In this season finale, we're taking a different approach by celebrating the educators who've partnered with Great River Learning to create their own course materials. You'll hear from faculty across disciplines—from music appreciation to forensics, horticulture to economics—who faced the same challenge: existing textbooks just weren't working for their students or their teaching style.

These are stories of frustration turned into innovation. Professors who were tired of compromise, who wanted materials that stayed current, aligned with their pedagogy, and actually resonated with today's students. Whether it was the freedom to update content in real-time, the ability to structure material their way, or creating something truly designed for their classroom rather than a national market, these educators took control of their course materials—and transformed their teaching in the process.

This is peer-to-peer inspiration from faculty who've been where you are and found a way forward.

What if the real problem isn't that students struggle with math—it's that we've taught them it's okay to give up on it?

In this episode, mathematician and educator Dr. Jeanette Mokry gets refreshingly honest about her own middle school math confusion, the pandemic's lingering impact on student preparedness, and why she's ditching traditional lectures for approaches that let students "create their own knowledge."

You'll hear why she believes assessment might be mathematics' biggest stressor (and what mastery-based grading could change), how peer-led learning transformed her college algebra course from isolated work to genuine community, and her controversial take on why we need to stop treating "I'm bad at math" like a personality trait.

If you've ever wondered how to help students see math as something they can do rather than something they have to survive, this conversation is for you.

Learn more about Mokry's publication, College Algebra: Functions and Applications, at https://grl.pub/college-algebra

What happens when a Peace Corps volunteer contracts malaria in a remote village and discovers that the traditional healer's definition of "health" completely upends everything Western medicine taught her? Medical anthropologist Dr. Diane Hardgrave takes listeners from emergency refugee camps in Somalia to sacred Hopi mesas, revealing why the youngest medical system on Earth (hint: it's ours) might be missing something crucial about healing. In this episode, she shares how a bowl of pungent tea, a sauna conversation in Ethiopia, and women secretly trading emergency wheat rations taught her that humanity's approach to health transcends biology—and why understanding this could change how we think about our own bodies.

Learn more about Dr. Hardgrave's publication, Health, Healing, & Culture: https://grl.pub/health-healing-culture