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According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, there are approximately 36.8 million adults in the United States under the age of 65 who have completed some college but left before obtaining a degree. How can universities meet the needs of these potential students, especially when the traditional approach to college didn’t work for them?

Josh Steele is working to answer that question. Josh is the associate vice dean of digital learning at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Josh is helping to lead efforts at UT to reach the “some college, no degree” cohort and help them complete degrees that are meaningful to them. Josh talks about the challenges that adult students face in coming back to college, the experiments that are happening at the University of Tennessee to meet those challenges, and how his team works with faculty to design and implement quality online education. 

Episode Resources

·       Josh Steele on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabsteele/

·       Vols Online, https://volsonline.utk.edu/ 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

I see a lot of scholarly work on active learning in the STEM fields, but much less about active learning in the humanities. So when I read an article about active learning in a large-enrollment Greek myths course at Cornell University, I wanted to learn more.

In this episode, I talk with the authors of that paper: Todd Clary, senior lecturer in classics at Cornell University; Stephen Sansom, assistant professor of classics at Florida State University; and Carolyn Aslan, senior associate director at the Center for Teaching Innovation at Cornell. All three were involved in redesigning Cornell’s Greek myths course as part of Cornell’s Active Learning Initiative.

The interview digs into active learning in this course, especially the use of classroom response systems, as well as pre-class assignments, revised assessments, and more.

Episode Resources

·       Todd Clary’s faculty page, https://classics.cornell.edu/todd-c-clary

·       Stephen Sansom’s website, https://www.stephensansom.com/

·       Carolyn Aslan’s CTI page, https://teaching.cornell.edu/person/carolyn-aslan

·       Cornell University’s Active Learning Initiative, https://teaching.cornell.edu/programs/faculty-instructors/active-learning-initiative

·       “Active Learning Techniques to Enhance Conceptual Learning in Greek Mythology,” https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/870835 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

This episode features a conversation with another faculty colleague from my time at the University of Mississippi. Becky Marchiel is an associate professor of history there, and she teaches a very interesting history survey course. In our conversation, Becky shares how she goes about teaching the habits of mind of historians, as well as her use of labor-based grading, unessays, and classroom response systems. 

Episode Resources

·       Becky Marchiel’s faculty page, https://history.olemiss.edu/rebecca-marchiel/

·       Michael Bess on teaching with Wikipedia (from 2007), https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2007/12/episode-1-an-interview-with-michael-bess/

·       More examples of clickable image questions for classroom response systems, https://derekbruff.ck.page/posts/clickable-image-polling-questions 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

Listeners in the United States might have noticed that there’s a presidential election coming up, and we know that can make for a challenging teaching environment. Fortunately, I have an interview to share that addresses just this moment. Bethany Morrison is a political scientist and an assistant director at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan, and she has been working with colleagues at Michigan to support faculty teaching in this election year. 

In the interview, Bethany shares ideas for making connections between course material and the election, managing high-stakes discussions and hot moments in the classroom, and encouraging voting and civic engagement skills among our students. 

Episode Resources

·       Bethany Morrison on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethanynmorrisonphd/ 

·       “Preparing to Teach During the 2024 Election” on the CRLT blog, https://crlt.umich.edu/blog/preparing-teach-during-2024-election 

·       Promoting Democracy Teaching Series, https://ginsberg.umich.edu/teach-democracy

·       “In the Eye of the Storm: Students’ Perceptions of Helpful Faculty Actions Following a Collective Tragedy,” Therese Huston & Michele DiPietro, https://podnetwork.org/content/uploads/In_the_Eye.pdf 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

This is a story about institutional change. The product of that change—a new framework for assessing teaching quality now in use at Appalachian State University—is important, but the process that led to that change is just as important because it's by analyzing change processes that academic leaders can affect change on their campuses. 

In this episode, I talk with Lindsay Masland, interim executive director at the teaching center at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, who not only helped shape the new teaching quality framework at App State but also launched a grant program that has helped multiple departments do some really important work aligning their programs and policies and procedures with the framework. 

Episode Resources

·       The Teaching Quality Framework at Appalachian State University, https://cetlss.appstate.edu/teaching-learning/teaching-quality-framework-0

·       Lindsay Masland on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-masland-25b04511/ 

·       “Assessing Teaching with Beate Brunow and Shawn Simonson,” Intentional Teaching episode 27, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/2069949/episodes/14189134-assessing-teaching-with-beate-brunow-and-shawn-simonson 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

Today on the podcast I talk with Mariel Pfeifer, assistant professor of biology. Mariel started at Ole Miss just about a year ago as part of a cluster hire of three STEM faculty who are on the tenure track at UM doing disciplinary based education research. I was excited to hear Mariel was coming to the university because I was already familiar with her work. Back in the spring of 2023, I lead a faculty learning community on the topic of active learning in large enrollment STEM courses, and we read her study on the experiences of neurodivergent students in active learning STEM classes. 

As Mariel points out in our conversation, a lot of the traditional accommodations we use for students with learning disabilities assume that a college course is full of lectures and exams, but that’s not as true for STEM courses as it once was. Mariel shares lots of insight into the student experience in these courses and has practical advice for instructors interested in helping more students succeed. 

Episode Resources

·       Mariel Pfeifer’s lab website, https://www.pfeiferlab.com/

·       "What I Wish My Instructor Knew,” Mariel’s paper on students with ADHD and specific learning disabilities in active learning STEM courses, https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.21-12-0329

·       “Structured Reading Groups,” Derek’s November 2022 blog post about group roles, https://derekbruff.org/?p=3934 

·       “Teaching Students with ADHD with Cathryn Friel,” Intentional Teaching episode 16, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/2069949/13140564-teaching-students-with-adhd-with-cathryn-friel 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

Emily Affolter teaches in the PhD program in sustainability education at Prescott College in Arizona. Her students come from all different professions, some even already have PhDs. They’re in the program to pursue what Emily describes as “social and environmental justice as enacted in teaching, learning, and leading.” How do Emily and her colleagues meet these diverse students where they are and help them achieve their goals? That’s where culturally responsive teaching comes in, which Emily describes as reimagining a class with equity at the center.

Emily talks with me about what culturally responsive teaching looks like in her program at Prescott, how to build trust with one's students, the unique position an instructor has in fostering equity, how to work toward equity even in large lecture courses, and what it means to decolonize marine biology.

Episode Resources

·       Emily Affolter’s faculty page, https://prescott.edu/people/emily-affolter-ph-d/ 

·       Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice, Geneva Gay, https://www.tcpress.com/culturally-responsive-teaching-9780807758762 

·       Relationship-rich education with Isis Artze-Vega, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/2069949/14292897-relationship-rich-education-with-isis-artze-vega

·       Universal Design for Learning at scale with Thomas Tobin, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/2069949/14935277-universal-design-for-learning-at-scale-with-thomas-j-tobin 

·       “The Importance of Indigenous Knowledge in Curbing the Loss of Language and Biodiversity,” Wilder, O’Meara, Monti, & Nabhan, https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/66/6/499/2754233 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

Back in February 2024, as part of a slow read of my book Intentional Tech, I reached out to Paul Hanstedt, author of Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World, to talk about the "rhetorical triangle" as a way for thinking intentionally about writing assignments and other types of assignments. We had a fantastic conversation that I shared on Patreon at the time, and I’m now very glad to share the interview here on the main podcast feed.

Paul is the vice chancellor for academic affairs and innovation at the University of Minnesota Rochester. We talk about how UMR is not like other institutions, then we talk about Paul's new book, the second edition of General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty. Paul has so much wisdom on the design of general education curricula and on the process of designing those curricula. Finally we get around to talking about authentic audiences and rhetorical triangles.

Episode Resources

·       Paul Hanstedt on Bluesky, https://bsky.app/profile/curriculargeek.bsky.social 

·       General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty, https://www.aacu.org/publication/general-education-essentials-a-guide-for-college-faculty

·       Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World, https://www.routledge.com/Creating-Wicked-Students-Designing-Courses-for-a-Complex-World/Hanstedt/p/book/9781620366974?srsltid=AfmBOoqsAbLJZT5zCC9UovFUp9sTbqZJkd8KgRD0V_vFflZdQ1Wdb6H_

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

During these late summer episodes of the podcast, I’m sharing some interviews I conducted in much cooler times. Back in February as part of a slow read of my book Intentional Tech, I talked with Justin Shaffer, teaching professor in chemical and biological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Chapter three of the book deals with using technology to make visible “thin slices” of student learning. I reached out to Justin, who is also associate dean of undergraduate studies at Mines, to learn about some of the ways he uses technology both in and out of the classroom to learn more about his students’ learning.

That topic quite naturally led to discussions of Justin’s high-structure approach to course design. Justin has a book coming later this year (or maybe early 2025) from Macmillan Learning “High Structure Course Design for STEM” that will incredibly useful to STEM instructors of all experience levels. Justin is now officially the first repeat guest on Intentional Teaching. He was part of a panel way back in episode 9 on studio-style biology courses!

Episode Resources

·       Justin Shaffer’s website, https://www.recombinanteducation.com/

·       Sign-up for updates about Justin’s forthcoming book on high-structure course design, https://forms.gle/PEew6AsgFpijopm96

·       High Structure Course Design on the UVA Teaching Hub, https://teaching.virginia.edu/collections/high-structure-course-design

·       Getting Started with Discipline-Based Education Research on the UVA Teaching Hub, https://teaching.virginia.edu/collections/getting-started-with-discipline-based-education-research

·       Intentional Teaching Episode 9 on Studio-Style Biology Courses, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/2069949/12409419-studio-biology-with-scott-chirhart-robbie-bear-and-justin-shaffer  

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.

A few episodes ago, I talked with Marc Watkins of the University of Mississippi about the many ways that generative AI is beginning to intersect with student learning. Marc noted that the newest versions of ChatGPT and similar tools are no longer just text generators, but multimodal in nature. That is, they can work with text and images and audio and in some cases video, too. 

To help us better understand what roles these AI tools might play in multimodal assignments, this episode features an interview I conducted earlier this year as part of the slow read I ran of my 2019 book, Intentional Tech. One chapter of that book is about using technology for multimodal assignments, and to bring some fresh perspectives to that topic, I talked my wife, Emily Bruff.

Emily is a marketer for Zondervan Academic, and earlier this year she completed an interesting multimodal project to support the release of a new book called Know the Theologians. In the interview, Emily shares her experience using an AI image generator to make theologian trading cards, and we extrapolate from that experience to working with students with AI.

Episode Resources

·       Emily Bruff’s website, https://emilyhbruff.com/ 

·       Know the Theologians, https://www.zondervan.com/p/know-the-theologians/

·       Visio Divina conference, https://emilyhbruff.com/visio-divina-conference  

·       The Parthenon digital restoration project, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBHYVIyEVjg 

Podcast Links:

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe

Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.