Teaching is a skill that can and should be taught in graduate education. Fortunately, many departments offer some teacher training for their graduate students to prepare them to teach introductory and other survey courses. What is apparently still lacking is training for graduate students to teach upper-level seminar-style classes. Therefore, we…

Recorded lectures have rapidly gained momentum in teaching and learning, whether online or "offline" in traditional face-to-face classrooms. We appreciate the remarkable accessibility and flexibility brought by recorded lectures, but we must ponder its adequacy and effectiveness. After all, a YouTube recording is different from a live…

This auto ethnographic study examines the difficulty in defining student engagement. Definitions from the author and her students are compared for intersections and disconnect. Trickle down engagement, the teacher setting a contagious engaging tone, was considered. Though many intersections in definitions were noted, one disconnect related to the…

Deliberate college teaching can empower learners and help instructors foster welcoming and inclusive classrooms for all students. Yet, despite a growing literature on effective pedagogies, college teaching practices are largely outdated and often fail to respond to students' needs. This grounded theory examined the teaching approaches of 25…

Creative thinking is an important learning outcome for students because it can help students learn course concepts and help prepare students for the workforce. This article explains an assignment where students cultivate creative thinking on course concepts. Students are tasked with developing an original creative project, such as a poem, drawing,…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused instructors to quickly pivot their teaching into the remote environment. Now, as we conclude over a year of remote instruction, faculty need to focus on developing excellence in online and hybridized education. Research has been dedicated to discovering best practices in online teaching, but much of that work was…

Recent years have witnessed the spread of purpose-built active learning classrooms throughout the higher education sector. While these innovative learning spaces are well-suited for a variety of active learning strategies, their lack of a single focal point means they are inconvenient spaces for lecturing. While educational developers often…

The author unpacks and utilizes the pedagogical success of improvisational theatre ensembles, offers core course design elements inspired by improv that match best practices, and gives concrete ideas for immediate use to strengthen community and increase engagement in college classrooms. Ensemble Culture is a framework for building community in…

This qualitative inquiry used the multiple case study and phenomenological designs to explore coteaching experiences of teachers in higher educational institutions. The research utilized the modal purposive and accidental sampling techniques to select five groups of coteachers from five Ghanaian universities. Data obtained via in-depth group…

The Teaching First-Generation College Students Across Cultural Strengths course was developed in the context of a large-scale initiative to eliminate equity gaps in graduation rates within the California State University system. The online course enabled faculty to revise curriculum and instructional practices in the summer and support…

Perspective is a central tenet of seemingly disparate theories and practices: situated learning; communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation; metacognition developed through reflective practice; standpoint theory; student voice; and pedagogical partnership. We integrate key insights from these into a single interpretive…

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…

A growing body of evidence had demonstrated that increased student exposure and commitment to evidence-based teaching (EBT) leads to improved academic performance, greater persistence, and higher buy-in to instructional methods. Despite the increasing number of teaching development opportunities available to STEM instructors, which often encourage…

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…

This paper will provide readers with a unique perspective on maximizing the benefits and overcoming the challenges inherent in the collaborative teaching process. This narrative reflection will explore collaborative teaching through the reflections of a music professor who has team-taught two different interdisciplinary courses over a period of…