Tea for Teaching

Engaged Teaching

The past two years have been challenging for teachers to navigate and be excited about. In this episode, Claire Howell Major joins us to discuss what it means to be an engaged teacher as well as practical resources to support teachers on their journey. Claire is a Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership Policy and Technology Studies at the University of Alabama. She is the author or co-author of several superb books and resources on teaching and learning. 

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

Latina Educational Developers

Our intersectional identities impact our positionality in the work that we do. In this episode, Carol Hernandez joins us to discuss her qualitative research addressing the experiences of educational designers from an underrepresented group. 

Carol is a Senior Instructional Designer and Faculty Developer at the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Stony Brook University. Carol recently successfully defended her dissertation at Northeastern University. In it she examined the simultaneity of the multiple identities experienced by Latina educational developers working in higher ed. Before moving into higher ed, Carol was an award-winning journalist.

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

Pandemic Teaching: Week 109

We take a break from our usual interview format in this episode to reflect on how our teaching has continued to evolve as we moved through a second year of pandemic teaching. We also speculate a bit about the longer term impact of the pandemic on teaching in higher education.

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

Education in Prisons

Education provides a pathway to a more secure and comfortable future for individuals living in poverty. This is especially true for those who are incarcerated. In this episode, Em Daniels and William Keizer join us to discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with providing education in prisons. 

Em is a researcher who focuses on education, corrections, criminal legal reform, and abolition. She is the author of Building a Trauma-Responsive Educational Practice: Lessons from a Corrections Classroom. William is a Founder of Frontline Professional Development and Co-Founder of Revive Reentry Services and the Revive Center for Returning Citizens. He is a former state prison Adult Education Instructor, and in addition, he himself was formerly incarcerated.

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

Guided Notetaking

Many college classes contain a substantial lecture component, but our students arrive at college with little or no training in taking effective notes. In this episode, Tanya Martini joins us to discuss how guided note taking can be used to promote equity and student success. Tanya is a Professor of Psychology at Brock University in Ontario.

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

Include Instructors in Inclusive Instruction

Educational developers often recommend teaching practices that assume instructors are in a position in which they can cede some of their authority to students in order to increase student agency and motivation. Not all instructors, though, are in this privileged position. In this episode, Chavella Pittman and Thomas J. Tobin examine strategies to adopt practices that are inclusive of our colleagues as well as our students.

Chavella is a Professor of Sociology at Dominican University, the founder of Effective and Efficient Faculty, and is the host of the Teaching in Color podcast. She has written extensively about issues of race and gender in higher education in scholarly and general interest publications. Tom is a founding member of the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Mentoring at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the author of Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education and several other works related to teaching and learning.

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

Inclusive History

Most history textbooks provide a narrative that is filtered through the lens of the dominant culture. In this episode, Vanessa Holden joins us to discuss how the study of history can be enriched by including a wider variety of voices and perspectives in historical narratives and in our classrooms. Vanessa has a dual appointment in both the Department of History and the program in African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on African American women in slavery in the antebellum South, the history of resistance and rebellion, gender history, and the history of sex and sexuality. Vanessa is the author of many scholarly publications, including the recently published Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner's Community. During the 2021 academic year, she was selected to be the inaugural Distinguished Visiting Scholar at SUNY Buffalo's Center for Diversity Innovation.

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

Disability and Higher Ed

Faculty, staff, and students with disabilities constantly have to negotiate when and if to disclose their disability status and whether or not to request accommodations. In this episode, Kat Macfarlane joins us to discuss the ADA and the experiences people with disabilities have in academia, including the burdens associated with accommodation requests.

Kat is a law professor at Southern University Law Center. She is a disability rights advocate, chairs the American Association of Law School Section on Disability Law, and co-founded an affinity group for disabled law professors and allies. Her work is published in the Fordham Law Review, the Alabama Law Review and Yale Law Journal Forum and many other journals.

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

Perceptions of Education

As faculty, we have our own views of the role of education in our society, but do students share these views? In this episode, Josh Eyler joins us to discuss his first-year writing class that invites students to deeply examine their understanding of the role of education in society.

Josh is the Director of Faculty Development, the Director of the ThinkForward Quality Enhancement Plan, and a faculty member of the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Mississippi. He is also the author of How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective Teaching.

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

Rigor

In academia, the term “rigor” is often code for gatekeeping and exclusion. In this episode, Jordynn Jack and Viji Sathy join us to discuss ways of creating challenging courses while providing the support and structure necessary for student success.

Jordynn is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of three books and numerous articles that focus on the rhetorics of science, technology, and gender in a variety of contexts. She is also the Director of the Health and Humanities Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill. Viji is a Professor of the Practice in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, the Director of the Townsend Program for Education Research, and the Director of the Academic Leadership Program at the Institute for Arts & Humanities, also at UNC-Chapel Hill. Viji is a national expert on inclusive teaching and is a co-author (with Kelly Hogan) of a forthcoming book on inclusive teaching which will be part of the West Virginia University Press series on teaching and learning, edited by Jim Lang and Michelle Miller.

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