STEM education researchers have generated and documented the efficacy of many instructional strategies and materials. Few of these have propagated widely. Thus, lack of propagation, not lack of innovation, is a key limiting factor hindering improvements in higher education teaching and learning. To help education developers create products that are more likely to propagate we have created a How-To Guide. This guide is built on our research and experience as well as the literature on change from a variety of perspectives, including studies on educational change, organizational change, social psychology, and diffusion of innovations. The guide describes and explains how to address four common mistakes made by education developers: 1) Concentrate on dissemination by telling and ignore other key elements of a propagation plan to promote adoption; 2) Ignore the literature on change and adoption of innovations; 3) Focus on product development and ignore multiple factors that will hinder adoption of products; 4) Wait until near the end of the project to begin work on promoting adoption. In this talk I will introduce core ideas from the How-To Guide that education developers and education researchers can use to increase the impact of their work.
