Tea for Teaching

This week we continue a series of interviews with participants in the Pedagogies of Care project. In this episode, Sarah Rose Cavanagh and Josh Eyler join us to discuss how we can enhance student learning by designing our classes to provide a strong sense of class community and using immediacy cues to maintain instructor presence.  Sarah is the author of The Spark of Learning: Energizing Education...

This week we continue a series of interviews with participants in the Pedagogies of Care project. In this episode, Dr. Jessamyn Neuhaus joins us to discuss the myth of the super teacher and the importance of focusing on self-efficacy, being human, and being reasonable with ourselves and each other. Jessamyn is the Interim Director of the SUNY Plattsburgh Center for Teaching Excellence and a Profes...

This week we continue a series of interviews with participants in the Pedagogies of Care project. In this episode, Dr. Jenae Cohn joins us to discuss concerns about, and the affordances that are associated with, reading in a digital environment. Jenae is an Academic Technology Specialist at Stanford University and the author of Skim, Dive, Surface: Strategies for Digital Reading in the College Cla...

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many reflections on the future of higher education and what we value and prioritize as educators. This week we begin a series of interviews with participants in the Pedagogies of Care project. In this episode, Thomas J. Tobin joins us to discuss how the adoption of Universal Design for Learning principles can increase student motivation, engagement, and succes...

As colleges and universities plan for the uncertainties associated with the fall 2020 semester, it is fairly clear that faculty should receive more training in online instruction than was possible during the rapid transition to remote instruction that took place during the spring 2020 semester. Most professional development programs, though, are resource intensive and cannot be easily scaled given...

Students in many classes work in isolation to create written assignments that are shared only with their professor. Unless they’ve kept a copy of this work, it disappears once their course ends. In this episode, Gardner Campbell joins us to discuss how student motivation, engagement, and learning might change if students instead become active contributors to public knowledge sharing networks.  Gar...

As we begin to plan our fall semester classes, most of us don’t know whether we will be teaching in a face-to-face or a remote environment during part or all of the semester. This makes the course development process more challenging. In this episode, Dr. Darina Slattery joins us to discuss how e-tivities may be used to help support student learning in any course modality. Darina is the Head of Te...

New faculty often enter college classrooms with little training on how to best support student learning. While peer evaluations of teaching are commonly used, these evaluations are often conducted by other faculty who also have little training in the science of learning. In this episode, Aaron Pallas and Anna Neumann join us to discuss how we might build a culture in which we all continue to devel...

Many disciplines have well-developed signature pedagogies that are designed to help students develop the skills needed to view the world from their disciplinary lens. In this episode, Regan Gurung, Nancy Chick, and Aeron Haynie join us to discuss signature pedagogies and to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged us to adapt our teaching approaches and encouraged faculty to seek out and s...

The unexpected shift to remote instruction during the spring 2020 semester in response to a global pandemic disrupted established teaching patterns, forcing many faculty to rapidly learn new tools and techniques of engaging their students. In this episode, Dr. Betsy Barre joins us to discuss what we’ve learned from this sudden shift to remote instruction and how we can better prepare for the uncer...

The global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in serious disruptions in everyone’s lives. Traumatic experiences reduce our ability to focus, to learn, and to be productive. While this has always been true, it is an issue that has often been ignored by higher ed faculty. In this episode, Karen Costa joins us to discuss how trauma-informed pedagogy can be used to help our students on their educational j...

Faculty enter teaching careers with the hope of shaping a better future for our students and our society. In this episode, Dr. Kevin Gannon joins us discuss what faculty can do to build a positive and inclusive learning community that empowers and motivates students. Kevin, also known as the Tattooed Professor, is the Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Professor of...

The sudden switch from face-to-face to remote instruction in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic caught many faculty, students, and colleges by surprise. Until a vaccine is available, regional or nationwide campus shutdowns may occur during the fall semester. In this episode, Dr. Josh Eyler joins us to discuss what faculty and institutions can do to help prepare for future transitions to remo...

International students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities often face a multitude of challenges related to cultural differences and language barriers. These challenges can have an adverse impact on their academic performance during their adjustment process. In this episode, Don Donelsen joins us to discuss how the graduate business program at the University of Miami is working to ease this...

Grade change requests in college are relatively rare, but when they do occur, evidence suggests that male students make the request more often than female students. In this episode, Dr. Cher Li joins us to discuss these gender differences in grade change requests in college and why they might occur. Cher is an assistant professor of economics at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on h...

Over the last two weeks colleges across the U.S. have made the decision to shift all classes from face-to-face to remote instruction in an attempt to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. In this episode, Flower Darby joins us explore the challenges and the opportunities associated with this transition.  Flower Darby is the Director of Teaching for Student Success, an adjunct instructor in seve...

Many studies have found that peer-led team learning is effective in helping students learn. In this episode, Dr. Christina Winterton joins us to discuss her study of the factors that result in more productive relationships between peer leaders and the students they work with. Christina has returned to SUNY Oswego as a full time visiting professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and was p...

Graduate programs provide very strong training in how to be an effective researcher, but generally provide grad students with little preparation for teaching careers. In this episode, Dr. David Gooblar joins us to discuss what all faculty should know to enable us to create a productive learning environment for all of our students. David is the Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement o...

Science instruction in K-12 education has long been provided as if science consisted of a body of facts to be memorized. The Next Generation Science Standards, however, rely on an inquiry-based approach in which students learn about science by engaging in scientific exploration. In this episode, Dr. Kristina Mitchell joins us to discuss this approach and its implications for college instruction. ...

Students generally receive lower grades in STEM classes than they receive in other disciplines. In this episode, Dr. Peter Arcidiacono joins us to discuss how these differences in grading policies across departments can help to explain the relatively low proportion of female students majoring in many STEM disciplines. Peter is a Professor of Economics at Duke University. A transcript of this episo...

A college degree generally results in higher incomes, more pleasant and more stable jobs, greater life satisfaction, and lower unemployment probabilities. Many students that enter college, though, leave without a degree, but with high levels of student debt. In this episode, Dr. Michelle Miller joins us to discuss an innovative program she helped develop at Northern Arizona University in which fac...

Adopting a culture of accessibility at an institution can seem both daunting and full of barriers, but movement forward can happen with the right strategies in place. In this episode, Dr. Sherri Restauri joins us to discuss how institutions can progress from providing accommodations for individual students to an institutional commitment to building accessibility into the course design process.  Sh...

If faculty were paid more when their students learned more, would student learning increase? In this episode, Sally Sadoff and Andy Brownback join us to discuss their recent study that provides some interesting results on this issue. Sally is an Associate Professor of Economics and Strategic Management in the Rady School of Management at the University of California at San Diego. Andy’s an Assista...

A growing body of evidence suggests that student evaluations of teaching are subject to gender and racial bias. In this episode, Dr. Kristina Mitchell joins us to discuss her recent study that examines these issues. After six years as the Director of Online Education at Texas Tech University, Kristina now works for a science curriculum publishing company and teaches part time at San Jose State Uni...

Faculty find it difficult to balance increasing demands on their time. In this episode, Bonni Stachowiak joins us to explore a variety of tools and strategies that can be used to productively manage our time and professional responsibilities. Bonni is the host of the superb Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, and is the Dean of Teaching and Learning at Vanguard University. She is also the author of The...