Tea for Teaching

We all want to be more effective teachers, but face increased demands on our time. What can colleges and universities do to efficiently support faculty development? In this episode, we discuss these issues with Chris Price, the Academic Program Manager at the Center for Professional Development at the State University of New York. Before joining the Center for Professional Development, Chris was the Director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at SUNY Brockport. While at Brockport, Chris also taught classes in Political Science and in the online Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies program. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com

Enrollment in online classes has grown steadily over the last few decades. Today, over 30% of college students enroll in at least one online course. In this episode, we discuss the evolution of  and possible future directions of online learning with Greg Ketcham, the Assistant Dean of the Division of Extended Learning at SUNY Oswego.  A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com  

Have you ever been told that to keep students engaged you should chunk lectures into ten minute segments? Neil Bradbury, a Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral studies at the Rosalind Franklin University of Science and Medicine, investigated the origins of this recommendation. In this episode, Neil joins us to discuss his review of the research on student attention spans. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Real-world learning experiences come in a variety of flavors. In this episode, Allison Rank, a political scientist at SUNY-Oswego, joins us to discuss how she has built a course in which students organize and run a non-partisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaign. This project combines many of the best features of service learning and simulation. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

In this episode, we discuss the growing role of microcredentials in higher education with Jill Pippin (Dean of Extended Learning at SUNY-Oswego), Nan Travers (Director of the Center for Leadership in Credentialling Learning at Empire State College), and Ken Lindblom (Dean of the School of Professional Development at the  State University of New York at Stony Brook). Jill, Nan, and Ken are members of a State University of New York task force on microcredentials. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

In this episode, Rebecca Mushtare discusses how she has used community-based learning and simulation projects to provide authentic learning experiences in her design courses. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.  

In this episode, we discuss Cornell's Active Learning Initiative with Doug McKee, an economist at Cornell and a co-host of the Teach Better podcast.  This initiative, designed to increase the use of active learning in instruction at Cornell, provides funding to departments to hire postdocs to redesign courses relying on evidence-based active learning techniques.  Doug provides an overview of the program and a discussion of how this program is being implemented to transform economics classes. We also discuss Doug's plans to include two-stage exams and invention activities in his econometrics class. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Smartphones, laptops and tablets can be useful learning tools in the classroom; they can also be a source of distraction. In this episode, we discuss alternative policies that faculty and students might adopt to facilitate learning. Recent research on the relative effectiveness of handwritten vs. digital notetaking is also examined. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at: http://teaforteaching.com

Tired of boring online text discussions? Looking for a way for students to annotate, critique, or analyze images, videos, presentations and documents? In this episode, we’ll examine how VoiceThread can augment class activities and assignments. Our guest is Jeffrey Riman. Jeffrey is a coordinator of the Center for Excellence in Teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He's also a consultant and educator at Parsons The New School University. Jeffrey is a council member and the incoming chair of the State University of New York's Faculty Advisory Council on Teaching and Technology.  At FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology, he is also the chair of the Faculty Senate Committee on instructional Technology. A transcript and show notes are available at teaforteaching.com

We want to design courses that allow all of our students to be successful.Students, though, often face barriers that interfere with their learning. In this episode, we examine how we can use universal design principles to help remove some of these barriers and help facilitate learning by all of our students. Our guest is Kristen Flint, an instructional designer at the State University of New York at Oswego. Kristen is currently spearheading a campus working group on accessible teaching. Rebecca  is also working with this group. A transcript and show notes are available at teaforteaching.com

Over the last few decades, textbook prices have been increasing 3-4 times faster than the overall price level. Responding to this, many students choose to either not buy textbooks or delay purchasing them until the semester is well underway. In response, a growing number of faculty, departments, colleges, and universities have begun to create and use open educational resources that are freely available to students and faculty. In this episode, we discuss the process of creating an open textbook with Kristen Munger, who, along with several collaborators, created Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice, as part of the SUNY Open Textbook project. We also discuss how and why faculty may wish to consider adopting or creating open educational resources. Kristen Munger is an Associate Dean in the School of Education at SUNY-Oswego. Prior to becoming Associate Dean, she was a faculty member in the Counseling and Psychological Services department at SUNY-Oswego. Before beginning her doctoral work at Syracuse University, she practiced as a school psychologist in New York state schools for twelve years. A transcript and show notes are available at teaforteaching.com

Writing can be a struggle for students, especially when they do not see the value or relevance of the writing assignments. This perception is a barrier faculty often face in writing-intensive courses, including first-year English composition. In this episode we will explore how project-based writing can motivate students to want to write and revise in a writing-intensive course. Stephanie Pritchard is a faculty member in the English and Creative Writing Department and Co-Director of the Creativity Lab. She is also the Writing Fellow for the School of Communication, Media, and the Arts at the State University of New York at Oswego. Stephanie was the recipient of the 2016 SUNY-Oswego Provost's Award for Teaching Excellence. A transcript and show notes are available at teaforteaching.com

Effective teaching requires good classroom management skills, engaging public speaking skills, and the use of evidence-based teaching strategies. All of this can be particularly daunting while teaching large-enrollment classes. In this episode, Bill Goffe, describes how his instructional approaches in large economic classes have evolved over time, in response to findings from cognitive science and educational research. Bill Goffe is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Penn State and a former colleague at the State University of New York at Oswego.  Bill is very well known in the profession for his Resources for Economists on the Internet, which was one of the very first internet guides available for economists (and is now hosted and sponsored by the American Economic Association). He is the Secretary-Treasurer for the Society of Computational Economics , an Associate Editor for Computational Economics and the online section of the Journal of Economic Education. He's also an editorial board member for Netnomics.   A transcript and show notes are available at teaforteaching.com

How can we address controversial issues such as gun control in our classes in the aftermath of a mass shooting? What can we do to help keep ourselves and our students safe? In this episode, we discuss these and related issues with Jaclyn Schildkraut, a public justice professor who specializes in research on mass shootings. A transcript and show notes are available at teaforteaching.com

Casey Raymond, the 2017 winner of the President's Award for Teaching Excellence at the State University of New York at Oswego, joins us again in this episode to discuss how he uses Excel spreadsheets to generate algorithmic questions in Blackboard Learn.  A transcript and show notes are available at teaforteaching.com