The physical education context is fun yet challenging. There is the potential for teachers to offer a multitude of games and activities for students. Thus, PE teachers should put the students in the best position to learn the content. One method involves PE teachers putting students in small-sided groups during games and activities. The purpose of…

Digital escape rooms can transform any lesson into an engaging learning environment. This article describes the implementation of a digital escape room in an undergraduate educational technology course for preservice teachers. The digital escape room was designed and developed using a 10-step process and covered the topic of gamification.…

Lardner and Malnarich (2009) identify learning communities as an educational reform strategy designed for intentional student cohorts that engage students in at least one integrative learning opportunity. Colleges and universities are aware that robust educational programs exist on their campuses, yet institutions must identify strategies to help…

When approached about working with colleagues to develop a new course revolving around the inner-workings of a political campaign, one thing was obvious to me: We had to give the course the unique element of making it as closely mimic real-world campaign activities as possible. If we were going to attempt to actually prepare students for work on a…

High-stakes, standardized testing plays an important role in the lives of many students as they apply to college and compete for scholarships. In states where college readiness measures, like the ACT® test, are used for school and district accountability, the ACT scores of all students, whether college-bound or not, are a top priority for school…

States are recognizing the need for personal financial education and have begun requiring it as a condition for high school graduation. Responding to teacher requests to help them meet state-mandated financial education requirements, FCS educators in the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service developed a financial education tool kit. This article…

Eat, Grow, Lead 4-H Club was created as a pilot program for college students seeking to gain experience as non-formal youth educators, specifically serving pre-entry level Extension educators through a university-based 4-H club. Seventeen student volunteers contributed an estimated 630 hours of service to the club during spring 2011. The club…

As traditional classroom settings are transitioning to online environments, teachers now face the challenge of using this medium to promote effective learning strategies, especially when teaching older age groups. Because adult learners bring a different set of understandings and skills to education than younger students, such as more job and life…

The National FFA Organization is committed to providing non-formal learning activities focusing on leadership education. Summer camps are a major component of FFA activities and concentrate on personal growth, leadership development, and recreational activities for youth. This repeated measures study determined the level of cognitive gain and the…

School administrators rarely have the opportunity to confer and share their challenges with colleagues. To address this problem in 2005 the Educational Administration Department (EAD) at Central University (a Midwestern PhD granting institution located in a thriving city of about 100,00 people) created a virtual/local doctoral cohort for 14 school…

Many complex problems affect the lives of our citizens, including our children. A particularly important problem is a lack of a sense of community and connectedness (Belenky, et. al, 1986; Bellah, et. al, 1985; Dewey, 1938; Houser & Kuzmic, 2001; Palmer, 1998). There is a feeling among many that we are no longer connected to something larger…

The author's book on integrated course design was published in 2003, and two years later he retired from the University of Oklahoma, in part to free himself up to respond to the requests that started coming from other campuses to do faculty workshops on this topic. However, one of the carry-over commitments at Oklahoma was to teach a graduate…

This guide provides articles and activities designed to make elementary students in Oklahoma aware of their historical heritage. It introduces students to the people and events that produced the state of Oklahoma. The guide is arranged into five sections. Section one presents 12 articles focusing on such topics as life before the white man,…

Thirty-three member schools of the Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools cooperated in the creation of six school networks that participated in a series of electronic "field trips" for rural students. The field trips were actually conference telephone calls that allowed students and teachers to talk with experts in areas such as…

This workbook, comprised of both the teacher and student editions, presents guidelines useful for first-year catfish farmers in Oklahoma using pond or cage cultures to raise channel catfish. The teacher edition is a set of unit guidelines only. Contents include a list of suggested readings, important addresses with types of information available…