52 episodes

Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning is a podcast from the Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning. Our mission is to encourage instructors, students, and leaders in higher education to reflect on what they believe about teaching and learning.

Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning

    • Education
    • 5.0 • 20 Ratings

Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning is a podcast from the Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning. Our mission is to encourage instructors, students, and leaders in higher education to reflect on what they believe about teaching and learning.

    Notes from the Field: Dead Ideas from Columbia CTL Educational Developers

    Notes from the Field: Dead Ideas from Columbia CTL Educational Developers

    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

    • 36 min
    Why is There No Training on How to Teach Graduate Students? with Leonard Cassuto

    Why is There No Training on How to Teach Graduate Students? with Leonard Cassuto

    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).

    • 31 min
    Teaching Development in Doctoral Education: Let’s Ask the Grad Students!

    Teaching Development in Doctoral Education: Let’s Ask the Grad Students!

    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.

    • 30 min
    Teaching Development in Doctoral Education: Where, When, and How?

    Teaching Development in Doctoral Education: Where, When, and How?

    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

    • 36 min
    Let’s Stop Relying on Biased Teaching Evaluations with Joanna Wolfe

    Let’s Stop Relying on Biased Teaching Evaluations with Joanna Wolfe

    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)

    • 29 min
    Ready to Find Out What Research Tells Us about Grading and Grade Inflation? Buckle Up! with Josh Eyler

    Ready to Find Out What Research Tells Us about Grading and Grade Inflation? Buckle Up! with Josh Eyler

    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

    • 36 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
20 Ratings

20 Ratings

Tinymenace ,

Inspiring and Thoughtful

As a regular listener, I find the topics that are covered and the speakers who are invited reflect up-to-the-moment concerns in the state of teaching and learning in higher education. The guests—especially students—always elicit new thoughts and stimulate new ideas to eclipse those pernicious “dead” ones. This is definitely worth a regular listen if you are a faculty member, administrator, or graduate student who is involved in teaching and learning in a higher education context.

nyc jloo ,

Well-curated content on teaching and learning

As someone who is a life long learner and who aspires to be the best teacher I can be, these podcasts are inspiring.

mindofmoser ,

Great theme

Wonderful theme for an education podcast. It’s great to see CTL director go out and share her expertise and find great guests.

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