Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning

Have Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) actually created change in higher education teaching? Have they been able to demonstrate this change? How have their strategies evolved and how are they connecting with institutional priorities for larger scale changes? Today we speak with Mary Wright , Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning at Brown University and author of the newly released boo...

In our final episode of Season 6, we speak with two undergraduate Columbia University students, Emily Glover and Kyle Gordon, who serve as Teaching and Learning Consultants as part of our Center’s Students as Pedagogical Partners initiative . Through the initiative, Emily and Kyle have immersed themselves in the research on teaching and learning, broadening their understanding of how learning work...

How can instructors use research on teaching and learning to create change and tackle challenges in their courses? What can learning analytics tell us about student engagement and motivation in our courses? In this episode, we ask Samantha Garbers , Associate Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, with guest...

Tara Harvey , Founder of True North Intercultural, defines Intercultural Competence as “the capacity to communicate and act appropriately, effectively, and authentically across cultural differences, both locally and globally.” In this episode, Dr. Harvey discusses how the research behind intercultural learning is unknown by many. She explains why intercultural development is so important in higher...

How should we educate students on the science of learning? Does this require systemic change? And do faculty have a moral obligation to teach students the processes necessary to succeed in college, in addition to the content in our fields? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Todd Zakrajsek , Associate Professor at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Director of the Internat...

What does engagement require of your students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively? Why is it essential to get to know your students, and how can you do this in large classes? Hear advice from Alfredo Spagna , a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Columbia whose research focuses on the psychological and neural mechanisms of attention, perception, and mental imagery. Dr. Spagna...

Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy , award winning instructors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and authors of the book, Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom (2022), have found a way to communicate the large volume of research behind equitable and inclusive teaching to a national audience. In this episode, we ask Drs. Hogan and Sathy how they appro...

Despite the large body of research on effective teaching and learning practices, such research is often ignored or unknown by instructors and students. Instead, many “dead ideas” in teaching and learning continue to be enacted worldwide. Why is this the case? In our first episode of the season, we discuss many possible reasons with John Mahoney , senior lecturer at Australian Catholic University a...

How can assessment motivate students to focus on learning as opposed to grades? Can it still be rigorous if it’s not high stakes exams? Today we speak with Maryam Pate and Olivia Schmitt, two Columbia University undergraduate students who serve as Teaching and Learning Consultants as part of the CTL’s Students as Pedagogical Partners Initiative . Maryam and Olivia reflect on their experiences with...

Rigor as Skill Building with Larry Jackson How can academic rigor be defined and enacted in humanities courses to promote learning and skill building? How can we engage and challenge our students while also supporting them? In this episode, we tackle these questions with Larry Jackson , Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum at Columbia College. Colum...

What does rigor look like in a healthcare setting? How can instructors achieve both excellence and equity in teaching in such a high-stakes area as healthcare education? In this episode, we speak with two faculty members at Columbia University Irving Medical Center: Jean-Marie Alves-Bradford , Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Associate Dean for Medical School Professionalism in the Learning Envi...

In today’s episode, we approach the topic of rigor from the lens of social work instruction with Elwin Wu , Professor at Columbia University’s School of Social Work (CSSW), and Kelsey Reeder , a Clinical Social Worker and PhD student in Advanced Practice at CSSW. We dive into the tensions between rigor, skill development, and providing care and compassion, and how instructors can maintain rigor wh...

What does rigor mean in a science course? How can it encourage learning and engagement? And how can we support students while maintaining standards of excellence? In this episode, we dig further into the topic of rigor with David Helfand , a faculty member at Columbia University for 45 years, who served nearly half of that time as Chair of the Department of Astronomy. Professor Helfand answers the...

Is rigor necessary to teach more inclusively? What is a deficit ideology and how does it affect students? In this episode, Jamiella Brooks , director of student equity and inclusion initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, and Julie McGurk , director of faculty teaching initiatives at Yale University’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, answer these questions, and disc...

John Warner, educator and author of the Inside Higher Ed blog, “Just Visiting”, wrote in a May 2022 post titled “ You Can’t Ignore That a Pandemic Happened ”: “I am concerned that the understandable desire to get beyond the extreme challenges of trying to educate in the midst of the worst period of the pandemic is interfering with some deeper questions, some more nuanced conversations we should be...

Over the past two years, Columbia students have made multiple transitions between online, hybrid, and in-person learning during the pandemic. In today’s episode, Emma Fromont, a senior at Columbia’s School of General Studies, and Victor Jandres Rivera, a sophomore at Columbia College, discuss how these different modalities and contexts have shaped them as learners. Emma and Victor share dead ideas...

Today we speak with Susan Hrach , author of the book Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning (2021), which “shifts the focus of adult learning from an exclusively mental effort toward an embodied, sensory-rich experience, offering new strategies to maximize the effectiveness of time spent learning together on campus as well as remotely.” Along with co-host Caitl...

Today we speak with Drs. Chavella Pittman and Thomas Tobin, authors of the article “ Academe Has a Lot to Learn about How Inclusive Teaching Affects Instructors ”, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education in February 2022. In the article, they write, “A key tenet of inclusive teaching asks faculty members to intentionally give up or share some of their power and authority in the classroom, s...

What is anti-racist pedagogy and how is it different than inclusive teaching? Is it a new pedagogy? How can instructors enact anti-racist practices in the classroom, and what structural changes should universities make to support these efforts? In today’s episode, Frank Tuitt, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at the University of Connect...

Columbia University graduate student, Aleksandra Jakubczak, shares her reflections on her journey to become a more informed and confident teacher, and how that journey took her so much further than she initially expected! Listen to find out what changed in her teaching, but also discover how her engagement with the Columbia CTL’s Teaching Development Program changed her conception of teaching and...

In October 2021, Beth McMurtrie, senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote an article titled “The Damaging Myth of the Natural Teacher”. The piece explores how, despite decades of research showing otherwise, teaching is often considered an innate talent rather than a skill that can be learned. The article highlights how damaging this belief is for professors, students, and higher...

Speaking from the Heart: An Instructor and Her Student Reflect  with Dr. Karen Phillips and Yarin Reindorp  Today we speak with Yarin Reindorp, a junior in Columbia’s School of General Studies, and her former teacher in organic chemistry, Dr. Karen Phillips, who was a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry at Columbia. Dr. Phillips shares teaching techniques and philosophies that she emplo...

In 2020, Denise Cruz , Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, worked with the CTL through a Provost’s Innovative Course Design Grant to transform her large lecture course in Asian American Literature into a blended format. Today, we speak with Denise about the profound impact the new course format has had on student engagement, motivation, and collaboration in her class, and...

Today we speak with Joshua Kim , Director of Online Programs and Strategy at Dartmouth College, and Edward Maloney , Executive Director of The Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown University. In their recent book Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education (2020), Drs. Kim and Maloney write “We have no shortage of knowledge about how learning works and how th...

While much public discourse argues over the value and the future of higher education—whether it really “pays off” or how we can leverage technological tools and big data—what’s often missing from the conversation is the importance of good teaching. Aaron Pallas and Anna Neumann , professors of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, believe that good college teaching matters—so much so...