1) Dear #AcademicTwitter, I'd love to do something productive and positive in the face of today's depressing health and political news (and faced with crushing end-of-term duties). I'd love to start a thread on positive, actual change in higher ed...

2) I'd love us to each share a book, an article, a program, that is giving us not just ideas but concrete evidence for hope and change, even in the face of disaster. I'm so proud of our @TLH_CUNY program and want to know about what others are doing where they are, on any level.

3) The book giving me hope today is by Nobel Laureate Carl Weiman, "Improving How Universities Teach Science: Lessons from the Science Education Initiative." At @UnivColorado and @UBC he led massive programs in active learning in science.

4) Among findings: profs WANT to teach well, improve--but when institutions only reward research productivity and funding, there is a dis-incentive to spend time improving your teaching--even though everyone likes life more when they enjoy teaching and see students learn.

5)There's facts, research, outcomes packed into this book, inc ways they changed their ideas in the course of the projects (i.e. THEY learned too!) and things that did not work. The book is written with exemplary clarity--for the uncoverted. For change. No jargon, platitudes

6) It's great for convincing administrators in ANY field to invest in teaching, to rebalance the out-of-whack rewards hierarchy. (This is my slide and one we use @TLH_CUNY as a model, mission, and institutional goal.)

7)Okay, so that's my optimistic, productive pick of the day. I'd love to hear yours--again, esp success stories of programs, methods, classes, ideas that work! "Improving How Universities Teach ____"? Any candidates you want to put out there to cheer us all? @AnyClassroom