While online programs continue to grow at an astounding rate in higher education, many faculty remain skeptical of the efficacy of online models. This article provides an overview of some significant benefits of online education while recognizing some common concerns. An examination of the current literature and the authors' own online…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method where student learning occurs in the context of solving an authentic problem. PBL was initially developed out of an instructional need to help medical school students learn their basic sciences knowledge in a way that would be more lasting while helping to develop clinical skills…

The authors compared student perceptions of audio and written feedback in order to assess what types of students may benefit from receiving audio feedback on their essays rather than written feedback. Many instructors previously have reported the advantages they see in audio feedback, but little quantitative research has been done on how the…

This study developed a reliable and valid self-monitoring procedure for student use in recording and rating the quality of their individual comments in large college classes. Students used daily record cards immediately to record and rate each comment they made each day. However, a limit was set on the amount of credit students could claim for…

From a student perspective, grades are a central part in the educational experience. In an effort to learn more about student motivation for learning and grades, this study was designed to examine student reactions to the opportunity to choose between the traditional individual grading structure and a group grading structure where all students…

This article explores an evolving mentor-mentee relationship between a nonnative English-speaking (NNES) advisor and an NNES graduate student by providing recounts of the work in which they engaged to prepare the NNES graduate student for the demands of advanced academic literacy and for teaching in higher education in the context of a Ph.D.…

The authors report on a qualitative multiple case study exploring the perceptions of nonnative English-speaking (NNES) and native English-speaking (NES) graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) toward undergraduate preservice teachers at a university located in the Southwestern United States. Three NNES GTAs and one NES GTA participated in the study.…

The purpose of the authors' study was to understand the reasons why students comply with requests instructors make and compare these reasons with instructors' perceptions of why students comply. Students and faculty at two universities completed the Interpersonal Power Inventory to assess reasons for compliance. Students were more likely to comply…

The authors present a case study examining a university library initiative intended to increase students' information literacy through effective collaboration with teaching faculty--specifically, the collaboration between an academic librarian and a social work professor. The professor participated in the information literacy initiative and…

Many instructors strive to encourage student reading outside of class and active learning in class. One pedagogical tool, structured reading questions, can help do both. Using examples from question sets across six courses, the authors illustrate how reading questions can help students achieve the six active-learning principles described by…

The author integrates work from cognitive and developmental psychology with studies in writing in order to explain why the quality of student writing sometimes appears to regress to earlier or less proficient levels. Insights from this combined analysis are applied to explain how and why to use specific Writing Across the Curriculum strategies to…

The author's quasi-experimental study compares undergraduate students' academic performance and experiences as a function of using electronic (n = 117) versus traditional (n = 116) textbooks in a developmental psychology course. Student exam scores did not differ significantly as a function of textbook format. Students who used the traditional…

In academia, scholarship has long been privileged over teaching and service, which traditionally have been considered "women's work." In 1990, Boyer envisioned "the scholarship of teaching" as a way to legitimize teaching as a scholarly activity. The authors investigated whether Boyer's vision has been realized--specifically, whether the…

Student engagement is a significant challenge facing administrators and faculty at institutions of higher learning (Carle, Jafee, Vaughn, & Eder, 2009). While the research emphasis to this point has been on students' perceptions of overall engagement (macro-engagement) across all of their experiences within a university, the authors assert that it…

Can professors, through their casual, random remarks to students, alter lives and transform identities? The answer, based on two exploratory studies described in this article, appears to be yes. Drawing from constructive-developmental ideas of student maturation and from features of chaos theory as applied to the complex dynamic system of…