Andrew Metrick is one of the best teachers in the Yale School of Management. In this episode he walks us through exactly how he co-taught a class on the Global Financial Crisis with former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, turned that course into a highly rated Coursera MOOC, and then used those resources to reinvent the in person class. Our conversation is chock full of practical advice for anyone who teaches online or in person.

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Show Notes

0:00 ⏯ Intro

0:38 ⏯ Welcoming our most decorated guest. Are awards and ratings correlated with teaching effectiveness?

6:05 ⏯ Experience shows. How you teach a topic over time changes: the Venture Capital Valuation Method.

8:19 ⏯ Losing touch with why the material is difficult: empathizing with the learner.

22:25 ⏯ A highly-rated MOOC on the financial crisis.

24:18 ⏯ How Andrew started teaching on the financial crisis with Tim Geitner.

29:28 ⏯ Lecturing from enthusiasm vs. experience. Being empirical and taking responsibility for what the students don’t get.

31:58 ⏯ Chunking video lectures and interspersing quiz questions. Learning to ask good questions.

35:23 ⏯ Adding multimedia to video lectures vs. “a person pacing on the stage.”

38:25 ⏯ Andrew’s mental model for what a “chunk” of a lecture is like. Posing a question and answering it.

42:08 ⏯ What’s often missing in narratives about the recent financial crisis. 3% of the population is sociopaths.

48:00 ⏯ Assessment in a MOOC.

51:46 ⏯ After teaching the MOOC, you get to flip your class.

55:19 ⏯ Troubleshooting Andrew’s flipped class.

59:06 ⏯ Active learning strategies Andrew has tried and plans to try.

1:03:08 ⏯ Near-term goals for each class meeting–and how much time that can take. Past Teach Better guests.

1:06:42 ⏯ Students aren’t always aware of when they’re learning. What will replace the lecture? Learning what comes next. Well-formed learning activities.

1:11:06 ⏯ Andrew’s teaching mistake is always the same: forgetting to empathize with the student.