Significant numbers of studies declare the effectiveness of "active learning" and numerous universities develop programs to support the incorporation of active learning methods, yet despite various incentives, adoption is met with resistance. This work shares the results of a study of instructor perceptions about active learning at a…

We share a case study on our use of three reflective questions to demonstrate ways in which simple questions can be coded to reveal rich evidence of impact and engagement. At the end of a three-hour inclusive teaching practices workshop for 23 faculty and administrators from a single science department, 22 participants completed an anonymous…

Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a highly structured, immersive teaching strategy that emphasizes active learning through peer teams. Despite its many potential benefits for teaching introductory sociology, it has been slow to gain traction in the discipline. Instructors may debate whether the value of TBL is sufficient to justify its challenges,…

Active learning is an instructional strategy that focuses on the active learning process by involving students with engaging materials and activities in the class which leads to higher order thinking and increases students' performance. The flipped classroom is one of the latest models that allows more time in class for applying active learning…

This qualitative longitudinal study explored three engineering instructors' professional agency in implementing project-based learning (PBL), including multiple sets of data (18 interviews, observations, and written reflections spanning three semesters). The results show that the instructors' care for students, interest in pedagogical innovation,…

This article describes the Faculty Cooperative Curricular Activities (FCCA) model developed and implemented in the Recreation Management program at Appalachian State University. FCCA's are experiential learning activities or assignments in two or more separate courses where the assignment is shared to build upon a common construct/concept. These…

Engineering education has been slow to adopt research-based educational innovations. Few prior works on such adoption have investigated the combined classroom experiences of instructors and students when such innovations are being implemented. Therefore, this work focuses on the lived experiences of an instructor and her students when adopting an…

There have been numerous calls recently to increase the use of active learning in university science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classrooms to more actively engage students and enhance student learning. However, few studies have investigated faculty and student perceptions regarding the effectiveness of active learning or the…

Many science educators know of the pedagogical benefits of inquiry- and research-based labs, yet numerous barriers to implementation exist. In this article we describe a faculty development workshop that explored interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations as potential mechanisms for overcoming barriers to curricular innovation.

This study investigated the design, enactment, and impact of an undergraduate, inquiry-based astronomy laboratory learning environment. The professor, Richard, adopted laboratory materials from the Center for Astronomy and Physics Education Research [CAPER] which were described by the group as inquiry-based. Students worked through these…

Inquiry-based learning is one approach to improving the quality of undergraduate education by moving toward more student-directed, interactive methods of learning while focusing on learning how to learn. This paper deals with a missing component in the inquiry-related literature--the extra-pedagogical challenges of introducing and maintaining…

The report discusses incorporating more math, physics, chemistry, engineering and computer science into classes and laboratory work and emphasizing independent research will help undergraduate education reflect real-world science. Schools, professional societies and funding agencies should develop new teaching materials and facilitate faculty…