You’ve heard the buzz about active learning—it boosts student engagement, deepens understanding, and fosters a sense of belonging. But knowing where to begin or finding the time to implement these strategies can feel overwhelming. That’s where "Active Learning Essentials: Bridging Research and Practice" comes in. This six-week professional development is designed for educators who are ready to move beyond the theory and into practical, sustainable active learning practices. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your techniques, this course provides the structure, time, and support you need to create engaging and impactful learning experiences. Why This Course? Active learning is proven to enhance student success, yet many educators face significant barriers: Uncertainty about where to start Limited time to plan and implement Challenges with resistance from students or peers This course meets you where you are, equipping you with actionable strategies to overcome these challenges and foster meaningful student engagement. What Does the Course Cover? The curriculum is thoughtfully designed to build your skills step by step: Foundations of Active Learning Understand the research and proven outcomes behind active learning. Reflect on your current practices and identify opportunities for growth. Designing and Implementing Active Learning Activities and Assessments Learn to create engaging activities that align with your learning objectives. Develop assessments that measure both participation and deeper learning. Active Learning Across Modalities Explore how to adapt active learning for in-person and online settings, as well as large lectures and small courses. Overcoming Common Active Learning Challenges Gain practical strategies to address time constraints, student resistance, and logistical hurdles. Continuing Your Growth as an Educator: Charting the Path Forward Build a sustainable plan to integrate active learning into your teaching long-term. What Sets This Course Apart? This is not a passive, one-size-fits-all program or a high-level webinar. You’ll work alongside a cohort of educators who, like you, are committed to enhancing their teaching.  Participants also benefit from: One year of access to all course materials. Dedicated support for lesson and activity development. Virtual meetings with facilitators and peers to exchange ideas and refine your approach. A library of curated supplemental resources for ongoing inspiration. Who Should Enroll? This course is ideal for educators across disciplines and experience levels who want to: Move beyond lectures to create more dynamic, interactive classroom experiences. Address student disengagement with evidence-based strategies. Build confidence in designing, implementing, and assessing active learning. What Does It Cost? We know that professional development is an investment in both your teaching and your students’ success. Early Bird Pricing: $149 Regular Price: $299 Why Now? Educators who have embraced active learning often describe it as transformative—not only for their students but for their own teaching practice. But transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It requires time, support, and the opportunity to experiment in a structured, collaborative environment. By joining Active Learning Essentials, you’ll gain the tools, strategies, and confidence to create the kind of classroom where students are not just present but deeply engaged and invested in their learning. Ready to get started? Sign up to be notified when enrollment opens. Transformative teaching awaits. ... View more

Professional development for the sake of personal career growth alone is important and powerful. But when it comes to professional development for educators, the benefits extend far beyond the individual. Professional development plays a vital role in improving student success. Especially in higher education settings, educators' pedagogical knowledge and practices directly impact students' ability to navigate their educational journey and prepare for career challenges. Here are some key benefits of professional development for educators, which were also foundational to the establishment of the Institute at Macmillan Learning. Impact on Instructional Strategies Professional development serves as a cornerstone for introducing educators to new instructional strategies and facilitating the integration of best practices and evidence-based strategies into our classrooms. By refining instructional techniques, we cultivate more engaging and effective learning environments, helping to ensure our students are well-prepared to succeed academically. Keeping Up with Trends  With the educational landscape in constant flux—driven by technological innovation and changing societal needs—it's imperative for educators to stay in the know. Even if you don’t plan to make changes to your course or teaching, it helps to know what students may be doing differently when it comes to their study behaviors, other courses, or personal lives. Improved Student Outcomes  Investing in our learning and growth as educators is synonymous with investing in our students. Research-backed pedagogical practices translate to improved learning environments, which can, in turn, boost student engagement, understanding, and application of knowledge—hallmarks of student success. Better Support of Student Diversity  Our classrooms are vibrant mosaics of diverse thoughts, cultures, and learning styles. Carefully selected, intentionally designed professional development can arm educators with the necessary tools to embrace and nurture this diversity, fostering a classroom atmosphere where every student feels valued and supported in their educational journey. Personal Growth and Renewal  The enthusiasm and passion for teaching we share can bring meaning to our lives. Engaging in professional development experiences that bring educators from different walks of life together can not only reignite this passion but also nurture personal growth. Think about the last time you had a great conversation or exchanged ideas about teaching with another instructor, chances are it was invigorating.  Career Advancement  Professional development often opens doors to career advancement, offering educators opportunities to enhance their expertise, take on leadership roles, or gain recognition within the academic community and beyond. Such progression creates avenues for educators to impact student success on a broader scale. For example, facilitating workshops and training sessions for your department to share your newfound knowledge and skills can, in turn, support more students. Building Community and Professional Networks The relationships forged through professional development activities extend beyond individual learning, enriching the entire educational ecosystem. These networks become invaluable assets for exchanging ideas, tackling common challenges, and building partnerships that elevate the quality of education for all students. About “Teaching with Generative AI: A Course for Educators” The Institute at Macmillan Learning was recently launched to provide instructors with a unique professional development opportunity and equip educators with practical knowledge to embolden them to tackle modern teaching challenges with confidence. In the inaugural course, "Teaching With Generative AI: A Course for Educators," educators will refine their teaching methods, stay on top of cutting-edge technology, expand their professional network, explore ways to leverage artificial intelligence, and more. The course features a mix of asynchronous and synchronous learning, providing hands-on experience in developing course policies around AI, creating assignments with AI in mind, and navigating discussions with students about AI use. Upon course completion, participants will attain a digital certification to share with their institutions and peers via platforms like LinkedIn. Learn more about the course ... View more

During the course, you will access content and assignments via Macmillan Learning courseware platform, Achieve.  ⚠ You may already have an Achieve account, either because you are an adopter or because you have been sampled access to a course to review it as an instructor. You can use this same account to enroll in Teaching with Generative AI as a student. In order to complete course enrollment using these instructions, make sure you are logged out of your Achieve account.   Step 1. Go to achieve.macmillanlearning.com. Step 2. Click “I Need to Enroll in a Course” on the left side of your screen. If you have an existing Achieve account, please ensure you are not logged in.      Step 3. The course enrollment dialog will ask you to enter a CourseID to find the correct course for your enrollment. The CourseID for Teaching with Generative AI is uq39pr. Select Enter once you have entered in the CourseID.     Step 4. The dialog will display the name of the course you are enrolling in. Once you are ready to enroll, select Purchase Achieve Access to be taken to our student storefront to purchase access to the course.    Step 5. Complete your purchase in our Student Store. This video walkthrough will help you. (Please note: this video covers some options that do not apply to the Teaching with Generative AI course, e.g. enrolling via your campus LMS).  Need additional help? You can email Institute course TAs at institute@macmillan.com for help troubleshooting access to the course. You may also contact our support team by clicking the question mark icon in the lower-left corner of the Achieve screen. When contacting tech support, please identify yourself as a student (your role in the Teaching with Generative AI course) rather than as an instructor; this will ensure our team can help you more effectively. Once you’ve completed your Achieve course enrollment, it’s time to get access to your cohort’s dedicated Community site, where you will submit assignments and participate in peer feedback and discussion! Please only complete this process after you’ve successfully enrolled in your Achieve course.    Step 1. Visit https://community.macmillanlearning.com/  Step 2. Sign in using your Achieve account credentials. If you have previously registered for our Community site, skip to Step 5. Step 3. If this is your first time accessing our Community platform, you will be prompted to create a user name. This is the name that will display next to your posts.  Step 4. If this is your first time accessing our Community platform, you will be asked to identify your role. Select Instructor and complete the form requesting information about your role and institution. You will then see a note that we are verifying your account. This process may take up to 48 hours. If you have not received verification of your Community access, please email institute@macmillan.com.  Once your access has been verified, proceed to Step 5.  Step 5. To join the private community for Teaching with Generative AI, go to https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/teaching-with-generative-ai-a/gh-p/group01 and send a request to join this Group Hub. Someone from the Institute will add you to this Community!   ... View more

We are excited to share a new professional development course for educators looking to carefully consider and prepare their courses for a world with widely available generative AI. Whether you've not used AI or have started to implement changes to your course, this experience is for you. Watch this video to find out why. Below are a few things to know about the course. Course Duration: 8 weeks Course Environment: Virtual  Course Timing: Asynchronous modules and synchronous virtual meetings Time Commitment: Fewer than 5 hours per week Course Cost: $299 Cohort Size: 100 participants Credential: Digital certificate Learn more and enroll at macmillanlearning.com/institute.  ... View more

Teaching With Generative AI: A Course for Educators is a new professional development experience from the Institute at Macmillan Learning. This eight-week course starts on July 8th and will focus on equipping educators with knowledge and hands-on support in developing course policies, designing assignments, and navigating conversations with students in the face of generative AI.  Below, you’ll find everything you need to know about the course from the topics that will be covered to information about the course developers and facilitators. Quick Facts About the Course Who is this course for? This course is for any educator looking to learn about AI in education and apply new principles to their teaching. How long is the course? This course will start on July 8th and last for eight weeks  Is this course synchronous or asynchronous? This is a hybrid course with assignments and reading that can be done asynchronously and a few synchronous virtual meetings.  How much time will this course take? We estimate that course participants will spend fewer than 5 hours per week reviewing course materials, completing assignments, and meeting with peers and facilitators. How much does the course cost? The course fee is $299. Sign up today for a special $149 offer. How many participants are being accepted to the course? Each cohort will be limited to 100 participants.  Will I receive a credential for completing this course? Yes, upon successful completion of the course, you will earn a certificate that can easily be shared with your department as well as on LinkedIn.  Expert-Developed Course Modules On Your Schedule Teaching With Generative AI: A Course for Educators will give you access to expert-developed course content that you can do on your schedule. These modules can be completed asynchronously, allowing you to fit them into your busy schedule. The following four modules will help you address several common teaching and learning challenges associated with generative AI. Welcome to Teaching with Generative AI: A Course for Educators Crafting an AI Policy for Your Course Designing Assignments that Integrate Generative AI Navigating Conversations about Students’ Use of AI The content for these modules has been developed by three subject matter experts and reviewed and edited by the Macmillan Learning team. Your subject matter experts for this course are Antonio Byrd, Laura Dumin, and Daniel Frank.  Antonio Byrd, PhD, is assistant professor of English at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He teaches courses in professional and technical communication, multimodal composition, composition studies, and qualitative research methods. He serves on the Modern Language Association and Conference on College Composition and Communication Joint Task Force on Writing and AI (MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI). Established in February 2023, this task force of scholars from different subfields of English gather to support policies, assessments, and teaching about and with artificial intelligence in humanities classes and research. Antonio's first book manuscript From Pipeline to Black Coding Ecosystems: How Black Adults Use Computer Code Bootcamps for Liberation (The WAC Clearinghouse/University Press of Colorado) is forthcoming fall 2024.   Laura Dumin, PhD, is a professor in English and Technical Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma. She has been exploring the impact of generative AI on writing classrooms and runs a Facebook learning community to allow instructors to learn from each other https://www.facebook.com/groups/632930835501841. When she is not teaching, Laura works as a co-managing editor for the Journal of Transformative Learning, directs the Technical Writing BA, and advises the Composition and Rhetoric MA program; she has also been a campus Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) mentor. Laura has created four micro-credentials for the Technical Writing program and one for faculty who complete her AI workshop on campus.   Daniel Frank, PhD,  teaches First Year Composition, multimedia, and technical writing within the Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include AI Writing technologies, game-based pedagogy, virtual text-spaces and interactive fiction, passionate affinity spaces, and connected learning. Dan is always interested in the ways that new technologies interface with the methods of making, communicating, learning, and playing that students are engaged with across digital ecosystems. His pedagogical focus is always rooted in helping students find their own voices and passions as they learn to create, play, and communicate research, argumentation, and writing, across genres, networks, and digital communities. Synchronous Sessions for Facilitator and Peer Support We all stick to our goals better when we have a community of support encouraging us to do so. That’s why there will be synchronous meetings held over Zoom throughout the eight-week course. In these sessions, you’ll receive support from course facilitators and your peer educators as you put theory into practice. Please note that the times of these synchronous meetings will be determined by participant availability. This course will be facilitated by two educators with experience helping others consider AI’s impact, navigate the challenges it brings, and utilize it in their courses. Lisa Blue, PhD,  is an Instructional Specialist focused on STEM-H Teaching & Learning in the Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning at Eastern Kentucky University. A St. Louis native, Dr. Blue holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from Missouri State University and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Blue left a postdoctoral position in the Department of Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis to join a Lexington start-up, Covalent Research Technologies, as the Director of Research and Development where she worked with industry partners to capture mercury, arsenic, and problematic heavy metals from industrial and mining wastewater effluents.  While at Covalent, Dr. Blue returned to teaching part-time as an outlet to share her passion for understanding our natural world. When the start-up company was shuttered in 2012, Dr. Blue joined the University of Kentucky full-time where she taught large General Chemistry lecture courses while supervising the work of graduate students staffing the department’s General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry Learning Centers. In 2021, Dr. Blue joined EKU as the Associate Director of the Center for STEM Excellence before transitioning to her current role in 2023.   Jennifer Duncan, M.A., is Associate Professor of English at Georgia State University Perimeter College, where she teaches online classes in composition, literature, and humanities. Prior to that, she was part of the English faculty at Chattanooga State Community College in Tennessee. Jennifer is particularly interested in creating authentic and valuable writing experiences that engage online students. She holds degrees from Emmanuel College and The University of South Carolina in addition to studying at The University of Tennessee. Jennifer is a faculty consultant for Macmillan Learning.   Coursework You Can Use Each reflection and assignment has been thoughtfully crafted to provide you with practical tools and strategies that you can implement in your course. Through assignments and reflective activities, you’ll be able to develop class policies, generate innovative assignment ideas, and prepare for tough conversations with students.  The Teaching With Generative AI course is designed to empower educators to approach future courses with renewed confidence and enthusiasm, armed with the knowledge and skills to teach through an evolving dynamic brought on by AI.  Learn more about the course Visit the FAQ Page ... View more