My apologies to those of you who prefer a bit more sophisticated reference to the movie Jerry Maguire… I'm coming off of more than a week with a nasty virus and may not be able to manage much more than this.
At 1:15 in the clip, Jerry says, “Help me, help you.”
That's what I'm asking you for today…
I've been airing Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts weekly since June 2014.
As I start thinking about summer of 2016, I wonder if I should keep going with the same pattern that I have been on, or perhaps modify my approach a bit during those months.
Help me, help you
Please consider getting in touch through the comments section, below, or if you receive this via email, you can just reply with answers to any of the following questions:
- How could Teaching in Higher Ed best support your professional development over the summer?
- How regularly will you be listening to podcasts over the summer?
- What have been 1-2 of the episodes that we have aired so far that have changed your teaching in some way and how did they impact that change?
- What's one area in your teaching or personal productivity that you are struggling with right now?
[reminder]Thank you for considering providing input as I consider how to approach summertime with Teaching in Higher Ed. [/reminder]
I know that many of you teach year round and appreciate hearing from you, as well, about your listening habits and episodes that have transformed your teaching…
Hi! I’ve been listening for several months now and am really enjoying the podcasts. Thank you for spending the time and effort putting them together. Over the summer I will still be listening to the podcasts regularly (I listen to 3-5 podcasts/week). Some of the podcasts that have really made an impact are those that focus on making small changes like waiting 8 seconds after answering a question. I am a new tenure-track faculty member, so the idea of doing something completely new like flipping the classroom or using specifications-based grading is very daunting given that I’m still trying to figure out how to teach, period. So while I love learning about these new teaching paradigms, I don’t feel comfortable implementing them quite yet. Thus, to answer your fourth question, my biggest issue is deciding what to do differently. This podcast and other resources have introduced me to many new techniques and strategies but I am uncertain how to pick the best one for each of my classes.
How could Teaching in Higher Ed best support your professional development over the summer?
I am a new listener although I have “listened-back” to about #60-something so continuing on (at least in frequency) as you are will support my new habit. Teaching in higher ed is also very new to me (on my third semester now as part-time faculty) so any advice and techniques is very useful to me. I am very happy a new professor here mentioned your podcast to me.
How regularly will you be listening to podcasts over the summer? Regularly, I listen while commuting or in the gym at my routine does not change over the summer. I teach year-around.
What have been 1-2 of the episodes that we have aired so far that have changed your teaching in some way and how did they impact that change? I loved “teaching what you don’t know” as I feel like teaching in academia is all new to me and that I know nothing when it comes to how to teach in a classroom. I enjoyed “action science” and although not directly applicable to my classes, I think the information was great and it got me to thinking about active learning techniques. In general, I really appreciate learning about how to engage the student, how to apply active learning techniques in class. I am gaining a lot in listening to your podcast even when I don’t know how to implement some of the suggestions. The technology is daunting to me when I hear about all the apps or devices you and your husband are using in your daily lives. I do wonder if it all is really that helpful to most professors.
What’s one area in your teaching or personal productivity that you are struggling with right now? It’s all so new to me I feel like I struggle with everything. Right now I am having a hard time with students who do not follow the assignments as posted. The assignments are pretty clear such as use five peer reviewed articles to support your writing and use APA citations. The paper will then come to me using only websites as references. I send it back for revisions and only part of the revision requests are incorporated. I want the work to be done so the student will learn but honestly how many times should I allow the paper to go back and forth? I seem to struggle with the deadlines of the students. I would rather get something late than not at all, to facilitate student learning but am unclear how much to deduct in grading.
I appreciate your work, and I hope you get to feeling better very soon.
Hi!
I’ve been listening for ~6 months and usually listen to 1-3 a week. I’m working my way backwards and generally find the teaching podcasts more valuable than the productivity ones. I certainly need the productivity help, but I’m much more interested in the teaching! (I am a PC person, so some of the productivity tools won’t work for me).
The two podcasts that have most influenced me are specifications grading and zero inbox. As a New Year’s resolution I’m zeroing my work inbox each day. I could not be happier with the project as it has completely changed my relationship with my work e-mail. When I’m done, I’m done and I file, reply, or checklist my remaining items and then I don’t do any more work that day.
I have not yet tried specifications based grading, but it is really making me think about how I approach my teaching and grading. I plan to read the book and see how I can implement some of this in my course.
Thanks for a great podcast. I enjoy listening and learning.
Another junior/TT faculty member, here. Love the show!
How could Teaching in Higher Ed best support your professional development over the summer?
I’m a writing prof (rhetoric and composition) and always on the hunt for active learning/classroom activities–especially the kind that get students up and moving around.
How regularly will you be listening to podcasts over the summer?
Constantly.
What have been 1-2 of the episodes that we have aired so far that have changed your teaching in some way and how did they impact that change?
I’m not sure if I heard about it on this podcast or somewhere else, but the idea was to get students moving. The past two semesters my first-year-writing class has been stuck in a tiny, windowless, fanless room/cave, and giving students opportunities to do group work in the hall has been such a morale booster! Love it! I also loved the James Lang episode. I belly-laughed through his book about his first year on the TT–it was like hearing a fictionalized account of my own life except funnier. His advice is so practical and helpful.
What’s one area in your teaching or personal productivity that you are struggling with right now?
I’m trying to figure out how to run a writing center, develop a new minor, develop and teach new classes, work out of two offices, keep up some semblance of my own research/writing, meet service obligations, and help raise my two young children. I often feel spread so thin that I worry about setting myself up for failure. In short, I struggle with figuring out how to stay on top of all the details. One trick that helps is putting EVERYTHING on my calendar. If it’s not on the calendar it doesn’t happen. But working out of two offices is a nut I’m still trying to crack. Keeping different items related to specific domains in each office helps most of the time, but sometimes I need to do an X-thing in the Y-space and it throws everything off.
Hope you’re feeling better soon!