ACUE-credentialed professor Dr. Lindsay Wright stresses the importance of self-care in order to be an effective educator.

Like in other industries, many individuals in academia discuss their all-nighters or weekend work sessions almost as if they are points-of-pride. And had it not been for a series of family circumstances in recent years, Dr. Lindsay Wright, Ph.D., ACUE-credentialed associate professor and undergraduate program coordinator in the School of Child and Family Sciences at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), might have been one of them. 

But today, Wright is passionate about setting a different example, not only for her colleagues but also her students—one of self-care. That journey began in 2017 when Wright’s young daughter, Kaitlyn, was diagnosed with leukemia at 21 months. Wright, a busy professor who was currently going through ACUE’s Effective Teaching Practices course, had to start setting boundaries for herself.

“It started shortly after my daughter’s birth. I took email off my phone so I didn’t feel pressured to respond to work emails immediately,” Wright remembers. “And then I had another wake-up call in the fall of 2017 when my daughter was undergoing treatment for leukemia. I had really let myself go—I wasn’t eating or sleeping well. I was driving 80 miles to and from the hospital a lot of weekends while I worked during the week, which is hard on a mother.”

When her daughter finished chemotherapy, Wright vowed to make a change and focus on her own health. She dubbed that time her “self-care spring,” which slowly morphed into self-care summer.

“I started a nutrition program, began exercising and lost 35 lbs,” Wright says. “But doing that meant I had to set boundaries with work. It was a real growth moment for me. I had been so focused on all the things I needed to do that I had to step back and look after myself.”

But it wasn’t until COVID hit in March 2020 that Wright started applying some of those self-care principles she was using personally on a professional level.

“I was always pretty rigid in my structure, but like with most things, COVID changed that,” Wright says. “I had an ‘a-ha’ moment during quarantine when I had to remember that not everyone is like me and tries to push through hard times. Life situations affect people differently. I changed the times of my assignment due dates to be on Fridays at noon because it works best for me, but I also tell my students that I’m happy to accept late work, as long as they communicate that to me within 24-hours of the assignment’s deadline, which they really appreciate.”

Trying new things to accommodate her students, while also prioritizing her personal time with family and friends, is important to Wright—and it’s something she tries to remind her fellow faculty members.

“Our jobs are stressful and the work is demanding, but to best serve our students, we need to set boundaries for ourselves,” she says. “As faculty, we need to be role models for our students and for one another. You don’t need to be working constantly to be successful in your career. The fact I’ve been able to earn tenure while setting personal boundaries is proof of that. At the end of the day, our jobs—while important—are replaceable. The people in our lives are not.”

Dr. Wright is featured in ACUE’s course Effective Online Teaching Practices. Watch a sampling of her contributions to our course:

The story of Nevada’s developmental education reforms couldn’t be told without the role of faculty. A key, early chapter started at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), with Chris Herald, a professor who directed the flagship’s core mathematics department. Herald launched a successful corequisite pilot for gateway math courses

and UNR subsequently implemented a corequisite model based on the pilot’s results.

When the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) convened a developmental education task force, Herald and other faculty members were tapped to lead the effort. Their work paved the way for NSHE’s new policy framework established in 2019. The Corequisite and College-Ready Gateway Policy “eliminates traditional models of remediation and mandates corequisite support for all degree-seeking students with full-scale adoption by Fall 2021.”

A Strategic Commitment to Quality Teaching

At the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), there is a firm commitment to the central role that quality teaching plays in student success. It starts at the core, with strategic planning, and permeates the institution’s seven colleges and 40 academic departments. The university has embedded a focus on quality teaching into its faculty hiring policies, professional development for instructors, and formal incentives related to those efforts.

Most importantly, research shows that UNR’s initiatives to advance quality teaching are having a positive impact on students. “The data suggest that, yes, there is a positive impact on student success, which is ultimately what this is about,” said Kevin Carman, who served as UNR’s executive vice president and provost from 2013 to 2020.

In partnership with ACUE, UNR has developed professional learning opportunities closely aligned to its strategic plan. Leadership has embedded quality teaching into the institution’s operations, intentionally and strategically.

Carman said, “If we’re going to do this, let’s go all in.” Now, all new tenure-track hires and full-time instructional faculty are required by contract to participate and have the opportunity to earn a nationally-recognized credential in Effective College Instruction.

“When they sign their contract, there is a sentence that says you will take the ACUE course sometime within their first two years of employment at the university,” Carman said. “This is our fourth year of doing this and it’s really changed the culture and how we think about teaching.”

In addition, graduate students have an opportunity to enroll in the Effective Teaching Practices course to support their roles as teaching assistants and prepare them for a professoriate increasingly focused on effective teaching. The credit-bearing graduate courses have proved so popular that they are now part of the university course catalog.

“It’s been a smashing success. We have cohorts of doctoral students who take the course each year. It’s a wonderful credential for them to have when they look for a job teaching at a college or university and I think they really see the value,” Carman said.

Student Impact

UNR is committed to evaluating impact and the university’s strategic plan includes a comprehensive process to establish and evaluate student learning outcomes for all courses. “Each of our courses has a set of student learning outcomes that allow us to evaluate whether students learn these things or not. That has become a really useful tool,” Carman said.

UNR’s development of student outcomes was used by the Office of Institutional Analysis and Assessment to conduct efficacy research to determine the impact of the support to faculty. The subsequent research brief, “Higher Student Evaluations and Grades in Courses Taught by ACUE-Credentialed Faculty at University of Nevada, Reno” found stronger student outcomes sustained over time. “Good teaching should lead to better learning outcomes, and better learning outcomes are going to lead to greater student success,” Carman said.

Practice in Action

In collaboration with Complete College America (CCA), the NHSE has launched a professional development seminar series for faculty who are teaching corequisite mathematics and English courses. Throughout fall 2020 and into 2021, Nevada educators from across the state have tuned in to virtual events and seminars on developmental education and instructional practice. The events feature a range of guests, including experts and practitioners from ACUE and partner institutions, covering topics such as online teaching for corequisite courses and active learning techniques.

This partner profile was produced as part of the Success & Equity Through Quality Instruction, a toolkit with resources and rubrics for colleges and universities to fully engage faculty in the student success movement. 

Cindy Blackwell, Ph.D.
Cindy Blackwell is an ACUE Academic Director and earned her ACUE Certificate in Effective College Instruction in 2017 at The University of Southern Mississippi.

My first impression with course outcomes is similar to that of many faculty.

I was a graduate student who was handed a syllabus complete with outcomes for the course I was assigned to teach. At that point, the outcomes on the syllabus meant little to me; I was just trying to get through the content and look like I knew what I was doing.

Over the years, as my understanding of teaching has evolved, so too has my appreciation for course outcomes. As Larry Spence wrote in The Case Against Teaching, his 2001 article for Change: The Magazine for Higher Learning, “we won’t meet the needs for more and better higher education until professors become designers of learning experiences and not teachers.”

In my role as a “designer of learning experiences,” I now see how course outcomes can be used to create unforgettable and purpose-driven learning experiences–for both me and students.

Understanding and establishing powerful course outcomes

Too often course outcomes are written to reflect what the faculty will do instead of what the student will learn.

Establishing powerful course outcomes begins by reframing these statements so that they are more learner-centered. They should also be measurable, specific, and designed in a way so that a range of learners can build from foundational skills to higher-order thinking.

Of course, for some disciplines, course outcomes are mandated by a program or accrediting organization. Sometimes faculty aren’t even allowed to revise or alter them. In these cases, it is even more important to  understand the spirit and purpose of each outcome, so that you can clearly communicate them to your students. If your outcomes have been written in “accreditation-speak”, then it’s your job to be able to translate them into clear, accessible, and student-centered language.

Understanding the purpose of the course outcomes is only the first step in the design process.

Apply now and earn ACUE Microcredentials: DESIGNING LEARNER-CENTERED AND EQUITABLE COURSES

Aligning activities, assignments and assessments with course outcomes.

Course outcomes can be easily divorced from the course content. Course outcomes could be beautifully written, but they won’t be effective if they’ve been created without much or any thought to how they are connected to the course’s activities and assignments.

One way to determine alignment is by doing an analysis of the gaps and overlaps in the alignment of course outcomes and course content. We frequently find that some outcomes are heavily burdened while others are completely unencumbered from any course content. Ultimately, these ones serve no purpose.

This kind of analysis is an intensive process, but it will help you ensure that your course content – activities, assignments and assessments – are aligned to course outcomes.

Clearly communicating course outcomes.

A concern that faculty often raise when it comes to course outcomes is that students don’t pay much attention to them. Why should we be putting so much time and energy in this aspect of course design?

Part of the reason students may not care about course outcomes is because they don’t understand the connection to their own learning. If students do not care, it is because we aren’t effectively communicating how helpful course outcomes can be.

In fact, having well-designed course outcomes means you can demonstrate how each activity, assignment, and assessment fits into the overall purpose of your course and how the course fits into the student’s own goals for education and life.

Engaging students in course outcomes.

Course outcomes aren’t just something to go over at the beginning of the semester. It is important to continually highlight the outcomes and engage students throughout the course.

One simple way to do this is by making sure each section of your course references specific outcomes. When you begin a new topic, take a few moments to make the connection for students, taking the connection as far beyond your classroom as possible.

In Practice: Student-led Course Outcomes Discussions

One innovative way to engage students in course outcomes is to have students tell you their summative perspective of the outcomes.

As the last assignment of the semester, Dr. Pamela Greene at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi asks her graduate nursing students in her Health Policy and Cultural Diversity course to analyze the course outcomes and develop a discussion relating to outcomes that students felt they did not meet throughout the course.

Take, for example, this outcome in Dr. Greene’s course: “Integrate the cultural strengths of specific groups, subcultures, or communities into problem- solving strategies.”

If, as a student, I felt as though I did not meet or understand this outcome, I would research an element related to the topic. In the class discussion, I would share my insights using appropriate citations and references.

This does three wonderful things.

1. It allows students to select and analyze their own learning gaps, giving them more control over their learning.
2. It allows students to engage with their class peers in a research-based discussion that offers a broader perspective of the course outcomes than just that of the faculty.
3. It offers excellent feedback for the faculty on where there might be gaps in the overall course design or in assignment and assessment alignment.

Without a doubt, this aspect of course design– the analysis and alignment of your course’s many parts–is no easy task, but the time you put into this process is more than worth the investment. Once in place, there are myriad ways course outcomes can benefit both you and students.

The First Step in Designing An Unforgettable Learning Experience

We often view course outcomes through the lens of being a university or accreditation requirement.

But I urge educators to view them through a student lends. Course outcomes are the first step in designing an unforgettable and purpose-driven learning experience for your students. Embracing them can offer you and your students a greater connection to your course.

There is a common lament expressed often by faculty in the world of higher education – there are simply not enough hours in the workday. Between lecture preparation, office hours, research, instruction and a plethora of meetings, finding time to dedicate to professional development – especially when it’s voluntary – often takes a back-burner.

However, in an effort to improve instructional excellence to foster student success, Delaware State University (DESU), a historically black university located in Dover, Del., decided to partner with ACUE in 2018 to offer a course in Effective Teaching Practices. And while the university is seeing the fruits of its efforts, it didn’t come without initial challenges.

“When we first partnered with ACUE, we were perhaps overambitious in trying to launch two cohorts at one time,” laughs Amber Ward, DESU’s coordinator for its Center for Teaching and Learning. “Not only that, I was trying to serve as a cohort facilitator while also working through the modules for the first time myself.”

Piloting the new program gave Amber time to reflect on changes that could be made in subsequent cohorts.

“Working through the materials, I could see the value in the program,” Ward says. “While our course completion rates were not as high as we hoped that first year, we had really positive feedback from the faculty. We just needed to refine the logistics around it.”

When it came time to launch DESU’s third ACUE cohort, Ward decided to implement group study sessions once a month to walk through a module in real-time, and allow faculty time to collaborate with one another. Not only that, after becoming ACUE-credentialed herself, Ward emphasized to the faculty the importance of ACUE’s reflection guide.

“I told them that Reflection Guide was going to be their ultimate cheat-sheet,” she says. “During our monthly calls, I’d record our conversations and then post internally so other faculty members could go back and refer to it. And while I had many faculty in the cohort reaching out to me for questions, I reminded them to also talk with one another.”

For Ward, encouraging faculty to lean on one another not only helped her be a more effective course facilitator, but it also tapped into the idea of peer mentoring which can be extremely valuable.

“The effect of positive peer relationships and peer mentoring is so important,” she says. “It’s one of the reasons we started offering teaching testimonials where our ACUE-credentialed faculty could share what they got out of the program and how they’re incorporating best teaching practices into their classrooms. Not only does it give our faculty a platform to share with their peers, but it also increases interest in future ACUE cohorts.”

As DESU recently launched its fourth cohort, Ward decided to try an additional approach to increase the success of the ACUE partnership – small group leaders.

“I sent an email to all our faculty who had completed the ACUE program and asked for volunteers to serve as group leaders, helping their peers to navigate through their modules,” Ward says. “Six faculty members offered to help, so each of them has four to five cohort participants they check in with once a week or so to provide encouragement or offer advice.”

One of those leaders, chemistry professor Dr. Kimberly Milligan, found her own experience with ACUE extremely positive, which is why she volunteered to serve as a group leader.

“I completed my ACUE course in May 2020 – at the start of the pandemic. While our department was thrown into a frenzy with having to transition all of our courses online, I was unusually calm and a bit excited about implementing all of the ACUE techniques that I had learned over the past year,” Milligan explains. “Seeing how much ACUE helped me as an instructor, I began to spread the word around my department and have helped to recruit several department members to sign up for this year’s cohort.”

The addition of having a group leader has made a real difference in the willingness of faculty to push through to complete the program.

“I had one faculty member reach out to me telling me they were considering withdrawing from the program because they were worried about the time commitment, but after talking with their group leader, they were encouraged to push through,” Ward says. “That’s exactly the kind of support I was hoping to see by introducing group leaders to our ACUE program. Having a colleague there to encourage them makes a big difference.”

ACUE Partner Schools in Florida Join Together to Build Community of Professional Practice

In academia, the issue of silos is a common one. Oftentimes, faculty find it easier to look within their departments for new ideas or collaborations than trying to expand beyond their disciplines. But what would happen if faculty from various backgrounds and from across different colleges and universities had the opportunity to gather together to discuss effective teaching practices in an effort to encourage one another to try new things and share their lessons-learned? It was the question that got Dr. Jodi Robson thinking.

Robson, director of the Institute for Academic Excellence at Indian River State College (IRSC), has seen the positive impact of faculty collaboration over best practices since 2018 when IRSC first started partnering with the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) for faculty development.

“When it comes to professional development, there is no better material than what ACUE is developing,” Robson says. “It’s amazing to see how rich the material and content is, and how it truly helps students persist in their education. Listening to our own faculty share their stories of success with one another, I had the idea of trying to branch out to connect with fellow ACUE-credentialed faculty and cohort participants beyond our campus.”

Robson discussed the concept with Dr. Barbara Rodriguez, ACUE’s regional director for academic programs – who immediately became excited with the idea of seeing an ACUE community of professional practice grow organically. Rodriguez thought to connect Robson with fellow ACUE-participating schools nearby.

Robson found a kindred community when she was introduced by Rodriguez to Michelle Levine, district director of faculty development at Broward College, Dr. Brandon McIntire, director of eLearning at Florida Gateway College, Margaret Shippey, director of faculty development and classroom engagement at Miami Dade College, and Steve Grosteffon, professor of mathematics at Santa Fe College.

“I emailed these four strangers on a Saturday morning, and all immediately responded with enthusiasm and interest in how to create a program that would foster community among faculty while improving student outcomes,” Robson says.

Soon after, a “homebrewed” initiative – The Coffee Shop – was born.

Levine shares, “We had our first team meeting in early September and were up and running with our first session in October. Each member jumped in and contributed his or her expertise supporting the strength of the team. It’s amazing how five people who didn’t know each other came together and just clicked, with each having different strengths and finding his or her niche.”

The Coffee Shop provides webinars that are like an espresso shot – short and highly concentrated – which feature two baristas (presenters) sharing evidence-based teaching practices or strategies they learned through the ACUE Effective Teaching Practices course. After the presentations, participants move into breakout rooms to discuss the ideas and become better equipped to improve teaching practices.

“We modeled The Coffee Shop format after ACUE online course best practice recommendations. For example, we use polling and breakout rooms to engage the participants, and we end every session with our version of an exit ticket that we call “the coffee bean,” Levine says. “Our first session in October was focused on the ACUE Using the Active Learning Cycle module – and since then we’ve had additional sessions on the Aligning Assessments With Course Outcomes and Engaging Underprepared Students modules. Soon, we’ll launch another session on Helping Students Persist in Their Studies.”

And the “buzz” around The Coffee Shop is growing. While the team wanted to start slow to work out kinks, colleges and universities from other states across the country are inquiring about participating in the sessions.

“We launched the program in September and since the beginning, we’ve had nearly 150 participants per gathering,” Levine explains. “We ask for a lot of feedback about how to make the program more effective and helpful moving forward.”For example, after January’s Coffee Shop event, Robson heard from colleagues from another institution preparing to launch their first ACUE cohort. They offered the webinar as a resource to their faculty, and one participant quickly responded, expressing her excitement.

In her email, the participant shared: “I just attended the ‘Engaging Underprepared Students’ session. This was truly one of the best professional development opportunities that I have participated in recently. I have a full page of notes from the session.”

A different faculty member from a college in North Carolina also emailed Robson, saying, “I really appreciate having been able to have this opportunity to not only learn how other instructors are getting innovative but to have the support and collaboration.”

Levine has heard similar sentiments from other faculty members, too.

“I often hear how thrilled faculty members are to interact with other faculty,” Levine says. “Having these opportunities to chat with each other and share great ideas for classroom instruction has been meaningful – especially now when so many are feeling isolated.”

Seeing excitement build and the connections occur has been particularly encouraging to The Coffee Shop’s founders. The team calls this, “the magic.”

“It’s so affirming when participants ask to get connected to presenters after the sessions and share their enthusiasm about incorporating what they learned into their own classrooms,” Robson says. “I am excited to see how this program continues to evolve and expand to serve faculty across the country.”

For more about The Coffee Shop, subscribe to the initiative’s YouTube channel or email a Coffee Shop team member:
Steve Grosteffon | steve.grosteffon@sfcollege.edu
Michelle Levine | mlevine1@broward.edu
Dr. Brandon McIntire | brandon.mcintire@fgc.edu
Dr. Jodi Robson | jrobson@irsc.edu
Margaret Shippey | mshippey@mdc.edu

What happens when a private university boldly embraces a shift in its teaching culture? According to faculty at Santa Clara University (SCU), the result is a more resilient university able to withstand the unexpected.

As a private, Jesuit school in the San Francisco Bay Area, SCU prides itself on excellence in both research and teaching. Dr. Eileen Elrod, who has spent nearly 30 years at the university, has experienced it first-hand.

“I’m a professor of English, and I have spent the last ten years serving as the university’s associate provost for faculty development, supporting our community of teaching scholars,” Elrod says.

While SCU does not have a designated teaching center, they launched a pilot program – the Collaborative for Teaching Innovation – in 2012 to support innovative and evidence-based teaching practices. As part of that initiative, SCU partnered with ACUE in 2018, offering ACUE’s Effective Teaching Practices program to cohorts of faculty.

As the years progressed, so did the partnership.

“It’s been a rich relationship that has supported a shift in our teaching culture,” explains Elrod. “And it’s been key to our response to COVID.”

Dr. Christelle Sabatier, an ACUE-credentialed senior lecturer in biology and neuroscience, is passionate about bringing evidence-based practices into the classroom to support students and improve inclusive pedagogies. She has worked closely with Elrod in expanding and promoting excellence in teaching across the university.

As the challenges around COVID-19 mounted for institutions of higher education, SCU looked to ACUE for support. In Sabatier’s words, “We recognized the value ACUE could bring to our community in this moment to help us meet the demands of this moment.”

Part of the school’s Jesuit mission, says Elrod, is to educate students in ways that communicate inclusion, diversity and equity, as well as deliberate reflection and connection to the world around them – Jesuit values that resonate well with ACUE’s approach to teaching and learning.

“We exist for and because of students,” explains Elrod. “Faculty work with students is at the heart of our university. Every university, actually. If any institution had forgotten that, or the crucial need to support effective teaching for the sake of students, COVID delivered a powerful reminder.”

Providing Support in a Pandemic

Santa Clara was an early hotspot for the virus. Shutdown was swift and challenging. “Our online programs are limited. Most of us who teach undergrads had no experience teaching online pre-pivot. It was brutal. Students and faculty were working incredibly hard at something few of us knew how to do. Our instructional technology team was amazing – pretty sure none of them slept between March and the end of June. Our team of faculty teaching mentors and coaches – I don’t think they slept much, either,” says Elrod. “Their devotion to students was inspiring.”

Faculty were looking for ways to teach effectively online and to support their students during this tumultuous period. Both Elrod and Sabatier recognized faculty needed to rely on each other more than ever in order to serve students.

“Not only were our students struggling, our faculty was experiencing something new,” Sabatier says. “We couldn’t rely on doing things the way we’d always done them. We needed more tools in the toolbox.”

“As educators, when you enter the classroom, you eventually come to realize that there’s the way you were taught to teach – which is often just whatever you saw professors doing in the classroom when you were a student – and then there are best practices for teaching. Those two don’t always mesh,” Sabatier says. “It’s when you start to deploy evidence-based practices that you begin to see your students’ ability to go beyond what you had ever anticipated. It’s incredible and it feeds on itself. Based on my experience working with faculty in the year-long ACUE program, I recognized that faculty didn’t need to reinvent the wheel to achieve this transformation. They simply needed new tools and strategies grounded in evidence that they could leverage quickly within their own specific contexts.”

And that guided experience was crucial for many faculty as they made the pivot online.

“We knew that our ACUE-credentialed faculty had learned so much, and our team was impossibly stretched. We needed to scale, and ACUE was key,” explains Elrod. “Our provost, along with the generous donor who had made ACUE possible for us initially, were incredible. Their quick decisions allowed us to build a summer program to offer to all interested faculty.”

Santa Clara put together a three-part program: ACUE modules facilitated by experienced SCU faculty coaches, technology workshops to help faculty quickly apply what they learned, and a fall term follow-up with faculty in learning groups based in the disciplines.

“We had what seemed like an outrageous idea – that 250 faculty might sign on. We were asking them to commit to a lot of hours to do this new thing at a moment of fatigue and difficulty. In the end, 400 participated, which is about half of our faculty. Those numbers,” says Elrod, ”testify not only to ACUE, but to SCU faculty commitment to students.”

“The challenges and terrible losses caused by COVID are inescapable. So you look for moments of hope, and positive side effects. One of those is that all of us were put into the position of learners, in solidarity with our students,” Elrod explains. “And we had this community of faculty interested in sharing practices and teaching strategies. I’m not sure how we would have managed this five years ago, before we had a critical mass of ACUE faculty and before we developed a structure for sharing teaching practices with one another.”

“Not only that, but we had a team of faculty leaders who were committed to supporting their colleagues,” she continues. “We have a faculty community of learners working on effective course design, student engagement and teaching practices that promote equity and inclusion.”

The work, she hopes, will allow SCU faculty to continue to respond effectively and thoughtfully to the ever-changing shifts in the larger landscape of higher education – while remaining committed to the success of every student.

Elrod and Sabatier joined ACUE Academic Director Kim Middleton for an hour-long fireside chat at AAC&U’s 2021 virtual annual meeting. Watch the recording of, “Revitalizing a Culture Focused on Student Learning” on our YouTube channel.