Degrees of Freedom

By Degrees of Freedom

The Degrees of Freedom podcast aims to empower learners and teachers in Higher Education in their goals. We host conversations between teachers and students on pedagogical, practical, cultural, and in... more

· Education

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FAQs about Degrees of Freedom:

How many episodes does Degrees of Freedom have?

The podcast currently has 31 episodes available.

Degrees of Freedom episodes:

December 10, 2024S4E02 - Emotional health and mindfulness in education
Join our conversation with Chris May, Maya Schroevers and Marieke van Vugt as we peek into the world of well-being and mental health in educational institutions. Starting from the challenges faced by staff and students, we explore the importance of cultivating emotional health and its role in fostering understanding and resilience. Mindfulness emerges as a valuable tool to support both well-being and academic success within educational settings.
The discussion takes a panoramic look at the hopes, challenges, and risks of incorporating mental well-being tools into the curriculum. Along the way, our guests share their perspectives and some practical tips on prioritizing self-care and awareness in daily life.
For those curious to learn more, these show notes are completed by plenty of useful resources.

Episode links:
Chris May's website

Maya Schroevers's website

Marieke van Vugt's website

The Embodied Critical Thinking project and a Mind&Life Europe summer school to go deeper on contemplative research and education

More information on the research on violence in schools mentioned in the episode can be found in Chapter 15 of Dan Goleman's Emotional Intelligence and the references therein

Additional resources from our guests:
Mind & Life, discussions with researchers on meditation, and in particular an episode on the philosophical issues related to Cartesian dualism (podcast)

UCLA Health free guided meditations (in a number of languages!) (audio recordings, app available)

Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes (TED talk)

Judson Brewer: A simple way to break a bad habit (TED talk)

Emotional health and mindfulness apps (free, developed by scientific foundations or non-profits)
Healthy Minds Program (both meditation and emotional health program)

How We Feel

Medito (includes UCLA meditations linked above)

Smiling Mind

Minfulness Coach

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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren ⁠www.annecaesar.nl⁠
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of ⁠silvermansound.com⁠.
...more
1h 16min
October 01, 2024S4E01 - Curiosity and wonder
For the first episode of Season 4, Philip Ball and Brian Ostafin join us to talk about curiosity and wonder.
Tracing the historical evolution of these emotions and exploring their psychological underpinnings, we look into the challenges of harnessing them productively and constructively in education and scientific research. Along the way we touch upon many themes, and revisit our thoughts in light of internet searches and AI.

Links of the episode:
Philip Ball's website

Curiosity: how science became interested in everything (2013)

Brian Ostafin

Robert White, Motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence (1959)

G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology (1940)

Degrees of Freedom S1E7 - Failing Forward

Marret Noordewier and Małgorzata Gocłowska, Shared and unique features of epistemic emotions: Awe, surprise, curiosity, interest, confusion, and boredom (2024)

Jonathon Macphetres, Oh, the things you don’t know: awe promotes awareness of knowledge gaps and science interest (2019)

Professor Tailoerd AI tutor – engagement doubled (Harvard Gazett, 2024) and the draft of the related paper

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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
1h 11min
May 06, 2024 S3E07 - Developing a good relationship with writing
This episode continues the discussion we started in the episode on reading, https://soundcloud.com/degrees_of_freedom/s03e04-learning-to-read-and-reading-for-learning
In this episode we investigate good and bad practices in academic writing, discussing many tips to help oneself to overcome the writer block and make the most of their writing experience. We touch upon a wide variety of topics: writing as an act of reflection and learning, the important relation with self-acceptance and in looking for feedback, and the way our approach writing is evolving. The recent evolutions of large language models are already forcing us to revisit the way we write, not necessarily in a negative way, but they need to be used mindfully.
Links from the episode:
- Catriona Ryan's Scriptorcube: https://www.scriptorcube.com/
- Ole Gmelin's personal page: https://www.rug.nl/staff/j.h.gmelin/
- Michael Billig's "Learn to write badly": https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/learn-to-write-badly/
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
1h 15min
April 01, 2024 S3E06 - Ungrading
Ungrading is perhaps hard to define, in broad strokes this is a movement that aims at improving the educational experience shifting the focus from the grade transaction to fostering effective learning experience. This does not necessarily mean removing the grades but often leads to deep changes in the way grades appear in our courses.
In this episode we are joined by Dr. Berfu Ünal and Dr. Tamás Görbe, which will engage with us in a reflection around ungrading: starting from its meaning, we will explore pros and cons of some of the ideas involved in the practice.
As you will hear the reflection goes deep and forced us multiple times to take a step back and reflect on our aims as lecturers and our relationship with our students and our institutions.
Links from the episode:
- Berfu Ünal personal page: https://www.rug.nl/staff/a.b.unal/
- Tamás Görbe personal page: https://www.tamasgorbe.com/
- Grading fro Growth (the website, contains plenty of experiences and comments on the research and practice around Ungrading): https://gradingforgrowth.com/
- Grading for Growth (the book): https://www.routledge.com/Grading-for-Growth-A-Guide-to-Alternative-Grading-Practices-that-Promote/Clark-Talbert/p/book/9781642673814
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
1h 11min
March 08, 2024 S3E05 Groningen Podcasters United - What's the purpose of Higher Education?
In this episode we meet Ludi and Emma from FSE Radio and Simon Fokkema from Teaching Talks, the other two educational podcasts at our University.
Together, we revisit the theme of our first episode: what is the point of higher education? We discuss how the role of higher education is changing in an ever evolving society, starting from the current experience of our students, wheter this does fall short in meeting their expectations, what is already going well and what can we done to improve it.
Share your thoughts on the purpose of higher education: https://forms.gle/oXh62fhTSV5s8cTJ8
Don't forget to tune in and listen to our friends:
- FSE Radio https://open.spotify.com/show/1wi0YWwEQiZHyNDEYG2KHz
- Teaching talks https://open.spotify.com/show/3RIS9KNhBy4k3eRktQyh9Z
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
1h 7min
February 01, 2024 S3E04 - Learning to Read (and reading for learning)
We return with the first episode of 2024 with a conversation on Academic Reading. Reading skills develop actively in early childhood, but are given little attention later: the assumption is that once you learn to read, you're ready for all reading. How true is this, though?
In this episode we ask whether there are different types of reading, what kind of demands do different types of academic texts pose on the reader, whether the reader or the author is in the driving seat in the first place, how different reading aims lead to different reading approaches, and whether academic reading can be a joyous activity in the first place.
With us this time are two new guests:
Henrieke Krijgsheld, student of Philosophy and Mathematics. She brings a unique perspective to academic reading journeys, having switched between fields with such different types of writing and reading styles.
and Frans Sijtsma, director of the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development, who teaches a course on Scientific Reading, Debating, and Reflecting. You can read more about his work here: https://www.rug.nl/staff/f.j.sijtsma/ and about the course here: https://ocasys.rug.nl/current/catalog/course/GERMSRDR2
Some of the texts we mentioned during the episode are:
- How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book
- The Hocus Pocus graphic novel by Richard Wiseman, Jordan Collver and Rik Worth: https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magic-books/hocus-pocus-book/
- Some mathematicians are birds, others are frogs: https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf
- Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, a graphic novel about the foundational quest in mathematics, by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos, and Annie Di Donna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logicomix
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
1h 14min
November 21, 2023 S3E03 - Education and Public Trust in Science
In the third episode of this season we talk with philosopher Leah Henderson and political scientist Léonie de Jonge about public trust in science. We answer the question why trust in scientific findings is important, how reasoning and discourse skills are developed in higher education, and debate whether education is political (and what this means).
We also talk about the conference Nothing But The Truth, organised by the Research School of Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN) at the University of Groningen, on December 7th and 8th, 2023, whose aim is to shed more light on questions of truth and science communication.
Relevant links for this episode are:
- The Nothing But The Truth conference page: https://www.nothingbutthetruth.nl
- The BCN page: https://www.rug.nl/research/behavioural-cognitive-neurosciences/?lang=en
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
52min
November 07, 2023 S3E02 - Open Educational Resources
Welcome to the second episode of Season 3 of the Degrees of Freedom Podcast.
In this episode we are going to have a discussion about Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT). Joining us are Flavio Azevedo, assistant professor of political psychology and cofounder of FORRT, and Martijn Blikmans-Middel, academic information specialist for open educational resources.
Our discussion will explore different aspects of the open educational environment and open pedagogies, going through some of the main critiques and exploring cocreation of knowledge as a means to improve diversity, accessibility and promote active learning.
In our discussion we briefly tuch upon copyright laws and the policies at our university concerning the copyright of educational material. If you need clarifications and want to know more about this, you can refer to the following resources:
- https://www.rug.nl/library/publish/copyright/researchers
- https://www.rug.nl/library/publish/copyright/faq
Relevant links for this episode are:
- OER support point page: http://rug.nl/library/oer
- OER Libguide: https://libguides.rug.nl/OER
- and specifically the resource lists: https://libguides.rug.nl/OER/OERResourceLists
- FORRT website: https://forrt.org/
The registration for the Open Pedagogy Workshop is at https://libcal.rug.nl/calendar/workshops/op28Nov
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
58min
October 16, 2023 S3E01 Critical Pedagogy and the Work of Paulo Freire
Welcome to Season 3 of the Degrees of Freedom Podcast! We open this new season with a conversation on Paulo Freire's seminal book Pedagogy of the Oppressed and his ideas on Critical Pedagogy. Our guest is Marco de Carvalho Filho, who transitioned to researching, developing, and implementing evidence-informed educational practices after a long career as an internal medicine specialist in Brazil.
In this episode, we talk about education as a transformative act of liberation and shed light on Freire's ideas on education and their relevance in the context of today's higher education.
Relevant links:
Marco's professional page: https://www.rug.nl/staff/m.a.de.carvalho.filho/cv
This page was mentioned in our conversation: https://www.participatorymethods.org/
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
51min
June 26, 2023 S2E11 - PhD Student Well-being
Join us as we venture into an often overlooked aspect of academia: the well-being of PhD students. Undertaking and completing a PhD is a daunting challenge, making it essential to prioritize well-being throughout the process. Our hosts, Malcolm and Tassos, share a profound interest in this subject. Malcolm draws from his experience writing a report on PhD well-being, while Tassos takes a trip down memory lane to his own PhD journey. We are delighted to welcome Marie Stadel and Nina Schwarzbach, two PhD students who co-create a blog that delves into various aspects of the PhD process and reflects on academia as a whole. In this episode, our team and guests engage in an enlightening and wide-ranging discussion. They explore the definition of well-being, highlight the resources available to support PhD students, and emphasize the significance of fostering a robust supervisor-student relationship. This is only the start of a continuing conversation in academia and we want to hear from you! What do you think about PhD well-being? Connect with us on our socials and send us a DM with your thoughts!
Marie & Nina’s Blog: https://www.growingwithacademia.com/
Malcolm’s Reading Recomendation: Managing your mental health during your PhD by Zoë J. Ayres
https://rug.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1346156324
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-14194-2
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Produced by Tassos Sarampalis, Amy O’Connell, Malcolm Davis, and Evan Meighan, at the University of Groningen
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Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl/
What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.
...more
1h 17min

FAQs about Degrees of Freedom:

How many episodes does Degrees of Freedom have?

The podcast currently has 31 episodes available.