Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus, a significant proportion of the American public continues to reject anthropogenic climate change. This disparity is particularly evident among evangelical Christians, for whom theological conservatism, general scientific skepticism, political affiliations, and sociocultural influences may impede their…

We describe the design and implementation of an undergraduate peer mentor program that can overlay an existing general chemistry laboratory and is designed to improve STEM student retention. For the first four freshman cohorts going through the program, year-to-year retention improved by a four-year average of 20% for students in peer-mentored…

While teacher candidates take courses that prepare them to deliver content in secondary content area classrooms, they often lack the knowledge necessary to help their future students learn discipline-specific information through the use of literacy strategies. In many cases, content area teacher candidates do not view themselves as literacy…

Students arrive in college with significant prior knowledge including misconceptions that hinder their ability to learn new concepts correctly. Misconceptions, or "alternative beliefs," have been widely studied in the physical sciences at higher education institutions; however, there is a paucity of research concerning the community…

Increasing the clinical preparation of teachers in the United States to meet greater rigor in K-12 education has become a goal of institutions of higher education, especially since the publication of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education Blue Ribbon Panel Report on Clinical Practice. Using a theoretical framework grounded…

The goal of this study was to determine whether a game-based immersion experience in an introductory undergraduate course in education had an impact on pre-service teachers' skills, beliefs, and confidence using games for teaching academic content. 55 pre-service secondary-education teachers participated in the study. Their first course in the…

In this article, we review the literature about theme-based teaching, then report quantitative and qualitative results from surveys from three different courses: one section of a 100-level in-person art course; five sections of 300-level on-line art courses; and one section of a 100-level in-person biology course at SUNY Delhi with applied themes…

The purpose of this project was to determine the effectiveness of the Helping Administer to the Needs of the Student with Diabetes in Schools (H.A.N.D.S.?) continuing education program in improving the level of experience and competence in performing services associated with diabetes care. This program is a live course for school nurses providing…

The attitudes of 224 preservice teachers from eight universities in the United States were measured to determine if participants' sentiments, attitudes, and concerns about inclusion can be positively affected through a single course, i.e., using pre and post data gathered with one instrument. There were significant differences between a number of…

We present a learning module to engage students in the global inequality debate using Google Public Data World Development Indicators. Goals of this article are to articulate the importance and urgency of teaching global issues to American students; situate the central debate in the globalization literature, paying particular attention to global…

With the continuous growth of cyberinfrastructure throughout modern society, the need for secure computing and communication is more important than ever before. As a result, there is also an increasing need for entry-level developers who are capable of designing and building practical solutions for systems with stringent security requirements.…

Teacher self-efficacy is the belief a teacher holds that he or she can make a difference in student achievement, even when the student is difficult or unmotivated (Guskey & Passaro, 1994). It has been linked to positive teacher practices and student outcomes. This mixed methods study of preservice elementary and early childhood math teachers…

Study abroad is rapidly becoming an academic priority for any program in higher education. The need for American students to broaden their perspective of the interdependent and interconnected world is so important that global learning is being introduced at all levels of the academic pipeline. As a result of this urgency, foreign shores steadily…

This article relates a project in which a curriculum module was developed to help graduate students more effectively manage behaviors of adults in facilitation sessions. The module was piloted in the project and later included in a graduate level course in the Creative Studies Department of SUNY Buffalo State. The curriculum identified…

Conducted at 10 schools in four communities, this study investigated relationships of young adolescents' reading motivation, reading preference, and reading engagement as influenced by their English Language Arts teachers' use of instructional strategies. Students in eight sixth grade (N = 196) and nine seventh grade (N = 218) classes completed a…