We need to grab every opportunity to celebrate these days. September 30 has been deemed International Podcast Day by whoever it is that determines such things.

I have written before about the transformative power of podcasts and am excited to share more about how to do International Podcast Day right.

Here are five ways to celebrate.

Listen to Podcasts

What better way to enjoy International Podcast Day than to listen to an episode or two, or three, or 40?

• My 2018 list of favorite podcasts
• My 2017 list of favorite podcasts
• Bryan Alexander’s 2017 list of favorite podcasts
• Top 13 Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episodes in 2017

Laura Pasquini has been curating quite a list of higher education podcasts since 2017. Learn more about her project and how to contribute a podcast to the list on the Higher Ed Podcasts site.

Help a Friend Discover Podcasts

There are still people who don’t realize how easy it is to listen to a podcast. People who use iOS (have an iPhone) likely already have a built-in podcast app on their phone without even knowing it is there. For Android users, finding a podcast app is just a couple of taps away.

Ira Glass and his late friend, Mary Ahearn demonstrate the simplicity of podcast listening in this delightful video.

Yes, you can listen to a podcast right from your computer via your web browser, but I find it so freeing to know I can take them with me wherever I go.

Instead of using the built-in Apple Podcast app, my preferred podcast catcher for years now has been Overcast, on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

Support a Podcaster

I’ve gathered a few different ways you can support Teaching in Higher Ed, which would apply to really almost any podcast you might want to support. We make a small amount on purchases you make from Amazon of books that are recommended on the podcast. It isn’t going to fund our retirement anytime soon but does sometimes take care of our podcast hosting costs on a given month.

Use Podcasts in Your Teaching

I get asked often about how to start a podcast. Much of the time, I try to talk people out of this step. Instead, I suggest starting by using already-created podcasts in one’s teaching and leveraging the broader podcasting community’s collective content.

If you are going to play a podcast in a class, I suggest finding one that is around 15 minutes or less. In those cases when I am unsuccessful at that, I typically schedule to have my class outside on that day and encourage us to get moving while we listen. We are fortunate to have our campus located right by Newport’s Back Bay, where there are beautiful flora and fauna to take in as we listen.

If you are able to locate an episode that is 15 minutes or less, see if there’s a spot within the audio where you can pause it and ask the students to respond in some way.

I like to use episodes of Planet Money, which always have such engaging story arcs to them. About halfway through, I pause the recording and ask my students to predict what happened next, or talk about what advice they would have for the individuals being discussed in the episode.

Your Turn

How will you be celebrating International Podcast Day? In what ways do you use podcasts in your teaching?

I received a question from a listener regarding making more engaging slide decks that I thought I would answer here on the blog.

“On one episode I listened to last year, I think you mentioned someone who has a website with suggestions for making better powerpoint presentations? Does this ring a bell? I've had a search on your website, but can't find it. I wanted to improve my approach to slide-making before the term starts shortly.”

Here are some ideas for you to take your slide-making to the next level. Thanks for writing in to inquire.

Podcast Episodes

• Episode 33 – The Slide Heard ‘Round the World – Bonni and Dave Stachowiak talk about how to make your presentation slides more effective.

Blog Posts

• Tools for Better Presentations, by Bonni Stachowiak
• Top Presentation Slide Decks, by Mike Taylor
• iPad Unleashed: My New Wireless Lecture Setup, by Doug McKee
• Present at Work; Storytelling at Work, by Tomas Bay

Books

• Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, by Nancy Duarte
• Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds
• Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations, by Garr Reynolds

Resources

• Nancy Duarte’s site
• Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Tips
• 4 Tips and 1 Tool That Will Help You Perfect Your Slide Design, by Catrinel Bartolomeu

Your Turn

What advice do you have for creating more effective slide decks? 

Dave and I met while getting our master’s degrees in organizational leadership. Later on down the road, we both pursued our doctorates together. Our marriage is stronger, in part, because we speak a similar language when it comes to leadership.

Our similarities go beyond our common discipline. We are also both pretty geeky (the Apple Keynotes used to be considered a romantic date around here), enjoy learning right along with our children, and we each have the privilege of getting to host our own podcasts.

Dave’s podcast is: Coaching for Leaders

Over the years, he has been able to interview some of the big names from our respective educations and lifelong learning pursuits:

• Peter Block (episode 328), author of The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work (one of my all-time favorite reads from our graduate education, which recently had an update)
• Susan Cane (episode 44), author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Won’t Stop Talking
• John Kotter (episode 249), author of Leading Change
• Adam Grant (episode 238), author of Give and Take
• David Allen (episode 184), author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity

Dave isn’t the only one in our family who gets to talk with authors we admire. I have been able to talk with many of the well-known writers in the higher education context for the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, including:

• Stephen Brookfield (episodes 147, 98, & 15), author of The Skillful Teacher (and a gazillion other books)
• Ken Bain (episodes 146 & 36), author of What the Best College Teachers Do
• Cathy Davidson (episodes 169 & 28), author of The New Education
• Cathy O’Neil (episode 170), author of Weapons of Math Destruction
• James Lang (episodes 92, 210, & 19), author of Small Teaching

Last week, I had the absolute honor of getting to speak to another author, but someone writing in a different context. My conversation for this episode had me talking with the civil rights activist DeRay McKesson about his new book:

On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope*

Usually, when I have interviewed authors in the past, friends and colleagues have shared in the dialog about the person’s work, before I get to speak to the author. This time, I finished reading On the Other Side of Freedom at around 9:30 pm the night before I was scheduled to speak with DeRay and wasn’t able to bounce ideas and thoughts with anyone, in advance.

He was gracious in the few minutes we spent talking before the interview started. I had seen on Twitter that it was Aretha Franklin’s funeral, but it did take me a minute to decipher what he was saying about being in a rush to check out of his hotel and get over to Aretha’s coming home.

I try not to write too much on this blog about all the times I get nervous to interview someone for the podcast. If I considered myself to be a magnificent writer, maybe I would perceive that these kinds of stories would be fascinating to people. However, I can’t really continue with this story without mentioning that my entire body was bursting with adrenaline at this point. I kept giving myself all these instructions about what to say and what not to say to DeRay with every passing moment.

When he brought up Franklin’s passing, I instantly flashed to my college days. A friend had been talking about how much she liked her music, only she pronounced her name “urethra.”

I seriously think we have been getting decades’ worth of laughs over this moment in time by now. In my brief, introductory conversation with DeRay, I kept telling myself, “Don’t say her name. Don’t say her name. You know you’re going to get it wrong and he’s going to have the worst first impression of you. Don’t say her name.”

This was all happening in the context of me knowing that I can get confused over words. I once stood in front of over 100 human resources leaders and asserted that “It was a speculum.” What I had intended to say was “spectrum,” but that wasn't what came out of my mouth. After my awkward pause when I tried to determine if I had just said what I thought I had said, my reaction generated more laughter than I may have ever experienced when speaking. I think everyone was relieved that I could have a sense of humor about my mistake. I may also have endeared myself to them with my brief mention of our many visits to see specialists in our quest to try to have children. I do still avoid ever using the words spectrum or Aretha in my talks…

Knowing DeRay was in a hurry, I quickly started the interview. Fortunately, there are no significant blunders to share with you. Andrew, our podcast editor, did what he always does – and gracefully wove together the conversation into a glimpse into just a few of the stories from DeRay’s magnificent book*. I’m so glad to get to share our conversation with this community and hope you will take a listen if you haven’t already. DeRay's assertion that we “can't fight for people [we] don't know,” is another reminder of the importance of understanding the context in which our students enter their educational experiences.

Another Source for Pursuing Equity

Maha Bali, Associate Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo (AUC), shared on Twitter this week about another source for pursuing greater equity in our teaching.

Maha and her collaborators (Catherine Cronin and Mia Zamora) have welcomed their respective students and the world into their course entitled:

Equity Unbound: Making Borders Meaningless

They describe Equity Unbound as:

“…an emergent, collaborative curriculum which aims to create equity-focused, open, connected, intercultural learning experiences across classes, countries and contexts.”

The themes they are exploring include:

• Empathy and bias
• Equity
• Fake news
• Privacy
• Algorithms and data policies
• Digital wellbeing

Even if you don’t have time to participate, I highly suggest browsing the overview of each theme and check out the site resources.

As DeRay asserted in the interview I had with him, gaining knowledge about an issue is just the beginning. Whether it is reading On the Other Side of Freedom, or diving into some of the topics explored on Equity Unbound, I look forward to hearing what you are doing to take those next steps into action.

It has been a whirlwind of a month. I have some exciting updates to share with you, along with a few useful tools.

New Role

My role at my institution is being expanded in the coming academic year. The person who I have reported to this past couple of years has been named as our interim provost. Given the immense amount of respect I have for him, I welcomed the conversations about potentially taking on his prior role and continuing to report to him, at least until such time as a longer-term decision on the provost role gets filled.

I now have three titles. I’m not sure that they will fit on the business cards, but they do need to at least need to remain in place, particularly because one of them fulfills some of our obligations articulated in our Title V grant.

• Director of the Institute for Faculty Development
• Director of Teaching Excellence and Digital Pedagogy
• Associate Professor of Business and Management

It all became official on 8/15/18.

Things have been pretty nutty ever since. This past week, we had our new faculty orientation, adjunct training, and our resident faculty gathering. That, plus we welcomed 85 new business students into our department. I was responsible for leading that event, since the person who normally would have facilitated it was with our undeclared majors.

My kids loved the opportunity to visit campus all day on Saturday – and the new students enjoyed watching them take pictures of me with their iPads, as I was presenting. Let’s just say there was an over-emphasis on the nostrils.

New Advice Column

Another exciting thing that happened is that EdSurge invited me to become a columnist for them. Through conversation, we landed on me writing a monthly advice column for people who have questions about teaching within a higher education context.

You can learn more about the column and how to submit a question on the EdSurge website. I have enjoyed seeing the first handful of questions come in and the kinds of things we all tend to struggle with at one time or another.

New Tools

It wouldn’t be back to school season if we didn’t get our hands on at least a few new tools.

• S3STAT – As most of you are aware, we have been plugging away at getting the transcripts up for each episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. We are 67% of the way through them, with each episode after 200 being transcribed as it was published. The transcripts are being hosted on Amazon’s S3 service. I am able to get analytics of the data using S3STAT, which translates the S3 data into “human readable statistics, reports and graphs.” If you use Cloudfront or Amazon S3, check out S3STAT for all your analytics needs: beautiful reports, simple setup, serious visibility.

• Robert Talbert’s GTD posts – I am a huge believer in the power of David Allen’s Getting Things Done. So much so that the course I’m teaching this Fall uses it as one of our two textbooks… Robert Talbert provides an overview of the GTD system and how he uses it in an academic context on his blog. Many of his 14 GTD posts also include videos, so you can see GTD in action in Robert’s life.

• Timing App – I also started using the Timing App again (Mac). It tracks what I do on the computer and helps me identify and analyze how I am using my time. It is a great application, though I did forget to quit it before presenting in front of our full faculty and it started pestering me to tell it what I had been doing the last hour. I need to remember to add Timing to the AppleScript that I was able to set up for when I start/end presentations, thanks to the wonderful Work Smart and Be Remarkable: Productivity in Academia Blog by Helmut Hauser.

I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment, but also have enough of a sound mind to know that naps are a healthy way of keeping one's perspective. I completed my weekly review today and know that my most important priority in the next few weeks is related to hiring an administrative assistant to support our Institute for Faculty Development.

I also have a couple more columns I am drafting for the new EdSurge column,  along with a Personal Leadership and Productivity class to kick off tomorrow. If you haven't kicked off your class yet, this Faculty Focus article about Opening Intentions is well worth a read.

Your Turn

What new resource have you discovered lately?