Despite the author's initial skepticism, a classroom set of iPads has reinforced a student-directed approach to writing instruction, while also supporting an inclusive classroom. Using the iPads, students guide their writing process with access to the learning management system, electronic information resources, and an online text editor. Students…

The author began his first year teaching at an open-enrollment university with the belief that "most students can learn to do intellectual work, if they are only given the opportunity." This belief is inspired by the research on teaching and learning and is rooted in the characteristic idealism of teachers. He had seen the principle borne out in…

Motivating college students is challenging. Professors must be energetic, enthusiastic, and current in their field. Typically, once a college student selects a major, the motivation to be successful within that discipline is more intrinsic based on interest associated with the major. However, undecided majors who are enrolled in baccalaureate…

Assessing the potential impact and utility of course assignments are often a matter of informed, yet personal judgment. Here, in this article, doing our own assignments before assigning them to students is explored as a quality assurance measure and as a means to ensure an empathetic and critical approach to developing course work.

This essay argues in favor of college instructors, especially in introductory classes, giving students the freedom to use Wikipedia entries in their research projects. It explores the pedagogy created by rigid prohibitions of potential sources, and argues that at stake are two chief dichotomies: one, students learning by engaging in a process vs.…

When the author retired from teaching after thirty-seven years, he had taught elementary school, junior high school, and thirty years at Johns Hopkins University. He always loved being in the classroom with his students. They energized him, inspired him, humbled him, and taught him in many ways. He learned more from them than they learned from…

The interdisciplinary survey inherits from more traditional survey courses the weaknesses embodied in the survey textbook. The standard textbook presentation gives students the impression that each figure's music, art, or literature is the product of the "spirit of the age." Well-chosen biographies temper that presentation by drawing attention to…

It is not uncommon for college students to be instructed to use scholarly library resources and to avoid using the Internet. This article argues that students should be allowed to use open-Web resources and that the classroom is the best place to teach students how to evaluate the quality of information available on an Internet they will use long…

This article argues that college students can be motivated to be active participants in their own education if made aware of the direct correlation between college learning and corporate work settings. Students can be shown that through the natural course of college learning, they are acquiring valuable core skills or transferable competencies…

The author makes a case for fieldwork as having a strong capacity for increasing both science and nonscience majors' abilities to learn complex concepts, with the added benefit of actively engaging minority and female students in science.

Purpose: Professional health science educational programs have utilized numerous learning strategies including journals, practice patterns, problem-based learning (PBL), case-studies, and hypothesis-oriented algorithm for clinicians (HOAC) (Shepard et al., 2002). While, these learning strategies have found a place in the health science educational…

This essay is a report on the experience of adult transformative learning under the conditions of travel to and within a foreign culture. It is written in the voices and from the perspectives of both teacher and .student. The role of both is analyzed in the context of Mezirow's criteria for transformative learning. this involves structuring the…

This paper/presentation outlines a "top ten list" of key strategies that will aid in the tenure process for new faculty members. Research and focus group comments are interwoven with the experiences of one faculty member. The strategies described include; integrating teaching, research and service, learning the culture and politics, organization,…

Leading a productive discussion, one that both engages students and enhances their understanding, may be the most complex and challenging task in teaching. This article explores three approaches to increasing the productivity of discussions. They include framing discussions in a way that allows students easier access to the topic, making the kind…

This essay argues that teachers would be more effective at promoting students' willingness to work hard at course content that seems to them remote and abstract if teachers explicitly presented that content to students more as a means to their education rather than as the aim of their education. Teachers should confront the fact that most of the…