Why the Magic Matters

Students are motivated to learn when they have autonomy and see the purpose in what they are learning. In this episode, Tara Chklovski joins us to discuss a curriculum in which students use AI tools to solve challenging problems in their communities. Tara is the founder and CEO of Technovation, a nonprofit developer of a curriculum used in over 160 countries and reaching over 400,000 students, to prepare young women for careers in technology. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

To understand what a concept is, we must also understand what it is not. In this episode, Bill Goffe joins us to discuss his study of the effect of the use of negative examples on student learning outcomes. Bill is a Teaching Professor in the Economics Department at Penn State.  He had previously been one of our colleagues here at SUNY Oswego. Bill is very well known in the profession for his Resources for Economists on the Internet, which was one of the very first internet guides available for economists, and it’s now hosted and sponsored by the American Economic Association. He has served as a member of the American Economic Association’s Committee on Economic Education, the Secretary-Treasurer for the Society of Computational Economics, an Associate Editor for Computational Economics and the online section of the Journal of Economic Education. Bill is currently co-chair of the Liberal Arts Teaching Group, a faculty learning community at Penn State. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Disney is a common shared cultural experience. In this episode, Jill Peterfeso joins us to discuss how Disney’s pixie dust can hook students and provide opportunities for critical examination in a variety of disciplines. Jill is the Eli Franklin Craven and Minnie Phipps Craven Professor of Religious Studies at Guilford College. She is the author of Womanpriest: Tradition and Transgression in the Contemporary Roman Catholic Church and a co-editor of Why the Magic Matters: Discovering Disney as a Laboratory for Learning. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Antagonistic relationships with students are not uncommon—there is a history of faculty distrust of students. In this episode Michelle Miller joins us to discuss a same-side approach where faculty and students work together in support of student learning.  Michelle is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. She is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World and A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Students’ Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can. Michelle is also a frequent contributor of articles on teaching and learning in higher education to a variety of publications including The Chronicle of Higher Ed and is the co-editor with James Lang of the Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed Series at Oklahoma University Press. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Women faculty of color in higher ed generally receive little training to prepare them for the challenges, unrelated to their teaching quality, that they experience in their careers. In this episode, Chavella Pittman joins us to discuss her new book, Empowered: A Woman Faculty of Color’s Guide to Teaching and Thriving, a resource she created to address these challenges and to help female faculty of color thrive. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

It’s easy to become discouraged and disconnected in today’s higher ed climate. In this episode, Kelvin Thompson joins us to discuss his new project designed to provide us with a lift in challenging times. Kelvin is the Vice Provost for Online Strategy and Teaching Innovation at the University of Louisville. Kelvin developed the BlendKit Course open courseware as part of the Blended Learning Toolkit which he developed while at the University of Central Florida. He regularly serves as an invited speaker on issues related to online and blended learning. Kelvin is a co-editor of the Sage Handbook of Online Higher Education and has long served as a co-host of TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Students engage when they see a connection between what they are learning and their future objectives. In this episode, Angela Bauer joins us to discuss the benefits of integrating life skills into a liberal arts curriculum. Angela is a biologist and the Provost and Executive Vice President at Texas Women’s University. Prior to this, she served in several  leadership positions at High Point University. Angela is also the author of Teaching Life Skills in the Liberal Arts and Sciences: Preparing Students for Success Beyond the Classroom which has recently been released by Taylor and Francis. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

The rapid evolution of generative AI tools has introduced an expanding set of educational applications. In this episode, Dan Levy and Angela Perez Albertos join us to discuss how these changes are affecting faculty and classrooms. Dan is an economist and a senior lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University where he teaches courses in quantitative methods, policy analysis, and program evaluation. Angela is a graduate of the MPA program in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, and is the U.S. Head of Strategy at Innovamat. Dan and Angela are the authors of the first, and now the second, editions of Teaching Effectively with ChatGPT. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Students have varied levels of preparation for traditional types of classes and assessments used in colleges. In this episode, David Gooblar joins us to discuss a variety of instructional strategies that we can adopt to help all students succeed. David is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Iowa, a regular contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the creator of Pedagogy Unbound, and the author of The Missing Course: Everything They Never Taught You About College Teaching. His most recent book, One Classroom at a Time: How Better Teaching Can Make College More Equitable, was released in August 2025 by Harvard University Press. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

The U.S. higher education system has been a primary source of research that fuels innovation in science and industry, provides students from low-income communities opportunity to escape from poverty, and enriches the lives of graduates. In this episode, Rebecca Winthrop joins us to discuss how changes in federal policy are affecting the U.S. educational system and, ultimately, our society.  Rebecca is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on education globally. Rebecca leads the Brookings Global Task Force on AI in Education and co-leads the Family Engagement in Education Network. In addition to her work with many other global education initiatives, Rebecca has served as the U.N. Secretary General’s Global Education First Initiative’s Technical Advisory Group and served as co-lead for the Learning Metrics Task Force with the UNESCO Institute of Statistics. Rebecca is also a lecturer at Georgetown University and, with Jenny Anderson, the co-author of The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better. A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.