Teaching in Higher Ed

Bonni Stachowiak suggests strategies for ending well. Podcast notes Ending well Guard against student fatigue Sleep deprived Focused on the short term Challenged by their context Thinking a lot about context, especially after speaking with Steve Wheeler on episode #038 ) Beware the temptation to vent Josh Eyler reminded us of this on episode #016 Research shows it doesn’t help There was that resea...

Aaron Daniel Annas and I converse about how we have calibrated our teaching over time. Podcast Notes Calibrating our Teaching Aaron Daniel Annas Assistant professor of cinema arts Faculty Director of the Vanguard Sundance Program Reflections on year one Bonni reflects on her first year Taking things personally (a good lesson on how to avoid this is to hear Cheating Lessons author, James Lang, on e...

Bonni Stachowiak explores how to care for grieving students. PODCAST NOTES How to care for grieving students Respect confidentiality… to a point Point them toward their resources Avoid assumptions… if you can Be human Don’t lower course requirements; let them earn their degree, not receive it through pity Recognize the pain of the neutral zone (coined by Bridges in his book: Transitions: Making se...

Aaron Daniel Annas joins me to talk storytelling on this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. Podcast Notes Aaron Daniel Annas Assistant professor of cinema arts Faculty Director of the Vanguard Sundance Program Storytelling Who are stories for? How do you distinguish between entertaining our students and educating them? What makes for a good story? What do we do if we aren’t good at telling st...

Bonni Stachowiak shares some ideas about mixing it up in our teaching. Podcast notes Teaching classes repeatedly Advantage of knowing where students typically get stuck Dr. Chrissy Spencer spoke about this when describing her broken-up cases in episode 25 , when she just “happens” to have a slide that clarifies a student’s question Reinforcing a difficult concept Advertising response function in m...

Bonni and Dave Stachowiak discuss what to do before you act on all you’ve captured. PODCAST NOTES: Episode #32 talked about capture. All the places where we capture what it is we need to do (either because of others’ demands, or freeing up our mind of the “clutter” of stuff that needs doing). Clarify and organize Before we do any of it… we need to: Clarify – process what it means Organize &#...

Bonni and Dave Stachowiak discuss what to do before you act on all you’ve captured. PODCAST NOTES: Episode #32 talked about capture. All the places where we capture what it is we need to do (either because of others’ demands, or freeing up our mind of the “clutter” of stuff that needs doing). Clarify and organize Before we do any of it… we need to: Clarify – process what it means Organize &#...

Five faculty members share how they are spending their breaks and what recommendations they have for how to take a break… Podcast notes Ten things to do instead of checking email , by Natalie Houston  (guest on episode #034 ) How to take a break David Pecoraro from the Student Caring podcast Heading to Fresno for son’s swim meet Reading: Building social business, by Mohammed Yunus Chri...

Bonni Stachowiak shares about a few things she’s doing over Spring break to recharge. Spoiler alert: It is mostly all about getting caught up and staying caught up for me. Podcast notes Differing perspectives on Spring break a) give assignments for students to work on over the break b) grade student work c) recharge/refresh for the rest of the semester Efficiency Sign ups Doodle The Best Day...

Steve Wheeler joins me to share about Learning with ‘e’s … PODCAST NOTES Steve Wheeler Bio Learning with ‘e’s Origins of Learning with ‘e’s 2007 started blogging Learning using digital technologies… Incorporates comments from people into the book  eLearning 3.0 If Web 1.0 was the ‘Write Web’ and Web 2.0 is the ‘Read/Write Web’, then Web 3.0 wil...

Tine Reimers helps us define the term critical thinking and truly start developing our students’ skills. PODCAST NOTES [GUEST ] Tine Reimers Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Specialist Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning Vancouver Island University Critical Thinking Defining critical thinking (and the inherent challenges when we want to improve critical thinking in our students...

Ken Bain describes What the Best College Teachers Do… PODCAST NOTES Guest: Ken Bain President, Best Teachers Institute , Ken Bain (Twitter: @kenbain1) “Internationally recognized for his insights into teaching and learning and for a fifteen-year study of what the best educators do” “His now classic book What the Best College Teachers Do . (Harvard University Press, 2004) wo...

Doug McKee  talks about eliciting and using feedback from students. PODCAST NOTES Guest: Dr. Doug McKee [ CV  ] [ BLOG ] WORKING OUT LOUD John Stepper’s book about Working Out Loud Studied his own teaching and determined that those who came to class and those who watched via video did equally well in the class I feel like I’m just breaking through now. I remember what it was like at the begi...

Natalie Houston  discusses practical productivity in academia. Podcast Notes Guest: Dr. Natalie Houston Twitter Blog ProfHacker posts Opposition to the term productivity Productivity defined Productivity, to me, is not about doing more things faster. It is about doing the things that are most important to me and creating the kind of life I want to have… To do something with ease is to bring...

Bonni and Dave Stachowiak talk about how to make your PowerPoint (or other) slides more effective. Podcast notes 2010 headlines: “ US Army makes the world’s worst PowerPoint slide ” “ We have met the enemy and he is PowerPoint .” Conflict in Afghanistan: Why developing a clear strategy was challenging. PPT in the crosshairs Edward Tufte (2006 publication) The cognitiv...

Bonni and Dave Stachowiak talk about how to capture it all, so we can have lower stress and not have things fall through the cracks. Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Dave Stachowiak What is capture? David Allen’s Getting Things Done Why capture? Other-generated capture Inboxes Have as many as necessary and no more Academics inboxes Email Phone- office line Phone-other Inbox office Inbox home Inbox b...

On today’s episode, I talk about all that cannot be seen. Photo by Jim Frazee of Southwest Search Dogs. Used with permission (he’s my Dad).   Podcast notes Mystery commercial that I really hope someone can find and send to me Augmented reality How Stuff Works explains augmented reality Mashable’s augmented reality stories Yik yak chat service (For reasons explained in the podcast,...

It is easy to want to cover up in some way as professors… In today’s episode, President Jose Antonio Bowen encourages us to become good at “Teaching Naked.” Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Jose Antonio Bowen , President, Goucher College Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning Recommendations (part 1) This episode, we start with Bonni’s...

There’s something wrong with the way we’re grading that isn’t being talked about nearly enough. On today’s show, Dr. Linda Nilson shares about a whole new way of thinking about assessing students’ work and making grades mean more. Podcast Notes Dr. Linda B. Nilson Director of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation at Clemson University Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource f...

Fears and concerns over changes in higher education persist. Whether it is our disdain for lecturing to a bunch of disconnected, texting and Facebooking students, or their boredom at being put to sleep by a droning professor reading from his powerpoint, something’s got to give… In today’s episode, Dr. Cathy Davidson joins us to talk about finding the right practice, and the right tools, and being...

Getting students engaged in research is one of the ways we can make their learning experiences more tangible and more profound. In today’s episode, Dr. Bethany Usher joins us to talk about what happens when we turn students into scholars. Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Bethany M. Usher Bethany’s TEDx talk: Preparing Students for the World Through Undergraduate Research Bethany on Twitter Stu...

Educational technology that is designed “with the brain in mind” can be a catalyst in facilitating learning. On today’s episode, Dr. Michelle Miller draws from her research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology and shows us how to facilitate learning for minds online. Podcast notes Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology How do we use our memory resources to process information Study...

It seems that the larger classes get, the more distant our students can seem. On today’s episode, Dr. Chrissy Spencer helps us discover how to make large classes interactive. Even if you teach classes of 20, the resources she uses in her classes as large as 200+ will be of benefit. Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Chrissy Spencer , teaches at  Georgia Tech Ph. D., Genetics, University of Georgia Active le...

When we get creative with what we assign students, we open up a whole new set of possibilities for student engagement and learning. On today’s episode, Dr. Cameron Hunt McNabb helps us discover how to craft creative assignments that facilitate learning well. Podcast Notes Guest Dr. Cameron Hunt McNabb Her bio and university web page Recommended as a guest by past Teaching in Higher Ed guest: Dr. J...

It is such a crucial part of what we do as professors… Getting students involved in discussions and helping to facilitate their learning. Dr. Jay Howard joins me on this episode to talk about how to engage students in the classroom and online. Podcast Notes Guest Dr. Jay Howard Engaging Your Students Face-to-Face and Online (July 2015) (Jossey-Bass) Garner multiple intelligences theory Socio...