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.

• 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.

• Learning Spaces Week at Harvard

  Learning Spaces Week at Harvard convened June 8 – 11, 2015 with over 200 Harvard affiliates participating in an event similar to an academic scavenger hunt. Participants were given a suggested itinerary to tour various learning spaces around Harvard University in Cambridge, Allston, and the Longwood Medical Campus. Each of the 23 locations provided demonstrations on the use of the space or enabled participants to tour via an open-house style.

• Easy Innovations

  A product of the 2016 HILT Annual Conference, Easy Innovation is a collection of small-scale teaching innovations shared by Harvard faculty.

• 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.

• Balance of agency and flexibility helps students develop their own artistic process

  Nora Schultz, Assistant Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies, encourages experimentation and a diversity of readings for her courses Shape Shifting Your Reality and Object Matter of Jelly Fish: Sculpture Course.

• Giving students practice with constructive criticism

  Mark Mulligan, Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture, requires students in Tectonics Lab to work collaboratively on design-build projects of increasing complexity over the course of the semester that are subject to critique by peers, guest experts, and Mulligan himself.

• Inviting guest instructors to teach entrepreneurial theory and practice

  Jacob K. Olupona, Professor of African and African American Studies andProfessor of African Religious Traditions, collaborated with students from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2013 to develop a team-taught course on entrepreneurship that would appeal to learners across the University.

• Interactive lecturing: High-leverage teaching practices to energize students

  Paola Arlotta, Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, creates an environment of active inquiry, experimentation, and brainstorming by employing interactive lecturing in her course, Got (New) Brain? The Evolution of Brain Regeneration.

• Hearing their own voice: Consistent student participation while discussing polarizing topics

  Elizabeth Papp Kamali, Assistant Professor of Law, wants to ensure that students contribute consistently throughout the semester: "A student can get into a rut if they don't participate in those first few classes, and it can be very difficult to break that cycle."

• Applying the science of behavior change to lesson planning

  Todd Rogers, Professor of Public Policy, teaches students in MLD304 The Science of Behavior Change to leverage insights about human decision making and develop interventions through carefully constructed class activities and facilitated discussion, such as randomized experiments and think-pair-share brainstorms, respectively.