Instructional Ecology
A podcast towards sustainable teaching
The Center for Teaching Excellence
Midlands Technical College
Instructional Ecology is the podcast produced by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Midlands Technical College in Columbia, South Carolina. We created it to explore and better connect the complex ecology of our college's teaching community. In addition to strengthening interconnection at the college, the show is designed to showcase excellent teaching and share concrete methods and innovative ideas our community is creating for practical use and inspiration.
We hope it both reveals and nourishes our ecosystem of teaching and learning.
Season 4
Facing Failure
Season 4 is a direct outgrowth from Episode 6 of Season 3, our episode on failure as a crucial, inevitable part of learning to learn. This season, we journey to what we could call the underworld of higher education: failure. In this season of Instructional Ecology, we ask some deep questions about the place for failure in higher education, all in order to come to better understanding and practice in our teaching and work at the college. This season will also feature a series of stories of failure from the lives of faculty and staff to encourage the practice of sharing our stories in our teaching and learning communities, as in our Bonus Episode in Season 3. Join us to descend into the depths and return with new wisdom, perspective and ideas for new ways of facing and engaging with failure as individuals and as an institution.
Episode 1
New Conversations
Mary Helen Hendrix, Director of the MTC Center for Teaching Excellence
Episode 3
A Story of Failure
Elena Martinez-Vidal, Professor of Public Speaking and Theater, School of English and Humanities
Episode 4
Looking Beyond the Classroom
Muffy Allison, Counseling Services and the Strategic Planning Committee for Students' Basic Needs
Episode 5
A Story of Failure
Hameen Shabazz, Academic and Career Advisor and Professor of Human Services School of Education and Public Service
Episode 6
Talking Through Failure
Tinesha Croom, Associate Director of Advising Technologies and Operations and Adjunct Professor of Psychology, School of SBS
Episode 8
Failure and the Institution
Diane Carr, Former Vice Provost and Chief Academic Officer
Episode 10
Loss and Grief in Higher Education
Elena Martinez-Vidal, Professor of Theater and Public Speaking
TJ Kimel, Professor of Political Science, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Cyntrell Legette, Counseling Services
Episode 11
A Story of Grief
Andrea West, Professor of English, School of English and Humanities
Episode 12
Failure Growing Beautiful
Michael Kennedy, Professor of English, School of English and Humanities
Bonus Episode
Student Perspective on Failure
Josh Vincent, Professor of Art, School of English and Humanities
Summer Break
More episodes of Instructional Ecology and Sustainable Connections are to come.
Thank you for joining us.
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Season 3
Learning to Learn
One of MTC's goals is to "create lifelong learners," so this season explores how we, across the college, currently teach and foster those lifelong learning skills. Learning to learn isn't a single skill - it's a dense, dark star; it's a complex network and nexus of skills and situations that reward deep exploration and evolving understanding. To find out exactly how we teach and engage with learning skills and experiences, we talk to professors and staff across the college. We continue to explore our instructional community and arrive at some new possibilities for interconnecting our teaching and our students' learning, all for mutual success and enrichment.
Episode 1
Learning to Learn
Mary Helen Hendrix, Director of the MTC Center for Teaching Excellence
Epsiode 3
Frustration
Jeremy Gilliam, Machine Tool Technology Professor, School of AMST
Ashley Bennett, Community Teaching Artist and CCE Student
Episode 4
Reflection
Matthew Stilwell, Public Speaking Professor, School of English and Humanities
Cayce Hendrix, Respiratory Therapy Professor, School of Healthcare
Episode 5
Play
Stan Frost, Mechatronics Program Director, School of AMST
Ilene Fins, Theater Professor, School of English and Humanities
Episode 6
Failure
WIlliam Golston, Advisor, School of STEM
TJ Kimel, Professor of Political Science, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Episode 7
Study
Troy Mothkovich, Director of the Academic Success Center
Mike Mills, Adjunct Professor of Biology, School of STEM, ASC Tutor
Episode 8
Connection
Brad Kauffman, Program Coordinator, William Jerry Wood Life Skills Center
Angela Griffin, Professor of Psychology, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Bonus Episode
A Story of Failure
Angela Griffin, Professor of Psychology, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Episode 9
Entangled Learning
Christine Witkowski, Professor of Sociology, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Melissa Ellington, Professor of English, School of English and Humanities
Sustainable Connections 7
Into the woods of scaled problem solving
FSL Common Read micro-episode
Sustainable Connections 9
Deliberately guiding our culture of work
FSL Common Read micro-episode
Sustainable Connections 11
Relational learning at our college in Season 3
Instructional Ecology Season 3 sneak peek
Sustainable Connections 13
Transforming ideas for our institution
FSL Common Read micro-episode
Sustainable Connections 15
Announcing the 2023-2024 FSL Common Read title!
FSL Common Read micro-episode
Sustainable Connections 16
Thinking critically and creatively
FSL Common Read micro-episode
Summer Break
More episodes of Instructional Ecology and Sustainable Connections are to come.
Thank you for joining us.
Season 2
Interconnections
This season is part of MTC Interconnections, a variety of programs that seeks to examine and improve the interconnections in our college in order to better serve each other and our students. This season, Instructional Ecology will tap into the networks and branches of the college and focus on storytelling. Each episode has a host of voices talking about their work, who they're in community with and how they serve our students.
Episode 4
The Network
Academic & Career Advising, School of English & Humanities, School of Health Care, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, School of Business
Sustainable Connections 2
Envisioning student webs of relationship
FSL Common Read micro-episode
Sustainable Connections 5
Institutional assumptions and jargon
FSL Common Read micro-episode
Winter Break
More episodes of Instructional Ecology and Sustainable Connections are to come.
Thank you for joining us.
Season 1
Taproots
We spend our first season having deep, sustained conversations with professors from many parts of the college. Our guiding questions are: What do you teach? How do you teach it? What have you come to learn about teaching in your career and in your discipline? Through conversation, we begin to map our community and meet some of the lives being lived at the college. We discover the meaning these professors find in their work and have the chance to adapt activities and ideas they've developed for our own teaching as we come to know our instructional community better together.
Episode 10
Further into the web of community.
The Staff of the Center for Teaching Excellence
Questions?
Contact houlec@midlandstech.edu