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…

In order to achieve their course learning outcomes, public affairs instructors can train students to solve real community problems (SRCP). This approach focuses on the learners themselves and aims to transform the role of college professors from traditional teaching (lecturing) to facilitating and coaching students' learning activities. This…

Classroom experiences influence a diverse array of student outcomes, such as academic and cognitive development, interpersonal skills, and the amount of time students engage in academic activities. Collaborative learning is an important pedagogy that is particularly meaningful for graduate students, who are often adults returning to college. This…

The authors describe principles of good teaching drawn from meta-analyses of research on teaching effectiveness. Recent developments in neurobiology are presented and aligned to provide biological support for these principles. To make it easier for college faculty to try out sample instructional strategies, the authors map principles of good…

The authors captured students' and instructors' views of teaching effectiveness at the postsecondary level in two ways: open-ended questions delivered online to 500 students and one-on-one interviews with 15 instructors. A grounded theory approach suggested that effective teaching involves good communication aimed at helping students…

Many instructors seek to improve student engagement, but determining how to achieve student engagement can be complex and complicated. The authors sought to explore how the implementation of active-learning strategies in undergraduate history courses at a metropolitan community college using graphic organizers and group discussion impacted student…

This study examined the characteristics of effective teaching as perceived by undergraduate adjunct faculty members in a large proprietary university. Three factors were identified through an exploratory factor analysis: Regard for the Student, Instructor Competence, and Instructional Proficiency. The author concludes that additional studies are…

The author chronicles his experiments with inquiry-based learning (IBL) as he applied lessons from the literature and assessed the results. He describes a difficult journey with the result that, with the help of the literature, supportive colleagues and patient, creative students, he learned how to design courses that invite undergraduates to…

As technology and media become more popular pedagogical tools for instructors, the discussion of using films as a way to help students understand criminological concepts is also growing. Using a conceptual framework of popular criminology, the author set out to explore the ways in which films can be incorporated into a unique course aimed at…

This study explored the interplay between the frequency with which faculty members at eight technical colleges in Georgia used 18 instructional practices and their perceptions of the effectiveness of those practices to aid students in accomplishing three student learning outcomes: information acquisition, knowledge application, and skills…

Despite years of research on effective teaching suggesting that learners must engage actively in the process and that teachers should vary their instructional strategies, direct instruction using lecture continues to dominate in America's college classrooms. The author reviews selected studies focusing on effective instructional practices and…

Even seasoned public relations (PR) practitioners can find it difficult to handle communications during a crisis situation when the consequences of making poor decisions may seem overwhelming. This article shares results from using a collaborative simulation to teach college students about crisis communications in an advanced-level PR course.…

This study documents the effects of service-learning as it was introduced and brought to scale in an introductory undergraduate course in Reading Foundations for students seeking to become early and middle childhood education teachers. Participants included multiple cohorts of students in multiple instantiations of the course taught with and…

The purpose of this study was to enhance students' learning by supplementing a multimedia lesson with interesting and relevant video clips (VCs). Undergraduate students watched a target material PowerPoint (tmPP) presentation with voice-over lecture covering the Big Five trait theory of personality. Students were randomly assigned to one of four…

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…