Denise Maduli-Williams shares how to engage learners in online courses on episode 624 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode The very first thing I saw was the online instructor posting this video where she was roller skating in this roller Derby rink and welcoming us online, and that just changed everything for me. -Denise Maduli-Williams When we design with accessibility in mind, we support everyone, all students. -Denise Maduli-Williams Students who are quieter, whether...
May 28, 2026•39 min
Rebecca Fordon unpacks vibe coding and the eight AI teaching tools she built in a single semester on episode 623 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Vibe coding, I think of being able to describe the kind of application or website that you want in just words, a narrative, rather than having to code it, knowing coding language. -Rebecca Fordon I think the easiest place to start is in ChatGPT, or Gemini, or Claude Code. -Rebecca Fordon Many of my students have not used it...
May 21, 2026•45 min
Jennifer Wallace shares about her book, Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose on episode 622 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Mattering says you belong at the table, but it goes even further, and it says you would be missed if you weren’t here. You are adding value, and we would notice if you weren’t here. -Jennifer Wallace We have so much input and so much output being demanded of us today that often we go through life on autopilot. -Jennife...
May 14, 2026•41 min
David Perry shares about his new book, The Public Scholar, on episode 621 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Teaching is the most important form of public engagement that any of us do. -David Perry If we are really practiced at teaching, and as we develop our skills as teachers, those are the skills that can also take us into other spaces outside of the classroom. -David Perry Academia is structured around all kinds of failure. Once you recognize that, and then bring y...
May 07, 2026•42 min
Flower Darby shares about being a joyful online teacher on episode 620 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Higher education doesn’t do a great job of preparing faculty to teach, generally speaking, that’s not new, but especially online teaching. -Flower Darby If you’re not a meme person, don’t do that. Something that isn’t authentic to your personality is not going to be effective. -Flower Darby Sometimes you don’t need all the latest bells and whistles; you don’t need ...
Apr 30, 2026•40 min
Lew Ludwig + Todd Zakrajsek uncover themes from The Science of Learning Meets AI on episode 619 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode We could actually create an educational system. Not so that it deals with the problems we have with AI, but so that those problems are no longer relevant. -Todd Zakrajsek If you don’t have students attention, they can’t learn because if you don’t attend to something, you can’t learn it. -Todd Zakrajsek Keep in mind that you’re the expert. T...
Apr 23, 2026•36 min
Norma Montague shares of her experiences going from awareness to action, interrupting bias in the classroom on episode 618 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode One thing that my work on inclusive teaching focuses on, is really being able to understand your learner’s motivations. -Norma Montague One of the ideas that I learned from a colleague who had recommended a book was the idea of rebranding office hours as student hours. -Norma Montague I think it’s important to hel...
Apr 16, 2026•44 min
Teddy Svoronos describes how today’s agentic AI changes what and how we teach on episode 617 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode An AI agent is an LLM that runs tools in a loop to achieve a goal. -Teddy quoting Simon Willison’s definition The process of having a task, write a report, use a tool, web search, and do it over and over again until you feel like you’ve gotten the full sort of spectrum of things—that I think is what an agent really is. -Teddy Svoronos These LL...
Apr 09, 2026•46 min
Nancy Chick, Peter Felten, and Katarina Mårtensson share about The SoTL Guide: (Re)Orienting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning on episode 616 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode We see SOTL as simply inquiry into teaching and learning for the purposes of improving teaching and learning in context and then contributing to what we know about teaching and learning in support of the broader aims of higher education. -Nancy Chick What I usually say when I speak to col...
Apr 02, 2026•43 min
Matthew Mahavongtrakul and Bonni Stachowiak have a conversation about being kind to our future selves on episode 615 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Not everything that comes your way is an emergency. Not everything that comes your way has to demand your immediate attention. -Matthew Mahavongtrakul Once you are comfortable with your system and you’re iterating, it actually starts to become second nature, not only to professional life, but to personal life as well. -...
Mar 26, 2026•44 min
Bonni Stachowiak shares how to keep your Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM) real simple with RSS on episode 614 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Rather than get that overwhelmed feeling of how hard it’s going to be to keep up, I don’t have to, and neither do you. Enter RSS, Real Simple Syndication. -Bonni Stachowiak It’s pretty spectacular how, if somebody knows about RSS, and they’ve subscribed to a blog or a website, how you can find people that you have a lot in com...
Mar 19, 2026•25 min
Marc Watkins shares about cultivating skepticism and curiosity in an age of AI on Episode 613 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode I do think online education is going to be the focal point for this next year, and how it can survive with an agentic AI. My feeling is, we need to be offering students more embodied experiences and disembodied spaces. -Marc Watkins Every technology has its affordances and the things that are negative about it too; your cell phone, the comput...
Mar 12, 2026•43 min
Lynn Meade uncovers how to make learning visible with portfolios on episode 612 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Quotes from the episode An ePortfolio is basically a curated collection of student work. It includes reflection, and it’s usually across the college experience. -Lynn Meade Anytime I teach portfolios, it’s really big that we talk about audience and purpose. Who is your audience and what is your purpose? -Lynn Meade There’s something particularly lovely about seeing student or facu...
Mar 05, 2026•43 min
Danny Mann shares about fostering peace, joy, and community in teaching and leading on episode 611 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Great teaching, and I think great life, is this adaptive, responsive thing, pulling out the bugs or getting things back in balance. -Danny Mann Peace and joy are really interrelated, and I gravitated a lot towards these, as I spent time studying and practicing mindfulness practices. -Danny Mann If you discover your why, you could basical...
Feb 26, 2026•37 min
Mike Cross shares about his experiments (big and small) in teaching and learning on episode 610 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode The reason I did it is because I just wanted to better understand what my students were going through. -Mike Cross I love that, that idea of tiny experiments. I think that that is absolutely critical because we’re all so busy. -Mike Cross Anytime you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes, it makes you a better person, right? Whether that...
Feb 19, 2026•37 min
Theresa Duong on episode 609 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode “All we’re really trying to do is create these conditions that can help our students flourish and thrive within our classrooms while maintaining the rigor of our work.” – Theresa Duong “I felt like I could thrive in my PhD program because I had these people who kept pushing me to go and kept pushing me to take care of myself.” – Theresa Duong “Pedagogy, the formal definition in my mind, is this art and sci...
Feb 12, 2026•34 min
Sheila Tabanli shares ways to overcome the curse of expertise and other ways to be inclusive in our teaching on episode 608 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Quotes from the episode “I suggest, sign up to a course that you have no idea, and then we’ll talk later. In other words, feel what it means to be a novice.” – Sheila Tabanli “An expert in a field doesn’t necessarily mean they will be able to effectively teach that content.” – Sheila Tabanli “There are differences between how experts and...
Feb 05, 2026•42 min
Josh Brake shares metaphors and other ethical considerations regarding AI on Episode 607 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode “When you’re moving fast, it’s really easy to do things unreflectively and to make a poor decision without even realizing it.” -Josh Brake “The special thing about bicycles, at least in their non-electronic versions, is that they’re totally human-powered. So it’s all based on the energy that you put in, and it’s just transforming that energy, to m...
Jan 29, 2026•44 min
Karen Costa shares about An Educator’s Guide to ADHD on Episode 606 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Curiosity is just this sort of force of nature. So tap in to your students creativity, your students passions and interests as a way to support them in reaching and achieving those challenges that you also hold for them. -Karen Costa That’s a heavy thing for folks with ADHD to carry, that we are a burden on the other students in the classroom, that we are a burden on ...
Jan 22, 2026•43 min
José Bowen shares about the second edition of Teaching with AI on episode 605 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode I do think that we are going to have to figure out how to focus on student learning in an era where students have this new technology that will short-circuit the learning we want. -José Bowen My advice to people is that I know we’re overwhelmed, so don’t ask AI to do something you love. Ask AI to do something that you hate. -José Bowen The real problem with ...
Jan 15, 2026
Bryan Alexander shares about Peak Higher Ed on episode 604 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Quotes from the episode “It’s another form of thinking, it’s another form of organizing information and that we have to treat it seriously as such. The computer scientist actually recommends that we think about generative AI as children. These are AIs that have some degree of autonomy and they’re also not very wise in the world yet, and we have to train and rear them up.” – Bryan Alexander “So if AI i...
Jan 08, 2026•45 min
Matthew Mahavongtrakul shares about active learning that engages all learners on episode 603 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode You don’t need to change your entire course tomorrow. What is one simple thing that you can do that will push you on the path? – Matthew Mahavongtrakul “The number one kind of piece of pushback that I get from faculty is I just simply cannot cover everything.” – Matthew Mahavongtrakul “I think at the crux of it, it is the shift in mentality be...
Jan 02, 2026•41 min
C. Edward Watson shares about navigating AI’s rapid transformation in higher ed on episode 602 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode I never include AI in the beginning of my processes. -C. Edward Watson There’s a lot of incremental shifts, but the increments are quite large. -C. Edward Watson I would argue that maybe this is the first time in the history of higher education that we have learning outcomes that are at war with one another. -C. Edward Watson We’ve never bui...
Dec 23, 2025•41 min
Christopher Ostro discusses the AI grief cycle on episode 601 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode The fact is there are things we’re grieving. Our job has profoundly changed in huge ways in a very short period of time. -Christopher Ostro Our traditional assessments suddenly are not working effectively like we used to think that they did. -Christopher Ostro I want my students to view me as a resource and as someone that they can trust. -Christopher Ostro When something m...
Dec 18, 2025•45 min
Dave Stachowiak joins Bonni to explore 6 pedagogical practices from 600 episodes on episode 600 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode When we stop aiming for perfection, we allow ourselves to then be fully present for others. -Bonni Stachowiak Practice 1: Start and end small. Practice 2: Build courses around curiosity, not coverage. Practice 3: Prioritize presence over perfection. Practice 4: Focus on relationships. Practice 5: Remember what is yours to do and what is not...
Dec 11, 2025•31 min
David Gooblar shares how better teaching can make college more equitable on episode 599 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Most of our scars are hidden. I think most of the time people don’t see the scars that we carry. -David Gooblar We get such a small window into our students lives. -David Gooblar The imaginary idea of the college student in America is of a privileged student. And that’s just not the case when we talk about American college students today. -David Go...
Dec 04, 2025•43 min
Jeff Young shares clips from his Learning Curve Podcast regarding AI in higher education on episode 598 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode It is crazy to think of how much we’ve all learned about generative AI just in the last couple years. -Jeff Young I’ve been really interested in how students are thinking through AI and where their perspectives are. There is not one student view. You can find students that think all kinds of things. -Jeff Young Students are very awa...
Nov 26, 2025•39 min
Bonni Stachowiak shares about her card game, Go Somewhere: A game of metaphors, AI, and what comes next on episode 597 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode A lot of you have been asking me about this game that I’ve played now and facilitated at over 10 universities and conferences called Go Somewhere. -Bonni Stachowiak What the game allows people to do is to be a little bit playful, laugh, and smile as we explore very serious things. -Bonni Stachowiak It can be helpful t...
Nov 20, 2025•34 min•Ep. 597
Christy Albright + Clarissa Sorensen Unruh share about teaching, learning, and the lessons of grief on episode 596 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Take two deep breaths. -Clarissa Sorensen Unruh None of the books that I researched on grief actually defined grief. It’s like they just assumed you knew what it was because it’s such a universal experience, but it’s not universally experienced by everybody in the same way. -Christy Albright Anticipatory grief is when you...
Nov 13, 2025•42 min•Ep. 596
Roberta Hawkins + Leslie Kern share about their book, Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make it Better for Others, and Transform the University on episode 595 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode We advise lots of different ways of rethinking our relationship with work in the book. -Roberta Hawkins You can’t solve institutional problems with individual sacrifices. -Leslie Kern We are not cogs in an institutional machine. -Roberta Hawkins One of the challenges...
Nov 06, 2025•32 min•Ep. 595
