This teaching note presents an active learning exercise using a clip from the television show "The Office." The exercise centers on a promise to pay for the college education of a group of third graders, raising questions about capacity, consideration, offer, acceptance, statute of frauds, revocations, promissory estoppel, and other key…

When lecturers integrate feature films and TV series (FF/TV) into their teaching, they are not always fully aware of how these media achieve their effects on students. Regardless of discipline, lecturers need a working knowledge of film literacy to effectively enable student learning through FF/TV representations. This study surveyed and…

This activity provides students with a way of understanding expectancy violations theory (EVT) by examining incidents that occurred during televised award shows. In this activity, in small groups, students will delve into well-known award-show incidents, such as Will Smith's slapping of Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards, to understand the…

Historical novels, films, and other media can disrupt or reinforce dominant narratives about the past. Educators must be careful that when they attempt to select material from a range of seemingly diverse perspectives, they do not choose content that nevertheless maintains problematic depictions of people, places, and events. Time travel stories…

According to former National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) president Cathy L. Seeley (2014), students experience more success when they engage in doing mathematics (i.e., writing about or discussing mathematics, modeling situations, or exploring ideas in the classroom). She further recommended that teachers pose challenging problems or…

In this brief article Elana Reiser describes her favorite lesson that combines popular culture with mathematics in a way that motivates student thinking and participation. Exploring open-ended problems, students may feel uneasy at first, but working in small groups often leads them to experiment with a variety of solutions. Reiser explains that…

The savior teacher/deficit parent narrative has become a public pedagogy in America, evidenced by the rise of Teach for America, and the threat of extreme neoliberal education reforms by the Trump administration. In this paper, I examine how the popular television show, "The Simpsons," upholds and challenges familiar tropes of the savior…

In today's society, where the Promethean project of mastering the universe seems to guide the scientific community to its last moment of triumph--human immortality--young people seem to lack curricular opportunities to engage with mortality. This is not surprising, as the legacy of psychology, as far back as the times of Freud and Jung, exposes a…

Young people can be motivated to learn science using the power of various entertainment media. The author states the need to recognise that they are accessing science through informal learning outside school. With children saying they have learnt from cartoons such as Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants, it would seem that entertaining animations…

This article examines how undergraduate instructors of pre-service educators can address complex issues of sexuality and sexual orientation within the classroom. First, we explain our own backgrounds and positionalities to provide a context for our ensuing ideas and discussions. Second, by reviewing the literature on homophobic bullying, we…

It can be difficult to interest students in academic topics if they have no prior exposure to or experience of the subject. The authors introduce and discuss a pedagogic innovation designed to trigger interest in entrepreneurship and "enterprise culture". They use fiction in the form of Gothic context and the vampire motif to move the…

Adolescents often bring popular culture into school, but often these literacies are not embraced or taught in the English classroom. The author makes the case for using "Glee" in the classroom by demonstrating its persuasive power to disrupt heteronormative notions of gender and sexuality with teens. The author uses a feminist rhetorical…

Instructors of psychology typically use a variety of methods to teach concepts. The present double-blind experiment is intended to determine the effectiveness of popular television clips as exemplars of Piagetian concepts compared to verbal descriptions of the same exemplars among a sample of 86 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory…

The use of pop culture as a tool for learning and instruction is paramount. Therefore, it is imperative for teachers to be aware of, and incorporate, trends that are popular and reflect the student experience. This article addresses the pop culture trends that can positively affect teaching, coaching education, and sport psychology practice.…

This article proceeds from three main premises. First, we assert that popular culture functions pedagogically and helps cultural consumers learn about work, even before they enter educational programs or workplaces. Second, we argue that exploring portrayals of internship is useful in understanding the "attributes of formality and informality"…