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Our Story

Origin

When she first joined the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Professor Meira Levinson identified as “an 8th grade classroom teacher who happened to find herself in a university.” Straddling these two contexts, eager to bridge academic rigor with the reflective practices she knew from K-12 classrooms, Levinson became interested in the idea of an online platform where Harvard instructors might share and gather purposeful, research-based teaching practices. Around this time, the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) was founded as a vehicle for lifting up great teaching and learning around the university. Noting her university colleagues’ growing interest in having conversations about their own teaching practice, Levinson teamed up with Professor Jal Mehta and Professor Matt Miller to craft a proposal that eventually turned into the Instructional Moves (IM) project, an HGSE Decanal Initiative made possible by generous funding from HILT. For the bulk of the creation process,  Levinson has served as the principal investigator with HGSE’s Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL) acting as the design and development engine. More recently, Matt Miller has taken over the faculty lead role alongside Josh Bookin as the Project Lead.

Phase 1 (2015-2017)

After soliciting feedback from colleagues around the university, the IM team decided to focus its first modules on the two instructional modalities most widely used throughout the university – lecturing interactively and facilitating discussions – as well as a third module on “Building Community” that is a foundation for all types of instruction. The next step was to identify faculty members from various settings across the university who employed these methods in exemplary ways, creating engaging and empowering learning environments for their students. After scouring course evaluations, teaching awards, and recommendations from peers, the IM team observed over 30 faculty members, eventually selecting a diverse cross-section of 8 exemplars. For each faculty member, the IM team conducted a multi-camera shoot of a featured class session and interviewed the faculty member and several of their students. Through an iterative design process, which incorporated several rounds of user testing, the team created the set of resources that became this website.

Phase 2 (2018-2019)

With additional support from HILT, the IM team embarked on a process to expand the website. Based on feedback from colleagues, the team decided to enlarge each of the existing modules while also creating a new module on Teaching Through Problems. The team also created a facilitator’s guide for using IM resource and a two-week online course on facilitating effective and inclusive discussions.

Phase 3 (2020-2023)

This phase is composed of three distinct endeavors:

  • An IM book: Jeremy Murphy, our Lead Pedagogy Fellow, and Meira Levinson, our PI, collaborated to write Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education. The book — based on the website content, augmented by additional interviews, and incorporating learnings from the COVID pivot to online learning — is due to be published by Harvard Education Publishing Group in the Summer of 2023. 

  • A new module, with associated professional development experiences: With generous funding from the newly-formed Harvard Culture Lab Innovation Fund (HCLIF), the IM team created a new module on Educating for Equity and Inclusion by taking the abundant equitable and inclusive instructional moves embedded in the existing four modules and making them more visible and navigable by putting them into four thematic pathways. HCLIF then provided additional funding for the IM team to offer synchronous professional learning to the Harvard community leveraging this new module . 

  • Raw Clips Library: The IM team has built a library of curated raw clips from the fifteen full class videos. These raw clips allow instructional coaches and others who lead professional learning to more easily identify clips that can be used as a common experience to explore and discuss instructional practices, providing the opportunity for participants to more actively construct meaning and contribute their own expertise.

Moving Forward

We are currently exploring additional ways to use IM resources for professional development, including in-person institutes at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at other host campuses. If you have interest in these opportunities, feel free to contact Josh Bookin, Director of Instructional Support and Development at HGSE’s Teaching and Learning Lab.

Recognition

The IM team wants to take this opportunity to thank several partners who have played a key role in the project thus far:

  • Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) and the Harvard Culture Lab Innovation Fund (HCLIF) for their generous funding and thoughtful guidance
  • Featured faculty members, for opening up their classroom communities and sharing their insights
  • Harvard Media Production Center, for donating personnel and equipment to support this endeavor
  • Harvard Web Publishing, for going above and beyond in helping create this website