In an increasingly complex world, it is imperative that undergraduate science courses prepare students to make confident, informed decisions and predictions. The research presented in this thesis focuses on supporting students to engage in mechanistic reasoning (MR) about phenomena in chemistry and biology (that is, thinking about how and why…

Students as Partners (SaP) approaches have gained more and more traction in higher education in recent years (Dai & Matthews, 2022). Rooted in values such as reciprocity and shared responsibility, SaP can offer opportunities for internationalizing the curriculum and departing from traditional teacher-student hierarchies (Green & Baxter,…

This study explores the role of teaching presence in students' behavioral engagement in online learning. We analyzed three classes conducted by one teacher over a period of three semesters. Content analysis and social network analysis were employed to analyze the teacher's teaching presence and students' behavioral engagement. Results indicated…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a rapid shift from traditional teaching to online settings. This study explores the technological tools employed by university EFL-speaking teachers during this transition, investigating their continued relevance post-pandemic. With a focus on the experiences of seven university EFL-speaking teachers, this study probes…

Although digital advances have enabled hundreds of universities to offer massive open online courses (MOOCs) to millions of students worldwide, the high dropout rate on these MOOCs indicates a disjunct between the potential of the offer and the success of its uptake. Many studies point to issues relating to interpersonal connection as a major…

College expansion throughout the twentieth century was accompanied by the growth of a profession centered on supporting student learning and development. Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) programs multiplied across the United States to train these professionals with a focus on administration, leadership, and student affairs. As…

Capstone projects provide key learning opportunities for STEM undergraduates to consolidate knowledge gained over the life of their degree. These projects typically reflect lab- or fieldwork-based research, which can exclude students who do not wish to pursue these career avenues. Here we deployed school engagement projects (SEPs) as an…

Ball State University re-designed five classrooms--as part of an Interactive Learning Space (ILS) Initiative--to provide educators with learning spaces that could be used to implement and assess the effectiveness of student-centred instructional practices. The purpose of the current investigation was to explore how pedagogy implemented within ILSs…

Slate tablets and more recently detachable tablets occupy a nebulous position in education. Institutions are increasingly required to assess the return on investment of deploying these devices. The purpose of this study was to investigate user engagement with the iPad Pro + Apple Pencil in the first semester distribution in the fall of 2016. The…

As the qualitative portion of a sequential explanatory mixed-methods study, this study identified the attitudes, behaviors, and teaching strategies of first-year seminar instructors whose students of color exhibited the highest gains in thriving at the end of their first semester. Thriving students are those who are fully engaged psychologically,…

A main challenge of online education is fostering student engagement. The general problem to be explored is the lack of motivational techniques e-instructors use to encourage online engagement. The specific problem is that students are not learning the necessary engagement skills needed to be effective online learners. The purpose of this…

Scholars have claimed that online communication technologies would upend university-community engagement. We explored faculty approaches to and perspectives on e-engagement at one university with a largely residential student body where classes were held in-person. We suggest that e-engagement affords different rather than better or worse…

Comics and cartoons are valued in twenty-first century popular culture and are increasingly used as 'Applied Comics' to help communicate key messages and information in society. However, there is less evidence of cartoons and comics being used to communicate with and engage library users in learning, information literacy (IL) and research support.…

Research suggests that honors students are more likely to be engaged in some, but not all, aspects of the college experience, although there is less information available from the faculty perspective. This study presents findings from the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE), comparing various engagement-related practices between faculty…

This article details an exercise for the first day of class in an introductory sociology course. Students in two sections of Introduction to Sociology taught by the same professor and covering the same content, with the exception of the exercise on the first day of class, were surveyed at the end of the semester regarding the first day. Student…