Pride in Pedagogy

How can we help students understand an abstract concept they can calculate but may not truly grasp? Engineering professor John Vaccaro discusses his “integral board,” a hands-on activity designed to turn calculus into something students can see, touch, and build together. Using a pegboard, physical pieces, and a fluid mechanics problem, students visualize the area under a curve while collaborating with their peers. Vaccaro reflects on tactile learning, multiple representations of difficult concepts, productive discomfort, and the importance of treating teaching as an iterative process that improves each time we try something new.

Writing is more than a finished product—it is a way of thinking. Writing studies and rhetoric professor Ethna Lay shares how frequent, low-stakes writing gives every student a voice while helping instructors understand how students think and make meaning. She explores active learning, digital writing, multimodal assignments, and the challenge of preserving authentic learning as generative AI makes producing polished work easier than ever.

What if students could demonstrate learning without writing another traditional paper? Comparative literature professor John Krapp shares how creative assessment gives students greater choice in showing what they know through film, dance, fiction, poetry, and other forms. He explores how student choice can reveal hidden talents, deepen engagement, and help students make meaningful connections with the big ideas of a course.

How do we move learning beyond theory and help students understand what an issue feels like in practice? Rhetoric and public advocacy professor Tomeka Robinson shares an experiential learning assignment that challenged students studying health communication to live for a week on the equivalent of SNAP benefits while trying to make healthy food choices. Through experience, reflection, discussion, and peer learning, students confronted questions of food insecurity, privilege, health, and decision-making in ways that remained with them long after the course ended. Robinson also discusses the importance of trusting students, embracing unscripted classroom moments, and creating learning experiences that connect academic ideas to communities and everyday life.

How can a simple conversation transform classroom learning? Scholar and educator Peter Felten from Elon University shares how purposeful peer discussion gives students space to wrestle with challenging questions, develop their ideas, and build confidence before joining larger conversations. He explores how structured student-to-student dialogue can deepen learning while fostering the relationships, belonging, and sense of community that help students thrive.

What matters most in the classroom: what the instructor does, or what the students do? Biology professor Jessica Ward shares how active learning transformed her teaching from content delivery into a dynamic process of student engagement. From individual whiteboards and group problem-solving to workshops and frequent opportunities for feedback, Ward explains how making student thinking visible helps instructors identify misconceptions, adjust in real time, and teach students how to learn. The conversation also explores transparency, productive failure, and why meaningful learning requires students to actively work with ideas—not simply listen to them.

What happens when we give students enough time and structure to genuinely discuss a difficult issue? Education professor Andrea Libresco explores “deep discussion,” an approach that asks students to examine multiple perspectives, listen carefully to one another, consider evidence and tradeoffs, and work through complicated questions without reducing them to two opposing sides. Drawing on the National Issues Forums model and decades of teaching experience, Libresco explains how thoughtful scaffolding can create richer classroom conversations—and help students develop the habits of listening, reasoning, and civil discourse essential to learning and democratic life.