College students continue to navigate powerful literacy myths that impact their writing education, especially the belief systems that uphold standard, monolingual uses of language. In this article, the authors describe "English 391ml: Multilingualism and Literacy in Western Mass," a course that raises students' critical awareness of…

The author of this article presents an innovative economics course based on current events and news, using "The Economist" as the primary course text. The course constructs shared learning around news in real time to inspire and excite students' ability to see economics in their world. The course supports Allgood and Bayer's…

One challenge faced by instructors incorporating simulations and games into political science courses is how to assess learning outcomes from non-"traditional," pedagogical methods. Positive or anticipated simulation outcomes do not necessarily indicate positive learning outcomes for students. And, using more traditional methods of…

Science is full of amazing facts, but at times it may be difficult to fully appreciate their significance without an understanding of the scientific practices that gave them meaning. The teaching of evolution may be an example of this situation; there are many interesting facts to consider, but it is equally important for students to learn where…

This article describes a 6-week module course called Just Google It! that the author developed and teaches each fall semester. Students who take the course explore personal data collection by private companies, search algorithms, identify implicit bias in the results, and learn the best recommended privacy and security practices. At the end of the…

This paper reports results from a mixed-methods study about how college students engage with news when questions of credibility and "fake news" abound in the U.S. Findings are based on 5,844 online survey responses, one open-ended survey question (N=1,252),and 37 follow-up telephone interviews with students enrolled at 11 U.S. colleges…

Purpose: This paper aims to argue that the process of making an original game develops digital literacy skills and provides an authentic learning experience as students create, publish and deploy interactive games. Teaching students to create computer games has become common in both K-12 and tertiary education to introducing programming concepts,…

Teaching game development has become an accepted methodology for introducing programming concepts and capturing the interest of beginning computer science and information technology (IT) students. This study, conducted over three consecutive semesters, explores game development using a gaming engine, rather than a traditional programming language,…

In fall 2010, the University of Massachusetts Amherst instituted a new upper-division General Education requirement, the Integrative Experience (IE), designed to help students integrate the various components of their undergraduate experience and reflect upon their learning and development as a result of those experiences, both key dimensions of…

We describe the structure of a writing-intensive, chemistry first year seminar designed to support a three week, research focused summer bridge program. Writing assignments in the seminar helped students understand their research activities, learn to conduct themselves as scientists, and reflect upon their lab work. The writing intensive seminar…

Drawing on theoretical and empirical research concerning the relationship between academic work and student learning, this article explores the following questions: What skills are required to execute the academic tasks teachers assign on a daily basis? How do teachers and administrators interpret the task demands represented in instructional…

Although confusion is generally perceived to be negative, educators dating as far back as Socrates, who asked students to question assumptions and wrestle with ideas, have challenged this notion. Can confusion be productive? How should instructors interpret student expressions of confusion? During two semesters of introductory physics that…

The authors describe their experience with integrating a semester-long economic analysis project into an intermediate macroeconomic theory course. Students work in teams of "economic advisors" to write a series of nested reports that analyze the current state of the economy, and propose and evaluate policies for a decision-maker. The…

The West Virginia Department of Education's auto grading initiative dates back to 2004--a time when school districts were making their first forays into automation. The Charleston based WVDE had instituted a statewide writing assessment in 1984 for students in fourth, seventh, and 10th grades and was looking to expand that program without having…

The practice of documentation is discussed as a means of making learning visible in the LC classroom. A documentation heuristic consisting of a four-stage cycle was used to capture, analyze and report what Bass and Eynon (2009) refer to as the "visible evidence of invisible learning" (p. 5). A variety of documentation samples are…