Podagogies: A Learning and Teaching Podcast

From collectively writing odes to everyday objects to making good writing sound worse, Hoa Nguyen aims to actively involve students in exploring writing through practice. In this episode, she shares with Curtis and Chelsea how she imagines the classroom as a laboratory, with writing as an embodied, collaborative experiment. Through playful approaches, she helps students play with language, see their thinking, and appreciate the writer's craft. Professor Nguyen also discusses how the rise of generative AI has (and has not) impacted her teaching practice, what its use reveals about assessment, and why excitement, experimentation, and human connection matter.

Professor Hoa Nguyen is an internationally regarded writer and teacher of creative writing with over twenty years of experience across genres, ranging from intimate workshops to large-scale lectures in community and university settings. After a decade on the faculty of the Bard College MFA and the low-residency MFA program at Miami University, she is now an Assistant Professor teaching Creative Writing and Poetics in the Department of English at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/5c3rwnst

Chelsea and Curtis return to the Toronto Metropolitan University’s Learning and Teaching Conference to speak with faculty, contract lecturers, and staff attending this annual event. Attendees share their thoughts on the conference, collaboration, and building trust in the classroom. Many thanks to James Loney, Ashley Hannah, and James Maclean from TMU Libraries’ Digital Media Experience (DME) Lab for providing equipment and support for this recording, and Greg Burkell who assisted with audio editing.

Photo credits: Nick Duarte and Raymond Tran

Featuring:

Sean Kheraj, Vice Provost, Academic

Lorena Escandon, Graduate Program Director, the Creative School

Meera Govindasamy, Academic Engagement Specialist, Student Life and Learning Support

Denise McLane-Davison, Graduate Program Director, School of Social Work

Gabriela Robinson, Bachelor of Social Work Candidate & Angelina LoBianco, Bachelor of Social Work Student

John Edward Stowe, Chinese Language Coordinator, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Annabelle De Jesus, Mentoring Facilitator, Tri-Mentoring Program

John Barnes, Lecturer, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Alex Sein, MDM, Faculty of Media, Creative Arts & Design

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/3ws73e7x

In this episode of Podagogies, we speak with mathematician, educator, and 3M National Teaching Fellow Anna Stokke about what cognitive science can teach us about learning. We explore retrieval practice, “desirable difficulties,” phones and laptops in the classroom, and the growing impact of Generative AI on math education. Anna also reflects on why so many students come to believe they are “not math people,” and how effective teaching can help learners rebuild confidence and succeed.

Dr. Anna Stokke is a math educator and a 3M National Teaching Fellowship winner. She teaches math to many learners, including first year undergraduates and advanced math majors. She also runs a YouTube channel and a popular podcast called Chalk and Talk. Recently, she was called an "ambassador for math education” when she received the Clifford J. Robson Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence from the University of Winnipeg, where she is a professor of mathematics.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/5n6uvbfy

From low to high fidelity simulations, and from task trainers to the latest high-tech mannequins, this episode explores all the learning possibilities in "sim", with particular focus on TMU Med School's Sim Lab. But, the benefits from simulations go far beyond the tools involved. This episode also looks into the pedagogical value of including simulation throughout medical training.

Dr. Gurmeet Lall serves as the Director of Clinical anatomy and simulation at TMU School of Medicine.

Dr. Rajani Vairavanathan is a family and emergency doctor who serves as Director of high fidelity simulation and clinical faculty at TMU.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/bdz8v8ss

Going beyond the traditional English lecture, this episode explores Dr. Sarah Bull's course Cultures of the Book, where students explore the technology behind the text. From working with oak gall inks to creating new visions of what a book can be, Sarah shares how she uses experiential learning to engage her students in an exploration of the written word.

Dr. Sarah Bull is an Associate Professor in Toronto Metropolitan University's English Department. Her research focuses on print culture and the history of the book. Her first book, Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain, focused on the practices and politics of selling medical books on sexual matters in nineteenth-century Britain. Her current book project, Manufacturing Literature, examines the practices and politics of compiling books in the nineteenth century Anglophone world.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/3mwetbse

In this episode of Podagogies, Dr. Leanne Taylor shares how she teaches required equity-focused courses in spaces where resistance is real, and learning is sometimes hard-earned. She reflects on how critical hope shapes her approach to course design, assessment, emotional labour, and institutional change. From building classroom community to moving beyond traditional essays, this conversation explores how teaching equity through critical hope means holding space for discomfort, sustaining possibility, and playing the long game of change.

Dr. Leanne Taylor (she/her), is an Associate Professor at Brock University. She is Chair of the Faculty of Education’s Equity and Social Justice Standing Committee (ESJC) and is affiliated with the Social Justice and Equity Studies Master’s program (SJES). She is a recipient of the Chancellor’s Chair for Teaching Excellence (2024-2027), the Faculty of Education Award for Teaching Excellence, Brock’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and a 3M National Teaching Fellowship. For the past 15+ years, Dr. Taylor has conducted research on anti-racism practices, policy, and programming and has designed and instructed courses on equity, social justice, power, and politics across undergraduate, graduate, and teacher education programs.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/22282m7e

Have you been listening to DocTalks, the branch of Podagogies dedicated to exploring the world of medical education? We're cross-posting DocTalks Episode 9 here on Podagogies to share what we can learn from medical educators about how to improve our teaching practice.

Emergency physician and award-winning educator Dr. Jonathan Sherbino joins DocTalks to unpack why education research matters, and how it improves patient care. Drawing on his work leading MERIT at McMaster University, Sherbino challenges assumptions about innovation, rigour, and legitimacy in medical education. The conversation explores competency-based education, diagnostic error, and why experience, not “thinking harder” or bias checklists, drives clinical expertise. A thoughtful, evidence-informed discussion on building safer systems, better training, and scholarship that truly translates to practice.

Dr. Sherbino is a Professor of Medicine and Assistant Dean, Health Professions Education Research, McMaster University. He holds the William J. Walsh Chair in Medical Education. Dr. Sherbino is the past chair of the National Specialty Committee for Emergency Medicine, Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, and the co-founder of a nationally certified medical education training program. He also directs the McMaster Health Education, Research & Innovation & Theory (MERIT) Centre.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/2p9wt2m9

Follow DocTalks: https://on.soundcloud.com/elIc60UCZ9jrFJ86n4

TMU Psychology Professor Dr. Alyssa Counsell joins us to unpack what statistics literacy truly involves. She shares research that complicates common assumptions about “stats anxiety,” revealing that students’ attitudes are more nuanced than the usual narrative, and strongly shaped by instructor rapport. Alyssa also discusses her work experimenting with interpretation-focused assessments and why managing expectations is essential when trying something new. A practical, timely conversation for anyone teaching with data, or simply trying to make sense of it.

Dr. Alyssa Counsell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University, a Teaching Fellow with TMU's Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and the Director of the Psychology and Statistics Education Research (PASER) lab. She seeks to bridge the gap between methodological innovation and applied statistical practice. Her research explores the applications of advanced statistical models for complex psychological data, as well as statistics literacy, pedagogy, and education in the social sciences. Dr. Counsell currently holds a SSHRC Insight Grant for her research program, Improving statistics education and statistical literacy in the social sciences.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/3p7pzuw7

This episode of Podagogies is an exploration of care, from showing care for students in our classes to how instructors can ensure their own care needs are met. Dr. May Friedman and Fiona Cheuk from Toronto Metropolitan University share their approaches to navigating this complicated balance.

May Friedman is a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Much of May’s work explores issues of fat activism and weight stigma in many different settings. Drawing from her own experiences as a fat racialized mother, May looks at unstable identities, including bodies that do not conform to traditional racial and national or aesthetic lines.

Fiona Ning Cheuk (they/them) is a gender neutral lecturer at the School of Disability Studies. Their pedagogical practices are informed by their continuous nurturing by queer, disabled, BIPOC community wisdom on how to survive and build resilient futures within academia.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/2v2nvcz4

What happens when you turn a lecture hall into an escape room? In this episode of Podagogies, Brock University’s Arica Oliver and Mark Julien discuss how they've gamified human resources education. From puzzle-based test prep to navigating campus offices, their escape room activity blends competition, collaboration, and critical engagement with equity and human rights. The conversation explores how playful design can deepen learning, foster community, and make “dry” content memorable—while still addressing serious issues in HR and management.

Arica Oliver is an experiential education coordinator in the Faculty of Education. Mark Julien is a Professor of Human Resource Management in the Goodman School of Business at Brock.

Read the transcript: https://tinyurl.com/y67yh52n