Bonni [00:00:00] It’s that thing we never talk about. Forgive me as I do an awful rip off of the movie Fight Club with a little twist. What happens in academia stays in academia. Today I welcome to the show Dr. Therese Huston to talk about teaching what you don’t know.

Production Credit [00:00:20] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni [00:00:30] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to increase our personal productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni [00:00:58] I’ve been looking forward to today’s interview for some time. I welcome to the show today, Dr. Therese Huston. She received her Bachelor’s from Carleton College and her Masters of Science and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie Mellon. Therese was the Founding Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning which is now called the Center for Faculty Development at Seattle University.

Bonni [00:01:26] And she has served in that capacity from 2004 to 2010 drawing from her background in cognitive science. Therese has spent the past decade helping smart faculty make better decisions about their teaching. Her first book which we’ll be talking about today Teaching What You Don’t Know was published by Harvard University Press in 2009. Therese, it was great getting to learn a little bit about you from your bio. But one of the things I like to ask our guests are this first question what’s not there in your bio that we should know about you to really know who you are as a person.

Therese [00:02:06] So Bonni if you read my bio you know I’m a cognitive neuroscientist by training and then I’m a faculty developer and have been helping faculty make better teaching and research decisions for about 15 years now. I’m also a writer.

Therese [00:02:18] So those things are all in my bio. But what you wouldn’t notice a couple of fun things but I’d love to share with the help of my husband reminding me of things that are interesting about me in third grade I lead my class my 3rd grade class on strike to demand better treatment at lunchtime.

Therese [00:02:42] It’s so unlike my adult personality except that I’m very much for a cause and I’m very much for looking out for others and looking for what’s in me. That’s not being addressed in any case.

Bonni [00:02:53] What kind of treatment were you advocating?

Therese [00:02:55] Well we were you know third grade. We had lunch and then we would have recess. And on this I grew up in Ohio and so a lot of these reassessments and you had to be inside because it was snowy rain or just bad weather on days that we played outside it was fine.

Therese [00:03:10] But on days that we had to be inside. We had we had someone who insisted that we just sit with our heads down which is a terrible way for 8 8 9 year olds to spend a half an hour right after lunch. The strike lasted a day of course because I got in trouble from the principal.

Bonni [00:03:27] Oh no.

Therese [00:03:29] I was told you cannot lead students on strike. I thought well but school employees go on strike like can’t school students. Things did improve for us. There was a change made. We got new policies were put in place about it and we were allowed to play at lunchtime. It all worked in the end. It got the attention. Yeah.

Bonni [00:03:47] Well your book is first recommended to me by James Lang and he recommended it to me because it’s a wonderful book but also because of the voice that you write in and I just want to say what a wonderful writer you are.

Bonni [00:04:01] And I truly felt like we were having a conversation albeit the part of my conversation was in my imagination but really you do have such a wonderful warm engaging style and one that I can instantly relate with.

Bonni [00:04:13] But I did. I was excited to now get to talk to you and ask you a few questions about teaching what you don’t know and I wonder first what you to share your experience or experiences with when you were first asked to teach something you didn’t know.

Therese [00:04:28] Like many people like many people who have to teach outside of their experience with their expertise. It was my first teaching job and it was at Carnegie Mellon University after I had received my Ph.D.. I had the opportunity to do some teaching and the course one of the courses they wanted me to teach was titled Research Methods in child development.

Therese [00:04:49] Most people that sounds very specific and it is very specific and we were going to spend 14 weeks looking at how you do research with infants and how you do research with children whose parents have to sign consent forms and you know what it means if you trick children the way we were looking at all of those complex things what it’s like to work with humans but humans that don’t have autonomy.

Therese [00:05:11] And this is this is a complex course and another thing that you should know about me is I am not a developmental psychologist. I’m not a specialist in working with children up to that point. I had only done one research study with children and I don’t have children. Most people don’t ask me to babysit. I’m not considered someone who is amazing with kids but I wanted.

Therese [00:05:35] I really wanted this opportunity to teach and they were offering it to me and I said sure I would be happy to do it. And I worked there was another person teaching it at the same time I got a copy of his syllabus and I basically followed what he was doing except for adding some more learning opportunities for students.

Therese [00:05:52] I added some extra assignments and reduced the points that the test was worth I could test was worth something like 75 percent of the grade. And I had a homework some learning experience that I thought would help students focus very much on the methods and much less on that content and of course then I just had to read everything I could get my hands on.

Therese [00:06:10] And it was a hard experience but it was a good thing and I learned a lot about how to teach well in something that I didn’t know very well. And if I could go back to my 28 year old self and give her one piece of advice I think what I would have had five years to go talk to a content expert because I didn’t Bonni.

Therese [00:06:31] I just didn’t tell anyone. Not the person who asked me to teach the course not the other professor in the department who was teaching it at the same time I didn’t tell anyone that I felt underprepared to be teaching them.

Therese [00:06:45] And I just I just studied hard on my own and had lots of books on my desk all the time but I worked with him since before the Internet was a fantastic source for information so I had it checking things out of the library.

Therese [00:06:57] So I wish that. I had friends who were child psychologist. I wish I had sat down with one of them offered to take someone to a coffee once a week to brainstorm what are the things that I should be teaching was a great example of a research study. We should talk about.

Therese [00:07:12] But I didn’t because I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know what I was doing. So that would be that was an incredible learning experience and one that I wish I’d done a little differently.

Bonni [00:07:23] In reading your book and reflecting on it and now my own experience I’ve been asked a number of times including future tense. In January of 2016 which is right around the corner. Your book reading it came at the perfect time.

Bonni [00:07:41] But I it does seem like something we just don’t talk about that much and I’m wondering what were some of the things that got you interested in writing about this subject or were you asked and I do have to just quickly mention the best academic title academic journal article title I’ve ever seen. Teaching by the seat of your pants. I love that. I forgot I didn’t write down the year that you published that but that seems like that came before your book. It’s just wonderful.

Therese [00:08:06] Yeah. Teaching by seat of your pants.

Bonni [00:08:09] I wish I had. I also have trouble coming up with titles. Man I’d love to have a title like that on my CV. How did you get interested in the subject writing about a book about it.

Therese [00:08:20] I tend to reflect a lot about my teaching and I’ve had many experiences even when I’m teaching a neuroscience class where I’ve had to teach something that is cutting edge finding something that is still being debated and figured out but it happens to be in the student’s textbooks.

Therese [00:08:36] So I have to quickly learn the concept and the phrases and they’re often very very very anatomical. So for instance one experience that I had before I wrote the book was I was teaching in cognitive neuroscience class and we were talking about different areas of the brain.

Therese [00:08:55] And there was a finding that I remember was in the text I hadn’t taken good notes on it because I had been quickly trying to take notes the night before about all the new material most of it but there were a few things that were brand new to me and it wasn’t clear and it actually made a mistake in my notes.

Therese [00:09:11] It wasn’t just that one occurring made a mistake in my notes and the two terms that I can use were superior quality was an inferior click. I say those words announced like you know it’s completely abstract what would that mean to someone in medicine would know. But most of us would would forget quickly. In any case I got them confused and used the term incorrectly in class and raised her hand and read it from the text.

Bonni [00:09:35] Oh wow.

Therese [00:09:36] Oh it was painful. I look at my notes hoping that like is there some expanation here and there wasn’t. And so I just had to say that I had to I had to thank her and then I would go go back and check that with some other sources to make sure it was correct stalling a little bit and sure enough that was that was correct.

Therese [00:09:56] I had taken the wrong notes so it was it was an interesting moment for me even within my expertise. There were things that you often have to learn that either contradict what you knew before or just brand new jargon or a brand new finding in any case that was that was a very vivid case where I began to realise you know even as an expert in a topic this is something we can all we all have to struggle with it. Yeah it must be just teaching introductory physics and that’s the only class you ever Tetun you’re a physicist even teaching it for 20 years right. There are some people in that position but most of us aren’t.

Bonni [00:10:29] One of the things that’s really resonating with me as you’re talking is where confidence comes in because I have done both of the things where I have I have been confused myself getting myself mixed up between inelastic and elastic demand in economics and I just I barely touch on it in an introduction to business class on the principles of marketing class.

Bonni [00:10:52] But I still should know that I mean that’s why I should have known that should not be something that confuses me. But then I’ve also have something where I completely know it inside and out. It’s right within my area of expertise but I just misspeak and then I’ll say yes I just say that in fact there were there was a time when we were last year we were going to have my business ethics cost come down to our house to watch a movie.

Bonni [00:11:17] And I’m sharing with them about the plans because I’m always sensitive to some students not having cars and that sort of thing I’m very very focused on trying to nonchalantly not point out the fact that someone I know in the class doesn’t have a clue but also trying to be inclusive so that’s where my mind is and then sensitive and then so I’m talking about hey we’ll come down this and that and then one of us.

Bonni [00:11:37] And said So is that your address. I said How did you know that that was my address and she said because you just said to so you can completely get. I mean obviously I know my address but you can completely be just so focused on something else that something you know so well gets lost too.

Therese [00:11:57] Exactly and even things sometimes that you it’s funny about the address right because you were thinking you were looking for the cues. Does someone feel singled out or are probably scanning of the environment didn’t notice what you said so there’s so much you have to do as a teacher at least if you’re really being responsive as a teacher. Yeah unfortunately sometimes the content is the least important thing in that moment.

Bonni [00:12:20] One of the surprises I had when I started reading your book was how you grouped things and it makes perfect sense to me now but I expected oh I’m going to read a book called Teaching What You Don’t Know and so I’m going to read about teaching a subject or perhaps even some aspect of a discipline that you don’t know and you really look at it from two perspectives and once you’ve opened my eyes I’m seeing it now all the time and recognising it in myself when I’m needing to do it.

Bonni [00:12:48] So you look at teaching what you don’t know from a perspective of the subject you don’t know but also teaching a group of students you don’t understand. And I’m wondering how quickly did you realize when you were researching for your book that it was going to break out into those two broad categories.

Therese [00:13:07] It’s interesting. I don’t question I don’t quite remember when that idea came to me but I know that when I was first proposing the book to Harvard University Press I actually wanted to spend much more time on the topic as teaching students you don’t understand. So in my original formulation it was going to actually be even more of the book than it is.

Therese [00:13:31] But what I was doing research for the book in 2007 and 2008 the topic of millennials and issues of diversity in the classroom was emerging everywhere was something you couldn’t avoid if you were if you were looking at teaching topics.

Therese [00:13:49] And so instead of being able to you know perhaps devote half the book to teaching students you don’t understand. I trimmed it back because I realized so many other books are talking about millennials in issues of diversity and being inclusive in the classroom that I really just focused on on a few issues.

Therese [00:14:05] So it’s interesting because the book the book actually what it would have been weighted slightly differently if maybe I had written it a year or two earlier but the timing that I had made me want to talk. No one was talking back in 2007 2008 about teaching outside of your expertise. And so it ended up getting heavier weighting and what have been people’s reactions to the book since it’s been out.

Therese [00:14:29] The reactions have been great. They hit and they’ve gotten a positive. So the book the book came out in hardcover in 2000. And you know one way that I can gauge the reaction to it is what happens when people ask me to come and give talks.

Therese [00:14:48] So when the book first came out in the first year 2000 2010 and 2011 when people from different campuses would contact me and ask me to come to campus they really wanted to not use the title of the book in the title of the talk. Right.

Therese [00:15:07] So this is very interesting that they would they would really want to make the topic seem much more neutral than it was. So they would they would have us propose topics like strategies for teaching new material.

Therese [00:15:23] So this is one of the things that you might someday encounter and you know it’s an entirely positive thing. Right. Or one was brilliant says not enough planning a career in which you have to move beyond your expertise. Right.

Therese [00:15:41] That was another topic that was so very early on. There was a very careful framing nobody wanted to use the phrase teaching when you don’t know and I think that reflected this sense of taboo for academics. We have to know what we’re doing. But over time people are now very comfortable using the title of the book and saying buy me the campus.

Therese [00:16:01] So I think that reflects first of all that it’s it’s changed the conversation and that about about our relationship to our content expertise which is good news that we can hear that teaching is more than just knowing every single day till there is to know. In fact he can be much more about stimulating learning and what that means.

Therese [00:16:20] So I’m pleased to say that people are much more excited to talk about it and I have to have experiences now where I’m at a conference and people will come up to me and they say if so embrace this concept that they’ve come up with their own phrases for it. So someone came up to me at a conference just at the beginning of November and she said I love your book Walking the Line.

Therese [00:16:43] And I would say that I think we’d be talking about someone else. She described what the book was about and like that is my book and she said well and then she had to think about it when I told the actual title she said she thought about it just like oh like I just refer to it as is walking the line because that’s how she thinks about having to navigate that balance between. I’ve got to do something that I know well but I also if I’m going to be the best teacher I can be to my students.

Therese [00:17:10] I’ve I’ve I’ve also got to teach them some things that are perhaps outside of my comfort zone anyway so I think that also reflects the image on the hardcover is someone walking on a tightrope. That might also be creating that image for her. But it is interesting people have embraced it much more. So what are you going to say.

Bonni [00:17:26] Well I was going to say I have to go look at the cover because I read it on the Kindle app on my iPad and never saw the cover. I’m going to have to look at that.

Therese [00:17:33] Yeah yeah the new to the paperback cover it’s nice. It’s the paperback covers rather humorous stack of books. With so many colorful postin notes that you know it’s completely useless. You know with no single poster notes that are going to help you and then they’ll see original cover has a beautiful blue background and it’s someone walking on a tightrope. I think it’s a nice metaphor for what happens when you teach outside of your expertise.

Bonni [00:17:58] Yeah well one of the themes that you drew upon when talking about the reaction to the book was one of my questions I wasn’t sure if I was going to ask you but I think I’m going to ask you. Here we go. Brace yourself so well it does involve sharing a little bit of my personal experience and that is as I mentioned I was asked to teach outside of my expertise very early in my academic career.

Bonni [00:18:21] And like you I did not lead many third grade revolts or at many since then I tend to be a pretty much of a compliant person for the most part. That’s not something I’m necessarily proud of but that is just my characteristic.

Bonni [00:18:36] And so what happens is when the person that you report to asks you to do something where I came from you say yes exactly. You work really hard to make it the best that came actually partially I used to teach computer training classes that was my first job out of college.

Therese [00:18:50] Oh yeah.

Bonni [00:18:51] And all the time we would be asked to teach a program that we hadn’t seen the day before. And you start to discover a lot of connections once you’ve used one database or one spreadsheet. There are some similar themes so I had built up a certain amount of confidence that I can make it happen. But also from a business standpoint which I realize it’s a very prickly way to talk about academics but it’s to fill these classes you have to find people to teach them.

Bonni [00:19:14] I just didn’t know that I could say no and fast forward then five years later in the tenure process I was criticized for it and it was hurtful and made me angry. Now I look at it from much more of an objective standpoint no animals were harmed during the tenure process. I do have tenure today.

Bonni [00:19:32] I was not physically harmed but still I still think it’s quirky to me so now it doesn’t hurt or sting. It’s more where I think is this happening in other institutions too is this. Am I alone in having experienced that you get criticized for having done it. Is that something that you see other people experiencing to this sort of double standard.

Therese [00:19:54] Oh very interesting. So you’re saying you were criticized for agreeing to meet something that was outside your expertise.

Bonni [00:20:01] I was criticized for teaching something outside of my expertise. But I had been asked to teach it so that was where I thought there was this double standard idea.

Therese [00:20:09] Absolutely. I do think it’s a very interesting you know people that’s not a problem that people bring up to me often in talks right. Usually when people come out they want to brainstorm more but here’s a particular class I’m teaching.

Therese [00:20:23] How can I survive it. But it’s interesting when I was doing the interviews for the book. That was a conflict that people were very concerned about when they looked back on horses that they had taught outside of their expertise.

Therese [00:20:37] They didn’t want anyone to know that they had done it because that would make them look like a less assertive person or someone who perhaps didn’t have leadership abilities. But at the same time they felt trapped in that moment.

Therese [00:20:49] Like you said well I’ve got to say yes if I want to be seen as a team player as if I want to be seen as someone who is flexible and progressive in how I see my discipline so I do I certainly saw it in my interviews where I was specifically asking that question that people see that conflict and it was funny to me because I thought well you know if it’s a path course couldn’t you admit it now.

Therese [00:21:13] Right. But but that’s not even the case that you know people can look back and comfortably comment on it and just about everyone in my book wanted to be a lot of people in my book wanted to be anonymous because they didn’t want their name associated with this thing that they were doing outside of their expertise.

Bonni [00:21:31] One of the themes that came up earlier was around confidence and then also what I’m hearing is just the sense of real anxiety that comes from teaching something we don’t know. Do you have a sense that that anxiety never goes away completely. Can it be cured. Or would you say that our best idea is to just learn to manage when the anxiety inevitably comes.

Therese [00:21:56] When we hear from people is that for a lot of people the anxiety doesn’t go away or they perhaps don’t have it for certain courses but then they have it you know they haven’t had up for three courses in a row but then suddenly they have that anxiety for the fourth new course that they have to teach.

Therese [00:22:12] So what I what I found when I was doing research on the book is that there would be some people who even in their first very first few years of teaching didn’t have anxiety about teaching outside of their expertise. Were they teaching classes where they didn’t know the material. Absolutely.

Therese [00:22:27] Were they anxious about it. No not really. You know I interviewed someone a chemist who had hadn’t used a microscope since her very first years in college. Her expertise within computational modeling in chemistry. So you know microscopes weren’t something that she used. But when you teach freshman chemistry to use a microscope.

Therese [00:22:47] So for her for this felt like very unfamiliar territory. Some of us might be like us not teaching outside of your expertise but for her it had been 10 years right since she’d used a microscope and microscopes had changed a lot.

Therese [00:22:59] But she was very excited and comfortable teaching outside of her expertise. And I interviewed other people who had had to who are in very small departments and had to teach outside of their expertise.

Therese [00:23:10] It was an annual experience something you had to do every year. They had to teach something that was new to them because their department was so small and they had to offer enough content and 20 25 years in it was still very anxiety provoking for them. So I think that a lot of this can depend on the individual in terms of the inside ego where you’re not.

Therese [00:23:30] But here’s what I found for those people who had minimal anxiety about the teaching outside of their expertise. There were a couple of things that were unique about them. So it wasn’t age or experience but here’s here’s what they were doing or thinking differently.

Therese [00:23:48] So first of all they had a choice. So when when they had a choice about whether they were going to teach a topic outside of their expertise when they got to volunteer or saying no they tended to have less anxiety more.

Therese [00:24:02] It’s hard to know what the cause of direction is there but if you can if you can shape what you’re going to teach that seems to make a difference in reducing anxiety.

Therese [00:24:09] So that would be one a second thing that these people who were more poised and confident and less anxious did is that they addressed the imposter issue to some of them would find a way to bring it up to their students. Know they didn’t say I don’t know what I’m doing. But they would find a way to tell their students you know no one can be an expert on this material.

Therese [00:24:34] And what I’m going to do is always be looking for what’s the most recent and important topic that I can be teaching you. So they would find ways to say if I’m doing a good job up here I’m going to be pushing the boundaries of what I know.

Therese [00:24:46] So or they found a way to to confide in someone in their department so that they didn’t feel they were alone in reaching out thought that somebody knew about it and was supportive of it. But that was part of their job.

Therese [00:24:59] And the third thing that these poised and confident individuals did differently is that their teaching philosophy and this is perhaps this is the place where we have a lot of control is that they embrace the teaching philosophy. That said I don’t need to master the material about might sound to some people I know and content heavy courses like nursing where you have so much or in statistics where you have so much that you have to teach for an introduction to political science or even I’m sure in economics right micro or macro economics courses there’s a sense of having a strong.

Therese [00:25:34] Mary Ellen Wimer said a strong allegiance to content her phrase. But if you can if you can develop a teaching philosophy that is is not about mastering the material people tend to feel more poised confident. So what would that look like. What would that what kind of teaching philosophy would you have.

Therese [00:25:51] So some of the people that I talked to have said things like you know my goal is to make you a good economist. My goal is to make you someone who can think like an economist. I do that. I’ve been successful or my goal is to get students to ask smarter questions.

Therese [00:26:11] But if by the end of the course the students can ask smarter questions than I’ve been successful. So both of those are not particularly about my mastery of the content it’s about what students are showing as learners.

Therese [00:26:22] And that was something that I found remarkable in the interviews and it was it was a clear dividing line between the people who are really anxious about this experience and the people who are less anxious.

Therese [00:26:33] And so that’s something that I encourage. Find a way to reframe your teaching philosophy. It can be hard in those courses where you have a lot of content you have to cover but how can you how can you reframe it so that what you’re doing in that classroom is about students learning. And I think that helps because it reframes why you are there and why the students and there.

Bonni [00:26:54] So we’ve just been assigned to teach a course outside of our expertise. What’s the most important steps we can take in preparing to teach this new course.

Therese [00:27:02] Oh I love this question so I have three suggestions. So the first would be to tell someone I guess that impostor issue. It just looms larger and larger the longer you feel you’re faking it. So even if it’s just telling you know another junior colleague who is in the same boat and you tell them also bunch but that reduces that sense that you’re alone.

Therese [00:27:27] So that’s I think important. Second in terms of actual strategy for the class. So the first one is about managing your own anxieties. The second one is find five syllabi by mining for that course. This is the truth. Enter the course title or some variation of course title if you think your university has an idiosyncratic title. Find five syllabi and that will help you find out what those classes have in common. Does that make sense.

Bonni [00:27:56] Perfect.

Therese [00:27:56] Sure. So find five syllabi. It will help you find out what’s what are considered the core topics or readings for that course but it will also help you find out where there’s a lot of flexibility and room for creativity and that way you might be able to pull in some things that you are an expert in.

Therese [00:28:14] Once you find out. Ooh you know people talk about marketing in this particular economics class and I didn’t realize we could talk about marketing and I love marketing so great. So in any case it can open the door to your own creativity.

Therese [00:28:27] Plus it allows you to serve the students well. So many people just use the syllabus it’s already developed from their department and someone else who’s taught the course and that that can that can just raise anxiety because you can’t follow everything that they did.

Therese [00:28:42] There’s a good chance that that’ll actually increase your anxiety rather than making you feel more confident in what you’re doing. So find five syllables and the other one this is about time management. You ask that earlier. Were you asked about this just a matter of managing time and anxiety.

Therese [00:29:00] I would suggest getting a timer. Use your phone your mobile phone but find some program or get a physical timer and start practicing preparing for your class in whatever the increment might be 45 minute chunks 60 minute chunks however you want to begin doing it but set that timer and that increases the sense of focus. So and this is for the class Prep’s specifically. It’s so easy when you’re teaching something outside of your expertise.

Therese [00:29:28] You do a search and there are for a topic and there are 500000 websites that come up and then you do your next search and there are 400000 websites that come up you think you’re narrowing it down because it’s not satisfying.

Therese [00:29:43] So you really need to limit the amount of time and you’re going to spend preparing. And I’m not saying that you prepare the whole class in 45 minutes but if you start learning to this this can’t just be that I use every minute of my entire day preparing for this class but I’m going to start with 45 minutes.

Therese [00:29:58] And I’ll get through this part of the class prep and then I’ll have another 45 minutes this afternoon. It can really help you focus and get to actual whether it be preparing the powerpoint slides or preparing class activities whatever it may be to help you get down to business faster.

Bonni [00:30:13] What have I not asked you yet about teaching what we don’t know but you want to be sure and share about before we move on to recommendations.

Therese [00:30:21] Oh sure. I would say that I’d love to get the language out there and I see this increasingly authentic love to get the language out there of content expert versus content novice.

Bonni [00:30:34] Oh yeah. Talk more about that because that may be new for some people.

Therese [00:30:37] Sure. Absolutely. So all too often we just talk about being an expert or being a novice. And as professors none of us want to be novices. And so I think that it really helps us talk about this if we can talk about being a content expert or content novice.

Therese [00:30:54] So you could be a content expert is someone who knows the material and knows the field and therefore is an expert in the material on the topic content. None of us on the other hand could be an expert teacher. They could they could have 10 years of teaching experience or 20 years of teaching experience.

Therese [00:31:13] But they are still new to the topic and I think that’s a helpful distinction because all too often if we’re talking about being a novice. We feel as though we’ve been stripped of our credentials and if we can talk about being a content novice then all of us can admit that some of the time we’re content novice.

Therese [00:31:31] There’s there are new developments in our in our disciplines. Of course we have to be content not to some of the time we were told that will help us talk about like oh well I’m going to bring these. I’m going to bring these fundamentals to the class but then I’m also going to be content novice.

Therese [00:31:47] You know one day a week and I’m gonna teach some new topics. Maybe it’s just part part of the time you’re kind of. But I think that help more of us and change the conversation and actually talk about teaching outside of our expertise.

Therese [00:31:59] Plus it gives you had a term for something that often makes it that much more acceptable. So it department chairs are going to be talking in their departments about teaching outside of their expertise talking about hey look we’ve all been a content novice before some of us are doing it all the time. And then that language just helps it be more valid.

Bonni [00:32:17] Yeah well this is the point in this show in which we each give some recommendations. And I don’t always recommend the books of the guests that I have not because they haven’t written wonderful books but just because I typically hold at least one interview a week and I wish I could read a book.

Bonni [00:32:32] I’m not quite there. I have read your book. I wanted to just recommended again as we look to closing out the show and just say it’s a wonderful read. It’s wonderful just it’s kind of it’s almost like telling someone it felt like we got you and I got to have this conversation my thinking about being asked to teach something that is outside of my normal area of expertise a new class for me in January 2016.

Bonni [00:32:57] It came at a perfect time and you have given me new language for how to describe that and a new sense of competence that I’m not alone in doing that I suspect that your prestigious publisher that you went through for the book would not put a book out that only I wanted to read. So I suspect it’s a subject that resonates with more than just be it’s just a wonderful read.

Bonni [00:33:19] It’s a quick read I hate to say that in the sense of dismissing it but I mean it’s just it’s very tangible. It’s very conversational and it would be a big recommendation from me.

Bonni [00:33:29] The second recommendation I’m going to make is we are for some of us I know get into a holiday season whether that be Hanukkah or or Christmas and so I’m just going to go materialistic here and say this is the priciest thing I’ve ever recommended on the show.

Bonni [00:33:44] There are a set of speakers called Sonos speakers s o n o s and they’re wonderful because they are wireless so you could put them in a room and just play music off of their app on your phone.

Bonni [00:33:59] And it’s kind of neat because if you have multiple speakers which we do in our house you can set them up to all be plain at the same time or different stations of them.

Bonni [00:34:08] And one of the things we just found out and I got an e-mail from my husband this morning is that Apple Music will be playing through the Sonos speakers starting on December 15th so that you can get.

Bonni [00:34:19] And they’ve had some special deals recently on the speakers so I’d be a good time to check them out if anyone’s been tempted by them in the past.

Therese [00:34:26] Very nice. Oh great. And it’s timely for me as well my husband wants to get speakers from my home for Christmas so I will ask him if he looked at the Sonos.

Bonni [00:34:35] Well you definitely could go less expensive than that. No they’re wonderful they’re nice yeah.

Therese [00:34:43] OK. Good. I’ll take a look.

Bonni [00:34:45] And what is your recommendation for people listening to Teaching in Higher Ed today.

Therese [00:34:49] Well I’ll make two recommendations as well. We’ll start with the with a seasonal recommendation. This isn’t as much about holiday but it is a time when people are getting sick. You and I chatted about this and I’m going to recommend if you have a cough or a sore throat that there is a fantastic tea out there by the stash.

Therese [00:35:13] It’s a common brand that you can find in grocery stores at least on the West Coast hopefully on the East Coast as well. Stash S T A S H. And they have a licorice spice tea that is fabulous for cough and for throat. It’s not marketed as a remedy but my naturopath suggested it to me and it’s really wonderful.

Therese [00:35:35] And you know it still only costs you know 2.50 or 2.99 in the grocery store it’s not a high price tea and it really does help a cost. So it’s nice to have if you’re going to get on a flight and he said you know keep one of those prepackaged tea bags with you if you’re going to visit someone and you want to make sure instead of just a cough drop. And you might think.

Bonni [00:35:53] Oh it sounds wonderful.

Therese [00:35:55] It is. It is. If you add some sugar to it takes more spicy than licoricy some don’t even feel like licorice to enjoy it. That’s one.

Therese [00:36:03] And the other is a book recommendation. This one is called. Thanks for the Feedback. It’s by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen the negotiation classes at Harvard might be familiar with their earlier book difficult conversation.

Bonni [00:36:21] Yeah. Oh yeah.

Therese [00:36:22] Yeah yeah. So it’s their most recent book is Thanks for the Feedback. And it’s not it’s the subtitles from The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback. Well and this isn’t specifically a teaching book or about receiving feedback in higher education but it is a fantastic book about how to be better ever seeking feedback.

Therese [00:36:42] All of us wait when you receive feedback you don’t want to hear it’s like why can’t that person get better feedback. And this is instead a book about well how can you change your mindset so that whatever you’re given even if it’s someone who is very bad at giving feedback so that it can actually still be useful for you. I found it very very helpful book.

Bonni [00:37:01] I’m so glad to hear you recommend that book. I was mentioning before we started recording that my husband also has a podcast and he actually had the privilege of interviewing Sheila Heen when the book first came out that you’re recommending and maybe I’ll put a link to the interview in the show notes in case people don’t have time to read the book although I’d say the book is the number one recommendation.

Bonni [00:37:22] But if if anyone is on a little bit of a time constraint it’s at least a nice introduction to the subject of feedback for that podcast because I’d love to I’d love to hear her talk about it. Well Teri thanks so much for coming on the show today. I know you have been sick with that darn cough that won’t go away and just appreciate your time so much.

Therese [00:37:42] Thank you so much. It’s been a real delight to see you. You’re asking questions interesting questions are hard to come up with and you’ve done a lovely job. Real treat to be here today.

Bonni [00:37:52] And it’s just because you wrote such a good book you made it easy for me. Thanks.

Bonni [00:37:56] Thanks once again to Dr. Therese Huston for joining me on the show. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you have yet to subscribe to the weekly e-mail that means you’ll get just a single e-mail from me in your inbox each week and it’ll have all the show notes with the links of the things we talk about on the show come into your inbox automatically and also an article about either teaching or productivity written by me on the weeks when I actually get to it which this past week I did and just think of it you could have a link to those Sonos speakers.

Bonni [00:38:29] The hope is that great book Teaching What You Don’t Know or the book Thanks for the Feedback. You can subscribe at teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. I also always welcome your feedback on the show potential guest topics for recommendations that you have for people who listen and you can do that at teaching in higher ed dot com slash feedback. I really treasure this community and thank you once again for listening. I’ll see you next week.

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.