This article focuses on describing the interplay between teaching and learning practices in Higher Education and the disciplinary context of such practices. In particular, it aims to address the question of how course design, teaching, and learning activities take place within a particular academic culture and how those activities mutually shape…

The article explores the structure of a graduate educational technology course that used a learner-centered approach to prepare students to be independent responsible learners. Key features of this approach were the balance of power between the instructor and students, involving students in decision-making about their learning, sharing the…

College and university educators seek to increase student engagement in learning content, skills, and applications. To achieve this goal, we used transformative teaching techniques in the design of a World Challenge: a two-week, group-based, reflective course for sophomores leading their own learning in developing creative solutions to the problem…

Interactive technologies make classroom experience more engaging and enjoyable. Students get much more involved in class discussions in the presence of such technologies and tend to learn more through student-student and student-instructor interactions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether student response systems (i.e., clickers)…

This article focuses on assignments designed to enhance critical thinking skills for authoritarian personality types. This paper seeks to add to the literature by exploring instructional methods to overcome authoritarian traits that could inhibit the development of critical thinking skills. The article presents a strategy which can be employed…

The Classroom Performance System (CPS) is an instructional technology that increases student performance and promotes active learning. This study assessed the effect of the CPS on student participation, attendance, and achievement in multicultural college-level anatomy and physiology classes, where students' first spoken language is not…

The common practice of using of guided notes in the post-secondary classroom is not fully appreciated or understood. In an effort to add to the existing research about this phenomenon, the current investigation expands on previously published research and one previously published meta-analysis that examined the impact of guided notes on…

In this paper, we provide an in-depth view of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (UTA) program at Virginia Commonwealth University as a potential model for other large research universities who might wish to implement similar learner-centered initiatives in their first-year experience courses. Unlike graduate teaching assistants, whose primary…

"Theory? What does this have to do with anything we're doing?" Sound familiar? Students may not always verbalize this, but they often think it, especially in courses where the emphasis is on the development of technical skills and the application of those skills to the building of products. Presenting theory in a way that is…

Educators in a variety of disciplines have used clicker technology to engage college students in the learning process. This study investigated the influence of clicker technology on student recall and student involvement in higher education. Student Involvement Theory was used to inform and guide this research. Student recall was evaluated using…

Increasing student critical thinking and active engagement with course content is an ongoing challenge in tertiary education. The present article explores the use of photography in two health sciences courses as a catalyst for the encouragement of critical thinking, creativity, engagement, and problem solving. The authors adapted photography…

In-class debates are frequently used to encourage student engagement. Ideally, after researching both sides of the debate, students will form their own opinions based on what they have learned. However, in a large course of Environmental Science, opinions of students, when surveyed after the debate, were remarkably consistent with the position…

Colleges and universities recognize that one of the primary goals of higher education is to promote students' ability to think critically. Using data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS), this study examined the relationship between faculty teaching practices and the development of students' critical thinking skills,…

Large first year survey units pose unique challenges to both teachers and learners. Survey units are designed to deliver non-disciplinary specific knowledge about a given subject to a wide audience of learners. However, first year students in these units often find that they are unable to identify the architecture of such units, and are hence…

Analysis of assessment activities that encourage student engagement and attainment of higher-order cognitive outcomes within Bloom's Taxonomy (deep learning; Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) supports greater use of individual and group presentations, research reports, and open-book exams. Consistent with this analysis this paper outlines changes made…