Higher education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faces a number of challenges. There are many calls for STEM education to make significant changes moving forward, including calls for competency-based learning and greater integration of the humanities. These efforts require systemic change. Systemic change has significant…

Civic engagement has become an essential learning goal for institutions throughout higher education. Communication scholars employ various pedagogical tools to foster civic engagement. For instance, service learning has been shown to increase political and community engagement in courses such as family communication and public relations. Teachers…

Combining an overview of the history of communication scholarship with lessons learned from 20 years of experience as a prison abolitionist and peace activist, Hartnett argues that the discipline of communication can be enriched intellectually and made more politically relevant by turning our efforts toward community service, problem-based…

There has been an increasing interest in the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in problem-based learning. One line of research has been to introduce synchronous, or simultaneous, communication attempting to create text-based digital real-time interaction. Compared with face-to-face (F2F) communication, CMC may be a poorer medium…

This study investigated the effect of well- vs. ill-structured problem types on: (a) group interactional activity, (b) evolution of group participation inequities, (c) group discussion quality, and (d) group performance in a synchronous, computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. Participants were 60 11th-grade science students…