Can I Get A Retake?

Behind every statistic in health economics is a person making a choice. In this episode, Dr. Melanie Cozad, economist, health policy instructor, and GRL author, traces her unlikely path from the Naval Academy and the Marine Corps into health economics and public health. She unpacks how she teaches the Affordable Care Act without bringing politics into the classroom, why "opportunity cost" is the concept she wishes every policymaker truly understood, and how her research on patient-provider communication led her to help design a health-tracking app. We also get into where AI fits (and doesn't) in closing the communication gap between patients and clinicians. It all comes back to the same idea: the data is never just data.

Learn more about Cozad's publication, Health Economics: Applications to Policy & Practice at https://grl.pub/HealthEconomics

In this episode of Can I Get a Retake?, English professor Chantelle MacPhee traces an unlikely path — from leaving high school without a diploma to teaching Shakespeare and Romantic poetry across four countries. MacPhee shares how immersing herself in Spanish while teaching in Puerto Rico reshaped her approach to diverse learners, why reading aloud builds student confidence, and what draws her to the surprising connections between Shakespeare and the Romantics. She also offers a candid take on AI in the writing classroom: a useful tool for navigating information overload, but no substitute for the authentic, flawed, human voice that makes writing worth reading. A conversation about empathy, authenticity, and why teaching remains, above all, an art form.

Learn more about MacPhee's publication, Effective Communication: Bursting the Bubble - https://grl.pub/communication

Can I Get a Retake? welcomes a variety of perspectives. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Great River Learning.

Elizabeth Griffith didn't set out to love chemistry, but maybe that's what makes her such a compelling teacher of it. In this episode, the author of General Chemistry for Engineers talks about what it takes to reach students who would rather be anywhere else than in a chemistry class, why framing a course around applications (not content) changes everything, and what led her to write the textbook the market was missing. She also shares a candid take on AI in intro courses, the student habit that's giving faculty a false sense of security, and what a question about electrons led her to ponder for years. If you've ever taught a course to students who didn't choose to be there, this one's for you. More about Dr. Griffith's Gen Chem for Engineers textbook: https://grl.pub/ChemforEngineers