I was recently listening to a book How Learning Works on Audible while traveling for work. One of the sections in the chapter focuses on the integration of active learning into the classroom and specifically references two examples of faculty struggling with active learning activities in the course. One example focused on a faculty member who provided a case study around immigration in their course that led to an uncomfortable conversation among students in the class. In reflecting on the chapter on authentic pedagogy, I reflected quite a bit on my teaching in the classroom and my use of active learning activities and game-base learning. Specifically, I had to really reflect on how my use of authentic pedagogy has advanced the longer I have taught in the discipline. When I first started teaching the didactic approach was easier for me to provide the knowledge I had learned to students through lecture. Furthermore, the classroom that I walked into was oriented toward a didactic approach with students sitting at tables in rows and a projector in the middle of the rooms shining on a screen in the front of the room. Additionally, there was a teacher workstation oriented at the front of the room. However, as I lectured more and more and watched those folks in the back of the class, a generalization I know, slowly fade into a state of sleep and/or blank stares I, I thought to myself how can I get my students more engaged. As I started look into professional development to improve my teaching, I decided there was a need to focus more on authentic pedagogy to engage my student more in their learning. Moreover, as I learned more about teaching I began to look further at my outcomes and how they aligned with course materials and course assessments. I began to think more deeply about what I cared about as a subject matter expert as opposed to just plopping the learning outcomes provided, the course shell provided from my department, and the ready made assessments at the ready. In doing this reflection and learning as an instructor, I also began to care more deeply about what my students should be getting out of my class and decided I wanted them to move further along in Bloom's taxonomy from a place of simply learning what I had to say (remembering) and knowing what the concepts meant (understanding) to being able to apply the material and analyze it and moreover in some higher level courses further evaluate and create their own materials.