This case study of a Native American high school senior focuses on one of the final assignments he completed before dropping out of school early in the school year. The task was to draw a life map--a nonverbal text that identified 10 key life events on his journey to that point--as part of a larger unit on identity for his senior English class.…

There is mounting evidence to show that engineers need more than technical skills to succeed in industry. This paper describes a curriculum innovation in which so-called "soft" skills, specifically inter-personal and intra-personal skills, were integrated into a final year mining engineering course. The instructional approach was…

Manycore systems have emerged as being one of the dominant architectural trends in next-generation computer systems. These highly parallel systems are expected to be interconnected via packet-based networks-on-chip (NoC). The complexity of such systems poses novel and exciting challenges in academia, as teaching their design requires the students…

Peer assessment of long written tasks poses particular problems as these tasks typically involve complex learning and solving ill-structured problems which require divergent responses. Marking reliability of this kind of writing task is difficult to achieve. The author illustrates this through an evaluation of two implementations of peer…

In October, Myanmar's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, got a quirky request on YouTube. A hyperactive instructor in a plaid jacket posted a video inviting her to do a Skype interview with his "World Regions" geography class at Virginia Tech. Ms. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate often compared to Nelson Mandela, might have…

This article examines the effectiveness of a collaborative group learning project for teaching a core competency in comparative politics: constitutional structures. We use a quasi-experimental design and propensity score matching to assess the value of a constitutional writing group project and presentation. The results provide strong evidence…

This article, the second of a two-part series, features 13 "My Favorite Assignments" that were introduced at the Association for Business Communication's 82nd annual conference held in Dublin, Ireland, in 2017. The pedagogical innovations include assignments that teach students how to conduct primary research, present their findings,…

REL Midwest conducted a systematic review of research on interventions that may improve academic outcomes for Black students. The review entailed a search for studies that provide evidence at Tier I (strong evidence), Tier II (moderate evidence), or Tier III (promising evidence) according to the Every Student Succeeds Act, and explicitly mention…

This qualitative study describes the experience of a cross-age tutoring intervention for three PreKindergarten/Kindergarten-aged students with autism and their fourth grade general education tutors. Data were collected in an inclusive environment; the school library. Three fourth grade general education cross-age tutors were trained to use a…

A comparison of published statements about the source-use skills of sophomores in the 1990s and those revealed by the more recent Citation Project study of researched writing suggests that many of the assumptions driving pedagogy, policy, and curricula need to be revised and that faculty working across the disciplines should work with students on…

This study examines how to support accounting students to experience deep learning. A sample of 81 students in a third-year undergraduate accounting course was studied employing a phenomenographic research approach, using ten assessed learning tasks for each student (as well as a focus group and student surveys) to measure their experience of how…

The importance of emotion in the process of learning interpersonal communication in educational settings has been well documented. We administered the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (Schutte et al., 1998), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980), and the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (Kirk et al., 2008) to 50…

This project studied the effect of individualized, voluntary learning contracts for 18 students who performed poorly in the first part of the semester. Contracts were hypothesized to increase commitment and motivation, and lead to changes in behaviors and course performance. Self-reported prioritization and learning-related behaviors (completion…

This article describes how the incorporation of a writing assignment, creating a book about culture and science, into the syllabus of methods science course for preservice teachers, was used to foster science content learning. Preservice teachers were actively and purposely engaged in science learning through the generation of a book about a…

Faculty in a large, urban school of engineering designed a longitudinal study to assess the critical thinking skills of undergraduate students as they progressed through the engineering program. The Paul-Elder critical thinking framework was used to design course assignments and develop a holistic assessment rubric. The curriculum was re-designed…