This study presents perceived advantages of thematic, team-taught interdisciplinary seminars for first-year honors students. Two student cohorts (n = 174) surveyed in two subsequent years (2018, 2019) weigh in on the challenges and benefits of different team-teaching models. Three first-semester offerings on the themes "Food,"…

Students in The Honors College at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh are required to take a team-taught first-year seminar in their first semester. The seminar is theme-based and taught by two professors from two different disciplines. The theme of the seminar is food, one teacher is a professor of geography and the other a professor of…

In this article Karla Walker describes how her division developed new curriculum to help adults earn their High School Equivalency Diplomas (HSEDs). The division's goals were to: (1) shorten the time students took to complete the program; (2) develop transition to college or employment; (3) allow for poverty-informed decisions within the program;…

After Ava McCall retired from university teaching in June, 2015, she spent the 2015-2016 school year volunteering in a fourth-grade classroom helping to teach Wisconsin history. Her volunteer work was similar to other retired teachers in the local school district who returned to mentor new teachers, volunteer in classrooms, and serve as substitute…

The American Physiological Society (APS) Teaching Section annually honors an educator through its Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecture at the Experimental Biology meeting. Since I knew about my selection for almost a year, I had a long time to think about what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. The theme of my presentation was…

One of the pressing issues facing public schools in the United States is the challenge of providing a quality education to English Learners (ELs). The vast majority of the teachers licensed at the authors' institution graduate with very little knowledge of how to work successfully with EL students. The need to prepare all teachers for work with…

Many career and technical education (CTE) courses not only provide students with vocational and technical skills and knowledge, but engage them in academic content as well. Designed thoughtfully, these courses can address rigorous academic content standards and be as intellectually demanding as traditional academic courses (Southern Regional…

In order to maximize student development in an interdisciplinary context, we implemented and evaluated a business-biology team teaching approach. The class project involved teams of environmental science and business students analyzing an industry stakeholder interested in participating in the development of a community composting network. We…

In classrooms and schools across the United States, educators struggle to meet the requirements of standards-based reform that was enacted by federal legislation. Secondary schools can use coteaching with mixed-ability groups of students to meet increased curriculum demands and provide mandated strategies and accommodations for students with…

A powerful tool for creating culture while, at the same time, a cognitively rigorous exercise, Indigenous-language immersion could be a key for producing both language fluency and academic success in culture-based schools. Drawing on seven years of critical ethnographic research at Ojibwe schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin, this researcher…

In this study, the authors explore the implementation of a statewide class-size reduction program in nine high-poverty schools. Through qualitative methods, they examined how schools used class-size reduction to change staffing patterns and instructional programs. Requiring changes in space allocation, class-size reduction was accomplished through…

THIS PAPER DESCRIBES THE INTRODUCTION OF THE CONCEPT OF THE RESEARCH AND INSTRUCTION UNIT IN SEVEN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN WISCONSIN. THE CONCEPT OF THE UNIT, ORIGINALLY DEVELOPED IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AS PART OF PROJECT MODELS, IS BASED ON A REORGANIZATION OF THE TRADITIONAL SCHOOL STRUCTURE AND THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW ROLES AND RELATIONSHIPS FOR…

One question of interdisciplinary education is how to encourage students to draw connections between disciplines and to engage in critical thinking. The authors developed a team-taught interdisciplinary course examining the history and literature of modern revolutions. The first time the course was given, students had difficulty making…

A middle school in River Falls, Wisconsin, exemplifies middle-level philosophy by providing individualized learning programs, a core curriculum, a guidance program, education for citizenship, and cocurricular activities. The school program emphasizes enhanced exploratory learning opportunities, team-teaching of core subjects, and a…

When teachers at Madison Elementary School in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin attended a class to examine test data, they started a change process that led the whole school to learn differently--from teachers to students. This article discusses on how whole-faculty study teams have created stronger professional connections and collaboration between teachers…