Contingent teaching has become the norm in most institutions. While the use of adjuncts and other non-tenure track professors shows no sign of slowing down, the nature of contingent teaching is less known. This article examines how contingent teaching directly impacts the professor's teaching. My experience teaching religious studies courses from…

We add to a growing literature suggesting that demographic grade gaps should be attributed to biases embedded in the courses themselves. Changes in the structure of two different introductory physics classes were made while leaving the topics covered and the level of coverage unchanged. First, a class where conceptual issues were studied before…

Student impressions formed during the first day of class can impact course satisfaction and performance. Despite its potential importance, little is known about how instructors format the first day of class. Here, we report on observations of the first day of class in 23 introductory science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses. We…

In March 2020, universities in Norway and many other countries shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The students lost access to classrooms, libraries, study halls, and laboratories. Studying turned digital. Because it is unclear when this pandemic will cease to affect students and because we cannot know whether or when a new pandemic occurs, we…

Background: E-learning is increasingly becoming a preference in higher education institutions worldwide; this is intended to assist educational institutions in achieving objectives to meet the proportion of individuals with their educational opportunities. Nevertheless, instructors and students frequently have concerns with their capacity to…

As a result of the stay-at-home mandates related to COVID-19 across the world, higher education institutions scrambled to move their curricula online. With no clear guidelines on when face-to-face (F2F) instruction will resume on campuses across the nation, this article can be a helpful guide for educators who teach, or are planning on teaching,…

Background: Extensive research on massive open online courses (MOOCs) has focused on analysing learners' behavioural trace data to understand navigation and activity patterns, which are known to vary systematically across geo-cultural contexts. However, the perception of learners regarding the role of different learning design elements in…

Contribution: This research presents a project-based learning (PBL) approach for fostering creativity in first-year students with differential characteristics in the course execution. The first course considered remote teaching during a pandemic period; the second one used 50% of the weeks with remote teaching and the rest with face-to-face…

Online special education courses and programs are widely available and provide pathways for both initial certification and in-service professional learning. Despite the wider availability of online special educator courses and programs due to the COVID pandemic, very limited research about special education candidates and educator preferences for…

In the UK, Latin is often seen as an elitist subject taught largely at fee-paying schools. Over the past generation, however, great strides have been made in opening up the subject to students from all backgrounds. A major hindrance to widening access to Latin at university level is that the language can often prove challenging for students. Data…

This article describes a laboratory course designed for nonmajors with a focus on food chemistry. The course can be delivered in a traditional format or in a fully remote, asynchronous format. The course is designed for students to develop an understanding of how chemists view the world and how chemists generate knowledge. Food chemistry was…

Faculty throughout the world abruptly adapted their instructional delivery approaches via technology during the spring, summer, and fall terms in 2020 due to the COVID-19 virus. While faculty used a variety of modalities to disseminate content, such as recorded lectures and online tests, many students who did not prefer online classes experienced…

Having research-informed and evidence-based information into factors that impact students' academic performance is crucial for institutions to be able to identify gaps in the provision of training and support for students. This study is motivated by the need to determine and analyse such factors at a university that has been experiencing high…

The Math Immersion intervention was designed to aid the transition-to-proof phase of the undergraduate mathematics major. The Immersion was co-taught by two instructors, one for Intro to Proofs and Abstract Algebra and another for Probability and Statistics and Linear Algebra. This case study documented that efficiency gains directly attributable…

In this program profile, we describe the development of a new track in Science Communication (SciComm) for an existing Professional Writing minor offered by an independent Writing Program. We identify the international and local exigencies for improving SciComm; the resources needed for this new track--both those already in place and those…