Organismal biology (OrgBio) comprises the diversity, structures, and functions of all organisms from bacteria to humans. Arguably, OrgBio is often the most poorly taught and least conceptually rigorous section of the introductory biology sequence offered at most U.S. institutions of higher education. This article reports on the successful…

Educators must continuously assess and adjust to maximize the amount of information students retain. One way to evaluate teaching effectiveness is thru pre- and post-semester assessments. Factors such as individual willingness to participate can affect the validity of these assessments. Our hypothesis was that students will more actively…

Group work benefits student learning in many ways, but group work assessment may be challenging for academics and sometimes is perceived as less fair than individually set assessment tasks. Peer assessment (PA) and self assessment (SA) represents a possible approach supporting lecturers and students to better differentiate individual contributions…

Despite the recognized positive effects attributed to outdoor adventure education programs, few studies have examined the mechanisms involved therein, particularly with regard to factors that influence group process. The purpose of this qualitative research was to examine an outdoor adventure education program utilizing Yalom's helping factors in…

The extraction of individual marks from a group submission is one approach to address the problem of students who don't contribute adequately to group work. This is a highly active research area. An alternative is proposed in this paper: alter the method by which groups are allocated for assessed coursework in tertiary education. The proposed…

In recent years, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been increasing in popularity as replacements for or adjuvants to the traditional laboratory experience. This approach shifts the focus from an exercise-based curriculum to an experiment-based curriculum and provides students with a more authentic and higher-impact…

This study examined whether three renovated academic library spaces encouraged group work as intended. Hourly observations and a questionnaire documented group work use, space preferences, and suggested improvements. Compared to the three renovated spaces, significantly more group work occurred in an unrenovated space that was more open, spacious,…

Contribution: This article proposes a task-driven ADDIE-Twist design model with a double-helix structure, which introduces intelligent teaching tools and lightweight collaboration platforms to design a knowledge-sharing and group collaboration model with two layers of teaching task driven and learning task driven, providing inspiration for the…

Creativity and collaboration are key components of a mathematician's work, and thus in the preparation of future mathematicians, undergraduate mathematics courses should aim to develop students who can effectively work collaboratively and creatively with one another. Despite this need, research on mathematical creativity has primarily investigated…

In response to a globalised education context that places increasing pressure on higher education institutions for pedagogical innovation and reform, universities are attempting to carve out more meaningful identities through reimagining campus design. As universities introduce more decentralised spaces, from strictly learning environments to a…

Assessing group work formatively in higher education poses a significant challenge. The complexity of evaluating individual contributions is compounded by the lack of efficient and effective methods for tracking, analysing and assessing individual engagement and contributions, which can impede timely feedback and the development of group work…

The present study explores the formation and benefits of communal cohorts within an EdD program. Data were gathered through focus groups and surveys. Findings include the roles of participants, activities, and shared spaces in developing communal cohorts, and the importance of the communal nature of cohorts in realizing their benefits.

The present mixed-methods study provides insight into how students in higher education describe and form multiplex relationships in a cohort of students attending a commuter college, thereby improving our understanding of the complex relationships within student groups and their relation to learning. The main aim was to understand the student…

Information avoidance has been studied in medicine, economics, and psychology, and has recently been discussed in educational technology. In this study, the authors developed a grouping method to reduce students' information avoidance in reading through group work. This two-step group method includes the k-means and genetic algorithm to explore…

Increasing access to undergraduate research is critical in efforts to retain students pursuing careers in STEM. Alternatives to traditional research positions, such as course based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), have played important roles in engaging more undergraduates in research. However, these opportunities are only a subset of…