In recent times, there has been a strong focus on moving university teaching away from a so-called 'instructivist', lecture-centred mode, in which the focus is on what teachers are doing, towards a more student-centred 'constructivist' approach, centred on active learning and students' own constructions of knowledge. This paper considers the…

The Teaching First-Generation College Students Across Cultural Strengths course was developed in the context of a large-scale initiative to eliminate equity gaps in graduation rates within the California State University system. The online course enabled faculty to revise curriculum and instructional practices in the summer and support…

While more and more universities in traditionally non-Anglophone countries are moving towards English medium instruction (EMI), those of the nominally Anglophone postcolonial world are carrying on with business as usual. Higher education in many postcolonial countries has typically only ever been available through the language of the former…

Pathophysiology is a scientific discipline that studies the onset and progression of pathological conditions and diseases, and pathophysiology is one of the core courses in most preclinical medical curricula. In China, most medical schools house a Department of Pathophysiology, in contrast to medical schools in many developed countries. The staff…

How does a large research university establish a culture supporting student-centered evidence-based teaching? In this paper, we describe Purdue University's "Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation" (IMPACT) which has involved 321 instructors and 529 courses. Of every first-time undergraduate student, who first…

Objective: To examine the discursive strategies deployed by community colleges to sustain legitimacy in an evolving and contradictory institutional environment. Method: Using corpus linguistics software, I compared 1,009 mission statements from 2012-2013 with a reference corpus of 427 mission statements from 2004. Results: Keywords analysis,…

The employability of college students is one of postsecondary education's most pressing concerns in the United States and China, especially when it comes to the possible over-production of bachelor's trained students and "skills gaps" where jobs go unfilled due to inadequately prepared graduates. In response, policymakers are focusing on…

Ten years ago, AAC&U (then AAC) issued a landmark report, "Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community". Anticipating the academy's sternest external critics by nearly a decade, "Integrity" offered a sweeping and incisive critique of curricular practice throughout higher education. "As for…

The need for increased creativity in education is currently being proposed in much innovative thinking on higher education as universities are forced to recreate themselves. There are four conditions facing higher education worldwide: alignment, motivation, connection, and direction. Higher education is characterized by a hierarchy of subjects and…

This article profiles A.C. Grayling, a British intellectual who pioneers a new model for college. In his role as founder of the New College of the Humanities, Britain's newest and most controversial institution of higher education, A.C. Grayling could have chosen among several titles. The senior academic officer at most English higher-education…

Grounded in self study and personal and professional reflection, this is an inquiry into how seasoned, long time and close to retirement teachers can do their best work on a shifting college landscape in a changing world. Recognizing teaching and learning as the college's core business, the author explores mentorship, community among…

Chapter 1 starts out with a short historical view on "academisation" and "professionalisation," illustrating how much professional higher education (PHE) in Europe has been in flux in the past years. With examples from France and Ireland, the chapter argues how a new spectrum of missions, differences in national organization of…

This article considers the effects on universities of Gutenberg's invention of printing. It considers four major effects: the gradual displacement of Latin as the language of scholarship with vernacular languages, the expansion and eventual opening of libraries, major changes to curriculum, and major changes to pedagogy including lectures.…

Sun Yat-sen University's East-meets-West curriculum is distinctive, but its embrace of liberal education--education across disciplines, meant to provoke broad thinking--is far from unusual. At a time when China and its East Asian neighbors are trouncing U.S. students on international exams, educators in these countries are nonetheless adopting,…

This articles aims to demystify curriculum and pedagogical discourses and related practices of sectoral occupational fields and qualifications of universities of technology (UoTs). The article takes issue with the academic tradition which emphasises distinctiveness of UoT as a sector that should focus exclusively on applied knowledge that is fixed…