Intentional Teaching

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.This is a story about institutional change. The product of that change—a new framework for assessing teaching quality now in use at Appalachian State University—is important, but the process that led to that change is just as important because it's by analyzing change processes that academic leaders can affect change on their campuses. In this episode, I talk with Lindsay Masland, interim executive director at the teaching center at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, who not only helped shape the new teaching quality framework at App State but also launched a grant program that has helped multiple departments do some really important work aligning their programs and policies and procedures with the framework. Episode Resources·       The Teaching Quality Framework at Appalachian State University, https://cetlss.appstate.edu/teaching-learning/teaching-quality-framework-0·       Lindsay Masland on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-masland-25b04511/ ·       “Assessing Teaching with Beate Brunow and Shawn Simonson,” Intentional Teaching episode 27, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/2069949/episodes/14189134-assessing-teaching-with-beate-brunow-and-shawn-simonson  Support the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.Today on the podcast I talk with Mariel Pfeifer, assistant professor of biology. Mariel started at Ole Miss just about a year ago as part of a cluster hire of three STEM faculty who are on the tenure track at UM doing disciplinary based education research. I was excited to hear Mariel was coming to the university because I was already familiar with her work. Back in the spring of 2023, I lead a faculty learning community on the topic of active learning in large enrollment STEM courses, and we read her study on the experiences of neurodivergent students in active learning STEM classes. As Mariel points out in our conversation, a lot of the traditional accommodations we use for students with learning disabilities assume that a college course is full of lectures and exams, but that’s not as true for STEM courses as it once was. Mariel shares lots of insight into the student experience in these courses and has practical advice for instructors interested in helping more students succeed. Episode Resources·       Mariel Pfeifer’s lab website, https://www.pfeiferlab.com/·       "What I Wish My Instructor Knew,” Mariel’s paper on students with ADHD and specific learning disabilities in active learning STEM courses, https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.21-12-0329·       “Structured Reading Groups,” Derek’s November 2022 blog post about group roles, https://derekbruff.org/?p=3934 ·       “Teaching Students with ADHD with Cathryn Friel,” Intentional Teaching episode 16, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/2069949/13140564-teaching-students-with-adhd-with-cathryn-friel  Support the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Emily Affolter, a PhD program educator in Sustainability Education at Prescott College, shares her insights on culturally responsive teaching. She discusses how to build trust with diverse students and reimagines learning with equity at the forefront. Emily emphasizes the importance of acknowledging instructors' identities and the role they play in fostering inclusivity. The conversation also touches on decolonizing marine biology and how personal experiences, like birdwatching, can challenge fixed categories in science education, promoting a more open and pluralistic approach.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.Back in February 2024, as part of a slow read of my book Intentional Tech, I reached out to Paul Hanstedt, author of Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World, to talk about the "rhetorical triangle" as a way for thinking intentionally about writing assignments and other types of assignments. We had a fantastic conversation that I shared on Patreon at the time, and I’m now very glad to share the interview here on the main podcast feed.Paul is the vice chancellor for academic affairs and innovation at the University of Minnesota Rochester. We talk about how UMR is not like other institutions, then we talk about Paul's new book, the second edition of General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty. Paul has so much wisdom on the design of general education curricula and on the process of designing those curricula. Finally we get around to talking about authentic audiences and rhetorical triangles.Episode Resources·       Paul Hanstedt on Bluesky, https://bsky.app/profile/curriculargeek.bsky.social ·       General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty, https://www.aacu.org/publication/general-education-essentials-a-guide-for-college-faculty·       Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World, https://www.routledge.com/Creating-Wicked-Students-Designing-Courses-for-a-Complex-World/Hanstedt/p/book/9781620366974?srsltid=AfmBOoqsAbLJZT5zCC9UovFUp9sTbqZJkd8KgRD0V_vFflZdQ1Wdb6H_Support the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Justin Shaffer, a teaching professor in chemical and biological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, shares his innovative approach to course design. He discusses how technology can enhance visibility into student learning and uses interactive techniques to engage students in complex topics. Shaffer emphasizes the importance of structured learning, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and introduces concepts like Retrieval Practice Opportunities. His upcoming book promises to be a valuable resource for STEM educators looking to improve their teaching methods.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.A few episodes ago, I talked with Marc Watkins of the University of Mississippi about the many ways that generative AI is beginning to intersect with student learning. Marc noted that the newest versions of ChatGPT and similar tools are no longer just text generators, but multimodal in nature. That is, they can work with text and images and audio and in some cases video, too. To help us better understand what roles these AI tools might play in multimodal assignments, this episode features an interview I conducted earlier this year as part of the slow read I ran of my 2019 book, Intentional Tech. One chapter of that book is about using technology for multimodal assignments, and to bring some fresh perspectives to that topic, I talked my wife, Emily Bruff.Emily is a marketer for Zondervan Academic, and earlier this year she completed an interesting multimodal project to support the release of a new book called Know the Theologians. In the interview, Emily shares her experience using an AI image generator to make theologian trading cards, and we extrapolate from that experience to working with students with AI.Episode Resources·       Emily Bruff’s website, https://emilyhbruff.com/ ·       Know the Theologians, https://www.zondervan.com/p/know-the-theologians/·       Visio Divina conference, https://emilyhbruff.com/visio-divina-conference  ·       The Parthenon digital restoration project, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBHYVIyEVjg Support the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.This episode is all about games as learning experiences, with not one but two interviews about the 2023 cooperative board game Daybreak, a game about climate action. Daybreak puts players in the roles of world powers building the technologies and societies needed for a warming planet. The goal of the game is to cut carbon emissions before it gets too hot or too many communities are put into crisis. You’ll hear from Kerry Whittaker, assistant professor of coastal and marine environmental science at Maine Maritime Academy, who has the students in her global environmental change course play Daybreak as a final learning experience in the course. You’ll also hear from Matteo Menapace, co-designer of Daybreak, about the design of the game as a learning experience.Whether you teach about climate change and might use Daybreak in your courses or you’re looking for a deeper understanding of how learning experiences can be designed, I think you’ll find both of these conversations interesting. Episode ResourcesDaybreak’s websiteKerry Whittaker’s faculty pageMatteo Menapace’s websiteTwo Leading Lines interviews about RePlay Health: Kimberly Rogers and Max SeidmanOne Leading Lines interview about games as counterfactuals: Patrick Rael“Final Exams or Epic Finales” by Anthony Crider"Collaborative Strategic Board Games as a Site for Distributed Computational Thinking" by Matthew Berland and Victor Lee Support the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.This spring Holly Tilbrook presented as part of a panel titled “Neurodivergent Learners (and Earners!) in Postsecondary Education” at the UPCEA annual conference. Holly is a deputy director of the Academic Centres at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Continuing Education. That institute offers a variety of postsecondary learning opportunities for students of all ages, from onsite weekend courses to online certificate programs to degree programs offered across various modalities. Many of Holly’s students aren’t just learners, they’re earners, in the sense that they are active participants in the workforce. I wanted to know what Holly has been learning about supporting students with ADHD and other types of neurodivergence, particularly adult students and online students. I reached out to Holly via LinkedIn, where she posts thoughtful reflections on her work on a regular basis, and she was glad to talk with me. In our conversation, we discuss ways to build trust with neurodivergent students, accommodations that can more authentically meet these students’ needs, and helping neurodivergent students enter or re-enter the workforce. Episode Resources·       Holly Tilbrook on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/hebtilbook/ ·       Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge, https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/ ·       Still Distracted After All These Years: Help and Support for Older Adults with ADHD by Kathleen Nadeau, https://amzn.to/3ze0pt8 Support the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.Inspired by a recent episode of the American Birding Podcast, this episode of Intentional Teaching features a "Take It or Leave It" Panel. I spent some quality time with recent essays published online looking for arguments about teaching and learning in higher education that would be open to debate. For each of these hot takes, I asked our three panelists to take it (that is, agree with the hot take) or leave it (disagree), forcing them into an artificial binary that, I think, led to some robust discussion.We have three fantastic panelists for our first “Take It or Leave It” panel. Stacey M. Johnson is director of learning and engagement at the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan University. Emily Pitts Donahoe is an associate director of instructional support at the University of Mississippi Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.  Lance Eaton is director of faculty development and innovation at College Unbound.Episode Resources:"How Accommodating Can (Should) I Be?" by David Galef, Inside Higher Ed, May 2024"It's Time to Start Teaching Your Students How to Be a Student" by Emily Isaacs, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 2024"Is AI Finally a Way to Reduce Higher Ed Costs?" by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson, Inside Higher Ed, April 2024"No One Is Talking about AI's Impact on Reading" by Marc Watkins, Rhetorica, May 2024Stacey M. Johnson's website, https://staceymargarita.wordpress.com/Emily Pitts Donahoe's Substack, https://emilypittsdonahoe.substack.com/Lance Eaton's Substack, https://aiedusimplified.substack.com/"Take It or Leave It - Seawatching, Records Committees, and Owls" on the American Birding PodcastSupport the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text message.Worried about your students asking ChatGPT to write their essays for them? That's so 2023. Generative AI technology is changing fast, and now these tools have the potential to disrupt many different aspects of learning, from reading to notetaking to feedback. To help us explore those changes, this episode features a conversation with Marc Watkins, lecturer in writing and rhetoric and academic innovation fellow at the University of Mississippi. Marc's blog, Rhetorica, is a must read, and his workshops on teaching and AI for UM faculty have been incredibly helpful.Marc has a new series on his blog called “Beyond ChatGPT” that explores the many ways that generative AI is affecting learning—far beyond the now-typical use of having ChatGPT write an essay on behalf of a student—and we talked about those changes to the learning landscape. Episode ResourcesRhetorica, Marc Watkins’ blog, https://marcwatkins.substack.com/Marc Watkins’ website, https://marcwatkins.org/ ChatGPT 4o demo reels, https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/Scarlett Johansson and OpenAI, https://www.npr.org/2024/05/20/1252495087/openai-pulls-ai-voice-that-was-compared-to-scarlett-johansson-in-the-movie-her Explainpaper, https://www.explainpaper.com/Student Notetaking for Recall and Understanding, https://derekbruff.org/?p=2848 Why Use Sketchnotes in the Classroom?, https://derekbruff.org/?p=2902 Mike Sharples’ May 2022 essay on AI in teaching and learning, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/05/17/new-ai-tools-that-can-write-student-essays-require-educators-to-rethink-teaching-and-assessment/ AnswersAi, “School on Easy Mode,” https://answersai.com/ DevinAI, “The First AI Software Engineer,” https://www.cognition.ai/blog/introducing-devin Support the showPodcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.