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The inspiration your classroom needs…

We’re here to bring instructors and teachers inspiration, energy, and creative strategies that they can utilize in their everyday teaching. We hope the following tips, tricks, and pedagogy techniques give teachers and instructors an extra boost of creativity and motivation.  These episodes are perfect for your drive to work or can be integrated as a ten-minute think session to get your wheels turning before stepping into the classroom or “zooming” onto the computer screen.

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Check out our available episodes below!

EPISODES

Episode 9: Live with Wendy Trevor: Overcoming Student Distaste for Collaborative Group Work Online

How can you help students overcome their distaste for collaborative group work online (and also thereby change your view of such work)? Wendy Trevor discusses how the timing of the assignment, the structure, instructor presence, feedback, and a grading rubric which privileges individual contributions, and signals the importance of engaging with others’ views, can help students approach group work more positively. Additionally, she touches on how group projects can foster the kind of communication skills and cooperative work employers today value.

Resources related to online group work:

This week’s episode is sponsored by The Teaching Professor Conference. Join us in-person at New Orleans from June 4 – 6, or join us virtually with on-demand sessions from June 7 – September 30. 

For access to the episode 9 transcript, click here.

Episode 8: Establishing and Revisiting Our Teaching Philosophies and Teaching Personas

Your teaching philosophy helps examine who are you as a teacher and examines what beliefs and values are at the heart of what you do. In this episode, Maryellen Weimer reflects with other instructors on stories and vulnerabilities that helped shape their personas and philosophies in the classroom. 

Resources Mentioned:

This week’s episode is sponsored by The Teaching Professor Conference. Join us in-person at New Orleans from June 4 – 6, or join us virtually with on-demand sessions from June 7 – September 30. 

For access to the episode 8 transcript, click here.

Episode 7: Finding the Missing Piece: How to Help Your Students Who Are Struggling with Online Learning

Are some of your students struggling with online learning? Have you seen a decrease in motivation or engagement? If the answer is yes, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher or instructor. It might just mean there’s a missing piece, and today, we’re here to find that missing piece. The piece that recognizes that maybe one, two, a handful, or all of your students are struggling with online learning. We’re here to find the piece that helps incentivize, helps empathize, and helps motivate those students both in the online realm and in-person classroom.

Resources Mentioned:

This week’s episode is sponsored by The Teaching Professor Conference. Join us in-person at New Orleans from June 4 – 6, or join us virtually with on-demand sessions from June 7 – September 30. 

For access to the episode 7 transcript, click here.

Episode 6: Live with Glenn Walton: How to Humanize Your Online Environment with Sound Boxes, Screaming Monkeys, and Rubber Chickens

Glenn Walton gives us 9 ½ ways to humanize your teaching in an online environment. From rubber chickens to sound boxes and a screaming monkey, it’s never a dull moment in his classes.

1. Use poll questions and chat box questions
2. Be predictably unpredictable
3. Be visually appealing
4. Be trendy
5. Explain your expectations
6. Be everywhere
7. Design your class to be more inviting and pleasant
8. Course materials
9. Human factors
½. Half way and another half: Ours and yours

This week’s episode is sponsored by The Teaching Professor Conference. Join us in-person or virtually and pursue your passion to teach.

Recommended resources:

For access to the episode 6 transcript, click here.

Episode 5: Online Discussion Boards: Creative Ideas to Spark Better Conversations and Engage Students

Online discussion boards. It’s something that’s come up a lot this past year as we’ve migrated to the online platform. One of the main questions is how do you get your online discussions to be more than just, “Hey Theresa! I agree with your statement, that’s a great point.” 
In this episode,  we’ll go over a few things you can do with your online discussion board, from using responses to give narrative shape to creating questions, and specific activities you can use in your discussion board to spark responses that aren’t so mundane. 

Mentioned resources:

Other resources:

For access to the episode 5 transcript, click here.

Episode 4: Live with Ken Alford: Seeing Instructors as People, Not Just Textbook Reciters and Question Writers

In this episode, we sit down with Ken Alford to discuss how he’s kept the storytelling element within his online classes and what you can do to help students see you as a person.

“Share your story and let them know that you know life happens to everybody. We’re all in this human drama together, and I think the more we can connect with each other, the better it is. I think anything we can do to keep each other as people and not just textbook reciters and question writers, is helpful.”

Products featuring Ken Alford:

For access to the episode 4 transcript, click here.

Episode 3: Using Trauma-Informed Pedagogy: Is it Possible to "Let it Go?"

You became a beacon of light for your students and offered their lives some peace, stability, and encouragement. As we move forward, what techniques can we use to deal with stressors (small or big), and how can we implement trauma-informed pedagogy into our classes to help support students during a pandemic?

Resources mentioned in this episode:

 Other resources:

For access to the episode 3 transcript, click here.

Episode 2: Asynchronous vs Synchronous: Engaging, Conveying, Injecting, and Building

Many have done quite remarkable things with both asynchronous and synchronous activities, and numerous instructors use a mix of both. In this episode, we’ll dive into specific techniques instructors are using that have the potential to build community, convey information, assess learning, and inject your personality.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

For access to the episode 2 transcript, click here.

Episode 1: Classroom Assessment Techniques: Does This Make Sense to Everyone?

In episode one, we’ll be taking a dive into different classroom assessment techniques that you can begin using in your own courses, both online and face-to-face. From application cards to a pros and cons list and even a polling system, there are numerous techniques you can use to make sure your students are following along, engaged, and learning.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

For access to the episode 1 transcript, click here.