Campus Talks: Teaching strategies to get students reading and speaking up in class

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Learning science has moved university teaching on from lecturers pouring knowledge into students’ heads. Today, effective educators see two-way engagement and participation as key drivers of learning. Pedagogies such as active learning as well as the need for inclusive, welcoming classrooms are more embedded into university practice, thanks to the research and advocacy of experts such as this Campus Talks episode’s guest. 

David Gooblar is associate professor of English and director of general education literature at the University of Iowa. In the latter position, he oversees a cohort of about 3,000 undergraduate students and supervises about 50 instructors. With a research focus on higher education, race and gender, he is author of One Classroom at a Time: How Better Teaching Can Make College More Equitable (Harvard University Press, 2025) and The Missing Course: Everything They Never Taught You About College Teaching (HUP, 2019). His column on college teaching ran in The Chronicle of Higher Education from 2013 to 2020 and he shared teaching insights in his newsletter Pedagogy Unbound. 

In this conversation, he offers advice to tackle common teaching challenges such as getting students to do the reading, contribute to class discussions and engage critically with AI. 

The latest Campus spotlight guide includes more advice on how to be an even better teacher from experts from around the world.

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