Into Practice, a biweekly communication distributed from the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning to active instructors during the academic year was inspired by a successful 2012 HILT grant project. The e-letter highlights the pedagogical practices of individual faculty members from across Schools and delivers timely, evidence-based teaching advice, contributing to and strengthening a University-wide community of practice around teaching.

Below is a catalog of all the Into Practice issues sorted by the publication date. To subscribe to Into Practice, please sign-up via our Mailing List page.

• Treating merging forms of evidence around us as a collective ensemble

  As an historian of religions, Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor for the Study of Latin America, conducts his courses through an ensemble approach, which enables students to learn about complex evidence from a variety of approaches, sources and mediums. This approach contains four parts: (1) an interdisciplinary intellectual method, (2) incorporating a variety of sources, including artifacts, texts, films, and museum exhibitions; (3) expanding disciplinary perspectives through team teaching and visiting speakers; and (4) organizing diverse student experiences and inviting a range of responses. One example of the ensemble in action is Carrasco’s annual collaboration with the Peabody Museum on their Día de los Muertos exhibition as part of his Gen Ed course, Montezuma’s Mexico: Then and Now (co-taught with William L. Fash) in which students visit and add their own interpretations and art works to the ofrendas.

• Understanding culture through material artifacts

  Students in Japanese art and architecture courses taught by Yukio Lippit, Professor of History of Art and Architecture, often encounter cultures quite different from their own.  Lippit immerses them in those cultures through deep engagement with material artifacts, by examining roof tiles or carpentry, visiting the Japanese house at the Boston Children’s Museum, or participating in a tea ceremony.  

• A ‘tangible dimension:’ Learning by making, listening, and tasting

  Gojko Barjamovic, Lecturer on Assyriology, increases student learning in ANE 103 Ancient Lives by designing activities to engage students’ full range of senses.

• Museum collections: Using objects to teach the abstract

  Racha Kirakosian, Assistant Professor of German and of Religion, selected works of art for an installation at the Harvard Art Museums for students in her freshman seminar, Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Finding Justice and Truth in the Middle Ages.

• Primary sources: Teaching humanity in history

  Catherine Brekus, Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America, worked with Schlesinger Research Librarian Amanda Strauss this semester to design a session for her freshman seminar on Christianity and slavery: “When I arrived for our meeting, there was a table full of materials for me to look at—Amanda did so much work.”

• SLab 2.0

  With Advance Grant funding, Rehding established regular lab meetings to refine the goals of SLab 2.0, updated equipment in the lab to accommodate the increased usage of the space, designed a website to host a repository of digital projects and to highlight current student projects, and hosted masterclasses open to the Harvard community.

• AskUp: Improving learning and metacognition through learner-generated questions

  Awardees will continue development of AskUp, a free, open-source studying and learning app that leverages evidence-based techniques to enhance learning, and will evaluate the efficacy of the application’s improvement to metacognition, self-directed learning, and class performance through small randomized trials.

• Language through the visual arts: An interdisciplinary partnership

  Awardees plan to develop innovative methodology and curricula to promote the use of visual art in language classes.

• Teaching with things: Curation, hybrid multimedia, and object-oriented pedagogy

  Awardees plan to expand an existing curatorial program at metaLAB and the museums to support object-based teaching in the humanities.

• HSPH Case-Based Teaching and Learning Initiative

  Case-Based Teaching and Learning Initiative provides a repository for all resources developed by and for the HSPH Case-Based Teaching and Learning Center.

• Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning

  By supporting experimentation, innovation, and evidence-based practices, the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning seeks to create transformational learning experiences for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

• Harvard Art Museums

  "The Harvard Art Museums—the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum—advance knowledge about and appreciation of art and art museums. The museums are committed to preserving, documenting, presenting, interpreting, and strengthening the collections and resources in their care. The Harvard Art Museums bring to light the intrinsic power of art and promote critical looking and thinking for students, faculty, and the public. Through research, teaching, professional training, and public education, the museums encourage close study of original works of art, enhance access to the collections, support the production of original scholarship, and foster university-wide collaboration across disciplines."

• Arnold Arboretum

  The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University discovers and disseminates knowledge of the plant kingdom to foster greater understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of Earth’s botanical diversity and its essential value to humankind. This is accomplished through three areas of activity: research, horticulture, and education.

• General Artemas Ward house

• Biblioteca Berenson

  The Biblioteca Berenson is the library of Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies,one of the world's leading institutions for advanced research in all aspects of late-medieval and early modern Italy. The research center and library are located in Florence, Italy.

• Harvard University Archives

  The Harvard University Archives is the oldest and one of the largest institutional academic archives in the nation. The Harvard University Archives collects, organizes, preserves and provides access to a comprehensive record of more than 375 years of life at Harvard. From 17th and 18th century diaries and scientific observations to 21st century web sites, the Harvard University Archives' collections comprise over 51,000 feet of University records and related historical materials.

• Schlesinger Library

  The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women’s lives from the past and present for the future.

• Freiman Archives

  The collection contains reports of various types; records of various hospital departments; institutional reports; printed material; newsprints; oral history tapes; framed and loose photographs; scrap books; patient registers; memorabilia; archival material relating to the establishment of the hospital.

• Abraham Pollen Archives and Rare Book Library (Mass. Eye and Ear)

  Books, manuscripts, photographs, and surgical and examining instruments relating to ophthalmology and otolaryngology.

• Countway Library of Medicine

  An Alliance of the Boston Medical Library and the Harvard Medical School, the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, one of the largest medical libraries in the world, serves the Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston Medical Library and the Massachusetts Medical Society.