The action research method of appreciative inquiry (AI) was employed to develop a teaching tool. This exercise involves students' reflections on a course, noting when they learned the most. The AI process of appreciating, envisioning, dialoging, and innovating is used to help students reflect on how they learn. Instructors of all types of courses…

A number of Western-based faculty travel abroad to China each year to teach university-level Chinese students (Ozturgut, 2007) including the researcher of this study. Western and Eastern cultural differences were a main factor attracting faculty, but also prompted the need for effective communication and awareness (Durant & Shepherd, 2009).…

Negative self-talk and appraisals of self-efficacy can damage students' abilities to do well in college and lead to self-fulfilling prophesies where students fail to meet their academic and professional potentials. This multi-class activity uses appreciative coaching to help students utilize a positive mindset and achieve academic and professional…

Campus outdoor recreation programs can play an integral role in developing student leaders. In this study, we sought a better understanding of the shared positive elements exemplary outdoor programs are using to develop their student leaders. The study was designed using a collective case study methodology and the theoretical lens of the…

This article considers the impact of a two-year collaborative European Union-funded project. The 'Sustainable Ways to Increase Higher Education Students' Equal Access to Learning Environments' (SWING) project, brought together four European higher education institutions, one institution in Egypt and two in Morocco. It aimed to promote equal access…

Positive psychology is one of the newest branches of psychology to emerge, and there is a growing research base of scientific study to validate the significance of this psychological approach in people's lives. This research investigates a unit of study that was developed for students entering university through an enabling program in order to…

Appreciative inquiry (AI) offers a constructive, strengths-based framework for engaging students and staff in the enhancement of academic programmes of study. This paper explores the basis of AI, its potential for educational development and the many agendas it might help address. Students and academic staff involved in an AI project, focused on…

In this article, we describe 10 separate classroom experiences where an appreciative inquiry (AI) exercise was used for course creation. Post-exercise surveys of students showed that the AI exercise was perceived to be a successful practice. Students indicated putting effort toward reaching their peak learning experience and were satisfied with…

This study, commissioned by the HEA and the QAA focuses on directed independent learning practices in UK higher education. It investigates what stakeholders (including academic staff and students) have found to be the most effective practices in the inception, design, quality assurance and enhancement of directed independent learning and explores…

Many educational programmes in societies affected by armed conflict aim to promote dialogic engagement as a fundamental aim and pedagogy for social reconstruction. Despite supporting government policies, classrooms show very little or no evidence of dialogic practices where learners (co-)construct knowledge with peers and engage in critical and…

This article reviews Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as a process used in organizational creation and change and then outlines steps for an in-class exercise titled "The Preferred Classroom," to be used to design and organize a college classroom for the term. The exercise also prepares business students for future exposure to AI. A brief literature…

With the evolution of the surrounding world market, engineers have to propose innovations in products and processes. Industrial innovation frequently results from an improved understanding of basic physics. In this paper, an approach to accelerate inventive preliminary design is presented. This method combines the main advantages of CBR (Case…

The authors discuss their use of Appreciative Inquiry coupled with Circular Questioning to create what they have titled a Conversational Space. They discuss their experiences using conversational spaces in several venues across their campus: in classrooms, in campus-wide faculty discussions, and in informal and formal student and faculty…