This column provides original articles on innovations in case study teaching, assessment of the method, as well as case studies with teaching notes. In this article, the author describes how she uses current biology-related news articles to introduce a course and its relevance, to actively engage students at the beginning of the semester, and…

In this paper, we have developed a classification model for online learning environments that relates the Instructors Overall Performance (IOP) rating (according to students' perceptions) with the course characteristics, students' demographics and the effectiveness of the instructor in his/her teaching roles. To that end, a comprehensive Student…

Family--professional partnerships (FPPs) are an important, federally mandated part of the American education system that benefit all students, but especially students with disabilities. Although special education teacher preparation programs offer a viable and sustainable way to enhance FPPs, little is known about the degree to which these…

This article discusses the challenges faced teaching the promotion of 'British values', especially for trainee teachers. The advancement of these 'British values' as set out by the Department for Education is confusing, contradictory, and appear to exclude a sizeable minority of pupils of minority backgrounds from the current historical narrative…

In 2017, the North Carolina legislature passed House Bill 527 (now State Law 2017-196) in order to foster free, open inquiry in the state's colleges and universities. One of the provisions ordered the University of North Carolina (UNC) system Board of Governors to produce an annual report on two major categories of intellectual freedom: free…

Background/Context: Studio-based courses--the primary approach in design education--have been viewed as effective environments for learning. This study uses an ecological approach to explore how the studio environment creates opportunities for social interaction through immersive studies of studio learning. Purpose/Objective/Research…

Using data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, this study examined the relationship between several faculty practices and interactions with students and students' civic engagement attitudes. Several faculty practices were associated with positive civic attitudes, including frequency of student-faculty contact, use of…

Although there is a wealth of research on the use of the first language (L1) in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms, there is as yet very little research of this kind in classrooms where the prime pedagogical objective is to teach academic content through English as a second language (English medium instruction; EMI). It is important to…

The development and maintenance of a physically active lifestyle and the promotion of health-related physical fitness have become two important components of the national standards for physical education. Physical education is one of the important aspects of the educational and teaching processes. This study was designed to determine the factors…

This research is part of a research trilogy that investigated issues impacting Interactive White Board Technology (IWBT) adoption and use in a higher education institution. The other two research studies in this trilogy used (1) focus group approach and (2) survey research to identify such impacting factors. One major insight from these two…

Academic freedom gives professors broad discretion over expressions and interactions in the classroom. Free speech guidelines and First Amendment protections permit students to speak their minds too, but they offer very limited guidance as to how classrooms should operate. While professors should obviously work within free speech parameters in the…

Course: Online or mediated communication courses. Objectives: The purpose of this activity is to provide students with a more engaging way of immersing themselves in the course material through an interactive "Easter egg" syllabus. An Easter egg is an "undocumented function hidden in software … [they are] secret 'goodies' … used in…

By supporting student profiles, blogs, content curation, and HTML and scripting projects, Springshare's LibGuides CMS provides a flexible platform for student-led content creation in the distance learning environment. This paper describes how two librarians at Georgia Southern University opened up LibGuides CMS to host collaboratively developed…

There is a growing and inexplicable trend among professors to voluntarily fade into the online pedagogical background and allow someone--or something--to do the teaching for them. The professoriate should be concerned about three kinds of online courses that require minimal preparation: YouTube courses, PowerPoint courses, and publisher courses.…

All too often, race discourse in the United States devolves into shouting matches, silence, or violence, all of which are mirrored in today's classrooms. This book will help individuals develop the skills needed to facilitate difficult dialogues across race in high school and college classrooms, in teacher professional learning communities, and…