Over the past two years, Columbia students have made multiple transitions between online, hybrid, and in-person learning during the pandemic. In today’s episode, Emma Fromont, a senior at Columbia’s School of General Studies, and Victor Jandres Rivera, a sophomore at Columbia College, discuss how these different modalities and contexts have shaped them as learners. Emma and Victor share dead ideas they have discovered in topics such as learning with technology, building community, and grading. T...
Apr 21, 2022•33 min
Today we speak with Susan Hrach , author of the book Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning (2021), which “shifts the focus of adult learning from an exclusively mental effort toward an embodied, sensory-rich experience, offering new strategies to maximize the effectiveness of time spent learning together on campus as well as remotely.” Along with co-host Caitlin DeClercq, Assistant Director at the Columbia CTL, Professor Hrach expands upon how movement and s...
Apr 07, 2022•32 min
Today we speak with Drs. Chavella Pittman and Thomas Tobin, authors of the article “ Academe Has a Lot to Learn about How Inclusive Teaching Affects Instructors ”, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education in February 2022. In the article, they write, “A key tenet of inclusive teaching asks faculty members to intentionally give up or share some of their power and authority in the classroom, so that students can experience a greater sense of ownership and choice over their own learning. Advo...
Mar 24, 2022•32 min
What is anti-racist pedagogy and how is it different than inclusive teaching? Is it a new pedagogy? How can instructors enact anti-racist practices in the classroom, and what structural changes should universities make to support these efforts? In today’s episode, Frank Tuitt, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at the University of Connecticut, helps us answer these questions. Dr. Tuitt also shares his own journey in the work of anti-rac...
Mar 10, 2022•31 min
Columbia University graduate student, Aleksandra Jakubczak, shares her reflections on her journey to become a more informed and confident teacher, and how that journey took her so much further than she initially expected! Listen to find out what changed in her teaching, but also discover how her engagement with the Columbia CTL’s Teaching Development Program changed her conception of teaching and its place in her career—exactly the kind of change called for and highlighted in Beth McMurtrie’s ar...
Feb 24, 2022•28 min
In October 2021, Beth McMurtrie, senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote an article titled “The Damaging Myth of the Natural Teacher”. The piece explores how, despite decades of research showing otherwise, teaching is often considered an innate talent rather than a skill that can be learned. The article highlights how damaging this belief is for professors, students, and higher education in general. In today’s episode, Beth shares how and why she wrote this article, and discus...
Feb 10, 2022•30 min
Speaking from the Heart: An Instructor and Her Student Reflect with Dr. Karen Phillips and Yarin Reindorp Today we speak with Yarin Reindorp, a junior in Columbia’s School of General Studies, and her former teacher in organic chemistry, Dr. Karen Phillips, who was a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry at Columbia. Dr. Phillips shares teaching techniques and philosophies that she employs in her courses—techniques that tackle dead ideas about collaboration, student empowerment, and equi...
Feb 03, 2022•40 min
In 2020, Denise Cruz , Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, worked with the CTL through a Provost’s Innovative Course Design Grant to transform her large lecture course in Asian American Literature into a blended format. Today, we speak with Denise about the profound impact the new course format has had on student engagement, motivation, and collaboration in her class, and the dead ideas in teaching that she confronted as she designed and taught it. Spoiler alert: the red...
Dec 02, 2021•36 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Today we speak with Joshua Kim , Director of Online Programs and Strategy at Dartmouth College, and Edward Maloney , Executive Director of The Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown University. In their recent book Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education (2020), Drs. Kim and Maloney write “We have no shortage of knowledge about how learning works and how this knowledge can be applied to advance teaching. What we lack is an understanding of the conditions ...
Nov 18, 2021•39 min•Season 3Ep. 5
While much public discourse argues over the value and the future of higher education—whether it really “pays off” or how we can leverage technological tools and big data—what’s often missing from the conversation is the importance of good teaching. Aaron Pallas and Anna Neumann , professors of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, believe that good college teaching matters—so much so that they wrote a book about it! In today’s podcast episode, Drs. Pallas and Neumann discuss their ...
Nov 04, 2021•38 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In today’s episode, Kevin Gannon , a Professor of History and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Grand View University, discusses how the pandemic has highlighted “bedrock” flaws in higher education systems, including in faculty evaluation processes. These flaws, based on dead ideas such as emphasizing equality rather than equity, disproportionately affect marginalized groups. Dr. Gannon elaborates on the destructive potential of returning “back to normal” in these...
Oct 21, 2021•32 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Today we speak with renowned teaching and learning theorist and thought leader Laura I. Rendón , a Professor Emerita at the University of Texas-San Antonio and author of the book Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation (2009). As the pandemic nears its end, Dr. Rendón believes we are now in “nepantla”, or a liminal space of inquiry and possibility, regarding the future of higher education. As we return to campuses and classrooms, we need ...
Oct 07, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Welcome to Season 3 of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning! We begin this season by turning the conversation around: our guest today is Catherine Ross , Executive Director of the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning, and host of Dead Ideas. Catherine, interviewed by Ian Althouse , Senior Assistant Director at the Columbia CTL, shares why she decided to start this podcast—including her own “aha” moment—and what motivates and inspires her to continue the work of unpacking implicit assumptions...
Sep 23, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In May 2020, two months after Columbia transitioned to fully remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we interviewed four Columbia undergrads about their experiences. Now almost a full year out, we wanted to check in again on the student experience and identify what dead ideas have surfaced in this extended period of disruption. In this episode, we speak with Sajan Bar, a junior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Michelle Yao, a junior in Columbia College, who both serve a...
Apr 22, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 7
In his 1993 article, “Teaching as Community Property: Putting an End to Pedagogical Solitude”, renowned educational psychologist Lee Shulman argued that if teaching were viewed as community property, rather than something that happens behind closed classroom doors, there would be more value placed on teaching and more rigor in the evaluation of teaching. In today’s episode, we unpack this argument and its underlying dead ideas with Columbia doctoral students Thomas Preston, Diana Newby, and Ami ...
Apr 08, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 6
What are small steps instructors can take to teach inclusively? Where, when, and how should they be implemented? In today’s episode, we chat with the authors of the new book What Inclusive Instructors Do: Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching (2021). These experts share approaches to conducting inclusive courses that are student-centered, community-based, and transparent, and discuss why these approaches are important—as well as the dead ideas that they debunk. Learn more a...
Mar 25, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 5
What are the benefits of online education? What misconceptions or “dead ideas” do both instructors and students harbor about teaching and learning online? And how can online activities (both synchronous and asynchronous) benefit student engagement, community-building, and inclusion in the classroom? In today’s episode, we speak with Roxanne Russell , Director of Online Education at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, about all things online, including what she has learned from...
Mar 11, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Transcript What does the syllabus do? Who is it for? Why is it chronically unread? And how can it be written to foster an environment of trust and collaboration in the classroom? William Germano, Professor of English at Cooper Union, and Kit Nicholls, Director of the Center for Writing at Cooper Union, are authors of the book Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document That Changes Everything (2020). In this episode, they tackle these fundamental questions about the syllabus, and discuss how...
Feb 18, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Jesse Stommel, co-founder of Hybrid Pedagogy: the journal of critical digital pedagogy and co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy, has not graded student work—in the traditional sense—in 20 years. Instead, he practices “ungrading”, a word which “...suggests that we need to do intentional, critical work to dismantle traditional and standardized approaches to assessment.” In this episode, Jesse unpacks why he supports ungrading (as well as the dead ideas that it...
Feb 04, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Beginning In 2007, Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons (VP&S) began to radically rethink their curriculum and assessment strategies for first and second year medical students. In today’s episode, we speak with Jonathan (Yoni) Amiel, Interim Co-Vice Dean for Education and Senior Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs at VP&S, and Aubrie Swan Sein, Director of the Center for Education Research and Evaluation and Associate Professor of Educational Assessment at...
Jan 21, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Welcome back to Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning. When we began this podcast, our mission was to encourage instructors, students, and leaders in higher education to reflect on what they believe about teaching and learning. Now, almost a year into the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it remains a difficult, uncertain moment for higher education. But in that uncertainty, we have a profound opportunity to confront the many dead ideas that have been exposed by the move out of our traditional classrooms...
Jan 07, 2021•2 min
In this bonus episode, we continue our conversation with Jenny Davidson , Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, to tackle the question of how much reading is enough in a literature course. Professor Davidson shares examples of how she balances assignment load with student learning objectives in her literature courses, and how she has had to adjust that balance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more at ctl.columbia.edu/podcast ....
Dec 17, 2020•24 min
On March 20, 2020, days after Columbia University transitioned to fully remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jenny Davidson, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, published an article in The Washington Post titled “ Forget distance learning. Just give every student an automatic A .” In this episode, Professor Davidson further discusses why she chose to give all of her students an A in Spring 2020, and why, even outside of a pandemic setting, she has long been resi...
Dec 10, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 5
In Spring 2020, Columbia students Mae Butler, Haya Ghandour, Jennifer Lee and Kalisa Ndamage served as undergraduate teaching and learning consultants as part of the CTL’s Students as Pedagogical Partners initiative. In this episode, these students share their experiences and perspectives on remote teaching and learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They discuss Columbia’s move to pass/fail grading in the Spring 2020 semester, how we can use technology more intentionally in classrooms, and what ...
Nov 25, 2020•24 min
Carl Wieman, Nobel laureate and Professor of Physics and Education at Stanford University, has dedicated much of his career to addressing the problems and challenges of how universities teach science. In this episode, Wieman imparts the “aha!” moment that motivated his transition from physics research to science education research. He shares dead ideas that he encounters routinely in science teaching, including those that are magnified by the shift to remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic...
Nov 12, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Do we really only use 10% of our brains? Will using technology in my course improve my students’ learning and motivation? Are students nowadays “digital natives”? In this episode, we tackle these questions and others with Michelle Miller, Professor of Psychology at Northern Arizona University and author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology. Miller talks about her research and experiences with misconceptions about the mind, brain, and learning, with a focus on neuromyths related ...
Oct 29, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 2
In our first episode, Diane Pike, Professor of Sociology at Augsburg University , discusses her motivation to write the article “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning”, which serves as the foundation of this podcast. Pike shares “light bulb” teaching moments from her career as well as how her thinking around “dead ideas” has evolved in the past 10 years since the article’s publication. Learn more at ctl.columbia.edu/podcast...
Oct 15, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Welcome to Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning, a new podcast hosted by CTL executive director, Catherine Ross. Our mission is to encourage instructors, students, and leaders in higher education to reflect on what they believe about teaching and learning. In each episode, guests are invited to share their discoveries of “dead ideas”—ideas that are not true but that are often widely believed and embedded in the pedagogical choices we make. Learn more at ctl.columbia.edu/podcast/
Oct 12, 2020•4 min
