This research study of a WAC learning community focuses on instructors' behind-the-scenes decision making about assignment design. Specifically, we show how instructors use direct personal experience--as students, teachers and scholars--to approach writing assignment design, invoking these experiences to discuss the origin of their assignments and…

Incorporating scientific uncertainty as part of science teaching means acknowledging that there may be incomplete or potentially limited scientific information when scientists draw conclusions. In the geosciences, scientists routinely make inferences about the Earth based on observations of the present, and test those observations against…

The advent of relatively inexpensive 360-degree cameras and virtual reality (VR) headsets brings new possibilities to the study of religion by allowing students to become virtually immersed in distant religious environments at very little cost. These tools can serve as the basis for assignments that help to engage students and meet core learning…

There is an urgent need for primary and secondary students to develop awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and an environmental ethic necessary to undertake environmental issues and problems. The need to adequately prepare teachers to teach about the environment, and the challenges the field of environmental education (EE) faces lead us to the…

Utility-value (UV) writing interventions help students find the personal relevance of course material to promote interest and performance. However, little is known about how best to frame the intervention, particularly in the 2-year college context where students have more varied backgrounds than the samples previously studied. Using a randomized…

In this districtwide scale-up, we randomly assigned seventh-grade students within 11 schools to receive a series of writing exercises designed to promote values affirmation. Impacts on cumulative seventh-grade grade point average (GPA) for the district's racial/ethnic minority students who may be subject to stereotype threat are consistent with…