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Stan Skrabut: Thanks ever so much for taking time to listen to this podcast. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a wonderful 2020 as we are about to enter the new year. The fact that you’re listening to this podcast, I know you can be doing other things, but you’re still hanging out with me and it certainly means a lot.
Well, to tie up this year, I want to take a look back at the top episodes for 2021. Also, I would like you to stay tuned till the end of this podcast because I have an important announcement, but let’s dive into the top 10 episodes for 2021. I’m going to count down the episodes that got the most downloads, starting with number 10 and this episode, ITC: 116, Improve Your Research With Readwise. In this 10th position, we took a look at one of my favorite applications called Readwise.
I not only shared the basics of Readwise but also how you could use it to support your research. It’s a central tool to my personal learning environment, so far. I have conducted a daily review for 268 consecutive days, an awesome program and central to my personal learning environment. If you haven’t checked it out, definitely go out and check out this episode.
In the number 9 episode, focus on the Socratic discussion method. As we discussed questions are at the heart of the Socratic method. It’s important you know that silence can be rather uncomfortable, but if you wait, your students will break the silence and answer your questions. In this episode, I shared strategies for making this a success in your class classroom. Have you ever tried just having a class just pure questions? All you’re doing is asking questions. If so, you’re probably applying the Socratic discussion method.
In the 8th episode, I shared a research strategy that I recently learned. It’s called Google the alphabet technique. The Google the alphabet technique will help you and your students get past a blank page to write about topics that individuals are actually interested in. This technique uses the power of Google to niche down a topic and identify questions that people want to answer.
It’s one of the ways that I get started just looking for ideas on what to write blog posts about and podcast episodes definitely center to my research. Rubrics are a powerful learning tool that helps to standardize assessments.
In this 7th most popular 2021 episode, we take a closer look at Rubrics. I have been using Rubrics for most of my life. It was a tool actively used in the air force as part of our evaluation. In this episode, we looked at why you should use Rubrics, how to use Rubrics and where to begin to use Rubrics in your classroom?
In the 6th most popular episode, I shared eight books to keep you busy and informed during your summer reading. Those books are deep work rules for focus success in a distracted world, digital minimalism, and a world without email.
Those were all from Cal Newport, from James Lang, shared Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. From John Tower, we have Measure What Matters, How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World, and two other books that I shared were Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Homework and School, and Rehumanize Your Business, strategy that I use all the time. If you haven’t checked out, those books, definitely recommend that you do.
Learning is supposed to be messy. Ideally, it is challenging and full of conversation. However, in most classrooms dominated by lectures, this is not the case. Students will not learn as much in a passive learning setting as they will in an active one. If you want students to improve, we need to stop spoon-feeding them information. It’s important that they wrestle with the content, both in and out of the classroom.
In this episode that sat in 5th place, we explored active learning. We not only explored why we should be using active learning techniques, but also different activities that will make your classroom more engaging and increase learning.
One of the most important skills that we can impart upon our student is a lifelong reading habit. In this 4th most popular episode, we explore reasons why students don’t read and strategies for increasing student reading. Many of these strategies are tied to active learning methods. One of the key ways to increase reading is to emphasize what you are reading and learning. If you find it is important so will your students.
In the number 3 position, we looked at the community of inquiry. A well-developed course has three elements. Teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. Dialogue is foundational to meaningful learning. In a well-developed course, students need to have a dialogue with their teacher, fellow students, and the content. In this episode, we explored ways to increase community across the three elements.
I believe information literacy is at the heart of critical thinking and lifelong learning. In an age where a lot of false information is being passed around as fact, it’s important to know the difference. In this 2nd most popular episode, we explore the concept of information literacy is outlined by the association of colleges and research libraries framework for information literacy. I believe the key to this concept is to treat research
as a conversation. The number one position is episode ITC: 123, Grading Class Participation and Attendance in College.
In this episode, we looked at grading participation in attendance in the classroom. Should you do it? What are the advantages? How about the disadvantages? What are some recommendations for getting it right? As I noted in this episode, I was on the fence. I believe in choice as well as consequences. Fortunately, in this episode, we offer choices. Well, there you have it. The top 10 episodes for 2021, but as a bonus, I want to share the top 5 episodes of all time for this podcast.
These episodes have resonated with you and have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Let’s take a look starting with number 5. Number 5 is ITC: 77, Weaving Kolb’s Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle Into your Classroom. In the number 5 position, we explored Kolb’s learning cycle and learning style inventory by developing content and experience that meets students where they are increasing the chance that students will grasp the material you are presenting. Learners tend to have preferences for how they learn. Kolb’s’ work in this area helps to provide ideas for instructional design. We looked at why you should consider Kolb’s learning cycle and learning style inventory, what the inventory consists of and how to put it into practice in your classroom.
Bloom’s taxonomy sits at the heart of designing effective learning objectives. In this episode, we took a closer look at Bloom’s taxonomy and how to use it in your classroom. I firmly believe that Bloom’s taxonomy is one of those foundational instructional design strategies that everybody should know and anybody should use. The third, most popular episode was a follow-up on online discussions. In this episode, I outlined six discussion strategies that you should use in your classroom. In this episode, I shared a discussion strategy that I primarily use in my online classes called the IRA method. Students have expressed appreciation for this method and hope that other instructor will pick it up. I hope that you go out and check out this episode and you use this method for your instruction.
The second most downloaded episode was on andragogy. I firmly believe that we should be teaching our college students as adults, rather than children. What does this entail? It’s based on six assumptions. Adult learners are self-directed, which is a shift from teacher dependence. They use prior experience for learning. They want to be respected. Their experience is used as a learning resource in the course, but we must challenge learners to get outside of their comfort zone by disrupting what the students know that can be open to new interpretations of what they’re learning, which means experiment. Adult learners are ready to learn, but they need to know why they need to learn. It goes back to why.
Adult learners want to apply new knowledge immediately. The course content relates to individuals, current life situations, and tasks. Adult learners learn best through problem-solving. Problem-based learning, learn through experience. They have the freedom to experiment. Needs to be hands-on, and needs to be messy. And adult learners have intrinsic motivations for learning. This is a tough one, especially for young adults, but it’s something that we can help foster. If you note, many of these principles tie back to active learning. In this particular episode, we took a closer look at how to put andragogy into practice, which now leads us to the most downloaded episode of this podcast.
It was ITC: 29 Success Tips for Creating Engaging Online Discussions. In my experience, online discussions are a centerpiece to student-centered online courses. I have participated in really great discussions and some really poor ones. In this episode, I share some benefits of online discussions and tips for creating more engaging discussions. Well, there you have it. These are the top episodes for 2021 and for the podcast as a whole, I don’t know about you, but I certainly learned a lot over the past three years. I hope you did it as well. As I noted in the beginning, I have some important news.
After much thought, I have decided to suspend this podcast to pursue other initiatives. I have really enjoyed this part of my learning journey. I’ve had an opportunity to explore topics at a greater depth than I would have otherwise, but now I’m going to take my learning journey in another direction. Thank you ever so much for joining me on this path. I’m pretty happy with the results of this experiment. As I deliver this podcast episode, there have been 10,538 downloads for the 148 episodes. 23 episodes have had more than 100 downloads with an average of 72 downloads per episode.
This has resulted in over three gigabytes of content or 55 and a half hours of listening pleasure. Each episode is averaged about 6 pages of transcripts for a total of 900 pages over these past three years. This is a great start to some of my writing projects. As I have repeatedly said, thanks for taking time to listen to this podcast. I know you could be doing other things, but you chose to spend it with me on my learning journey and it certainly meant a lot. Thank you and hope to chat with you again sometime. As always, here’s a quick plug for my book, Read to Succeed.
