The Teach Better Podcast

Kevin Gannon is the director of the Center of Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, and he’s also a Professor of History. Many of our listeners may know him from his articles in the Chronicle of Higher Ed or his popular Twitter feed where he writes about teaching, dogs, race, politics, and seemingly whatever else is on his mind. In this episode we dig deep on Kevin’s personal teaching journey and learn how he came to be the teacher he is today and what kind of teacher he aspires to be in the future.

The evidence is clear that when students work actively in the classroom, they learn more. It's also true that most of the classrooms we teach in were designed for a professor to lecture to a group of students that sit passively and take notes. What do classrooms designed for active learning look like? Do students learn more when we teach in active learning classrooms? And what other impacts might teaching in active learning classrooms have on students and instructors? Robert Talbert, a math professor and education researcher at Grand Valley State University, recently took a deep dive into the literature on these questions, and in this episode he shares what he's learned.

Our guest today, Doug Robertson, is one of the best teachers on the planet. He teaches 4th grade at Powell Valley Elementary School outside Portland, Oregon, and you might know him from his multiple interviews and podcasts, his books, his YouTube channel, or maybe his incredibly entertaining Twitter stream. While we usually focus on higher ed on the show, we had a great conversation with Doug about how we apply the fundamental principles of teaching in our respective classrooms.

This fall Doug and Edward both taught classes of their own. In their latest episode, they reflect on their challenges, what they tried, and what they learned.

Jose Vasquez has been teaching economics at the University of Illinois for 14 years. He teaches one of the largest introductory microeconomics classes in the world every semester with more than 900 students. He also teaches one of the biggest intro micro MOOC’s in the world: His Coursera course has had more than 100,000 students register in the last five years. He thinks deeply about how best to use his class time and what he wants students to do outside class. Our conversation covers a wide range as Jose explains what still excites him about teaching and how he got to where he is. Among other things, we talk about the joys of active learning, the importance of motivating our students, and the benefits (and costs) of peer assessment.

Justin Cerenzia teaches history at St George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island. We don’t usually have guests from high schools on the show, but Justin is no ordinary high school teacher. He’s also the director of the school’s teaching center and someone who pays keen attention to research on pedagogy across the board. In this episode we talk to Justin about how teaching methods and ideas being popularized in STEM fields can translate to the humanities.

Outside observers can give instructors valuable formative feedback, and with the right observers and the right instruments, classroom observation can also be a useful (if incomplete) measure of teaching quality. Our guest, Marilyne Stains, teaches in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln where she specializes in chemical and science education. She has used a range of measures of instructor and student behavior in her research and recently co-authored the largest-ever study of STEM teaching practices that analyzed classroom observation data for more than 2,000 classes. In this episode, we discuss the pros and cons of a variety of classroom observation techniques from reliable objective measures like COPUS to completely unstructured note-taking.

Monroe Weber-Shirk has taught engineering at Cornell for 24 years, and in 2005 he started the AguaClara Cornell program where he works closely with local partners, graduate students, and up to 80 undergraduates at a time. Together they develop, implement, and maintain sustainable water treatment facilities in multiple developing countries. It's an incredible model of deeply engaged learning at scale, and in this episode Monroe tells us how it works and how he got here.

Mac Stetzer from the University of Maine Physics Department is an active physics education researcher with lots of experience teaching teachers how to teach physics better. In this episode he shares his lessons learned working with undergraduate learning assistants, graduate student teaching assistants, and teachers at the K-12 level.

Everyone has an opinion about course evaluations, but most of these opinions are based on personal anecdotes and armchair speculation. Our guest in this episode is Betsy Barre, author of several articles reviewing the literature on what's right and what's wrong with course evaluations. Betsy is currently an Associate Director at Rice University's Center for Teaching Excellence, and in May 2018 she will move on to become the Executive Director of the Teaching and Learning Collaborative at Wake Forest University. We cover a lot of ground during our conversation about this important and complex topic.

Andrea Stevenson Won is an assistant professor in the Cornell Communication Department where she directs the Virtual Embodiment Lab. She studies how people communicate in virtual environments and how this differs from other forms of communication. She spends her days working with the latest virtual reality gear and conducting experiments in virtual worlds. She’s also collaborating with physicists to create new ways of teaching using VR. In this episode Andrea talks with us about how virtual reality affects her teaching today and how it could affect all our teaching tomorrow.

Cornell psychologist Robert Sternberg has done seminal work on creativity, wisdom, and cognitive styles. He cares deeply about higher education and teaching, and in this episode we focus on the role of creativity in the classroom. We talk about the importance of creativity in today's labor market, how to measure creativity, and how many students are motivated to learn when they are given an opportunity to be creative.

In this episode we take a walk through our archive and share some amazing examples of extreme teaching. These include college classes in prisons and chapels, incorporating balloons and cotton candy machines into a student project fair, and holding office hours on the radio. If you're new to the podcast or just want to be inspired by feats of pedagogical daring, you're going to love this one.

Laura Gibbs has been teaching mythology and folklore online since 2002 for the University of Oklahoma. For the past five summers, Doug has taught small private online courses (SPOC's) for the Yale Summer Session, and Edward has taught several courses in a variety of online formats. In this episode all three share the lessons they've learned along the way.

Mark Urban-Lurain is the Associate Director for Engineering Education Research at Michigan State University. He's also the Principle Investigator on an NSF-sponsored project developing methods and software for Automated Analysis of Constructed Responses. Open-ended questions force students to think differently than multiple choice questions, but are much harder to grade. In this episode we talk to Mark about how the project uses machine learning to evaluate and analyze free text answers in order to shed new light on student understanding and misconceptions.

Michelle Smith is an Associate Professor in the School of Biology and Ecology at the University of Maine, and she's one of the world's leading discipline-based education researchers. Among many other things, she studies why and how peer discussion works as an effective teaching tool, collaborates with biology teachers in college and high school settings, and develops concept inventories (standard assessments of learning) at the course and program level. In this episode, we talk about the benefits of using concept inventories in your own classes, and Michelle gives advice for finding, creating and/or giving them.

Modeling Instruction (MI) is a curriculum and pedagogy based on the idea that science learning involves creation, use, validation, and revision of conceptual models. Our guest, Eric Brewe, is a physics education researcher at Drexel University who develops, studies, and uses MI in higher education. In this episode, Eric explains what Modeling Instruction is and how it differs from other highly active ways of teaching science. He goes on to share research on how MI increases test scores, reduces drop out, and substantially improves student attitudes toward physics. Eric also tells us how he got started in education research working with the David Hestenes, the creator of modeling instruction.

Teddy Svoronos is a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He’s most well known for his creative use of technology in the classroom, but he's actually someone who thinks about pedagogy first and lets that dictate all of his tech choices. In this episode he tells us how he gives exams where students work independently first, and then teach each other during a collaborative second stage. He also shares some analysis he's done of the results that have encouraged him to increase the amount of collaboration in his classes.

Ileen Devault is a historian in Cornell’s Industrial and Labor Relations school. In this episode she talks with us how about how she shares teaching responsibility with her students by having them lead discussion of topics using primary sources. In the process, they learn about archival research, they bring fresh energy into the classroom, and perhaps most important, they learn to think like historians.

Our guest is Natasha Holmes, an Assistant Professor in the Cornell Physics Department who specializes in physics education research. For the last several years, Natasha has been figuring out ways to increase the amount students learn in science labs. While some students find traditional lab courses to be transformative experiences, many more find them to be mindless recipe following exercises. In this episode, Natasha shares her vision for science labs that get students thinking critically, carefully, and creatively. We also talk about the value of doing educational research in our disciplines.

In this blockbuster finale of #edtechsummer, Edward and Doug invite three experts to share their thoughts on the future of educational technology. Michael Feldstein (e-Literate and Mindwires Consulting) reminds us that technology should serve pedagogy and suggests some sensible criteria we can use to evaluate new products. Matthew Rascoff (Duke Center for Instructional Technology) talks specifically about the future of the Learning Management System (LMS) and the potential for edtech to help students connect with each other. Brian Alexander (independent futurist) steps back to ponder the broader impact of technology on higher education. All in all, this is one of our most thought-provoking episodes.

Edward and Doug discuss several low-tech alternatives to technology products they've discussed in earlier episodes of #edtechsummer. Laminated color-coded cards and Plickers let you poll your class without any student-held electronics. Atiyeh Showrai joins us from the USC French department to talk about their experience creating an e-workbook using just Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. Then Quirine Ketterings (Cornell) shares the role-play game she plays at the end of term in her Whole Farm Nutrient Management class.

Economists study systems where individuals make decisions about buying, selling, and investment, and interesting patterns emerge. As in many disciplines, they teach by developing theory and pointing to examples in the real world, but it’s not always very convincing. Doing simulations and playing games in class lets students participate and see for themselves where the theory does and does not apply. Our guests Bob Gazzale (Toronto) and Matt Olczak (Aston) do this in their classes using three different web platforms: Moblab, economics-games.com, and Veconlab. In this episode they share their experiences with each.

In our latest installment of #edtechsummer we focus on digital textbooks. These products go far beyond simple digital versions of the text, and often include embedded quizzes, smart highlighting, note taking, and interactive figures, all on top of attractive formatting. The big publishers have come a long way in the past few years. In this episode Catherine Medrano (College of the Sequoias) shares her experience teaching with Pearson Revel, Kate Antonovics (UCSD) tells us about McGraw-Hill SmartBook, and Stephanie Thomas (Cornell) explains what she and her students liked (and didn't like) about the Cengage MindTap. Along the way we compare features, pricing, and availability of content.

In our first Summer 2017 edtech episode, we talk about classroom response systems, aka clickers. We're joined by three guests who have each used a different product extensively in their classes. First, Jenny Wissink (Cornell) shares how she uses iClicker to assess students' understanding of pre-class video. Next, Bonni Stachowiak (Vanguard and the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast) explains why and how PollEverywhere gets students engaged. Finally, Susan Reilly (Florida State, Jacksonville) talks about how much fun her students have with Kahoot! Along the way we tell you what tools might be the best fit in different situations and how to get started with each tool.

A.T. Miller has published numerous articles on inclusive and multicultural teaching, and as the Associate Vice Provost for Academic Diversity, he currently directs Cornell's Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives. In this episode we talk with A.T. about the valuable skills and alternative perspectives that non-traditional students bring to the classroom, and what "normal" academic things might not be obvious or comfortable for these students. A.T. shares a whole host practical ways to provide a level playing field to all your students.

Peter Rich, from Cornell's Policy Analysis and Management Department, just finished his first year of college teaching. In this episode we focus on his big undergraduate class: Social Problems in America. Peter generously shares how he prepared, how it went, and what he learned from the experience.

In this episode we are joined by Professor Drew Margolin from the Cornell Communication Department. Drew is an expert on the role of technology in communication and in particular social media. During our wide-ranging conversation he shares his thoughts on the growing importance of social media in our lives and our students' lives, as well as how he uses Twitter to engage students in the classroom.

In this episode we go conceptual and talk about a new way Edward has devised to categorize courses into three distinct types. The first, Interpret-and-Explain is common in the humanities, business schools, and some advanced courses in the social sciences. The second, Explain-and-Predict is the predominant type in the sciences where theories, models, and methods are central. The third type, Plan-and-Create is the primary mode of many arts and engineering courses. We look back at our past episodes for good examples of each, and discuss when and why you might want to teach using a method that's atypical for your discipline. At the end we go meta and try to fit our podcast into this ontology and ruminate on our goals for the podcast.

Walker White has one of the coolest jobs in higher ed. He directs Cornell’s Game Design Initiative, and teaches beginning and advanced game design classes in the computer science department. In this episode we go deep inside Walker's introductory games course for programmers, writers, and artists. He tells us how he organizes his students in heterogeneous teams, gives them copious feedback, and helps each team build a brand new playable game by the end of the semester.

Stephanie Bower and John Murray teach writing at the University of Southern California, and have been co-teaching Writing in the Community for almost 10 years. Their students are matched with community groups where they write essays and research papers, and create short video documentaries about and with community members. The experience is powerful for all involved, and in our conversation John and Stephanie give us the behind the scenes perspective. This is a great episode for anyone who teaches writing or is interested in giving students extra motivation to work on their assignments.

Peter LePage from the Cornell Physics Department joins us on our extra special 50th episode to talk about active learning pedagogy. He shares his first teaching experiences, his introduction to physics education research, and why he believes students benefit from problem solving and discussion in class. We also talk about the Active Learning Inititive, a program Peter started at Cornell that was inspired by Carl Wieman's Science Education Initiave. Both programs aim to change the culture of teaching in higher ed by giving departments large grants to radically overhaul how they teach their undergraduate courses.

We break new ground in this episode as we talk to Dr Anael Alston, the superintendent of schools in Hamilton, NY. He has a master’s and doctorate in education from Columbia, and has worked his way up to his current position, starting as a substitute teacher in the New York state system. Anael shares his inspirational journey and the many things he learned along the way about teaching at all levels.

In this episode we are joined by Steve Pond from the Cornell music department. Steve is an ethnomusicologist and among other things he studies jazz and the musics of the African diaspora. He plays drums with Cornell’s Brazilian music group Deixa Sambar, and he teaches wide range of courses from freshman writing seminars to graduate theory. His teaching style is highly improvisational. He prepares a rich set of topics and supporting materials for each class, but puts them together in a unique blend depending on his audience, mood, the questions that come up that particular day. During our conversation Steve shares many examples of how he mixes technical jargon, vernacular language, and profound ideas in ways that engage today's students.

Our guest in this episode is organizational psychologist David Berg. He has taught in the Yale School of Management and is currently a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Yale School of Medicine. David teaches students new ways to look at how organizations function through examples from their own lives. His classes look far more like organic conversations than traditional lectures, and students rave about how much they learn. We certainly learned a lot in our conversation.

Jon McKenzie is a visiting professor in Cornell University’s English Department and a Dean’s Fellow for Media and Design. He is a teacher, an artist, and a teacher of artists. Jon and his students refuse to be constrained by the traditional academic media of articles and books, and instead work together to communicate ideas using alternative media such as audio, video, zines, and virtual reality environments. Jon has also developed his own pedagogical method which he calls StudioLab. During our conversation, we talk about how he combines elements of seminar classes, lecture classes, studio classes, and computer labs into single action-packed three hour class periods.

In this episode Professor Steven Strogatz joins us from the Cornell Math Department. He is a world-renowned mathematician, known primarily for his work in non-linear dynamics and chaos theory, and he is an award-winning author of Sync, The Calculus of Friendship, and the Joy of x. He also happens to be one of the best teachers at Cornell. During our a wide-ranging conversation, Steve talks with us about helping students discover for themselves the joys and frustrations of mathematical thinking.

In Spring of 2015, Sam Doernberg and Joe DiPietro taught Introduction to Neuroscience to 10 students in the Auburn Correctional Facility in upstate New York as part of the Cornell Prison Education Program. In this episode Sam and Joe tell us the ways in which the class was the same and different from the large lecture version of the class they taught to undergraduates at Cornell. They also share just how rewarding the experience was for all involved.

Our guest in this episode is Professor David Easley from the Cornell Economics and Information Science Departments. David is a world-renowned researcher and he’s long been a champion of interdisciplinary work. Several years ago he created a brand new cross-field class with computer scientist Jon Kleinberg called Networks, Crowds and Markets. It’s been a huge success and more than 600 Cornell students are currently enrolled. It’s been taught by multiple instructors (currently David is teaching with computer scientist Eva Tardos), it’s been picked up by other schools, and David and Jon even turned it into a book. During our conversation David tells us how the course came about, how it was built, how it’s changed over the years.

Bill Goffe teaches economics at Penn State where he is both a consumer and a producer of evidence-based teaching. He is also an Associate Editor at the Journal of Economic Education. In this episode we talk about how to get the most out of the research-based teaching literature, how to use evidence to persuade your colleagues to change how they teach, and how to get started doing your own teaching-related research.

Edward and Doug discuss several challenges they've faced in teaching new classes this semester. Edward needs help motivating online students from 3,000 miles away, while Doug tries to energize students in an early morning econometrics class. Edward's screenwriting class has a lot of moving parts to track, and Doug's juggling in-class activities and short bursts of lecturing. Both of them wrestle with new Learning Management Systems and other technology. There's something for everyone in this episode.

Kim Kenyon is an Associate Director of Cornell University's Center for Teaching Excellence. In this episode she shares with us the many ways teaching centers support faculty from one on one consultations to classroom observations to multi-day workshops to informal Walking on Wednesdays. If you've ever been curious what happens over in that mysterious teaching center at your college, this is the episode for you.

In this episode we are joined by Associate Professor Jeff Niederdeppe from the Cornell Department of Communication. His research focuses on public communication about health and health care, and he teaches classes on planning and implementing communication campaigns as well as undergraduate research methods. Jeff shares with us how he brings his disciplinary skills into the classroom, as well as how and why he makes group projects a big part of his courses.

Sybil Alexandrov is one of the most well-regarded language instructors at Yale. In this episode we talk about her experience teaching heritage speakers, a group that is vulnerable, diverse, and a "challenging opportunity" in the classroom. Among many other things, Sybil shares her strategies for making group projects work and tells us about the Heritage Meets Heritage project where heritage speakers of different languages learn from each other.

In this episode we talk to Associate Professor Andri Smith about how she brings organic chemistry to life at Quinnipiac University by using POGIL:  Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning. Students work in small groups, and discover scientific principles for themselves through guided exercises.

Andrew Metrick is one of the best teachers in the Yale School of Management. In this episode he walks us through exactly how he co-taught a class on the Global Financial Crisis with former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, turned that course into a highly rated Coursera MOOC, and then used those resources to reinvent the in person class. Our conversation is chock full of practical advice for anyone who teaches online or in person.

In the second of a special two-part episode, we continue to reflect on what we've learned from the podcast about nine key questions all faculty face. In this episode we focus on the learner: How do you treat the student? How much choice do you give them? Who is responsible for engagement? Just as in part one, we've included lots of choice quotes from previous guests.

In the first of a special two-part episode, we reflect on what we've learned from the podcast about nine key questions all faculty face. In this episode we focus on the curriculum: what to teach, in what order, and how to adjust the teaching to the learner. We include lots of choice quotes from previous guests, so this is a great starting point for those new to the podcast.

Our guest is Julia Stephens from the Yale History Department and South Asian Studies Program. Julia both teaches and writes about South Asia, Islam, colonialism, family, the law and the Indian diaspora. In just two years at Yale she has built a reputation among the students for being a dynamic and effective lecturer. Julia succeeds by being creative, being open-minded, and most important, being herself.

Bonni Stachowiak teaches courses in business, marketing, leadership, and human resources at Vanguard University of Southern California where many of her students are freshmen. In this episode she talks with us about the issues and opportunities involved with teaching first year students. Bonni also hosts her own podcast, Teaching in Higher Ed, and shares some stories from behind the scenes.

Matt Croasmun directs the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, and teaches a course with the same name in Yale College. Started by Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz, the course helps students engage with a big important question: What is a good life? In an especially wide ranging conversation, we talk with Matt about possible answers, how to go about finding an answer, and the nuts and bolts of teaching such an ambitious class.