We found that actively engaging students in our introductory microbiology course was a challenge given our large class sizes and many non-majors taking the course as a program requirement. Therefore, we introduced a novel active learning strategy to our course. Students grouped into teams of three had to create PowerPoint virtual posters on one of…

The Internet, which has made information ubiquitous and seemingly infinite, has transformed education. Universities are challenged to educate students to navigate and evaluate critically the undifferentiated information of the Internet so that students gain the ability to transform it into knowledge. To better understand the effects of taking a…

Student test anxiety (TA) is a far-reaching concern in many post-secondary institutions as it can have a negative impact on student performance and retention. Educator perceptions of TA may influence the incidence of TA as well as treatment success. As such, we surveyed educators at a medium-sized Canadian university about their perceptions and…

It is well known that university students with ineffective learning strategies and low motivation are at risk for lowered grades and stress. Given the needs of these students, Mount St. Vincent University developed the Student Success Course (SSC), a 14-week intervention that offers instruction in learning strategies, selfmanagement, and…

The increase in the cost of college textbooks together with the proliferation of digital content and devices has inspired the development of open textbooks, open educational resources that are free, openly licensed, and often peer-reviewed. Although several published studies have investigated the impact of open textbook adoption on educational…

This study sought to provide a better understanding of how lecture capture technology is used by students and how its use is related to student satisfaction, attendance, and academic performance. Using a mixed method design with both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data, instruments included a student questionnaire, interviews and…

In this study we assessed the usefulness of a multifaceted teaching framework in an advanced statistics course. We sought to expand on past findings by using this framework to assess changes in anxiety and self-efficacy, and we collected focus group data to ascertain whether students attribute such changes to a multifaceted teaching approach.…

The primary purpose of the study described here was to document the first author's experiences delivering a repertoire of evidence-based comprehension strategies in context of a first-year university course. We first provide an overview of the literature related to students' transition into the postsecondary environment, arguing for the need to…

Experiential education and service-learning are "buzz words" within many educational circles. The purpose of this study was to explore students' (N=18) and professor experiences with/in a student-directed experiential education elective course, with a particular focus on a service-learning initiative. Stephen Brookfield's critical…

Written feedback on students' assignments is a common method that instructors and teaching assistants use to inform students about their performance or guide revisions. Despite its frequency of use, written feedback often lacks sufficient detail to be beneficial to students, and additional empirical research should examine its effectiveness as a…

In a milieu where traditional views of scholarship are embedded in the culture of educational institutions, and nursing programs in particular, this paper reports on a research project designed to support nurse educators' capacity to engage in scholarly activities. Rogers' (2003, 2004) "Diffusion of Innovation" model provided a…

Although specific cognitive abilities, cognitive style, and learning preferences are assumed to be inter-related, the empirical evidence supporting this assumption is mixed. Cognitive style refers to how individuals represent information, and learning preference refers to how individuals prefer the presentation of information (Mayer & Massa,…

This paper defines and operationalizes definitions of good teaching, scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning in order to measure characteristics of these definitions amongst undergraduate instructors at McMaster University. A total of 2496 instructors, including all part-time instructors, were surveyed in 2007. A total of…

This study examined the use of lecture capture in students in a large 3rd year undergraduate biological science course at the University of Guelph. Data regarding viewing behaviour, academic performance, and attendance were analyzed in relation to student learning approach (as assessed by the R-SPQ-2F), gender, and year of post-secondary…

Two studies were performed to investigate the impact of students' clicker performance feedback on their help-seeking behaviour and use of other learning strategies. In study 1, we investigated the relationship between students' clicker performance, self-efficacy, help-seeking behavior, and academic achievement. We found that there was a…