Resources

As I round out the year in Teaching in Higher Ed podcasting, I am excited to share a few more conversations with you in the coming weeks. The podcast has aired every single week since June of 2014. It invigorates me to consider that in April of 2018, I will air the 200th episode of Teaching in Higher Ed.

The next few weeks have some serious sources of inspiration for me. Robin DeRosa and I talk about open education on episode 183. Pooja Agarwal comes back on the show to share retrieval practice research on episode 184. Finally, we look toward a new year with another visit with Christian Friedrich. He and I talk about privacy and safety in online learning on episode 185, the last week in December.

I am grateful to each of the guests who came on the podcast in 2017 and shared their expertise. If you have yet to visit the episodes page and browse through the taxonomy, it can be a helpful way to revisit older episodes that best meet your needs.

Top 13 Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast Episodes in 2017

Below are the top thirteen downloaded episodes of 2017:

1. e137 – Teaching Naked Techniques with C. Edward Watson
2. e159 – Dynamic Lecturing with Todd Zakrajsek
3. e135 – The Spark of Learning with Sarah Rose Cavanagh
4. e140 – Thinking Outside the LMS with Steven Michels
5. e142 – Rethinking Assessment (and other reflections on the Lilly Conference) with Bonni and Dave Stachowiak
6. e141 – The Danger of Silence with Clint Smith
7. e164 – Setting Students Up for Success from the Start with Joe Hoyle
8. e134 – Teaching Creativity with Hoda Mostafa
9. e144 – Digital Literacy – Then and Now with Bryan Alexander
10. e147 – Racial Identity in the Classroom with Stephen Brookfield
11. e146 – Motivation in the Classroom with James Lang and Ken Bain
12. e136 – Teaching Naked Techniques with Jose Bowen
13. e138 – Yes, Digital Literacy, But Which One with Michael Caulfield

I was probably most challenged by the conversations about race that I had with Clint Smith and Stephen Brookfield. Mike Caulfield inspired me to continue to work to improve my own digital literacy and made me laugh harder than any other guest in 2017 (which is saying a lot).

I aspire to identify even more puzzles for my students to explore, through the modeling provided by Joe Hoyle. James Lang helped me try out a new format for the show. He took over the interviewing role and asked Ken Bain questions throughout the episode, while I sat back and enjoyed listening intently. Each one of these individuals have shaped my teaching in profound ways.

Top 13 Recommended Resources

Some of you have used the referral links I provide in the show notes to the books and other resources recommended by guests. Below are some of the most-purchased items from our Amazon affiliate links in 2017:

1. Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, by James Lang
2. Doodling for Academics: A Coloring and Activity Book (Chicago Guides to Academic Life), by Julie Schumacher and Lauren Nassef
3. Slide:logy: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, by Nancy Duarte
4. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
5. Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, by Saundra Nancy McGuire
6. Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes, by Jose Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson
7. The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World In Flux, by Cathy N. Davidson
8. The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance and Promotion/Tenure Decisions, by Peter Seldin, J. Elizabeth Miller, and Clement A. Seldin
9. Make It Sick: The Science of Successful Learning, by Henry Roediger III and Mark McDaniel
10. The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain, by Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek
11. What the Best College Teachers Do, by Ken Bain
12. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John J. Ratey
13. There Is No Good Card for This: What To Say and Do When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love, by Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell

It may be worth noting that when you use an affiliate link, if you purchase other items during that visit to Amazon, we often receive some kind of commission. That must explain why the Audible recording of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck” wound up showing up on our affiliates links. Someone will have to tell me more about this one at some point…

Many of you also continued to enjoy Julie Schumacher’s sense of humor. Her coloring book landed at #2 (Doodling for Academics), but her novel, Dear Committee Members, was very close to making it on the list, as well. If you haven’t read it yet; it is hysterical.

I suspect that I am not going to become a YouTube sensation. However, my How to Pencast video generated almost 800 views. I won't plan on living off my YouTube advertising fees anytime soon. First off, I don't show advertisements with my videos. Even if I did, I would be a long ways off from any serious income…

Your Turn

What has been a Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode that has transformed your teaching in some way? What has been a favorite recommendation you heard about on Teaching in Higher Ed?

As I mentioned in last week's post about finding good partners, one of my doctoral students posed some intriguing questions to me that I have been carrying with me these past two weeks. In this post, I share more of her specific questions and give my second of several recommendations.

Sharing Online

One of the individuals in the class shared a powerful way in which she was feeling inspired to communicate online. However, she had concerns about some of the dangers of doing this kind of sharing online.

I gave her a few suggestions right away, but suggested that she follow up with me with an email, as there was a lot more I could say on the topics. Her emails have been edited to protect her (and her students’) identity, as well as for context.

The Questions

How do I blog about controversial topics safely online?

For example, I work in an urban school where a lot of teacher abuse from students occur.  How can I create a safe atmosphere for others to discuss these experiences without being judged or shamed by others who don't understand what it is to support students who have been identified as traumatized?

In addition, to the societal view that you must be a “bad” teacher or doing something wrong if you don't have classroom management or positive relationships with others.

I am also interested in developing powerful dialogues and relationships amongst parents and teachers.  A partnership that will create collaboration and supports for students, specifically in the areas of special education, (moderate to serve and emotional/behavioral disorders).  Again, pertaining to parents in urban areas (i.e. uneducated, multiple jobs, single parents, foster parents, grandparents, etc.)”

Sharing Their Stories

One of the most powerful ways you could have an impact is to share the stories of those you are looking to serve. When Clint Smith was on the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast on episode 141, he shared about the dangers of silence and how important our voices are. He spoke so proudly of his students and their capabilities and capacity.

The Ear Hustle podcast is another tremendous example of sharing context for people who want to learn more about life inside of a prison's walls. An episode that made me laugh was episode six, entitled “The Boom Boom Room,” about conjugal visits. Episode nine made me weep, as they shared about death and dying in the prison.

Jesse Stommel is another person who regularly challenges us to respect our students. As Jesse explains why he no longer grades, he stresses the importance of starting by trusting our students. Even though the main topic of episode 57, when Jesse was a guest, was about Twitter, the thread that went throughout the entire episode was regarding the importance of kindness in our teaching.

On episode #148, Bronwyn Harris shared about her book, Literally Unbelievable. Despite describing incredibly challenging situations, Bronwyn displays a profound respect for her students, their families, and the people who seek to improve such devastating circumstances. The Deeper Learning podcast, produced by the Orange County Department of Education, is another example of powerful storytelling about people making a difference in the educational community.

One of the common characteristics about all the examples of exquisite storytelling is that there is no place for venting about frustrations regarding students. Anger over the difficult environment that they have to navigate? Yes. But, venting about any challenges related directly to the people that they serve is off limits.

An empathetic voice is present throughout all of these wide-ranging stories. The more empathy we can create toward those we are trying to serve, the more we can do the difficult work of coming up with sustainable solutions.

Getting Started

One of the biggest pieces of advice I have for you, as you reflect even more on your digital identity, is to determine who your work will be targeted toward.

Are you creating content to help other teachers have greater empathy for their students? Or, do you want to tell stories and provide resources to help families better navigate their children's educational paths? 

Once you have a narrow focus on who you are going to be talking to, finding stories to share becomes a lot easier.

One of the best resources I have found for storytelling, recently, is the Power Your Podcast with Storytelling course by Alex Blumberg for the CreativeLive site. If you are interested in taking the course, use this link to get $15 off (and I will also get $15 for the referral).

Alex used to be a producer for the This American Life podcast and is one of the most phenomenal storytellers I know. The episode of his StartUp podcast called Shadowed Qualities was one of the most poignant examples of the “stuff” we bring into our work communities I have ever heard.

I am thrilled that you are asking these questions and look forward to seeing where this all heads, as you create more content in the coming weeks on your blog.

On-ramps: Reflections on the 14th Annual Open Education Conference

At last week's OpenEd17 conference, Jim Luke introduced the idea of having on-ramps for faculty to get on board with open education initiatives at our various institutions.

Ever since then, I have been captivated by the analogy of on-ramps as a means of supporting learners.

• In what ways did people provide me with ways to take my learning further regarding open education at OpenEd17?
• What have I discovered as a better means for introducing students to new ideas in my teaching?
• How do we address learners that are already speeding down a domain of knowledge's highway and have different needs to enhance their own learning than beginners do?

It seems like too daunting a task to attempt to give an overview of everything I discovered at OpenEd17. Instead, I will highlight a few key findings here, and assure you that my list of future potential podcast guests is larger than ever.

Start Somewhere

The first morning of the conference, we got to hear from a panel of students from Santa Ana College. They were articulate and celebrated what having open educational resources (OARs) in their courses has meant for them.

One of the panelists stressed that if faculty expect stellar assignments from their students, we should expect the same quality of work from ourselves. The overall message at this point in panel was that we should “just do it,” and start somewhere with our open education efforts.

Open Textbooks

I have been sharing recently that I'm embarking with my doctoral students on our first-ever open textbook endeavor. We are very early in the process (class just started last Saturday), but are all completely jazzed about what's possible.

Robin DeRosa's blog post on her open textbook efforts has been incredibly helpful to me, in considering how to get started. I decided to use Pressbooks for the composition and eventual distribution of the open textbook we will be writing.

Pressbooks is built on the popular blogging platform, WordPress. I am already familiar with WordPress, since that's what the Teaching in Higher Ed website uses. I was able to attend a session about the roadmap for future iterations of Pressbooks. They appear to be quite an innovative company and I'm excited to see what we are able to produce, using their service.

Mike Caulfield has published an open textbook using Pressbooks. His Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers is an excellent source for helping to grow information literacy.

You can view Mike's presentation about the Digital Polarization Project online, thanks to Robin's filming efforts at OpenEd17. He also made his slides available online.

That's just the beginning of what's available through open textbooks. The Ohio State University Library has a great list of ways in which to search for books, using different websites.

Using already-available open textbooks is just the beginning of what's possible in open education. Many presenters stressed how faculty enjoy the ability to customize open textbooks to best meet their needs.

We were also encouraged to not replace one passive tool (a traditional textbook) with another passive tool (an open textbook). There are many ways in which we can make open educational resources engaging and active.

Keep Going

One way I am getting started is through OpenTextbooks. But, that is just the beginning, I know.

The OER (open educational resources) World Map is brimming with possibilities of where to possibly head next.

I hope to find colleagues at my institution who are ready to begin exploring how we might better serve our students through open education, even if it means starting in the smallest of ways.

Ken Bauer describes well the failures we will experience if we try to introduce too many new tools to faculty too quickly. He also shares questions he has, after attending OpenEd17, himself.

If you want to get more of a taste of what happened at OpenEd17, here's an OER video Digest that shares much more than what I have in this post.

Gratitude

I am thankful for all the people who gave so generously at OpenEd17. It was wonderful to get to meet some friends in person for the first time, while reuniting with other friends I haven't seen in a long while.

It all reminded me of some of the writing that Maha Bali did, after she met some friends in person for the first time at OER17.  The experience is difficult to describe. I will treasure the opportunities to be in-person with such magnificent and inspiring educators and appreciate that we have such wonderful ways to stay in touch.

My vote on the top 100 tools for learning

Jane Hart is conducting her annual survey of Top 100 Tools for Learning. The following are my top ten tools for learning, categorizes under Jane Hart's structure of: education, personal and professional learning, and workplace learning. You can also check out my 2016 votes, many of which carried across into this year.

Another related post worth checking out is Harold Jarche's Top Tools 2017. I'm glad (sort of ) that I made my list first. Otherwise, I definitely would have been influenced by his mentions of: Slack, 1Password (absolutely essential), and WordPress.

Education

Zoom – There's something that happens in communication when you can see another person and hear the sound of their voice. Zoom makes one-on-one conversations rich, not to mention entire classes. People can get set up simply and start connecting right away. I especially enjoy their breakout rooms feature, which is easy to use and gives the ability to have people discuss topics in smaller groups.

PollEverywhere – I'm a big believer in using retrieval tactics to strengthen student learning. PollEverywhere allows me to pose various types of questions to learners and have complete control over whether their results are displayed and when. Learners can give their answers to the questions that are posed via their smart phones, tablets, computers, or even via Twitter. Quizlet is another good tool for retrieval practice, especially Quizlet Live.

Glisser – I only just recently started using Glisser, but am really appreciating its ease of use and way to engage learners. It allows us to present slides, use polls, show videos, have students ask questions, allow people to tweet out slides from our slide deck, and more.

Canvas – Our university switched to the Canvas LMS just over a year ago and I'm still a big fan. I do believe in still thinking outside the LMS, though I appreciate the opportunity for grades and feedback to have a confidential, two-way place to occur.

Personal and professional learning

iTunes (podcasts)  – Learning never has to end with podcasts. They are like shows on the radio, but without having to be listening at the exact time the show airs. I listen to podcasts daily, using an app called Overcast, which accesses the iTunes podcast feed for the various shows I like to listen to… I can pretty much never keep up with all the wonderful resources that are out there in the form of podcasts, but it is fun to continually try.

Twitter – My personal learning network (PLN) completely changed when I started using Twitter regularly. Twitter is a social network that's value comes forth when you connect with “people who are like you – and also people who are not like you” (Peter Newbury on Teaching in Higher Ed).

Feedly – I still have fond memories of walking to a nearby bagel shop and reading the newspaper in my 20s. Now that I'm in my 40s, we have far superior newspapers. We can read them on our various devices and customize them to our exact preferences. Using Feedly, I can subscribe to the blogs and news sources that I want and have Feedly keep track of which stories I've read, already, and which ones are still unread. When I stop finding value in a particular source, I just unsubscribe on Feedly and can further increase the value of my virtual newspaper.

Pinboard – I can send articles that I want to bookmark (save for reference) from my preferred newsreader over to Pinboard.in, without having to leave the app. I have bookmarks saved on edtech,  open textbooks, productivity, blended learning, humor, parenting, and hundreds of other topics.

Workplace learning

Clarify – Another thing I did in my 20s (but this activity was a lot less fun than walks to the bagel shop) was make documentation. If you ever find yourself needing to build a how-to manual, Clarify will make this process incredibly easy for you. You just walk through the steps it takes to perform a function and have Clarify take screenshots along the way. You can add instructions and arrows/steps/annotations on your screenshots. When you're done, there are a myriad of export options, which can be customized so you get your documentation just the way you want it.

SnagIt – I've never been as concise as I would like to be, but SnagIt helps me move closer to that goal. When someone asks me a question, I can just take a screenshot (a picture of what's on my screen) and draw arrows and add text to give the answer in the proper context. I can also “video” what's on my screen (screencast), whether for the purpose of answering a question, or giving feedback on an assignment.

What tools have you found to be especially helpful in facilitating learning, or in contributing to your own personal and professional development? Comment below, or consider submitting your own vote for the 2017 top 100 tools list.