Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning

In today’s episode, we say a bittersweet goodbye to our wonderful podcast host, Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Executive Director Catherine Ross, as she will be retiring from Columbia in June. Catherine sits down with Amanda Irvin, Senior Director of Faculty Programs and Services here at the Columbia CTL, who will be taking the helm as our next podcast host, starting in the fall 2024 season. Catherine and Amanda reflect on their “favorite” dead ideas and episodes, as well as dead ideas that have yet to be discussed, and how this podcast has impacted our Center’s work internally. We’d like to thank Catherine for her passion and leadership as our podcast host over the past four years, and for her unfailing dedication to changing higher education teaching! This will be the last episode of Season 8 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning. We will be back in fall 2024 with Season 9. Thank you for listening!

In today’s episode we examine the systemic issues and dead ideas that underlie the hiring and supporting of contingent faculty. We speak with Kerry O’Grady, Director for Teaching Excellence at the Samberg Institute for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School. Dr. O’Grady discusses some of the “normalized” practices that often leave adjunct instructors with a lack of resources and support for their teaching. She then provides research-based recommendations that can help adjunct faculty feel more valued and empowered, as noted in her letter to the editor in The Chronicle of Higher Education, in response to an article titled, “Adjunct Professors Face a ‘Constant Struggle to Not Give Up,’ Report Says,” (October 26, 2023). Resources Adjunct Professors Face a ‘Constant Struggle to Not Give Up,’ Report SaysHow to Help Adjuncts Not Want to Give UpHigher Education) by Kerry O’Grady

In this episode of 4 mini-interviews, we ask Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) staff John Foo, Jamie Kim, Rebecca Petitti, and Corey Ptak what’s been on their minds as they go about their work as educational developers. What dead ideas in teaching and learning are they encountering in their day-to-day work with instructors, in their reading and research? What are the underlying systemic issues perpetuating these dead ideas? And how are these developers addressing these challenges? Listen in to hear their responses. Resources Columbia Science of Learning Research Initiative (SOLER)Columbia Office of the Provost’s Teaching and Learning GrantsThe Tyranny of Content: ‘Content Coverage’ as a Barrier to Evidence-Based Teaching Approaches and Ways to Overcome ItFacilitating Change in Undergraduate STEM Instructional Practices: An Analytic Review of the LiteratureFour Categories of Change Strategies for Undergraduate STEMChemistry and Racism: A Special Topics Course for Students Taking General Chemistry at Barnard College in Fall 2020CTL Teaching Transformations Reflection from Rachel Narehood Austin

In this episode, we continue this season’s examination of graduate education, now looking into how institutions often overlook the need for preparing faculty to teach graduate students and graduate courses. We unpack the dead ideas that underlie this neglect with Leonard Cassuto, professor of English at Fordham University, and author of The Chronicle of Higher Education article “Why is There No Training on How to Teach Graduate Students?” (May 8, 2023).

In this episode, we continue the conversation from our last episode on the topic of teaching development in doctoral education—this time from the student perspective! With co-host Caitlin DeClercq, Senior Assistant Director of Graduate Student Programs and Services at the Columbia CTL, we are joined by Columbia doctoral students Anirbaan Banerjee, Sara Jane Samuel, and Anwesha Sengupta. They share their experiences, thoughts, and advice on all things teaching development in doctoral education.

Welcome back to Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning! In our first episode of Season 8, we speak with Drs. Benjamin Rifkin, Rebecca Natow, Nicholas Salter, and Shayla Shorter about their article in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “Why Doctoral Programs Should Require Courses on Pedagogy” (March 16, 2023). Drs. Rifkin, Natow, Salter, and Shorter make the case for paying far more attention to developing teaching skills in doctoral programs. They share research they conducted to examine the “disconnect between what we are trained to do in graduate school and what we are expected to do in the college classroom,” and offer four next steps to better prepare Ph.D.s to teach. Benjamin Rifkin is Professor of Russian and Interim Provost at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rebecca Natow is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, and Director of the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies program at Hofstra University, Nicholas Salter is Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Hofstra University, and Shayla Shorter is a Clinical Collaborative Librarian and Assistant Curator for the Medical Library at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Resource Why Doctoral Programs Should Require Courses on Pedagogy

While there is extensive research on the use of student surveys in the evaluation of teaching, the recommended practices are often not utilized. How does this negatively impact innovation in teaching? How do these evaluations perpetuate bias against women and faculty of color? What can we do about it? Today we tackle these questions with Joanna Wolfe, Teaching Professor of English and Affiliated Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, who wrote the January 2022 Inside Higher Ed article, “Let’s Stop Relying on Biased Teaching Evaluations.” Dr. Wolfe offers three helpful strategies that universities can implement to mitigate some of the potential harm that student evaluations can cause. This is our final episode of Season 7 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning! We will be back in January 2024 with Season 8, continuing to unpack systems and systemic changes that are needed to improve higher ed teaching and student learning! Happy Holidays to all of our listeners! Resources Let’s Stop Relying on Biased Teaching Evaluations

Josh Eyler, author and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, recently posted a rebuttal on LinkedIn to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, in which he wrote, “Grade inflation is a monster that is often trotted out by folks who wish that grades were objective, accurate measures for both learning and rigor in the course. They're neither.” Today we speak with Josh to unpack this provocative quote and other persistent dead ideas around grading and grade inflation. Resources LinkedIn postHow Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective College TeachingA Century of Grading Research: Meaning and Value in the Most Common Educational Measure

How can we improve teaching AND support all the instructors who teach science courses for undergraduates? Today we discuss this question with Marielena DeSanctis, President of the Community College of Denver, and Cassandra Volpe Horii, Associate Vice Provost for Education and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University, who are co-authors of the article titled, “An Instructional-Workforce Framework for Coordinated Change in Undergraduate Education” (2023). Drs. DeSanctis and Volpe Horii discuss their framework—based on principles of justice, equity, and inclusion—which proposes treating all instructors (Visiting, Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Adjunct, Teaching Professor, TT/Tenured, Lecturer) as a unified workforce. Using the levers of governance, professional development, and reward systems, they offer institutions a path to significant improvement in the teaching of undergraduate science courses. Resource An Instructional-Workforce Framework for Coordinated Change in Undergraduate Education

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, a question was posed by journalist Beth McMurtrie as to whether or not institutions of higher education truly value teaching, and she offered a list of “red flags” that signal the undervaluing of teaching. In response, Michelle Miller, Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University, wrote a post in her “R3 Newsletter,” adding to McMurtrie’s list of red flags and offering her own. In this podcast episode, Dr. Miller discusses her list, which can be reverse engineered to serve as a helpful starting point for those who want to change the institutional culture around teaching at their university. Resources “Teaching: Does higher education value good teaching?”“Bonus post: Is your IHE truly teaching-focused?”Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with TechnologyRemembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World

Over the past few months, Cynthia Alby, Professor of Teacher Education at Georgia College, has been focused on developing practical solutions in teaching and learning in response to the sudden emergence of generative AI. Through this work, she has realized that AI has, in one fell swoop, rendered an entire constellation of dead ideas in teaching and learning officially obsolete. The ideas that she has advocated for throughout her career, and in the book she co-authored, Learning That Matters: A Field Guide to Course Design for Transformative Education (2020), are becoming increasingly essential, and she believes that change is imminent. In this episode, Dr. Alby discusses why she believes AI will be the catalyst for the extinction of four big dead ideas in teaching and learning and how that will happen. Resources Learning That Matters: A Field Guide to Course Design for Transformative Education (2020)Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI: Considerations, Resources, and Opportunities

Have Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) actually created change in higher education teaching? Have they been able to demonstrate this change? How have their strategies evolved and how are they connecting with institutional priorities for larger scale changes? Today we speak with Mary Wright, Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning at Brown University and author of the newly released book, Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape of Higher Education (2023), for which she surveyed over 1,200 CTLs in universities across the U.S. In this episode, Dr. Wright helps answer these questions and dispels other dead ideas about CTLs. Resource JHUPress

In our final episode of Season 6, we speak with two undergraduate Columbia University students, Emily Glover and Kyle Gordon, who serve as Teaching and Learning Consultants as part of our Center’s Students as Pedagogical Partners initiative. Through the initiative, Emily and Kyle have immersed themselves in the research on teaching and learning, broadening their understanding of how learning works, and of the many pervasive dead ideas in higher education. In this episode, they reflect on how this knowledge has changed them as learners, including how they think about student engagement, assessment, learning styles, and the benefits of being “uncomfortable” while learning.

How can instructors use research on teaching and learning to create change and tackle challenges in their courses? What can learning analytics tell us about student engagement and motivation in our courses? In this episode, we ask Samantha Garbers, Associate Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, with guest host Adam Brown, Program Director of Columbia’s Science of Learning Research Initiative (SOLER). Professor Garber received a Provost's SOLER Seed Grant to work with Dr. Brown to explore how students are engaging (or not!) with course materials and resources.

Tara Harvey, Founder of True North Intercultural, defines Intercultural Competence as “the capacity to communicate and act appropriately, effectively, and authentically across cultural differences, both locally and globally.” In this episode, Dr. Harvey discusses how the research behind intercultural learning is unknown by many. She explains why intercultural development is so important in higher education, especially nowadays, for both faculty and students, and how it can be taught. Resources True North Intercultural ResourcesThe Intercultural Development ContinuumEducation in a VUCA-driven World: Salient Features of an Entrepreneurial Pedagogy

How should we educate students on the science of learning? Does this require systemic change? And do faculty have a moral obligation to teach students the processes necessary to succeed in college, in addition to the content in our fields? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Todd Zakrajsek, Associate Professor at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Director of the International Teaching Learning Cooperative, and author of The New Science of Learning, 3rd Edition (2022), a book for students on the science of learning. Resources The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony With Your BrainTeaching At Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors

What does engagement require of your students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively? Why is it essential to get to know your students, and how can you do this in large classes? Hear advice from Alfredo Spagna, a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Columbia whose research focuses on the psychological and neural mechanisms of attention, perception, and mental imagery. Dr. Spagna shares how he engages students in his courses, and what he has learned from them over the years. Dr. Spagna is a Lecturer in the Discipline of Psychology and teaches both introductory and advanced seminars in Neuroscience. He also serves as the Director of the Neuroscience and Behavior Major. Resource The Power of Relationships in Undergraduate Education

Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy, award winning instructors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and authors of the book, Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom (2022), have found a way to communicate the large volume of research behind equitable and inclusive teaching to a national audience. In this episode, we ask Drs. Hogan and Sathy how they approach the use of learning research and translate it to their audiences. They discuss the structural impediments in higher education that often prevent bringing this research to practice, and how these practices might be changed. Kelly Hogan is Associate Dean of Instructional Innovation and a STEM Teaching Professor in Biology, and Viji Sathy is Associate Dean for Evaluation and Assessment and a Professor of the Practice in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill. Resources Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College ClassroomThe L WordCenter for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL)Kimberly Tanner

Despite the large body of research on effective teaching and learning practices, such research is often ignored or unknown by instructors and students. Instead, many “dead ideas” in teaching and learning continue to be enacted worldwide. Why is this the case? In our first episode of the season, we discuss many possible reasons with John Mahoney, senior lecturer at Australian Catholic University and the University’s Academic Lead for HELTA, the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Academy. Dr. Mahoney, a psychologist by training, is also one of the founders of INSPIRE, an evidence center designed to curate and summarize best-available empirical evidence in higher education. Resources: Why the Science of Teaching Is Often IgnoredSusan MichieINSPIRE

How can assessment motivate students to focus on learning as opposed to grades? Can it still be rigorous if it’s not high stakes exams? Today we speak with Maryam Pate and Olivia Schmitt, two Columbia University undergraduate students who serve as Teaching and Learning Consultants as part of the CTL’s Students as Pedagogical Partners Initiative. Maryam and Olivia reflect on their experiences with different types of assessment and the impacts on their learning.