Teachers who offer undergraduate courses agree widely on the importance of writing assignments to further undergraduate education. And yet, there is a great deal of variance among teachers in their writing assignments; some teachers assign no writing whatsoever. To determine the variables that influence the decisions of teachers about whether to…

In this pilot study, students in Anatomy and Physiology courses at a Southwest US Community College were assigned to groups with the instruction that they must meet outside of class time to work on course assignments throughout the semester. The assignments included exam preparation questions and case studies, but the groups could use their out of…

This course design describes a 3-credit, two-week intensive Stretch and Studio Practicum course at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Because the Stretch and Studio composition curriculum is designed to help students who may be at greater risk of not succeeding, instructors are required to complete the practicum before teaching in the program.…

Quad charts are a genre frequently used in scientific and technical environments, yet little prior work has evaluated their potential for reinforcing technical communication fundamentals. This article provides background information about quad charts and notes the benefits of implementing quad charts in the classroom. In particular, introducing…

In the course overview, the authors state that this course prepares those who enroll to teach Stretch and Studio Composition at the University of New Mexico by introducing relevant theory and pedagogy in the areas of basic writing, multilingual writing, metacognition, and reading instruction. While the English 537: Teaching Composition Practicum…

The Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) incorporates challenging literacy standards into middle grades and high school content areas within a variety of academic disciplines, not just English/language arts courses. The Mathematics Design Collaborative (MDC) provides schools with instructional tools needed to help teachers understand and implement…

In the fall of 2009, the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) initiated a series of research programs designed to support the high school reform program, "Excellence for All," based on more than 20 years of research on the school reform programs of the countries with the most successful education programs worldwide. A…

In looking for ways to combine course content literacy and information literacy with active learning, in 2007, the English Department and Library at The University of New Mexico-Los Alamos combined efforts and created a course project for students to curate exhibits that would demonstrate their understanding of course material through library…

The body of literature on a Writing-to-Learn (WTL) approach in math courses offers up a variety of assignment types from which to choose. However, few of these articles provide empirical evidence on the ways these writing assignments contribute to students' learning. This mixed-methods study, conducted at the University of New Mexico, a…

In order to better understand how to use assessment productively in the basic writing classroom, I asked the question "How do basic writers perceive the assessment process?" The research reported on in this dissertation led to the conclusion that basic writers at Dona Ana Community College perceive and value each part of the assessment…

This newsletter of best practices in implementing the High Schools That Work (HSTW), Making Middle Grades Work (MMGW) and Technology Centers That Work (TCTW) school improvement models is based on presentations at the 27th Annual HSTW Staff Development Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the summer of 2013. The newsletter is divided up into…

Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) researchers visited 38 public high schools around the United States in 2007 and 2008 with the goal of validating and operationalizing a definition of college readiness. Schools in the sample were selected because they were demonstrating success at enabling more students from underrepresented groups to…