In the introduction of Liz Norell (https://olemiss.edu/profiles/eanorell.php)’s new book, The Present Professor: Authenticity and Transformational Teaching (2024), she opens with two statements: “When you cannot be present, you cannot teach effectively” and “What’s good for students is good for us, too.” In this episode, Dr. Norell elaborates on these statements, and examines the importance of presence and authenticity in teaching and learning for both instructors and students. Dr. Norell, who serves as Associate Director of Instructional Support in the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, also shares tools for cultivating self-knowledge, and discusses how they can positively impact teaching. This will be the last episode of Season 9 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning. We will be back in spring 2025 with Season 10. Thank you for listening!

Kristi Rud (https://learning.nd.edu/about/team-bios/kristi-rudenga/)enga (https://learning.nd.edu/about/team-bios/kristi-rudenga/), author of The Chronicle of Higher Education article, “How to Rebuild a Broken Connection With Students (https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-rebuild-a-broken-connection-with-students)” (2024), writes that while intergenerational misunderstanding isn’t anything new, “the tumult of the past five years seems to have supercharged the disconnect between students and faculty members.” In this episode, Dr. Rudenga, Director of the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence at Notre Dame, discusses her article and shares why human connection is essential, both for an instructor’s own job satisfaction and as an important precursor to student learning. Kristi shares practical, simple strategies that instructors can use to help build connections with students.

How can instructors build trust, community, and a sense of belonging with their students to ultimately improve student learning? In today’s episode, we tackle this question with Peter Felten (https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/about-cel/center-staff/peter-felten/), Rachel Forsyth (https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/rachel-forsyth), and Kath Sutherland (https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/kathryn.sutherland), authors of the two recent articles, “Building Trust in the Classroom: A Conceptual Model for Teachers, Scholars, and Academic Developers in Higher Education (https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/TLI/article/view/77047)” and “Expressions of Trust: How University STEM Teachers Describe the Role of Trust in their Teaching (https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/TLI/article/view/78560).” Drs. Felton, Forsyth, and Sutherland share ways that teachers can consciously build trust with their students—a previously under-explored topic—through what they call “trust moves.”

Welcome to Season 9 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning! In this season, with our new host Columbia CTL Executive Director Amanda Irvin (https://ctl.columbia.edu/about/team/amanda-irvin/), we are exploring the dead idea that the world “outside” of the classroom doesn’t or shouldn’t influence the world “inside” the classroom—that students are exclusively intellectual beings when they step across the threshold (physical or virtual) of the classroom space. In our first episode we speak with guest Cate Denial (https://catherinedenial.org/), the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and author of the book A Pedagogy of Kindness (2024). Cate’s new book argues for the strength and capacity instructors and students gain when they meet each other as whole human beings. Dr. Denial discusses her book and shares suggestions for instructors everywhere on how to implement a pedagogy of kindness in their own classrooms. Resource: A Pedagogy of Kindness (2024) by Cate Denial  

In today’s episode, we say a bittersweet goodbye to our wonderful podcast host, Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Executive Director Catherine Ross (https://ctl.columbia.edu/about/team/catherine-ross/), as she will be retiring from Columbia in June. Catherine sits down with Amanda Irvin (https://ctl.columbia.edu/about/team/amanda-irvin/), Senior Director of Faculty Programs and Services here at the Columbia CTL, who will be taking the helm as our next podcast host, starting in the fall 2024 season. Catherine and Amanda reflect on their “favorite” dead ideas and episodes, as well as dead ideas that have yet to be discussed, and how this podcast has impacted our Center’s work internally. We’d like to thank Catherine for her passion and leadership as our podcast host over the past four years, and for her unfailing dedication to changing higher education teaching!This will be the last episode of Season 8 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning. We will be back in fall 2024 with Season 9. Thank you for listening! 

In today’s episode we examine the systemic issues and dead ideas that underlie the hiring and supporting of contingent faculty. We speak with Kerry O’Grady (https://business.columbia.edu/staff/people/kerry-ogrady), Director for Teaching Excellence at the Samberg Institute for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School. Dr. O’Grady discusses some of the “normalized” practices that often leave adjunct instructors with a lack of resources and support for their teaching. She then provides research-based recommendations that can help adjunct faculty feel more valued and empowered, as noted in her letter to the editor (https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/how-to-help-adjuncts-not-want-to-give-up) in The Chronicle of Higher Education, in response to an article titled, “Adjunct Professors Face a ‘Constant Struggle to Not Give Up,’ Report Says (https://www.chronicle.com/article/adjunct-professors-face-a-constant-struggle-to-not-give-up-report-says),” (October 26, 2023). Resources* “Adjunct Professors Face a ‘Constant Struggle to Not Give Up,’ Report Says (https://www.chronicle.com/article/adjunct-professors-face-a-constant-struggle-to-not-give-up-report-says)” (October 26, 2023, The Chronicle of Higher Education) by Amita Chatterjee* “How to Help Adjuncts Not Want to Give Up (https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/how-to-help-adjuncts-not-want-to-give-up)” (November 29, 2023, The Chronicle of Higher Education) by Kerry O’Grady

In this episode of 4 mini-interviews, we ask Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) staff John Foo, Jamie Kim, Rebecca Petitti, and Corey Ptak what’s been on their minds as they go about their work as educational developers. What dead ideas in teaching and learning are they encountering in their day-to-day work with instructors, in their reading and research? What are the underlying systemic issues perpetuating these dead ideas? And how are these developers addressing these challenges? Listen in to hear their responses. Resources* Columbia Science of Learning Research Initiative (SOLER) (https://soler.columbia.edu/)* Columbia Office of the Provost’s Teaching and Learning Grants (https://vptli.columbia.edu/request-for-proposals/)* "The Tyranny of Content: ‘Content Coverage’ as a Barrier to Evidence-Based Teaching Approaches and Ways to Overcome It (https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.19-04-0079)" (Petersen et al., 2020) in CBE—Life Sciences Education* “Facilitating Change in Undergraduate STEM Instructional Practices: An Analytic Review of the Literature (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tea.20439)” Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, 2011) in Journal of Research in Science Teaching * “Four Categories of Change Strategies for Undergraduate STEM (https://ascnhighered.org/ASCN/change_theories/collection/four_quadrants.html)” (Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, 2011) in Accelerating Systemic Change in STEM Higher Education * “Chemistry and Racism: A Special Topics Course for Students Taking General Chemistry at Barnard College in Fall 2020” (Babb & Austin, 2022) in Journal of Chemical Education * CTL Teaching Transformations Reflection from Rachel Narehood Austin

In this episode, we continue this season’s examination of graduate education, now looking into how institutions often overlook the need for preparing faculty to teach graduate students and graduate courses. We unpack the dead ideas that underlie this neglect with Leonard Cassuto (https://www.fordham.edu/academics/departments/english/faculty/leonard-cassuto/), professor of English at Fordham University, and author of The Chronicle of Higher Education article “Why is There No Training on How to Teach Graduate Students? (https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-is-there-no-training-on-how-to-teach-graduate-students)” (May 8, 2023).

In this episode, we continue the conversation from our last episode on the topic of teaching development in doctoral education—this time from the student perspective! With co-host Caitlin DeClercq, Senior Assistant Director of Graduate Student Programs and Services at the Columbia CTL, we are joined by Columbia doctoral students Anirbaan Banerjee, Sara Jane Samuel, and Anwesha Sengupta. They share their experiences, thoughts, and advice on all things teaching development in doctoral education.

Welcome back to Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning! In our first episode of Season 8, we speak with Drs. Benjamin Rifkin, Rebecca Natow, Nicholas Salter, and Shayla Shorter about their article in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “Why Doctoral Programs Should Require Courses on Pedagogy (https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-doctoral-programs-should-require-courses-on-pedagogy)” (March 16, 2023). Drs. Rifkin, Natow, Salter, and Shorter make the case for paying far more attention to developing teaching skills in doctoral programs. They share research they conducted to examine the “disconnect between what we are trained to do in graduate school and what we are expected to do in the college classroom,” and offer four next steps to better prepare Ph.D.s to teach. Benjamin Rifkin is Professor of Russian and Interim Provost at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rebecca Natow is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, and Director of the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies program at Hofstra University, Nicholas Salter is Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Hofstra University, and Shayla Shorter is a Clinical Collaborative Librarian and Assistant Curator for the Medical Library at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Resource* “Why Doctoral Programs Should Require Courses on Pedagogy (https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-doctoral-programs-should-require-courses-on-pedagogy)” (March 16, 2023, Chronicle of Higher Education) by Benjamin Rifkin, Rebecca Natow, Nicholas Salter, and Shayla Shorter

While there is extensive research on the use of student surveys in the evaluation of teaching, the recommended practices are often not utilized. How does this negatively impact innovation in teaching? How do these evaluations perpetuate bias against women and faculty of color? What can we do about it? Today we tackle these questions with Joanna Wolfe (https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/about-us/faculty/bios/joanna-wolfe.html), Teaching Professor of English and Affiliated Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, who wrote the January 2022 Inside Higher Ed article, “Let’s Stop Relying on Biased Teaching Evaluations (https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2022/01/21/teaching-evaluations-reflect-colleges-commitment-diversity-opinion).” Dr. Wolfe offers three helpful strategies that universities can implement to mitigate some of the potential harm that student evaluations can cause.  This is our final episode of Season 7 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning! We will be back in January 2024 with Season 8, continuing to unpack systems and systemic changes that are needed to improve higher ed teaching and student learning! Happy Holidays to all of our listeners!Resources* “Let’s Stop Relying on Biased Teaching Evaluations (https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2022/01/21/teaching-evaluations-reflect-colleges-commitment-diversity-opinion)” by Joanna Wolfe (January 2022, Inside Higher Ed)

Josh Eyler (https://cetl.olemiss.edu/about/contacts/#:~:text=ejdonaho%40olemiss.edu-,Josh%20Eyler,-Director%20of%20CETL), author and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, recently posted (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joshua-eyler-88583338_ai-means-professors-need-to-raise-their-grading-activity-7107753567318364160-4e2Z/) a rebuttal on LinkedIn to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, in which he wrote, “Grade inflation is a monster that is often trotted out by folks who wish that grades were objective, accurate measures for both learning and rigor in the course. They're neither.” Today we speak with Josh to unpack this provocative quote and other persistent dead ideas around grading and grade inflation.Resources* LinkedIn post (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joshua-eyler-88583338_ai-means-professors-need-to-raise-their-grading-activity-7107753567318364160-4e2Z/) by Josh Eyler* How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective College Teaching (West Virginia University Press, 2018) by Josh Eyler* “A Century of Grading Research (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0034654316672069): Meaning and Value in the Most Common Educational Measure (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0034654316672069)” in Review of Educational Research (2016) by Susan Brookhart et al.  * Forthcoming book: Scarlet Letters: How Grades are Harming Children and Young Adults, and What We Can Do about It (Johns Hopkins University Press) by Josh Eyler

How can we improve teaching AND support all the instructors who teach science courses for undergraduates? Today we discuss this question with Marielena DeSanctis (https://www.ccd.edu/directory/dr-marielena-desanctis), President of the Community College of Denver, and Cassandra Volpe Horii (https://profiles.stanford.edu/cassandra-horii), Associate Vice Provost for Education and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University, who are co-authors of the article titled, “An Instructional-Workforce Framework for Coordinated Change in Undergraduate Education (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00091383.2023.2151809)” (2023). Drs. DeSanctis and Volpe Horii discuss their framework—based on principles of justice, equity, and inclusion—which proposes treating all instructors (Visiting, Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Adjunct, Teaching Professor, TT/Tenured, Lecturer) as a unified workforce. Using the levers of governance, professional development, and reward systems, they offer institutions a path to significant improvement in the teaching of undergraduate science courses. Resource* “An Instructional-Workforce Framework for Coordinated Change in Undergraduate Education (https://ctl.columbia.edu/files/2023/10/An-Instructional-Workforce-Framework-for-Coordinated-Change-in-Undergraduate-Education-1.pdf)” (February 1, 2023) by Mark Lee, Cassandra Volpe Horii, Ann E. Austin, Leanne Avery, Marielena DeSanctis, Noah Finkelstein, Emily Miller & Barbara Schaal in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, a question was posed by journalist Beth McMurtrie as to whether or not institutions of higher education truly value teaching (https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/teaching/2023-07-06), and she offered a list of “red flags” that signal the undervaluing of teaching. In response, Michelle Miller (https://www.michellemillerphd.com/), Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University, wrote a post (https://michellemillerphd.substack.com/p/bonus-post-is-your-ihe-truly-teaching) in her “R3 Newsletter,” adding to McMurtrie’s list of red flags and offering her own. In this podcast episode, Dr. Miller discusses her list, which can be reverse engineered to serve as a helpful starting point for those who want to change the institutional culture around teaching at their university. Resources* “Teaching: Does higher education value good teaching?” (https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/teaching/2023-07-06) (July 6, 2023) by Beth McMurtrie in The Chronicle of Higher Education * “Bonus post: Is your IHE truly teaching-focused?” (https://michellemillerphd.substack.com/p/bonus-post-is-your-ihe-truly-teaching) (July 11, 2023) by Michelle Miller in R3 Newsletter* Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology (2014) by Michelle Miller* Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World (2022) by Michelle Miller

Over the past few months, Cynthia Alby (https://www.gcsu.edu/education/teached/faculty-staff#:~:text=Image-,Dr.%20Cynthia%20Alby,-GC%20Journeys), Professor of Teacher Education at Georgia College, has been focused on developing practical solutions in teaching and learning in response to the sudden emergence of generative AI. Through this work, she has realized that AI has, in one fell swoop, rendered an entire constellation of dead ideas in teaching and learning officially obsolete. The ideas that she has advocated for throughout her career, and in the book she co-authored, Learning That Matters: A Field Guide to Course Design for Transformative Education (2020), are becoming increasingly essential, and she believes that change is imminent. In this episode, Dr. Alby discusses why she believes AI will be the catalyst for the extinction of four big dead ideas in teaching and learning and how that will happen. Resources*  Learning That Matters: A Field Guide to Course Design for Transformative Education (2020) by Cynthia Alby, Karynne Kleine, Julia Metzker, and Caralyn Zehnder* Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI: Considerations, Resources, and Opportunities (https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/teaching-learning-ai/) from the Columbia CTL

Have Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) actually created change in higher education teaching? Have they been able to demonstrate this change? How have their strategies evolved and how are they connecting with institutional priorities for larger scale changes? Today we speak with Mary Wright (https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/about/people/staff/mary-wright), Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning at Brown University and author of the newly released book, Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape of Higher Education (2023), for which she surveyed over 1,200 CTLs in universities across the U.S. In this episode, Dr. Wright helps answer these questions and dispels other dead ideas about CTLs. Resource* Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape of Higher Education (2023) by Mary Wright, published through JHUPress (https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12966/centers-teaching-and-learning). Use promo code HCTL23 in the check-out for a discount (active through 7/7/24). 

In our final episode of Season 6, we speak with two undergraduate Columbia University students, Emily Glover and Kyle Gordon, who serve as Teaching and Learning Consultants as part of our Center’s Students as Pedagogical Partners initiative (https://ctl.columbia.edu/faculty/sapp/). Through the initiative, Emily and Kyle have immersed themselves in the research on teaching and learning, broadening their understanding of how learning works, and of the many pervasive dead ideas in higher education. In this episode, they reflect on how this knowledge has changed them as learners, including how they think about student engagement, assessment, learning styles, and the benefits of being “uncomfortable” while learning.  

How can instructors use research on teaching and learning to create change and tackle challenges in their courses? What can learning analytics tell us about student engagement and motivation in our courses? In this episode, we ask Samantha Garbers (https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/profile/samantha-garbers-phd), Associate Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, with guest host Adam Brown (https://provost.columbia.edu/people/adam-s-brown), Program Director of Columbia’s Science of Learning Research Initiative (https://soler.columbia.edu/) (SOLER). Professor Garber received a Provost's SOLER Seed Grant to work with Dr. Brown to explore how students are engaging (or not!) with course materials and resources.

Tara Harvey (https://www.truenorthintercultural.com/collaboration), Founder of True North Intercultural, defines Intercultural Competence as “the capacity to communicate and act appropriately, effectively, and authentically across cultural differences, both locally and globally.” In this episode, Dr. Harvey discusses how the research behind intercultural learning is unknown by many. She explains why intercultural development is so important in higher education, especially nowadays, for both faculty and students, and how it can be taught. Resources* True North Intercultural Resources (https://www.truenorthintercultural.com/resources)* The Intercultural Development Continuum (https://idiinventory.com/generalinformation/the-intercultural-development-continuum-idc/)* Education in a VUCA-driven World: Salient Features of an Entrepreneurial Pedagogy (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23476311221108808) (2022) by Varghese Panthalookaran

How should we educate students on the science of learning? Does this require systemic change? And do faculty have a moral obligation to teach students the processes necessary to succeed in college, in addition to the content in our fields? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Todd (https://www.med.unc.edu/fammed/directory/todd-d-zakrajsek-phd/)Zakrajsek (https://www.med.unc.edu/fammed/directory/todd-d-zakrajsek-phd/), Associate Professor at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Director of the International Teaching Learning Cooperative, and author of The New Science of Learning, 3rd Edition (2022), a book for students on the science of learning. Resources* The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony With Your Brain, 3rd Edition (2022) by Todd D. Zakrajsek* Teaching At Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, 5th Edition (2023) by Todd D. Zakrajsek and Linda B. Nilson