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.

• Establishing a rigorous and invigorating classroom

  Robert Reid-Pharr, Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African American Studies strives to create a “rigorous but not frightening” classroom experience for the course Gender, Sexuality, and the Archive, in which students take turns leading class discussion—presenting thoughts on, challenges to, and questions about course readings derived from essays they have written. With facilitation from Reid-Pharr, their peers then ask difficult questions of the discussion leader that begin to generate meaningful conversation.

• Teach, embody, and model deep listening and reflection

  Cheryl Giles, Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer in Pastoral Care and Counseling, shares her own experiences, missteps, and successes to demonstrate self-awareness for students in her course Counseling for Wellness and Resilience: Fostering Relational Wisdom. She encourages students to listen deeply to themselves and others without judgment by practicing mindfulness throughout the course.

• 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.

• Zhorai: A Conversational Agent and Curriculum for Teaching Machine Learning

  Our project aims to explore the potential of conversational agents as a tool for learning and engagement in K-12 AI education and programming.

• The Infinity Project

  The Infinity Project Awardees: Natasha Japanwala (HGSE), Abdullah Ali Khan (HGSE), Zeerak Ahmed (External), and Natasha Sakraney (External) Summary: coming soon.

• The Lab

  The Lab seeks to develop a six-week summer program that is designed to create access and address the significant challenges which exacerbate the education achievement and opportunity gaps between high income and low-income students.

• StoryPlay

  StoryPlay is a fun storytelling game that promotes children’s oral development, creativity and imagination and makes oral development skills practice accessible to students both in formal pre-primary education and in informal settings.

• Sikaun Learning Center (SLC)

  SLC is a community-based learning center in Nepal that provides opportunities to engage in learning outside of school by providing learning resources and project-based learning experiences.

• SEEK

  SEEK works to improve access to learning and employment opportunities among adult refugees in Kenya, in collaboration with the refugee-led community-based organization (CBO), Samaritan Association.

• Resilient

  Resilient is a project that will restore wellness, love and dignity to black boys and young men by creating an online, culturally affirming community of black males who share videos of life advice, stories and encouragement.