In the United States, there is a demand for registered nurses. To be admitted into the nursing program, students need to complete prerequisite courses such as human anatomy and physiology. Many students find human anatomy and physiology challenging due to the nature of the content. Poor performance in human anatomy and physiology can preclude a…

We teach English literature in South Africa, to third- or fourth-language English speakers. Increasingly dissatisfied with the effectiveness of our pedagogy under conditions of massification, we seek to agitate propositions about our students' reading and what these propositions means for our pedagogy. Drawing on narrative theory we analyse our…

The COVID-19 pandemic and remote lessons changed extensive reading (ER) implementation because online libraries became the only way for educators to continue ER assignments. Online libraries with audio narration make audio-assisted reading easily available to L2 learners. Research on audio-assisted extensive reading has shown that there are…

Most courses are taught almost exclusively using lecture and, despite gaps in textbook coverage of empirical economics, do not incorporate academic readings. The authors of this article present a "jigsaw literature review" cooperative learning activity to address these shortfalls. The jigsaw guides students through formulating a position…

Journal clubs are widely used as an educational tool in graduate life science programs. In journal clubs, students are assigned to read specific journal articles to achieve a broad knowledge in their field of study and to gain competence in reading and assessing scientific publications. However, students often show low motivation to read assigned…

Synthesizing theory from literacy scholars with strategies derived from classroom inquiry projects, "Rethinking Reading in College" argues for more--and more systematic--attention to the role of reading comprehension in college as a necessary step in addressing the inequities in student achievement that otherwise increase over time.…

Can a class assignment covering the reading help students do better in an introductory chemistry class for nonmajors? Two sections of the same course have been compared where one section had a reading assignment that "forced" the students to interact with the text while the other class had the typical homework, quiz assignments, and…

The rising cost of textbooks is a barrier to higher education for many students. Open textbooks are one potential solution, though few open textbooks exist for agriculture and natural science disciplines. Here, I present a case study examining my selection of assigned reading material for a college course on soil and water conservation. Potential…

Instructors expect students to read before class to engage them in using higher-order thinking skills that are critical to performing in group work and engaging in discussions. As many instructors are aware, however, for various reasons many students don't read the assigned textbook. In this study, science news articles were used as prereadings to…

A collaborative learning module for teaching protein mass spectrometry has been developed to overcome common obstacles to incorporating the modern topic of biological mass spectrometry into the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Protein mass spectrometry data is provided to eliminate the need for expensive instrumentation, and an instructor's…

While universities are increasingly implementing programs to support international students' language development, fewer orientation programs have sought to provide explicit guidance on expected academic practices in Canadian institutions. Many such academic norms--including the expectation to complete weekly readings, the use of first names with…

Recognizing a need to promote critical reading among students at our STEM university, the authors implemented an active reading strategy called double-entry notes across four general education writing and humanities courses. We hypothesized that the tool would help engage students in the critical reading strategies they tended to lack. The tool…

This paper describes a reading assignment that resulted in students completing 80-90% of the assigned reading in a content-heavy science course taught in a flipped format. Students reported almost unanimously that the assignment was valuable in helping them learn the material, and a majority reported that other professors should adopt a similar…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the reading of a book-length fiction or non-fiction text in one disciplinary literacy (DL) teacher education course. This paper considers how the assignment may help pre- and in-service teachers understand literacy as multifaceted and connected within and beyond their content areas (Moje, 2015). The research…

How does one learn how to think like an economist without understanding what economists do? Using outside readings can be an effective and straightforward pedagogical tool to teach economic concepts and to expose students to the wide range of topics and methods economists use in their research. Improving students' understanding of what economists…