video

Last week, I posted about using podcasts in the classroom. This week I want to share a few relatively new websites designed for sharing academic talks.

I got the idea from this post on TechCrunch about the website Academic Earth, which TechCrunch called “Hulu for Education.” If you aren’t familiar with Hulu, it’s a joint venture of NBC, Fox and several other media corporations that makes television shows and films available for free (with advertising) online. This isn’t a new idea, but Hulu’s been successful for being one of the first sites to do this that doesn’t suck: the interface is clean and simple, it’s easy to subscribe to the specific shows you want to watch, the advertisements aren’t distracting, the selection is pretty good, etc. Academic Earth does follows the Hulu model of being a nice, clean, searchable aggregator for academic lectures and courses that you can subscribe to and watch in order. (Now as to whether or not the lectures are as entertaining as, say, The Simpsons on Hulu, I won’t say.)

On Academic Earth, you can find a large variety of lectures and complete courses. From Paul Bloom’s Intro to Psychology course to Benjamin Polack’s Game Theory course. You can even embed videos. For example, here’s Bloom’s lecture on social psychology:

What you won’t find—yet—are any sociology courses! So get on it, sociologists! Despite the relative dearth of “sociologists,” there’s much sociological content and many of these lectures will be appropriate for use in classes we teach. (Or even just an accessible way for us to learn a little more about other fields ourselves!)

Academic Earth isn’t the only site like this: also check out BigThink and Fora.tv. Of course, “iTunes U” and the iTunes podcasting section has lots of useful stuff as well.

Update: …and just two days later, YouTube joins the crowd with YouTube edu. (via ThickCulture)

Managing conflict with students in the classroom is something that many instructors struggle with. Both new teachers and those with years of experience often express anxiety and frustration about how to address some of these issues. The following tutorials are provided by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

Why is it important to address these issues?

Managing a classroom well–balancing your instructional authority with your students’ concerns–comes with experience. Sometimes painful experience! Small problems poorly handled can distract you from teaching well and cast a pall on the semester. And while many are ready to complain about situations, we don’t often engage in constructive talk about how to manage and minimize the troublesome issues when they arise.

These scenarios help instructors think about what to do when a student complains about a great, doesn’t think s/he will ever ‘get’ the concept, misses work because of a sick child, disputes classroom or assignment directions, or asks you to meet off campus.

How to use the tutorial:

Select a scene (see below) and you’ll have a chance to view an encounter between a student and an instructor.

Following the clip, you’ll likely want to think about how you might have handled the situation—there’s no single correct approach. After you’ve formulated an opinion, you can choose to listen to several teaching consultants to see how they might have worked with the student to resolve the conflict.

Transcripts of both the scene and the advice are available on every page and further resources can be found on the workshop’s resources page.

Take a look at the scenes below…

Scene 1 – Why Did You Take Points Off?
Scene 2 – I’ll Never Get It!
Scene 3 – Could You Talk to the Professor for Us?
Scene 4 – It’s a Zoo in Here!
Scene 5 – Let’s Meet for Coffee
Scene 6 – I Had to Go to a Funeral
Scene 7 – Sorry, but I Don’t Always Understand You
Scene 8 – Do the Problem for Me!
Scene 9 – I Had a Sick Child!
Scene 10 – You Never Told Us That!