A college education is expected to improve students' critical thinking skills. Keeping students active in class--through writing activities and class discussion--has been shown to help students think critically. In this article, creative hands-on activities, which are common in engineering courses, are shown to improve students' critical thinking…

This article advances the discussion about "Going paperless," how it will save ink and paper, perhaps even a tree over the course of a semester. The author mentions that the sustainability task force on campus may present an award, while eco-conscious students may applaud the willingness of faculty to "go green." Still other…

Gamification incorporates game-elements in non-gaming situations to enhance student engagement and desired behavior. This study examined participant's willingness to take part in gamified activities where reward systems were not directly tied to course grades. Participants enrolled in a technology integration course for preservice teachers, were…

Creative thinking skills are essential for today's workplace. Three faculty members from different professional schools (business, higher education administration, teacher education) examined student responses to the creative assignments in their courses. The assignments exemplify the following criteria: invited taking risks, encouraged innovative…

Instructors are always looking for new ways to engage students in reading assignments. The authors present a few techniques that rely on a web-based data visualization tool called Wordle (wordle.net). Wordle creates word frequency representations called word clouds. The larger a word appears within a cloud, the more frequently it occurs within a…

The authors explore how and to what extent students use their textbooks. Data was collected through a survey regarding when reading is primarily done, how the textbook is used for studying, and which specific study strategies the students used. The results indicate that students know it is important to read, know the professor expects them to…

Assessing the potential impact and utility of course assignments are often a matter of informed, yet personal judgment. Here, in this article, doing our own assignments before assigning them to students is explored as a quality assurance measure and as a means to ensure an empathetic and critical approach to developing course work.

We used Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as a new pedagogy in an intermediate composition course. Our course design was based in constructivist pedagogical practices, which suggest that knowledge is co-created through social interactions. Although professors have much to offer students, students can also learn important lessons through interactions…

Response papers are usually brief, recurring assignments, often posted to online course management systems or virtual learning environments, wherein students are free to comment on any aspects of the assigned readings for a class or sequence of class meetings. They are typically to be written prior to the class meetings where the readings in…

Over the past several years I have taught a career orientation course at St. John Fisher College. This course was designed to increase student awareness of potential careers following their undergraduate studies in our Biology program. Additionally, the course has also been used as a model for similar experiences in our Psychology, Chemistry,…

Student engagement and retention is a concern of many university professors. To engage sophomore-level students in a Sociology of Aging class, I challenged them to design the course in a way that would make the outcome personally meaningful to them. The class was asked to identify specific learning objectives related to the university's course…

Academic dishonesty is unethical. Exam cheating is viewed as more serious than most other forms (Pincus and Schmelkin 2003). The authors review the general cheating problem, introduce a program to conservatively identify likely cheaters on multiple-choice exams, and offer a procedure for handling likely cheaters. Feedback from students who confess…

Capstone courses emphasize students' experiences and learning, rather than course content. This emphasis is consistent with principles and practices fundamental to humanistic education. Here we describe a capstone course, "Internship," that includes five features consistent with humanistic education: (1) student-centered learning, (2) empathic…

The authors examined how the regular use of Monte Carlo Quizzes, learning logs, or non-random quizzes impacted student completion of assigned reading and preparedness for class. A questionnaire was used to gather data on student perceptions and self-reported reading behavior in response to each of the methods over the course of a semester. Results…

Engaging students in metacognitive activities that help them reflect on how they learn empowers them and improves their learning. The author of this article uses a final assignment called a Learning Assessment to develop students' metacognitive skills. The Learning Assessment is a series of questions that students answer in a short paper due on…