Many educational institutions, especially higher education institutions, are considering to embrace smartphones as part of learning aids in classes as most students (in many cases all students) not only own them but also are also attached to them. The main question is whether embracing smartphones in classroom teaching enhances the learning or…

Suggests that, despite the expanding variety of the university population, despite diversity and challenges to the literary canon, writing assignments continue to be uninspired and outdated. Describes an "Alternative Responses to Literature" course whose aim was to open up the communal readings, the forms of response to them, and the…

The literature of the contact zone has done an excellent job of elucidating the ethical demands of the classroom as a hybrid space of variously raced, classed, and gendered subjects discursively engaging across multiple identity boundaries. But a chief concern of one writing teacher is whether and how writing teachers can revise the symbol systems…

Demonstrates the prevalence of the problem of educators consensual, conventional characterization of language. Suggests an alternative, more dynamic way to describe social groups, and shows how this alternative can be used in the writing classroom. (PRA)

The academic setting for many students is frightening, but it is especially so for students with a strong religious background. For such students, the academic atmosphere is, at best, not neutral but empty of teachers and classes that would encourage them to deepen their religious resources. In a "Point of View" essay in the "Chronicle of Higher…

Two hypotheses were posed in a study that examined the communicative consequences of structured versus nonstructured tasks on subjects with varying levels of communication apprehension (CA): (1) task structure and level of CA will interact to predict behavioral disruption in dyads, and (2) CA and evaluation will interact to predict behavioral…

A study was undertaken among 595 students in a college psychology course to determine the relationship of test performance to competing academic assignments. Findings indicate that, in spite of a high anxiety level, college students are able to deal with the usual variations in workload that characterize academia. (Author/DB)

The common thread that runs through the activities in a literacy course for undergraduate preservice teachers is text. One such activity is a literacy autobiography in which students focus on themselves as learners and teachers. Students are treated as professionals and make their own decisions about how they want to present themselves to their…

Classroom discussion can be valuable in college math and can be enhanced by: adding time in the agenda by not repeating textbook material; welcoming classroom participation; using assignments and exams for in-class interaction; and integrating material from different parts of the course, or different courses, into classroom discussion. (MSE)

The most used model for empirical research on the writing process is based on cognitive psychology and does not take into account affective phenomena, although it has long been recognized that affect (that is, the noncognitive aspects of mental activity) plays a large role in writing and learning to write. To understand the complete picture, it is…

Suggests that the cultural diversity of the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classroom can enhance instruction. Proposes application of Paulo Freire's problem-posing approach to teaching basic college writing in the multiethnic setting. Identifies teaching principles that have proven useful in urban testing. Discusses the integration of problem…

Argues that, when instructors consider only the socially constructed in their classrooms, the intricacies of individuals are lost. Points out that, when teachers think students are completing assignments, the students are actually completing their own understanding of the assignment. Suggests that instructors explain repeatedly what they expect of…

Describes one approach (group presentations) that has been particularly successful in developing both the skills and the disposition toward critical reading. Describes creating the classroom environment, as well as three presentations (one small-group and two large-group) in which students participate over the course of the semester that are…

Provides suggestions for using active learning as the primary means to teaching statistics in order to create a collaborative environment. Addresses such strategies as using SPSS Base 7.5 for Windows and course periods centered on answering student-generated questions. Discusses various writing intensive assignments. (CMK)

Strange as it may seem, the classroom is not, by and large, accepted within the composition discipline as a scene for genuine knowledge-making and theory-building. Teachers should go back to the "concrete materials" from which knowledge and theory are made. An example of what can be learned in the classroom comes from an effort to…