Episodes

While there is extensive research on the use of student surveys in the evaluation of teaching, the recommended practices are often not utilized. How does this negatively impact innovation in teaching? How do these evaluations perpetuate bias against women and faculty of color? What can we do about it? Today we tackle these questions with Joanna Wolfe, Teaching Professor of English and Affiliated Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, who wrote the January 2022 Inside Hi...

Josh Eyler, author and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, recently posted a rebuttal on LinkedIn to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, in which he wrote, “Grade inflation is a monster that is often trotted out by folks who wish that grades were objective, accurate measures for both learning and rigor in the course. They're neither.” Today we speak with Josh to unpack this provocative quote and other persistent dead ideas...

How can we improve teaching AND support all the instructors who teach science courses for undergraduates? Today we discuss this question with Marielena DeSanctis, President of the Community College of Denver, and Cassandra Volpe Horii, Associate Vice Provost for Education and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University, who are co-authors of the article titled, “An Instructional-Workforce Framework for Coordinated Change in Undergraduate Education” (2023). Drs. DeSanc...

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, a question was posed by journalist Beth McMurtrie as to whether or not institutions of higher education truly value teaching, and she offered a list of “red flags” that signal the undervaluing of teaching. In response, Michelle Miller, Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University, wrote a post in her “R3 Newsletter,” adding to McMurtrie’s list of red flags and offering her own. In this podca...

Over the past few months, Cynthia Alby, Professor of Teacher Education at Georgia College, has been focused on developing practical solutions in teaching and learning in response to the sudden emergence of generative AI. Through this work, she has realized that AI has, in one fell swoop, rendered an entire constellation of dead ideas in teaching and learning officially obsolete. The ideas that she has advocated for throughout her career, and in the book she co-authored, Learning That Matters: A ...

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 book, Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape of Higher Education (2023), for which she sur...

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 works, and of the many pervasive dead ideas in higher education. In this episode, they reflect on how thi...

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 host Adam Brown, Program Director of Columbia’s Science of Learning Research Initiative (SOLER). Pro...

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 education, especially nowadays, for both faculty and students, and how it can be taught. Resources ...

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 International Teaching Learning Cooperative, and author of The New Science of Learning, 3rd Edition (2022), a...

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 shares how he engages students in his courses, and what he has learned from them over the years. Dr....

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 approach the use of learning research and translate it to their audiences. They discuss the structural imp...

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 and the University’s Academic Lead for HELTA, the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Academy. Dr. ...

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 different types of assessment and the impacts on their learning.

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. Columbia’s Core Curriculum comprises the required courses for Columbia undergraduates in literature, phil...

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 Environment, and Associate Director for Clinical Services and Director of the Washington Heights Communit...

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 while also seeking liberation.

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 these questions and shares his thoughts on everything from curving, to what inspires him to believe in t...

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 discuss three principles that instructors can use to reframe their thinking about rigor. This discussion ...

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 having about teaching and learning.” In our first episode of the fall semester, we discuss with John ...

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 having about teaching and learning.” In our first episode of the fall semester, we discuss with John ...

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 having about teaching and learning.” In our first episode of the fall semester, we discuss with John ...

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 they have discovered in topics such as learning with technology, building community, and grading. T...

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 they have discovered in topics such as learning with technology, building community, and grading. T...