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.

• Learner-centered Pedagogy for Skill-building

  Christina Warinner, Associate Professor of Anthropology, empowers students to explore real-world, thorny topics in science that also have widespread social implications through course work and guest speakers. She brings her own experience as an interdisciplinary researcher to the classroom and directly supports students as they delve into more complex material and learn how to navigate the hidden curriculum (norms of the discipline). Her students practice grappling with interdisciplinary dilemmas in realistic ways. “I want each assignment a student does to be both knowledge-building and skill-building,” she explains. Her courses attract students from both the humanities and sciences, creating a more intellectually diverse learning environment.

• Designing and Teaching a Hybrid Course

  The hybrid classroom took teaching and learning world by storm as colleges and universities grappled with balancing online teaching, in-person learning, and public health considerations. With the hybrid model at the forefront of many schools' plans for return to campus in the upcoming academic year, one question looms large: how do we design and teach our courses for a hybrid classroom? How do we teach so that in-person, online, and asynchronous students all feel engaged? What lessons can we take away from this model as we return to fully on-campus teaching? In this HILT Learning Design Affinity Group Lunch & Learn event, faculty and learning designers who have worked or taught in the hybrid model space at Harvard Extension School and Harvard Kennedy School will share their best practices and takeaways.

• How Good Accessibility Practices Enhance Online Teaching

  When it comes to accessibility, it’s much better to be proactive than reactive—especially when designing major components of your courses. Furthermore, designing accessible courses helps provide equitable educational opportunities and added benefits for all learners. Join us to learn more from our panel of accessibility experts from across the University about the ways in which accessibility practices enhance classroom teaching and learning.

• 2020 HILT Conference

  The ninth annual HILT Conference will bring together a diverse, engaged, and engaging set of speakers and panelists to share their successes and challenges in building equitable learning opportunities, facilitating charged or difficult class discussions, and supporting students as they navigate rapidly shifting circumstances.

• Motivating students to transition from learning-for-testing to learning-for-learning

  In his Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics course (a core class for physics concentrators) Matthew Schwartz, Professor of Physics, tries to move his students away from a binge-learning exam-based model, common in science classes, to one of sustained learning throughout the semester. To do this, he persuades students to read the course materials before class through comprehensive pre-class quizzes, replaces the midterm with a non-collaborative problem set, and assigns a take-home final weighted the same as two problem sets.

• Syllabus Explorer

  Harvard Syllabus Explorer is a web application developed by the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning - Research Group. Syllabus Explorer combines registrarial data and syllabi from Canvas to give users the ability to search for and download syllabi across Harvard.

• Instructional Moves

  IM spotlights reflective instructors from across the university using high-leverage teaching strategies applicable to multiple settings and grounded in teaching and learning research. Moves are anchored in videos that combine class footage with reflections from instructors and students, and these videos are supplemented by relevant research on the move’s efficacy, tips for enacting this move in diverse settings, and related resources that facilitate deeper exploration.

• Designing Your Course

  Course design resources from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, including 1) Backward Design, 2) Functions of the Syllabus, 3) Formative ("low-stakes") vs. Summative ("high-stakes") Assessments, 4) Assignment Modalities, 5) Framing and Sequencing Assignments, and 6) Grading and Responding to Student Work.

• In the Classroom

  Resources on in-class teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, including 1) Building Rapport, 2) Classroom Contracts, 3) Active Learning, 4) Instructional Strategies, and 5) Technology and Student Distraction.

• The Science of Learning

  Key concepts in learning sciences from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, including 1) How Memory Works, 2) Comprehending and Communicating Knowledge, 3) Metacognition and Motivation, and 4) Promoting Engagement.

• Bringing the best parts of a seminar into larger courses

  When enrollment for seminar After Luther: Faith, Will, Law, and the Question of Goodness doubled last year, Michelle Sanchez, Assistant Professor of Theology, was concerned that the depth and quality of the connections—with and among students and the texts they read together—would diminish. In response, she modified some logistical elements including assigning different pairs of students to circulate brief response papers before class and then lead discussion each week.

• Christensen Center: Teaching by the Case Method

  This section of the Christensen Center website explores the Case Method in Practice along the following dimensions: i) Preparing to Teach; ii) Leading in the Classroom; iii) Providing Assessment; and iv) Feedback Sample Class. Each subsection provides perspectives and guidance through a written overview, supplemented by video commentary from experienced case method instructors. Where relevant, links are included to downloadable documents produced by the Christensen Center or Harvard Business School Publishing. References for further reading are provided as well.

• Transforming your syllabus to reach and engage students

  When Katharina Piechocki, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, prepares for a course she has taught before, she significantly changes the syllabus to stay relevant in a rapidly-changing world, respond to students’ (and her own) growing interests, and take advantage of events outside the classroom.

• Simple examples lead to deep engagement

  Three years ago, Scot T. Martin decided to “start from scratch” with his approach to teaching thermodynamics. He found that by focusing on every day, concrete examples (e.g., running, the function of the heart) he could help students rediscover and truly understand the fundamental laws.

• A balancing act: Making established courses your own

  Karin Öberg, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Astronomy, taught departmental introductory course Stellar and Planetary Astronomy in 2016 by building on established material and modifying the curriculum using student feedback and her own observational assessment.

• 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.

• 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.

• DIY flipping kit: Blended learning in the context of Canvas

  Awardees created a “do it yourself” flipping kit to help faculty across the University develop blended learning materials using Canvas.

• Elective in primary care medicine and teaching

  Awardees will pilot an advanced elective in primary care medicine and teaching, where senior medical students tutor junior medical students in clinical skills, with assessment of its benefits to both students enrolled in the elective and the junior students they tutor.

• Teaching creativity: Landscape, architecture, originality, and autobiography

  Awardee will develop a new interdisciplinary course, involving leaders in landscape architecture and other fields paired with faculty at Harvard to examine originality, authenticity, and invention, and develop a model for courses that spark students to develop their own creative voice.