Recombinant Teaching: STEM Education Office Hours with Dr. Justin Shaffer

Jim Hutchins returns to the show to ask a provocative question: are learning objectives dead? Listen up to see how this one goes!

Jim Hutchins spent 45 years teaching medical and allied health students. Now he tries to bring beneficence and justice to students by creating free learning materials. You can follow him and find his materials on SubStack and LinkedIn. Jim welcomes collaborations. A learner at ANY level can contribute.

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

On this episode Justin chats with Akshata Naik about how to use interleaving and other techniques to improve student learning, especially in an anatomy and physiology course.

Dr. Akshata Naik, an assistant professor and physiology educator at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, located in Michigan, roughly 30 miles north of Detroit. Learn more about her at the links below.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshatarnaik/

https://www.anaikowl.com/

Here is a link to the core concepts in physiology book that Akshata referred to.

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together. Check out Justin's website to learn more.

www.recombinanteducation.com

Alison Roth joins the show to discuss the pertinent question of building accessibility into our digital course materials given the upcoming ADA deadline. More importantly, though Alison and Justin how this should be a normal part of your coursework and how this will leave lasting impacts once done.

Alison Roth is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Medical Physics at Purdue University. Check out her work here: https://hhs.purdue.edu/mp-learning-lab/

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

On this episode Justin answers a time-old question about how to add active learning without taking up a lot of time to do a complete course overhaul.

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

Jim Hutchins joins the show and chats with Justin about a host of issues related to proper course design and Edtech. Listen up, but bring your acronym dictionary with you! :)

Jim Hutchins spent 45 years teaching medical and allied health students. Now he tries to bring beneficence and justice to students by creating free learning materials. You can follow him and find his materials on SubStack and LinkedIn. Jim welcomes collaborations. A learner at ANY level can contribute.

Get some of Justin's teaching materials here.

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

Murray Jensen from the University of Minnesota joins the show to poke and prod Justin with the question of is PowerPoint bad for teaching? As an avid PPT user, Justin pushes back but who wins the argument?

Murray Jensen is at the University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences, where he teaches introductory physiology and oversees a dual-enrollment program. Email him at [email protected] for copies of his A&P teaching materials!

Here is the link to the Death by PowerPoint comedy routine video.

Get some of Justin's teaching materials here.

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

Justin answers a great question about the use of online quizzes by both instructors and students. As always, the answer depends on the situation, but Justin tries to give advice on using them in a variety of contexts.

Crystal Uminski is an assistant professor of biology at Towson University and you can find out what she is up to at the links below.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystal-uminski/

email: [email protected]

website: crystaluminski.com

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/crystaluminski.bsky.social

Get some of Justin's teaching materials including reading guides here.

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

Noah Courtney joins Justin to discuss how to scale up the use of authentic assessments (including having your STEM students write the NSF GRFP) in undergraduate courses.

Noah A Courtney is a second-year Ph.D. student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Rhode Island. At URI, he conducts Biology Education Research under Dr. Lisa Limeri, focusing on leveraging quantitative methods to investigate ways to support community college STEM student persistence. Additionally, he focuses heavily on mentorship, and serves as a mentor to multiple undergraduate students, who have gone on to give successful conference presentations, earn graduate school admission, and write successful NSF GRFP proposals.

If you would like to chat further with Noah or receive his 'email guide to the GRFP', feel free to reach out at [email protected] or through his LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/noahcourtney

Here is a link to more info on authentic assessments.

Here is Justin's LinkedIn article on how he used AI to help him with his NSF GRFP assignment.

Here is the paper on the FINER method (the I stands for Interesting!)

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

In this final episode of the STEM Course Design Series, Justin discusses the importance of getting feedback on your teaching, reflecting on said feedback, and iterating to improve you and your students’ experiences and success. Just dives into student midcourse and end-of-course feedback, peer observation protocols, and keeping a teaching journal, and more.

Here is an article Justin wrote discussing why we need to up our games as instructors as students are paying too much for less-than-stellar experiences.

Here is a link to the peer observation system Justin helped develop at the Colorado School of Mines.

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Check out Justin's book on High Structure Course Design to learn more about feedback, reflection, and iteration.

Check out Justin's card decks to help with course design and student learning.

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com

We’ve covered how to handle traditional face-to-face classes, but how do you use structure in labs and online situations? In this episode of the STEM Course Design Series, Justin discusses how to use high structure in labs, online synchronous, and online asynchronous courses and just how important it is. Listen in for his thoughts on lab prep, online proctoring, breakout rooms, and more!

Want to be a part of the show? Submit a question!

Here is an article discussing Justin’s QBE field session course (a type of CURE) at the Colorado School of Mines.

Check out Justin's book on High Structure Course Design to learn more about labs and online courses.

Check out Justin's card decks to help with course design and student learning.

Learn how you, your department, or your institution can work with Justin to improve STEM education together.

www.recombinanteducation.com