I’m back to listening to podcasts! I don’t know why it goes in such waves, but here we go with some recommendations from what I listened to in the last two days (for more of my favourite podcasts, check out the tag)

Teaching in Higher Ed

This is hands down THE podcast that consistently delivers the best insights and food for thought for me as a teacher and academic developer. On the episode that made me want to blog about podcasts today, Bonni Stachowiak talks with Amira Barger about common arguments against DEI, and how to dismantle them. I have been quite shocked over the last couple of days to see DEI used as a term of abuse far and wide (although I really don’t know why I am surprised…), so this seemed highly relevant and timely.

One of the most common arguments against DEI is that it might bring down meritocracy. Which I find so hard to understand, because I find it so difficult to imagine that people actually believe that people get anywhere purely by merit. In my experience, those are also usually the ones that are prepared to move somewhere in order to get their kids into a “better” school, or throw tantrums about everything that is wrong with their kids schools. Go figure? Anyway, the advice here was to think about the normal distribution of opinions, and focus on the people that are at least interested in discussions (or in Torgny’s speak, the +- and -+ people), where there is a chance to actually get somewhere. The — people just cost too much energy that is better spent elsewhere. And also spending breath on defending the use of terminology in DEI is not worth it, call it belonging or whatever works in a given community…

They also mention the metaphor of creating mirrors and windows: mirrors represent opportunities to see yourself represented in the spaces you are in and want to be in in the future, and windows are ways to look out and learn from the lived experiences of others. Both are important to create inclusive environments.

Tea for Teaching

This is my other favourite podcast on teaching and learning, and they just had a really great episode on “growth-mindset messaging” that can eliminate the equity gap in large STEM courses. And apparently really easily so: Just by adding growth mindset messages, articulating the teacher’s belief that you can learn anything you put your mind to, plus some actionable strategies in the context of the course, to two emails! Check out this episode, it is really worth a listen and might well change all your future emails to your students!

And when I was on Tea for Teaching’s website just now in order to link to that episode, I found three others that I HAD to download and will have to listen to on my next walk. That always happens… So really a great podcast, check it out!

All in the mind

A podcast that I newly discovered but like A LOT is “all in the mind”. I first listened to two episodes about conspiracy theories and how people that believe in conspiracy theories can change their mind, then to one about bystanders of domestic violence and how to become active, and just now to one about “dark tourism“.

Squiggly careers

This is a great podcast for people on non-traditional, non-linear career paths, i.e. “squiggly careers”. They often have stuff that I find relevant for my own job and life, and most recently an episode on “micro moments of motivation“.

They use a model where motivation comes from feelings of purpose, mastery, and autonomy (not so different from self-determination theory…), and give examples of what they themselves do to feel more purpose, mastery, or autonomy in their work.

In order to feel more purpose, they actually first suggest to connect with problems rather than purpose, because purpose can feel so big and daunting, whereas problems, especially smaller ones that you can fix in an hour, or a day, and feel that you got something done. This relates to one of their ideas about how to feel mastery, too: To find 5 small (tiny!) changes that you can do to improve something, and then doing (some of) them. Another mastery idea that really spoke to me was to write a social media post about something that brings value to others. And for autonomy, there are different ideas: Carve out a small-ish time slot every day or week to do whatever you want to do — read, write, work on a pet project, or look at the whole system and see what can be cut to make more time for the things that really matter.

I really enjoyed this episode specifically — I just liked the way they took a model of motivation and then addressed each component. That reminds me of how I like to work when I am planning my teaching (see for example here for bingos).

So here you have it, those were some of my current podcast recommendations! Anything that you would recommend I listen to? Please let me know, now that I am in my podcast phase! :-)