Teaching in Higher Ed

Practical productivity in academia

with Natalie Houston

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Natalie Houston discusses practical productivity in academia.

nataliehouston

Podcast Notes

Guest: Dr. Natalie Houston

Opposition to the term productivity

Productivity defined

Productivity, to me, is not about doing more things faster. It is about doing the things that are most important to me and creating the kind of life I want to have…

To do something with ease is to bring a kind of comfort and grace to the task. It can also be more room [in your life]… Living a life with more ease…

Challenges and approaches for faculty

  • Blurring between work and non-work time
  • Protect quality time for your most important work/projects
  • Creating appropriate boundaries
  • Schedule blocks of time to let
  • Commit to avoiding digital devices before bed
  • Establish a bedtime for ourselves
  • Articulate an ideal weekend/Saturday
  • Enlist partner's support in fulfilling that ideal day

The idea of a sabbath day in many spiritual traditions is to set aside a day for rest.

  • Create transition rituals to help acknowledge the move between work and personal time
  • Don't force yourself to use digital tools, if analog work better; perhaps a hybrid system might work well, in some cases
  • Todoist

Email

Multiple touch points

Challenge with accessing email on our phones

Taking breaks

Set an alarm

A timer is my most important productivity tool. You can use a timer in so many parts of your day.

Timing a break enhances the relaxation of that break.

Recommendations

How to manage references with Zotero, by Catherine Pope (Bonni)

IDoneThis.com (Natalie)

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance, by Stephen Kotler

 

The slide heard ’round the world

with Dave Stachowiak

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Bonni and Dave Stachowiak talk about how to make your PowerPoint (or other) slides more effective.

Podcast notes

2010 headlines:

“US Army makes the world's worst PowerPoint slide”

“We have met the enemy and he is PowerPoint.”

Conflict in Afghanistan: Why developing a clear strategy was challenging.

PPT in the crosshairs

ppt

Edward Tufte (2006 publication) The cognitive style of ppt: There's no bullet list like Stalin's bullet list.

Can create bad PPT on tools besides PPT

Problems in higher ed

  • In the classroom
  • In online modules (flipped classroom)
  • At academic conferences

In the online magazine, Slate, Schuman expressed her views on just how bad it has become with PowerPoint use in education in an article called PowerPointless. She writes, “Digital slideshows are the scourge of education.”

“For class today I’ll be reading the PowerPoint word for word.” –every professor, everywhere. @collegegrlhumor

“College basically consist of you spending thousands of dollars for a professor to point at a PowerPoint and read the bullets.” @deliNeli

“Being a college professor would be easy. Read off a PowerPoint you made 10 years ago and give online quizzes with questions you googled.” –blazik

“srsly sick of all these power points. anyone can be a professor. all u need to know is how to run a power point.” @ChrisraMae17

“Y’all ever sat in a class, copied every word down of the power point, and still not kno a damn thing the professor said?” @BlkSuperMan

Richard Mayer's research shows if students w/out visuals 75% vs 89% re: bike pump

PowerPoint Slide Recommendations

Use PowerPoint slides for their intended purpose: to enhance your presentation, not deliver it.

Put less on your slides and use relevant visuals

Change your media focus at regular intervals

Employ a non-linear slide structure

Choose your own adventure (episode 25 re: large classes w/ Chrissy Spencer)

Today's meet (requires laptops/smart devices)

Recommendations

Slack (Bonni)

Tapes  |  Screenflow  |  SnagIt  (Dave)

Lower your stress with a better approach to capture

with Dave Stachowiak

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Bonni and Dave Stachowiak talk about how to capture it all, so we can have lower stress and not have things fall through the cracks.

capture

Podcast notes

Guest: Dr. Dave Stachowiak

What is capture?

David Allen's Getting Things Done

Why capture?

Other-generated capture

  • Inboxes
  • Have as many as necessary and no more
  • Academics inboxes
  • Email
  • Phone- office line
  • Phone-other
  • Inbox office
  • Inbox home
  • Inbox bag
  • Students after class

Tools

Self generated capture

  • Roles
  • Projects

Tools

Recommendations

Paprika recipe manager app (Bonni)

Amazon Fresh (Dave)

All that cannot be seen

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On today’s episode, I talk about all that cannot be seen.

ALL THAT CANNOT BE SEEN
Photo by Jim Frazee of Southwest Search Dogs. Used with permission (he's my Dad).

 

Podcast notes

  • Mystery commercial that I really hope someone can find and send to me
  • Augmented reality
  • Yik yak chat service (For reasons explained in the podcast, I would rather not link to this particular app/service)
  • [EDIT: 1/15/15/ at 10:20 am]: Right after recording this episode, I listened to episode 9 the Reply All podcast by Gimlet Media. I have even less certainty now about whether or not we should stay far away from Yik Yak, or get in there and spread some positivity and make our presence known. I welcome your thoughts either privately, or in the comments, below.  
  • Southwest Search Dogs

Online forum introductions

Our perceptions really do matter

Our expectations can shape outcomes in others…

This American Life previewed Invisiblia on an episode called: Batman

Especially the beginning re mindset on This American Life

NPR Science reporters Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller explain to Ira Glass how they smuggled a rat into NPR headquarters in Washington, and ran an unscientific version of a famous experiment first done by Psychology Professor Robert Rosenthal. It showed how people’s thoughts about rats could affect their behavior. Another scientist, Carol Dweck, explains that it’s true for people too: expectations affect students, children, soldiers, in measurable ways. (6 minutes)

Invisibilia

Invisibilia is a series about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. The show interweaves personal stories with scientific research that will make you see your own life differently.

Assume the best… and talk through the gaps…

Episode 14 on Dealing with Difficult Students in Higher Ed

Our diverse students

Recommendation

Coach.me

Teaching Naked

with Jose Bowen

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It is easy to want to cover up in some way as professors…

In today’s episode, President Jose Antonio Bowen encourages us to become good at “Teaching Naked.”

A conversation with Jose Bowen

Podcast notes

Guest: Dr. Jose Antonio Bowen, President, Goucher College

Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning

Recommendations (part 1)

This episode, we start with Bonni's recommendation and ask Dr. Bowen questions from Storycorps.

Teaching Naked

The thing that teachers do best in the classroom is to be human beings, and to get to know their students as human beings, and to make that connection between what matters to their students and what matters to them. (Jose Bowen)

  • Start with what matters to your students
  • Used to have the advantage, based on knowledge
  • Use class time to make genuine connections and not simply for providing information
  • Technology works great outside the classroom for quizzing, communication, etc.
  • We know more about teaching than we did when we were in school
  • Pedagogy needs to be our central focus, and most of us weren't trained in it

A teaching failure

Bonni admits to one of her bigger failures in teaching in the past few years

Driving the stick shift car and not always having it turn out the way we want it to

Overcoming the failures – Jose gives advice

We are opaque as to our own intellectual accent. Everybody has an accent in the way they speak, but they also have an accent in the way they think.

Academics, in particular, are bad examples of learning, because we learned in spite of the system. We're the odd balls. We're the weirdos. We're the people who liked school so much that we're still here.

Most students don't learn that way.

Failure is simply part of the game. Disconnect is just part of what happens. (Dr. Jose Bowen)

  • Embrace mistakes
  • Admit when things go wrong
  • Describe why you tried what you did
  • Model change (“I changed my mind.”)

The end of the story

The Naked Classroom

  • Furniture moves around; no rows
  • No technology / screen
  • Index cards
  • Noisy
  • Laptops aren't typically necessary

Nobody uses a laptop while doing yoga or playing tennis (Jose Bowen)

I believe in noisy and messy classrooms. Complexity. Lots of failures. People having to confront real problems. Confront each other. Confront me… (Jose Bowen)

For beginners… need to set the stage and expectations… after that, they know how the game works.

Twitter

Recommendations (part 2)

Jose closes the podcast episode with his recommendations.

Change is hard. It's hard for you and it's hard for your students… Keep asking your students what's working. Expect some failure. It's not a linear process.

That's the process of learning and we're all learning how to do something new: And that's how to be better, more engaged teachers.  (Jose Bowen)

Closing credits

  • Subscribe to the weekly update and receive the Educational Technology Essentials Guide
  • Give feedback on the podcast or ideas for future topics/guests