A faculty member given the opportunity to become a full-time undergraduate for a term rediscovers what the student experience is like and learns where to make improvements in instruction. (MSE)

A proposed course featuring the teaching of chemistry to nonscience majors in the context of detective fiction is described. (MSE)

A study of the full-time faculty rated highest by students and peers found that they used distinctive classroom interaction patterns including criterion-based praise of student verbal communication, expansion on student ideas, encouragement after error, provide alternatives for students to choose, and other indirect support of student…

Interviews with students in a writing course reveal that student perceptions of their own and their teachers' role affect learning, and have implications for improving instructional practices in classes requiring student writing. (MSE)

A week-long formal training institute preparing teaching assistants in French for classroom and other responsibilities is outlined. The program features course and student management techniques as well as instructional methods. (MSE)

A technique for writing instruction that integrates reading, writing, and oral presentations in the classroom has been effective in teaching students the close relationship between the organization of speech and the organization of written material. (MSE)

A new dean describes his use of proficiency tests to assess the educational status of entering students and to initiate changes in the instructional program in English as a second language. (MSE)

The University of Michigan vs. Scott Ewing case, in which a medical student who had not passed a required examination was dismissed, and the potential for legal pressure brought to writing teachers and writing programs are discussed. (MSE)

Interviews with eight faculty members from diverse disciplines who are seriously attempting to integrate writing into their undergraduate courses revealed their attitudes about the importance of student writing, instructional purposes, assignments, class time devoted to writing-related activities, institutional rewards for these efforts, and the…

College faculty and administrations must work together to eliminate barriers to instructional improvement (such as resistance to self-evaluation and classroom observation) and create effective programs. Programs imposed on faculty will be threatening but those devised cooperatively will focus on the benefits of self-improvement. (MSE)

This article discusses college-level writing assignments designed to stimulate students to (1) explore initial student attitudes, (2) activate prior knowledge, (3) increase subject relevance, (4) clarify and organize course material, (5) connect new and previously known material, (6) improve critical thinking skills, and (7) develop and strengthen…

A college English teacher discusses how her experience in learning to play a guitar has illuminated the teaching and learning processes, especially for first-year composition students who are motivated but not talented, or not highly motivated and expect failure. It is concluded that patience and kindness are important teaching tools. (MSE)

Several college teachers formed a writing circle to talk about their writing, improve writing skills, and develop articles for publication. An unanticipated outcome was improvement of instruction through adoption of new teaching methods, increased empathy with students as writers, and ability to reach students at different stages of intellectual…

One college writing teacher engaged his class in the revision of a computer program to check grammar, focusing on improvement of the algorithms for identifying inappropriate uses of the passive voice. Process and problems of constructing new algorithms, effects on student writing, and other algorithm applications are discussed. (MSE)

An activity in a college statistics class had students go to a field of grass and clover and use a variety of estimation, probability, sampling, distribution, and calculation techniques for determining the number of flowers in the field. The activity focused on the discovery process, encouraged abstract reasoning, and was pleasurable. (MSE)