Centering Centers

Professors are expected to have extensive expertise in their fields of study in order to qualify to teach at the post-secondary level, but can graduate coursework in quantum mechanics or X-ray crystallography prepare you to be a supportive advisor and an inclusive educator?

Ashley McNeill, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Springfield College in Springfield, MA, and Elizabeth McDonald, Instructional Designer at The University of Alabama, discuss faculty preparedness for teaching (or lack thereof) for new STEM educators. It’s important for new faculty, particularly in STEM, to be introduced to Centers and other resources intended to help them navigate their new roles as educators, mentors, and academic advisors. Traditional training in a STEM PhD program famously lacks opportunities to be exposed to this aspect of a professor’s work, particularly at large R1 institutions where many graduate students receive their training from professors whose responsibilities largely focus on grant writing and research. Ashley and Elizabeth review several approaches to learning more about student needs in the classroom, course design, and adapting assignments to classrooms of different sizes. Perhaps even more importantly, Ashley and Elizabeth spend some time talking about connecting with your students and teaching them to engage meaningfully in their STEM education.

A PODFest Collaboration

Host, Ashley S. McNeill, Springfield College

Elizabeth McDonald, University of Alabama

Transcript

Is it time that your teaching center started its own podcast? That’s the question that brought four POD Network colleagues together in a breakout session at PODFest 2022 to talk about teaching center podcasts. What goals might a teaching center podcast have? How would you know if you were meeting those goals? And how would your center go about planning and producing a podcast? This episode features a lively conversation between two teaching center podcast producers, Derek Bruff of the University of Mississippi and Tom Pantazes of West Chester University of Pennsylvania, and two colleagues interested in starting new podcasts, Karen Skibba of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jasmine Parent of McGill University. They discuss podcasting as an educational development tool as well as practical strategies for starting and sustaining a teaching center podcast.

• ODLI on Air, https://open.spotify.com/show/7dlveEuHbzzJ9BfgotUyq8

• Leading Lines, https://leadinglinespod.com/

• Intentional Teaching, https://intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com/

• Teaching in Higher Education, https://teachinginhighered.com/episodes/

• Two Profs in a Pod, https://twoprofsinapod.blogspot.com/ 

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

--Wallace Stevens, "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

In this season of Centering Centers, we are speaking with educational developers from diverse centers about their inspirations and innovations – what drives their work and approaches that have impact.

 Today we are speaking with Robert Gray, an Associate Professor of University Pedagogy in the Department of Education at the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway who has over 20 years of experience in higher ed professional development. Before moving to Norway, Rob taught literature courses and led professional development at numerous institutions including: University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of South Alabama, and the University of Stavanger. His research interests include teaching and learning in higher education, how technology impacts assessment practices in higher education, peer feedback, various aspects of interaction inside and outside the classroom, and how we define quality in teaching and learning. In addition, he has published three books of poetry and directed an award-winning documentary film on race relations in the American South.

Resources Mentioned:

• https://www.uib.no/en/uped
• https://www.uib.no/en/rg/teled

Transcript

In this episode of Centering Centers, guest host Derek Bruff talks with Jessica Riddell, professor of early modern literature and the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence at Bishop’s University in Quebec, Canada. Jessica is also the executive director of the Maple League of Universities, which is not, in fact, a group of Canadian super-heroes, but rather a consortium of four small universities that have banded together to support quality undergraduate education. Jessica shares her journey into the field of educational development, how collaboration across institutions can support the missions of those institutions, what she’s learning in her new position on the board of directors of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and how she manages to get so much stuff done in her week.

https://www.jessicariddell.com/

Transcript

“I want my people to look like the experts they are, because I want them to be treated as colleagues, even though we are a service organization.”

In this episode of Centering Centers, guest host Derek Bruff talks with Shawn Miller, director of Learning Innovation at Duke University. Shawn’s unit combines faculty development, instructional technology, online program management, and more. Shawn shares how Duke Learning Innovation came to be and how the unit continues to integrate these different functions, and he provides strategic advice for centers for teaching and learning who are navigating the academic technology landscape.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

https://learninginnovation.duke.edu/

Transcript

In this episode of Centering Centers, we are concluding our trifecta of episodes on the AI disruption by sharing a specific example of how one center is responding to the challenge. Many of us have been benefitted from sharing examples of policies, statements, assignments, and ideas online through the AI for Educators Google group and pod listserv, in that spirit, I wanted to share out through this platform how my colleagues and I are working through these challenges.

My guests are my colleagues, Asim Ali, executive director of the Biggio Center, and Shawndra Bowers, who is, like me, an Associate Director in the Biggio Center, but whose focuses on learning experience design and online course production.

In our last episode, we learned about ChatGPT with Cynthia Alby. Today we are diving deeper into the ethics of AI and how we as educational developers might best support the conversations happening across our campuses.

To guide us in this conversation, we are speaking with Dr. Kevin Yee, Director of the Faculty Center at the University of Central Florida. Kevin has held numerous faculty and leadership positions at a range of institutions through his career including USF, Duke, Iowa, Pomona College and UC Irvine.

His research interests within pedagogy are wide, and have included student motivation, study skills, and various emerging technologies for teaching. He is currently co-editing a book of case studies on the intersection of VR and ethics in the college classroom.

Resources Mentioned: 

UCF's resource on Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence Writing

Christina DiMicelli's "A Discussion for Education" - Google Slide Repository of her research and resources on ChatGPT 

Zoom Transcript of the Interview

Today on "Centering Centers", we are speaking with Cynthia Alby,  who is Professor of Teacher Education and Faculty Director of Georgia College Journeys, in Milledgeville, Georgia, USA. She shares her perspectives on ChatGPT and how it can catalyze needed change in the teaching landscape of  higher education.

• Learning that matters: A field guide to course design for transformative education
• Website: https://learningthatmatters.weebly.com/resources.html
• Media Kit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EB9sls15WITsiRqYUuRyrdoBFTalwktEOv836ISFv5Y/edit?usp=sharing
• A link to a specific article referenced: Autumm Caines’ Prior to (or Instead of) Using ChatGPT with Your Students.

Transcript of the Interview

Today on "Centering Centers", we are speaking with Teresa Focarile who is the Associate Director for Educational Development at the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing at Boise State University. We discussed the many-layered approach they are implementing to support adjunct faculty's professional learning as well as job satisfaction. 

• Two examples of their Adjunct Faculty Newsletter: April 2022 and November 2021
• The link to the POD Special Interest Group (SIG) for Adjunct and Part-Time Faculty (you need to be logged in to the POD website as a member to access that page; you can also email the SIG with questions at  [email protected])
• A recent publication by the Pullias Center for Higher Education, Designing Accessible and Inclusive Professional Development for NTTF.

Transcript of the Interview

Today on "Centering Centers", we are speaking with Tom Laughner who is the Director of the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center Teaching and Learning center, in Memphis, Tennessee. 

Our conversation explores his work supporting faculty in the health professions and the successful micro-credentialing program called the Medallion Program.

Learn more about the Medallion initiative!

Transcript of the Interview