The jigsaw technique has been successfully used in classrooms for decades, though less in higher education. Groups are formed with each student having a precise piece of information necessary to complete the assignment. Next, expert groups of students with the same material meet to sharpen their understanding before reforming their initial group…

Students perceive crossword puzzles as enjoyable. In addition to students' perceptions, crossword puzzles actually improve knowledge retention. However, crossword puzzles increased exam scores for some students but not others. Recommendations have been made for students to create puzzles for their classmates to complete with the rationale that…

Epistemic beliefs are one's assumptions about knowledge and knowing. Given the research in educational psychology that established epistemic beliefs as reliable predictors of student success, we devised a pedagogical intervention to improve students' epistemic beliefs. In this study, we examined the effectiveness of the reflective writing task as…

Cyberbullying is a phenomenon increasingly affecting students and faculty in K-12 through higher education systems. Cyberbullying in higher education negatively affects institutions and their respective stakeholders. The consequences range from faculty turnover to student suicide. Research related cyberbullying in higher education in online…

Design thinking is a critical and creative process understood to support innovation and creative idea generation in a wide variety of contexts. Increasingly, it is being used as a pedagogical approach by educators interested in supporting divergent thinking skill development. This study evaluated the effects of the use of design thinking practices…

Professors and students have contradictory views of course reading. Professors believe that reading outside of the classroom is essential in optimizing learning. However, students often find the readings to be time-consuming, not necessary to pass the class, and an option rather than a requirement. We surveyed 449 undergraduate university students…

Janelle Monae's, "Dirty Computer," tackles issues like feminism, racism, sexuality, Black womanhood, self-assurance, and growth. Each song on the album is presented from a first-person point of view, offering a unique insight into a story that shares an intimate portrait of what it means to embrace authentic Black womanhood. Monae's…

Black mattering is contested terrain. As we write this, more than 25 states and municipalities have proposed or passed legislation banning critical race theory (CRT) and the incorporation of material(s) that upset the normative curricular and pedagogical conditions of whiteness. Against this backdrop, "what is mattering for Black…

What does it mean to express Black joy and loving blackness through STEM-rich making? What does it mean for Black youth in community-based, youth-focused makerspaces to express Black joy and loving blackness? We look at how Black youth alongside their facilitators co-create spaces of Black joy through making. These makerspaces are located at two…

In this essay, we center hip-hop culture and Black cultural legacies. We envision and offer a two-fold framework which illuminates the intersection between the two. We explore ways that the Black cultural experience (or better yet Black cultural praxis) has always brilliantly and organically demonstrated the shape and form of a scholarship of…

In this essay the author addresses the struggles of teaching a special topics course, Black Freedom Movement Education, in the midst of a global pandemic and Donald Trump's proposed ban on anti-racist training and critical race theory. The educator framed the course under the conceptual lens of stealin' the meetin'--a Black Antebellum practice of…

The purpose of this critical content analysis study was to examine higher education/student affairs (HE/SA) preparation toward a racial framing that centers and honors Black mattering. We explored linkages between Black literacies and epistemic credibility as indicators of Black mattering by analyzing 24 syllabi of foundational courses in HE/SA…

This paper tells the story of resistance and efforts to work and mend within an anti-Black institution: higher education. Through a collaborative autoethnographic approach, seven Black academics connected to the Action Research Collective team (a group focused on supporting graduate students and cultivating equitable campus climates), explored how…

In this critical autoethnography, I examine my lived experiences as a Black woman doctoral student during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Further, as I recount my academic journey in the wake of assaults to Black life and resulting Black resistance, I discuss the pedagogical interventions of Black women faculty members that made me…

Project-based learning (PBL) is considered an engaging and promising pedagogy across diverse disciplines and student populations in the United States in the digital age. Research on PBL in online environments and in the field of art has, however, been limited. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the theoretical grounds of PBL and…