Tea for Teaching

Creative risk-taking

When you teach the same classes every year, it’s easy to fall into routines. Classes, though, can be much more fun for you and your students if you are willing to take some risk by experimenting with new teaching approaches. In this episode, Dr. Wendy Watson, a a senior lecturer of political science and pre-law advisor at the University of North Texas, joins us to discuss how she has engaged her students by introducing some very creative and fun assignments in her classes.

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

 

Opening the STEM Pipeline

Preschool through high school experiences have a direct impact on the majors and disciplines that students want to study and engage with in college. Designing these experiences to invite underrepresented groups into the discipline early can help to inspire and motivate a new generation of professionals. In this episode, Dr. Stacy Klein-Gardner joins us to discuss how engineers are attempting to diversify the field.

Dr. Klein-Gardner is the founding director of the Center for STEM Education for Girls, and is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, and a Senior Professional Development Provider with Engineering is Elementary at the Museum of Science in Boston. She recently was appointed as a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Industry realistic experiences

Student motivation is enhanced when students see that the work they are doing is relevant to their future careers. In this episode, Dr. Bastian Tenbergen, an assistant professor of Computer Science at the State University of New York at Oswego, joins us to discuss how industry realistic projects may be used to enhance learning in software engineering classes.

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Flipping the classroom

Flipping the classroom is one way to dedicate class time to active learning. In theory it sounds great, but how do you flip a classroom without flopping? In this episode, Dr. Dominick Casadonte, a Chemistry Professor at Texas Tech University, joins us to discuss research and best practices related to flipped classrooms.

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

The Three Little Pigs

What do the three little pigs, the big bad wolf, and dragons have to do with web design? More than you would think. Rebecca Mushtare discusses how a trip through fairy tales may open up the opportunity to develop empathy skills and conversations about race, disability and identity.

Allison Rank joins us again this week, this time as a guest host.

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

 

 

 

Service learning

Applied learning at the graduate level generally takes the form of traditional research projects, but other models can be successful. Linley Melhem, the Director of the International Teaching Assistant Program at Texas Tech University, joins us to discuss how service learning can challenge graduate students academically while building the capacity of an organization or department to take on a project or tackle a problem. The particular project discussed in this episode involves small teams of graduate students working with faculty and instructional designers to assist language faculty in transitioning existing face-to-face courses to a hybrid format.

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Common Problem Pedagogy

Most colleges are organized as a collection of academic silos. Many challenging problems facing society,  though, are multifaceted. In this episode, Leigh Allison Wilson joins us to discuss the use of common problem pedagogy, an approach that allows students to address a problem from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Leigh is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Program and Activities Center at SUNY-Oswego. She is also the author of two collections of stories, one of which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in the Georgia Review, Grand Street, Harper's, The Kenyon Review, Smokelong Quarterly, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. Leigh teaches creative writing at SUNY Oswego. In addition to the Flannery O'Connor award, she has received the Saltonstall Award for Creative Nonfiction, and a Pulitzer nomination by William Morrow for her collection Wind. Leigh is a Michener Fellow of the Copernicus Society and is a Henry Hoyns fellow of the University of Virginia.

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Civic Engagement

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.

The Active Learning Initiative at Cornell

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.