This book uniquely offers the distilled wisdom of scores of instructors across ranks, disciplines and institution types, whose contributions are organized into a thematic framework that progressively introduces the reader to the key dispositions, principles and practices for creating the inclusive classroom environments (in person and online) that…

Each year hundreds of institutions will administer national surveys to measure the engagement of their students. However, stakeholders on college campuses, such as educators (faculty, instructors, student affairs educators, and disability services administrators) and institutional research staff who work with this information are often unaware of…

More students than ever before are taking online classes, yet higher education is facing an online retention crisis; students are failing and dropping out of online classes at dramatically higher rates than face-to-face classes. Grounded in academic research, original surveys, and experimental studies, "Connecting in the Online…

A valuable supplement to student evaluations of teaching (SETs) is the mid-semester feedback (MSF) technique, an intervention that can facilitate meaningful improvement of the teaching and learning experience. Scheduling time for an MSF enables a systematic, formative evaluation of instruction on a specific student population in a given semester.…

Research has shown that students perceive their success, in even the most difficult courses, on their interactions and relationships with their instructors (Anderson, 2011; Micari & Pazos, 2012). In the online classroom, instructors run into an even greater challenge when it comes to engaging students, showing their personalities, and being…

The university is often regarded as a bastion of liberal democracy where equity and diversity are promoted and racism does not exist. In reality, the university still excludes many people and is a site of racialization that is subtle, complex, and sophisticated. While some studies do point to the persistence of systemic barriers to equity and…

A common challenge among university professors is how to best design undergraduate courses to successfully enhance students' attitudes. To compare which curriculum was more efficient at fostering a positive attitude towards science in general, I studied the impact of two different general education science courses on the attitudes of college…

Calculus is one of the primary avenues for initial quantitative training of students in all science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, but life science students have been found to underperform in the traditional calculus setting. As a result, and because of perceived lack of its contribution to the understanding of biology, calculus…

In this article we describe a partially flipped Introductory Linear Algebra course developed by three faculty members at two different universities. We give motivation for our partially flipped design and describe our implementation in detail. Two main features of our course design are team-developed preview videos and related in-class activities.…

The term "flipped" or "inverted" classroom includes a broad range of pedagogical innovations, and has recently received a significant amount of press. Although flipping an entire course might be a more extreme step than most are able to take, we discuss modular ideas for change that can be more easily implemented. This paper…

Although self-publishing designed to enhance student understanding is important to promote learning objectives and can contribute to the field of knowledge, self-publishing without peer review is generally not acceptable for promotion and tenure purposes. However, there is a growing trend that recognizes the use of self-published items to help…

"Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty" presents new and surprising findings about career differences between female and male full-time, tenure-track, and tenured faculty in science, engineering, and mathematics at the nation's top research universities. Much of this…

"Faculty Virtues and Character Strengths: Reflective Exercises for Sustained Renewal" is a transdisciplinary faculty handbook to enhance the quality of learning and teaching. The author applies six multicultural virtues and 24 character strengths from Positive Psychology research to the tasks of course design, managing critical incidents, and…

Numerous research studies clearly indicate the importance of first impressions. It is very likely that students will form their opinions of the class and the professor during the first class meeting. These first impression can be nearly impossible to reverse or undo, making those first encounters extremely important, for they set the tone for all…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent to which they engage in educational…