University course design and delivery

How to design in-person, hybrid and online courses that maximise student engagement, inclusion and learning. Here, you can find advice on instructional design including lesson planning, creation and organisation of educational materials and effective use of digital technologies; as well as teaching methods and styles to help you achieve specific learning outcomes.

Kittens fight each other

Five tips for debating sensitive issues in the classroom – without losing control

Find out how to create a learning environment where controversial topics can be debated fairly and constructively, with these five tips

Hélène Thibault

Nazarbayev University

Students work together over a laptop

Tips for embedding flipped learning at an institutional level

The benefits of flipped learning are clear, but what about scaling it up across an entire university structure? Here are some strategies – and lessons learned

Julia Chen, Wong Chi-ming, Laura Zhou

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

A student takes notes during a group Zoom call

How students really feel about collaborative tasks in online learning

Online learning often includes paired or group work, but research has found this can often provoke anxiety in students. Here’s how to listen to what they want and build the skill of collaboration

Poppy Gibson, Sagun Shrestha, Helena Staszkiewicz

The Open University

A young woman operates a camera

Preparing media studies students for an unknown future

Today’s media studies students need more than technical skills – they need the agility to survive in a changing industry. Here’s how to teach film, TV and digital media to the next generation of storytellers

Doug Specht

University of Westminster

An illustration of a green light bulb, wearing a mortarboard

How to embed sustainability in your business school

Vague symbolic gestures and greenwashing are no longer enough to show your institution is taking sustainability seriously. Here’s how to embed sustainable teaching and research

Muhammad Ikram

Al Akhawayn University

A student struggles in class

Embrace mistakes in your teaching and help your students learn from them

Incorporating mistakes into your teaching can be transformative. Here’s how to introduce the idea of failing to your students in a controlled environment

Özen Çatal

Near East University

Students listen to a lecture

Five ways to embed anti-racist pedagogy

With the race awarding gap widening, facilitating conversations about race between staff and students is crucial. Embedding anti-racist pedagogy in your classroom can pave the way – here’s how

Yaz Osho, Danielle Chavrimootoo

University of Westminster

Students use their phones

What your students are thinking about artificial intelligence

GenAI has been quickly adopted by students, but the consequences of using it as a shortcut could be grave. A study into how students think about and use GenAI offers insights into how teaching might adapt

Florencia Moore, Agostina Arbia

Universidad Austral

A young woman works at her laptop at the library

Integrating the university library into teaching and learning: why and how

Where is the library positioned within your institutional structure? Steve Briggs makes the case for integrating it into the teaching and learning unit

Steve Briggs

University of Bedfordshire

A toy robot sits on a stack of books

Turn AI from a magic box into a tool to be interrogated

Instead of ‘ban it or embrace it’, the AI Collaboration Toolkit offers a way for educators to frame AI as a collaborator, with ethical guard rails built in and an emphasis on the student’s thinking. Here’s how it works

Lucy Gill-Simmen, Will Shüler

Royal Holloway, University of London

A suited man and a robot face off in boxing gloves

Help your graduates beat AI in job market by building transferable skills

Artificial intelligence is always going to have the edge when it comes to knowledge, so prepare students to become well-rounded employees. Find out how to equip them with transferable skills

Aliasgar Shahiwala, Rahma Nasir Iqbal

Dubai Medical University

Students raise their hands in a lecture hall

Seven strategies to fuel students’ motivation

Keep your students motivated – not just for one class, but across a whole term. Find out seven ways to build sustainable motivation in the classroom

Hanife Bensen Bostanci

Near East University

Young male teaching assistant with two college students

Motivation by design: faculty-led strategies for learning that matters

Apps or algorithms alone won’t drive the students of the future to learn. Rather, it will be faculty domain expertise that aligns with how they think, work and learn. Margaret Ellis explains how to design learning for student motivation

Margaret Ellis

Virginia Tech

A lecturer speaks to a group wearing a microphone headset

Six thinkers and five tips to reimagine business education

Reach beyond traditional business models and take inspiration from sociology, philosophy and educational theory for a well-rounded, resilient approach to business education

Lakshmi Goel, Yassine El Bouchikhi

Al Akhawayn University

A young student stands up to make a point

Let’s teach students to disagree well

Conflict is an integral part of life, building better communication and understanding of each other’s differences. Equip students with the tools to do it well

Audra Spicer

Colorado State University Global

Students work on a project round a table

Make employability meaningful: developing soft skills with social justice work

The growing demand for students to gain workplace skills could see employability crudely bolted on to existing courses. But partnering with charities and social justice organisations can make it more meaningful – here’s how

Jac St John, Naomi Oppenheim

University of Westminster

Two people write on a whiteboard

Two heads are better than one: a practical guide to co-teaching

Co-teaching can benefit not only students and academics, but administrative staff as well. Here, Dinara Pisareva and Andrei Semenov explain how to find a compatible partner, plan and navigate when educators’ approaches diverge

Dinara Pisareva, Andrey Semenov

Nazarbayev University

Ozzy Osbourne star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Ozzy Osbourne taught me how to survive academia

The Prince of Darkness helped me to build a university career, writes Brittany Anne Carlson. Here, she offers five tips to help fellow educators and researchers stay aboard their own academic ‘crazy train’

Brittany Anne Carlson

Westminster College

A professor takes a question during a lecture

How to motivate students? The answer hasn’t changed

We all know how to motivate students – it’s putting theory into practice that’s the problem. Understanding how motivation works can help

Ian Taylor

Loughborough University

A lecturer stands in front of a microphone

What to do when faculty spread conspiracy theories in the classroom

Are your university colleagues superspreaders of misinformation? Here’s what to do when fellow academics promote conspiracy theories, and how to safeguard critical thinking – without compromising academic freedom

Stefan T. Siegel

University of St Gallen

A group of educators designing a curriculum

Institutions must work together to build innovative curricula

Collaboration across institutions can drive real curriculum innovation. This guide shares lessons from two east London-based institutions on building partnerships for sustainability and community-based learning

Stephanie Fuller, Rehan Shah, Anne Preston

UCL, Queen Mary University of London

Illustration of groups of students

What comes next for the block model in university teaching?

Six critical challenges face higher education institutions that have adopted block planning for their teaching schedules as the approach matures and expands globally, writes John Weldon

John Weldon

Victoria University

Two students working on a laptop together

From static to dynamic: how a Moodle plugin makes tutorials more interactive

Transforming quizzes from static assessments into live learning tools, JazzQuiz enables real-time feedback, anonymous participation and adaptive teaching, fostering deeper engagement, dialogue and understanding

Ying Feng

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

An AI helps a student learn

GenAI’s personalised learning could be a game-changer for disabled and neurodivergent students

Using GenAI to provide a truly learner-centric approach to both online and in-person learning could make a real difference to disabled and neurodivergent students. Here’s how

Lynne Beveridge, Melody Terras, Graham Scott, Naeem Ramzan

University of the West of Scotland

A lecturer is illuminated by the stage lights

The lecture is dead – long live the performance

An electrifying lecture can still engage students and bring them together in a way ChatGPT can’t compete with. Discover the key elements of stagecraft and how to apply them to your lecture performances

Matthew Alford, Thommie Gillow

University of Bath

Students working on a COIL project in class

Five tips for running a successful COIL project

Discover ways to encourage collaboration, nurture curiosity and equip students with the skills they need to succeed in collaborative online learning projects

Gareth J. Williams, Glenn A. Williams

Nottingham Trent University

Workers in hard hats and hi-vis discuss their plans

The autonomy paradox: why graduate apprentices need both freedom and support to thrive

Graduate apprentices who report high levels of autonomy in their workplace learning don’t necessarily achieve better outcomes. Here’s what they need to succeed

Elaine Jackson, Alan MacDonald

University of the West of Scotland

A journalist interviews a man in a raincoat

It’s up to universities to embed climate literacy in the next generation of journalists

With the climate crisis intensifying, the media’s role in informing the public will be critical. Here’s how to equip journalism and media students with the tools to do so

Doug Specht, Anastasia Denisova, Morgan Lirette

University of Westminster

Students gather on campus for the first time

Connect new students through the three Ts: teams, talking and Telegram

Find out how to help new students build connections with their peers and communicate with their professors, using these three tips

Kenneth Wai-Ting Leung

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

A teacher engages with the class

Three strategies to get students back to the classroom

Students’ disengagement with in-person learning seems to be lingering far beyond the pandemic. Find out three ways to get them back to the classroom – physically, cognitively and emotionally

Henry T Y Fung

Hong Kong Baptist University

Group of Asian students looking at computer

Laying foundations: how to keep first-year students invested in their learning

The challenge for higher education foundation courses is to prepare students for university learning and build their confidence without overwhelming them with information. This guide explains how

Yeow Leong Lee

Singapore Management University

Young entrepreneurs chat happily in a breakout space

How to position entrepreneurship as a graduate skill

Entrepreneurial thinking is at the top of employers’ wish lists – but how to integrate these skills in education?

Robert Crammond

University of the West of Scotland

A robot hand holds a lightbulb

Does GenAI provide the opportunity for creativity to take centre stage?

With GenAI, routine skills are on tap – creativity should now be a core literacy. Ioannis Glinavos explores what that means for higher education

Ioannis Glinavos

University of Westminster

Students on laptops in a classroom

A scaffolded approach to teaching with GenAI

As GenAI continues to reshape higher education, this four-phase framework by Rena Beatrice Alcalay offers educators ways to guide students to use these tools critically and ethically, fostering agency, bias awareness and deeper engagement in philosophical writing assignments

Rena Beatrice Alcalay

Technical University of Munich

Medical staff laugh together

How translanguaging can improve the learning experience and boost students’ confidence

Research into nursing education in Indonesia found using two or more languages in the learning environment allowed students to grasp technical concepts quickly and easily. Here’s how it worked

Erikson Saragjh

Universitas Sumatera Utara

Students work with plants, a model of the Earth and a solar panel around a table

Sustainability education isn’t just an add-on – it’s a foundation for the future

If universities want to nurture future leaders capable of addressing the world’s most pressing challenges — climate change, inequality, poverty – they must go beyond surface-level curriculum reforms. Here’s how to create the space for your students to grapple with these issues

Maria Jose Murcia

Universidad Austral

A robot hand presses a key on a laptop keyboard

‘Don’t be sorry, just declare it’: safeguarding the integrity of the essay

With the advent of GenAI, higher education has pronounced the essay dead. Benito Cao argues there are signs of life – and explains how to protect its integrity

Benito Cao

The University of Adelaide

An educator leads a class

Competence matters more than content in sustainability education

Instead of teaching the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals head on, find the competencies business managers will need to take on the challenges of the future. Here’s how

Rhoda Davidson, Hans-Jörg Schlierer

EMLyon Business School

podcast graphic

Campus talks: are we facing a crisis in critical thinking in higher education?

Two academic experts in strategic decision-making and education discuss critical thinking, why it is under threat and what role it plays in preparing students for their digitally curated futures

Olivier Sibony, Tony Wagner

HEC Paris, Learning Policy Institute

Skeleton sled event

Equipping university graduates to think beyond the classroom

Too many students – and some educators – misunderstand what critical thinking entails. Here, Marie Paretti explains why engineering students in particular struggle with open-ended problems, and how educators can design experiences that help them learn to think in context

Marie Paretti

Virginia Tech

Two language students reading a physical document

Content is king in EAP teaching

Content-based instruction is reshaping English for academic purposes teaching by making subject matter central to language learning. Garth Elzerman and Catherine Sari share four strategies for creating deeper, more purposeful engagement in the classroom

Garth Elzerman, Catherine Sari

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

A university student standing outside a campus building

Four ways to help students develop critical thinking skills

Students’ success increasingly depends on their ability to demonstrate critical thinking and research skills. Here are four ways to help them develop these complex abilities through effective data analysis training and course design

Justin Fendos

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Bite-sized canapes are presented on a slate

Bite-sized learning: when less can be more

Could snappy, focused micromodules appeal more to the social media generation than traditional lectures? Perhaps – but only if they’re carefully implemented. Here’s how to do it

Aditi Jhaveri

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Two people, one carrying a hard hat, shake hands

Partnerships to make higher education work for the workforce

Fostering long-term industry partners can enhance student outcomes and prepare them for the workplace of the future. Here’s how to get the best out of them

Brooke Wilson

Colorado State University Global

A student raising his hand in class

How to get students asking better questions

Better questions can spark deeper discussions, boost engagement and develop critical thinking. These practical strategies – from questioning frameworks to encouraging peer review and self-directed assessment – can build a more curious, enquiry-driven classroom

Gareth Owen

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

A librarian helps a student, using a laptop

Information literacy is a core skill – and libraries are ideally placed to embed it

Librarians can be instrumental in developing students’ information literacy. Here’s how one university library developed a course to improve information literacy skills in healthcare disciplines

Marine Rigeade

Université Paris-Est Créteil

A video gamer with a headset on is seen from the back

A guide to embedding esports for employability

Competitive video gaming is growing – and its power could be harnessed in your classroom. Here’s how to integrate esports to foster transferable skills in students

Gavin Baxter

University of the West of Scotland

East Asian students crowding around a laptop in class

Build rapport to encourage Chinese students to speak up

Faced with students’ shyness and culture shock, how can English for academic purposes teachers on international branch campuses help them gain confidence in speaking English?

Ritchie Bowen

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

An illustration of a woman with a laptop sitting on a giant chip

Are students outsourcing the wrong tasks to AI?

Students are using AI to tackle tasks that could be crucial to intellectual development. How can educators judge which tasks to offload and which ones are important for learning?

Alex Grzankowski

Birkbeck, University of London

A group of corporate employees

Teach business students to write like executives

Many business students struggle to communicate with impact. Teach them to pitch ideas on a single page to build clarity, confidence and work-ready communication skills

José Ignacio Sordo Galarza

Tecnológico de Monterrey