Last summer, Northern Illinois University (NIU) and the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) launched an institutional partnership to empower students through instructional excellence. In the first year, an inaugural cohort of 30 faculty members from across disciplines and departments enrolled in the Effective Teaching Practices program, which was facilitated by NIU’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL). To reflect on a successful and challenging first year, CITL Executive Director Jason Rhode and NIU faculty have shared what they learned from the ACUE experience. 

“The ACUE partnership sends a clear signal that quality instruction, student success, and diversity, equity, and inclusion are institutional priorities,” Rhode shared in an NIU Board of Trustees presentation.

Establishing an Inclusive Learning Environment

“Good teaching is inclusive teaching,” said Rhode. “Evidence-based teaching practices, when done with an intentionality to create an inclusive learning environment and ensure equitable learning opportunities are inclusive teaching practices.”

Rhode shared that the CITL team is working to tailor the ACUE program and integrate it with the work of the Office of Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Faculty shared how recommended strategies in the ACUE course helped them become more inclusive teachers. Rachel Warren, director of teacher preparation and development, said she benefitted in particular from the Project Implicit activity. “It was an opportunity for me to confront my biases, because we all have them,” Warren said. 

Sheila Barrett, an associate professor of health studies, said that ACUE’s course pushed her to reckon with and address the unique differences in her class. “I just felt that race is not a problem for me. I see students, I don’t see races. But I realized the students in front of me, they don’t see life the way I see it. They’re coming from different backgrounds. That was something very useful that came out of that module.”

“My Students Started Seeing Me and I See Them.”

As an engineer, Dr. Shanthi Muthuswamy, an associate professor in NIU’s Department of Engineering Technology, is trained to interpret the world through data and draw conclusions through scientific methods and statistical analysis. What surprised her the most from her ACUE course experience was how she’s built stronger relationships with more of her students than ever before. 

“My students started seeing me and I see them,” Muthuswamy said at the NIU Board of Trustees earlier this year:

I asked students to share what their favorite local takeout restaurants were, asked them to share one thing they were worried about in an online class and so on. Jason’s quote comes from that exercise.

“My biggest fear about an online class is missing a deadline or due date. I work full-time as a CAD Drafter/Designer (11 years), and I’m currently taking care of my father in most of my remaining free time.” – Jason

Students started opening up. I learned so much about them – including which Mexican restaurant has 25 different kinds of salsa. My respect for them grew when I came to know that they are taking care of their elderly parents during these stressful times. That’s what I mean, I started seeing them.

Promote Student Success Through Great Teaching 

Faculty said that the design of the course itself was transformative for their own learning. Rhode said that NIU faculty engagement rates on the ACUE course were 98%, higher than the national average. “Faculty are loving the course and finding it helpful and relevant to their work,” Rhode said. 

“The course helped me see how to adjust the things that I knew weren’t working and how to improve the things that had been working,” said Ted Hogan, a professor in NIU’s Department of Engineering Technology. “I was challenged by the course to introduce things I’ve never tried before.” 

Warren agreed. “ACUE really pushed me out of my comfort zone as an instructor and created opportunities for my students to demonstrate learning in a different way that I hadn’t thought of.”

Learn about ACUE’s newest microcredential, Inclusive Teaching for Equitable Learning

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi’s Doctor of Nursing Practice Program facilitates student success using ACUE.

Faculty at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi at an ACUE Pinning ceremony on May 18.

Last August, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC) embarked on a journey to drive student success through quality instruction in partnership with the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). In the first year, the plan was to prepare and credential 60 faculty members who represented a diverse range of disciplines through ACUE’s Effective Teaching Practices, spanning TAMU-CC’s undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs. In doing so, TAMU-CC ensured that instructional quality was a priority across all types of its degree programs, including one graduate degree program where ACUE had a particularly profound impact: the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. 

“ACUE gave us a common language and common pedagogy, which serves us really well because we come from different backgrounds,”  says Dr. Tammy McGarity, DNP program coordinator and assistant professor of nursing. “It has increased our interaction and aligned our thinking. From developing assignments to course delivery to grading, we’re on the same page and can better support one another.”

The program at TAMU-CC is part of a Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) initiative to support student success through effective instruction. TAMUS is one of four leading higher education systems participating in Scaling Instructional Excellence for Student Success through the National Association of System Heads (NASH). On May 18, TAMU-CC celebrated Islander faculty at a pinning ceremony to recognize more than 50 faculty who earned a Certificate in Effective College Instruction that is co-endorsed by ACUE and the American Council on Education (ACE).

Within TAMU-CC’s DNP program, faculty weren’t sure what to expect as the ACUE program got underway.

“When we first started with ACUE, I was hesitant and thought, ‘I don’t really know that we need to do this.’ But when we began implementing the practices, we realized how much we needed it,” McGarity says. 

Looking back, they realize that implementing the practices has become instinctual—allowing them to tailor practices to suit the DNP curriculum and the specific needs of their doctoral students. 

“These recommended practices are dynamic. They apply to so many different contexts and courses,” explains Dr. Christina Murphey, an ACUE-credentialed professor of nursing in TAMU-CC’s DNP program. Murphey says that the significant research and evidence supporting ACUE’s approach was important for embracing the program. “We have data showing that these teaching practices work, which is important for us as educators in a doctoral program.”

In the spring, Murphey and McGarity began co-teaching a course, collaborating to foster critical thinking and clinical reasoning in their DNP students. Utilizing skills from ACUE, they found that implementing Socratic questioning, in particular, allows them to do this successfully in an online setting.

“Posing a question, rather than just offering answers, generates even richer discussion. And it help students reflect on how their own responses can enrich their answers,” Murphey explains. “After we implemented this, we noticed that students began posing questions to their peers in discussion boards as well. We hadn’t anticipated this, but this is something we were really excited to see.”

ACUE practices have also helped Murphey and McGarity increase the transparency and organization of their course. Specifically, they revised assignment instructions to include more details and rubrics. They’ve also added more structure and consistency to their modules. Students have responded positively and there is more time to focus on learning. 

It’s also helped instill these graduate students with a level of self-reflection and accountability that is critical for professional success. Murphey and McGarity believe this will help them become more skilled clinicians and stronger executive leaders when they graduate.

“These doctoral students aren’t traditional students. They’re busy practitioners and some of them are leading a whole department within a healthcare system,” Murphey says. “These kinds of students need the specificity and organizational skills the ACUE practices provide. In fact, they may actually benefit from these practices even more than undergraduate students.” 

Based on their experiences with ACUE, Murphey and McGarity have made recommendations to the graduate curriculum task force, and they have begun to see a culture of implementation program-wide.

“Our faculty knows that we’ve been using these practices this semester and have seen a lot of success with them, so they are supportive,” McGarity explains. 

In this sense, ACUE has done more than add tools to the toolbox; it has also initiated a paradigm shift in TAMU-CC’s DNP program. 

“Seeing the success of these practices in our upper level courses has made us realize the importance of introducing these practices in our more generalized courses. Students will benefit from seeing these practices all the way through the program—from the very beginning all the way to graduation,” McGarity says. “Looking ahead, we’re also planning to reassess our six-year-old program’s objectives. We want to think strategically and programmatically about how to align for student success.”

Student mental health is a growing issue at colleges and universities. There is a rising prevalence of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, suicidality, and other concerns in student populations over the past decade. According to the Healthy Minds Study, in fall 2020, nearly 50% of students nationwide had clinically-significant symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. Given the state of mental health in college student populations, there is a need to identify students in distress and to help those in need connect with helpful resources.

While most faculty members are not clinicians, college and university professors can play an essential role in supporting students, says Dr. Sarah Kelchen Lipson, co-Principal Investigator of the Healthy Minds Study. Some ways to support students involve simple, practical steps from faculty; telling students you care about their success, sharing mental health resources in the syllabi, and even setting deadlines to discourage all-nighters are just a few examples. “We know that students’ mental health affects their academic performance, and faculty are uniquely positioned to recognize and support students in distress.”

Faculty Resource: Creating a Culture of Caring [PDF]

Lipson, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Law Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health, is now focusing her mental health research on faculty as well. Earlier this year, Lipson and her team published a first-of-its-kind national survey of faculty to better understand their perspectives on student mental health and their own wellbeing. The report, The Role of Faculty in Student Mental Health, shows that the majority of faculty are playing a significant role and having conversations with students about mental health, but many faculty feel ill-equipped and lack the tools and resources to support students. The report also finds that faculty’s own mental health has taken a toll during the pandemic. 

Last year, ACUE and Active Minds, the nation’s premier nonprofit organization supporting mental health promotion and education for young adults, teamed up to release Creating a Culture of Caring: Practical Approaches for College and University Faculty to Support Student Wellbeing and Mental Health. The report highlights the important role that faculty can play and offers an important resource to complement institutional resources. 

We’re excited to continue this important conversation with an interview with Lipson, who shares insights from her research and on the connection between academic performance and student mental health.

What is the current state of student mental health in college? 

We’ve seen an increasing prevalence of mental problems, which includes symptoms of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, non-suicidal self-injury, and suicidal ideation. Over the last five years in particular we’ve seen a sharp increase in prevalence rates. There has been some discussion that the pandemic has dramatically increased prevalence rates, but that’s not what we see in the Healthy Minds data. Instead, we see a continuation of a really troubling trend. 

We also cannot talk about the state of student mental health without talking about the large inequalities that exist. Inequalities are most pronounced when we talk about who is and who isn’t getting help. It’s true that more students are seeking help, but there is still a significant level of unmet mental health needs. Students of color, low-income, first-generation students, on average, have much lower rates of seeking help. 

How does this affect student academic performance? 

We know that mental health is a really important predictor of academic performance. Work lead by my colleague Daniel Eisenberg has shown that symptoms of depression are associated with a two-fold increase in the likelihood of a student’s decision to drop out or stop out, of college without graduating. And more than ever, students are reporting that mental health has impaired their academic performance. In fall 2020 Healthy Minds data, we saw the highest rates of students saying their mental health has negatively affected their academic performance. Over 80% of students said that their mental health has negatively affected their academics in the last month.

From an equity perspective, we also know that many of the students who aren’t receiving mental health support and services are the same students who, on average, are the least likely to persist in higher education: students of color and first-generation, low-income students. So we have these two parallel national dialogues around equity in persistence and equity in mental health. We really need to bring those together.

What are some of the biggest and most important findings from your latest study? 

Faculty are uniquely positioned to recognize students in distress. 

We know there has been very little research on the perspective of faculty, despite the fact that they’re in a unique position. For students, having a faculty member that they can trust, having a faculty member who is supportive, that is one of the strongest predictors of retention and academic success. It’s also likely to be an important predictor of their mental health as well. 

Read More: 4 Ways Faculty Can Be Allies for College Student Mental Health

The survey showed that faculty are concerned about their students’ mental health, and about 80% reported that they’re already having conversations with students about mental health. But only about half of faculty said they feel confident being able to recognize when a student is in distress.  And one of the key findings for campus leaders is that there is significant interest among faculty – 75% – in receiving practical professional development to help them better support students’ mental health in the classroom.

We also learned about faculty member’s own mental health needs. In the pandemic, so many of the safety nets that typically exist on a college campus–athletic coaches, peers, residence hall staff–were suddenly gone. All these different stakeholders normally have eyes and ears on the ground and it was faculty who were some of the only people who were left. From my own experience, from talking with colleagues, and then from this survey data, that takes a toll. It is a lot to realize that you’re maybe the only person in a student’s life who can recognize that they’re struggling. 

Additionally, about 50% of faculty reported one or more symptoms of depression, and many faculty, particularly faculty members of color, noted that supporting student mental health has taken a toll on their own mental health.

Read More: Faculty Can’t Pour From an Empty Cup

What are some practical things that faculty can start (or stop) doing to support student mental health? 

There are a number of low-hanging fruit approaches, so to speak. 

First, just telling students that you care about their well-being. You can do this at the start of a class, by reminding them that you want them to be successful. This humanizing approach to teaching, I think, goes a long way with students. 

Another is to include mental health resources in the syllabus and pointing them out at the start of the semester. Then, reminding them of those resources, especially around stressful periods in the semester, like during midterms and finals. For students, I think it’s key to hear it come from faculty, to hear them say that mental health matters, that it affects academic performance, and that we want you to be successful here. 

Finally, consider when your assignments are typically due and the impact that they might have on your students’ sleeping and eating habits. If assignments are due at 9:00 a.m., students might be likely to pull an all-nighter. If it’s due at midnight they’re going to work through dinner.

There are exceptions, but the healthiest time for an assignment is 5:00 pm. That probably won’t work for institutions, like community colleges, that serve a lot of adult students who work full-time. Whatever the selected time is, faculty should tell students why something is due at that time and, again, send a message that we want students to eat and sleep because we see them as whole people and value their well-being.

The City College of New York, one of the 25 institutions that are part of the CUNY System.

Across New York, both the City University of New York (CUNY) and the State University of New York (SUNY) have been overhauling developmental education, removing or minimizing standardized placement tests, and giving greater weight to students’ high school grades, a key predictor of success in college. The results were immediately apparent. Both CUNY and SUNY saw dramatic improvements in the numbers of students who placed into, and passed, credit-bearing courses.

The next steps are focused on implementing and scaling evidence-based practices to increase student retention, completion, and graduation. Faculty are at the center of many of these changes. As two of six Strong Start to Finish Scaling Sites, CUNY and SUNY are implementing a range of developmental education reform strategies, from expanding guided pathways to course redesigns that provide corequisite interventions in math and English. By Fall 2022 CUNY aims to phase out all traditional, standalone remedial courses.

Partner Spotlight: The City University of New York

When Felix Matos Rodríguez was named chancellor of the City University of New York in 2019, he had a clear vision. To improve student success, CUNY needed to improve the quality of instruction.

CUNY, the nation’s largest urban public university, serves as a national model for promoting and driving social and economic mobility for the 275,000 degree-seeking students who attend its 25 institutions. The Puerto Rican-born chancellor, the first member of a minority group to lead the university system, started at CUNY in 2000 as a history professor and scholar of Black and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies. He is a vocal cheerleader for faculty and their role in advancing CUNY’s historic mission: “We call ourselves the American Dream Machine.”

But as Matos Rodríguez ascended CUNY’s ranks, he also recognized a greater need to grow a culture that prizes and recognizes instructional excellence. “One part that was missing was a commitment to better teaching.” He communicated his vision widely and celebrated CUNY’s unprecedented response to the COVID-19 pandemic, transitioning nearly 50,000 courses online and equipping more than 30,000 students with computers and hotspots. The pandemic, Matos Rodríguez wrote, underscored why effective teaching was more important than ever.

“How teachers teach, how students learn, and what methods and approaches have proven most effective at elevating student achievement and outcomes.” Improving instruction “is one of our key priorities at CUNY — a way to both boost student success and support the invaluable resource that is our faculty.”

‘Improving Pedagogy at Scale’

Driving the instructional vision is CUNY’s Innovative Teaching Academy, which has provided training to over 4,100 faculty since its inception in early 2020.

“We hope to improve pedagogy at scale across over 7,500 full-time faculty and over 12,000 part-time faculty,” said Annemarie Nicols-Grinenko, the University Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, during a panel discussion at this year’s ACE Annual Meeting. Nicols-Grinenko is a member of CUNY’s Innovative Pedagogy Working Group, which is charged with leading the Innovative Teaching Academy’s offerings and culture-building activities.

‘Scaling Instructional Excellence’

During the 2019-2020 academic year, through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, CUNY’s flagship university, the City College of New York, trained and certified 50 faculty in ACUE’s course in effective teaching practices. The experience helped nearly 100% of faculty refine their instructional practices and the successful launch was a driving factor in CUNY’s decision to deepen its investment in professional learning for faculty.

That spring, CUNY was one of four university systems selected to participate in the national Scaling Instructional Excellence for Student Success initiative through the National Association of System Heads (NASH) to train hundreds of faculty in ACUE’s courses (NASH, 2020). In addition, a second grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York provided funding to support 14 faculty cohorts across CUNY’s seven community colleges in the 2020-2021 academic year.

Joining NASH’s initiative helped launch CUNY’s Innovative Teaching Academy, says Nicols-Grinenko. “When we applied for the NASH opportunity, the Academy was just an idea. Receiving this award and being part of the NASH initiative, allowed us to start to make the Academy a reality.”

Much of the training provided by the Innovative Teaching Academy is aimed at best practices in teaching online, but the Academy has also offered opportunities for CUNY faculty to learn more about mindset-supportive practices, open pedagogy, participatory teaching methods in the arts and humanities and alternative forms of student assessment. CUNY has supported the Academy by reallocating internal resources and through partnerships with ACUE and Western Governor’s University, and funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, Strong Start to Finish/Education Commission of the States.

Faculty as ‘Our Most Important Asset’

To improve pedagogy at scale, CUNY’s academic leaders recognize that providing faculty with professional development opportunities is necessary but not sufficient. To take root and grow, teaching must be embraced by the faculty and leadership of CUNY’s institutions, and assessed and rewarded at the college level.

The CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy plans to deepen its efforts to celebrate faculty who invest in their instructional training, starting with a university-wide event to recognize credentialed faculty. It is also working with the Office of Academic Affairs and the leadership of the University Faculty Senate to develop a plan to explore ways of better recognizing excellence in teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning in CUNY’s tenure and promotion processes.

“If we invest in our most important asset, which is our faculty, we’re going to get faculty that are more motivated, happier to do the work that they do on the teaching side, and much better outcomes for our students,” said Matos Rodríguez.

State University of New York

Faculty development is a driving catalyst for developmental education reform in the State University of New York, the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States.

Through a grant from Strong Start to Finish, all 30 of SUNY’s community college and eight four-year colleges are implementing at least one developmental education reform.

Their strategies are to:

• Accelerate and scale up SUNY’s Guided Pathways reforms
• Scale Math Pathways and targeted corequisite interventions across the SUNY system
• Expand corequisite English Accelerated Learning Program (ALP)

In-depth faculty training and professional development are major levers being used to realize these goals, according to Johanna Duncan-Poitier, the Senior Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges and the Education Pipeline for SUNY. Duncan-Poitier emphasized that there was a strong commitment to faculty development and engagement as part of the implementation. That includes over 60 workshops with over 3,000 attendees. “We are investing in the people who are investing in student success,” Duncan-Poitier said.

I am a self-proclaimed pedagogy enthusiast. It’s something that I like to research and read about on a regular basis. One of the things I greatly missed while teaching at home during the pandemic was the opportunity to collaborate with my peers and regularly participate in professional development events.

Therefore, I was thrilled to be invited to take the Promoting Active Learning Online microcredential course offered by ACUE.

As a performer who became a teacher, I always have audience (student) engagement in mind when creating online content. At the outset of the pandemic I wondered how I was going to help students from 16 different countries, who speak multiple languages, navigate the technology of all of these learning platforms; let alone keep them motivated and engaged.

Although not without challenges, learning to teach online in an engaging way has provided some of the most rewarding professional growth I have had. I cannot possibly cover all the techniques recommended in ACUE’s course, but I would like to share the two that had the greatest impact on my approach to online teaching.

Developing Effective Modules and Microlectures

The use of microlectures to introduce my class was, hands down, the things that my students responded to most positively. Microlectures are a way for instructors to break up larger chunks of content into shorter video lectures.

At first, I thought it would be incredibly time-consuming to make these videos, but I had it completely wrong! Making these videos ended up saving me time because I wasn’t spending as much time after class, or during my office hours, having to explain the content I had covered during synchronous class sessions. These shorter videos allowed students to watch, multiple times if needed, at their own convenience, to deepen their understanding.

Learn more: How to Record Effective Microlectures

I created three or four videos per concept for each learning module. Students commented that it was easier for them to pay attention when watching shorter videos than when I explained the concepts in our live class sessions. They knew that there were short quizzes at the end of each video, so they were motivated to pay attention and listen more actively.

But the most beneficial result is that class time became a chance to apply and practice what they had learned together. The increase in student enthusiasm was palpable when engaging with the course content this way. Most importantly, it resulted in significant improvement in student outcomes.

Learn more: Engaging Students in Readings and Microlectures

Teaching Powerful Note-Taking Online 

Were you ever instructed on how to effectively take notes? I certainly wasn’t. When I was a college student, I all too often relied on my memory to cram for exams because I could not make heads nor tails of the notes that I had taken.

In the earlier stages of their academic careers, many students try to capture everything in their notes as they have a difficult time distinguishing what is important. ACUE’s module on Teaching Powerful Note-Taking Skills Online was an excellent reminder that by providing structures for note-taking, students can focus on what was important and learn more deeply.

As a result of this module, I provided an organizing framework for students to take notes on course content. In addition, I provided focus questions for the course readings to guide their notes. I also began incentivizing note-taking by allowing the students to use their notes when taking their online exams. Consequently, I found that my students began taking better notes, more frequently. They started to compare their notes with their fellow classmates, without prompting from me, to make sure that their notes were as thorough as possible. The students started to practice note-taking when having group discussions and would upload their discussion notes to a shared Google folder, so that they could all succeed together.

Learn more: How to Help Students Take Better Notes

This was all done without my prompting. It truly amazed me that, with a little guidance, how much improvement my students made on their note-taking skills in such a short period of time.

I can say with great confidence that I have become a more confident and reenergized online instructor as a result of studying with ACUE. Thank you for adding tools to my teaching toolkit that help me to keep my students more actively engaged.

Jennifer Ault has been working as an ESL/EAL professional for over 20 years. She is currently an instructor for the CUNY Language Immersion Program (CLIP) at Queensborough Community College.