Use these resources to design class sessions, discussions, activities, and course experiences that invite participation, collaboration, student voice, and sustained attention to learning.
Note: Some Faculty Focus articles may require creating a free account to access the full article.
Student Engagement Resources
Start here for broad guidance on engagement, motivation, belonging, and student-centered teaching.
- Chronicle of Higher Ed: How to Make Your Teaching More Engaging - Guide to creating class time that supports curiosity, participation, inclusion, and meaningful learning.
- Student Experience Project: Classroom Practices Library - Tools for strengthening belonging, growth mindset, and supportive classroom practices.
- CAST UDL Guidelines: Engagement - Framework for designing multiple ways to recruit interest, sustain effort, foster collaboration, and support self-regulation.
- Faculty Focus: What Does Student Engagement Look Like? - Rethink engagement beyond attendance or participation and consider how students invest cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally in learning.
Active and Collaborative Learning
Use these resources to make class sessions more participatory without redesigning an entire course.
- Teaching in Higher Ed: Active Learning Resources - Curated active-learning ideas, including peer instruction, retrieval practice, and low-tech activities.
- Liberating Structures: 1-2-4-All - Simple discussion structure that gives students time to think, pair, share, and contribute.
- Faculty Focus: Active Learning Strategies, Techniques, and Examples You Can Use in Your Course - Practical strategies and examples for adding active learning to class sessions.
Discussion and Participation
Use these resources to make discussion more equitable, purposeful, and connected to learning.
- Chronicle of Higher Ed: How to Hold a Better Class Discussion - Guide to planning, facilitating, and improving class discussions.
- Faculty Focus: Class Discussion: From Blank Stares to True Engagement - Strategies for moving discussion beyond silence or the same few participants.
Belonging, Trust, and Student Motivation
Use these resources to create conditions that make participation more likely and learning more meaningful.
- Student Experience Project: First Day Toolkit - Tools and materials for communicating growth mindset, belonging, and student support early in the course.
- Resources for Supporting First-Gen Students - LMU resource for supporting first-generation students.
Selected LMU Faculty Examples
- Experiential Learning in Rome: A Multidisciplinary Course Model - Kristen Noreen and Marc Reeves share an experiential, multidisciplinary course model.
- Grading Rubric for Class Contributions - Timothy Shanahan offers a rubric for clarifying expectations for class contribution.
- Participation Grade Self-Assessment - Amy Woodson-Boulton offers a self-assessment that invites students to reflect on participation and class contribution.