Complex thinking is a desired competency in 21st-century university students, so technology-based teaching and learning strategies must be carefully considered when training them in complex reasoning skills. This systematic review aims to map research on the use of teaching and learning strategies supported by technology to enhance complex…

This article describes a four-part book club in a political parties, campaigns, and elections course. Self-reported survey data and anecdotal evidence suggest that the book club was a successful learning tool. Specifically, students who enrolled in the book club reported increased classroom capital, significant learning, enjoyment with the book…

This article is a small empirical study based on two assignments, both involving reading and writing, in two physics courses at a Christian college. Students read theological, philosophical, and scientific arguments and produced research papers. By performing interdisciplinary intellectual work, students considered the compatibility of science and…

Task-based vocabulary learning has recently attracted lots of attention in the field of second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition. This article compares the effects of input and output tasks on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' acquisition of vocabulary knowledge. Four intact classes of EFL learners were randomly assigned to one of…

Hoping to increase student engagement, the author decided to re-envision his course on contemporary global issues in a "flipped" format. The results proved encouraging--to a degree. Over the course of five semesters, applying lessons gleaned from the literature, students learned how to read challenging texts outside of class and…

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has analyzed college common readings since 2010. Common reading selections partly reflect the constraints on their selection committees. Each year colleges admit large number of students who have not yet read a college-level book and some of whom have never read a full-length adult book at all. Faculty…

Designing courses for optimal level student learning is dependent upon student participation. This study examined one way to encourage further student participation in online discussions. Of specific importance was how to encourage students to read their student-colleagues' online discussion responses: not just a minimum number of responses but…

The peer rating system used here advances the quantitative literacy goals outlined in the social sciences. We instituted a mid-semester intervention to teach rating skills and used an index to track longitudinal changes of skill mastery over the course of the semester. Seventy-four students in five advanced research classes followed the procedure…

"Beach Books 2016-17," which covers 348 colleges and universities, continues the National Association of Scholars' long-running record of providing the most comprehensive information about colleges and universities that assign common readings to incoming freshmen. Although there are several databases of common reading assignments, Beach…

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…

Reading Thai and English is an essential skill for students in rural areas. This R&D research studies three levels of reading enhancement of upper elementary, junior high school, and vocational certificate students in rural areas of Nakhon Phanom. The sample group consisted of 108 students. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were…

Postsecondary education has undergone dramatic changes in the past 30 years or so. When I began teaching at the college level in the mid-1980s I went to class clutching my scribbled notes and a piece of chalk. If I scheduled it well in advance, a few times each semester I could have someone wheel in an overhead or film projector. Students typed…

When students are offered choices within assignments it increases buy-in and, therefore, motivation toward the task--and ultimately for the class itself. As a professor in an academic setting in which many millennials seem to be suffering from a persistent lack of motivation, it was a no-brainer for the author to consider creating a way to offer…

Hundreds of American colleges and universities continue to assign a summer reading to entering freshmen--typically one book, which the students are asked to read outside their courses. Many institutions embed the common reading in a larger program of campus activities: typically, they invite the common reading author to help open the academic year…

This exploratory study analyzes learner-learner interactions within a virtual environment when collaboratively reading Spanish poetry in a Hispanic literature course at the college level via an ecological theoretical perspective (van Lier, 2004). The goals of the study are (a) to present empirical data that illustrate the theoretical construct of…