The principle of athletic coaching is applied by analogy to first year community college writing instruction. The role of the coach and five essential elements are discussed: practice and drill (nongraded exercises); fouling out (assessment); playbooks and plays (resources and strategies); big games (formal research papers); and postmortem (review…

This chapter explores some of the historical underpinnings of collaborative learning and highlights the issues involved in designing collaborative approaches including roots of collaboration in education, epistemological theory, reframing the student and teacher roles, and shared inquiry as a process of reform. (MLW)

Increased emphasis on research and grantsmanship leaves college faculty with little time or inclination for undergraduate teaching. Concern for education has given way to concern for power. Higher education is now only distantly connected with shaping a citizenry. (Author/MSE)

The implications for administrators, instructional staff, faculty and teaching assistant developers, and students of efforts to address college classroom diversity are summarized; resource people at colleges and universities with successful programs are listed; and an annotated bibliography of related print materials is provided. (Author/MSE)

Looks at the effects of advancing technology on academic life, using a simplified version of a scheme for examining diffusion of innovations. Attention is given to technology's impact on teaching, research and scholarship, and service and outreach functions, and on special challenges posed by technology, barriers to its use, and its implications…

An examination of the different ways in which the honors concept has been adapted from its elitist British university origins and of the assumptions underlying those adaptations reveals both the virtues and the problems inherent in the Americanization of honors. (Author/MSE)

This tongue-in-cheek committee report from a fictional liberal arts college illustrates how college ranking scales, projects for image enhancement, and similar activities that preoccupy today's college administrators detract from the main business of undergraduate teaching and liberal education. (Author/MSE)

New technologies lead higher education institutions to question their academic structures and processes, but effective implementation of the technologies and positive changes in traditions will occur only if basic research about teaching and learning is incorporated into discussions and planning. Issues related to instruction, faculty development,…

The basis for development of most instructional technology applications has been the process of systematic instructional design. However, the traditional model of systematic instructional design may not be appropriate for new technological tools. New options, including online instruction, suggest that the focus should now be on helping learners…