While there are many measures of anxiety, there are few measures or descriptions of confidence. This study considers students' perceptions of what it means to be or to look confident during undergraduate presentations. Findings show students placed high value on effective posture as the most common behavior that was causally connected to a…

Public speaking is a highly important skill for a graduate to achieve, and despite many students reporting high public speaking anxiety, this is rarely addressed in current undergraduate degree courses. The following paper evaluates the effectiveness of a course aimed at reducing students' levels of public speaking anxiety via a relatively simple…

To explore new opportunities to promote self-regulated learning (SRL) across a variety of contexts, this study applies a novel assignment called Pink Time in seven different courses at two universities. The assignment asks students to "skip class, do anything you want, and give yourself a grade." In each case, instructors adapted Pink…

The purpose of this study was to use a grounded theory, qualitative approach to gain a deeper understanding of students' self-regulated learning processes in a required first-year gateway Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) course that is critical for success in health care-related academic programs and professions. At the end of a two-semester…

Teaching and learning of many undergraduate science courses often remains confined within the boundaries of classrooms rendering learning of these subjects irrelevant and detached from students' lived experiences. Community-based experiential learning (CBEL) is one way to address this issue. This paper reports the development and implementation of…

Recommendations about syllabi design have emerged over the last two decades. From a Promising Syllabus, to a Graphic Syllabus, to a Student-Centered Syllabus, faculty are encouraged to purposefully set the tone with this document. Few studies examine students' impressions of these documents. In order to do this, we created four types of syllabi…

In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) called for more interdisciplinary and community-engaged approaches to teaching and learning in the agricultural and life sciences to better respond to the food system challenges of the 21st century. As a result, institutions from across the nation have responded with a number of experiential learning…

Rural communities, compared with their urban counterparts, have higher rates of disease and adverse health conditions, fueling disparities in health outcomes. This encourages the need for effective curricula to engage students and enable them to address such disparate health outcomes as imminent health professionals. Incorporating learner-centered…

Learning activities to develop interprofessional collaboration align with goals for professional preparation to improve health outcomes. A problem-based case study approach can offer formal and informal learning interactions that promote information exchange and collaborative practice. The purpose of this instructional article was to describe a…

In this study, we explored cogenerative dialogue (cogen) as a tool for learner-centered teaching in graduate education. Cogen consists of small group dialogues among instructors and students for the purposes of improving course processes. We engaged cogen during a semester-long, graduate-level campus environments course. Using the theoretical…

A cohort comprised of high school and college teachers met for one year to build understanding of the critical transition of high school students to college. The seminar analyzed how current reforms in both systems will impact student skill development and preparedness for college work. The discussions highlighted the need to clarify expectations…

In recent decades, emotional intelligence (EI) has emerged as one of the crucial components of emotional adjustment, personal well-being, interpersonal relationships, and overall success in life. Yet few professional curricula adequately address this subject. The results of this study indicate that the potential for enhanced emotional intelligence…

The direction of university courses is often guided by the results of traditional Likert scale student evaluations. Most of these focus on instructors' characteristics and frequently do not provide useful insights into students' learning preferences or feedback regarding specific activities and projects in the courses. This study, carried out in a…

This article provides a description and evaluation of a service-learning juvenile justice course designed to broaden university students' attitudes toward diversity issues. Diversity service learning integrates academic learning with community service by providing students with opportunities to learn about social disparities associated with…

A university-wide secondary credential program (middle and high school) has engaged in systemic reform through professional development for content faculty to better equip prospective secondary teacher candidates for supporting the academic and social needs of English language learners (ELLs), particularly in urban schools. Data from five years of…