Despite a culture with cooperation as a core value, (Nagao, Takashi, & Okuda, 2011) Japanese higher education generally uses rigid lecture-test teaching models that neither support nor condone small-group learning methods in the classroom. As a result, Japanese college students usually work outside the classroom to develop the collaborative…

Peer-led Team Learning (PLTL) is an instructional method reported to increase student learning in STEM courses. As mathematics is a significant hurdle for many freshmen engineering students, a PLTL program was implemented for students to attempt to improve their course performance. Here, an analysis of PLTL for freshmen engineering students in…

The Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) program at the University of Minnesota is a primary academic support program for historically difficult, introductory college courses that serve as gatekeepers to academic degree programs. Based upon operating principles of other academic support programs and educational theories, PAL is integrated into the courses…

In light of recent interest in the limitations of early and mid-career mentoring (Driscoll et al 2009; Trowers 2011), this case study of a women's scholarly activity and goal setting Community of Practice (CoP) indicates that such groups can offer extensive peer mentoring at one teaching-oriented state university in the United States. Using a…

In the conventional classroom, many obstacles hinder interaction between an instructor and students, such as limited class hours, fixed seating, and inadequate time for meetings after class. This work develops a novel multimedia mobile classroom feedback system (MMCFS) that instantly displays students' responses, such as class-related questions or…

Teaching the restless young generation business students of today is not easy. Furthermore, the traditional lecture method has failed miserably to engage the business students and deliver significant learning. The author presents a discussion on the photo novel as an attractive communication medium and the participatory photo novel as an…

The present article describes and analyzes educational experiences related to the teaching of FAP for psychology graduate students and psychiatry residents at the University of Sao Paulo. The first experience involved psychology graduate students and includes an example of the shaping process occurring within the supervisor-supervisee…

An increasing emphasis on developing students' transferable skills, such as group working and IT, is creating challenges in ensuring the academic integrity of individually assessed coursework. This study investigated the frequency with which students engaged in a range of study behaviours for individual assignments, with a focus on the extent to…

The focus of the paper is to consider the ways in which the cultural complexity inherent in multinational student groups is thrown into relief when participative methods are used. Participative approaches are a means of encouraging students to learn from each other's ideas and experience and, from a critical perspective, as supporting…

The authors address three questions: (1) What are the foundational practices of team-based learning (TBL)? (2) What are the fundamental principles underlying TBL's foundational practices? and (3) In what ways are TBL's foundational practices similar to and/or different from the practices employed by problem-based learning (PBL) and…

Fuzzy logic, which is based on fuzzy sets theory introduced by Zadeh in 1965, provides a rich and meaningful addition to standard logic. The applications which may be generated from or adapted to fuzzy logic are wide-ranging and provide the opportunity for modeling under conditions which are imprecisely defined. In this article we develop a fuzzy…

Providing students with assignments that focus on critical thinking is an important part of their scientific and intellectual development. However, as class sizes increase, so does the grading burden, prohibiting many faculty from incorporating critical thinking assignments in the classroom. In an effort to continue to provide our students with…

The mentor of a parent-child playgroup, an experienced student playgroup facilitator, and a faculty member teaching a family-professional collaboration course describe opportunities for preservice student facilitators to learn about and implement family-centered practices. The experiences of one student facilitator are used to explain the…

Honours research projects in the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering at the University of Adelaide are run with small groups of students working with an academic supervisor in a chosen area for one year. The research project is mainly self-directed study, which makes it very difficult to fairly assess the contribution of…

The transition to undergraduate study is often a challenging step for students as they progress from relatively smaller school/college classes with a high degree of contact time with familiar staff to a university department where one-on-one interaction with staff members is significantly reduced. The first year tutorials module offers one of the…