Student development of critical consciousness is essential in higher education if we are to promote civic engagement and educate students to be constructive global citizens. Research on consciousness raising reveals that instructors who have done due diligence in developing their own critical consciousness are best equipped to promote its…

Amid continued concerns regarding faculty engagement, along with heightened challenges associated with recruitment, retention, teaching and learning, and student success, this status report provides an update based on the June 2023 Faculty (Re)engagement Institute (FRI). During the edition of the June 2023 FRI, participants examined barriers…

In this reflective writing, the author shares some experiences of learning to teach in higher education, the pathway she has taken on this online adventure, and how her online teaching has been influenced by the pandemic context.

This chapter describes a professional development program that integrates training in college teaching with an authentic classroom teaching experience. Benefits to graduate students in the program and undergraduate students in the linked disciplinary first-year seminar are discussed.

This testimonio, inspired by Anzaldúa's (2002) seven stages of conocimiento, is written in second person to highlight a series of counterstories aimed at guiding readers through the challenges of facilitating teaching conversations in higher education where deficit assumptions about students' potential are prevalent. Readers will gain insight into…

In numerous workshops and course design retreats, we have modeled the course design process using a fictional course (entitled "Colorado Mountain Hiking") to help instructors bridge the gap between course design theory and practice. We have found this example to be effective because it: a) is accessible to colleagues of different…

When the global pandemic forced campuses across the United States to send students home in March 2020, instructors were thrown into triage mode, forced to rapidly transition their on-the-ground classroom curriculum to a format that could be completed remotely by students spread out across the country. At the same time, centers for teaching and…

Most institutional practices to evaluate teaching are inadequate, inaccurate, neither improve teaching directly, nor incentivize teaching improvement. This is often because effective teaching is difficult to assess and most tools do not adequately or accurately do so and are often without established standards. Because of this, faculty may be…

Nearly 25 years after Barr and Tagg's (1995) article on the move away from the Instruction Paradigm, the authors argue that we are experiencing another shift, from a learning-centered to de-centered educational environment. Just as Barr and Tagg signalled a paradigm shift from teaching to learning, the authors suggest--nearly a quarter century…

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) remains a mostly elusive notion. For universities to genuinely contribute to SoTL, they must delineate clear parameters of engagement. For example, while some engage SoTL at the academic level, others examine it from an institutional policy perspective. Others view it from national and international…

While fully understanding the multi-faceted role of universities and other higher education institutions, Professor Edwards advocates for the status and value of teaching, particularly in times of emphasis on research outputs and league tables. He draws on his reflections from more than four decades of experience of teaching at university level…

Higher education systems and institutions are often viewed as resistant to change or slow to adapt, particularly by advocates and communities urging equity-minded reform of colleges and universities. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic jolted California's colleges and universities into drastically changing course to meet students' basic, mental, and…

In this discussion-based article, the author considers the benefits of an in-depth collaborative model for curricular and faculty development, the Japanese lesson study, a method that is largely untested in higher education, though the few instances of its usage have produced promising results. The author examines the barriers to faculty…

How does a large research university establish a culture supporting student-centered evidence-based teaching? In this paper, we describe Purdue University's "Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation" (IMPACT) which has involved 321 instructors and 529 courses. Of every first-time undergraduate student, who first…

The primary purpose of faculty development is to create and sustain a culture of teaching excellence. For social work faculty, an important part of teaching excellence involves incorporating core social work values such as social justice and diversity across the curriculum and developing pedagogical skills and strategies to teach these issues…