One of a University's four functions is to extend sustainable training programs that will help address any social issue in the community. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a University extension program. It focuses on the participants' skills acquired from the program and how they influence their job performance and quality of life. This…

How does a large research university establish a culture supporting student-centered evidence-based teaching? In this paper, we describe Purdue University's "Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation" (IMPACT) which has involved 321 instructors and 529 courses. Of every first-time undergraduate student, who first…

Now more than ever, it is urgent that colleges and universities mobilize themselves to produce graduates who are capable of being productive, creative, and responsible members of a global society. Employers want clear communicators who are strong critical thinkers and who can solve real-world problems in an ethical way. To achieve these outcomes,…

The common purposes of the studies conducted in language program evaluations are to examine the match between what is desired for the programme versus the actual state of the programme, to make judgments about learners' level of skills and knowledge, and to make suggestions for improvement. However, it is not currently common practice in Turkey…

A number of universities in the United Kingdom (UK) have launched institution-wide initiatives recently to embed inquiry and research more firmly into the student experience. Among these, the Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences (CILASS) led a five-year development program at The University of Sheffield (TUOS) between…

This paper represents a narrative of the process of department-level reform through the eyes of the initiating agent of change. Over the course of reform, our program has grown by 40%, primarily through retaining students. We exhibit a 10% net important rate of engineering students in the first two years of the curriculum relative to the college's…

The Internationalising the Student Experience Project was devised and piloted as a teaching innovation to improve the intercultural awareness of instructors and, subsequently, that of their domestic and international students. In this article we claim that instructor preparation in the use of the Alliance Building and Cultural Mapping tools of the…

Inquiry-guided learning (IGL) has widespread appeal in higher education as a suite of teaching strategies that promotes learning through students' increasingly independent investigation of questions, problems, and issues using the methods of inquiry of the disciplines. Framed as especially appropriate for research universities, IGL has been…

The University of Gloucestershire, located in the southwest of the United Kingdom, is a small university with approximately 7,500 full-time students and 400 teaching staff. It has three faculties, all with a professional or applied focus: (1) Media, Art, and Technology; (2) Business, Education, and Professional Studies; and (3) Applied Sciences.…

Creativity often has been associated with the arts, although creativity also is essential for innovative discoveries and applications in science and engineering. In this article, a pilot study is presented about an investigation concerning how creativity is fostered in an art education course in conjunction with an undergraduate engineering…

We examined two curricular change efforts at a small, midwestern engineering and science college in order to explore how organizational culture influences curricular change processes. We found that the failure of one effort (measured by inability to sustain the curriculum over time) and the success of the other (the curriculum continues to be…

In 2006, Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) launched a major initiative, the Top 25 Project, to embed inquiry-guided learning (IGL) into its largest-enrollment courses across the university. These are generally entry-level classes and thus affect many students: 75 percent of incoming students on its main campus in 2010 were in at least one Top 25…

Through support of the National Science Foundation's Department Level Reform program, "Engineering Students for the 21st Century" (ES21C) has implemented a ten-course sequence designed to help students develop into engineers. Spread across the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) curriculum at Oklahoma State University, these…

The term "assessment" sends shivers down academic spines. For faculty, it signals marching orders from external parties who may or may not appreciate the subtle and not always quantifiable value of faculty efforts. For administrators, it means the dual challenge of recalibrating internal measures to meet external mandates but also…

This article presents generalisations drawn from experience gained designing and renewing study programmes so that the use of learning outcomes became the underlying principle of curriculum organisation. Conceptions of a purpose (profile), aim and outcomes of a study programme are presented, their formulation requirements are discussed and…