Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.In the summer of 2020, the Oregon State University Ecampus launched a research seminar that gathered educational researchers from around the world who were curious about the role of synchronous instructor presence in online courses. After all, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most online education was asynchronous. How important were all those Zoom meetings for student learning, really?  Today on the podcast, I welcome three members of that research group who are presenting their findings at the Distance Teaching & Learning Conference hosted by UPCEA, the University Professional and Continuing Education Association, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My guests are Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, director of the Ecampus research unit at Oregon State; Enoch Park, senior instructional designer and online learning specialist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and Lidija Krebs-Lazendic, lecturer in psychology at the University of New South Wales in Australia.These three represent a group that conducted an extensive meta-analysis of the existing literature about online learning, looking for studies that examined the role of synchronous instructor presence in online courses. Spoiler alert: They didn’t find much! So if you’re looking for an answer to this big question about synchronous instructor presence, you won’t hear it. But we do have a great conversation about the question itself, their research methods, and what advice they have for others engaged in educational research. Episode Resources:Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/staff/bio/dellostm.htmEnoch Park, https://professional.charlotte.edu/directory/enoch-parkLidija Krebs-Lazendic, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lidija-krebs-lazendic-3a4a8323/?originalSubdomain=au Distance Teaching & Learning (DT&L) and Summit for Online Leadership and Administration + Roundtable (SOLA+R), https://conferences.upcea.edu/DTL-SOLAR2023/ Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.If you’ve taught in higher education for any length of time, you’ve probably had one or more students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, better known as ADHD, in your courses. You might not have known it, however, since some students with ADHD haven’t been diagnosed yet and some choose not to disclose it to their instructors. This type of neurodivergence can be a little invisible to instructors, which is why it’s important we learn more about it and how we can design and teach courses that support these students.Cathryn Friel knows a lot about teaching students with ADHD. Catt is a senior instructional designer at Missouri Online, and she completed her PhD last year with a qualitative study examining the experiences of students with ADHD in online courses. I reached out to Catt to learn more about her study and her own experiences as a student with ADHD. I learned a lot from our conversation about how students with ADHD experience and cope with college courses and about how instructors can make their courses, especially their online courses, more welcoming to neurodiverse students.Episode Resources:·       “Experiences of students with ADHD in online learning environments: A multi-case study,” Cathryn Friel, https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/91567 ·       “What I wish my instructor knew: How active learning influences the classroom experiences and self-advocacy of STEM majors with ADHD and specific learning disabilities,” Mariel Pfeifer, Julio Cordero, and Julie Dangremond Stanton, https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe.21-12-0329 ·       “Supporting ADHD Learners with Karen Costa,” Teaching in Higher Ed podcast ep. 384, https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/supporting-adhd-learners/ ·       Distance Teaching & Learning (DT&L) and Summit for Online Leadership and Administration + Roundtable (SOLA+R), https://conferences.upcea.edu/DTL-SOLAR2023/  Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.Robert Talbert and David Clark are both mathematics faculty members at Grand Valley State University and authors of the forthcoming book Grading for Growth. They are both incredibly thoughtful and effective teachers who share their experiences, insights, and advice widely. Their new book based on dozens of case studies from instructors across the disciplines who are questioning some of the assumptions baked into higher education and finding better ways to assess students—and to help them grow.In our conversation, we discuss some of the problems with traditional grading systems, the ways that teaching college students is not like competitive gymnastics, the four pillars of alternative grading that Robert and David inferred from their case studies, and strategies for putting those pillars into practice. I also ask them if maybe it’s possible to not hate grading so much? Episode ResourcesGrading for Growth (Routledge, 2023), https://www.routledge.com/Grading-for-Growth-A-Guide-to-Alternative-Grading-Practices-that-Promote/Clark-Talbert/p/book/9781642673814Grading for Growth blog, https://gradingforgrowth.com/Robert Talbert's website, https://rtalbert.org/David Clark's website, https://sites.google.com/mail.gvsu.edu/clarkdav/ Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.Correspondence courses. Night classes. Extension schools. Distance education. Continuing education. Professional education. There’s always been a lot happening in higher education for working adults outside the traditional residential undergraduate experience. And for the last couple of decades, those areas of higher education have increasingly moved online. Three years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic greatly accelerated the growth of online education, both for working adults and for traditionally aged college students.To get a better handle on the changes in online education caused by the pandemic, I reached out to a couple folks who know online education well. Robert Hansen is the chief executive officer of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association, better known as UPCEA, and Julie Uranis is the senior vice president for online and strategic initiatives at UPCEA. UPCEA is a professional association for higher education faculty and staff who are involved in professional, continuing, and online education, and Bob and Julie been busy the last few years helping their members adapt to higher education’s new landscape.During our conversation, we talk about UPCEA's mission and how its work has changed over time, the state of online education as we leave the COVID-19 pandemic, the changing role of online program managers (OPMs) in higher ed, and UPCEA's summer conference, which is actually two conferences combined.Episode Resources:·       UPCEA, https://upcea.edu/ ·       Distance Teaching & Learning (DT&L) and Summit for Online Leadership and Administration + Roundtable (SOLA+R), https://conferences.upcea.edu/DTL-SOLAR2023/ ·       “Guidance on outsourcing spurs anxiety about ‘collateral damage,’” in which Inside Higher Ed covers the Dear Colleague Letter about online program managers (OPMs), https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/02/28/amid-pushback-us-delays-guidance-outsourcing Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.In her 2022 book Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology, Michelle D. Miller writes about the "moral panics" that often happen in response to new technologies. In his 2013 book Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, James M. Lang argues that the best way to reduce cheating is through better course design. What do these authors have to say about teaching in an age of generative AI tools like ChatGPT? Lots!I asked Jim and Michelle on the podcast to discuss generative AI from their different perspectives, and the three of us had a wide-ranging conversation about how faculty and other instructors might respond to these new tools. Michelle is a professor of psychological sciences at Northern Arizona University and a prolific writer and speaker on teaching and learning in higher ed. Jim is a former professor of English at Assumption College and also a prolific writer and speaker on teaching and learning in higher ed. In the conversation, they raise some important questions for educators to consider this summer as we retool courses and assignments for the fall to account for AI technology.Episode ResourcesJames M. Lang's website, https://www.jamesmlang.com/Michelle D. Miller's website, https://www.michellemillerphd.com/ Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, https://amzn.to/3q8Lxr8Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology, https://amzn.to/431YEcj Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.On today’s podcast, I talk with the authors of a new book that can help college teachers better understand their students as whole people, while also providing lots of advice for instructors who want to better support their students’ learning. Robert Eaton and Bonnie Moon are authors, along with Steven Hunsaker, of Improving Learning and Mental Health in the College Classroom, the latest in West Virginia University Press’s Teaching and Learning in Higher Education series edited by James Lang and Michelle Miller. Rob Eaton is a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University-Idaho, and Bonnie Moon is a professor of mathematics, also at BYU-Idaho. Rates of anxiety and depression among college students are higher than they’ve ever been, and Rob and Bonnie share lots of strategies in our conversation for instructors who don’t want to make learning harder than it needs to be for their students. As Rob says near the end of the conversation, “Not every difficulty is desirable.” Rob and Bonnie have talked to a lot of students about their learning experiences in college, and the two of them have very practical advice for designing courses and assignments with compassion and respect for students. Episode Resources:·       Improving Learning and Mental Health in the College Classroom by Robert Eaton, Steven Hunsaker, and Bonnie Moon, https://wvupressonline.com/node/920·       The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens after High School, by Tim Clydesdale, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo5298911.html Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.Since November 2022, higher education has been trying to wrap its collective mind around the advent of AI text generators like ChatGPT. For those of us who teach courses where we might ask students to respond to a prompt by writing a short essay, ChatGPT and similar tools certainly seem to provide students a way out of doing that writing themselves.However, our colleagues who teach computer science and computer programming often ask their students to write computer code in respond to a prompt. As it turns out, there are a number of generative AI tools that pre-date ChatGPT that can pretty much answer any coding question you might ask a student in a first- or second-semester programming class. This means that computer science education has had a bit more time to figure out how to respond to new AI tools that can short circuit the learning process for their students. In this episode, I talk with Brett Becker, assistant professor at University College Dublin in the School of Computer Science. He has co-authored at least two papers on the use of AI code generation tools in computer science education, and he is deep in these discussions in his field.In our conversation, Brett explores how new AI tools are leading computer science educators to rethink their learning goals, their assessments, and how they teach their students the ethics of computer programming. There are a lot of lessons here for educators in other fields figuring out what to do with AI tools! Episode Resources:Brett Becker's website, https://www.brettbecker.com/"Programming Is Hard--Or At Least It Used to Be: Educational Opportunities and Challenges of AI Code Generation," co-authored by Brett Becker, https://www.brettbecker.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/becker2023programming.pdf"'It's Weird That It Knows What I Want': Usability and Interactions with Copilot for Novice Programmers," co-authored by Brett Becker, https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02491 Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.Picture a calculus textbook. You’re probably picturing a hardback book an inch and a half thick, full of mathematical notation. The traditional calculus textbook can be intimidating for students, like five and a half pounds of pure confusion.On today’s episode, I’m excited to share a conversation with two mathematics faculty at the College of Charleston: Amy Langville, professor of mathematics, and Kathryn Pedings-Behling, adjunct instructor of mathematics. Amy and Kathryn have designed a very different calculus textbook which they call Deconstruct Calculus. It’s one part textbook, one part journal, and part activity book, and I’ve never seen anything like it in higher ed. Amy and Kathryn share the inspiration for Deconstruct Calculus, the activities and visual design the book uses to engage students and help them learn, and teaching principles from Deconstruct Calculus that can apply to any discipline. Episode Resources:·       Deconstruct Calculus, https://www.deconstructcalc.com/ ·       Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith, https://kerismith.squarespace.com/books ·       Small Teaching by James Lang, https://www.jamesmlang.com/books ·       Leading Lines interview with Remi Kalir about annotation, https://leadinglinespod.com/uncategorized/episode-114remi-kalir/   Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.On today’s podcast, I’m happy to share a roundtable discussion with three faculty who teach introductory biology courses using a non-traditional model. All three teach what is called studio-style biology, where the lecture and lab portions are not just coordinated, but actually integrated into the same time and space. The course might meet two hours at a shot three times a week, which each class session featuring a mix of mini-lectures and wet lab activities. My guests are Scott Chirhart, professor and chair of biology at Centenary College; Robbie Bear, senior instructor in biology at Kansas State University; and Justin Shaffer, teaching associate professor in chemical and biological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Their approaches to studio-style biology are all a little different, and I was glad I could get all three of them on together to compare and contrast their courses.My three guests have lots to share with anyone interested in how a department can put together an introductory course with lots of moving pieces and a strong emphasis on active learning.Episode Resources:Scott Chirhart’s faculty page, https://www.centenary.edu/academics/departments-schools/biology/biology-department-faculty/Robbie Bear’s faculty page, https://www.k-state.edu/biology/about/people/faculty/bear/Justin Shaffer’s faculty page, https://chemeng.mines.edu/project/shaffer-justin/Studio biology at Kansas State, https://www.k-state.edu/biology/pob/index.html Assessment of the effectiveness of the studio format in introductory undergraduate biology [at Kansas State] by Montelone, Rintoul, & Williams (2017), https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.06-09-0193Improving exam performance in introductory biology through the use of preclass reading guides [at Colorado School of Mines] by Lieu, Wong, Asefirad, & Shaffer (2017), https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.16-11-0320 Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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 massage.Eric Detweiler is an associate professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University and the director of the public writing and rhetoric program at MTSU. When I saw that Eric had a new book out called Responsible Pedagogy: Moving Beyond Authority and Mastery in Higher Education, I knew I wanted to talk with him here on the podcast.In the interview, Eric shares the motivation for the book, the problems he sees with the notions of authority and mastery in higher education, and how not to teach about thesis statements. Oh, and we talk about ChatGPT, the AI text generator, because it’s unavoidable. Episode Resources:Eric Detweiler’s website, https://rheteric.org/Responsible Pedagogy: Moving Beyond Authority and Mastery in Higher Education, https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09343-7.html Rhetoricity, Eric’s podcast, https://rhetoricity.libsyn.com/ @EricSDet on Twitter, https://twitter.com/EricSDet  Podcast Links: Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe 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.