
Intentional Teaching
Derek Bruff
Intentional Teaching is a podcast aimed at educators to help them develop foundational teaching skills and explore new ideas in teaching. Hosted by educator and author Derek Bruff, the podcast features interviews with educators throughout higher ed.
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
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Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Intentional Teaching episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Intentional Teaching for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Intentional Teaching episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

AI's Impact on Learning with Marc Watkins
Intentional Teaching
06/04/24 • 39 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
Worried about your students asking ChatGPT to write their essays for them? That's so 2023. Generative AI technology is changing fast, and now these tools have the potential to disrupt many different aspects of learning, from reading to notetaking to feedback.
To help us explore those changes, this episode features a conversation with Marc Watkins, lecturer in writing and rhetoric and academic innovation fellow at the University of Mississippi. Marc's blog, Rhetorica, is a must read, and his workshops on teaching and AI for UM faculty have been incredibly helpful.
Marc has a new series on his blog called “Beyond ChatGPT” that explores the many ways that generative AI is affecting learning—far beyond the now-typical use of having ChatGPT write an essay on behalf of a student—and we talked about those changes to the learning landscape.
Episode Resources
Rhetorica, Marc Watkins’ blog, https://marcwatkins.substack.com/
Marc Watkins’ website, https://marcwatkins.org/
ChatGPT 4o demo reels, https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/
Scarlett Johansson and OpenAI, https://www.npr.org/2024/05/20/1252495087/openai-pulls-ai-voice-that-was-compared-to-scarlett-johansson-in-the-movie-her
Explainpaper, https://www.explainpaper.com/
Student Notetaking for Recall and Understanding, https://derekbruff.org/?p=2848
Why Use Sketchnotes in the Classroom?, https://derekbruff.org/?p=2902
Mike Sharples’ May 2022 essay on AI in teaching and learning, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/05/17/new-ai-tools-that-can-write-student-essays-require-educators-to-rethink-teaching-and-assessment/
AnswersAi, “School on Easy Mode,” https://answersai.com/
DevinAI, “The First AI Software Engineer,” https://www.cognition.ai/blog/introducing-devin
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.
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Embodied Learning with Susan Hrach
Intentional Teaching
11/01/22 • 37 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
On today’s episode of Intentional Teaching, I bring you a fantastic interview with educator and author Susan Hrach. Susan is the director of the Faculty Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Columbus State University and the author of the 2021 book Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning. I knew of Susan’s work in embodied learning, and I discovered recently that we share an interest in active learning spaces and how they can be used to support and enhance teaching and learning. I reached out to Susan to see if she could help me better understand the connections between our bodies and our learning spaces, and she gladly agreed.
In the interview, Susan describes some of the ways we use our bodies for learning, and she shares practical advice for faculty teaching on-site or online for recognizing and fostering embodied learning.
Episode Resources:
Susan Hrach’s website: https://susanhrach.com/
Susan Hrach on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SusanHrach
Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning: https://amzn.to/3TEsMFL
“What it’s like to teach in an active learning classroom,” by Robert Talbert: https://rtalbert.org/teaching-in-alc/
“More than mere handwaving: Gesture and embodiment in expert mathematical proof,” by Tyler Marghetis, Laurie D. Edwards, and Rafael Núñez, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AAUoDwAAQBAJ
"The push for more active learning spaces on campus," Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/09/16/push-more-active-learning-spaces-campus
Music:
"The Weekend" by chillmore, via Pixabay
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Deconstructing Calculus with Amy Langville and Kathryn Pedings-Behling
Intentional Teaching
04/05/23 • 38 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
Picture a calculus textbook. You’re probably picturing a hardback book an inch and a half thick, full of mathematical notation. The traditional calculus textbook can be intimidating for students, like five and a half pounds of pure confusion.
On today’s episode, I’m excited to share a conversation with two mathematics faculty at the College of Charleston: Amy Langville, professor of mathematics, and Kathryn Pedings-Behling, adjunct instructor of mathematics. Amy and Kathryn have designed a very different calculus textbook which they call Deconstruct Calculus. It’s one part textbook, one part journal, and part activity book, and I’ve never seen anything like it in higher ed.
Amy and Kathryn share the inspiration for Deconstruct Calculus, the activities and visual design the book uses to engage students and help them learn, and teaching principles from Deconstruct Calculus that can apply to any discipline.
Episode Resources:
· Deconstruct Calculus, https://www.deconstructcalc.com/
· Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith, https://kerismith.squarespace.com/books
· Small Teaching by James Lang, https://www.jamesmlang.com/books
· Leading Lines interview with Remi Kalir about annotation, https://leadinglinespod.com/uncategorized/episode-114remi-kalir/
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

AI Learning Assistants with Sravanti Kantheti
Intentional Teaching
04/09/24 • 37 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
We know that having students go to the free version of ChatGPT and ask it questions about course content can lead to some... inaccurate answers. But what if we could send students to an AI chatbot that was actually trained on our course content? Might that be a useful tool for learning?
These are no longer hypothetical questions. Top Hat has rolled out a new AI tool called Ace, an AI chatbot that reads your own course materials and answers student questions using those materials. How well does Top Hat Ace work? I reached out to Top Hat super-user Sravanti Kantheti to find out.
Sravanti is the program director for anatomy and physiology at Lanier Technical College in Georgia, as well as an adjunct biology professor at Georgia State University. She recently introduced Ace to her students. In our conversation, Sravanti shares how her students have been using Ace and what they think of it and we talk about how a tool like Ace can help students succeed in a challenging course like anatomy and physiology.
Episode Resources
Sravanti Kantheti on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sravanti-kantheti-9874a261/
Top Hat Ace, https://tophat.com/features/ace-ai/
"The ChatGPT Effect and Transforming Nursing Education with Generative AI," Gosak, Pruinelli, Topaz, & Stiglic (2024), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1471595324000179
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Higher Education Beyond COVID with Regan Gurung and Dwaine Plaza
Intentional Teaching
01/24/23 • 34 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
Regan Gurung is associate vice provost and executive director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State University, as well as a professor of psychology. Dwaine Plaza is a professor of sociology at Oregon State, and the two of them are editing a forthcoming book titled Onward to Better: How Facing a Pandemic Will Improve Higher Education in the 21st Century. Regan and Dwaine are in the interesting position of having read about two dozen chapter submissions for the book, all about lessons learned from teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic authored by faculty, staff, and administrators, including a healthy amount of teaching center directors. Full disclosure: I am one of those contributors! I wrote a chapter on our experiences with pandemic teaching at Vanderbilt University.
I asked Regan and Dwaine on the podcast so I could pick their brains about what they’ve learned reading and editing all those chapters. What lessons has higher education learned from such a challenging time? What lessons should higher ed learn? And how can we get ready for whatever challenge comes next?
Episode Resources:
Regan Gurung’s faculty page, https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/regan-gurung
Dwaine Plaza’s faculty page, https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/dwaine-plaza
Center for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State, https://ctl.oregonstate.edu/
Music:
"The Weekend" by chillmore, via Pixabay
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Transparent Teaching with Mary-Ann Winkelmes
Intentional Teaching
01/10/23 • 44 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
In this episode, I talk with Mary-Ann Winkelmes, a longtime colleague in the world of educational development. Mary-Ann has worked at teaching centers at Harvard University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and Brandeis University. She’s also the founder and director of the TILT Higher Ed project. TILT stands for “transparency in learning and teaching,” and the project works with instructors and institutions to practice transparent course and assignment design. With all the conversation in higher education today about rigor and flexibility, I thought this would be a perfect time to talk with Mary-Ann about transparency in teaching and learning.
As you’ll hear, Mary-Ann has a lot to say about the value of transparent design and how instructors can make small changes in their teaching that have outsized impact on student learning and student success.
Episode Resources:
TILT Higher Ed: Transparency in Learning and Teaching, https://tilthighered.com/
TILT Examples and Resources, https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources
Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership, Stylus 2019, https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781620368237/Transparent-Design-in-Higher-Education-Teaching-and-Leadership
“A Crowdsourced Rubric for Evaluating Infographics” on Derek’s Agile Learning blog, https://derekbruff.org/?p=2081
Hausmann, Leslie R. M., Feifei Ye, Janet Ward Schofield and Rochelle L Woods. "Sense of Belonging and Persistence in White and African American First-Year Students. Research in Higher Education (2009) 50, 7: 649-669.
Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. "A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes among minority students." Science 331 (2011): 1447-1451.
Brady, S., Cohen, G. Jarvis, S., Walton, G. "A brief social-belonging intervention in college improves adult outcomes for Black Americans." Sciences Advances vol. 6, no. 118 (20 April 2020).
Music:
"The Weekend" by chillmore, via
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Career-Oriented Course Design with Greg Edwards
Intentional Teaching
11/28/23 • 39 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
On this episode, I talk with Greg Edwards, head of learning at Rize Education. Rize is a for-profit company that works with a consortium of over 135 colleges and universities to help them quickly launch new, career-oriented majors and other programs. The institutions partner with Rize, which can provide half a dozen core online courses for these majors, sourced from the consortium, that layer on existing courses at the home institution to get these new programs up and running in a semester or two.
As head of learning at Rize, Greg is involved in all aspects of course design and development. In our conversation, he shares how Rize goes about identifying new programs to create, how course design works at a consortium scale, and the roles that faculty play in this new model.
Episode Resources
· Greg Edwards on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorytedwards/
· Rize Education, https://www.rize.education/
· Lower Cost Models for Independent Colleges Consortium, https://www.thelcmc.org/
· LCMC programs, https://www.thelcmc.org/programs
· “The New Learning Economy” white paper by Jeff Selingo, https://info.cengage.com/learning-economy_wp_2738580
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Student Success with Juan Gutiérrez
Intentional Teaching
12/13/22 • 36 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
“Service courses” are courses like college algebra and calculus that are taught by math departments to students not majoring in math, who take those courses typically to satisfy a major or general ed requirement. These courses are notoriously problematic, often with high drop-fail-withdraw rates or big gaps in student performance across demographic groups. Recently, I went looking for departments who are teaching service courses well. I found the math department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In just a two-year period, the DFW rate (that’s drop-fail-withdraw) in their service courses dropped from 35% to 25%. That’s a huge improvement in student outcomes, especially for a department that teaches eight or nine thousand students each year.
I reached out to Juan Gutiérrez, professor and chair of mathematics at UTSA, to ask about the changes the department made that lead to this improvement. He very graciously sat down with me for an interview, and I am very excited to share it here on the podcast. Juan shares some of his rather amazing life story, his goals for students success especially for the Hispanic students who attend San Antonio, and the data-driven and highly successful changes his math department made to college algebra, calculus, and other service courses.
Episode Resources:
Juan Gutiérrez’s faculty page, https://math.utsa.edu/directory/juan-gutierrez/
“A Department, Transformed,” https://math.utsa.edu/a-word-from-the-chair/
Music:
"The Weekend" by chillmore, via Pixabay
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

The Hidden Curriculum with Anthony Jack and Missy Foy
Intentional Teaching
02/07/23 • 40 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
Thanks to another great podcast, Future U by Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn, I learned about a course at Georgetown University called Mastering the Hidden Curriculum. Part of the Georgetown Scholars Program, the course teaches students things about college that many students, especially first-generation students, don’t know, like what office are and how to interact with faculty. The course also dives into topics like imposter syndrome and how to fight it as a new college student.
I wanted to know more about the course and the Georgetown Scholars Program, which provides programmatic support for high-achieving low-income and first-generation students at Georgetown. I reached out to Missy Foy, executive director of the GSP, to ask her on the podcast. She, in turn, connected me with Anthony Abraham Jack, assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. The two of them are a wealth of information about the experiences of low-income and first-gen college students, and they had a lot to share for faculty and administrators about how colleges and universities can better support these students.
Episode Resources:
Anthony Jack’s faculty page, https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/anthony-jack
Georgetown Scholars Program, https://gsp.georgetown.edu/
“What Students Think of Their College Experience,” Future U podcast, November 23, 2022, https://futureupodcast.com/episodes/what-students-think-of-their-college-experience/
Music:
"The Weekend" by chillmore, via Pixabay
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

AI Writing with Robert Cummings
Intentional Teaching
11/15/22 • 34 min
Questions or comments about this episode? Send us a text massage.
A few years ago you could assume that if a student submitted an essay in your class, some human wrote that essay, hopefully the student in question. That’s no longer true, however, as AI-powered writing generators get better and better at producing intelligible text. What are we to do, whether we’re teaching writing or having students use writing to represent their learning?
On today’s episode of Intentional Teaching, I talk with Robert Cummings, associate professor of writing and rhetoric and executive director of academic innovation at the University of Mississippi. Bob has spent his career exploring what’s coming in terms of teaching and technology, particularly in the field of writing instruction. These days, Bob is collaborating with computer scientists to figure out what role AI technologies might have in writing instruction.
I reached out to Bob to talk with me about the state of affairs in AI and writing, and we had a wide-ranging conversation that I’m excited to share here on the podcast.
Episode Resources:
Robert Cummings’ faculty page, https://english.olemiss.edu/robert-cummings/
OpenAI examples, https://beta.openai.com/examples
OpenAI Playground (account required), https://beta.openai.com/playground
Fermat Generative AI, https://fermat.ws/
Michael Wooldridge, professor of computer science, University of Oxford, https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/michael.wooldridge/
Peter Elbow, emeritus professor of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst, http://peterelbow.com/
Is There a Text in This Class? by Stanley Fish, https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674467262
Emad Mostaque on the Hard Fork podcast, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/podcasts/generative-ai-is-here-who-should-control-it.html
“Moore’s Law for Everything” by Sam Altman, https://moores.samaltman.com/
Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans, https://amzn.to/3UNC1Ed
Music:
"The Weekend" by
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Subscribe to Intentional Teaching bonus episodes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069949/supporters/new
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching
Find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Intentional Teaching have?
Intentional Teaching currently has 80 episodes available.
What topics does Intentional Teaching cover?
The podcast is about Higher Education, Learning, Teaching, Podcasts and Education.
What is the most popular episode on Intentional Teaching?
The episode title 'AI's Impact on Learning with Marc Watkins' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Intentional Teaching?
The average episode length on Intentional Teaching is 36 minutes.
How often are episodes of Intentional Teaching released?
Episodes of Intentional Teaching are typically released every 13 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of Intentional Teaching?
The first episode of Intentional Teaching was released on Oct 21, 2022.
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