This fall have a new job: I’m now a senior lecturer in the economics department at Cornell. It’s been super busy, but a good busy as I am meeting new people, prepping new lectures, and learning lots of new technology. The view from my new office isn’t so bad either!
In this episode we talk to Associate Professor Andri Smith about how she brings organic chemistry to life at Quinnipiac University by using POGIL: Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning. Students work in small groups, and discover scientific principles for themselves through guided exercises.
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.
During my spring visit to University College London I saw a piece of hardware in almost all the classrooms that I’d never seen before: a WolfVision Visualizer. I saw Marcos Vera teach his development class with it and I heard Wendy Carlin rave about it when I talked to her about teaching introductory economics. I was shocked to realize how similar lecturing with a visualizer is to how I’ve been lecturing with my iPad Pro.
In the second of a special two-part episode, we continue to reflect on what we’ve learned from the podcast about nine key questions all faculty face. In this episode we focus on the learner: How do you treat the student? How much choice do you give them? Who is responsible for engagement? Just as in part one, we’ve included lots of choice quotes from previous guests.
In the first of a special two-part episode, we reflect on what we’ve learned from the podcast about nine key questions all faculty face. In this episode we focus on the curriculum: what to teach, in what order, and how to adjust the teaching to the learner. We include lots of choice quotes from previous guests, so this is a great starting point for those new to the podcast.
There might be a fair amount of debate about the best way to get students engaged in a large lecture course, but I think even the most traditional lecturer knows that disengaged students don’t get much out of a class. Back in March I traveled to University College London and gave a talk for their Centre for Teaching and Learning Economics about all the ways I know to get students active and at least paying attention during a lecture.
I’ve been to economics conferences before. When you meet someone new, the first question is almost always “What are you working on?” The Conference on Teaching and Research in Economics Education (CTREE) is fundamentally different. Over my three days in Atlanta, almost every conversation I had started with “What do you teach?”
Our guest is Julia Stephens from the Yale History Department and South Asian Studies Program. Julia both teaches and writes about South Asia, Islam, colonialism, family, the law and the Indian diaspora. In just two years at Yale she has built a reputation among the students for being a dynamic and effective lecturer. Julia succeeds by being creative, being open-minded, and most important, being herself.
