This design case documents the development of a new online training program to teach circuit court interns in Wise County, Virginia, how to create smart land records, or land record abstracts stored on a blockchain. The authors first describe the instructional context behind land record abstraction and the clients' original specifications for the…

It is widely known that students have preconceptions regarding salespeople and that these preconceptions are modified by participation in sales classes. It is also known that experiential sales class activities are more effective at increasing student interest in pursuing a sales career than traditional lecture style lessons. Less explored is the…

This qualitative, improvement science, autoethnographic case study aims to examine a unique perspective on rural research through the lens of place-conscious leadership. With an identified problem of inequity in advanced-level course offerings, which resulted in lost student opportunities and student attrition to neighboring schools, the…

Quantitative literacy is an essential twenty-first century skill that universities are heavily invested in teaching to students. The social sciences play an important role in these efforts because they attract students who might otherwise avoid data and mathematically oriented courses and because they ground quantitative reasoning in political and…

Lesson study, a popular method of professional development in which instructors collaborate to critique and improve a lesson, can be used for curriculum development. This paper describes an implementation of lesson study that went through two iterations across different, related, contexts: an undergraduate mathematics content course for secondary…

This article discusses the unique situation of teaching an upper-level, undergraduate Spanish conversation course with a service-learning component at a large, public, urban university. With the help of service-learning literature and anonymous pre- and post-surveys, this study aims to offer some qualitative observations and advice on…

As an instructor of courses examining women's lives through a transnational feminist lens and a scholar whose research explores the challenge of utilizing the law to address gendered violence, author Sharmila Lodhia, is deeply invested in the question of how discussions of advocacy in the women's and gender studies classroom are framed. She…

Recent policy shifts in health care have created opportunities for social workers to provide services in integrated primary care and behavioral health settings. However, traditionally prepared social workers may not have the skill set necessary to meet practice demands. This article describes a behavioral health workforce initiative that trains…

Efforts to reform undergraduate chemistry laboratory coursework typically focus on the curricula of introductory-level courses, while upper-level courses are bypassed. This study used video-stimulated recall to interview 17 junior- and senior- level chemistry majors after they carried out an experiment as part of a laboratory course. It is assumed…

In this article, we seek to reconceptualize content-based instruction (CBI) curricula and practices from a critical perspective. Further, we propose developing criticality as an essential component of CBI, advocating for an approach we call critical content-based instruction (CCBI). While the importance of CBI has long been recognized, previous…

In this article, I describe the processes involved in designing and carrying out a case study project. The case study focuses on a science teacher, Donald, who was undertaking an inquiry-based curriculum change to an advanced chemistry course in a specialized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics school. I describe the groundwork…

A primary goal of university instruction is the students' demonstration of improved, highly developed critical thinking (CT) skills. However, how do faculty encourage CT and its potential concomitant increase in student workload without negatively impacting student perceptions of the course? In this investigation, an advanced biology course is…

Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography faced a number of hurdles that nearly derailed the course before it launched in 2000-2001. A dedicated cadre of geography professionals and high school teachers rose to the challenge and the course remains one of the fastest growing AP courses currently offered by College Board. Seventeen readers and leaders…

Here we describe a 4-yr course reform and its outcomes. The upper-division neurophysiology course gradually transformed from a traditional lecture in 2004 to a more student-centered course in 2008, through the addition of evidence-based active learning practices, such as deliberate problem-solving practice on homework and peer learning structures,…

Declining academic performance, along with a growing apathy of students toward the value of education, demonstrates that students in the United States public education system do not recognize the value of a positive experience in middle schools. A plethora of research and writing has been done on elementary schools and secondary schools, but…