

Dr. Lia Falco:

Thank you.