This paper describes a course designed to introduce students to mathematical thinking and a variety of lower level mathematics topics using baseball while satisfying the goals of quantitative reasoning. We give suggestions for sources, topics, techniques, and examples so any mathematics teacher can design such a course to fit their needs. The…

Early childhood and early childhood special education programs have predominantly been separate teacher preparation programs that prepare novice teachers for general or special education settings. However, with a growing shift toward inclusion, as well as a shortage of educators with training to teach all children, there is a need for teacher…

Objective: As a result of the SARS-COVID-2 pandemic, many students had to leave highly interactive face-to-face learning environments in classrooms and join online learning environments. By autumn 2020, some large numbers of US institutions had opted for face-to-face, hybrid and fully online teaching formats. For many of them, the challenge lay in…

Reacting directly to the fact that even the best syllabus is worthless to the student who does not read it, this essay draws inspiration from research of the past decade, especially from the learning-focused syllabus concept that was introduced by three researchers at the University of Virginia, and uses a questionnaire to gauge our community…

We designed and implemented a hybrid elementary social studies education elective focused on antiracist teacher education, place-based teacher education, and archaeology with partners at an historic site, James Madison's Montpelier. Our action research study indicates that, in the midst of injustices highlighted in 2020, participants engaged in…

Essentially, the syllabus is a physical artifact outlining key structural elements of a course. It often serves contractual, record keeping, and/or communication functions. It is the place where faculty describe what content they will cover, what books and articles their students will read, the assignments they will complete, dates when things are…

Despite the central role that well organized and structured course content plays in engaging learners, the authors point to the absence of guidelines for organizing content in ways that meet course learning goals. Recognizing the need for a design solution and, perhaps, the need for a new design framework, design patterns are proposed as an…

This paper discusses how cloud computing can be leveraged to add value to academic programs in information systems and other fields by improving financial sustainment models for institutional technology and academic departments, relieving the strain on overworked technology support resources, while adding richness and improving pedagogical…

Evolutionary theory is central to the biological sciences, and to critical aspects of everyday life, and yet a significant proportion of Americans reject evolution. Our study sets out to examine the role of a second year college general education course in affecting students' acceptance of evolution. We report three years of data using the Measure…

This article discusses an online graduate education course at George Mason University in the United States. The course, part of a certificate program for International Baccalaureate (IB) educators, focuses on infusing human rights instruction in PK-12 classrooms and provides teachers with additional methods and strategies to teach various…

Higher levels of civic and community engagement in higher education are positively associated with students' academic performance and they also build upon citizenship skills such as informed voting. Yet, while these are worthy and important outcomes of higher education, students from disadvantaged backgrounds can have more difficulty navigating…

Purpose: Key elements of a curriculum are presented for a faculty development program that integrated sustainability content with effective course design methodology across a variety of disciplines. The study aims to present self-reported impacts for a small number of faculty participants and their courses. Design/methodology/approach: A yearlong…

This article introduces a new course in the Virginia Community College System English Curriculum, "English 114: Scientific Writing." The article briefly reviews the concept of "science rhetoric," then discusses the intended audience and purpose of the course, and explains the basic goals of the course in relation to the…

The authors investigated the design and implementation of the capstone courses that are part of Virginia's College and Career Readiness Initiative. Based on a set of performance expectations for college readiness, two capstone courses--one in English and one in mathematics--were developed to help support high school juniors and seniors who intend…

In a world literature course, an instructor faces the challenge of engaging the students in classical texts that are historically, geographically, and linguistically "alien" to them. Through a three-step instructional model that includes approximation, thematic relevance, and application, the instructor tries to help students identify,…