• Providing choices

• Articulating and communicating course design rationales:

• Incorporating student voice

• Supporting self-regulation

• Social Presence: Develop emotional and social connections with students. Techniques include:

• Academic Presence: Involve instructors actively in the learning process to provide necessary academic support:

Peer presence refers to the opportunities for students to learn through interaction with their peers:

• Peer Academic Presence: Encourage collaborative learning and knowledge sharing among peers

• Peer Social Presence: Foster social interactions among students to create a sense of community

  
  

• Use Formative Assessments Regularly: Incorporate quizzes, problem sets, and polls to continuously gauge student understanding and adjust instruction.

• Provide Timely, Specific, and Actionable Feedback: Offer immediate, constructive feedback that guides students on what they did well and how they can improve.

• Encourage a Growth Mindset: Frame feedback to emphasize effort, persistence, and learning from mistakes, helping students view challenges as opportunities.

• Diversify Assessment Types: Utilize a mix of assessment methods (e.g., quizzes, projects, peer assessments) to cater to different learning styles and needs.

• Leverage Technology for Interactive Feedback: Use adaptive tools and online platforms that offer step-by-step guidance and instant feedback to keep students engaged.

• Foster Reflective Practice: Encourage students to reflect on feedback, set learning goals, and actively engage in their learning process.

• Ensure Equity and Accessibility: Design assessments that are accessible to all students, considering varied technological capabilities and learning environments.

In no particular order: Teaching in Higher Ed, Think UDL, Intentional Teaching, Edsurge, The Grading Podcast

"backward design," an approach to education that is common parlance in the faculty development world, but still unfamiliar to many professors. The premise is simple enough: In designing a course, start with the end in mind.

The Improvement Project is a semester-long assignment where students select a real area of their life—school, work, community, or personal well-being—and work to improve it using a PDSA cycle (Plan–Do–Study–Act). Students propose a meaningful change, implement it, study the results using statistical thinking and data analysis, and decide whether the change should be adopted, adapted, or abandoned.

This project serves as a practical bridge between classroom learning and real-world application. It allows students to apply core statistical skills—including data collection, analysis, probability, and critical thinking—to an authentic problem or goal that matters to them. By the end of the semester, students will have practiced using evidence to evaluate change, make decisions, and communicate results—all essential skills in both academic and everyday life.