More and more Canadian post-secondary institutions are introducing a fall break into their term calendars. In 2015, a full week fall break was introduced at our university in order to enhance academic performance and improve mental health amongst students. Our interdisciplinary team surveyed undergraduate students at our university about their…

Though many experts argue that semester or year abroad study is the optimal path, short-term programs meet the needs of students who would not otherwise study abroad and can be effective at increasing intercultural competency. The present study describes one type of short-term program--the embedded faculty-led model--and provides evidence that…

Postsecondary education often requires students to use higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) such as analysis, evaluation, and creation as they assess situations and apply what they have learned during lecture to the formulation of solutions. Summative assessment of these abilities is often accomplished using short-answer questions (SAQs). Quandary…

The SEED (Student Enterprise Experience in Dunedin) programme was developed as a four-week, intensive entrepreneurial "boot camp" to provide a small group of participants with a highly experiential business course. Using pre-course and post-course surveys, the authors measured the entrepreneurial ability, knowledge and intentions of the…

Dutch universities complain that freshmen in studies such as chemistry, physics, economics and mathematics do not master the required algebraic skills. In the worldwide discussions on mathematics education, mastery of algebra is also a prevalent issue. Often a distinction is made between basis procedures and algebraic reasoning, so-called symbol…

Preservice foreign-language teachers are adults with well-established beliefs. They start teacher-education programs with traditional beliefs about language teaching reflecting their own experiences. The field of foreign-language teaching, however, underwent a paradigm shift from grammar-based to communicative foreign-language instruction.…