Tea for Teaching

New Faculty Transition

New faculty often come out of graduate programs that have trained them to be researchers but not teachers. The transition into full time teaching can be stressful and overwhelming for these colleagues. Maggie Schmuhl, a new faculty member in the Public Justice Department at SUNY-Oswego joins us to discuss how she has embraced evidence-based methods in her practice as a teacher.

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.

Faculty Development

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

Online learning

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

 

Student attention span

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.

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.

Microcredentials

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.

Authentic Learning

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.

 

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.

Mobile Technology in the Classroom

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