Episodes

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 sense of life’s changes) Avoid personalizing dishonesty RECOMMENDATIONS Process your own gri...

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 stories? How do we know if we are good at telling stories? Importance of the relevance to a cours...

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 my Principles of Marketing class Not all understand the idea of the law of diminishing returns ...

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 – put it where it belongs For each item we have captured, we ask: What action needs to take place? ...

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 Christine – teaches part time. Fighting with insurance companies over the break. Dealing with snow days. Nichola...

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 Time Trade Google forms Grading Mac Power Users episode 240 TurnItIn iPad app Answering studen...

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 will be the ‘Read/Write/Collaborate Web’. Coined by Tim Reilly of O’Reilly media – progression or evolution of the web Web 1.0 – the sticky web Web 2...

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, without actually agreeing, collectively, on what we mean) Different disciplines define critical ...

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) won the 2004 Virginia and Warren Stone Prize for an outstanding book on education and society, and has been one of the top s...

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 beginning. ELICITING FEEDBACK Waiting until the end of the semester to get input from our students is to...

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 a kind of comfort and grace to the task. It can also be more room [in your life]… Living a life with...

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 cognitive style of ppt: There’s no bullet list like Stalin’s bullet list. Can create bad PPT on tools besides PPT Problems in higher ...

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 bag Students after class Tools Drafts Evernote Soundever Scannable Zero inbox David Allen’s...

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, I would rather not link to this particular app/service) [EDIT: 1/15/15/ at 10:20 am]: Right after recording thi...

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 recommendation and ask Dr. Bowen questions from Storycorps. Storycorps About Storycorps Storycorps’s Great ...

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 for College Instructors The Graphic Syllabus and the Outcomes Map: Communicating Your Course Creatin...

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 able to see what we’ve been missing in higher ed. Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Cathy Davidson Cathy ...

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 Students as Scholars at George Mason Assessment resources from Students as Scholars Students as Scholars blog w...

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 of human cognition and thought processes What College Teachers Should Know About Memory: A Pe...

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 learning video: Turning students into chili peppers The interactive classroom Learning Catalytics Pr...

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. Josh Eyler Cameron’s students contributed to the Medieval Disability Glossary by including their r...

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 Sociologogical approach to observing the classroom Norms The real norm is not that students have to pay ...

Dr. Guy Trainin joins me for episode 22 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast to talk about using iPads and tablets in the classroom. Podcast Notes Guest Dr. Guy Trainin Bio Blog On Twitter TechEdge on Pinterest TechEdge on YouTube: iPads in the Classroom Life in the classroom before the iPad iPad integration in a higher ed classroom Padlet Exit Ticket Socrative When the professor has invested, but the institution has not Educreations Explain Everything Touchcast (requires new iPad) Pol...

Students voting to extend the class time? Professors reporting that students are doing the reading for the course without threats or other forms of coercion? Today, in episode 21, Dr. Mark Carnes joins me to talk role immersion games in the higher ed classroom. Podcast notes Dr. Mark C. Carnes, Professor of History, Barnard College Author of Minds on fire how role immersion games transform college, published by Harvard University Press The classroom struggle before Reacting to the Past Your c...