Instructors cannot be expected to offer equitable and effective teaching if they are not educated in pedagogy, provided with ongoing professional learning, and supported with appropriate rewards, recognitions, and resources. While efforts to make undergraduate STEM education more equitable and effective will likely require many instructors to adjust their practices—this responsibility does not rest solely or even primarily with them. Any efforts taken by instructors should be supported in practical, material, and logistical ways, and encouraged and supported by their colleagues, departments, institutions, and disciplinary organizations and professional societies.

Leaders of academic units (such as department chairs) can start advancing this work by supporting an effort to review curriculum and articulate program-level learning goals. They can engage instructors in examining the structure of STEM programs as well as how their programs align with the needs of the current and future student population. This exploration is best accomplished by reflections informed by quantitative and qualitative disaggregated data. These changes will require academic units to value teaching in hiring, evaluations, and reward structures for instructors.

Institutional leaders create the environment in which academic units and STEM instructors adapt current policies, practices, and instructional methods to improve educational outcomes for all students. Critical to this could be using more holistic approaches to teaching evaluation, and providing the data needed by academic units and instructors to improve courses, programs, student outcomes, experience, belonging, and other affective measures. Institutional leaders set the tone and influence the culture and can provide the necessary support so that professional learning opportunities are accessible and rewarded for all instructors.

Developers of instructional materials and resources use the Principles for Equitable and Effective Teaching as a guide for informing design from the initial stages of conceptualization. Developers should work collaboratively with experts in teaching and learning (and experienced instructors) to create both the instructional materials and the professional learning, support, and guidance that instructors will need to equitably and effectively use their products.

Professional, academic, and disciplinary societies and organizations should publicly endorse and elevate the Principles for Equitable and Effective Teaching and adopt them to guide their work related to undergraduate education. They should also work with teaching experts to develop, curate, and promote resources for addressing discipline-specific teaching needs and offer events that showcase and disseminate practices, tools, data, and research related to implementing equitable and effective teaching in their discipline.