The growing need to match pedagogy with the evolving needs of a new generation of learners has stirred and interest in Web 2.0 Blogging can bring a surprisingly rich experience to class projects by increasing collaboration between students and teacher. As a teaching tool, blogging can bring greater complexity to learning that would have otherwise…

One of the challenges of designing curricula in environmental programs is finding ways to cover the social, scientific, and communication content needed by professionals in the field. The authors describe a sequence of writing, critical thinking, and civic engagement experiences during the junior and senior years. Students practice communicating…

Universities are uniquely positioned to lead society toward sustainability and their collaborations with community organizations are essential to this transition. The Biodiesel Program at Loyola University at Chicago Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy provides a case study of course-based service learning projects facilitating…

The authors provide a case study of their own experience teaching Environmental Entrepreneurship. For the past six years, they have been teaching about sustainability through social entrepreneurship in an interdisciplinary partnership with faculty in management, engineering, and earth science. The authors have developed a course in Environmental…

The authors contend that service-learning courses at urban universities can and should play a vital role in the greening of higher education and the promotion of sustainable urban environments. They describe one model outreach program that provides continuing education for middle school teaches and several undergraduate-level courses from…

The environment has become headline news on a regular basis and, in response, going green has become mainstream. Universities have an important responsibility in this context, needing to green both their curriculum and their campus operations. This article describes a course that addresses both these needs at the same time, by providing students…

The business community is increasingly aware of the natural environmental and how a significant number of business practices are adversely affecting that environment and our planet. Businesses must take a leadership role, though economic systems, not only in recovering and preserving our planet but also managing financial and human resources with…

This article argues that teaching as a situated, civic activity must be a core intellectual activity in the engaged metropolitan university. Situated writing provides the key pedagogy for the Chicago Civic Leadership Certificate Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, an engaged public research university. The role of writing, or…

This paper presents three models of cross-disciplinary collaboration. The authors argue this mode of education coupled with traditional college-based courses better prepares students for the demands of an increasingly complex and ambiguous work place. The paper details the benefits of this educational approach and suggests ways schools can…

At Indiana State University, students confront civic realities through experiences provided within the Liberal Learning in Action classes. This program empowers students to make connections between community issues and the tools of "liberal learning," including critical analysis, appreciation of diversity and a strengthened ability to reflect and…

This article makes a case for teaching project management strategies in service-learning courses. The authors describe three specific documents students can create to help them manage a service-learning project and then present strategies that can help students manage their project teams. Such skills, the authors argue, provide the tools students…

Workshops are currently one of the most popular ways for instructors in STEM fields to learn more about teaching and learning. Yet research shows we often do not know what participants gain from attending. This article suggests ways of measuring impact of instructional improvement workshops that will help not only workshop providers with designing…

Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) are established to promote teaching excellence. While CTLs are effective at fostering teaching excellence in the main, they have provided little attention to addressing potentially unique needs of STEM faculty. This article proffers explanations as to why CTLs do not focus on promoting STEM pedagogies and…

Faculty may learn of new pedagogies through mass communication channels such as Web sites, journals, and workshops. Faculty are likely to be persuaded to try these new pedagogies, however, by interpersonal communication with an opinion leader. Using literature and exploratory data we contrast awareness and persuasion and suggest that opinion…

One of the benefits of an applied research funding program such as those within the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Education and Human Resources is the reading and referencing across fields of study and application of ideas from diverse literatures for common social good such as STEM teaching and learning. This benefit resonates…