Vanderbilt Center for Teaching Podcast

In this episode, we’re changing up our format a little. Instead of featuring an interview with a single faculty member, this episode features audio recorded during a February 2008 lunch discussion co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching and the Vanderbilt Center for Ethics. The discussion was part of our joint Technology, Values, and Teaching series and was titled “Teaching in a Digital Age: How Should Technologies Shape Our Learning Space and Pedagogical Practices?” This double-size episode presents the opening remarks made by the three panelists at that discussion:

• Patricia Armstrong, assistant director at the Center for Teaching and senior lecturer in the Department of French and Italian;
• Matt Hall, assistant vice chancellor for Information Technology Services; and
• Jay Clayton, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Chair, Department of English.

All three panelists spoke about their experiences integrating technology into their teaching, Patricia in the context of the French language and literature courses she teaches, and Matt and Jay in the context of a rather unique first-year writing seminar they co-taught in the fall of 2007. The seminar was titled “Worlds of Wordcraft,” and it examined the role of narrative in computer games and other new media.

Episode 7 - Teaching in a Digital Age

[MP3, 41 min 20 sec]

Relevant Links:

• English 115F Worlds of Wordcraft Fall 2007 blog
• English 115F Worlds of Wordcraft Fall 2007 podcast
• “Learning in a Digital Age”, by David Carew, from the November 2007 edition of Vanderbilt View

Please take a minute or two to leave a comment here and share your thoughts on teaching with technology. We’re interested in hearing what you have to say. Vanderbilt instructors are also welcome to call the Center for Teaching at 615-322-7290 to arrange a meeting with a CFT teaching consultant to discuss technology or any other aspect of their teaching.

In this episode, we feature an interview with James Lang, Associate Professor of English at Assumption College in Massachusetts. Dr. Lang is the author of Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year, a memoir chronicling his first year as a faculty member, and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching. He also writes “On Course,” a column on teaching that appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In the interview, Dr. Lang discusses the idea that undergraduate students can experience some kind of personal transformation during their first year of college. Is transformation a reasonable goal for first-year students? If not, what is a reasonable goal? What are some conditions that facilitate these types of goals? What are conditions that inhibit them?

Episode 5 - James Lang on Teaching First-Year Students

[MP3, 24 min 15 sec]

Relevant Links:

• “The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment” by James Lang
• The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School by Tim Clydesdale
• “William Perry’s Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development” by William Rapaport
• The Commons, Vanderbilt’s First-Year Experience

If you have any comments on Dr. Lang’s thoughts about first-year experiences, we encourage you to leave a comment here. Vanderbilt instructors are also welcome to call the Center for Teaching at 322-7290 to arrange a meeting with a CFT teaching consultant to discuss teaching first-year students.