It can be difficult to find ways to motivate students while teaching a physics course for non-physics students. Students come to class with many different attitudes and preconceptions, some of which are detrimental to their learning. As physics educators, we strive for student engagement and motivation in course material no matter what type of…

Helping students recognize the value of humanistic inquiry can be challenging, especially in required courses. This essay presents a solution: an assignment in which students were asked to pitch one of the required readings to Netflix for adaptation. Through close readings of student responses and an analysis of the "so what" component…

Research on flexible assessment suggests that providing students with choice in assignments can increase motivation and deepen investment in learning. Although instructors are often advised to adopt flexible assessment, they are also warned about potential detriments such as perceived lack of rigour among colleagues, the stress that…

To be academically successful, students need to delay gratification, sustain motivation, keep a high level of self-efficacy, and maintain an appropriate balance within their hot/cool cognitive-affective system. The cognitive-affective personality system includes 5 cognitive-affective mediating components (i.e., individuals' way of…

To combat the inevitable intellectual fatigue that autobiographical essay assignments often engender and, more importantly, to provide students with an authentic audience and purpose for their writing, the author designed an autobiographical assignment that liberates students from the traditional essay format while empowering them to envision…

Academic integrity matters are relevant to all areas of university teaching, but they are of particular importance to degree programmes whose graduates intend to work in the public service. While a large body of scholarship exists on academic integrity, very little has been written that specifically relates to students who intend to pursue careers…

To be awake means to have active attention, particularly the attention to carry a project into effect and execute a plan (Greene, 1977). Additionally, to be wide-awake requires a level of consciousness that provokes reflection and awareness in the quest for meaning, which can in turn contribute to the formation of self and ability to make sense of…

The delivery of online university courses has continued to grow for more than a decade. New advances in technology have made the efficient delivery of courses possible, as well as increasing the collections of tools for students to cheat. Cheating results in the atrophy of the student's academic integrity, it has the potential to damage a…

This paper is a self-study that uses the lens of Vygotsky's four phases of sign acquisition to examine one student writer's development of voice through writing produced from 5th grade through her second year of graduate school (17 years). Growing up as a twin--and as a visually impaired individual--the author learned how to use the written word…

Struck by his students' often hostile and apathetic responses to assignments and instruction and hoping to contribute to the knowledge of motivation, Dan LaSalle began to take an inquiry stance on his own practice. He studied his practice on three fronts with the help of an off-site teacher research group: (1) how his inquiry question changes as a…

Gamification is the use of game design elements and game mechanics in non-game contexts. This idea has been used successfully in many web based businesses to increase user engagement. Some researchers suggest that it could also be used in web based education as a tool to increase student motivation and engagement. In an attempt to verify those…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been hailed as the answer to educational access and pilloried as failures, yet, according to this author, both claims are overstated and frequently obscure the real value of these courses: the knowledge gained about student behavior, about the possibilities of technology-assisted instruction, and about…

Differentiated instruction in the form of tiered take-home lab exercises was implemented for students of an undergraduate-level programming course. This paper attempts to uncover the perceptions and usage patterns of students toward these new lab exercises using a comprehensive survey. Findings reveal that these tiered exercises are generally very…

The authors explore how and to what extent students use their textbooks. Data was collected through a survey regarding when reading is primarily done, how the textbook is used for studying, and which specific study strategies the students used. The results indicate that students know it is important to read, know the professor expects them to…

The authors discuss the effectiveness of the Quality School model and active learning in an undergraduate classroom setting. They compare performance levels of students in two course sections of Principles of Macroeconomics and two sections of Managerial Communications. Students are given an opportunity to help shape the structure of the…