Teachers strive to design instruction that actively engages all students, but a few "back-benchers" often seem to be left out, due to academic struggles, English language skills, personal disinterest, or other factors. Teachers seek to help these students develop into "active and engaged participants" in their classrooms in…

Faculty at Bethany College, Kansas found that when engaging with controversial topics like social justice, students needed lower-stakes spaces to think--and history and writing, together, provided these needed spaces. When taught in combination, these two subject areas prompted engagement and self-reflection, and the interdisciplinary synergy…

In the past several years, especially with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, emphasis has been placed on connectivity among different academic subjects as well as between those subjects and the world. Simultaneously, there has been an increasing trend toward examination questions that are wordier and require more thinking and…

This essay looks primarily at one approach to teaching about privilege in a feminist research course. I talk about the motivation to ask students to participate in this exercise and the potential as well as the challenges it has for raising awareness of one's own privileges before setting out to do feminist research. Additionally, the paper…

Pairing an inquiry lesson with a traditional reading activity creates a jarring philosophical mismatch between the interaction, deep thinking, and scientific reasoning that drives meaningful inquiry instruction and the "scan the text, copy the answers" response often obtained from elementary nonfiction readers. Realizing that there must be a…

GeoJourney is an interdisciplinary field trip in geology, Native American studies, and environmental studies designed for introductory-level undergraduates. The program travels 23,345 kilometers by van to national parks, industrial sites, museums, and Indian reservations in 24 of the United States. During the day, students carry out hands-on…

It can be a challenge to introduce students to a world region with the cultural diversity and rich history of Latin America. In this article, the author suggests four thematic units that enable teachers to identify both general trends and important differences in the region: (1) race/ethnicity; (2) progress and civilization; (3) conflict and…

This article describes a reading and writing project designed for an undergraduate survey course in mathematics. For the Math Book Club, students in groups of four read and discuss one of six books related to mathematics and the history of mathematics. As part of the assignment, students take turns developing discussion questions and summarizing…

Recommends establishing literature study groups as early as the primary grades. Outlines the steps for implementing a group and describes several classroom experiences with them. Includes a discussion of follow-up activities, and a bibliography of related works. (MJP)

An article on graduate liberal studies (GLS) and descriptions of GLS programs are presented. In "The Concept of Graduate Liberal Studies," Allie M. Frazier considers GLS curricular offerings, characteristics of students pursuing these studies, and the future of GLS. GLS degree programs allow adults to pursue a liberal education, which is…