Bonni: [00:00:00] Today on episode number 150 I celebrate 150 episodes by welcoming former guests and members of the teaching in higher ed community to make recommendations. The whole show it’s all recommendations. It’s going to be great.

Production Credit: [00:00:16] Produced by Innovate Learning. Maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:25] Welcome to this episode of teaching in higher ed. I’m Bonni and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our personal productivity so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:53] It’s an all recommendations episode to celebrate 150 episodes of teaching in higher ed. I was planning on having my husband Dave to the actor who’s been on the show many times before. Me.

Bonni: [00:01:07] And let’s just say that right now we’re a little bit like two ships crossing in the night. He is teaching this evening and we’ve kind of been popping back and forth as I look to end my semester and things do get a little nutty and then I thought wow I’ll go get our son and he can welcome you into the episode and wouldn’t that be fun to celebrate 150 episodes.

Bonni: [00:01:27] So I went outside and apparently he is sleeping up a storm. Super tired. So it’s me it’s me but actually I’m “joined” by many former podcast guests and members of the teaching and higher ed community. We’re not recording this live but I do have recordings from them of things that they wanted to recommend to you the listening audience. So let’s get started first off with this recommendation from James Lang who’s been on the show a couple of times now and most recently he interviewed Ken Bain the author of what the best college teachers do. And James Lang is author of most recently small teaching. Here we go, James. Take it away with your recommendation.

James Lang: [00:02:11] Hi, Bonni. Congratulations on the 150th episode of the teaching and higher ed podcast. It’s been a really wonderful community that you’ve created for many of us in higher education. I know personally I have learned so much from all of the experts that you had on the show and actually introduced me to a lot of people whose work I never would have heard of otherwise. So thanks for putting together this wonderful resource.

James Lang: [00:02:33] The recommendation I always make first and foremost to people about teaching and learning in higher education is can be is What the Best College Teachers Do. For me it still remain the gold standard book on higher education which combines Ken’s long term study of really effective college teachers with research on how people learn he knows to sort of lines of research together kind of led to some conclusions which I think can be really profound for faculty members to consider and really help them think about the kind of learning environments that they want to create for their students. So my recommendation is What the Best College Teachers Do. And congratulations once again.

Bonni: [00:03:13] It’s so fun for me to look back on these past almost three years and think about having read what the best college teachers do. Such a long time ago when I first started my teaching career in higher ed back 13, 14 years ago. And just to imagine that I was able to be connected with Ken Bain and have him on the show a few times he’s such a generous person and yet he’s just a legacy person too with what he has given us over all of these years and what a great recommendation. Thanks so much James for recommending that book. I also join you in that recommendation and it’s so fun to be connected with Ken Bain and have had him on the show in the past as well. A person who I have not been too much connected with but was really excited to get her message is our next recommendation and I’ll talk a little bit more about her because I’ve been getting lost in a good way and all the resources that she has. But let me let me move on to our next recommendation from Beth.

Beth Cougler-Blom: [00:04:15] Hi Bonni. My name is Beth Cougler-Blom and I live in Victoria British Columbia. I’d like to recommend the learning how to learn course from Coursera with the wonderful Barbara Oakley. I took this course last fall on my own through Coursera mostly from my iPhone and I just loved it. There was a lot of new research being drawn into that course about how our brains work and how we can design to help people learn. So I thought you’d enjoy it. You may have already heard about it. Happy 150th episode. I’ve been really enjoying listening to your podcast recently. All the best.

Bonni: [00:04:52] Beth, it is so nice to be connected with you. And one of the fortuitous things I’m so glad that I saw on your blog is actually something I would like to take a moment and recommend and that is to check out your posts on your experiments with Facebook live. You wrote a couple of blog posts about that and I love that you just experimented and dove right in. I watched your Facebook live video and you were so authentic you were credible and yet at the same time when you had a little trouble figuring out where the comments were and things like that you just didn’t show any sort of awkward nervousness. Instead it was like a playful person who experimenting with something that you could find use with in your work and in your teaching. And I just loved that you modeled that for us. And I’m actually going to be doing my first Facebook live video not necessarily related specifically to the podcast but with my students. I’m teaching consumer behavior this semester and I have decided that on April the 19th which will be before this will have aired so maybe I’ll even have a link to post in the show notes. Who knows?

Bonni: [00:05:58] By the time it comes to that but the students I’ve blogged about this before are doing poster sessions again and I thought what a nice addition to be able to welcome in some alumni and other business professionals who may not be able to show up to the event but might like to interact in that way so I have a couple of students who will be our hosts for my first Facebook live event and it was really fun to come across Beth’s posts about her experimentation with that as well. And you really inspired me to do something specific to the podcast after I experiment.

Bonni: [00:06:30] I feel like I’ll be ready to go and give it a whirl and I appreciate how you reduced my nervousness about it. That whole feeling of What if no one shows up and what’s it going to be like I think just kind of have to dive in and really go for it and live video is becoming so popular and a really good way to get some participation with one’s audience so thank you for that encouragement. And Beth wrote a really kind post about the podcast. Well she recommended actually a couple of podcasts and down at the bottom. She said she had recently discovered teaching in higher ed and one of the things she said which I really really liked was that I seemed like the kind of person that she’d like to have coffee with. I do have a little bit of bad news. I do not drink coffee can’t stand it at all really really really don’t like it. But ice tea is my thing so hopefully someday Beth will be able to sit down with iced tea and coffee in hand and really connect do you seem like someone I’d like to have ice tea. There you go. Thank you so much for the recommendation Beth and I’m so glad to be connected with you I subscribe to your blog posts I’ll be able to read those in side of my RSS reader.

Bonni: [00:07:37] I really appreciate being connected and it looks like a great course that your recommended Coursera’s learning how to learn and I’ll definitely check that out as well. Our next recommendation is coming from a former guest and someone I am so pleased to be connected with. Not only was she a wonderful resource in terms of when she was on the podcast in the past but she just continues to be so.

Bonni: [00:08:01] And so here is a recommendation from Isabeau.

Isabeau Iqbal: [00:08:05] Hi Bonni. This is Isabeau Iqbal, calling from Vancouver, British Columbia. And my recommendation is a Web site called Fitness Blender. I love exercising and it’s part of my daily routine but I can’t always get to the gym. And sometimes it’s raining so hard that I just don’t want to go for a run. So fitness blender is great for me. It’s got. A whole bunch of programs you can (as someone who is going to the site) you can determine how long you want to workout for, which body parts you want to workout, whether it’s cardio or not, whether you have the equipment or not, and what intensity you want to work out at. So I personally love this site. And an added bonus is that if you sign up like if you create an account you don’t get endless e-mails from the fitness blender. And I really like that as well because I suffer from e-mail overload and it’s all free. That’s it for my recommendation. And thanks for around your amazing show. Bye bye.

Bonni: [00:09:28] Thank you for all of your contributions to the community and for this one it looks like a great way that we can keep active. And it looks like a terrific resource. So another thing for me to check out I have lots of to do is to follow up after all of these great recommendations and I just so enjoy being in the community with you. Thanks once again for the recommendation.

Bonni: [00:09:49] Next up we have Linda Oakleaf who is an active member of the teaching in higher ed slack group. And I told her how fun it was to actually hear her voice because I get to see so much of what she has to say and have truly enjoyed getting to know her in the community. But I’m just excited to now have a voice to go with the profile picture and with the many contributions that she’s made in the community. Here we go from Linda.

Linda Oakleaf: [00:10:16] My name is Linda Oakleaf and I teach at Missouri Western State University in our recreation and Sport Management program. My recommendation is a little maybe not so intuitive.

Linda Oakleaf: [00:10:28] It’s a book about teaching but it’s not about teaching in terms of pedagogy year. Even technique but it’s the idiot’s guide to college teaching. Now it’s out of print. You still find it on Amazon used but it is in terms of housekeeping and making sure you don’t forget details and helping you sort of just go through the nitty gritty of the teaching experience. Totally recommend it, especially for new teachers who aren’t in the routine. I found it. Somebody bought it for me as a joke but I found it useful and I think that you all would find it useful to you.

Bonni: [00:11:07] Oh Linda it’s such a bummer when books like this that you’ve come to really value go out of print. I think I grab the right one for the show notes and that would be not the idiot’s guide but the complete idiot’s guide to college teaching. Let me know if I grab the wrong one though and I will correct that. There weren’t any others that I saw that I could choose from so I’m pretty sure this is the one that you were referencing. And isn’t that great when something starts out as a joke and then turns out to actually be totally valuable to you. I so appreciate you Linda. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you and am really truly grateful that we get to be in community with one another.

Bonni: [00:11:45] Next up we have a recommendation from Steven Michaels. He’s been a guest on the podcast previously and challenges my brain in lots of topics including his topic of the episode he was on which was thinking outside the LMS. Here is today’s recommendation for episode number 150 from Stephen Michaels.

Steven Michaels: [00:12:06] Hi Bonni. Steven Michaels from episode 140. Congratulations on 150 episodes. I think I can speak for all of your listeners when I say thank you so much for all that you do for our community and producing one of the best podcast on hybrid. Also my recommendations are for the slack team that you put together. I’m very much enjoying the community that we have there and would be nice to have some new blood join us. Also my other recommendation is for the public domain review. It’s an online journal that specializes in works that are in the public domain. They have great little essays that correspond to them. So if you’re interested or anybody’s interested in adding some things that are in the public domain to your Scilla by this would be a great place to start. They can find them at public domain review dot org. Bonni thanks a lot.

[00:12:53] Looking forward to the next 150.

Bonni: [00:12:55] Thanks for that recommendation Stephen I’ve never heard of the public domain review before now and I’m excited to check it out. Our last recommendation from a former guest at least comes from Ken Bain. And as we mentioned earlier Ken Bain is the author of what the best college teachers do and has been someone I’ve learned so much from just being able to read his books and being exposed to him now as a former guest on the podcast. Really treasure him. And here is the recommendation from Ken.

Ken Bain: [00:13:27] Congratulations, Bonni. It’s been a wonderful series. It is just to help to continue to transform higher education and our thoughts about teaching and learning. You’ve brought so many wonderful ideas and people into the conversation. It’s just been an enormously stimulating. I’ve got a very straightforward recommendation and it’s James Lang’s new book Small Teaching. In that book what he concentrates on all the little things that we can do that can make a huge difference in the learning of our students. And we always need of course to be focused on that learning of our students rather than on our teaching performance per se but small teaching is just a goldmine of research based ideas and practices that can individually and collectively create a new kind of learning environment that is going to be much more stimulating to students. So my very strong recommendation in small teaching by James Lang from Jossy-Bass.

Bonni: [00:14:42] As I put an end to this episode of teaching in higher ed I have a couple of recommendations I want to make.

Bonni: [00:14:50] One of them might sound self-serving at first but I do promise it comes from a place in my heart of just wanting to grow this community even more and that is to recommend that you now finally after 150 episodes leave a review for the teaching and higher ed podcast on whatever service it is you use to listen to the show.

Bonni: [00:15:09] You could do this because right around the time when this episode is airing is going to be the day when I will celebrate my birthday and also on that same day I’m going to celebrate my anniversary. Yeah it happened on the same day. Just worked out that way.

Bonni: [00:15:24] So it would be great if you could celebrate that celebrate 150 episodes celebrate my birthday celebrate Dave and my anniversary whatever reason it is you want to use to go leave that review. What that does is it moves us up in the algorithms of how iTunes recommends different kinds of podcasts and that would be a great way to just increase our exposure if at all happens at the same time. Then there’s this flurry and then people start thinking hey something might be happening here and we might be able to capture people who don’t otherwise know about the podcast and at last I’d like to recommend a service that I set up to collect these recommendations I’ve kind of been putting that off for a while. And it’s called speak pipe and speak pipe has a free account. You only get 20 messages per month it’s almost like a like a online voicemail system where people can leave you a voicemail but on a web page.

Bonni: [00:16:20] So if they’re on a laptop that has a microphone or a computer that has a microphone they just press the record button and they are often running the free account also has a maximum duration of less than 90 seconds. But I actually find that to be helpful in terms of when you’re working with audio. It is good to have shorter messages. So I don’t see that as too much of a detractor of the free plan. It does have paid plans as well but we always have to watch out for how many subscription plans we have joined at least I know we do in our family.

Bonni: [00:16:53] One of the things I was able to discover as I was seeking out recommendations for this episode was that you’re able to reply back and forth with someone and Isabeau posted a message to me and then I got to reply back to her and then she replied back to me it’s just fun how you can interact in that way. I don’t ever recommend anything for the podcast if it’s a book that I haven’t read myself or a service that I haven’t used myself and that’s why I’m recommending speak pipe. But I will say that while I was looking up speak pipe and starting to think about it I was wondering if I was looking at the free plan in it and just is that too limiting for people with 20 messages a month. Is there something better? And I remembered about a service called Voice thread and some of you may have used voice thread previously and voice thread is similar to speak pipe in that you can leave messages.

Bonni: [00:17:48] But boy oh my goodness since it started and I last was familiar with it it has added in features including the ability to post videos voice and have text commenting and they say their tagline is transforming media into collaborative spaces with video voice and text commenting. So while this is not an official recommendation because I haven’t tried the service yet myself I’m going to put it under the resources section of the show notes instead of under the recommendations segment of the show. Of course this is totally going to mess me up because this entire episode is all recommendations. But I guess what I would recommend that you do is go take a look at voice thread if you haven’t seen it in a while you haven’t heard of it.

Bonni: [00:18:32] There are a lot of powerful things that it can do and I’m certainly going to be checking it out if any of you use voice thread in your teaching. I would love to hear from you and see if it’s something that you would recommend back over to me.

Bonni: [00:18:45] Thank you so much for listening today and remember that one of my recommendations was that you go leave a review for the show so I don’t have to do that in our closing piece today like I normally do but I do also want to remind you that if you have yet to subscribe to these weekly emails that go out I’m not going to bombard you with a bunch of emails but what I will do is just a single time each week will send out an email that sends out my most recent blog post about either teaching or productivity.

Bonni: [00:19:15] And along with that come the most current episodes show notes with all the links to the things that we talked about. So for today’s episode you would get to hear about the recommendations from James, Beth, Isabeau, Linda, Stephen, and Ken Bain: all in one spot to be able to click away and go check out those resources.

Bonni: [00:19:36] You can subscribe at teaching and higher ed dot com slash subscribe. And if you have yet to ever get in touch with me and give me ideas for future episodes or just let me know how you’re experiencing the show. You can always get in touch at teachinginhighered.com/feedback. Or even better yet on Twitter. I’m Bonni without an E 208. I would love to be connected with you there.

Bonni: [00:20:00] Take care and thanks for listening.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.