Welcome to the Intentional Teaching newsletter! I'm Derek Bruff, educator and author. The name of this newsletter is a reminder that we should be intentional in how we teach, but also in how we develop as teachers over time. I hope this newsletter will be a valuable part of your professional development as an educator.
All the things with Paul Hanstedt
All the Things with Paul HanstedtHigh-impact practices. Student agency. General education. Authentic audiences. Rhetorical triangles. The liberal arts. In this week's podcast episode, I talk with Paul Hanstedt about all the things! Earlier this year, I wanted to provide some bonus resources for my Patreon supporters who were participating in a slow read of my 2019 book Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching. The last chapter in the book focuses on using technology to connect students with authentic audiences for their academic work. After writing the book, I went on to read Paul's book Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World, where I learned about the notion of a rhetorical triangle. I've used that notion every time I've talked about authentic audiences since then, because it does such a wonderful job of illustrating the importance of audience in the assignments we give students. In February, I reached out to Paul to see if he would talk with me about rhetorical triangles and authentic audiences. We ended up having a wide-ranging conversation, one that I shared at the time on my Patreon and one that I'm excited to share this week on the main podcast feed. Paul is currently vice chancellor for academic affairs and innovation at the University of Minnesota Rochester, and he shares some of the ways that institution is not like other institutions. We also talk about the new edition of his book General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty, which builds on his years of experience consulting with colleges and universities about general education curriculum revision. Paul has great wisdom to share about the process of general education reform and about the role that high-impact practices can and should play in general education. Finally, we get around to talking about rhetorical triangles and authentic audiences! I was so glad to talk with Paul, and I'm excited to share this conversation on Intentional Teaching. I think listeners will find it inspiring. You can listen to the interview here, or search "Intentional Teaching" in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for reading!If you found this newsletter useful, please forward it to a colleague who might like it! That's one of the best ways you can support the work I'm doing here at Intentional Teaching. Or consider supporting Intentional Teaching through Patreon. For just $3 US per month, you can help defray production costs for the podcast and newsletter and you get access to Patreon-only interviews and bonus clips. |
Intentional Teaching with Derek Bruff
Welcome to the Intentional Teaching newsletter! I'm Derek Bruff, educator and author. The name of this newsletter is a reminder that we should be intentional in how we teach, but also in how we develop as teachers over time. I hope this newsletter will be a valuable part of your professional development as an educator.
The paradox of textbooks During a recent online workshop, I wanted to introduce the idea that students might need help organizing the new information they encounter in our courses. I told the faculty in the room to imagine they were going to sit down with some friends to play a board and when they opened the game's rulebook, they were confronted with this: I asked the workshop participants to share an emoji in the chat that represented how they felt about that. Here's a recreation of their...
Neurodivergent Students in Active Learning Classes A lot of the accommodations that have traditionally been given for students with learning disabilities, like notetaking assistance and extra time on exams, assume that a college course is mostly lectures and tests. That's not as true as it once was, especially for STEM courses where years of research on active learning have directed faculty to structure their courses differently. What is it like to experience an active learning class if...
Surfacing Students' Prior Experience with AI Last week I helped lead a two-day institute for faculty members participating in the University of Virginia's new Faculty AI Guides program. These faculty have signed up to explore the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their own teaching and support their colleagues as they make informed, intentional decisions about the roles of AI in their teaching. We covered a lot of ground in our two days with the AI Guides, as you might...