Challenging Learning Styles, Valuing Effective Teaching, and Balancing Academic Freedom

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, a question was posed by journalist Beth McMurtrie as to whether or not institutions of higher education truly value teaching, and she offered a list of “red flags” that signal the undervaluing of teaching. In response, Michelle Miller, Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University, wrote a post in her “R3 Newsletter,” adding to McMurtrie’s list of red flags and offering her own. In this podcast episode, Dr. Miller discusses her list, which can be reverse engineered to serve as a helpful starting point for those who want to change the institutional culture around teaching at their university. 

Resources

• “Teaching: Does higher education value good teaching?” (July 6, 2023) by Beth McMurtrie in The Chronicle of Higher Education 
• “Bonus post: Is your IHE truly teaching-focused?” (July 11, 2023) by Michelle Miller in R3 Newsletter
• Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology (2014) by Michelle Miller
• Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World (2022) by Michelle Miller