Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 543 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, curation, collections, and collaboration, insights from the University of Virginia’s Teaching Hub with Derek Bruff.

Podcast Production: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:26]:

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, 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 productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. I am so glad to be welcoming back to the show, Derek Bruff. He’s an educator, author, and higher ed consultant. He directed the Vanderbilt University Center For Teaching for more than a decade, where he helped faculty and other instructors develop foundational teaching skills and explore new ideas in teaching. Bruff has written 2 books, intentional tech, principles to guide the use of educational technology in college teaching, and teaching with classroom response systems, creating active learning environments. He writes a weekly newsletter called intentional teaching and produces the intentional teaching podcast.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:40]:

Bruff is currently an associate director at the Center For Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia. Derek Brough, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Derek Bruff [00:01:51]:

Thank you, Bonni. I’m very excited to be back.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:54]:

I am so happy to have you back, and it cracks me up because you put on a number of times. I don’t remember how long ago this was, but you recommended a board game about birds called wingspan. Yes. It was a long time ago. Also, it has been recommended by other guests as well. David Clark has recommended it too. I gave it to my parents for Christmas a couple years ago, and then I bought it for myself because I came up with this top called bird brains, so I got all into learning about it. You would laugh so hard.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:26]:

I set up the game all out. Put I had so much fun putting the birdhouse together, all the pieces, looking at the startup card, and so excited, like, how it onboards you, and then never have played it. Not a single Oh, no. Yes. And I heard you mentioned it recently, and I thought, oh, gosh. And both you and I are gonna maybe be seeing each other at an upcoming conference. And so I’m kinda like, I think it’s not packable, though. I I think that’s

Derek Bruff [00:02:53]:

probably I will have you know that my wife traveled to visit friends in Angola a few years ago

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:59]:

Oh my gosh.

Derek Bruff [00:03:00]:

Which is a very hard country to get into just because of the regulations and and everything. And her friends there were huge board gamers and huge bird watchers, and so they wanted her to bring a copy of Wingspan, and she did. She did get She traveled with it all the way to

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:16]:

And but it got left behind, didn’t it? So they could keep it?

Derek Bruff [00:03:19]:

Well, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Her she didn’t bring the box. That that wasn’t gonna be possible. She brought all the components and delivered it to friends in Angola. So maybe I’ll bring wingspan to our our conference, and we could I can show you how to play.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:31]:

That would be fun. I do feel like we would enjoy it once we learned for sure. So alright. Well, we should get to the topic at hand. I’ve been so excited to talk to you ever since you reached out and shared about a new teaching hub, and we’re talking about it today for a few reasons. One is we’re talking about it because it’s a tremendous resource. So that’s, I mean, that’s a really that that that would be enough just as it is. But talk a little bit about the other reasons we’re kinda gonna be exploring this hub and lessons we might draw from it.

Derek Bruff [00:04:01]:

Well, one reason is that it’s up for an innovation award at the Pod Network conference Mhmm. Which we where we’ll see each other.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:08]:

Yeah.

Derek Bruff [00:04:09]:

So I’m very excited about that. Yeah. So Teaching Hub is a website designed to connect educators and educational developers to, really useful resources to enhance teaching and learning.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:20]:

Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:04:21]:

And we take a slightly different approach. We’re not some listeners may be familiar with the Vanderbilt Center For Teaching website that I I got I I had the great fortune to oversee for many years. And there, we had our staff and our grad fellows develop teaching guides and different teaching resources and kind of find the best ideas and synthesize them and kind of have links to the to the literature. There’s so many great resources out there

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:44]:

Yes.

Derek Bruff [00:04:45]:

Like those guides that you can find them on blogs and podcasts and other teaching news, websites and academic journals. There’s so many great resources on teaching and learning, but it can be hard to find the ones that are gonna be most useful to you. And so on TeachingHub, we’re taking a slightly different approach. We’re working with a ton of curators. That’s what we call them, curators. Folks who have some expertise in some aspect of teaching and learning. And what they do is they select, they curate between 38, usually around 5 or 6 resources on a particular teaching topic. And it’s kinda like when you walk into a bookstore and you go to the the front and there there’s like a staff pick.

Derek Bruff [00:05:23]:

Right? And they they write a little recommendation about why you should read this book. That’s kind of the idea is that you’ll find some really great resources on a topic along with the curator’s recommendations. Like, why would you want to use this? How is this helpful?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:38]:

That bookshop example is such a such a perfect thing. That is, you literally just described it, and the experiences that I’ve had in preparing for today’s conversations were exactly like that, exactly how that feels to do it. So much of the unexpected. I’m going to be asking you about some of the resources that have been have seemed to really resonate the most and and some things that we might wanna go target people toward discovering. But I also before we do that, I wanna see what kinds of lessons in general we might draw from the idea of being curators ourselves. And I’ll and I’ll first premise this by saying, I many times have attempted to share with people about how powerful having a digital bookmarking tool can be in our own tool set. The one that I happen to use is called raindrop.io, but there are,

Derek Bruff [00:06:31]:

of course that too. Do you really? Recommend. Oh, I love it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:35]:

Okay. So raindrop.io. I mean, wonderful digital bookmarking. There are lots that are out there. What I would say people should stay away from is the bookmark that just lives only on one browser, like, that it doesn’t actually carry across to other systems for you. So raindrop dot I io has served me really, really well. I also like it, by the way, because you can both subscribe to RSS feeds to get bookmarks in there, but you also could push them back out so that if you wanted other people to be able to see every time you added a bookmark on raindrop dot dot I o from a particular collection, somebody you could you could set it up so that it was public so people could actually subscribe to it. So really, really flexible.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:20]:

But when I describe it to people, there is often the pushback that says, oh, it’s too much. I you know, this is I just I just Google. When I’m looking for something, I just go Google. So, Derek, what would you say in response to someone to help them see what they might be missing if it’s just well, I just when I’m looking for something, I just Google it as opposed to what tools like digital bookmarking tools can do for us in our digital lives?

Derek Bruff [00:07:47]:

That’s a great question. And I might maybe distinguish a little bit between the collection.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:51]:

Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:07:52]:

Like, when you’re when you’re bookmarking things, and I I do this all the time. Right? So there’s a collection and then there’s the curation. Mhmm. And I took the StrengthsFinder inventory a long time ago. I’m sure you’re familiar with it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:04]:

Yes. Oh, very much.

Derek Bruff [00:08:05]:

And one of the strengths that it identified for me was called input.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:09]:

Oh, me too.

Derek Bruff [00:08:10]:

And this is the idea. I bet it is. Yeah. This is the idea that you like kind of gathering up lots of information and kind of saving it up for when you’re gonna need it later. And it it explained when I when I saw that on the report, it explained a lot of my process. This is why I follow blogs by RSS. This is why I read newsletters. This is why I subscribe to podcasts.

Derek Bruff [00:08:29]:

Right? This is why how I use social media? I want this kind of flow of stuff coming at me. Mhmm. I’ll pick out the things that I think I might use later that might be most interesting. And there’s a challenge there in collecting those and organizing them so you can find them later.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:44]:

Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:08:45]:

But what I find in my work at a teaching center is that I’m often talking to a faculty member who has some kind of teaching problem or challenge or opportunity in their course, and they’re trying to figure something out. And the real value is when I can pull that thing out of my collection and say, have you thought about this? Or here’s an example of how someone else has solved this. Or here’s a really great podcast interview with someone who’s who who’s trying to do the same thing that you’re doing. Right? That’s the curation piece where I am it’s it’s it’s looking at your entire collection of of goodies. Right? But picking out the ones that are the best or the most useful or the most germane to a particular particular context. And that’s that’s why I think Teaching Hub is kind of fun because we’re we’re involving a lot of people as curators who have done that in their domain. They’ve they’ve collected all the great resources, and now they’re curating a short list, making it a lot easier for folks to kind of get started with something.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:41]:

Oh, that’s great.

Derek Bruff [00:09:42]:

Yeah. And I and I think about the Google search. Right? So so Google AI so now when you go to Google and you do a search, it’s gonna it’s gonna give you a little AI summary of your top several hits. Right? And this was kind of comically bad when they released it because, you know, it’s telling you to put glue on your pizza or whatever.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:59]:

Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:09:59]:

And part of it was that the AI was doing a good job summarizing the sources. The problem was that it was picking bad sources. It was taking a satire piece on The Onion and trying to present it as if it’s real news. Right? And so that’s, I think, the challenge with all the information we have access to. Right? Whether it’s the entire Internet or even just our our raindrop collection of stuff, right, is how do we find the source that’s really useful? How do we and and curation doesn’t solve that, but I think it’s an ongoing challenge. And one way to address that challenge is to find other people who’ve who’ve done the curation. Right? And to kind of let them be your guide as opposed to whatever Google’s mysterious algorithms think are most relevant to what you’re searching for.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:44]:

Yeah. That’s so helpful. That’s really helpful. And and that when we’re looking in that very moment, we can’t benefit from the past sense making that we’ve made. I’m thinking as of our conversation this morning, someone that I have followed over years now, specifically her writing and thinking about artificial intelligence is Maha Bali. I’ve of course, I’ve known her a lot longer than that. She’s been on the podcast for a very long time now, but she just wrote something this morning, and and it’s she’s just so good at her ongoing conversations, what she’s learning, what she’s thinking about. And so I can go into raindrop dotai raindrop dot I o.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:26]:

It’s e e I e I o. And then else. I there’s so many different ways that I can search. So I can search by her name. I also have things called fluencies. There’s digital literacy or dig lit, which so I have all these different ways that I might search for it. I also I don’t know, Derek. This might actually fit in with what you’re sharing here.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:47]:

I like to use the vernacular h slash t, which is used often in social media for those listening who may not know as a hat tip, and a h slash slash t for me is who recommended it, and even now, sometimes, where. So yesterday, and I’ll link to this just because I I think it would be relevant to our listeners. Yesterday, I saw Josh Eiler post on LinkedIn about a post that he said was the best post to convey a certain thing. And, of course, right now, I can’t remember what that certain thing was.

Derek Bruff [00:12:25]:

I saw him post that. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:26]:

But it was some an author named Bettina Love. And I I thought, like, if if Josh Eiler says, this is the best piece on this thing, not only do I wanna put it under the tag that I have for Bettina Love, which I already had one, and for inclusive teaching and equity, and I mean, there are a lot of tags, but then I also wanted to be able to connect it back to Josh. I mean, it’s just it’s it’s Yeah. In the future, when I don’t remember that, it’s just so nice to be able to have all of that metadata, some of which you might find in other places, but you’re not gonna find the metadata that, you know, that is sense making for me specifically in in that kind of a way. So that’s kinda that’s really fun.

Derek Bruff [00:13:12]:

That’s really fascinating. Yeah. Because I can imagine scenarios where I can’t remember what I’m looking for, but I know Josh recommended it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:20]:

Yes. Yeah.

Derek Bruff [00:13:21]:

Right? And so tagging it that way with a hat tip helps me find that later. And vice versa, I can I know there’s times where I I have the resource? I can’t remember who told me about it, and I’d love to give them some credit and acknowledge that kind of professional network.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:36]:

I do too.

Derek Bruff [00:13:37]:

And you’re you’re tracking that. I love that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:39]:

And I actually, I don’t make a tag for it, although perhaps there’s a limitation to the way I do it. I just put it in the notes, which are searchable too.

Derek Bruff [00:13:47]:

So

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:47]:

I’ll do a h slash t in the notes, and then Yeah. Can find it that way. Yeah.

Derek Bruff [00:13:51]:

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And so we’re trying to tap into a bit of that with Teaching Hub. And so, like, let’s say you’re, you know, you’ve been teaching online for a few semesters, and you’d like to kind of make better use of video as a teaching tool. There’s lots of ways to get inspiration and ideas for how to do that, but one way to start would be to go to the Teaching Hub. We have a brand new collection from Tom Pantazes at Westchester University, another fellow podcaster, and it’s all about creating instructional videos. And so, yes, you could rely on Google to probably bring you something useful, but why not tap into Tom’s expertise? He’s already selected these resources and these books and articles and walk throughs that are that that are are super super helpful.

Derek Bruff [00:14:35]:

And so, yeah, you’re it’s that hat tip phenomenon. Right? Like like, this is someone who might know something helpful for me, and I’m gonna lean on his curation ability to help me find what I need to solve my problem.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:46]:

So I have browsed, and I have I felt like I did my homework, but all of a sudden, I’m feeling like I didn’t do my homework because I don’t think I realized the extent to which this is a community of curators. I when you said it, I presumed community at the University of Virginia, but it sounds much more expansive than that.

Derek Bruff [00:15:02]:

It is. And that is part of my role with Teaching Hub because I am somewhat new to University of Virginia. I’ve only been at this the teaching center there for a couple of months, but I’m not new to higher ed and these teaching and learning conversations. And so part of the reason Michael Palmer, the director there, brought me in was to help make some of these connections outside because I think the the teaching hub will be a lot more powerful the more diverse voices we have in it. Because the goal is to be helpful in a lot of different teaching contexts and different context across higher ed. And so UVA is one of those places. Right? But it’s it’s hardly typical. We have 40 curators who have contributed a collection at this point, and I think we’re up to 8 of those are not UVA faculty or staff.

Derek Bruff [00:15:48]:

So we did start with a lot of UVA, a lot of teaching center staff, and some of the faculty that the CTE works with a lot. We’ve got a bunch of collections on AI in particular disciplines because that was something that we needed the last year. But increasingly, I’ve been reaching out through my network and other networks. Right? Michael Palmer and others at the center are great at finding people. And so, yeah, we’re trying to bring in a lot of outside voices as well.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:11]:

And so let’s talk a little bit then about the one from Tom, the instructional designer from Westchester University. Tell us what we might find if we go there to help us discover a little bit more about what the what these different collections wait. Is this called a collection? Is each Yes. Each piece is called a collection. Okay.

Derek Bruff [00:16:29]:

Yeah. So the nomenclature is it takes a little bit of getting used to, but, yes, the the thing there is a collection. Mhmm. Within the collection, like, TOMS has, let me bring it up, 6 resources of typically different types, right, and different sources. So TOMS, for instance, he actually links to the Vanderbilt Center For Teaching because on that website, that teaching center website, there’s a guide on effective educational videos. So Tom’s found that one useful, so he’s linking out to that. You’ll see on Tom’s collection a short description of that resource and then a couple of sentences from Tom about why he thinks it’s helpful. Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:17:08]:

He links to a website at his teaching center, Westchester University Teaching and Learning Center, types of instructional video. So he’s got a resource from his own unit that he’s found helpful. He also links out to a book by someone I know you’ve had on the podcast, Karen Costa.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:24]:

Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:17:25]:

99 tips for creating simple and sustainable educational videos. Right? And so where possible, these resources are on the open web. We try to encourage our curators to pick stuff that are kind of readily accessible. But if it is a journal article that’s really valuable but behind a paywall, we’ll still document it, and maybe you have a way to get to it. We’ll we’ll we’ll recommend books that we think people should investigate even if they might have to pay for it or find some other way to access it. So it’s a mix. He’s got a scholarly article that he’s linked to from Richard Meyer, multimedia scholar. It’s a it’s it’s kind of a a summary article of multimedia learning.

Derek Bruff [00:18:04]:

And so it’s so we try to also have kind of a mix of very practical tips and tricks around the topic. What could you do? But then also try to bring in the scholarship to some degree. Right? If there are kind of key articles that are are worth reading or studies that have really been kind of influential in this area, we try to include some of that. And the media can vary too. Right? So video, podcasts, whatever it may be. Often, our curators, like Tom did, will include something of their own creation because it’s usually a topic they’re really invested in professionally. They know a lot. They have expertise.

Derek Bruff [00:18:38]:

So often, you’ll see that the curator has selected something they’ve produced as 1 or 1 or 2 of the resources. You know, our curators are they’re experts. Right? They’re really passionate about their topic and they spend a lot of time there. So the like, if you look at some of my teaching guides, you’ll see a blog post I wrote or an article I wrote or maybe often for me, it’s, again, part of the curation piece is an interview I did on my podcast with someone who can really speak into the subject that I’m trying to cover.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:19:07]:

And tell us what are what are 1 or 2 of the ones that you’ve done where you think, gosh, if you’re gonna stop by, you gotta you gotta check these out.

Derek Bruff [00:19:14]:

Okay. So one of them that I think is a kind of typical collection, I did one on how to teach the 1st day of class.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:19:22]:

Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:19:23]:

And so it’s maybe not the most timely topic in November, but it’s coming around. It’s coming. Right? It’s coming back around.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:19:30]:

Sooner and sooner than we know it.

Derek Bruff [00:19:32]:

Right. So I’ve linked out to a really great article in The Chronicle by Jim Lang about how to teach a good first day of class. I linked to another teaching center. The DePaul University Teaching Commons has a great page with strategies for the 1st day of class. Another article about it’s it’s written for physics instructors by Stephanie Chastain, but it’s got a a ton of great advice for navigating that 1st week or so. And then I think you’ve had, Michelle Pokonsky Brock on in the past.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:00]:

Yeah.

Derek Bruff [00:20:01]:

And I am just in love with her liquid syllabus idea. And so I wanted to include that. Right? I think that’s a really useful model for how to particularly in online class, how to do that kind of welcoming moment even if you don’t have a first day. Maybe it’s an asynchronous course. But I again, I’m it’s fun to put these together because I’m like, okay. Who’s done really great work in this area? Who are the folks that I go to all the time to learn from and and to to benefit from? And how can I kinda put some of that together in a way that other people can access quickly and and and and and reach?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:34]:

Do you find yourself when you’re doing it feel that I don’t it would be a cousin of the fear of missing out where you feel like you’re gosh, if I narrow it down this much, I’m people are gonna miss out on this, or I’m gonna miss or or is it not as much pressure as it seems like it could be?

Derek Bruff [00:20:51]:

Yeah. I well, I will say we try to we tell our curators have at least 3 resources, and don’t go over 8.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:57]:

Mhmm.

Derek Bruff [00:20:58]:

And some of our curators struggle a little bit. I kinda like it. I like the 5 to 6 range, because I also feel like, you know, with an audience of educators and educational developers, we don’t have all the time in the world. So I’ll reference the board game community here. There are there’s a kind of genre of board game podcast where people will talk about their top 100 board games of all time. And I’m like, I don’t care what board game is your 78th favorite game. Mhmm. Give me the top ten.

Derek Bruff [00:21:27]:

Right? That’s that’s the really interesting stuff. And so I think sometimes the kind of it’s kind of a natural academic urge to be comprehensive. Right? If we’re gonna do a literature review, we wanna review all the literature. Right? But here, it really is more like these are the recommended resources. And so there’s some real value in thinking about what are the 4 or 5 or 6 that I would recommend? How would they even complement each other among these resources? Right? Here’s a little bit of the theory. Here’s some research. Here’s 3 practical examples. One of them is audio or video, so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.

Derek Bruff [00:22:02]:

Right? Like, how can we kind of craft something that’s really broadly useful? And I don’t know. I think that’s good work. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:09]:

Okay. So I have it’s gonna seem like it’s not related. We are gonna come back, but is Wingspan in your top ten?

Derek Bruff [00:22:16]:

Yes. Absolutely.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:17]:

Where where approximately is it gonna land? I won’t let JJ on this, but

Derek Bruff [00:22:21]:

I I’m I’m probably gonna put wingspan as my number one favorite board game.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:24]:

Okay. So you’re putting the good pressure, good healthy pressure

Derek Bruff [00:22:27]:

on me

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:28]:

to get going with it. Okay. And then have you played Watergate, which was recommended by David Clark previously?

Derek Bruff [00:22:33]:

I have not, but I’ve heard such good things about that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:36]:

Oh, Derek. Okay. So if we were if we were gonna pack a second one in our suitcases, it’s so good. It’s so good. It is a 2 it is a 2 player game, so 2 player only. Yes. I think you like to play more with your family and

Derek Bruff [00:22:52]:

I do. But one reason wingspan is my favorite is it’s the one that my wife and I can kind of knock out after the kids are in bed and enjoy Okay. Enjoy an hour together at the table.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:01]:

I cannot recommend Watergate highly enough, and it is so fun when we play. It you just you think that you’re winning, and all of a sudden, you are not winning, and it takes some sudden turns and is really, really fun. And you don’t have to know about the history, although it does generate curiosity about the history, which I find Yeah. Particularly fun. So alright. So we’re back now. Before we get to our recommendations for the official recommendations for today’s episode, I’d like to ask, what could we learn when we think about our own design of courses from what you’ve learned through this collection and curation process? What what should we be thinking about as people designing our own learning experiences?

Derek Bruff [00:23:46]:

So I think I take kind of a similar approach when I think about designing my courses and the learning experiences I want my students to have. I’m just my own client. Right? So I have, hopefully, some sense of kind of what my teaching context and challenges, what am I trying to accomplish. And then I’ve got this huge collection of things I’ve seen, examples, ideas, teaching practices, or assignments I’d like to try out one day. And so then then there’s a curation process for this course and these students and the time that I have. I can’t do all of those things. That would be ridiculous. But what things have worked already in this course that I wanna keep? What are the things that, didn’t quite work? And can I can I find something from my pool of examples and ideas that’s gonna gonna maybe kind of sit that puzzle piece? And so I feel like there there there is a curation piece to that when I think about kind of the elements of my course.

Derek Bruff [00:24:45]:

Right? I’m gonna like, the the first year writing seminar that I’ve taught in the past about cryptography. Like, there’s a little piece of kind of ungrading. I have my students do some self assessment around their online participation. So I’ve kinda brought in a couple of ideas from that. Last time I taught it, I had heard a lot about mastery assessment. And so I took the the kind of quiz portions of the course and turned that into a chance for students to practice and repeat and try again. Right? I talked to a lot of faculty about the really creative assignments that they do. And so I, you know, I started thinking, what is my podcast assignment gonna look like? What is the final project gonna look like? And so I think part of this is that I like to think of teaching as a kind of ongoing creative process that I mean, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Derek Bruff [00:25:30]:

And last year worked, and I don’t have a lot of time, or we’re gonna do it again. Right? But that’s also why it’s nice to be able to know last year worked, and I’m gonna keep that. Right? But I do try to kinda tweak and change every time I teach a course and change things up a little bit, and I’m drawing on those resources that I’ve collected. And so, yeah, I think there’s a bit of a kind of curation. The one thing that I I wish we had a better system for in higher ed is something like your hat tip. Mhmm. That, you know, if I write a piece of scholarly literature and you cite it in your piece of scholarly literature, there’s a link there that kind of shows up in various metrics, both good and bad. But we know that that I had some impact because you cited my work.

Derek Bruff [00:26:10]:

We don’t have a system like that for teaching ideas, and I kinda wish we did because I think I think there are some folks out there who are not unlike David Clark. Right? Like, he would get cited all the time because he has some really great ideas, not just board games, but in his teaching as well. And we don’t have a way to kind of measure that. And I know that sometimes those metrics can go in kind of weird directions, but I do feel like we should have more systems in place to acknowledge our our input, right, our sources and our inspiration.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:37]:

Yeah. When you were talking, I was and and also in my preparation for today, I was thinking about there’s another collection that is on templated Canvas courses. And right now, it’s on the main hub page, but I imagine these are gonna move around. Correct? So that’s not always gonna be there. So I’m guessing these are featured collections that are here, and they’ll so

Derek Bruff [00:27:01]:

have on the home page, we have, like, a featured collection and then our our we have a couple of featured collections and then the latest collections.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:08]:

Okay. So I went over there, and it reminded me of that it helps me so much from across so many different domains when I just have places to put things. So I made the decision, which, as of now, we’re more than halfway through my semester. I still support this decision to burn my class to the ground before it started even though I didn’t have enough time to finish building it. So I’m I’m doing one of the staying 2 weeks ahead of the students kinds of efforts here, and but I’m so pleased with how it’s it’s turning out.

Derek Bruff [00:27:41]:

Wow.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:42]:

But so having the that every every week would look similar, and that I know, well, you’re gonna have approximately 8 to 10 of these different activities, and here’s kinda what and this this actually is a way that artificial intelligence really helps me, because it it will keep a memory, so it knows what class I’m teaching. And I’ll say, can you create instructions for the assignment? And one of the things I’ll do is be too detailed, and and then I’ll confuse well, you could do it this way, or you could try that. How about this over here? And and it and, like, I my brain doesn’t isn’t concrete enough. I I tend to be more on the conceptual and pop around to dot lots of different ideas, which is fun, unless you’re trying to do an assignment. You know

Derek Bruff [00:28:26]:

what that is? Right.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:27]:

Right. It’s fun to have a conversation that’s not, you know, going to be, you know, required to have be completed in some, you know, meeting some specifications, if you will. So I found that in this particular collection, there’s Canvas module templates and how helpful and this that that was like, oh, that’s what I do, but I could probably get even more inspiration on how to organize my mind and settle it to something that would be more inclusive with how I communicate about assignments. And then I saw Seattle University course templates and then Canvas Commons. So I am very familiar with Canvas Commons as it relates to storing entire classes, but I haven’t really ever experimented with the ability that just to save a single assignment there. And I thought, well, I bet you could learn some things about Canvas Commons more than you know right now, and then UVA CTE templated Canvas courses to show how that all works. So I think this is another example of how so it it’s gonna help me be less stressed if I know this particular week, this is what needs to get done. It’s gonna help me be more organized, clear, and concise when I’m communicating to students.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:38]:

And when I think about it that way, just like you have, every every collection’s gonna have this. There’s gonna be a variety, so I try to sprinkle in I’m not entirely UDL a 100% of the time in my classes, and by UDL, I’m specifically speaking of the aspect of it where they get to choose what they would like to do, but I do it often, just not always. And so, okay, so is it every 3 weeks or is it every 4 week? And and then just to build that in, and for me, I put it in my task manager, and it feels so good to check. I I I’m I’m I I suspect that some listeners will relate to this. I’m the kind of person who likes to sometimes write something not down that I already did just to cross it off. You know? Is that you too?

Derek Bruff [00:30:25]:

I’m right there with you. Yes. My my, I use Todoist for my task management, and it gives me a little, like, banner thing when I check 5 things off my list. And that’s kinda my goal every day is to at least hit 5 things on my list so I can see that little digital good job, Derek.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:42]:

That’s so funny. So the class I’m teaching right now is personal leadership and productivity. And for the first time, I am I moved away. I used to have them use Microsoft Office ones because then they could get it for free. So they did Office 365. They have a Microsoft To Do, but Right. Oh, it is very clunky to you. So this is the first time we’re using to do is because it’s multiplatform.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:06]:

And so I can’t I can’t wait till now see the check 5 things off in one day. Do you think that’s it?

Derek Bruff [00:31:12]:

That’s that’s how mine’s set up. Maybe I set that up for myself at some point. Maybe it’s the default, but I know I feel a little extra productive when I’ve gotten 5 things done in one day. It’s completely artificial, but, you know, it keeps me moving.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:24]:

Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, before we get to the recommendation segment, are there any other collections that you really want us to go check out that I can link to in the show

Derek Bruff [00:31:33]:

notes? Great. I will note the one on templated Canvas courses is from my CTE colleague, Melissa Elgood. She works with faculty here around how to use Canvas well, and so she was a great person to put that guide together. The other one that I think is timely and a good one to look into, and I realize it just fell off the home page, it is let’s see. I go to explore and then collections. I should be able to see recent ones. Yes. Navigating the AI Driven Writing Classroom.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:06]:

And

Derek Bruff [00:32:06]:

this one is by Peri Faseh. She is a a writing instructor at Boston University. And I had her on my podcast recently. She she’d been posting on LinkedIn about all these really creative uses of artificial intelligence in her writing course. She was part of a pilot there to kind of kick the tires on this. And I just thought she’s so thoughtful and intentional about how she goes about experimenting with these tools. I talked to her on my podcast, confirmed all of my suspicions from the LinkedIn posts, and then I invited her to put together a collection for Teaching Hub. And so she’s got actually, she links out to an article from my former colleagues at the University of Mississippi.

Derek Bruff [00:32:47]:

The writing and rhetoric department there was experimenting with GPT 2 back in 2021 before the rest of us knew this was gonna be a thing. And so they’ve already published some really nice articles on some of their early studies with these technologies. Peri also includes a couple of, like, activities. So these kind of documents where she’s kinda walked through the the activity or the assignment. One that she used and one that one of her colleagues at Boston used. So it’s very practical stuff in this one. And then, also a white paper on the future of writing and the disciplines that she found really insightful as well. So that’s that’s definitely one I would recommend if that’s at all interesting to you all.

Derek Bruff [00:33:27]:

And I should add that I’ve mentioned people I’ve invited to be curators, but I am now inviting you all to be curators. We’re we’re we’re open to folks coming to us with ideas for collections. One of the things I like about the platform is the authoring tool that our curators use is really easy to use and does some of the work for you. So you can give it a link, and it’ll go pull some of the metadata from that link and kinda prepopulate some fields. I find that for most of our curators, the hard work is the curation. That’s where the expertise comes in. You found that your go to resources. Right? That’s that’s that’s the magic.

Derek Bruff [00:34:03]:

Putting it together on the platform, like you say, it’s a nice kind of consistent format. Most people get that done in under an hour. So it’s it’s pretty small marginal cost if you’ve already put together a bunch of, resources on a topic.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:15]:

What tool is it that you’re using to gather these?

Derek Bruff [00:34:18]:

Our teaching center works with a web design and development group in Virginia called the Journey Group. Mhmm. And it’s all custom built, which is kind of impressive.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:29]:

Of course it is. Oh, that’s awesome. It is it is pretty darn spectacular. We use on our teaching and learning website, we use a knowledge base called hero themes. I’ll put a link to it in the in case it’s a it’s a WordPress plugin. Yeah. And we’ve been very happy with it for years.

Derek Bruff [00:34:47]:

WordPress guy from way back. Yeah. If you have the resources to hire people to build stuff for you, you can build you can get some really amazing stuff. And that’s that’s the kind of cost that the teaching center at UVA, we we shoulder that. Everything else is completely free. So there’s no we don’t pay anyone to curate. We don’t charge anyone anything. And so we’re we’re really trying to make this a a resource for the higher ed community.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:09]:

Yeah. Sounds great. And I can tell you that what you’ve got here is far surpasses what we can do with our hero themes knowledge base. But even the hero themes knowledge base does go well beyond what I see most other places doing in terms of browsability and discoverability, which I think sometimes people or sorry. Browsability, discoverability, and searchability. Sometimes there are collections that tend to lean too heavily toward one of those. We need both of those. We we need to be able to search exactly what we’re looking for or not know exactly what we’re looking for and discover it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:41]:

It occurred to me, before we go to the recommendations, that do you know if there is an RSS feed that is available for when new collections come out?

Derek Bruff [00:35:50]:

I do not know. That is a great question. We did just launch a newsletter, though.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:55]:

Oh, okay.

Derek Bruff [00:35:56]:

So if you’d like to receive an email about once a month with our latest collections, now you can go to the site and sign up for that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:03]:

Wonderful. I will say that if you didn’t want to sign up for a newsletter, you can also go to a tool called InnoReader, which is an RSS aggregator. And a lot of times, you can create your own custom brew of an RSS, and it’ll just ask you, is does this look like what you’re looking for? And and it’ll actually just figure out how to tell that something new has been published, and so that’d be something to to experiment with. I mean, I’ll be experimenting with that for sure because I don’t wanna I don’t wanna miss it. So that’s great, though. Alright. So this is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations, and I would like to recommend a piece of hardware that has become almost something I use every day, certainly almost every workday, and this is the Hollyland microphones. And what they are is a very compact set of microphones.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:01]:

There are 2 of them that come in there, and a USB c little I always get receivers and transmitters confused with each other, but in order to have wireless microphones work, you need one of you need each of those. You need a you need a a receiver, and you need a transmitter. I just forget which if the microphone is called, which is which, but you you they’re little they look like the size of large buttons, and I’m actually gonna share my screen so that at least Derek can see my screen, what these things look like. And their mag their there’s a magnet on the back side of it. Oh. So you just put the little button there. You you hook the my the magnet to the back of it through your They’re very

Derek Bruff [00:37:43]:

star trek looking.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:44]:

Oh my gosh. They’re so fun. They even come with little stickers. So if you didn’t like the design on them, you could put a sticker, although I don’t know why you would, but they’re really nice.

Derek Bruff [00:37:52]:

They they they look thicker than a button, but probably about the same size.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:55]:

About the same size. Yes. And they are thicker. And then they’re so easy. So I use this both every single time now I get on a Zoom unless I’m recording a podcast. But if I’m on a Zoom just for regular meetings and teaching classes, I just plug the USB c little hub thing into my computer. I put on the microphone because it gets far better sound than my AirPods Pro do.

Derek Bruff [00:38:18]:

Okay.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:38:19]:

And then I also use it for recording videos on my iPhone, and I just plugged it into the bottom of my iPhone, and I and it’s so fun. We I recorded a video, speaking of this this class that I’m teaching with our basketball coach about the idea of begin with the end in mind, and everything happens twice from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And I just put one of the microphones on him, put one of the microphones on me, and we’re in our basketball court shooting baskets. He was actually making it into the basket. I only did twice during the entire time as we were filming together, but it’s really easy. And it’s just so it’s always with me. It’s all wherever I go, if I’ve got my computer with me, it’s there it is, super compact. And whenever they’re in their case, they are charging.

Derek Bruff [00:39:03]:

Oh, man. Okay. You sold me.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:06]:

Yeah. They’re they’re

Derek Bruff [00:39:07]:

I do really know audio work that this is just this sounds really, really helpful.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:10]:

Well and Derek and I are gonna be seeing each other at the or, I mean, since it’s a big conference, will we see each other? I don’t know.

Derek Bruff [00:39:15]:

I hope so.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:16]:

We hope so too. Oh, no. No. For sure I will because I’m gonna be at your session. So I’ll I’ll wave from your session with your thousands of adoring fans. But so I’ll have it with me and I’ll be, you know, occasionally probably popping it on and doing a little bit of video check ins throughout the conference, but it’s really really easy to use. And you know what just occurs to me right now that I was saying you never I mean, they just charge on their own. Since I’ve owned it, I’ve never actually plugged the case in, which is to say that battery lasts a long time because I haven’t run out of battery yet.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:47]:

So, yeah, really good stuff. Really, really good stuff. Cannot recommend them enough. So I’m excited for anybody that does videos or anybody that wants a little bit better. It’s not professional grade like you would get from, you know, a few $100 kind of microphone, but nice audio, way better than you’re gonna get from your AirPods or or similar types of of AirPods or what have you. Good stuff. Good stuff. So the Hollyland Lark M2 wireless lavalier microphone, and this is for iPhone, Android, and they have lots of different configurations.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:20]:

So you can have one if you have a camera and you wanted to hook it up to your camera connection, you could. You can get lightning if you have a phone that has a lightning connector or some combination one as well. So that’s my recommendation. I’m gonna pass it over to Derek for whatever he’d like to recommend.

Derek Bruff [00:40:36]:

Alright. So I’m very excited to share. You’re I think you’re gonna like this story, Bonni. My recommendation is to treat yourself to some specialty jams from Malley Farms. Malley Farms is a small batch canning business run by Nikki Malley. She was she used to be an associate professor of musicology at Knox College in Illinois. And she did she made jams on the side. And in 2022, she left her her faculty job and turned her side hustle into a full on business.

Derek Bruff [00:41:10]:

And they make the best jams. I learned about Nikki because I’m working on a new book project, which I think I mentioned to you some months back Yeah. About kind of the teaching moments that happen in nonacademic professions, like a doctor explaining a diagnosis or something. And so I put out a call on LinkedIn for the problem with this book project is I can’t interview academics. Like, that’s my network. So I asked my network to recommend people they knew outside of academia who had a gift for teaching in whatever profession they were in. And so Kate Denial, who teaches at Knox College, and I I think you’ve had her on the podcast. Yeah.

Derek Bruff [00:41:47]:

Pedagogy of Kindness, Kate Denial, she recommended Nikki. And so Nikki and I had a really great conversation about especially the teaching she does with customers who may come into her she has a a a physical store, and customers will come in. And they’ll they’ll hold up some kind of gourmet food item, and they’ll say, so what would I do with this? Right? And she has a moment there to welcome them into the world of of food. Right? And she has to kind of assess prior knowledge, and she has to scaffold a little bit. It’s it was a really great conversation with her about those teaching moments. And afterwards, I was like, I have to try some of her jams. So I ordered a 3 pack, and the ones I got, honey sweetened peach jam. Oh.

Derek Bruff [00:42:31]:

Right? You had

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:32]:

you had me there.

Derek Bruff [00:42:36]:

Blood orange and amaretto jam. And probably my favorite, a raspberry and ruby chocolate spread. Oh. So good. I just I now look forward to, like, before bed, we’ll make some toast and put some of these jams on it. It’s great.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:50]:

Oh, that sounds amazing.

Derek Bruff [00:42:51]:

Ship them wherever.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:52]:

So Well, now I’m trying to figure out because this is gal I don’t even know how to pronounce this. Gallisburg, Illinois. So I’m like, I wonder how close that is to Oh. Where

Derek Bruff [00:43:01]:

I’ll be To Chicago?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:03]:

Well, and to Naperville where I’ll be staying at least one night.

Derek Bruff [00:43:06]:

Oh, right. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:07]:

So, yeah, I have to do some research.

Derek Bruff [00:43:09]:

Yeah. So that’s my recommendation. Have some really tasty jams. They’re recommended by me and Kate Denial.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:16]:

I thought where you were gonna go was because she used to be an associate professor of music. Maybe she also has playlists as in jams jams for music. So I think she’s gonna maybe need to make some playlists now. That’s Some jams for

Derek Bruff [00:43:30]:

her jams.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:30]:

A good coupling. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. That would be fun. Heard it through the grapevine. I mean, I could

Derek Bruff [00:43:35]:

Right. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:37]:

I could think of some others. Yeah. Well, Derek, it was so lovely to get a chance to catch up today. Always great to have a conversation, and thank you for being the impetus for this amazing set of resources. It’s gonna be the gift that keeps on giving.

Derek Bruff [00:43:51]:

Well, I’m happy to play my role. It’s a it’s a team project at the CTE. Michael Palmer, it’s kind of his vision, and I’m excited to to use my curation of people to build out this website for everyone.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:05]:

Thank you, Michael Palmer. Thank you to all the current and future curators. What a tremendous resource. Thanks, everyone.

Derek Bruff [00:44:12]:

Yeah. Thanks for having me on, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:16]:

Thanks once again to Derek Brough for joining me on today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you have yet to sign up for the weekly updates from Teaching in Higher Ed, all you need to do is head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the show notes from the most recent episode, and this one is going to be full of goodness. And you’ll also receive other recommendations and resources that don’t show up through the regular show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on teaching in higher ed.

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.