![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/images.coachingforleaders.com\/cb:ztCJ~31fd5\/w:1024\/h:684\/q:mauto\/f:best\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/daniel-cheung-129841-unsplash.jpg\")
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This blog post was originally posted on ACUE's website<\/a>. Thanks to Geoff Decker for getting me to reflect on these questions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n When it comes to producing podcasts, a quick audio cut or fade can help polish over mistakes. When it comes to Dr. Bonni Stachowiak\u2019s popular\u00a0Teaching in Higher Ed<\/em>, mistakes are worthy of celebration.<\/p>\n Stachowiak\u2019s willingness to grapple with gaffes was on display a few years ago when she turned an on-air blunder into an opportunity to highlight the importance of embracing failure as part of the learning process. The memory stands out as Stachowiak reflects on more than four years\u2014and 230 episodes\u2014of\u00a0Teaching in Higher Ed<\/em>\u00a0(TiHE<\/em>), which features weekly expert guests on a range of teaching and learning topics, from instructional practices and digital pedagogy to the faculty profession. A common thread through them all is the sense that each conversation is part of a \u201clearning journey\u201d that she\u2019s on with her listeners and guests.<\/p>\n ACUE is thrilled to be along for the ride. Since 2016, we\u2019ve been connecting\u00a0TiHE<\/em>\u00a0to some of the inspiring experts and educators with whom we\u2019ve partnered, from\u00a0Saundra McGuire<\/a><\/u>, to\u00a0Catherine Haras<\/a><\/u>, to\u00a0Viji Sathy and Kelly Hogan<\/a><\/u>. As\u00a0the\u00a0TiHE<\/em>-ACUE partnership<\/a><\/u>\u00a0kicks off its third year, we sat down with Stachowiak to hear her reflections on podcasting and teaching.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019s a favorite memory or funny story from the podcast?<\/p>\n A:\u00a0<\/strong>It was my\u00a0first interview with Ken Bain<\/a><\/u>, and I was so excited\u2014and nervous\u2014because his book,\u00a0What the Best College Teachers Do<\/a><\/u><\/em>, was the very first book that I read about teaching in higher ed. When we finished, he mentioned off air that there was one more thing he wanted to share, but before I could hit record again, he had already started talking. I didn\u2019t want to be rude and interrupt him, so I started taking notes because he was mentioning some people I was unfamiliar with at the time, including Eric Mazur, who\u2019d just become the first-ever winner of the\u00a0Minerva Prize<\/a><\/u>, a half-million dollar prize for teaching excellence.<\/p>\n When he was through, I looked back over my notes and said, \u201cTell me again about the\u00a0Manure\u00a0<\/em>Prize.\u201d I said it three times before he very gently said, \u201cBonni, it\u2019s actually the\u00a0Minerva<\/em>\u00a0Prize.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, my autocorrect had changed \u2018Minerva\u2019 to \u2018manure.\u2019 It was one of those things I initially wanted to edit out of the show, but if this podcast is about going on a learning journey, then how would I have known who Eric Mazur was without these kinds of experiences?<\/p>\n Not only did we keep it in, but we ended up doing an episode that celebrates failure and how we learn from it. Episode 100\u2014The Failure Episode<\/a><\/u>\u2014 is one of my favorites because it featured people sharing their failure stories. We gave the \u2018Manure Prize\u2019 to the person with the greatest failure. (The winner was\u00a0Maha Bali<\/a><\/u>, a professor and faculty developer at the American University in Cairo.)<\/p>\n Q:\u00a0<\/strong>How does the craft of interviewing apply to the craft of teaching?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong>\u00a0Asking simple questions applies to both worlds of teaching and interviewing. A lot of people ask a question like \u201cHow do you approach this?\u201d and then begin to answer it with multiple choices: \u201cDo you do it this way? Do you try\u00a0it this way?\u201d There\u2019s no need for that. Ask a simple question and then stop talking. It\u2019s in the silence that the richest answers will come.<\/p>\n Also, Alex Blumberg, an amazing podcaster, has a formula for how to think about storytelling: \u201cI\u2019m telling a story about X. It\u2019s interesting because Y.\u201d That could be applied more in our teaching. For so many of my classes now, I think, \u201cWhat is the story? What is really the overarching question I\u2019m hoping to ignite my students\u2019 curiosity around? What makes it interesting?\u201d To me, you could build your entire teaching philosophy on that.<\/p>\n Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What advice would you give to yourself in your first year of teaching?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong>\u00a0I would tell myself to slow down and mellow out, both for the sake of my students and for my own sake. It isn\u2019t about covering all the material, it isn\u2019t about ensuring everything goes according to the plan, it isn\u2019t about trying so hard to make sure everyone is riveted at all times by what\u2019s going on in the classroom. I\u2019d tell myself that part of the process\u00a0for slowing down is to listen a lot more and ask a lot more questions.<\/p>\n Q:\u00a0<\/strong>If you could interview anyone,<\/em>\u00a0living or dead, who would it be and why?<\/p>\n A:<\/strong>\u00a0Bren\u00e9 Brown<\/a><\/u>. She is such a wonderful researcher, thinker, writer, and speaker who has written so many compelling things. Her\u00a0TED Talk on vulnerability<\/a><\/u>\u00a0is the most powerful TED Talk I\u2019ve ever seen, and I\u2019d just love the opportunity to talk to her about how vulnerability could\u2014and should\u2014inform our work in teaching. I\u2019m curious about how she handles her classes and brings her life\u2019s work into the classroom. She\u2019s written about this somewhat, but it would be wonderful to speak to her and ask what specifically can be integrated into teaching. I also have a sense from watching so many interviews with her that she\u2019d be so warm and engaging, and that would probably shave off at least some of my nervousness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This blog post was originally posted on ACUE’s website. Thanks to Geoff Decker for getting me to reflect on these questions.\u00a0 When it comes to producing podcasts, a quick audio cut or fade can help polish over mistakes. When it comes to Dr. Bonni Stachowiak\u2019s popular\u00a0Teaching in Higher Ed, mistakes are worthy of celebration. Stachowiak\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"coauthors":[195],"class_list":{"0":"post-7813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-resources","8":"entry","9":"gs-1","10":"gs-odd","11":"gs-even","12":"gs-featured-content-entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7813"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}