As courses can get stale in the world of online education, it can become easy to teach the same old same old. Educators want courses that are fresh, that reflect the latest research, that meet and engage their students, and that offer stimulating and interesting information. When approached in a methodical step-by-step manner, successfully…

As the field evolves over time, shifting from Industrial Arts, to Technology Education, to Engineering and Technology Education (ETE), so too does what teachers teach, how they teach, and the projects that they use. Projects that worked 10 years ago might not hold up today and, as reflective practitioners, they need to be able to align the current…

In recent decades, nationalism has emerged from the distant purview of history to become the primary driver of some of the world's biggest news. Given the prominence of nationalist conflict, students in political science increasingly study the subject with modern references in mind. This article describes the design for a timely undergraduate…

This paper is written to provide ideas and guide faculty who want to design a mathematical modeling course for undergraduate mathematics majors and minors. We discuss course goals, assignments, and projects that can be used to help students gain experience relevant for careers and mathematical modeling opportunities. The authors designed this…

To help ESP college instructors improve the English curriculum taught at polytechnic institutes, colleges and universities, the current study proposes a model for designing English for Polytechnic Purposes (EPP) courses for undergraduate students majoring in mechanical engineering, chemistry, technology, economics, textile industry and other…

Courses: Introduction to Communication Studies, Interpersonal Communication, Nonverbal Communication. Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) describe and interpret face-work as a communicative act that both reflects and constructs identity, (2) explain the concept of intersectionality in basic…

The field of astrobiology is concerned with the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the Universe. It contains within it civilization-level questions such as: What is the future of humanity on Earth and can we successfully explore and settle other planets? As such, it offers an educational framework for both teaching basic science and…

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Conflict and Communication, Interpersonal Communication. Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) differentiate between the avowed versus ascribed dimensions of cultural identity construction; (2) articulate the contested nature of cultural identity, including how…

This article presents the Pilgrimage Model as a template for educators wishing to lead students on site-specific studies of engaged learning. During the 2015-2016 academic year, a group of Georgetown University students, faculty, and staff pursued the Pilgrimage Project, a year-long pedagogical experiment in interdisciplinary education and…

The graduate level course described in this article provides one possible pathway to making the connection between the global and the local in multicultural education. The proposal is that among many other things, the journey to the development of critical approaches is a conceptual endeavor. It is not meant to replace an introductory course in…

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Culture and Conflict, International Conflict and Alliance Building. Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) describe the concepts of identity, citizenship, and mobility; (2) empathize with the everyday struggles of students who hold citizenship outside of their…

Course: Organizational Communication. Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) identify stereotypes that are created and/or reinforced by images frequently used in communication materials, (2) explain how those stereotypes influence communication and relational barriers in organizations, and (3)…

Values clarification is an important tool that helps individuals to clarify their beliefs about sexuality-related issues. This lesson plan provides instructions for a 1-hour values clarification activity for a large undergraduate human sexuality course that serves as an introduction to course content and tone, stimulates students' initial thinking…

This article describes a general education course offering, Physics and the Arts. During the development of this course, physics and arts faculty collaborated closely. We cover the usual physics phenomena for such a course--light, color, and sound--in addition to gravity, equilibrium, and spacetime. Goals of the course are to increase students'…

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Communication and Identity, Interpersonal Communication. Objectives: After completing this semester-long activity, students should be able to (1) discuss and apply the concepts of social identities; (2) analyze the influence of self-identities on online communication practices of self to others and others to…