In an effort to provide students with instruction in academic writing early in their college careers, a project was undertaken to link a developmental composition course to an introductory psychology course at Washington's Bellevue College. The two professors designed a sequence of four papers offering practice in two of the more common academic…

Underscores the importance of classroom climate and innovative teaching methods in creating a fertile environment for the teaching of critical thinking. Argues that critical thinking requires active learning. Briefly describes strategies such as five-minute "writes," panel presentations, discipline worksheets, and assignment interviews as ways of…

For many students, required courses outside of their major represent necessary evils. At Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) in Utah, students majoring in finance and credit, management, and marketing are required to take accounting classes. To motivate these students, the Accounting Department has developed pedagogical techniques that emphasize…

Within the context of a discussion of the challenges facing Canadian higher education, this paper reviews some of the innovative approaches to student retention, curriculum development, and modularization in use at Mohawk College in Ontario. After stressing the need for innovation in advanced technological education in Canada, the paper offers an…

Designed for Pima Community College (Arizona) instructors, this booklet presents 50 sample writing assignments developed for 38 non-writing courses. Three types of assignments are represented: (1) short papers, which are usually one to five pages long, require few research skills, and allow students to use the instructor's feedback to produce…

For an educator who teaches English in a multicultural setting, the best way to accommodate marked features of African-American vernacular English (AAVE) in black students' freshman essays is to preserve these features in teaching students narrative writings and guide African-American students to avoid these features in expository (academic)…

The chief advantage of the use of a computer in a basic reading and writing class is that it helps the instructor do more with greater ease and comfort in less time. Initial problems associated with the use of a mainframe computer for instruction were: few programs which met the needs of community college students; lack of knowledge on how to…

In an attempt to combat the problem of poor writing and problem-solving skills among technical program graduates, Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology in Ontario, Canada began implementing changes in its Computer Studies curriculum. The first change was a greater focus on improving students' writing skills. Writing assignments were…

Designed for use by technical and vocational education teachers, this monograph describes techniques for combining writing across the curriculum strategies with reading and study skills approaches. The teaching and classroom techniques presented were developed as part of the Writing and Reading in the Technologies (WRIT) project undertaken by a…

This document presents a module on learning library resources by researching Latin American topics to be used in the Use of Library Resources course at St. Louis Community College at Meramec (Missouri). The goal of the module (to give students a basic knowledge of library resources and to introduce them to Latin America by researching Latin…

Drawing on methods currently employed at St. Philip's College (San Antonio, Texas), this paper describes six strategies for teaching critical reading skills to developmental students. For each of the methods presented, relevant resources are cited, a step-by-step instructional approach is provided, and the purpose and goals of the specific…

This document, which was developed for the orientation component of the adult education program at New River Community College in Virginia, contains lessons, forms, and other materials intended to assist teachers looking for orientation ideas that are clear, attractive, and easy to use and that integrate the goals of Virginia's Equipped for the…