Beyond the Burnout: Finding Your Why in Education with Dr. Albert Bramante

What happens when you're thrown into a college classroom with zero preparation and told, "You start tomorrow"? Dr. Albert Bramante faced exactly this scenario when he unexpectedly became a psychology professor overnight. His remarkable journey from panicked novice to confident educator reveals powerful lessons about authenticity, intuition, and finding your teaching voice.

For educators battling self-doubt, Dr. Bramante offers practical wisdom: reconnect with your "why," surround yourself with positive colleagues, and prioritize self-care. He emphasizes that teacher mindset dramatically impacts classroom outcomes - expect greatness and you're more likely to experience it. His advice on integrating AI into education is equally pragmatic, suggesting we make technology a collaborative tool rather than forbidden fruit. His creative assignment, having students "interview" historical figures through AI, demonstrates how educators can harness these tools ethically.

Whether you're an experienced educator feeling burned out, a new instructional designer seeking direction, or simply fascinated by the psychology of teaching and learning, this conversation offers refreshing perspectives on finding joy and purpose in education. Let's make this academic year a "smashing success" together!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Designing with Love
• 7:34 From Accidental Teacher to College Professor
• 17:07 The Balance Between Empathy and Standards
• 25:15 Overcoming Self-Doubt in Education
• 28:52 Technology and AI in Education
• 38:03 Ethical Usage and Academic Honesty
• 44:46 Final Advice and Self-Care Importance

Transcript

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello instructional designers and educators, welcome to episode 60 of the Designing with Love podcast. I'm thrilled to have Dr Albert Bramante, a veteran talent agent, coach, and college professor, with me today. Welcome, Albert.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 0:29

Thank you, Jackie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:33

Yes, I'm happy to have you here as well, thank you. So, to start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and share what led you to focus on education and psychology?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 0:41

Well, I've always been interested in knowledge and interested in learning. I had a strong love for learning, I was always a book reader and I think teaching is kind of and education is kind of in my blood and DNA, because my mom was a teacher, an elementary school teacher, first grade for 30 years, and my father and oldest brother, while they weren't in formal education, they were coaches, you know, physically, athletic coaches. So I think the combination of coaching and teaching kind of just was in my DNA and I always had a daydream, even when I was in like middle school or high school, that I'd be in front of the classroom and teaching and I couldn't wait to receive my master's degree because I was going to finally be able to teach at the college level. I didn't, incidentally enough, I had really no interest in K-12 education. I mean, you know I don't want to brag, but having a mom in the system, I probably could have gotten a job over a traditional candidate very easily. I didn't want to. You know, that was not my. I don't think I would have had the patience or the you know, the ability to work with children and teens, but I wanted to teach.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 2:03

After I received my master's degree, I put my resume into community college in my neighborhood for adjuncts in all different disciplines. It wasn't specific, so I put in for psychology. I didn't hear anything for like two years and it was after Labor Day weekend. I was looking for a job because I was working in the social service sector for a couple of years and I was in a grant-funded position after 9-11, and the grant ended. So I was in my position.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 2:32

So I was looking for a job and I remember getting a phone call the day after Labor Day in 2003. And they had asked me you know if I'm available, you know, to come and have a conversation. I didn't know what it was. I was like sure, you know. I was like I wasn't doing anything. So I went down the same day. It was like an hour early and I was there.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 2:57

They asked me you know what my availability was? I said you know I'm fairly available. I said we call it the win year because two adjunct faculty members backed out on us the last minute, the day before classes begin. We need someone to fill in. Lo and behold. I said I'm available. They didn't even ask what my background was. They didn't ask me anything, they just said great. Next thing I hear I see her, the secretary, printing stuff off the computer. Not knowing anything, she goes oh, here's your class list. You start tomorrow. Oh my gosh, albert. Wow, now I was just like walking out of the in the right home asking myself what just happened, because now I had four classes, not just one, but four, Not just one, but four, Three.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 3:54

You know there were three sections of one class and then one section of another class. There were three sections of child psych and one section of psych 101, which is the 102, where you teach at to work at, I should say so 102. So it was 101. Well, okay, what do I do Now? I had no formal training in education. So what I did? I said, okay, let me channel the teachers I liked. I made a list of all the teachers I liked and I said, okay, what are the qualities? What do they do? Why do they like them? And then I made another list of teachers that I wasn't crazy about. What were they doing? So I don't do that.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 4:42

So I didn't sleep that night out. I mean, I was a nervous wreck. I walk into the college, I walk into class and I just started ad-libbing like crazy and brought them. So improvisation was really valuable here. Yeah, I'm sure, because I couldn't. I couldn't tell the students. You know, hi, my name is Professor Vermonti. I have no idea what I'm doing. But here we go, because that was the truth.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 5:12

I have no idea what I'm doing and for the whole semester it was pretty much I have no idea what I'm doing, but in a sense I did because it was like more my intuition, I've always wanted to be at that moment what I'm doing. But I, in a sense, I did because I it was like more my intuition and when I, you know, I've always wanted to be at that moment, I think that was like the one thing that didn't like like cause me to totally freak out, because I said, you know, I waited my life to get here. And here I am, I'm teaching, I get to do what I love and you know, and I think that kind of propelled me forward. And then I realized how much I like it and how much I was just enjoying myself up there, talking and having conversations with the students and just immensely enjoying it. And at the end, towards the end, as the semester was wrapping up, a lot of students were coming up and saying this is my favorite class, keep it up. You know you're doing great. I love this class and you know I'm like, you know, keeping it calm and cool in front of them.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 6:14

But of course I wanted to jump up and down and, you know, and swing from the chandeliers, right, because I was so happy. I was so happy and surprised, but happy. And then once you know at the end, like you know that, because at that time I was, I was a lot younger well, um, they had said to me like you're really young, you you must have been teaching for a while. And I went, yeah, and I lied, I was like no, this is my first semester really. So that was fall 2003 and I've been doing it ever since now, 2025. So what I like about it is I get to share a passion of mine and I get to share knowledge, I get to have conversations and I learn from my students, and I think one thing that really goes, really helps with learning a subject, is being able to teach it, because I can tell you I learned probably just as much about psychology from teaching it than I did during my formal education.

Jackie Pelegrin: 7:28

Yeah, I would agree with you on that.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 7:29

Yeah, so important yeah it's so important to be able to teach you know, because so I mean, that's the one thing I would say is that really helped me. I think you would appreciate it even more because how much I'm learning each time I'm teaching. I'm like this is amazing how much I know about you know, about my field, and I'm still learning and I'm still, you know, evolving. So the important thing, I think, for any educators to have a growth mindset and to keep learning.

Jackie Pelegrin: 8:40

Absolutely. Yeah, that's so important. Yeah, I love that Because you know you don't want to become stagnant, right? And yeah, I noticed that when I started teaching almost four years ago in the field that I'm in, in instructional design, it really opened up my eyes to different things and it helped me deepen my knowledge and my skills and I feel like I'm better at my full-time job as an instructional designer because I teach and I'm able to empathize, I think a little bit more than I used to, and I understand the faculty, what their issues are, because I worked with subject matter experts every day that are faculty teaching, not in the same discipline but a different discipline. But yeah, it makes such a?

Jackie Pelegrin: 9:22

huge difference when you can do, and I like what you said too, about how you learn from your students and they learn from you. It's a two way street and I, I love that because I don't want to be the one and we both don't. We want, we don't want to be the one teaching at them, we want to be teaching with them, with them I, I think there's.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 9:43

We can even add a third element, which that sounds I mean, not only they, I'm learning from them, but they're learning from each other. So it's like a trifecta, you know, they're, they're, I'm obviously they're learning from me, but I'm learning from them and they're learning from each other. So, and that was a big thing like for me. You know, on all my classes I really emphasize participation and class participation. So that is so important, you know, for me is to um really bring that in there, um, the importance of participation, because, again, we're running from each other, we're not, and I want to hear what they have to say. And I think, you know, I've always been a proponent of you know, we're adults and if I want my, you know, and every faculty member, I'm sure, wants their students to respect them. But if you want them to respect you as a teacher, you as a teacher need to and should respect the student.

Jackie Pelegrin: 10:50

Right yeah, absolutely so important.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 10:55

That is so important and I don't want to turn turn this into a you know um, a trash talk.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 11:05

But I've seen, both as a student and even as a faculty member, other colleagues of mine that were like, what are you doing?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 11:09

Yeah, and a lot of times they would have students that were comfortable enough that would come to me like crying speak to, said this to me is the result of that to me, and I know who they're talking about. Of course, I'm not going to say trash the teacher in front of the student, but in my head I'm like I believe the student that was there, but I believe that happened. It's sad, but I believe that that happened. So I think the important thing again to be an effective educator is we also need and should demonstrate respect and empathy and compassion for our students Now, having said that, also holding them to academic standards, because there's a fine line between showing compassion and empathy but at the same time, being a pushover, which I have to be honest, again, to be self-reliant and critical, I probably was, in my first, you know, four or five years of teaching, a bit of a pushover, you know, or easygoing, laid back a little too much that's how I was at first.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 12:18

Yeah, yeah and that's the same way. And then when I had a heard and and what really woke me up to it was hearing other students, you know, say that you know about me, that oh, this professor, a lot of students, and they get advantage of them. And I had a couple students even coming with me, you know, even anonymously, send me emails, you know where I know it was like you need to be tougher with some of your students in the class and I was like, okay. So I think that there's a fine line between empathy and respect and compassion, but also being firm with standards. And the past nine years have been kind of.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 13:02

I've been like that. I will be empathy if a student is going through a tough time. The one thing I will not be empathy and I tell this the first day of class if you stop coming to class and then all of a sudden give me a sob story at the absolute last day of the semester about why you were not, why you were absent and I should still pass you right. Yeah, I'm like don't, do not even. And I tell students I'm like you might as well not. And I have found myself in the past nine years very rarely changing grades, unless I made a slight clerical error, that would be once or twice in the hundreds of students I've had in the past nine years. Other than that, I will not change, you know anything.

Jackie Pelegrin: 13:56

Right, Because you're you're wanting to set them up. We do. We want to set our students up for success so that they can go on to career. There's a reason they're going to school, it's not just you know, you have an undergraduate school. It's not just a party, but they're actually wanting to get a career and things like that.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 14:13

Yeah, and things like that it's preparing them for the real world.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 14:16

And that's the real thing, because if I'm late on my rent or on my, landlord and I come and say, well, I'm having these family problems, please grant me an extension or please wipe off the rent, I'm going to get laughed at. I'm saying to people if I don't pay my bills, if I come to the your company and say you know hardship, they're going to be like well, tough luck. Or the same thing with any job. If I'm in a real job, if I'm not doing it, I'll fall on my way, I'm going to be let go.

Jackie Pelegrin: 14:47

Right, absolutely.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 14:51

That's why I think you know part of it and I kind of even say like, look, I am showing up as being compassionate by doing that Because I'm, you know, preparing you for the real world. Now, if you do work and you're professional and you do have some genuine hardship, I will work with you.

Jackie Pelegrin: 15:10

Yeah, I do the same thing too.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 15:12

And, yeah, I will work with you if you have a you. You know you reach out to me privately while it's happening about what you're doing. I will work with you. Like you know, I had some students during the pandemic who uh, is it a mom of themselves? You know we're head covid and we're in the hospital. Obviously they're not. You know their priority is not going to be logging into the zoom class or into the second class and doing the work. But they reached out to me while it was happening and I worked with them. You know I was like, ok, we'll come up with an alternative, because it's all about professionalism and I think you know it's a saying. You know, if you show me respect, I'll show you respect and that's the way it should be, would be true yeah, that's so true.

Jackie Pelegrin: 16:00

Definitely, yeah. So what's one piece of advice you would give to someone who feels overwhelmed by self-doubt in a creative field like education or even instructional design? Like what, what I do and what my list some of my listeners are going into?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 16:14

well, the the main thing is to always take stack of the accomplishments that you've already. You've already done. So you have the training you, you know. Now maybe you might not have training in formal education, like you know I didn't have, but I knew what I was doing, you know, and I had a trust in myself. So main thing is, like you know you can do this and really you know, I would probably sit down with someone and say, why did you become a teacher? Like, let's talk about that. Most likely it's because they want to share their knowledge or to inspire. Okay, so let's look each day that you go into that classroom or that you design that curriculum, you're there to inspire your students, One of the things that and I'm going to use a little bit of research here they've done studies that demonstrate it.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 17:07

Even before the class, the school or the semester, school year and semester began, the teacher's attitude and mindset made a whole world of a difference. So if I walk in like, let's say, at the beginning of the semester, I'm going to have so many great students and I'm going to have a great time, there's a high likelihood that that's going to happen. On the other hand, if I say these darn students and I start cursing them out they're so lazy. I'm going to have such a rough time. That'll happen too. So the main thing I would say is try to get energized.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 17:45

So the big thing about me with any type of work is taking breaks A lot of times. That's so important. That's why they call it a summer vacation for a reason, or a summer break a summer vacation for a reason or not focusing so much or stressing out over you know the upcoming year or how you're going to approach it. Take time off because sometimes a lot of times burnout burnout is very easy in this profession, unfortunately. Right, it's very easy to get burned out and it's harder sometimes to stay inspired.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 18:40

So the important thing is to set boundaries and like even set a schedule before the school year begins or the academic term begins, like what you know, obviously your key, what your teaching schedule is and what your design schedule is and what your work schedule is. Obviously that's going to take priority, whatever your schedule is. But then schedule time in your week for a long time self-care, family time. If you have kids, children or a family, spend time for family time and then alone time. Try to aim to do at least one thing a week. That's great that you enjoy.

Jackie Pelegrin: 19:20

I love that. Yeah, that's that reminds me of that self care wheel right when there's each part of the self care wheel that you know we should practice and you know, yeah, so I love that. It reminds me of that, because I've been to counseling before, you know, during tough times, and so, yeah, I actually have a copy of the wheel and I'll refer to it and I'll think of my counselor that helped me through that time and so, yeah, and I'm sure that that's used in psychology too, yeah, I mean self-care is vital in this type of work, because that's the biggest factor, factor why we burn out because there is a lack of self-care.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 20:00

We don't. We're so focusing on, you know, am I helping my students, am I helping other people that we're not helping yourself?

Jackie Pelegrin: 20:08

right, right, that's true. Yeah, it can happen in the helping profession quite a bit, and so so, yeah, that self care is so important? Absolutely yes, definitely yeah, and that segues into a good part about self esteem. So you introduced techniques for raising self esteem in your book. Could you share a couple of these techniques and maybe a success? Story of someone who's applied.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 20:31

Well, well, the main thing is to you know, first thing is to connect back to the reason, the why, and kind of look at every behavior as a positive intention. Remain, you know, really focused on the main reason why you want to become an educator or teacher and, you know, having a genuine care for others. Now, another thing that's important is the company you keep. So really hang out with people that are going, or associate yourself with people that are positive minded, people that are all about improving themselves and just not about negative negativity. About negative negativity, unfortunately, sometimes can happen when you're in school or you know whether in second you know, secondary school or mental school or high school or even college.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 21:22

Sometimes you might find that you, you know, certain faculty circles might vent a lot or kind of moan and complain, and I would say just those are situations as much as possible to remove yourself from it's a good idea, yeah absolutely, because it could easily you can get easily sucked into that right and easily that could easily rub off on you and suck you in yeah, and then it's hard to break away from that right once you, once you get sucked into that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 21:57

Yeah, that's so true. Yeah, absolutely yeah, that's. That's a great, great benefit, you know, benefit and technique that we can, we can do as educators, and I think even, um, you know, in the creative area of like instructional design, curriculum development, it's uh, that happens too, and the job that that we do as curriculum developers, instructional designers, where I work, it's uh we're constantly just.

Jackie Pelegrin: 22:23

I mean, we do have a little bit of downtime in between the semesters, but uh, you know, during the off semesters, right During fall, you know, cause we have fall and spring, but during those off, times we have to work on their curriculum because we have to get ready for the fall or for the spring. So it's uh, you know we do have, so we work on a quarter system, kind of like what you said with uh, you know where you've been to school with Walden.

Jackie Pelegrin: 22:49

So we work on a quarter system. So every three months we have a set of courses that we we work on. We either new development or revise it, but it's a yeah, it's so important. So our department does a good job of that self-care and connection and collaboration with each other, because it's so important, and especially when you feel like you're siloed and isolated, working from home, that can, that can be so easy yeah, yeah and that's a big thing too, that I was going to say it was connection.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 23:20

Connection is so important, especially when raising self-esteem, being connected to, to something is so important because, again, we can get lonely lonely and we found this especially during the pandemic during 2020. You know, a big thing that was so that was really effective was our mental health, and our mental health was a lot of times affected because of the loneliness that we were experiencing, and that's why we saw, unfortunately, a lot of substance abuse and alcoholism on the rise. Because, again, the isolation and connection is important. So one thing I would say is try to definitely find organizations, even online, you know. Try to find support groups or teachers and other instructional designers, because they're out there, and if they're not out there, start one. Just, you know, once a week, check in, you know, because it can be lonely, but it doesn't have to be Right.

Jackie Pelegrin: 24:18

Yeah, you just have to make the effort right and reach out Of course. Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. That's great. So we know technology is just it's huge right now. So what do you see as some of the benefits and drawbacks of integrating different types of technology, including AI, into the curriculum?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 24:36

Because we know AI is, it's not going anywhere, it's staying AI is here to stay and it is developing at a lightning speed, which, again, is both good and bad. You know, a bit of a concern. I don't want to say bad, but a concern. The good thing is is like I'm really liking what I'm seeing with the medical breakthroughs and all that and some of the tech. You know, just the automation stuff. So maybe it could help with educators or like lesson planning and filing and all that and just make the you know. So we'll be more focused on the teaching is that you can be more focused on the teaching and the and, rather than so being bogged down in paperwork. And it also gives you an amount of research so you can get the amount of answers you can get to common issues.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 25:27

Now, the drawbacks are especially if you're dealing with chatbots, which are what we call orange language models, like ChatCBT, claw, gemini, perplexity. They're all orange language models and they have some great capabilities, but they also have a tendency to hallucinate. What do we mean by hallucinate? It's not giving you entirely accurate information, right? So this is why, when we're using it and I definitely think it's good to use this, that you know these things, but to do it, you know, with a healthy sense of skepticism and not relying on 100. So, you know, if, if you're an educator, I wouldn't have AI, do your entire lesson plan. Now, what you could do is say, you know, here's what I'm doing, here's my lesson plan, here's what I want to do. You know, help me, come up with some brainstorming ideas of how to do it differently, what can I add, and then take it from there. But I would not, you know, do okay, design the lesson plan and cut and paste it and then, you know, submit it, because one it doesn't.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 26:46

Ai is again a language model like Jad, cbd and Claude. They're not, they don't have creativity, they don't have the intuition, they don't have creativity, they don't have the intuition, they don't have the experience. So, um, the other day I'm just giving you a thing I was like, um, I wanted to create, you know, my, like an intro class. I was just wanting to see what it can do. So, give me an intro lecture and it was telling me what to say, which had some good information. But then it was telling me you know, use these different hand gestures to mention rapport and.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 27:23

I just was reading. I looked like I was pantomiming. You know I'm like this, would like students wouldn't feel. They'd be wondering if I'm okay. Yeah exactly.

Jackie Pelegrin: 27:33

You know if I did that.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 27:35

So I think it's important to go to grain of salt. It's great again, give you ids, creativity, brainstorm, amplify what you're doing, but it should never replace what you're doing now. Another danger comes in, especially for the teachers and instructors is the students they're going to be using it? There's no way around that. We could lecture all day long and maybe force them in a classroom setting if you're actually in a physical classroom setting, maybe turning your Wi-Fi off so they can't use it. That's the only way you're going to get around with them not using it Right Now. What I would do I'd look for if the language is robotic, repetitive and if it sounds like a and I don't like you know. I know this may sound a little discriminatory, but if it sounds like it's written slightly above the student's intellect, I would start to question.

Jackie Pelegrin: 28:38

I would too. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 28:40

Because I remember, you know I do a lot of thought papers where I have students reflect on things and I could automatically tell when something was chat TV. Yeah, I really. You know, this reading was such an eye opening, I have such a fond appreciation. I'm like, yeah, um, this sounds like gemini, this sounds like chat tbt, this sounds like, you know, claude. Now we can't.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 29:09

The thing about what makes it challenging when I because in the past we could tell, we could go right to the source. You know when students would plagiarize. Yeah, that's so true. Now we can't, because you and I could do the same prompt in something and write the prompt the exact same way. But we and I are going to get different answers because it just depends upon the how the you know the way the model works at the moment. We're going to get a completely original response. You know, technically original, because it's not, but it still is. It's hard to prove Right. The one thing you can do is ask students to explain something more, you know to you and do it verbally Like oh, I saw, you did this, said this and this.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 29:55

Tell me me, you know why you, you know what. I'm just curious, what made you choose it? You know? Statement. It's very interesting yeah and if they really wrote the material that we easily answer, they go, you know, because, okay, great, then you can move on. Um, if they can, you know, then, um, you would have to. Then that would be a thing to question about. Okay, this is about academic honesty, uh, but yet there's no way you can stop them from doing that, right?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 30:27

there's no plagiarism checker for ai, yeah, and even so because even that, even when we had now, when I I mean it's still there now, but when I was first teaching and when I was in grad school, we had services like TurnItIncom. Now it was good, but it really only it didn't. It would tell us, okay, all it would tell you is how original this paper is. Right and very would rarely tell me that. You know, because if I use, let's say, a same sentence that was in some Right. What I found humorous over the years is some students were lazy cheaters. When I make my lazy cheaters, I remember one time I used turn on thecom and it brought me right to the article that they used. But when I felt what I laughed about it was that they didn't. They didn't just use the article like okay, they put copy and paste to the entire article. Oh my gosh, Wow, wow. And one incidence which is really comical was they cut and paste the article but didn't, I guess, change the formatting.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 31:47

So I got the hyperlinks so when I clicked the hyperlink I put right up to the article. So I I pulled this student aside and both of these instances, and I had the article on my and I said I don't think you're Jackie Smith PhD, are you? And they would turn all these over. I didn't fail. I said look, I'm going to ask you to do it again. I'm going to definitely take a penalty. You're going to get a penalty because, technically, this is why I think the maybe you could argue I know it was in my I could have filed them and reported them to the administration. Yeah, I did, um, but I did ask, you know, or? I think sometimes I might have just given like zero for the assignment which was almost, you know, a third of their grade, so obviously the grade was going to go significantly down right exactly um, but the the truth is is that I would just kind of talk, and I I openly talk about ChatGPT.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 32:49

I'm like look, I know it's a tool. I know I don't even say it, even if you want to just use it for this, you know, go ahead, because there's no doubt in hiding it. Because even when I was teaching brick and mortar, a lot of faculty members were so upset with students texting in the classroom. Now, yes, it is, it is a little, not gonna lie, uh, to have a student texting in the classroom. I'm like cell phones are second nature, so I started having, you know, do research. I'd be like, okay, by the way, you may want to look this up on your phone, but let your phone look this up while I'm talking. So my philosophy is like rather than looking at this as an enemy, how can we use this as a collaborative tool? Right, right, because when you make something forbidden, you make it more attractive. So if I started walking with like you better not use every day, you better not use tags, hey, what are students going to do? They're going to naturally start using it more and more.

Jackie Pelegrin: 33:58

Right, instead of policing it, let's yeah, let's make it a collaborative tool. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 34:03

Yeah, let's make it a collaborative tool and let me know what you think. Like this semester, I'm teaching the class in theories and personality, so I'm going to actually have you know where you learn different theories like freud, young skinner, and there's actually dpts and chat dbt that are these figures. So part of the assignment, a part of a credit assignment, is going going to be. I want you to go on TaxEBT and have a conversation with Freud about what we've been covering in GLAAD. I love that and let me know what you think and then write a reflection on that, on what came up, show me the chat and what you did. And it's like I said, as a matter of fact, most colleges, at least the college I'm at, is really aiming for how do we implement this? Again as an ally, right, but of course, totally you know we do have to put guardrails on it. You know. There's no doubt absolutely.

Jackie Pelegrin: 35:02

Yeah, we're doing that too at gcu. Where, uh, we're we use that stoplight method, where we're trying to say red is no, you should not use it for this assignment, like quizzes, things like that, right, and then the yellow is yes, but only in certain aspects, and then green is like yes, you use it, go ahead.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 35:20

Yeah.

Jackie Pelegrin: 35:21

Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's because I think universities don't use it and they shy, like you said, they they ban it. Then students are going to find a don't use it and they shy, like you said, they ban it. Then students are going to find a way to use it.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 35:33

Well, they're going to find a way either on the phone or when they're not looking, because, especially if it's an online quiz and you're not policing them in the moment, in the face-to-face moment, who's to say they're not going to use, you know, chat, tbt or look up the answers elsewhere?

Jackie Pelegrin: 35:51

right, right, exactly. And then they, yeah, they end up online.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 35:55

Or we've seen our quiz, our quizzes end up online I remember a couple of times that I had to change mine up, one of the when we used to have blackboard. Now we have a bright space but we used to have blackboard as a learning management system and I used to put the quote you know it was a quiz that would tell me how long it would take. You know the student, how many minutes the students take to take the quiz. Now I, when I, when I first started using blackboard, I used used to have 10-question quizzes, you know, like 10 questions, and I gave them like an hour time limit, an hour and a half time limit. When I started seeing the students that were answering 10 questions in 90 seconds, a minute, two minutes, I couldn't even answer that on my own in two minutes and I wrote the quiz. You know, sometimes I couldn't even answer that on my own in two minutes and I wrote the quiz some time I couldn't even answer that in that amount of time.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 36:54

So I knew something was up. So the way I came around it is what I now do is I put an entire bank of questions up and let's say, if I want to have a 20, you know, 15 questions was for each chapter or to examine, you know, but the four chapter exam, you know I might have like 12 questions per chapter, like to make up 50. But I'll have a bank of 60 questions per chapter and it randomly generates 12 questions from that bank.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 37:30

That's a great idea and I scrambled the answers choices so, like it may be the same question, the answer may be B, but in another version that choice moves to C, so it scrambles the choices up. Yeah, I still think they're gonna find a way. There's no way around it, but I've prevented a lot of that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 37:56

Yeah, at least you're kind of taking some techniques and trying to at least reduce, right, the amount of cheating, yeah, as much as you can yeah yeah, that's's so true. Yeah, I like too how you mentioned that example where you know you ask them to have that conversation and then they have to give you that what the chat was. You know they have to produce that, so they have to show the work, basically, yeah.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 38:22

And not you know, because it would be like, well, I had a chat with Freud, it was a great discussion in the end, but did you really Right? And sometimes I would you know? Because what I used to do and I still do, I still implement a lot of podcasts. Incidentally, I love podcast. So one of the things I still do is I have students listen to podcasts, but I learned to start saying, okay, I still do, is I have students in a podcast? But? But I learned to start saying, okay, I need to see some direct quotes from the podcast, cause I used to say summarize the podcast and say a reaction, and I could tell they were just looking at the iTunes Spotify thing of the podcast and just putting it on words.

Jackie Pelegrin: 39:06

Oh, like looking at the transcript.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 39:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not even transcript, or even just the show notes or something. Oh right, a lot of hosts, of course, like these old show notes in there and right then I'm like, no, no, do the do the right thing there, yeah yeah, kind of reminds me of cliff notes when we were in school and they we used to.

Jackie Pelegrin: 39:25

You know, remember those yellow books with the cliff notes.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 39:28

Well, it's the same thing, cause I was, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie, I use that all. Yeah, you know, when I was only six, I mean I, I'm not also a problem. You really honest here. I mean I, I you long time ago before, chat gbd and ai, yeah, I don't know if I wouldn't, you know. I mean, of course, now I would say I would never know again. I can't really say that, you know, I, I can't really say that. Um, so if I can't say it, how can I stop my students from from from doing that?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 40:02

When we stop our students, we can't right. But what we can do is teach ethical usage. Absolutely, yeah, it's like the same thing with, like, teaching a parent, you know, to parents, teaching their kids about drugs. You know, do we shy away from her? Do we actually have honest communication about drugs and alcohol? Right, because what we found is, you know, if you have those honest communication with your kid, you know with kids about um drugs and alcohol, they're less likely to use it. Right, same thing goes, I think we have honest discussions about cheating and a a transparent discussion yeah, and what those boundaries are.

Jackie Pelegrin: 40:41

yeah, that's yeah, and I think, I see, I think students appreciate that right when're upfront, honest with them and transparent. Say here's what it is and I'm going to be here to help guide you along the way. So come to me. And that's great. You have that open, honest communication with your students too. So, yeah, that open door policy is so important. Yeah.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 41:06

Oh, of course, 100%. It's really important to have that open door policy because it shows like look okay, I know this is going on, let's talk about it. And I've had a lot of students believe it or not. That surprise me when we have conversations about AI when I brought up especially the ethics side of things, because in my psychology class we talk about people turning the chat box to therapy and what's the ethics behind that?

Jackie Pelegrin: 41:34

Oh, right yeah.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 41:36

Yeah, and then we talk about social dynamics, how a lot of people are alarmingly turning to AI for companionship Right Now. That's my concern. Both of those cases are highly alarming. Now, like personally, like I said, I use, I do utilize ai daily for like content, research and, you know, iteration, but I think it's heavily concerned when we start turning it to for therapy or for a companionship, because even sam alton and the owner, the founder, of Tad TVT said this is not what we should be using Lawrence Langley's model for.

Jackie Pelegrin: 42:12

Right, absolutely. Yeah, it kind of goes beyond the scope of what it was intended for. Absolutely.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 42:19

Yeah.

Jackie Pelegrin: 42:20

Yeah, so true, yeah, that's great advice. I love that, albert. So, as we wrap up, what are your top tips or advice for listeners who are looking to transition I'm going to say education or instructional design, because we've talked about both or just starting out in the field?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 42:34

Well, the one thing is get connected to people that are that are doing this work. Network. Don't be afraid to ask questions. There's plenty of tools to network, whether in person, online. Always have the always be learning, you know, always in person online, always be learning, always learn new things, try new things out and just stay connected to people. And remember be gentle on yourself and self-care is extremely important. Do at least one thing a week. That's for you all and for your benefit only, and it's okay to be selfish. I'm not.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 43:10

I'm giving you that permission to yeah do something once, at least once a week. That's for you, right yeah, that's great.

Jackie Pelegrin: 43:18

I love that. I have a co-worker that has her doctorate in psychology too, and she did a professional development that says self-care is not selfish yeah, not.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 43:28

Not at all. Not at all Because, if you think about it, how are you going to be effective in working with other people and educate and inspiring others If you're not taking care of yourself? I mean it goes like if you ever go on an airplane when they tell you, you know, put your oxygen mask on first before you go on to help a child you know or your family member. So that's the important thing is put your mask on first, meaning look out for yourself first yeah, so important.

Jackie Pelegrin: 43:56

Absolutely, yeah, I love that. Uh, is there anything else you wanted to mention before we close out today?

Dr. Albert Bramante: 44:04

no, I, I, I. I would just say, you know, we, you have all the resources within um, let's all vow together to make this, the 2025-26 academic school year, a smashing success. We can all do it. I'm caught, I'm claiming it will be and it will be, you know, and if I can do it, we can all do it right, yeah, we're in this together.

Jackie Pelegrin: 44:26

I, I love that. Yes, yeah, great. Thank you so much, albert, for sharing your insights today. I know your experiences, tips and expertise are sure to inspire my listeners, so I greatly appreciate it.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 44:37

Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Jackie Pelegrin: 44:40

Anytime, I'm looking forward to having you back sometime soon.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 44:48

I'd love to come back and I'd love to hear from all the success stories, from your listeners, who made this year a great one.

Jackie Pelegrin: 44:52

Great, I love that. Wonderful Thanks again, albert. Appreciate it.

Dr. Albert Bramante: 44:56

Thank you. Thank you, Jack.

Jackie Pelegrin: 44:59

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