Studies show only 20 to 40 percent of students read assigned texts and are prepared for class discussions. To address this issue we created the "3-2-1 Reading Assignment," in which students engage in critical reading and deep learning by providing "three" points that summarize the text, "two" points that analyze it,…

Undergraduates report a variety of reasons for not reading assigned text(s), including confusion regarding instructors' expectations, while faculty report using reading as a major instructional tool and attest to the negative consequences of students' lack of reading. To bridge this divide, we propose Task-Oriented Reading Instruction (TORI) as a…

This paper describes a collaboration between one faculty instructor and seven undergraduate student collaborators. Together, the team designed a new college course. The analysis provides a practical way for educational leaders to challenge the authority of knowledge--engaging students in their education and motivating faculty to freshen their…

Capstone experiences (CEs) are high-impact opportunities for students to integrate knowledge. While student perceptions of CEs are frequently evaluated, research lacks on faculty perceptions. Our multi-institutional survey identifies who teaches CEs, why, and what influences their design/delivery. Most participants were female, white/Caucasian,…

To a growing student population for whom smartphone and Internet use started in their early childhood, social media and popular culture can be effective tools to mitigate potential anxiety and alienation students may feel when taking a theory course. This paper offers strategies and insight on the endeavor of utilizing both popular and social…

Many well-intended instructors use Socratic or leveled questioning to facilitate the discussion of an assigned reading. While this engages a few students, most can opt to remain silent. The seven step strategy described in this article provides an alternative to classroom silence and engages all students. Students discuss a single reading as they…

The benefits of in-class discussion, a form of active learning, are well-documented; in particular, discussions allow students the opportunity to learn from their peers. Yet students often treat discussions as 'down' or 'free' time. If students are not taking notes during discussion and reviewing those notes later on, they may not be learning much…

This paper discusses a collaboration between a criminal justice professor and the coordinator of composition at a small, four-year University in a rural location. The goal was to restructure the writing assignments in criminal justice courses in such a way as to enhance student participation in writing assignments and to improve the quality of…

This piece reports on an early attempt at gamification (reframing post-secondary classrooms drawing on the structure of games). The attempt began in the 2011-2012 academic year and is structured to allow students substantial autonomy in determining which assignments, and how many of them, to complete over the course of the semester. Initial…

In this article Raymond Benton, Jr. describes how he implemented a variation on Eliot Aronson's (Aronson et al. 1978) "jigsaw classroom" activity. While there are similarities between Aronson's jigsaw classroom and what is described here, there are differences as well. In Aronson's system, the classroom was divided into subgroups. Each…

This article describes a unique interdisciplinary course on social media and the self developed and taught by the authors at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The article describes challenges facing humanities faculty who wish to teach on topics with high societal currency and student interest. Current research into humanistic approaches…

We used Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as a new pedagogy in an intermediate composition course. Our course design was based in constructivist pedagogical practices, which suggest that knowledge is co-created through social interactions. Although professors have much to offer students, students can also learn important lessons through interactions…

Response papers are usually brief, recurring assignments, often posted to online course management systems or virtual learning environments, wherein students are free to comment on any aspects of the assigned readings for a class or sequence of class meetings. They are typically to be written prior to the class meetings where the readings in…

Over the past several years I have taught a career orientation course at St. John Fisher College. This course was designed to increase student awareness of potential careers following their undergraduate studies in our Biology program. Additionally, the course has also been used as a model for similar experiences in our Psychology, Chemistry,…

Engaging students in metacognitive activities that help them reflect on how they learn empowers them and improves their learning. The author of this article uses a final assignment called a Learning Assessment to develop students' metacognitive skills. The Learning Assessment is a series of questions that students answer in a short paper due on…