Teaching in Higher Ed

Jesse Stommel, shares about how he enhances his teaching with Twitter. Podcast notes Teaching with Twitter Guest: Jesse Stommel About Hybrid Pedagogy Twitter basics Getting started with Twitter Jesse’s blog post: Teaching with Twitter Twitter Pedagogy: An educator down the Twitter rabbit hole, by Kelsey Schmitz The rules of Twitter, by Dorothy Kim Jesse’s background When I grew up, I always wanted to have my own school… [Hybrid Pedagogy] is not really as much a repository for articles, but a space for community and for engaging. – Jesse Stommel Was recently in Canada for the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, where he broke his ankle On kindness Kindness is what drives my pedagogy. It’s about seeing people for who they really are and engaging with their full selves. – Jesse Stommel Part of [kindness] is also about bringing your full self to the relationship you have with your coworkers, your students, and [other collaborators] that you use as a guiding ethic. – Jesse Stommel What the 140 limitation does The constraints of Twitter are also its affordances. Being asked to take an idea and put it in this constrained linguistic space of 140 characters forces us to think about and question our thinking in ways we wouldn’t otherwise. – Jesse Stommel Twitter allows for improvisation within a framework What students should know Twitter lets us play out our ideas Twitter is a space for trying out ideas. It encourages us to iterate… – Jesse Stommel [Twitter] is like a tool in the way that a pencil is a tool. A tool that lots of people can use for lots of different reasons. It becomes this platform that you can use in different ways and environments. – Jesse Stommel Conversation with Steve Wheeler re: digital natives on episode 38 Literacies Each person has to find a different relationship to these tools and build their own self inside of the network. – Jesse Stommel Privacy literacy Anyone who imagines that they can become private just with the flip of a switch is not really understanding how these networks work. – Jesse Stommel Reflections on Teaching in Higher Ed episode 31 on the social network Yik Yak Creative ways to teach with Twitter Twitter vs Zombies Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel share about Twitter vs Zombies with GamifiED OOC The Twitter essay, by Jesse Stommel 12 Steps for designing an assignment, by Jesse Stommel (slide show that addresses some of the questions around how to grade these types of assignments) Some things need to be public. – Jesse Stommel Canvassers study in episode #555 of This American Life has been retracted He was peer-reviewing my tweets before I sent each one out [at our wedding]… – Jesse Stommel Today I’m live-tweeting my wedding to Joshua Lee. Because some things need to be public. — Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) June 13, 2014 I want my students to know someone in a place that is so different than the place that they are in. – Jesse Stommel Maha Bali in Egypt on Twitter Tweetdeck Net Smart by Howard Rheingold Recommendations Bonni recommends: Teaching with Twitter class, via Hybrid Pedagogy, taught by Jesse Jesse recommends: Net Smart by Howard Rheingold Jesse on Twitter Hybrid Pedagogy Closing notes 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.  

Managing email using the Inbox Zero approach. Podcast notes Getting to zero inbox Be strategic about what times you check email Use email like a real mailbox with physical mail Leverage a to do list / task manager Make use of snippets for commonly-asked questions (TextExpander or Breevy) Schedule meetings with doodle or the best day Create a hub for committees and other collaboration Merlin Mann’s video on Inbox Zero Recommendations Bonni recommends: Tim Stringer’s Learn OmniFocus calendar webinar (OmniFocus users)  

Bonni and Dave Stachowiak talk calendar management. Podcast notes Guest: Dave Stachowiak Dave shared about his “Wayne’s World” moment, coming back as a guest on the show. Chart on Twitter about service hours invested by gender/race: hrs/wk assoc. profs spend on service by race/gender pic.twitter.com/vf4EA7xL6L — Tressie Mc (@tressiemcphd) June 28, 2015 Keep the calendar’s purpose central Exceptions to only having items calendared that have to happen at a particular time Grading, as a means of budgeting time See the big picture My/our set up Mac Calendar (BusyCal) Exchange / Outlook Planbook RSS Calendar Subscriptions Preschool TIHE from Asana US holidays Make it easy for your students and other stakeholders TimeTrade for office hours and podcasting appointments Time blocks Support collaboration through scheduling tools Doodle The Best Day Review and reflect Weekly review – each of us goes through a review each week to help us reflect on priorities and commitments Look back to last week Look forward next two weeks Monthly review – the monthly review allows for a bigger picture view of how we are tracking toward goals Look at next month Recommendations Bonni recommends: Sunrise Meet Review on FastCompany Overview on The Chronicle Dave recommends: Fantastical

Jonathan Malesic on finding meaning in our work. PODCAST NOTES Guest: Jonathan Malesic His blog Jon on Twitter What typically doesn’t show up on Jon’s bio: The Parking Lot Movie I learned a lot working as a parking lot attendant. I think it’s made me a better worker and a better person. – Jonathan Malesic Don’t search for “purpose.” You will fail. by Jonathan Malesic in The New Republic. Pursuing “purpose” Find your purpose! pic.twitter.com/m3WKV2tWAa — Jon Malesic (@JonMalesic) May 23, 2015 The components of finding “purpose” You love it The world needs it You are paid for it You are great at it The intersections 1/2 = Mission (you love it and the world needs it) 2/3 = Vocation (the world needs it and you are paid for it) 3/4 = Profession (you are paid for it and you are great at it) 4/1 = Passion (you are great at it and you love it) The often unlabeled overlaps in the Venn diagram Please don’t be a physician (you love it; the world needs it) Burnout (the world needs it; you can be paid for it) Kardashian (you can be paid for it; you are good at it) Exploitation (you are good at it; you love it) Pursuing “success” The best productivity tool we have as faculty is not a technology; it’s our personal self-investment in our work. It’s our commitment to students. It’s our commitment to research. It’s our commitment to our institutions. – Jonathan Malesic We can be so committed to our work that we eventually start to hate it. We have identified ourselves so strongly with it that it becomes too much of  a burden for our work. – Jonathan Malesic Students’ evaluation of us and student learning doesn’t necessarily match up very well with our evaluation of ourselves. – Jonathan Malesic That’s still something worth hoping for… But, it’s important to tell students that [the center piece] isn’t always attainable. There’s a lot of meaning to be had in our work, even if we don’t hit that “sweet spot.” – Jonathan Malesic Article: Job, career, vocation, life by Charles Matthews in Inside HigherEd Other articles suggested by Jon on this topic In the Name of Love, by Miya Tokumitsu A Life Beyond Do What You Love, by Gordon Marino No Time: How Did We Get so Busy?, by Elizabeth Kolbert Recommendations Bonni recommends: The movie Inside Out Jon recommends: Series of essays published on Chronicle Vitae by Melanie Nelson Her website also has a ton of great ideas, advice, and resources Refuse to Choose! by Barbara Sher  

Peter Newbury joins me to talk about peer instruction and using clickers in the higher ed classroom. Early experiences with clickers The Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative Achieving the most effective, evidence-based science education (effective science education, backed by evidence) The Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) is a multi-year project at The University of British Columbia aimed at dramatically improving undergraduate science education. The CWSEI helps departments take a four-step, scientific approach to teaching: Establish what students should learn Scientifically measure what students are actually learning Adapt instructional methods and curriculum and incorporate effective use of technology and pedagogical research to achieve desired learning outcomes Disseminate and adopt what works The Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative resources on general teaching, clickers, and peer instruction Today’s use of clickers and other audience response systems iClicker 2 radio clickers Colleagues use cards: A, B, C, D… Plickers… Bonni has a set of Turning Technologies RF clickers Whether we are using physical devices, such as clickers, or we are using more of a bring your own device / smart phone /tablet option, it’s really just a tool. “I certainly don’t want to say that in order to use peer instruction, you have to have this piece of technology. It’s not about the clicker.” #peerinstruction “Peer instruction is not a shiny thing that comes with clickers. Clickers are one tool you can use to facilitate peer learning.” Peer Instruction foundations Peer Instruction Fundamentals How People Learn (free ebook) states that experts must: Have a deep foundation of factual knowledge Understand those facts and concepts in a conceptual framework Organize the knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application More on peer instruction basics: “If I’m not making your brains work, then I’m not teaching hard enough.” “We need to schedule time into the class where students can stop and think, and start to learn.” “Just stop talking for a while and let the students start to think.”   Effective Peer Instruction Questions Peter’s post on what makes for good peer instruction questions? And what makes bad ones? “If I can just ask Siri the answer to the question, that’s [not a good one for peer instruction].” Removing barriers to learning, such as high stakes questions/exercises “…not about getting the right answer, but about practicing how to think.” Homework question will have the opportunity to assess for correctness. Experts vs novices “The expert has the same content as the novice, but it’s organized [and more easily retrieved]…” Recommendations Bonni recommends: Visual note taking tools site Peter recommends: Get yourself into a learning community. Get on Twitter. Bonni mentioned Peter’s Twitter list of Teaching / Learning Centers  

Kevin Gannon shares ways how to respect our students in our teaching.   Podcast notes Guest: Kevin Gannon Kevin shares the “behind the scenes” backdrop of the photo with the alligator (above and on his blog-about page). Book mocking college students that Kevin mentions has been retitled, it appears. Ignorance is Blitz: Mangled Moments of History from Actual College Students Kevin quotes Maslow: If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. – Abraham Maslow On our perceptions of students Our students are our allies, not our adversaries in higher ed. – Kevin Gannon Movie dance compilation video (mentioned by Bonni): Shut Up and Dance I didn’t go to grad school to be the behavior police. – Kevin Gannon Daniel Goleman – Social Intelligence “Dear students” blogs on The Chronicle Jesse Strommel’s response http://www.jessestommel.com/blog/files/dear-chronicle.html Everyone that comes into even casual contact with Vitae’s “Dear Student” series is immediately tarnished by the same kind of anti-intellectual, uncompassionate, illogical nonsense currently threatening to take down the higher education system in the state of Wisconsin… Giggling at the water cooler about students is one abhorrent thing. Publishing that derisive giggling as “work” in a venue read by tens of thousands is quite another. Of course, teachers need a safe place to vent. We all do. That safe place is not shared faculty offices, not the teacher’s lounge, not the library, not a local (public) watering hole. And it is certainly not on the pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education, especially in Vitae, the publication devoted to job seekers, including current students and future teachers. – Jesse Strommel Kevin’s revised “Dear student” post: Dear Student: You’ll get better at this. So will we. Faculty (a.k.a. former students) Recommendations Bonni recommends: Kevin’s Blog, including these posts: On student shaming: Punching down My cell phone policy is to have no cell phone policy Kevin recommends: Learner-Centered teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice, Maryellen Weimer Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms, Stephen Brookfield and Stephen Preskill (Bonni suggests/adds): Stephen Brookfield on Episode #015 of Teaching in Higher Ed The Skillful Teacher: On technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom, Stephen Brookfield  

Sandie Morgan and Bonni Stachowiak talk about how vulnerability shows up in our teaching. A former guest on Teaching in Higher Ed, Josh Eyler, gets me thinking about vulnerability in our teaching… Podcast notes Guest: Sandie Morgan Luke bringing me a broken egg yesterday. What’s this, Mommy? What was inside, Mommy? With vulnerability comes a lot of poop. Josh Eyler talking about how vulnerable our students need to be on episode 16 Wrote a powerful post about his wife’s health challenges and his vulnerability this past semester. And so, like Carl, we are working together to turn a new page, to imagine a new life for our family—one in which we do not ignore the reality of Kariann’s illness but at the same time do not let it define our future. This is much easier to say than it is to do. How do we begin then? We are trying to make each day as good as it can possibly be without thinking too much about the bigger picture just yet. From there, I think we just keep swimming. – Josh Eyler Questions to consider: How do we need to be vulnerable in our teaching? Are there boundaries on both ends? What kind of vulnerability do you see being required when asking for and processing feedback from students? When deciding whether to take the risk: Is it related to the course? Does it help model for my students the importance of failure in shaping our learning and our lives? What does it look like to integrate my experience in a way that brings real life Can I share it and still model resilience in our professional roles? What do I anticipate that the students’ responses to it might be? Will it help me be more approachable to my students? Recommendations Evernote chat (Bonni) Countable app (Sandie)

Past guests and listeners celebrate significant learning from 50 episodes of Teaching in Higher Ed. Many also share their recommendations to the listening community, too. Episode 50 Podcast Notes *** Dr. David Yates, Director Southeastern University Center for Excellence and Creativity in Teaching A Department of the School of Extended Education Cameron Hunt-McNabb on episode #24, shared how to cultivate creative assignments. David mentioned: Ken Bain on episode #36 Stephen Brookfield on episode #15 *** Christine The biggest and best take away for me is the knowledge that I’m not alone in my efforts to actively engage students with activities/tasks/projects/problems during class. Thank you! Also, though I’ve used Remind for several years, I didn’t know the features of the app until you told me last night on my way to teach folks how to train their dogs! *** Scott Self, who was on episode #48 *** Melissa from Columbia College I am thoroughly enjoying your podcast episodes and have shared them with many of my colleagues already. I believe what I have taken away from the shows is your ease of describing the technology and pedagogical challenges, the show format with the notes and the wide variety of topics that are so pertinent to me and many of my colleagues. I am just so thirsty for knowledge and application to help revitalize our faculty at the college and get them more excited about technology in education. We are also very involved with the CA Online Education Initiative, piloting online tutoring at this time so this is also very timely to have come across your podcast series. You have a very unique, gentle and fun-loving attitude toward technology topics and with your guests. I am in the process of developing a new course, Universal Design in Online Course Development, and was wondering if you would be, or have already covered universal design in one of your podcasts. I would also be interested in hearing more about instructional design. Although you may have already covered some of these topics, I will eventually hear them all. *** Missy McCormick Lab ideas? Gradebook strategies, including in-progress grading… Final grades. Critiquing student work. Missy mentioned: Recalibrating our teaching with Aaron Daniel Annas (#45) *** Recommendation Amanda Bayer’s website: Diversifying Economic Quality: A wiki for instructors and departments Recommended by Doug McKee on his blog post  

Bonni Stachowiak provides an update on some of the edtech tools she experimented with in Spring 2015. Podcast Notes Slack Team communication for the 21st century. Imagine all your team communication in one pace, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. Create channels, which include messages, files, and comments, inline images and video, rich line summaries, and integration with services you use every day, like Twitter, Dropbox and Google drive. How did we use it? Has default channels: #general, #random… added ones for #movienights at our house (address, carpooling, etc.), and for each of the research/service learning projects. Can do private ones that no one else sees, which we did for the business ethics competition, so competitors wouldn’t be able to see the cases we were considering, etc. Students’ feedback Really liked it. Searchability. Ease of use. What they didn’t like was just the number of places they have to remember to check, assuming they weren’t on the web app. Empathy for our students A veteran teacher turned coach shadows 2 students for 2 days – a sobering lesson learned Piazza Recommended by Doug on episode #035 Watch a video that shows the power of Piazza Primarily will want to have students use their .edu address to sign up for Piazza There are also integration options for LMSs, etc. TextExpander snippet for students who ask a question directly to me, instead of on Piazza OmniFocus https://pinboard.in/u:bonni208/t:omnifocus http://learnomnifocus.com/videos/ Project templates Tim Stringer at Learn Omnifocus.com (http://learnomnifocus.com/about-tim-stringer/) Recommendations 1 password https://agilebits.com/onepassword

Scott Self and Bonni Stachowiak share how they each integrate Evernote into their classes and workflows. Even if you aren’t an Evernote user, you’re bound to pick up a few tips. Podcast notes Guest: Scott Self Director, University Access Programs, Abilene Christian University Productive Nerd Blog The landscape of options for notebook-type applications Microsoft OneNote Writing-specific applications, such as Ulysses or Scrivener Circus Ponies Notebook Guidance on maximizing the value of course assets Linking smart post LMS – keep the course assets out of it Creating collaborative learning environments with Evernote Use it in a uni-directional way, not necessarily a conversational tool… Classroom becomes a kind of conversation around learning Scott gives students the unique, Evernote email address to send notes to the class-specific evernote notebook He sets permissions up so that he’s the only one who can edit the notes in the notebook – read-only Getting started with Evernote Scott’s posts Evernote in Higher Ed Introduction Evernote in the classroom We both recommend Brett Kelly’s Evernote Essentials eBook Big advantages of Evernote Easy capture On iOS – text, audio, sticky notes, documents (auto-size), photo Web clipper Drafts – iOS app – start typing Email – lots of tricks to organize when you send Search capabilities Integration with other apps and services Keeps one’s course out of the LMS environment – the instructor should own the material, not the LMS Our advice Grow with it (start with the basics and go from there) Keep folder structure simple Bonni uses just reference, work, and personal, along with a shared notebook and a couple required ones that store my LiveScribe pencasts Scott has only a few notebooks. I do have one for each section of a course that I teach so that I can share lecture notes, resources, and “FYIs” with my students. As a “Premium” user, we have access to the “Presenter” view. Scott says: Students see my lecture notes in a clear and uncluttered presentation, and have access to the information in the shared notes. I prefer that students take notes about the lecture – rather than copying down what’s on the screen. Use tags when you would have normally used a folder. Scott says: Yes! The search function is so powerful, it is often faster to search for a note than to navigate through a tree of folders Capture whiteboard brainstorms in meetings (will recognize your handwritten text). Scott says: My students with disabilities have become infamous on campus for snapping pictures of whiteboards. This saves time (and frustration for the students with learning disabilities), and the snaps can be annotated. Use the inbox for quick capturing and have an action in your task management system to process it however regularly you need to… Scott says: This can be done very quickly, since you can select a number of notes and bulk process them (tagging, merging, or sending to a notebook) When you get really geeky with Evernote Automate agendas in Evernote Use Drafts app to prepend / append notes on a given topic (our kids’ “firsts” notes, research ideas) Use TaskClone to capture and sync to dos with your task manager Katie Floyd’s Article on Evernote and Hazel Save Kindle highlights into Evernote Recommendations Scott recommends Taskclone Chungwasoft Scannable Bonni recommends The Checklist Manifesto Closing credits Celebrate episode 50 with us! Please call 949-38-LEARN and leave a message with a take-away you’ve had from listening to Teaching in Higher Ed, and a recommendation.