Students' self-reported attitudinal learning were compared between two different large courses that incorporated attitudinal learning objectives at a Midwestern US public university- a course on environmental sustainability utilising active learning instruction (100 participants) and a course on international economics utilising traditional…

To broaden perspectives presented in undergraduate courses, instructors often invite guest speakers, yet there is limited research on students' perceptions of guest speakers and the potential influence they may have on student learning. In this exploratory study, we describe how senior undergraduate students, in a natural resource management…

Burgeoning college enrolments and insufficient funding to higher education have expanded the use of large lecture courses. As this trend continues, it is important to ensure that students can still learn in those challenging learning environments. Within education broadly and undergraduate engineering specifically, active learning pedagogies have…

Large classes on sustainable development present certain challenges. Often high student to instructor ratios encourage passive learning pedagogies. However, because sustainability education seeks to increase awareness and help students shift to more sustainable behaviors, more active learning is often prescribed by pedagogical experts. This study…

Two green chemistry courses have been introduced into the liberal arts curriculum at Susquehanna University. Green chemistry was integrated into an existing course, Chemical Concepts, and offered as Green Chemical Concepts for nonscience majors. This course is designed to instill an appreciation for green chemistry in a large and diverse group of…

This article describes an active learning strategy for engaging undergraduate business students, a group often ignored in scientific pedagogy, in learning about renewable energy technology and associated trade-offs. I designed a small-group activity to appeal to and engage business students, but the exercise could easily be used for a variety of…

This dissertation shows the evolution of five undergraduate students' ideas of natural and anthropogenic climate change throughout a lecture hall course on climate change. This research was informed by conceptual change theory and students' inaccurate ideas of climate change. Subjects represented different levels of climate change understanding at…

The impact of transformational leadership, experiential learning, and reflective journaling on the conservation ethic of non-science majors in a general education survey course was investigated. The main research questions were: (1) Is the Conservation of Biodiversity professor a transformational leader? (2) Is there a difference in the…

The decision to employ learner-centered teaching methods, teacher-centered teaching methods, or whether to integrate the two within large lecture halls in higher education continues to be heavily researched and hotly debated. All, in one form or another, have been shown effective at varying levels, throughout a myriad of disciplines and across…

Science teacher education has traditionally presented science as a body of knowledge to be mastered, along with the methods that may be used to help learners to master this body of knowledge. With pressure mounting on higher education institutions to engage more actively with communities, avenues have opened up to facilitate the development of…

High enrollments, conflicting student work schedules, and the sheer convenience of once-a-week classes are pushing many colleges to schedule evening courses. Held from 6 to 9 pm or 7 to 10 pm, these classes are typically packed, sometimes with more than 150 students in a large lecture theater. How can faculty effectively teach, control, or even…

The population growth together with the unsustainable consumption pattern is putting increasing stress on the planet's natural resources. The increasing realisation that humans are harming the environment is taking the form of a global movement intended to change behaviour towards sustainability, now recognised as a framework that links humans to…

Purpose: The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a concrete example of how experiential learning approaches (from internships in global policy institutes to visiting communities in rural Amazonia to meeting with officials from inter-governmental organizations) can be implemented in order to most effectively meet specific educational goals…

Traditional lectures generally force students to play a passive role in the classroom. In an effort to promote active learning, we added discussion sections to a large lecture hall course. Field trips, student journals, and group-based assignments, in particular, enhanced the learning experience. To ensure the success of the new format, course…

This research tested the hypothesis that students' erroneous mental models about groundwater will change towards more valid concepts if they are taught on the basis of a mental model-building strategy that focuses on the clarification of students' misconceptions. To examine the hypothesis a quasi-experimental research design was chosen. The…