What Works? Not Best Practices

Any list of best practices has great appeal—sometimes immense popularity. And for good reason. Like prepackaged food, they’re ready to go. For busy faculty who aspire to teach well, they provide time-saving instructional sustenance. There’s no need to search through the literature, which is widely scattered and involves research, often ponderous to read. Someone else has identified and succinctly summarized one or several practices that have risen to the top.