Teaching & Learning

Transdisciplinary Feedback in Higher Education: Feedback Practices to Promote Student Success Across the Disciplines in Higher Education covers a group of faculty at a small, public, comprehensive, Hispanic-serving university in west Texas who made a commitment to study effective feedback strategies and implement them in their courses across fourteen different disciplines. The faculty joined a learning community to discuss and implement high impact practices using ten feedback tools and strategies outlined by Riordan (2021). Twenty-two faculty share their unique experiences using effective feedback methodologies in over forty case studies with students in programs spanning across developmental education, biology, English, nursing, psychology, criminal justice, accounting, communication, history, political science, natural resource management, STEM, teacher education, and counseling. These case studies illustrate how each of the Riordan feedback strategies is effectively implemented, showcasing the resulting two-way exchange between the instructors and students in undergraduate and graduate courses. Drawing on their in-depth experiences, through these real world examples of feedback in higher education courses that have had a positive impact on students, authors Dr. Jeanne Qvarnstrom and Dr. Alicia M. Trotman provide insights into how meaningful feedback is framed and implemented in each discipline, using a customized approach to feedback to help readers identify the key feedback skills that are unique to each subject. Transdisciplinary Feedback in Higher Education: Feedback Practices to Promote Student Success Across the Disciplines in Higher Education is written primarily for faculty who know that feedback is important, but who also recognize that some types of feedback will be disregarded by the student. The purpose is to provide real world examples of feedback in higher education courses that have had a positive impact on students. Organized into three sections, in Part I of Transdisciplinary Feedback in Higher Education: Feedback Practices to Promote Student Success Across the Disciplines in Higher Education the authors explore instructor orientation to feedback, Part II highlights student orientation to feedback, and Part III illustrates the authors teaching the disciplinary tools as aligned with feedback strategies. While the tools and practices remain consistent, the implementation methods vary contextually to best meet the needs of the students in mastering the concepts of the disciplines. The reader gains a greater understanding of the ten feedback tools and practices from a transdisciplinary perspective. Each chapter ends with reflective questions for the reader and a reference list for future study. Effective feedback in higher education is a popular topic, but in Transdisciplinary Feedback in Higher Education: Feedback Practices to Promote Student Success Across the Disciplines in Higher Education, addresses a gap in research and offers examples from higher education. Transdisciplinary Feedback in Higher Education: Feedback Practices to Promote Student Success Across the Disciplines in Higher Education is dedicated to college and university instructors in various disciplines who recognize the power of feedback and want to learn more about effective forms of it. The book is well suited for faculty professional development initiatives, professional learning communities, and graduate programs in higher education and teacher education, making it an appropriate resource for both individual instructors and course adoption.

Teaching Through Generational Traumas: Adaptive Practices to Combat Dissociation While Addressing the Impacts of Respectability offers a powerful and timely exploration of what it means to teach, learn, and thrive in higher education while navigating the weight of generational wounds. Written by historian and educator Detrice L. Roberts, this book blends personal reflection, scholarly research, and experience-based classroom practice to uncover how trauma, identity, and resilience shape today’s student experience. At its core, this book challenges the idea that education is only about transmitting knowledge. Instead, Roberts presents the classroom as a space of transformation where students must be equipped not only with intellectual tools but also the social and emotional skills necessary to face the complexities of modern life. Drawing on frameworks including Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), the VARK learning model, and culturally relevant pedagogy, Roberts simultaneously offers instructors and students pathways to recognize identity, manage emotions, and build meaningful and productive connections between past and present. There exists a culture of dissociation among students today, but they are more adaptive to learning that incorporates real world engagement that allows for them to actively participate in the learning process. Being able to differentiate instruction relies on our understanding of the types of learners that we have in our classroom and exploring the factors associated with why students are disconnected academically. These very factors can then be addressed and used to enhance student experiences and ability to learn through learner-defined curriculum development. Teaching Through Generational Traumas moves through layered themes reflecting Roberts’s dual perspective as both teacher and learner. Part I situates the conversation historically, acknowledging how generational traumas rooted in slavery, segregation, and systemic racism, continue to impact Black students in higher education. Part II explores the lived experience of respectability politics, dissociation, and the subtle pressures students face to perform identities that do not always align with their authentic selves. Part III shifts to pedagogical innovation, highlighting Roberts’s seven classroom practices: Socratic questioning, storytelling, critical pedagogy, SEL, opening rituals, culturally relevant teaching, and digital humanities. Each practice is illustrated through vivid classroom narratives, emphasizing how teaching strategies can nurture critical thinking while affirming student identity. In the final section, Roberts invites students, educators, and readers alike to consider methods of perpetual growth that extend beyond the classroom. She frames education not as a temporary pursuit, but as a lifelong journey of reflection, resilience, and meaning-making. The book closes with an Ode to the HBCU, honoring the historic and ongoing role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities as sites of cultural affirmation, intergenerational pride, and transformative education. Teaching Through Generational Traumas is a call to reimagine what education can be when it is rooted in empathy, awareness, and liberation. It speaks directly to faculty, administrators, and students at HBCUs and beyond, while also offering insights for those interested in the intersections of history, identity, and pedagogy. This book will resonate with readers who believe that classrooms should be communities of growth, reflection, and belonging. By weaving together scholarship, lived experience, and practical strategies, Roberts demonstrates how we can confront the challenges of dissociation, respectability, and trauma, and instead cultivate spaces where students and instructors learn, heal, and transform together.Perfect for courses such as: Foundations of Education; Teaching and Learning in Higher Education; Culturally Relevant Pedagogy / Multicultural Education; Trauma-Informed Teaching Practices (or Social and Emotional Learning in Schools); African American Educational History; African American History / African Diaspora Studies; Educational Leadership & Policy Studies; Sociology of Education / Education and Society

This new and innovative book, Improving Your College Courses: A Guide for Engaging in Digital Learning, provides instructors from any discipline with a guide for improving course quality and engaging learners in digital learning environments. It inspires professional development and learning (PDL) by making available an indispensable resource for higher education faculty seeking to enhance their teaching practices, propel meaningful experiences, and improve student outcomes. Instructors and administrators will want to read this research-informed, practical book authored by faculty with expertise in digital learning environments. All of them have published on this topic, some earning digital certifications and online teaching awards. Faculty and administrators attracted to a blend of theoretical insights and practical applications will welcome a solid resource for instructors engaged in continuous course improvement and PDL. At the same time, administrators overseeing faculty development as well as mentoring coordinators who sponsor PDL around instructional effectiveness and ethics will benefit from the use of the volume. Professors will find strategies that can be immediately implemented in their courses, making them a valuable tool for PDL. It will be a “must have” for new instructors and faculty who are adapting their teaching for a digital world. The book covers essential topics including course introduction; content and materials; engagement activities; accessibility and usability; and support strategies; as well as practical methods such as case studies, glossary, and appendix and supplementary materials with web content. Improving Your College Courses features pictures, figures, drawings, charts, and graphs designed to clearly illustrate the steps and concepts narrated. This book is designed to be an indispensable resource for educators seeking to enhance their teaching practices and improve student outcomes.Carol A. Mullen is the recipient of the 2026 Excellence in Research Award, AERA Division A: Administration, Organization, and Leadership. Watch a clip of her acceptance speech at: https://youtu.be/W5Ao9bGZrF0

BUY THE BUNDLE AND SAVE!BOOK:Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Doctoral Level Writingoffers an accessible, practical, hands-on guide to developing the skills needed to successfully write a doctoral dissertation or thesis. This textbook-workbook hybrid can be used both as a program/course text and as a supplement for individual doctoral students in education and related social science and humanities fields.The book is built on three main ideas. First, writing is fundamentally connected to issues of social justice. Doctoral-level writing is part of the “language of power” in academia, which builds on the linguistic patterns of the dominant culture and serves as a gatekeeping mechanism. Second, writing is genre-based. This means that doctoral level writing is a particular way of using language, or a specific genre, with distinct rules and structures that can be taught. And third, writing can be scaffolded. Approaching writing as a pedagogical act that supports readers’ understanding through purposeful scaffolding is not just a way to successfully complete a doctoral dissertation—it is a way to make academic writing more accessible in general.WORKBOOK:The workbook is a supplement to the textbook featuring accompanying activities that are scaffolded and carefully sequenced to help students identify key ideas and generate text that can be used to build out the elements of each major dissertation task (e.g., problem statement, literature review, and so on).This supplemental workbook contains all the activities from the textbook in expanded form so that students can engage more fully with warm-ups, free-writes, analysis of mentor texts and examples, graphic organizers, and guided writing exercises. These activities are also accompanied with additional free-write prompts as well as bonus discussion questions for extended sense-making.Individual chapters include:1. Introduction: A Three-Pronged Approach to Writing at the Doctoral Level.2. The Rules: Writing as a Pedagogical Act.3. The Rest of the Rules of the Language of Power.4. The Problem Statement..5. The Literature Review.6. The Theoretical Framework.7. The Methodology Chapter.8. The Findings Chapter.9. The Discussion and RecommendationsThis book and workbook combo is appropriate for any course on academic writing in EdD or PhD programs. It is also useful for courses that teach how to write a problem statement, literature review, and/or theoretical framework. Additional courses include: Qualitative Research; Qualitative Practicum/pilot study courses; and Dissertation seminar and support courses.

This workbook is a supplement to the textbook Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Doctoral-Level Writing. One of the features of the textbook is accompanying activities that are scaffolded and carefully sequenced to help students identify key ideas and generate text that can be used to build out the elements of each major dissertation task (e.g., problem statement, literature review, and so on). However, these are mainly offered in abbreviated form due to space limitations.This supplemental workbook contains all the activities from the textbook in expanded form so that students can engage more fully with warm-ups, free-writes, analyses of mentor texts and examples, graphic organizers, and guided writing exercises. These activities are also accompanied with additional free-write prompts as well as bonus discussion questions for extended sense-making.Individual chapters include:1. Introduction: A Three-Pronged Approach to Writing at the Doctoral Level. This chapter provides discussion questions that help students make meaning of the three key ideas of the three main ideas that inform the book: critical perspectives on language, systemic functional linguistics, and sociocultural theory/scaffolding. Additional free-writing prompts are included that help students make personal connections to these ideas from their past and present experiences.2. The Rules: Writing as a Pedagogical Act. This chapter provides discussion questions and personal connection prompts for the first “rule” of the Language of Power framework: doctoral writing is organized and scaffolded. Exercises are then provided for readers to practice five different organization and scaffolding strategies, including headings/chunking, road maps, topic sentences, signal phrases, and transitions/connectors.3. The Rest of the Rules of the Language of Power. This chapter explores the remaining five rules of the “Language of Power” framework. Discussion questions and personal connection prompts are provided for each rule. Exercises are provided that help students practice key skills, including making well-reasoned arguments, identifying and using compelling evidence, writing with specificity and detail, synthesizing information, and developing original voice.4. The Problem Statement. This chapter provides discussion questions regarding the problem statement and its purposes: to explain the problem, convince the reader that the issue is indeed a problem, and describe how the proposed study will begin to address that problem. Exercises are provided that help students articulate the particular problem that will be driving their study, with graphic organizers that break down each part of the problem statement, including the problem summary, the problem background, the rationale of the study, and the purpose statement. Writing activities are also provided that help students take the text generated from these organizers, craft them into problem statement sections, and edit them.5. The Literature Review. This chapter provides discussion questions and personal connection prompts relating to the purposes and processes of the literature review. Activities and tools are provided for article analysis and pre-writing, as well as exercises in which readers analyze exemplars for writing moves. Graphic organizers and writing exercises are provided to help students create an overall schema for their literature review, identify and articulate gaps in the literature, build out levels of claims, and select and summarize exemplars.6. The Theoretical Framework. This chapter provides discussion questions and personal connection prompts regarding the theoretical foundation of the dissertation and its purposes. Graphic organizers and writing exercises are provided to help students craft a rationale for using the framework, define their theories or perspectives, provide a background of the theory or theories, and discuss the key concepts of the framework.7. The Methodology Chapter. This chapter provides activities that help students think through and describe their research design in clear and detailed terms. Exercises and graphic organizers are provided that help readers generate a description of their their methodology, participants and setting, data sources and procedures, analysis methods, trustworthiness, and positionality. Additional exercises are offered to help students map connections between their methodology, theoretical framework, and study purpose to ensure a coherent design.8. The Findings Chapter. This chapter provides warm-ups and discussion questions for building out the “results” chapter of the dissertation. Activities and exercises help readers create an overarching organizational structure for their findings, anchor them with major assertions, support those claims with compelling evidence, and provide analytic explanation. Additional activities are provided to help students reflect on the ways that they purposefully scaffold their readers’ understanding throughout the chapter and the ways that they meet the trustworthiness criteria they created for themselves in the previous chapter.9. The Discussion and Recommendations Chapter. This chapter provides discussion prompts to help students think through the purposes of the discussion and recommendations sections of the dissertation and begin generating text for both. Activities and graphic organizers support students to develop conclusions based on the findings, connect their findings and conclusions to extant literature, generate theoretical readings of their findings and conclusions, and draw out recommendations for addressing the initial problem they identified in the first chapter. Final exercises help students generate main take-aways and contributions, which they will use to develop their dissertation conclusion and abstract.CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK/WORKBOOK BUNDLE AND SAVE!

The Instructional Leaders Companion Workbook to Implementation Science: A Playbook for Instructional LeadersThis companion workbook, aligned to the three components of Implementation Science, Enabling Context, Effective Practices, and Effective Implementation, is a hands-on resource designed to help educators, instructional leaders, and district teams bring implementation science principles to life in real-world educational settings. The workbook provides structured tools, practical strategies, and real-world examples to bridge theory to practice, ensuring successful, sustainable, and equity-centered improvements in teaching and learning. Leaders will be able to plan, implement, monitor, and assess their chosen intervention. By the end of this workbook, leaders will have a complete strategic plan with all supports to finally reach their intended outcomes.Enabling Context focuses on creating the conditions for effective and lasting change, providing protocols, planning tools, and team-building activities to build capacity and align resources across leadership, staff, and support teams.Effective Practices translates research-based instructional strategies into actionable steps for the classroom, supporting continuous improvement through cycles of planning, implementation, and refinement.Effective Implementation guides teams through the entire process of planning, executing, monitoring, and assessing new initiatives, offering practical frameworks and data-informed decision-making tools to drive meaningful change.Whether used individually or together with Implementation Science: A Playbook for Instructional Leaders, this workbook empowers educators and leadership teams to create cohesive plans, collaborate effectively, and ensure their efforts lead to measurable improvements in student outcomes.CLICK HERE TO BUY THE PLAYBOOK/WORKBOOK BUNDLE AND SAVE!Perfect for courses in: Foundations of Implementation Science in Education; Instructional Leadership and School Improvement; Curriculum Design, Adoption, and Implementation; Data-Driven Decision Making for Educational Leaders; Systems Change and Continuous Improvement; Strategic Planning for K-12 Educational Initiatives; Evidence-Based Practices in Teaching and Learning; Educational Change Management and Policy Implementation; School Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness; Professional Development and Coaching for Educators.

Our society urgently needs education that motivates, challenges, engages, and affirms all students. No matter their previous successes or failures, every student has enormous learning potential and important contributions to make now and in the future. Such meaningful learning experiences don't just happen, they need to be intentionally designed. This book supports those who will undertake this vitally important work. Learning that Matters: A Field Guide to Course Design for Transformative Education is a pragmatic resource for designing courses that engage college students as active citizens. This "work" book provides research-informed approaches for creating learning experiences and developing innovative, intellectually-engaging courses. Whether a novice or a veteran, by engaging with the text, collaborating with colleagues, and reflecting on the important work of a teacher, any motivated educator can become a transformative educator. Every college course has the potential to transform students' lives. Through implementation of critical concepts such as connected and authentic assessments; dilemmas, issues, and questions; portable thinking skills and engaging strategies; and a purposeful focus on inclusivity and equity, readers begin the process of change needed for preparing students who will be able to address the monumental challenges facing our society.Click HERE to watch the book launch.Click HERE to hear the authors discuss their book.Perfect for courses such as: Education Curriculum and Instruction | Design for Transformative Learning | An Introduction to Evidence-based Undergraduate Teaching | New Faculty Orientations | Freshman Seminar Faculty Trainings | Center for Teaching & Learning | Workshops in Course Design