The third webinar in ACUE’s Back to School series, Getting Better Prepared for Online and Hybrid Learning, featured insights from Flower Darby, Northern Arizona University; Dr. Michael Pullin, Queensborough Community College; and Dr. Wanda White, Winston-Salem State University. Dr. Harry L. Williams, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and Dr. Jessica Rowland Williams, Every Learner Everywhere, provided inspiring remarks on the challenges and opportunities ahead in ensuring student success. The discussion was moderated by ACUE Academic Advisor Dr. Kevin Kelly.

Panelists shared tangible practices that can be put to use immediately, which are also featured in ACUE’s Back-to-School Toolkit.

Key Takeaways

Higher education is in a moment of change.

“Everybody knows 2020 was a game-changer in higher ed,” said Dr. White. “But our faculty were resilient.”

Dr. Pullin noted that institutions and faculty have had to ramp up their teaching and learning efforts in light of the pandemic. “There’s been a scale-up,” he said. “Departments have all been responding to the challenges in ways they think are best for the students.”

Meanwhile, Darby has been experimenting with different modes of teaching. “I’ve redoubled my efforts on making connections with ‘in-between’ students,” she commented. For example, she’s used flipped-grid discussions. “Students feel more connected.”

Dr. Pullin added that they have invested in significant training to prepare faculty, including turning to ACUE to equip them with evidence-based teaching practices for effective online teaching. 

“We spent a lot of time talking with faculty and providing ways to make instruction more accessible,” Dr. White said. Her institution has “provided a menu of choice for faculty based on their needs,” including training on how to use new technologies. “Having options out there has worked wonders as an innovation.”

Faculty can try new ways to engage students through online instruction.

Darby emphasized “engagement and accountability.” She suggested, for example, providing students with a guided notes document, something to annotate during class.

“We often lose community in an online class,” Dr. White added. “Let students see you on video, and use tools to talk to them — so it’s not a ‘wizard behind the curtain grading my paper’ feel.” She also encouraged faculty to break students into smaller groups to work together and give them assignments that pull everyone in.”

“Build in active learning modalities,” Dr. Pullin said. “It makes it more personal. And I would consider paring down the amount of content — what’s essential? I’d rather see students master that than get shallow coverage of more ‘things.’” 

Equitable learning must remain front and center across all modalities.

The panelists all underscored the importance of creating equitable and inclusive learning environments, no matter where and how students are learning.

“We need to make sure we address equity issues, such as access with the digital divide,” Dr. White said. For example, she noted that some texts use language with which students are unfamiliar, adding, “That can impose bias.”

“And there are the technological challenges for students,” Dr. Pullin said. “No matter how hard we work, those challenges are still going to be there. Think about grading and attendance policies in that light. Many of our students come from low-income backgrounds, and we‘re having to bridge that technological gap.”

Darby emphasized the importance of “culturally responsive, relevant teaching. Recognize that students are bringing their cultural backgrounds with them,” she said. “Design for relevance — how are students going to see themselves in our classes and the materials? Help everyone feel like they belong.”

Online learning is here to stay.

“We all collectively agree that [online teaching] does provide flexibility and access,” said Darby. To prepare for the future, she encouraged institutions and faculty to keep improving and reimagining teaching and learning “Reflect on what we can do better when using technology tools. Recognize that this does take time and effort, and think about how can we recognize and reward really great teaching practices.”

“We can take away more positive aspects from this experience,” Dr. White agreed. “Encourage faculty to find that one tool or practice that works — don’t try to use everything. Find what you like and what works best for you to make that space more comfortable.”

“Many faculty were reluctant to do too much online instruction,” Dr. Pullin added. “Now, a lot of minds can be changed. A lot of faculty believe this can be a good way to teach if done well.”

“Good pedagogy is good pedagogy, whether in-person, online, hybrid — the same principles apply,” he said.

“Be flexible, have fun, and never forget your love of teaching — the students can sense it,” added Dr. White.

Check out our Back-to-School toolkit, a free resource to support administrators and instructors in ensuring a strong and equitable start to the new academic year. 

In the second webinar of ACUE’s Back to School series, Dr. Santiba Campbell, Associate Professor of Psychology, Faculty Senate President and Ex-Officio member of the Board of Trustees, Bennett College; Dr. Edward Hill, Interim Provost and Accreditation Liaison, Harris-Stowe State University; and Dr. Terry DiPaolo, Vice Provost of E-learning, Dallas College, shared practical approaches and best practices around meeting students where they are. 

The discussion was moderated by Carmen Macharaschwili, ACUE Academic Strategy Consultant, and featured remarks from David Brailow, Council of Independent Colleges, as well as Felice Nudelman and Dr. Jacquelyn Jones, American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Key Takeaways from the Conversation

Students must be acclimated to learning environments and expectations.

“We’re adapting to another academic year,” said Dr. DiPaolo. This year, he explained, is a first for many students, including those returning from last year. 

Dallas College, he explained, is in “one of the most deprived and diverse areas in the U.S., and we spend a lot of time talking to students, understanding them and their circumstances.”

Dr. Campbell added that many students aren’t aware of the time and effort involved in learning of all types. “Online courses can be a greater commitment than an in-person class,” she said, something many students don’t understand.

To illustrate this, she shared an anecdote about a student who was logging onto Zoom via her cell phone while working at a drive-through window.

In order to combat these misconceptions, Dr. Campbell encouraged higher education to reevaluate how they run institutions. For example, Bennett College has introduced mini-semesters to try to acclimate students to expectations.

Dr. Hill noted that Harris-Stowe has many first-generation students “who might not have been as prepared for college.” Last year, “we sent them back to environments that probably weren’t conducive to learning.”That’s why Harris-Stowe leaders are working with faculty to discuss these issues and considering how to move forward.

Collaboration and communication are foundational to success.

“How do we move students and faculty forward?” asked Dr. Campbell. She pointed to communication. Bennett College, she said, has monthly, campus-wide meetings to share concerns.

“What is your identity as an institution? Focus on that to start to bring the message home.”

Bennett College, she said, started with the ACUE toolkit for online courses. 

“Don’t feel like everything has to be a written-up policy,” she added. “Think about changes you can make on your own.”

“Collaboration and partnership have been critical,” Dr. DiPaolo said. He also emphasized the importance of communication between administrators and faculty. “We have to be agile and nimble in ways we’ve never had to before….What if we took some time to put ourselves in the shoes of a new student?”

At Harris-Stowe, “we meet almost daily,” Dr. Hill said. The university depends on federal funding, but during the pandemic, they’ve had to find new ways of supporting students and faculty, such as tapping into the alumni base. “It’s taught us about resilience,” he said.

The best way to understand students’ needs? Ask them.

“Instructors can ask students ‘What can I do to help you succeed in this class?’” Dr. DiPaolo said. “Just reach out to your students one on one. Makes them feel heard.”

“We spend so much time talking pedagogy, that nobody stops to ask a student, for instance, ‘Why haven’t you been to class?’” Dr. Campbell agreed. She also urged educators to get to know their campus and the resources available so they can point students in the right direction.

At the same time, “the faculty and the student are exchanging roles,” Dr. Hill said. “We’re all learning at the same time. How do we give faculty the opportunity to learn?”

Mental health and well-being must be front and center.

The panelists all underscored the importance of prioritizing the mental health and well-being of students, including making sure students have access to resources like counseling.

“We’re leading the way in removing the stigma around mental health,” said Dr. DiPaolo. 

“We also need to consider faculty and staff,” added Dr. Campbell. “Often, we focus on students, but we have to be sound of mind ourselves. We’re figuring out multiple modalities of instruction while being respectful of safety and health.”

“We’re a unit that’s trying to get everyone across the finish line,” she explained.

Join us for the next webinar in our Back to School series, Getting Better Prepared for Online and Hybrid Learning Confirmation, Tuesday, September 14, 3:00 pm ET.

College students are reading on-screen more than ever. Yet in higher education, teaching strategies for reading are still largely paper-based and rarely account for the different types or how digital modalities can improve accessibility.

In her new book, Skim, Dive, Surface: Teaching Digital Reading, Dr. Jenae Cohn seeks to recast the conversation as one that’s focused on how educators can be more attentive to the spectrum of affordances available within digital learning environments. In this interview, Dr. Cohn shares highlights from the book and explains why podcasts are a form of reading.

Preparing to teach online? Join our free webinar on Sept. 14 @ 3pm featuring Flower Darby, Dr. Jessica Rowland Williams, and more experts.

What is Skim, Dive, Surface about? 

We know that reading on a screen looks and feels different than reading on paper. And so much of the reading that we all do every day is on a screen, but a lot of approaches are still based on reading within paper or print modalities. In Skim, Dive, Surface, I’m inviting educators to be more attentive to students’ lived reading experiences in a digital space. This book is an opportunity to consider how our effective teaching approaches can engage students in reading techniques that align with what’s possible for reading on a screen.

What inspired you to write a book about digital reading?

In graduate school, I really struggled to manage the massive reading load. At first, I printed out hundreds of pages each week but it wasn’t sustainable. I couldn’t organize the information in ways that would allow me to see and connect patterns across all of the readings. I needed some digital reading solutions to help get me through it all.

At the same time, as a first-year composition instructor, I saw my students struggling with similar kinds of concerns. That made me realize that we really needed more directed advice and research about digital reading workflows. Ten years later, the book is here!

What are some important highlights from the book?

I’d say there are three main takeaways:

1. Identify the purpose of your reading task. There are different types of reading and each one requires different strategies. Some digital reading may not be optimal for certain reading tasks that require intense concentration. But for some kinds of reading tasks, “skimming” is exactly what’s needed. Skimming, or “shallow” reading, is particularly useful for conducting initial research. Being able to broadly engage with a lot of information on a particular topic is an effective way to establish and build background knowledge.

2. Digital reading requires different approaches. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re “worse” than paper-based approaches. With digital reading interfaces, students are typically scrolling rather than turning a page, so they don’t have pagination as that traditional indicator of progress. So, how can they keep track of key information in the text? Students also have to grapple with hyperlinks, which can either disrupt or enhance the reading experience. Reading on-screen can be customized, remixed, and changed in ways that reading in print does not allow. As instructors, we need to understand and consider these implications when we are selecting or creating course content.

3. Be mindful that not all students can have the same experiences with reading activities – and that’s OK! The digital divide is real. We need to be mindful of this when developing course content so that it’s mobile-friendly and not just workable on a laptop. In Skim, Dive, Surface, I discuss strategies for supporting readers regardless of which device they’re using. Throughout the book, I encourage instructors to check in with their students about how they experience reading and design activities that provide flexible options for engagement.

Why is listening to a podcast a form of reading?

We tend to think of reading as a visual exercise. Literacy is defined, rather narrowly, by the ability to visually interpret written symbols and information. But visuals aren’t accessible to everyone. Blind or visually-impaired readers, for example, rely on braille or text-to-speech applications, which are, essentially, “audio” books. Are they not reading? Of course they are. A podcast can absolutely be a kind of reading because it involves receiving and absorbing content. Our definitions of reading need to be more inclusive, insofar as we might think about reading as the process by which we access, engage with, and respond to content knowledge in a variety of media.

Can you summarize the research on reading, student learning and digital screens?

There have been decades of research on student learning, reading, and digital screens. One of my favorite sources on this topic is a meta-study by Delgado et. al (2018)[1] of 54 studies conducted from 2008–2018. One of its core findings is right in the title of their meta-analysis: “Don’t throw away your printed books.” The studies included different age groups and sizes, and the evidence consistently pointed to paper’s superiority over the screen for retaining and remembering pieces of information.

At first glance, these findings can seem discouraging, especially for those of us who believe that reading on screens can be a positive learning experience for students today and in the future. To me, they reinforce two important things:

1. Even as we recognize screen inferiority at this moment, we cannot ignore or deny the role that digital reading will continue to play in students’ learning experiences. As instructors, we must be willing to consider approaches that can optimize the benefits of digital reading and mitigate the inferior impact.

2. Reading is a socially constructed skill, one that’s shaped heavily by modeling and prior experiences.

Even as we recognize screen inferiority at this moment, we cannot ignore or deny the role that digital reading will continue to play in students’ learning experiences. As instructors, we must be willing to consider approaches that can optimize the benefits of digital reading and mitigate the inferior impact.

What do you say to faculty who are uncomfortable with the shift away from printed texts and are concerned about issues like distractions that are posed by engaging with devices? 

In Skim, Dive, Surface, I dedicate a full chapter to discussing these feelings. We’ve all had the experience of talking to someone only to discover that they’re absorbed in a screen. This can be particularly discouraging when it involves our students. Plus, the printed book itself is a precious object for many faculty. It’s a cultural signifier in academia, something that stands for learnedness, and is, frankly, something of a status symbol.

I encourage faculty to interrogate their own feelings and experiences with reading on-screen and on-paper. How might these be shaping your practices? Then, I think faculty should take a step back and consider how their experiences align with or differ from those of their students. What would it mean to ask and engage students in conversations about their experiences with reading? Providing options and making them genuinely and authentically available can help all students feel included as part of their learning.

Jenae Cohn, PhD writes and speaks about digital learning. She currently works as the Director of Academic Technology at California State University, Sacramento, and has held prior roles as both an instructor and staff at Stanford University and UC Davis. 

References

[1] Delgado, P., Vargas, C., Ackerman, R., & Salmeron, L. (2018). Don’t throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension. Educational Research Review, 25, 23–28.

How can we ensure a strong and equitable start to the new academic year as our lives continue to be affected by the pandemic? As administrative leaders and faculty grapple with this question, ACUE’s Back to School webinar series convenes expert voices and provides key resources to support higher education’s return to campus this fall.

The first installment, Welcoming Back Faculty and Students, featured Kelly Lester, Director, Center for Faculty Development, The University of Southern Mississippi; Shonda Gibson, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, The Texas A&M University System; and Natasha LaRose, Program Coordinator, American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). The discussion was moderated by Kim Middleton, ACUE Academic Strategy Consultant, and included welcoming remarks from Maxine Roberts, Strong Start to Finish, and Rebecca Martin, National Association of System Heads.

Key Takeaways

1. Embrace flexibility

Gibson pointed out that the pandemic taught us that we need to be flexible. At the same time, she noted that educators discovered that they could quickly adapt and “be creative and find solutions. We all got in there and got the work done.”

Lester agreed, adding that she’s found ACUE particularly helpful as a partnership and resource that “gives you tools to gain insight and feedback from your students in a way that’s not about you as a person.”

Lester also commented that addressing safety is the priority. “Use your first couple of days of class to acknowledge that this year’s going to include adapting and flexibility, but also safety is a big concern. In my classroom, I’d want to say, ‘Let’s have a discussion about our ground rules for this class. What is it that you need in my class to feel safe?’ And I think there could be a lot of vulnerability in that.”

“Be flexible with your own self so that you can be flexible with others,” Gibson added.  

2. Resilience and community will carry students and educators

“For us as tribal nations, we’ve always been a resilient type of people,” LaRose said. “And I think we responded as quickly as possible by partnering with ACUE and getting our faculty trained for online courses. That’s a really important step because we’ve been faced with a whole lot of interesting dynamics with the pandemic hitting us.”

Part of resilience, Gibson added, is looking for support when it’s necessary. “Don’t try to do this alone. Our resilience bank accounts are going to run short if you try to do this all on your own.” 

This, she said, extends beyond faculty-student connections to the entire campus. Gibson encouraged instructors to share resources and pose questions to peers within content areas, as well as point students to support systems.

3. People need space to ask questions

“There’s a real openness to having conversations and allowing space for questions,” Lester said. “We may not always have the answers, but if we don’t provide the space for the questions, then I think people feel unheard.”

USM, she explained, holds “Faculty First Week,” featuring teaching development, technology orientations, and guidance on building community.

Gibson agreed that these opportunities are critical to the teaching and learning community. Across the A&M system, she said, there are communities of practice. “What we’ve learned is that collaboration, networking, and sharing among the group is so powerful. I’m seeing so much promise, and I really want to see that continue into the future.”

Gibson also encouraged educators to ask questions of themselves, through a process she describes as “durable innovation.” “Take time to stop and ask yourself what’s not working or what really did work well.”

LaRose noted that AIHEC initiated a biweekly check-in with all the tribal college universities as part of their response to the pandemic. Along with quarterly meetings, they have led to “a continuous communication of new developments and helping each other navigate this whole new world we’re kind of living in.”

4. Embrace creativity

One silver lining of the pandemic is that faculty and leaders alike have stretched themselves creatively to identify new solutions. 

LaRose, for example, discussed how the tribal colleges sought out ways to share resources across campuses and networks. “If we’re being proactive and we can really preserve teaching techniques and go forward, I think we’re building a really strong core of what we can do in the future,” she said.

Lester, meanwhile, is finding ways for students to be involved in their own learning. For example, she offers options for final assignments. “They could write a paper, they could create a piece of artwork and a poem, or they could do a video reflection,” she explained. “And they all had the same guiding questions that got to the core of the content we were covering. 

Gibson saw that faculty who became ACUE-credentialed during the pandemic found new ways to collaborate and brainstorm ideas. “I heard incredible stories of how they came together collectively and they came up with novel solutions. These faculty were able to embrace new tools and new technology to be able to create environments where students could get that information.”

At the end of the day, the panelists agreed, welcoming faculty and students back to campus this fall comes down to being intentional about community, care, and communication. 

“Show care, check in with people, and listen,” Lester said.

Register for the next webinar, Getting Better Prepared for Online and Hybrid Learning, taking place on September 14, 2021, 3:00-4:00 PM ET.

By Jonathan Gyurko, PhD

Over the years, ACUE has written often about the need to place quality, evidence-based teaching at the heart of efforts to graduate many more well-prepared students, through the support and place of pride that faculty deserve. We’ve learned many things along the way, but one lesson stands out: simply offering professional development is not enough. A series of professional development workshops here, or a consultation there—as helpful and necessary as these offerings may be—are insufficient to fully engage the professoriate.

Rather, we’ve learned that a holistic plan of action is required to fully engage faculty in the student success movement. That is, one that attends to campus culture and that delivers the practical, collegial support that any professional would expect.

ACUE has put these lessons together in one place. Through generous support from Strong Start to Finish and the Education Commission of the States, ACUE is excited to share a new toolkit for campus leaders and faculty designed as a resource for self-assessment, planning, and action. The toolkit, Success & Equity Through Quality Instruction, was developed with our friends at Sova and recommends holistic and coordinated action across five key domains: 

• Strategy: Specifically, to what extent is evidence-based teaching part of your strategy?
• Equity: To what extent is quality instruction promoting equity of opportunity and achievement? 
• Approach: How comprehensive is the content of professional learning opportunities, based on their scope, frequency, mode of delivery, and scale? 
• Evaluation: To what extent are efforts to improve the quality of instruction evaluated on the basis of student impact?
• Culture: To what extent is evidence-based teaching celebrated through communications, intrinsic and extrinsic incentives, and overall expectations?

The toolkit includes recommended resources, inspiring “practice profiles,” and also includes rubrics for each domain, across four levels from “Nascent” and “Emerging” to “Developing” and “Embedded.” These levels are meant to spur reflection of current practice and inspire ideas for new action. Rubrics are also aligned to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Institutional Transformation Assessment and were recently piloted with a group of AASCU provosts, to good effect. 

We hope the toolkit becomes an indispensable resource to presidents, provosts, faculty leaders, teaching center directors, and all other stakeholders. We believe it can further our shared efforts to provide faculty the support they seek, through a holistic approach that is truly “sufficient,” so that every student enjoys the quality of education they deserve.

For KaSondra Toney, earning a college degree was anything but typical. As a single mom, she withdrew twice to focus on raising her young family. It took almost 20 years, and she often questioned if she was good enough to succeed in college, but she remained determined to finish.

Last year, she achieved her goal and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition, she won USM’s Bishop Award, which recognizes students who have endured hardships in pursuit of their education.

“I used to look at my life experiences as a series of setbacks. Now, I realize they were setups to enable me to use my experience and share my story to help and inspire others,” says Toney, who is now pursuing a master’s degree in USM’s School Counseling program.

Toney credits the faculty at USM’s School of Child and Family Sciences, whose instructional approaches provided her with a foundation of support. “They really helped me through a lot of self-doubt,” she says. The relationships she formed with faculty were “transformative for me.”   

Student Success Through Exceptional Teaching 

Toney’s success story and the role that faculty played,are emblematic of the positive student impact that quality instruction is having at USM, where 1 out of every 6 faculty are now ACUE certified. As one of ACUE’s long-term institutional partners, 126 faculty have participated in the ACUE Faculty Development Institute through USM’s Center for Faculty Development.  

“The ACUE experience on our campus has been transformative institutionally,” says Amy Chasteen, Executive Vice Provost at USM. 

This summer, ACUE published a series of research papers in partnership with USM, demonstrating that students have better academic outcomes overall when they take more courses with ACUE instructors. In addition, students who completed a gateway course with an ACUE-certified instructor had lower DFW rates and higher GPAs  in their subsequent courses.  

Faculty-Student Relationships 

For Toney, the faculty member who stands out, in particular, was Angel Herring, an ACUE-certified associate professor in the School of Child and Family Sciences. Herring began teaching as an adjunct professor while working in early childhood development and “fell in love with it.”  

“We like to say we’re a school of therapists and mamas. We are passionate about connecting with our students, caring for them, and seeing them transform. I was hooked,” she says.  

Herring primarily teaches online courses through which she implements instructional practices that build personal bonds with her students. She creates videos that describe her own struggles as a first-generation college student and schedules 1:1 meetings with each student to get to know them. “Online teaching does not mean there have to be no personal interactions with students.”  

Her perspectives about online teaching are, in part, why she is a featured contributor in ACUE’s Effective Online Teaching Practices Course,which focuses on proven online teaching approaches that empower faculty and ensure student success. 

‘I wasn’t just a student on a piece of paper.’ 

What stands out most to Toney is a conversation she had early in Herring’s course. Even though the course was online, Herring insisted on one-on-one conversations to get to know each student.  

“She listened to me. It helped me realize that what I had to say was important and that my ideas were important,” Toney says. “For Dr. Herring to want to have such an in-depth conversation showed me that I wasn’t just a student on a piece of paper. She cared about me and I felt that.”  

Interested in bringing ACUE to your campus? Contact us today to learn how you or your institution can become ACUE certified. 

As a new academic year gets underway, we asked ACUE Certified faculty to share insights and words of wisdom for faculty whose learning journey is just beginning. In their own words, here are five ways faculty can start the year strong and get the most of their experience:

1. Start Small
2. Take Risks
3. Cultivate a Community
4. Share with Students
5. Tips for Staying Organized

1. Start Small

Michael Wesch, Kansas State University

“If you are pressed for time, just try one new thing. Even just one new thing can create a little ‘edge’ and excitement to the day and energize your class.”

Shauntae Brown White, North Carolina Central University

“Don’t get overwhelmed. You cannot overhaul your class all at one time. Select a few things you can successfully implement at the time.”

  Erin Whitteck, the University of Missouri – St. Louis

“There are so many great strategies shared in the ACUE program that at first, it may seem overwhelming. Keep a notebook or teaching journal where you can collect some of those ideas and put them into practice later. Be strategic about what you implement now and save some new ideas for later.”

2. Take Risks

Andrew Ishak, Santa Clara University

“‘It’s all practice for the next class.’ I put that thought in my head so I’m not scared of trying out new ideas or making mistakes. That mindset frees me up to make the class better through experimentation, which often leads to enhancements that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.”

Shauntae Brown White, North Carolina Central University

“Teaching is an evolving art. Some things will work for you one semester, but not another. Don’t be afraid to try new things.”

Rachel Emas, Rutgers University–Newark

“Show yourself the same grace that you show your students. Learning how to teach can be a challenge (especially for those already teaching) and we won’t get it perfect every time–but the goal is growth, not perfection.”

Amara Hand, North Carolina Central University

“Every module is an opportunity for immeasurable growth and continuous improvement toward your pedagogical craft. You have the power to create courses, assessments, and learning experiences that mean something, and ACUE is giving you the tools to build it yourself. Bask in every revelatory moment of your ACUE experience. You’re going to learn so much about yourself and your endless capabilities as an educator.”

Christina Zambrano-Varghese, Rutgers University–Newark

“When I first completed the ACUE course in Effective Teaching Practices, some of the teaching methods that I was most hesitant to try led to the most impactful learning for my students. This was also crucial for me to know how it felt to take risks in the classroom, so I could give students the same opportunity to make mistakes. With these risks, true transformation was able to occur.”

3. Cultivate a Community

Matthew Kalei Witter, City College of New York

“My advice is to take time to review the material and really get into the exercises. The students really benefit from it. Also, get to know your cohort, because they are so helpful during and after the program.”

Katie Surber, Wake Technical Community College.

Patricia Bostian, Central Piedmont Community College

“Embrace the interactions with your classmates. In taking your course, commit to chatting with other instructors. The new ideas will take root much more successfully if you take the time to listen to others and be willing to think through new strategies aloud, providing others with the benefit of your own thoughts.”

Tammy Bird, Durham Technical Community College

“Plan enough time in your week to engage with others in the discussion board. I found this part of the training extremely valuable, as we were all processing and thinking together.”

Brandon Cooper, Texas A&M

“Find someone in your cohort to connect with for accountability and motivation. You will appreciate having someone to bounce ideas off of and strategize with.”

4. Share with Students

Dale Hoffman, American River College

“Choose a course you would like to improve and try out the resources you learn about in ACUE. Share this with your class. Offer them the opportunity to give feedback on the innovations you use. They will love that you, too, are a student!”

Subhadra Ganguli, Bloomsburg University 

“I recommend taking advantage of the self-reflection exercises and written assignments, like the ‘Note to Yourself’ at the end of each module, to understand how your learning can be implemented to improve your courses. These are powerful tools for self-reflection and they reminded me of additional things to execute in my future courses.”

Christine Neubert, Indian River State College

“Be open with your students that you are in ACUE and will be trying out new things with them. My students responded positively to being my ‘test subjects’ even when a technique did not go quite as planned because they felt included in the process and important contributors to my own learning journey.”

5. Stay Organized and Manage Your Time

Robin Willoughby, Indian River State College

“You will have so many new tips, tools, and other resources available to you. You don’t want to miss any of them. Be sure to look at the resources listed at the end of each module. Before you even begin, designate a storage place for all of these amazing ACUE materials.”

Kara Finch, Stanly Community College

“Be patient. Take your time. Understand that while there are so many excellent practices that you can implement to make your courses better, you can’t do it all overnight. Keep notes of each of the new practices you want to implement and work on them one at a time in your courses.”