Tea for Teaching

Complaints about student writing are embedded in faculty conversations across disciplines. What if the issues with student writing, though, are not their fault, but ours instead? In this episode, Allison Rank and  Heather Pool join us to share suggestions about writing better writing prompts that provide student with explicit expectations.  Allison Rank is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Oswego and Dr. Heather Pool is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Denison University.  A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Do your students arrive in your classes with diverse educational backgrounds? Does a one-size-fits-all instructional strategy leave some students struggling and others bored? Charles Dziuban joins us in this episode to discuss how adaptive learning systems can help provide all of our students with a personalized educational path that is based on their own individual needs. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Learning is hard work. The most commonly used study techniques often provoke the illusion of knowing. David Parisian, a member of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at SUNY-Oswego joins us in this episode to discuss how he helps students overcome their misperceptions by introducing them to the science of learning. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.  

Does reality sometimes fall short of your expectations? Perhaps it’s time to augment your reality. In this episode, Renee Stevens joins us to discuss the creation and use of augmented and virtual reality experiences that can increase our productivity, overcome cultural and language barriers, and provide a richer learning environment. Renee is an award-winning Interactive and Motion Designer and Assistant Professor and Associate Chair of Design at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. In addition to teaching, Renee also runs her own design studio, is an exclusive designer for Minted and the co-director of education for the upstate New York Chapter of AIGA, the Professional Association for Design. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.  

You might think you have a heavy course load. Imagine being the instructor of record for approximately 5,000 students in a semester. In this episode, Dr. Kristina Mitchell, a faculty member and director of the online education program for the Political Science Department at Texas Tech, joins us again to discuss the design, organization, and management of high-enrollment online introductory political science courses. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.  

Dr. David Eubanks created a bit of a stir in the higher ed assessment community with a November 2017 Intersection article critiquing common higher education assessment practices. This prompted a discussion that moved beyond the assessment community to a broader audience as a result of articles in the New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed. In today's podcast, Dr Eubanks joins us to discuss how assessment can help improve student learning and how to be more efficient and productive in our assessment activities. Dr. Eubanks is the Assistant Vice President for Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness at Furman University and Board Member of the Association for the Assessment of Learning and Higher Education. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Linley Melhem, director of an international TA program and applied linguist, discusses using service learning in master’s applied linguistics. Small grad teams partner with faculty to convert face-to-face language courses to hybrid formats. Topics include flipped activities, grad students as instructional partners, project management, tools like Flipgrid, and building professional communication and civic awareness.

Have you ever received comments in student evaluations that focus on your appearance, your personality, or competence? Do students refer to you as teacher or an inappropriate title, like Mr. or Mrs., rather than professor? For some, this may sound all too familiar. Kristina Mitchell, a Political Science Professor from Texas Tech University, joins us in this episode to discuss her research exploring gender bias in student course evaluations. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Looking for ways to increase student confidence in their ability to learn? Or their ability to see themselves as professionals in the field? In this episode, Carly Tribulli, a Biology Professor at SUNY-Farmingdale, joins us to discuss how comics may be created and used to meet students where they’re at, draw them in, and help them develop mental models of complicated processes and concepts. We discuss Carly's plans to create an OER biology textbook in which biological processes are represented using comic strips, her planned research on the effectiveness of instructional use of comics, as well the positive role model that she provides in Carly's Adventures in Waspland, an instructional comic that Carly created for the American Museum of Natural History during her graduate study there. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Does teaching a course with a team of three instructors across two continents seem like an impossible task? Now imagine that same course examining how the boundaries between humans and machines are increasingly blurred? In this episode, Damian Schofield joins us to discuss an interdisciplinary intercontinental collaboration in which students from opposite sides of the globe examine what it means to be human. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.