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.
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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. -
Late semester assignments: Recognizing merit through collaboration
Lani Guinier, Bennett Boskey Professor of Law, incorporates collaboration into her late semester assignments in order to provide opportunities for self-improvement and self-reflection. -
Blended Learning: Using interactive online modules before class to enhance learning in class
Dan Levy, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Faculty Chair of the Strengthening Learning and Teaching Excellence (SLATE) Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, developed a series of online modules for Advanced Quantitative Methods I, work made possible by teaching fellow Teddy Svoronos and SLATE staff member Mae Klinger. -
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.” -
Research assignments: Teaching the production of knowledge
Ryan Enos, Associate Professor of Government, assigns an original research project—students define a question, design a study, collect data, and present their results—in his undergraduate and graduate political science courses. -
Multimedia assignments: A doable skill, a usable skill
Shigehisa (Hisa) Kuriyama, Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, prefers brief video assignments – where students create a visual presentation with audio narrative – to regular written response papers. “I think the ability to express oneself with media is one of the most usable skills.” -
Learning through literature: “Closer to life as it is really lived”
Sandra Sucher, MBA Class of 1966 Professor of Management Practice, teaches “The Moral Leader” at Harvard Business School with a literature-based approach. -
Setting up effective feedback loops: The role of assessment in course transformation
Logan McCarty, Director of Physical Sciences Education, and Louis Deslauriers, Director of Science Teaching and Learning, adopted an active pedagogy for a large introductory physics course and saw significant gains in student learning and attitudes. -
Teacher/learner dependency: A classroom culture of reciprocity
Katherine K. Merseth, Senior Lecturer on Education, creates a culture of reciprocity in her classroom where students and instructors are expected to both teach and learn. -
Defining learning objectives: Pre-semester, all semester
José A. (Tony) Gómez-Ibáñez, Derek C. Bok Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, who holds appointments at the GSD and HKS, defines the learning objectives of his course prior to the start of the semester and references them to frame each individual class session: “I use the first five minutes to place each class in the course – ‘The last class we talked about X and today we want to see how those ideas might apply to Y.’” -
Putting students at the helm of their learning experience
Jon Hanson, Alfred Smart Professor of Law, saw an opportunity to improve learning by putting students in the driver's seat. -
Getting the most out of classroom space
Melissa Franklin, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, rethought her teaching by rethinking her classroom. She created a flexible classroom, “the SciBox,” to encourage active learning, greater engagement, and student ownership. -
Feedback vs. evaluation: Getting past the reluctance to deliver negative feedback
When Dr. Keith Baker, Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Anesthesia Residency Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, gives medical residents feedback, he emphasizes a “learning orientation” (where the goal is mastery), rather than a “performance orientation” (where the goal is validation of abilities). -
Learning from learning management systems: New ways to engage students through Canvas
Arthur Applbaum, Adams Professor of Democratic Values, Quinton Mayne, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, and Christopher Robichaud, Lecturer in Ethics and Public Policy piloted the new University-wide learning management system, Canvas, in their spring 2015 courses at the Harvard Kennedy School. -
Elevating class conversation: Taking a case-based approach
Nancy Kane, Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Case-based Teaching and Learning at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, trains instructors on using the teaching case to lead effective course discussions. -
Devices in the classroom? Things to consider
Alison Simmons, Samuel H. Wolcott Professor of Philosophy, made a decision in 2012 to include a policy in all her syllabi stating that electronic devices be put away during class time. -
Communicating course culture: Building on the syllabus
Karen Brennan, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, designs her syllabus for T550: Designing for Learning by Creating to not only communicate the plan for the course, but to introduce students to the course culture. -
The hiccups, humility, and benefits of deciding to flip a course
Margo Seltzer, Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science, flipped part of her course, CS161, “Operating Systems." -
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Student Club of Japan (SCJ)
The mission of the SCJ is to increase awareness and understanding of public health issues and other characteristics including cultures of Japan. -
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Chinese Students and Scholars Association
The mission of Harvard Chan -CSSA is to promote and facilitate the understanding of both culture and public health issues of China within the HSPH community. It particularly highlights the public health conditions in China and helps Chinese students adapt to a new life and culture. The objectives of Harvard Chan CSSA are: