Writing an Innovation Abstracts
Becoming an author for Innovation Abstracts offers a unique opportunity to share your expertise, showcase your innovative teaching methods, and contribute to a community committed to educational excellence. By writing for Innovation Abstracts, you’ll not only gain recognition among peers and leaders in community and technical colleges, but you’ll also play a vital role in advancing student success. Each published piece reaches a wide, engaged audience eager to adopt practical insights and new strategies. Whether you’re pioneering a new approach or refining an effective practice, your article can inspire real change in classrooms nationwide, establishing you as a thought leader in your field. Suggested topics include:
- Active Learning Techniques – Interactive methods for increasing student engagement in virtual and in-person settings.
- Equity and Inclusion – Strategies for fostering inclusive classrooms that support students of diverse backgrounds.
- Student Retention and Success – Approaches to improving student retention rates and supporting students through challenges.
- Mental Health and Wellness – Supporting student and instructor mental health, including resources and proactive practices.
- Innovative Assessment Practices – Alternatives to traditional grading that assess student learning more effectively.
- Integrating Technology in Teaching – Using educational technology tools to enhance learning outcomes and streamline instruction.
- Online and Hybrid Teaching Best Practices – Developing effective online or hybrid courses that engage students.
- Project-Based and Experiential Learning – Encouraging hands-on learning experiences that relate to real-world applications.
- Interdisciplinary Teaching – Collaborating across subjects to enrich the student learning experience.
- Critical Thinking and Problem Solving – Techniques to build critical thinking skills and promote intellectual curiosity.
- Classroom Management in a Post-Pandemic World – New approaches to maintaining a productive, respectful classroom.
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) – Implementing UDL principles to make courses accessible to all students.
- Digital Literacy for Students – Ensuring students have the skills to navigate digital platforms and resources effectively.
- Supporting First-Generation College Students – Strategies to help first-generation students succeed academically and personally.
- Soft Skills Development – Teaching teamwork, communication, and adaptability, which are vital for today’s workforce.
- Ethics and Social Responsibility in Education – Instilling ethical reasoning and social awareness within course material.
- Student-Centered Curriculum Design – Involving students in curriculum choices to make learning more relevant.
- Adapting to Changing Workforce Needs – Aligning curriculum and teaching methods with evolving industry standards and job market demands.
- Data-Driven Teaching – Using data analytics to understand and respond to students’ learning patterns.
- Service Learning and Community Engagement – Encouraging students to connect learning with community service.
Useful Information for Authors
What Is Innovation Abstracts?
NISOD’s flagship teaching and learning publication, Innovation Abstracts, is written by practitioners for practitioners. Issues are distributed electronically to NISOD member colleges bi-weekly during the fall and spring semesters. The specific purpose of Innovation Abstracts is the dissemination of information useful for improving instruction at community and technical colleges.
Who Reads Innovation Abstracts?
Readers include faculty members, administrators, and staff at NISOD member colleges.
What Content Should Be Included in Innovation Abstracts?
- Descriptions of successful and practical classroom teaching and learning programs, projects, or strategies that improve student learning; or
- Research that leads to successful and practical classroom teaching and learning programs, projects, or strategies that improve student learning.
Author Guidelines
- Innovation Abstracts are generally between 1200 and 1500 words and follow APA formatting.
- Innovation Abstracts are original thought pieces and do not have to include citations in the text or a reference or bibliographic section.
- Innovation Abstracts are written for faculty, counselors, and academic administrators.
- Innovation Abstracts should be clear, jargon-free, and include definitions of any special terms.
- Innovation Abstracts explain strategies, programs, and projects that have the potential for easy and inexpensive application across a wide variety of disciplines.
Composing Your Innovation Abstracts:
- Create a concise introduction that informs readers about your paper’s topic and purpose.
- This section should include sufficient context for your strategy, program, or practice to help readers understand why the topic is important, including why and how you came up with your idea, strategy, program, or project. Body paragraphs should build upon one other and fully explain the process of implementing your idea, strategy, program, or project in the classroom.
- Think about how each sentence within your paragraphs is functioning and whether your paragraphs have sufficient information to make the intended points.
- A topic sentence states the main idea of a paragraph. Beginning a paragraph with a topic sentence ensures that readers recognize early on in the paragraph what larger idea the paragraph is going to discuss.
- Body sentences develop the topic of the paragraph. These sentences are descriptive and enumerate points for readers to give them a sense of your paper’s bigger picture.
- Linking sentences relate back to your paper’s main purpose by showing how the idea of that paragraph matches the overall goal of your paper.
- Concluding sentences bring a section to its end before you move on to a new section.
- Use transition sentences to guide readers smoothly from the topic of the preceding paragraph into the topic of the new paragraph.
- Consider the conclusion from the reader’s perspective.
- At the end of a paper, summarize your key points to remind readers about what you’ve discussed. In addition, readers want to know how they and/or their students will benefit from what you described in your paper. Remind readers about the implications or importance of your topic.
Other Notes
- Innovation Abstracts published by NISOD cannot be submitted to other places of publication; however, they can be developed into new pieces and submitted elsewhere.
- NISOD does not accept Innovation Abstracts pieces that have been published elsewhere; however, we accept previously published pieces that have been significantly redeveloped or updated.
- Innovation Abstracts are not refereed.