Over the last couple of decades, we’ve seen an explosion of books and articles about what’s often called “brain-based learning,” as neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists study and explain what circuits are firing when a student tries to memorize a fact or solve a problem.

Without question, this scholarship has been a boon to teachers seeking to improve their practices. But there is a caveat: Not all brains think alike.

Researchers call this neurodiversity, and it refers to the notion that every population will include people who have a range of ways of thinking, learning, and feeling.

Author of the forthcoming book An Introduction to Neurodiversity for Educators, faculty development expert Sarah Silverman talks with us about challenges students who learn differently might face in the classroom and how instructors can foster environments where everyone has an opportunity to thrive.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Sarah’s Ph.D. in entomology—and her journey from studying insects to working in the area of teaching and learning with a focus on neurodiversity
• The origin of the term neurodiversity to describe the full range of cognitive differences among humans as well as the meaning and use of the related terms neurodivergent, neurotypical, and neurodiverse
• How the neurodiversity movement emerged out of the desire of autistic people to be accepted rather than “cured” and the ways that influences Sarah’s work with faculty
• Real-world examples, including from her own experiences as someone who is neurodivergent, that illustrate the value of instructors connecting with students to get a fuller picture of who they are
• Ways instructors might support neurodivergent learners who are encountering challenges
• Access friction—i.e., when the access needs of one person or group come into conflict with those of another—and how being flexible can help instructors approach such situations
• The value of having students themselves help you find solutions (and why it’s okay if they’re not utopian)

Guest Bio: Sarah Silverman is an independent scholar and faculty developer focusing on neurodiversity and accessibility in higher education. In her work on many different campuses, she helps faculty better understand how neurodiversity impacts teaching and learning and how to balance many different needs among instructors and learners. She earned a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California, Davis, and an advanced certificate in disability studies from the CUNY School of Professional Studies. Her book An Introduction to Neurodiversity for Educators will be published next year by the University of Oklahoma Press as part of the Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed Series, which is edited by Designed for Learning host Jim Lang and Michelle Miller.

Resources Mentioned:

• Sarah’s Substack Newsletter: Beyond the Scope
• Neurodiversity concepts discussed during the episode drawn from Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontline edited by Steven Kapp

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

If you follow the conversations about higher education on social media or in the news, a primary topic on people’s minds is the impact of artificial intelligence on the purposes and processes of an education.

For better or worse, much of the focus has been on cheating: Are students outsourcing their work, and their learning, to tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini? Some high-profile stories have gone so far as to suggest cheating is so rampant that the whole college system is basically collapsing around us.

Tricia Bertram Gallant, coauthor of the new book The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI, helps us put these claims into context, providing insights into the deeper questions that we should be asking about academic dishonesty and integrity and sharing pedagogical strategies for adapting to AI’s widespread availability.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Why students cheat (spoiler: the reasons aren’t new)
• The role of “neutralizing,” or moral justifications, in allowing people to view cheating as bad in the abstract but not in their current situation
• Not putting the burden to intuit the purpose of an assignment on students
• How AI has changed cheating, but not why students do it
• Experimenting with AI tools so you can create guardrails for students—and why doing so doesn’t mean you think less of them as people
• Strategies for communicating effectively with students about generative AI
• Rethinking when, why, and how writing is assigned, including the benefits of having students complete some of that work in the classroom
• The potential of pairing written exams with oral assessments—which it turns out students often appreciate
• How Tricia suggests instructors react when suspecting a student has cheated

Guest Bio: Tricia Bertram Gallant is the director of the Academic Integrity Office and Triton Testing Center at the University of California San Diego. President emeritus of the International Center for Academic Integrity, she has more than 20 years of experience as an academic integrity researcher, author, teacher, and practitioner.

Her fifth book, The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI, which she co-authored with David Rettinger, was published this March. It is part of the Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed Series at the University of Oklahoma Press edited by Designed for Learning host Jim Lang and Michelle Miller.

Resources Mentioned:

• Book: The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI (University of Oklahoma Press)
• Tricia’s Podcast and Contact Info: theoppositeofcheating.com
• Notre Dame Learning’s Lab for AI in Teaching and Learning (LAITL)
• Related Designed for Learning Episode: Navigating AI’s Evolving Role in Teaching and Learning
• Notre Dame’s Undergraduate Academic Code of Honor

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

Can you draw lessons from the way you teach and apply them in your writing? Designed for Learning host Jim Lang thinks so—so much so that he’s written a new book about it called Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience.

To learn more, we flipped the script and asked Kristi Rudenga, director of Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, to interview Jim, a professor of the practice at the Kaneb Center, about his latest project.

He shares his insights on the intersection of teaching and writing, offering strategies for educators looking to expand their reach through engaging, accessible prose intended for broader audiences. He also talks about how a life-threatening health situation shaped the creation of Write Like You Teach.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Jim’s career trajectory as an academic, speaker, and writer of popular books and columns on teaching
• The inspiration behind Write Like You Teach and how it bridges his passions for teaching and writing
• Translating classroom teaching practices into impactful writing techniques
• Three core areas to consider to write like you teach: questions, attention, and evidence
• Overcoming impostor syndrome when writing for non-academic audiences by recognizing your role as an educator in both classroom and writing contexts
• Jim’s personal journey of recovery from a heart transplant and stroke, and how it affected his writing process

Guest Bios: Jim Lang is a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence. The author of several popular books on teaching, including Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It and Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, Jim writes regularly on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education and co-edits a book series on higher education for the University of Oklahoma Press. His latest book is Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience.

Kristi Rudenga is the director of Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, where she is appointed as a teaching professor. In addition to overseeing the Kaneb Center’s team, strategy, partnerships, and initiatives, Kristi consults with instructors on pedagogical approaches and facilitates seminar series and workshops on teaching and mentoring. She writes about pedagogy for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and she has served on the Core Committee of the POD Network, the national organization supporting educational development.

Resources Mentioned:

• Book: Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience (University of Chicago Press)
• Website: jamesmlang.com
• Jim’s LinkedIn

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

With Notre Dame’s Summer Online courses set to get underway in June, we turn our attention to teaching online—specifically ways to create a sense of community among instructors and students when meeting through screens, and why that matters in the first place.

Rebecca Glazier is an ideal person with whom to have this conversation. A professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, she is the author of Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport between Teachers and Students.

Grounded in academic research, original surveys, and experimental studies, the book provides practical strategies for helping everyone, students and instructors alike, get the most out of their online courses and take advantage of the increased access to education that online learning enables.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Rebecca’s journey as an online instructor after having only previously taught in person and the longitudinal research she conducted to improve her online teaching
• How she found that a high-rapport teaching strategy not only improved the experience for her students, but also for her as an instructor
• The importance of connecting with students early in the semester and building rapport in ways that are authentic to your personality
• Taking proactive steps to ensure students in online classes don’t feel like second-class citizens
• Giving students an AI assignment to help them learn the difference between ethical and unethical applications
• Strategies for leveraging class discussion boards
• Four concrete things you can do to build rapport in your online class, including sending students personalized emails (and using mail merges to help manage the amount of time that takes)

Guest Bio: Rebecca Glazier is a professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. In addition to researching religion and politics, U.S. foreign policy, and political communication, she studies the scholarship of teaching and learning and is passionate about improving the quality of online education. She is the author of two books, including Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport between Teachers and Students.

Resources Mentioned:

• Book: Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport between Teachers and Students (Johns Hopkins University Press)
• Mail Merge Tool for Notre Dame Instructors: Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM)
• Notre Dame’s Summer Online
• Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski Online Course: Learning How to Learn

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

Although artificial intelligence has been part of higher education for a couple of years now, faculty are still struggling with what this development means for themselves, their students, their courses—and especially their assessments.

Notre Dame Learning recently launched the Lab for AI in Teaching & Learning (LAITL), led by Alex Ambrose of our Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, to help instructors navigate this terrain. Alex is an eloquent spokesperson for the argument that by building their AI literacy and taking advantage of the opportunities it provides, faculty can expand student learning and even make it more equitable.

But are faculty buying it? And a deeper question: Does everyone need to embrace AI? Or are there times and places where we shouldn’t be welcoming it into our lives and our courses?

Fresh off hosting several campus AI workshops together, host Jim Lang and Alex discuss these issues, AI at Notre Dame, and a variety of helpful resources for faculty.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The experiences that have led Alex to become a cautious optimist/power user of AI, a path informed by his long-standing concern over technology’s impact on student learning
• What’s happening right now at Notre Dame with respect to AI in teaching and learning, including the availability of Google Gemini to all faculty, staff, and students and an AI academy for faculty
• The case Alex would make to a skeptical colleague about AI, one that is centered around empathy, literacy—and a very practical example
• The relationship of the two AIs, artificial intelligence and academic integrity, and the results from a survey of Notre Dame students
• Resources to help instructors articulate AI policies for their courses and assignments (see “Resources Mentioned” section for links)
• Imagining next-generation assessments that push students to go beyond just creating a final product
• An example of how Alex is starting to see AI assist faculty with assessments

Guest Bio: G. Alex Ambrose is a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, where he serves as program director of assessment and analytics and leads the new Lab for AI in Teaching & Learning (LAITL). His work has been published in a range of academic and technology-based journals and earned him the 2015 Campus Technology Innovator Award as well as recognition by Google, IBM, USAID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

Resources Mentioned:

• Generative AI Acceptable Use Scale (aka the traffic light)
• The AI Menu
• Student AI Acknowledgment Form
• Notre Dame Learning’s AI Hub: learning.nd.edu/ai 
• Book: Next Generation Genres: Teaching Writing for Civic and Academic Engagement (Norton Professional Books)
  
  

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

Instructors everywhere responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with new ideas and strategies for teaching students. Georgetown University’s Maggie Debelius is the co-editor of a new book of essays highlighting this work with the intention of helping colleges and universities become more resilient centers of learning.

Here, Maggie joins host Jim Lang to discuss the book, titled Recentering Learning: Complexity, Resilience, and Adaptability in Higher Education, and explore how higher education should evolve in our post-pandemic, AI era.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Where the idea for Recentering Learning came from
• The undeniable power of residential experiences, but the moments of beauty brought about by remote learning in the midst of the pandemic’s disruption
• The ongoing importance of resilience to meet future challenges
• Why Maggie and her co-editors made sure Recentering Learning features contributions from staff and students as well as faculty
• What institutional responses to the pandemic say about higher ed’s ability to adapt in the long term when there is no immediate crisis to contend with
• How the prevalence of generative AI makes the central premise of the book—that is, the need to recenter what makes for good learning—even more urgent
• Maggie’s advice for recentering learning for both individual faculty and institutions more broadly, including by prioritizing relationship-building

Guest Bio: Maggie Debelius is the senior director of faculty initiatives at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) at Georgetown University, where she also serves as a professor of English and of learning, design, and technology. With Joshua Kim and Edward Maloney, she is co-editor of the essay collection Recentering Learning: Complexity, Resilience, and Adaptability in Higher Education, published in December 2024 by Johns Hopkins University Press. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University and an M.A. from Georgetown.

Resource Mentioned:

• Book: Recentering Learning: Complexity, Resilience, and Adaptability in Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press)

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

“Incredibly rich and textured and nuanced.” “Re-energized me to continue working on my teaching.” “Really wonderful and empowering.”

These are some of the phrases past attendees have used to describe the Notre Dame Inclusive Teaching Academy (NDITA). To learn more about what makes it so special, Designed for Learning host Jim Lang talks with Horane Diatta-Holgate, one of its organizers, and 2024 participant Dana Lashley, who is an associate teaching professor of chemistry at Notre Dame.

NDITA combines keynotes, interactive sessions, and structured work time to allow participants to reflect on their teaching practices and learn practical strategies for promoting inclusivity in their courses to the benefit of all students.

Hosted in Chicago by Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, NDITA is open to educators from both Notre Dame and other institutions, with the Kaneb Center covering much of the cost of attendance. Applications for the 2025 NDITA are due by March 10.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The history and structure of NDITA, including the financial support available for participants to attend
• The 2025 NDITA theme of making learning more accessible
• Dana’s takeaways as a past NDITA participant who came to the academy already possessing a considerable amount of teaching experience 
• The distinctions between various terminologies in the inclusive teaching space
• The open nature of NDITA, where everyone is welcome, regardless of their particular pedagogical mindsets and what inclusive teaching means to them
• Why when he works with instructors on inclusive teaching, Horane starts with what they’re already doing (and doing well)
• The experiences as students that led to Dana’s and Horane’s interests in inclusive teaching

Guest Bios: Horane Diatta-Holgate is an assistant teaching professor and the program director of inclusive pedagogy in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, where he develops and coordinates programs to support instructors with designing courses and classroom environments that foster critical thinking, meaningful engagement, and effective interpersonal communication.  He earned his MSEd and Ph.D. in educational psychology and research methodology from Purdue University.

Dana Lashley joined Notre Dame’s Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry as an associate teaching professor in 2024 after 10 years on the faculty at William & Mary. She holds a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry from Auburn University and teaches both semesters of the organic chemistry sequence at Notre Dame, among other courses.

Resource Mentioned:

• Webpage and Application: 2025 Notre Dame Inclusive Teaching Academy

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

In this inaugural episode of Designed for Learning, host Jim Lang sits down with cognitive psychologist and author Michelle D. Miller to explore the challenges and rewards of something that sounds so basic it’s easy to overlook how daunting it can be:

Learning and remembering student names.

As you prepare to meet students when they return to campus for the new semester, mastering their names isn't just a memory exercise—it’s a step toward creating a welcoming, inclusive classroom environment.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The science behind why names are uniquely difficult to remember
• The importance of knowing students’ names for fostering connection and inclusivity
• Michelle’s four-step strategy to improve name recall: Attend, Say, Associate, Retrieve
• The role of attention and retrieval in reinforcing memory
• Practical tips for large and small classes, including the use of name tents and group activities
• How learning names enhances engagement and classroom participation

Guest Bio: Michelle D. Miller is a professor of psychological sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. Originally trained in cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience, she now focuses mainly on using the findings of these fields to help faculty choose and use educational technology and design engaging, effective college courses. Her latest book, A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can, offers practical, research-backed strategies for educators looking to build a sense of connection with their students.

Resources Mentioned

• Book: A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can (University of Oklahoma Press)
• Michelle’s R3 Substack Newsletter
• Michelle’s LinkedIn

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.

Designed for Learning is a podcast from Notre Dame Learning, a collaborative unit at the University of Notre Dame that works with faculty and other instructors as they seek to enhance learning for their students. In that spirit, the show features interviews with teachers, experts in teaching and learning in higher education, authors of new books and resources, and anyone else we can learn from. New episodes are released monthly.

Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning. For more, visit learning.nd.edu. You can also follow Notre Dame Learning on LinkedIn.