Podcast #40

Kim Kenyon is an Associate Director of Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Excellence. In this episode she shares with us the many ways teaching centers support faculty from one on one consultations to classroom observations to multi-day workshops to informal “Walking on Wednesdays.” If you’ve ever been curious what happens over in that mysterious teaching center at your college, this is the episode for you.

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Show Notes

0:00 Intro

0:37 Introducing Kim Kenyon. A teaching center that works with a large percentage of faculty. Senior faculty as promoters.

3:41 One-on-one consulting, multi-day institutes, hour-long seminars, and “Walking on Wednesdays.”

9:48 Normalizing the idea that teaching is always challenging. Looking for bang-for-your-buck.

13:54 Efficiency is important for both teaching and learning. Doug’s mid-semester feedback actually saved him work.

16:55 Students are in your classes for very different reasons–so collect some data to find out why they’re there.

21:25 What feedback from a teaching observation is like.

25:01 Active learning: from turn-to-your-neighbor to ‘flipping.’ Challenges and how Doug handles some of these issues.

29:02 Inclusive teaching and the faculty experience.

35:19 Why make diversity part of teaching?

37:59 Modeling active learning pedagogy during teaching workshops. Making students aware of university services is win-win.

41:14 Why Doug is a huge fan of Piazza.

44:39 Motivating students with material that’s relevant to them. Teaching centers as a space for reflecting.

48:22 One of Kim’s biggest transitions was from teaching graduate students to undergraduates. Scaffolding student projects.

53:52 Thanking Kim and inviting her back.