Leading Lines

In this episode, we first hear a short, speculative fiction audio story by Vanderbilt undergraduate Sarah Saxton Strassberg called “Hagar Rising” that explores the future of gene editing. Sarah Saxton created this piece for a course on the politics of reproductive health taught by Vanderbilt anthropology professor Sophie Bjork-James. After Sarah’s audio piece, Derek Bruff talks with Sophie about the course and her podcast assignment.

“Hagar Rising” originally aired as an episode of another Vanderbilt podcast, VandyVox, which features the best student-produced audio from around campus. The podcast also has student audio exploring names and identities at a Hispanic-serving nonprofit in Nashville, a narrative produced for a women’s and gender studies course called “Women Who Kill,” and an excerpt from a graduate student-produced podcast taking a critical look at video games, among other student work from around campus. To find these episodes, search for VandyVox in your favorite podcast app, or head to VandyVox.com. If you visit the website, you’ll also find some behind-the-scenes information about the assignments that led to these student podcasts, which should be of particular interest to the Leading Lines audio.

Links

• VandyVox, http://vandyvox.com/

• Sophie Bjork-James’ faculty page, https://as.vanderbilt.edu/anthropology/bio/sophie-bjork-james

• “Sarah Saxton Strassberg: From Summer Camp to Student Author,” https://vanderbilthustler.com/life/sarah-strassberg-from-summer-camp-to-student-author.html

In this episode, Paula Andrade, a second-year graduate student in history here at Vanderbilt who is currently serving as the Center for Teaching’s HASTAC Scholar, interviews another HASTAC Scholar for Leading Lines. Nathan Dize is a PhD candidate in the department of French and Italian, and a HASTAC Scholar with the Vanderbilt Digital Cultural Heritage research cluster. In the interview, Paula talks to Nathan about the digital archive project he built into a course on the Haitian revolution, the intentional ways he uses technology to support his teaching goals, and the value of turning a class into a learning community.

Links

• Nathan Dize’s website, https://my.vanderbilt.edu/nhdize/about-me/

• @NathanHDize on Twitter, https://twitter.com/NathanHDize

• Paula Andrade’s department page, https://as.vanderbilt.edu/history/bio/paula-andradedinizdearaujo

• @mpada2 on Twitter, https://twitter.com/mpada2

• Voyant, https://voyant-tools.org/

• Scalar, https://scalar.me/anvc/

• Saint-Domingue Lost: Imperial French Narratives of the Haitian Revolution, http://scalar.usc.edu/works/saint-domingue-lost-imperial-french-narratives-of-the-haitian-revolution/index

• HASTAC Scholars, https://www.hastac.org/initiatives/hastac-scholars

In this episode, we talk with Mike Caulfield, director of blended and networked learning at Washington State University Vancouver and head of the Digital Polarization Initiative at the American Democracy Project. Mike talks about some of the shortcomings of the way information and web literacy has been traditionally taught, the moves and heuristics he and his colleagues at the Digital Polarization Initiative are teaching their students, and the strategies they’re using for helping students re-think how they make sense of sources and information. If you have any interest in fake news or fact-checking or viral content or just helping students find and work with sources, you’ll find this interview engaging and practical.

Links

• Hapgood, Mike Caulfield’s blog, https://hapgood.us/

• @holden, Mike Caulfield’s Twitter account, https://twitter.com/holden

• Digital Polarization Intiative, http://www.aascu.org/AcademicAffairs/ADP/DigiPo/

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers, https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/web-strategies-for-student-fact-checkers/

• A Short History of CRAAP, https://hapgood.us/2018/09/14/a-short-history-of-craap/

In this episode, the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching’s assistant director for educational technology, Stacey Johnson, recently talked with Kylie about a new practicum the CFT launched aimed at preparing grad students to teach online. Stacey and Kylie discuss the origin and structure of the practicum, as well as a really useful framework for teaching online that Kylie learned about while designing the practicum.

Links

• Kylie Korsnack’s English department page, https://as.vanderbilt.edu/english/bio/kylie-korsnack

• @kkorsnack on Twitter, https://twitter.com/kkorsnack

• We Teach Languages Episode 90 – Part 2 of Stacey’s interview with Kylie, https://weteachlang.com/2019/02/01/ep-90-with-kylie-korsnack/

• Garrison D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education 2(2-3): 87-105. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1096751600000166

• “Re-Imagining Revision: The Digital Essay,” Kylie’s blog post on digital revisions, https://www.hastac.org/blogs/kyliejk/2017/01/24/16-revisiting-pedagogy-project-and-re-imagining-revision

• Certificate in College Teaching @ Vanderbilt CFT, https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/programs/cict/

In this episode, we hear from Christopher Parrish, senior vice president and portfolio general manager at 2U. 2U is what’s sometimes known as an online program management, or OPM, provider. OPM providers are for-profit companies that partner with non-profit universities to develop, launch, and sustain online degree programs, especially graduate and professional programs. In this interview, John Sloop, Vanderbilt’s associate provost for education development and technologies, talks with Chris Parrish from 2U about 2U’s model for online education, why 2U’s standard university partnership is a ten-year commitment, and where Chris Parrish sees online education going in the next decade. John also gets one of the most surprising answers to our closing question we’ve had yet. You’ll find this interview a lively one!

Links

• Christopher Parrish’s LinkedIn page, https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-parrish-047a50a/

• @c_parrish8 on Twitter, https://twitter.com/c_parrish8

• Phil Hill’s spring 2018 overview of the online program management (OPM) landscape, https://mfeldstein.com/online-program-management-market-landscape-s2018/

• Leading Lines Episode 20: Andrew Van Schaack, Catherine Loss, and Paul Speer, http://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-020-andrew-van-schaack-catherine-loss-paul-speer/

We’re starting our 2019 season with an interview with Anna Bostwick Flaming, associate director at the Center for Teaching in the Office of Teaching, Learning, & Technology at the University of Iowa. Anna heads up the faculty development programming for Iowa’s active learning classroom initiative, called TILE. In the interview, Anna talks about the origin of the active learning classroom initiative at Iowa. She describes the kinds of programming her center offers to prepare faculty to teach well in these spaces, and she shares some very concrete strategies for teaching in active learning classrooms.

Links

• Anna Bostwick Flaming’s U. Iowa profile, https://teach.its.uiowa.edu/people/anna-l-bostwick-flaming

• TILE (Transform, Interact, Learn, Engage) at the University of Iowa, https://teach.its.uiowa.edu/initiatives/tile-transform-interact-learn-engage

• “Creating Active Learning Classrooms Is Not Enough: Lessons from Two Case Studies,” co-authored by Anna Bostwick Flaming, https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/12/creating-active-learning-classrooms-is-not-enough-lessons-from-two-case-studies

• Leading Lines Ep. 32: Cornelia Lang, http://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-32-cornelia-lang/

• Leading Lines Ep. 33: D. Christopher Brooks, http://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-33-d-christopher-brooks/

• Derek’s learning spaces album on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/derekbruff/sets/72157630533336504/

• “Active Learning Classrooms: What We Know,” a brief lit review, http://derekbruff.org/?p=3363

In this episode, we take a look at the work of the New Literacies Alliance. The NLA is a cross-institutional collaboration among librarians to create open educational resources intended to teach information literacy. They have created online lessons for introducing students to search strategies, scholarly conversations, the role of authority in research, citations, reading scientific research, and more.

Leading Lines producer Melissa Mallon caught up with two of the leaders of the New Literacies Alliance at a recent conference. Melissa spoke with Joelle Pitts, instructional design librarian at Kansas State University, and Matthew Upson, director of undergraduate instruction and outreach services at the Oklahoma State University libraries. They talk about the origin of the New Literacies Alliance, the challenges teaching students information literacy, and what’s next for the NLA and the lessons they’re developing.

Links

• New Literacies Alliance, https://newliteraciesalliance.org/

• NLA available lessons, https://newliteraciesalliance.org/available-lessons/

• Joelle Pitts on Twitter, @jopitts, https://twitter.com/jopitts

• Matt Upson on Twitter, @thunderbrarian, https://twitter.com/thunderbrarian

• Matt Upson’s faculty page, http://info.library.okstate.edu/matt-upson

In this episode, we speak with Tia Smith, Bellsouth professor of mass communication at Xavier University of Louisiana. She joined Xavier in 2015 as department head of mass communications, and her research focuses on gender, race, sexuality, and media. She has studied South African women freedom fighters and black women hip-hop fans. Tia’s background includes stints as a travel writer, journalist, and corporate communications consultant. She brings these diverse experiences to her work with students at Xavier, which has the distinction of being the only historically black and Catholic institution of higher education in the US.

Tia was in Nashville for a conference, and she stopped by Vanderbilt to talk about the multimedia assignments she gives her students, the challenges her students face moving into professional work, and the importance of critical theory in creative practice.

Links

• Tia Smith’s faculty page, http://www2.xula.edu/masscommunication/TiaSmith.html

• @drtiasmith75 on Twitter, https://twitter.com/drtiasmith75

• Center for the Advancement of Teaching & Faculty Development @ Xavier University, https://cat.xula.edu/

• Teaching, Learning, and Everything Else podcast, https://cat.xula.edu/food/topic/podcast/

• STORY Conference, https://storygatherings.com/

In the game Monarch, players compete to the be the heir to the throne. The game is cleverly designed and has amazing art, but what makes it different is that all the characters are women. The dying monarch is the queen, and players are princesses striving to show their wisdom and strength. Monarch upends some traditional stereotypes, and it does so quite intentionally. The game's designer is Mary Flanagan, and when Leading Lines looked her up, we learned that she’s a professor at Dartmouth College, where she runs a game design and research lab called Tiltfactor. Flanagan and her team design games for social change, like Monarch, and they investigate their effects on players’ beliefs and behaviors.

In this episode we talk with Max Seidman, senior game designer at Tiltfactor. Seidman gives us a tour of the Tiltfactor lab and discusses more about Tiltfactor’s research into games and social change.

Links

• Max Seidman on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-seidman-8a017144/

• Tiltfactor, https://tiltfactor.org/

• Pox, https://tiltfactor.org/game/pox/

• Awkward Moment, https://tiltfactor.org/game/awkward-moment/

• Buffalo, https://tiltfactor.org/game/buffalo/

• Monarch, https://resonym.com/game/monarch/

• RePlay Health, http://www.replayhealth.com/

• “Playing Below the Poverty Line,” https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/6176/5906

• Derek Bruff’s Agile Learning blog article “Teaching Board Games #2: The Big Picture,” http://derekbruff.org/?p=3349

Technology doesn’t have to be digital to be useful in teaching.

In this episode, we feature an interview with Kimberly Rogers, who uses games and simulations in her sociology courses, two very analog technologies. Kimberly talks about why she teaches with games and simulations, about the importance of role-playing in discussing hard topics, and about the combination of experiential learning and productive failure she’s found useful in teaching her students and challenging her students’ mental models about health and healthcare.

Links

• Kimberly Rogers’ website, https://www.kimberlybrogers.com/

• @kimberlybrogers on Twitter, https://twitter.com/kimberlybrogers

• Tiltfactor, game design for social change, https://tiltfactor.org/

• RePlay Health, http://www.replayhealth.com/

• Photos from Kimberly Rogers’ sociology class, https://twitter.com/DCALatDartmouth/status/1009102648908435462