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.

• 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.

• Native Americans in the 21st century: Nation Building II community research projects

  Awardees plan to support and extend a multidisciplinary, experiential learning course on community building in indigenous cultures.

• Case-based learning and teaching: A practice-based, peer-driven approach to sophomore tutorial

  Awardee plans to assess her departments’ new sophomore tutorial program, investigate its generalizability to other departments, and create a “Hauser sophomore scholar” program.

• Quests for wisdom: Religious, moral, and aesthetic searches for the art of living

  Awardees plan to design, fund, and assess a new interdisciplinary, cross-school course on “wisdom for the art of living” that seeks to transform students’ moral experiences through experiential learning.