Schools of education have seen many changes over the last 100 years (Labaree 2004). More recent modifications have included the slow and steady elimination of the social foundations of education in lieu of a more direct attention to teacher skills and basic training. The increased focus on the so-called "nuts and bolts" of teacher…

This study describes the development and evaluation of a prep course for chemistry graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). The course was developed around three major goals: (i) building a community for new GTAs and socializing them into the department; (ii) modeling teaching with well-documented, innovative teaching and learning techniques; and…

In this article, the authors describe the place of econometrics in undergraduate economics curricula in all American colleges and universities that offer economics majors as listed in the "U.S. News & World Report" "Best Colleges 2010" guide ("U.S. News & World Report" 2009). Data come from online catalogs, departmental Web sites, and online…

Research demonstrates that students' success in rigorous middle and high school math courses is positively associated with their admission to college, earnings later in life, and career prospects. The sequential nature of math course-taking, however, can create an opportunity structure that puts certain students at a disadvantage, specifically…

In this article, the author describes the "Learning Disposition Questionnaire" (LDQ) a tool designed to address more of the "integrity and identity" of college students as learners. Rather than using students' documented skills as a lens by which to assume or interpret learning dispositions, a direct way to evaluate and assess…

"The Vanishing West" traces the decline and near extinction of the Western Civilization history survey course in America's top colleges and universities from 1964 to 2010. This course, covering classical antiquity to the present, was once part of the undergraduate curriculum's intellectual bedrock, not only because it was often a graduation…

In the United States, undergraduates--regardless of their field of study--generally must complete a mathematics course to meet breadth-of-study requirements. This report is aimed at providing a research foundation for practical efforts to improve teaching and learning in such college mathematics service courses (e.g., college algebra, liberal arts…

Improving the mathematical skills of the next generation of students will require that elementary and middle school teachers are competent and confident in their abilities to perform fraction operations and to solve algebra equations The present study was conducted to (a) quantify relationships between prospective teachers' abilities to perform…

In this paper, we investigate whether and how mathematics factors into students' performance in IT learning. The involved cognitive levels of students learning mathematics and hence problem solving, are correlated to how well they are able to transpose their knowledge and apply it to problem solving in the IT field(s). Our hypothesis is that if…

For the last decade, the American Council on Education (ACE) has charted higher education's progress towards internationalization through its Mapping Internationalization on US Campuses project. Using surveys of US institutions conducted in 2001, 2006, and 2011, the Mapping study examines strategic planning, the curriculum, faculty policies and…

This author investigated the present state of information systems (IS) master's programs in the United States. A total of 273 institutions were surveyed and 99 institutions were included in the final study population. The results show that 5 out of 8 master of science in information systems (MSIS) 2006 courses are required by less than 50% of…

Discussions have been carried out in recent years regarding the emergence of iSchools in the field of library and information science (LIS). One theme in the discussions centres on whether those iSchools, deriving from LIS programs, are indeed different from other non-iSchools of the field. To address this question, five iSchools and five…

This article describes an innovative collaboration between graduate students and a faculty member to co-design and co-teach a graduate-level workshop-style qualitative methods course. The goal of co-designing and co-teaching the course was to involve advanced graduate students in all aspects of designing a syllabus and leading class discussions in…

With increasing personal and business financial challenges facing today's professionals, we, as business school faculty, have a responsibility to offer the educational background that should enable rising professionals to successfully manage finances. Unfortunately, the results of a recent analysis of curriculum offerings in Personal Financial…

The author is always looking for material to use in her campaign to end the educational "back-atcha" cycle. It is a multi-generational process, wherein unsophisticated fact-centered high school instruction turns out students resilient against understanding historical discipline despite their college courses; these students then go on to…