A first year non-majors biology course, with an enrollment of around 440 students, has been redesigned from a course of traditional content and teaching style to one that emphasizes biological concepts in current global issues and incorporates active learning strategies. We were informed by the education literature incorporating many aspects of…

The minimal-marking project conducted in Ryerson's School of Journalism throughout 2012 and early 2013 resulted in significantly higher grammar scores in two first-year classes of minimally marked university students when compared to two traditionally marked classes. The "minimal-marking" concept (Haswell, 1983), which requires…

Concerned about the success rate of new students in our program we designed and implemented a compulsory set of experiences which aim to support students in their transition from high school to university by (1) developing their sense of belonging to a community of learners and by (2) articulating with them the interrelationships among their first…

The primary purpose of the study described here was to document the first author's experiences delivering a repertoire of evidence-based comprehension strategies in context of a first-year university course. We first provide an overview of the literature related to students' transition into the postsecondary environment, arguing for the…

The rise of the research intensive university has led some critics to argue that teaching has been discounted in favour of research, and thus the academy has "failed...their undergraduate populations" (Boyer Commission, 1998, p .5). This paper examines instructor perceptions of inquiry at an institution with a significant history of providing…