The authors share an online collaborative problem-solving activity that integrates support for students' developing conceptual understanding, focused engagement, and positive feelings of agency and identity.

This experiential exercise teaches students what constitutes Appreciative Inquiry and how it is different from other feedback models, along with giving students the opportunity to apply their knowledge. Students practice giving Appreciative Inquiry to their peers' presentations through the use of an online platform that allows for written words…

Engagement strategies for classroom instruction are now more important than ever because many schools utilize remote learning options. Classroom engagement allows teachers to keep students focused on the lesson, create a classroom community, and monitor students' progress. However, many teachers have struggled with incorporating engagement…

This learning activity outlines the transitioning of a Hotel and Lodging Management undergraduate course from face-to-face to asynchronous format. It describes how topics were converted into sequential learning modules that included short pre-recorded lectures (from the instructor and guest lecturers), discussion questions, activity tasks, quiz…

Many institutions of higher education will use online teaching in some form in the coming months. Active learning strategies in online classrooms can present new challenges, especially for quiet or shy students, or students who are not in a location where speaking is feasible. Further, development of student science identity, class community, and…

The languaging curriculum involves learning to strategically make use of available tools and resources to successfully do things with English for real-world purposes. In this article, we describe how languaging was implemented in a task where students communicate about a hobby of their choice on Reddit discussion forums. Over three weeks, the…

The use of online platform to conduct teaching and learning activities has becoming a new norm for teachers and students during this COVID-19 outbreak. In this commentary, we share our experiences of using online conferencing platform to promote active and interactive learning among students. We also suggest approaches that teachers can use to…

Despite the tragedies connected to the pandemic, tragedy has again presented an opportunity for technology and engineering teachers, students, and courses to shine--where we can demonstrate the value of adaptability and creativity in hands-on learning and technical content. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the recently released…

The rush to remote learning during the COVD-19 pandemic has caused instructors to rapidly adapt mechanisms of learning. Here, I describe an online concept mapping activity for membrane transport mechanisms that can be accomplished by students working together remotely and either synchronously or asynchronously.

This paper discusses the instructional design experiences and processes shared by a multi-disciplinary group--including more than a dozen faculty, staff, and students--while developing a series of online courses on Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) for professional engineers, a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The team…

Many instructors question the move to online teaching and learning and it is often met with resistance as they fear that on-line learning will be more structurally didactic. In particular, one of the major concerns is that the value of face-to-face discussions will be lost. This is a core concern for courses that require the development of…

In this teaching article I discuss the pedagogical implications of a classroom activity in which students work reflectively with instructor feedback that has been provided to their writing. Using the "comments" feature in Google Docs, instructors create a dialogue with students through "feedback conversations," in which…

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted education at all levels worldwide. This personal account documents some of the details of the shift to remote teaching in a South African context and discusses some opportunities and challenges present in this shift. The focus is on those issues that specifically apply to developing countries and some of these…

The Group Exercises is a distinctive collaborative group working activity completed by approximately 170 second-year undergraduate chemistry students each year in June. The activity comprises students working in randomly allocated teams of 4-6 members to complete a structured learning package to solve chemistry problems with industrial relevance…

Managers now emphasize the importance of soft interpersonal skills for success in business. The authors provide an active learning approach to collaboratively teach students basic soft skills that are needed in most careers. There are initial startup costs for the instructor, but this effort soon reaps extraordinary rewards for students. In the…