Teaching in Higher Ed

In today’s episode, Dr. Bill Robertson introduces us to “action science” and the ways he is making his teaching relevant, creating opportunities for the most active kind of learning I can imagine. Guest: Bill Robertson Dr. Skateboard Bill has a Ph.D. in Education and has been a skateboarder for over thirty-five years. He has done hundreds of demonstrations nationally and internationally in festivals, events and in academic settings. Bill has been an educator for over twenty years. His academic areas of expertise are science education, curriculum development, and technology integration. He also teaches and does research in the areas of problem-based learning and action science. Find him online: Linkedin Dr. Skateboard Website Twitter skateboard videos Quotes People who are learning a second language may know exactly what they’re talking about but might not be able to express themselves. —Bill Robertson The things that made me successful in skateboarding made me successful in education. —Bill Robertson I realized there was a lot of physics and concepts in these sports that can be expressed and could be engaging and motivating for the students. —Bill Robertson The skills [students] are really good at can apply to something like education … if they can master something, they can probably master something else. —Bill Robertson You have to find ways to integrate the interests of your learners into your curriculum. —Bill Robertson Resources Teaching in Higher Ed episode 015: How to get students to participate in discussion, with Stephen Brookfield Teaching in Higher Ed post: Sticky notes as a teaching tool Recommendations: From listener Pamela: Book: Training in Motion* by Mike Kuczala. Emphasizes the importance of movement for learning (and not just regular exercise) Bill: Non-profit organization: Skateistan. Using skateboarding as a tool for empowerment, with a large commitment for young women in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. Educational Portal: Edutopia. Dedicated to transforming K-12 education. Are You Enjoying the Show? Rate/review the show. Please consider rating or leaving a review for the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast on whatever service you use to listen to it on (iTunes, Stitcher, etc.). It is the best way to help others discover the show. Give feedback. As always, I welcome suggestions for future topics or guests. Subscribe. If you have yet to subscribe to the weekly update, you can receive a single email each week with the show notes (including all the links we talk about on the episode), as well as an article on either teaching or productivity.

Doug Leigh on helping graduate students come up with interesting research topics. Dr. Doug Leigh earned his PhD in instructional systems from Florida State University, where he served as a technical director of projects with various local, state, and federal agencies. His current research, publication, and lecture interests concern cause analysis, organizational trust, leadership visions, and dispute resolution. He is coeditor of The Handbook of Selecting and Implementing Performance Interventions (Wiley, 2010) and coauthor of The Assessment Book (HRD Press, 2008), Strategic Planning for Success (Jossey-Bass, 2003) and Useful Educational Results (Proactive Publishing, 2001). Leigh served on a two-year special assignment to the National Science Foundation, is two-time chair of the American Evaluation Association’s Needs Assessment Topic Interest Group, and past editor-in-chief of the International Society for Performance Improvement’s (ISPI) monthly professional journal, Performance Improvement. A lifetime member of ISPI, he is also a member of the editorial board for its peer-reviewed journal, Performance Improvement Quarterly. More QUOTES Some of the differences between doctoral work and master’s work have to do with the amount of original data collection. —Doug Leigh I try to set up the expectation that when a dissertation chair is doing a good job, they’re giving a lot of feedback, and that may involve several iterations of drafting. —Doug Leigh Though we call them defenses, they’re not interrogations. They’re not about getting lined up to be battered with questions to prove your worth before a student is allowed into the club. —Doug Leigh Students who can avoid just reaffirming what’s already known are able to position themselves to do research that sticks with them as a passion. —Doug Leigh Resources Murray Davis’s “That’s Interesting!” article at Philosophy of the Social Sciences (paywalled) Science’s 2015 Breakthrough of the Year (free), see the runners-up here (paywalled) Doug also shares his reworking of Davis’s index that he developed for his students, along with representative examples … Interestingness via Organizing or Disorganizing: things which have been thought to be similar are truly dissimilar, or that things believe to be dissimilar are actually similar. Example: John A Bargh’s “The Four Horsemen of Automaticity: Awareness, Intention, Efficiency, and Control in Social Cognition“ Interestingness by Composing or Decomposing: what seems to be varied and complex is really better understood simply, or something that is currently understood to be simple is actually elaborate, distinct, independent, heterogeneous, and diverse. Example: Quanta’s “The New Laws of Explosive Networks” Interestingness by Abstraction or Particularization: that which people assume are experienced by just a certain few are actually shared by all, or vice versa. Example: NYT’s “Mass Murderers Fit Profile, as Do Many Others Who Don’t Kill“ Interestingness by Globalizing or Localizing: what seems to be a global truth is really just a more local one, or that something thought to be experienced just locally is actual more global. Example: Pew Research Center’s Views on Science poll Interestingness by Stabilizating or Destabilizating: what seems to be stable and unchanging is actually unstable and changing, or things thought to be unstable are surprisingly stabilit and even permanent. Example: BBC’s “The Libet Experiment: Is Free Will Just an Illusion?” (video) Interestingness by Effective or Ineffective Functioning: some aspect of the world that was believed to function effectively is actually ineffective, or vice versa. Example: Derek Muller’s “Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos” (video) Interestingness by Re-assessment of Costs or Benefits: what seems to be bad is in reality good, or what was believed to be good is actually bad. Example: On Point’s “Is Recycling Really Worth It?” (radio broadcast) Interestingness by Inter-dependence or Independence: what seem to be unrelated (or independent) phenomena are in reality correlated (or inter-dependent) phenomena, or vice versa. Example: Quartz’ “This article has been perfectly formatted for maximum reading comprehension“ Interestingness by Inconsistencies or Consistencies: what has been thought to be able to exist together are in reality things that cannot, or phenomenena thought to be mutually exclusive actually can co-exist. Example: Quanta’s “Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science“ Interestingness by Positive or Negative Covariation: what has been thought to co-vary positively actually co-varies negatively, or what has been thought to co-vary negatively actually co-varies positively. Example: Big Think’s “How Hearing Something Now, Can Lead You to Believe the Opposite Later“ Interestingness by Dissimilarity or Similarity: phenomena that seem to be similar are in reality opposite, or phenomena that seem to be opposite are really similar. Example: The Atlantic’s “How ‘Quantum Cognition’ Can Explain Humans’ Irrational Behaviors“ Recommendations Bonni: Book: Doing a Literature Review* by Chris Hart Doug: Software: Harzing’s Publish or Perish Research: ERIC Thesaurus of Descriptors

Tim Clydesdale talks about how we can all better support our students in navigating college and beyond by talking about vocation. Quotes [Vocation] is about the type of life you want to lead and the type of person you want to be. —Tim Clydesdale It may be that the broader sense of who you are isn’t being fully expressed in your work but it’s being expressed in many other places: in your volunteer work, or your care for a family member. —Tim Clydesdale Vocation is a much better way to talk to students [than career] because it captures much more of the breadth of life as it’s really lived. —Tim Clydesdale Resources Article: Inside Higher Ed Organization: Council of Independent Colleges The Purposeful Graduate* What are some of the mistakes universities make when attempting to develop effective programs to facilitate more conversation about vocation? Design a program that wasn’t organic to the campus Hiring people who didn’t have a high emotional intelligence Recommendations Bonni: Keep a list of ideas for each class you have been scheduled to teach. Tim: Good food helps with conversation. Use a slow cooker (Crock-Pot) with a manual switch. This allows you to cook but also be engaged in conversation.

Doug Grove discusses practical program development: what works and what doesn’t when building learning experiences for today’s students. Quotes We see a lot of benefits of synchronous class sessions, but we’re not sure every student wants that. There’s a tradeoff with flexibility. -Doug Grove One of the mistakes we made when developing some of these programs was trying to be all things to all students. -Doug Grove Every program is a little different. One of the bigger mistakes we’ve made was we just took our existing structure and placed it on any new program. -Doug Grove Education Technology Tools Adobe Connect web conferencing software Dragon Naturally Speaking for speech-to-text Recommendations Bonni: Batch processing on the computer. Do “like work” all at one time. Doug: Book: Start with Why by Simon Sinek Coaching for Leaders Episode 223: Start with Why Featuring Simon Sinek Simon Sinek’s TED talk

Stephanie Vie discusses the ethical considerations of using Turnitin and other automatic plagiarism checkers. Guest: Stephanie Vie twitter: @digiret email: Stephanie.Vie@ucf.edu Academia: https://ucf.academia.edu/StephanieVie Stephanie Vie researches the construction of digital identities in social media spaces  as well as critical approaches to composing technologies such as plagiarism detection services. Her research has appeared in First Monday; Computers and Composition; Computers and Composition Online; Kairos: Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy; and The Community Literacy Journal. She is a Reviews Section Co-editor with Kairos; a Project Director with the Computers and Composition Digital Press; and an editorial board member of the undergraduate research journal Young Scholars in Writing. Her doctorate from the University of Arizona (2007) is in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English, and her dissertation, “Engaging Others in Online Social Networking Sites: Rhetorical Practices in MySpace and Facebook,” examined the use of privacy settings in these sites within a Foucauldian framework. More Quote The more moments you can take from an active, engaged classroom and bring them into your assignments, that’s going to significantly help reduce plagiarism. -Stephanie Vie Recommendations Bonni: Go for a walk. It’s easy to forget how great it feels walk. Stephanie: Book: My Freshman Year* by Rebecca Nathan App: Wunderlist for creating to-do lists App: Toggl for time tracking Are You Enjoying the Show? Rate/review the show. Please consider rating or leaving a review for the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast on whatever service you use to listen to it on (iTunes, Stitcher, etc.). It is the best way to help others discover the show. Give feedback. As always, I welcome suggestions for future topics or guests. Subscribe. If you have yet to subscribe to the weekly update, you can receive a single email each week with the show notes (including all the links we talk about on the episode), as well as an article on either teaching or productivity.

On today’s episode, I speak with Dr. Mary Gene Saudelli about developing curriculum for international higher education in the 21st Century. Guest: Dr. Mary Gene Saudelli Author, The Balancing Act:  International Higher Education in the 21st Century* LinkedIn Book on Amazon* Mary Gene is an assistant professor and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Calgary in Quatar. More Quote: I create a situation where I ask my students to think about things from multiple perspectives, but also allow their voices to be honored. –Mary Gene Saudelli How Dubai has Changed Recommendations Bonni: Book: Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes* by William Bridges Book: The Way Of Transition: Embracing Life’s Most Difficult Moments* by William Bridges Mary Gene: In difficult circumstances, stop to consider your own thoughts: When you have extreme positions, does that extreme thought mirror who you want to be as a person and what you want to believe?

On today’s episode, I speak with Dr. Robin Paige about the potential impact of stereotype threat inside and outside of our classrooms. Quote When dealing with stereotypes, one of the things we can do on our campuses or in our classrooms is create a space of accountability but without saying “You’re a bad person for thinking that.” —Robin Paige Resources Academic Paper by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson: Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans Recommendations Bonni: Podcast: This American Life episode 573: Status Update Book: Between the World and Me* by Ta-Nehisi Coates Course: 5 days to your best year ever course with Michael Hyatt* Robin: Book: Whistling Vivaldi* by Claude Steele Blog: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/ Tip: Use food to create a stereotype-safe environment because it becomes a thing people have in common.

  Today on episode #078 of Teaching in Higher Ed: The power of checklists Book: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande Good checklists, on the other hand are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything–a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps–the ones that even the highly skilled professional using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical. ―Atul Gawande We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us—those we aspire to be—handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating. ―Atul Gawande Definitions A to-do list is what to do, a checklist is how to do it: Article on lessdoing.com A checklist is a documented process for something you’ll do daily; a to-do list is something you assembled yourself that you need to do at a certain point of your day: Article on alphaefficiency.com Philip Crawford, software entrepreneur on Quora, gives his definition: Question on Quora Natalie Houston on checklists A checklist ensures communication and confirmation among members of a team and catches errors. —Natalie Houston There are Two kinds of checklists: Read-do: read each step and perform the step, checking off as you go (like following a recipe) Do-confirm: perform steps of the task from memory until you reach a defined pause point when you confirm that things have happened. Advice for making checklists: Keep it simple Make it usable – need to be able to check things off Try it out and edit as necessary Read her article about checklists HERE Checklist on Checklists Atul Gawande lists things to consider when making a checklist: You you have clear, concise objectives Have you considered adding items that will improve communication among team members When crafting the list, is the font sans serif? Have you trialled the list with frontline users? And have you modified the checklist in response to repeated trials? Class Checklist See my class checklist HERE on Evernote. (I currently use an OmniFocus project template by Curt Clifton TIHE Article: Use checklists to teach more effectively and efficiently TIHE Article: Checklist for class planning efficiency Article by the late Grant Wiggins: How do you plan? On templates and instructional planning Recommendations: Book: The Checklist Manifesto* by Atul Gawande Task planning system: Trello

Today I welcome to the show Dr. Terese Huston to talk about teaching what you don’t know. Guest: Therese Huston Faculty Development Consultant, Seattle University Author: Teaching What You Don’t Know Seattle University faculty page: here Personal page:  www.theresehustonauthor.com Twitter:  @ThereseHuston Therese Huston received her B.A. from Carleton College and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. She was also awarded a prestigious post-doctoral fellowship with the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. Therese was the Founding Director of CETL (now the Center for Faculty Development) and served as Director from 2004 to 2010. Drawing upon her background in cognitive science, she has spent the past decade helping smart faculty make better decisions about their teaching. Her first book, Teaching What You Don’t Know, was published by Harvard University Press (2009). Quotes If I could go back to my 28-year-old self and give her one piece of advice, it would be to talk to a content expert. -Therese Huston I wish I had offered to take an expert to coffee once a week to brainstorm what I should be teaching. -Therese Huston Teaching is more than just knowing every single detail there is to know; teaching is much more about stimulating learning. -Therese Huston You have to be thinking, “I’ve got to do something that I know well, but if I’m going to be the best teacher I can be to my students I’ve also got to teach them some things that are perhaps outside of my comfort zone.” -Therese Huston No one can be an expert on this material, and what I’m going to be doing is to always look for the most recent, most important topic that I can be teaching you. -Therese Huston If I’m doing a good job up here, I’m going to be pushing the boundaries of what I know. -Therese Huston Notes Teaching what you don’t know looks at it from two perspectives: A subject you don’t know A group of students you don’t understand Things unique to people who experience minimal anxiety when teaching outside of their expertise: They had a choice about whether or not to teach the subject They addressed the “imposter issue” with their students They embraced a teaching philosophy that emphasizes the idea: “I don’t need to master the material” You have just been assigned to teach a course outside of our expertise. What are the most important steps to take in preparing to teach it? Tell someone (deal with the imposter issue) Find five syllabi for similar courses online Get a timer and start practicing preparing for your class in set chunks of time. Recommendations Bonni recommends: Therese’s book: Teaching What you Don’t Know* Sonos speakers : See on Amazon* Therese recommends: Licorice tea: See on Amazon* Book: Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and the Art of Receiving Feedback* Book: Difficult Conversations* Podcast about Book: Coaching for Leaders: Episode 143

In today’s episode, Doug McKee joins me to share about online courses. His Introduction to Econometrics class is taught about as close to an in-person as you can get, but without being bound by geographic barriers. Guest: Doug McKee Associate Chair and Senior Lecturer of Economics at Yale http://economics.yale.edu/people/douglas-mckee Website: http://dougmckee.net/ Teach Better blog and podcast: http://teachbetter.co/ Personal Blog: www.highvariance.net Twitter: https://twitter.com/TeachBetterCo Quotes regarding online courses: We weren’t lowering the price, but we were lowering the geographic barriers. –Doug McKee You don’t need a big film crew, and snazzy digital effects; you just need to be clear, and communicate it well. –Doug McKee Students show up, and they don’t have any questions. What I do is come with questions. –Doug McKee Links: Udacity: https://www.udacity.com/ Zoom: http://zoom.us/ Examity: http://examity.com/ Explain Everything iPad app: App Store Link* Recommendations: Bonni recommends: Sherlock: IMDB Doug recommends: Poster sessions with students: Read blog post here CS50 course: Syllabus TeachBetter podcast: episode with David Malan