Growing Together: AY25/26 Learning Community Highlights

This community offers a starting place for graduate students and postdocs who need to build an understanding of evidence-based teaching practices as they step into teaching roles or careers. It can also be a forum for those interested in expanding their existing knowledge of the literature on teaching and learning and how to put evidence-based strategies into practice.

Participants leave the community with a strong foundation in a wide variety of core teaching and learning principles and, in many cases, substantive plans for how to apply these to their upcoming teaching appointments. They have also begun articulating a strong personal teaching philosophy, rooted in evidence-based practices. Topics discussed over the year include backward design, Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TiLT), active learning, Universal Design for Learning and collecting and analyzing student feedback. 

Foundations of Pedagogy learning community participants are exposed to key pedagogical knowledge and practical strategies that equip them to succeed in their instructional roles and future teaching appointments. 

_{“[The Foundations of Pedagogy community] helps me go through key components related to teaching at the college level. It offers great resources for my teaching. I also like the research-based approach on teaching and education. Finally, it is effective in designing a course that includes key components and is time-effective.” –Anonymous}

The common thread among participants in this learning community is their interest in pursuing faculty positions in higher education. As such, community members engage in the development of research designs intended to improve their instructional approaches and enhance student learning in their own instructional contexts.

Participants explored approaches to research designs in the area of teaching and learning and developed an independent project design for implementation in their own instructional context. Throughout the year, they discussed their project ideas and challenges and received peer feedback on project designs. 

The community also explored Teaching-as-Research topics such as developing strong research questions, conducting literature reviews, IRB approval, study design, data collection and data analysis.

Through the development of their project designs, participants were prompted to reflect on their experiences as instructors (and students) and think deeply about student learning in their discipline and instructional contexts. This reflection led to many meaningful scholarly decisions likely to enhance community members’ own pedagogical practices and improve their understanding of the ways in which students learn in their discipline.

The facilitators of this community of practice had discussed the term “Compassionate Pedagogy” in another context and wanted to establish a community where instructors could examine it meaning and practice at Ohio State.

Participants explored the meaning of Compassionate Pedagogy, using current literature and other university websites that discussed the concept. They developed a definition of Compassionate Pedagogy specifically for instructors at Ohio State, keeping in mind that we teach at a research institution where many instructors teach large enrollment courses.

In addition, participants broke into working groups at the conclusion of the CoP, with one group working on a Compassionate Pedagogy Instructor Self-Assessment, currently being validated, and another group planning book clubs that took place over the past year.

Nearly all instructors who have been involved with the CoP expressed how glad they were to have found a place of like-minded educators who value the practices Compassionate Pedagogy embraces. One participant commented, “I find myself so grateful to have found this community of compassionate educators. Thank you for teaching me so much this semester and being a source of great happiness.”

Since Spring 2025, participants have submitted proposals to various conferences about the topic. Thus far, every proposal has been accepted and conference participants, as well as a number of groups at Ohio State, have been invited to validate the Compassionate Pedagogy Instructor Self-Assessment. As of this date, 111 colleagues have filled out the self-assessment, indicating this topic continues to be of interest.

As more faculty, instructors and staff hear about the community, they have asked to be added to our list of colleagues who want to stay informed about the initiative and related events or programs.

Creating Wicked Students outlines how instructors can revise their courses to support students’ ability to engage with wicked problems. To do this, however, there is a need for "wicked" instructors. The goal of the learning community was to support instructors to develop their own wicked competencies, which they could then incorporate into their teaching practices.

Participants reviewed book chapters and participated in discussions and workshopped plans for how they could incorporate the strategies into a course they were teaching or planning. The community culminated in a presentation session where all of the participants shared their course redesign plans.

A highlight of the community was a virtual visit, with Paul Hanstedt, author of Creating Wicked Students, who shared how his ideas have developed since the book was published. 

We drew on resources from the Drake Institute on course design and teaching with GenAI to explore how participants could revise a course to include more wicked outcomes or activities. Participants were able to use what they learned in the workshop in their classes over the course of the semester. Here is what one participant shared with us: 

_{“I wanted to reach out because I genuinely loved our last wicked session. Having time to explore different AI platforms and think about how to fold wicked learning objectives into our courses was incredibly helpful.  In fact, I was able to dive into my spring class in a way I hadn’t been able to before — not just the lectures, but the labs and even the course project. I tried to infuse wicked into everything, asking AI to write and rewrite to improve the "wickedness" of each assignment.” – Community participant}

At the end of year, participants were also able to share results from assessments that indicated that students had become more wicked and that they developed greater confidence by working through challenging problems in which there were no right answers: 

_{“Content is challenging, but I feel like I’m beginning to understand the material well”  – Anonymous student}

_{“I do think that I am feeling more confident, but I was really struggling with the in-class activity.”  – Anonymous student}

The ADA Title II deadline (since delayed until April 26, 2027) brought to the forefront a lot of questions about creating universally accessible course materials and learning experiences in STEM fields. This group served as a space to discuss concerns for instructional staff and explore options. 

The group tested some accessibility and remediation tools to determine their usefulness to Ohio State instructors. Participants collected and reviewed some of the guidance coming from different disciplines, institutions, and organizations and discussed how that guidance could be useful to others—and how, ideally, it might be communicated. They also documented some common teaching and exam strategies that, while generally effective, do not yet have an accessibility solution.  

Digital accessibility is not easy to do in general, and guidance for making content accessible doesn’t always line up with learning objectives or teaching goals. By gathering every other week to talk about their accessibility efforts, share new resources, test promising tools, and document what they found (or didn’t find), participants made progress toward accessibility that they wouldn’t have made time for otherwise. While a lot of times the group didn’t find a good solution, it helped to work together toward addressing common problems and challenges.

Each participant entered this learning community as an expert in their discipline. However, disciplinary expertise rarely informs effective pedagogical approaches or strategies for collecting and analyzing data on one’s own instruction. This community provided the tools and information necessary to conduct rigorous scholarship on teaching and student learning and allowed participants to make informed pedagogical decisions and add to the broader scholarly conversations on teaching and learning in their discipline.

This community provided support for participants as they developed an independent SoTL or DBER project suitable for implementation in their unique instructional context. Participants shared research designs, provided peer feedback, engaged with Institute Affiliates, and explored relevant SoTL/DBER topics: developing research questions, study design, IRB approval, data collection, data analysis and disseminating findings.

Through reflection and peer interaction, participants developed research designs structured to inform the enhancement of their own teaching practice. By designing studies which analyze their own student data, theye positioned themselves to make data-informed decisions regarding how to best teach students and assess learning.

_{“The most valuable component of the SoTL/DBER learning community for me was the opportunity to reflect on my teaching using an evidence-based approach. It helped me better align learning objectives, assessments, and instructional strategies‚ particularly in support of outcomes‚ and reinforced the importance of using formative assessment data to continuously improve student learning.” – Anonymous}

The Student Experience Project, was founded in 2022 to transform the student experience through

• revising course syllabi to convey a growth mindset learning culture,
• creating positive classroom environments that foster student belonging, and
• providing students constructive and consistent feedback. 

Since its inception, hundreds of higher learning institutions have used SEP's strategies to improve the student experience and support student success.

Instructors viewed online modules and then attended community of practice meetings to reflect upon teaching practices that foster student sense of belonging and a culture of growth in a classroom. Between November 2025 and April 2026, they participated in two orientation sessions, four CoP meetings and collected multiple surveys from students.

It was evident instructors found great value in the modules and the CoP discussions through their enthusiasm and engagement during each meeting. One participant commented, “Thank you not only for taking us through all the content but also building this community. I have greatly enjoyed participating this year! I plan to take fall ‘26 as a time to re-focus on my large anatomy class and I will come back to all the material you provided as I make further changes. There were so many good ideas!”

_{“As the Project Manager, facilitator of the majority of the CoP meetings, and an Instructional Consultant at the Drake Institute, I feel I obtained a greater knowledge of the research around the evidence-based practices the CoP focused on […] This experience will continue to positively impact the research and resources the Drake Institute provides for all who teach at Ohio State.” – Vicki Pitstick, Instructional Consultant}

This learning community came together as a result of a collaborative agreement between the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning and the Sustainability Institute to design and launch university-wide professional learning opportunities in sustainability course design and pedagogy.

During the fall semester, participants read articles, had discussions, and heard presentations about different aspects of sustainability pedagogy. They utilized this information to participate in an instructional redesign of one of their courses. They turned redesign projects in for feedback with the goal of incorporating their proposed changes during the 2025-26 academic year.

In an end-of-year survey, participants described the community as a valuable opportunity to connect with colleagues across disciplines, exchange ideas and gain new perspectives on teaching sustainability. Many appreciated learning how instructors in different fields approach sustainability pedagogy, as well as the welcoming environment for discussion, feedback and collaboration.

The experience also supported meaningful instructional growth. Participants highlighted the benefit of dedicated time and structure to revise courses, rethink assignments and explore new pedagogical approaches and resources. Several noted that the flexible, discipline-specific focus helped them make changes that were more relevant and impactful for their students.

_{“The aspects that I appreciated the most were the interactions with fellow colleagues outside my department and college. Learning across disciplines about approaches and key terms used in different disciplines to advance sustainability pedagogy was extremely insightful and inspiring to here about.”} 

_{– Anonymous} 

_{“Having dedicated time and support to think intentionally about a course and how I teach sustainability. I appreciated the structure of the IR project, which gave me a reason (and a deadline!) to revise some materials I had been meaning to update.”} 

_{– Anonymous}