Group work is often used in university courses. This article examines group work in a widely interdisciplinary holography course that combines both art and science, for students from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. In these interdisciplinary teams, how much specialization of labor (dividing work according to students'…

To support university students' learning, teaching should build on students' prior knowledge. Therefore, teachers need skills to pay attention to students' knowledge in teaching-learning situations. Teachers' underlying conceptual knowledge affects the way they see and interpret situations in classrooms, which is called professional vision. This…

The main aim of the present investigation was to examine conditional reasoning skills in college students whose educational past had emphasized verbatim learning. A successive independent-samples design was utilized to explore the effects of instruction that explicitly targeted critical thinking principles in either freshman students or…

We examined how predictive pre-course knowledge, critical thinking, attendance, course credit, and exam grades are of in-class participation. The association between exam performance and pre-course knowledge, critical thinking, participation, course credit, and attendance was also investigated. A two-level hierarchical linear model was used to…

Engagement is related to important student outcomes such as persistence, retention, and grades. It is key to all students' learning, but it may be particularly important for culturally diverse students who may have fewer models and other resources for keeping themselves engaged. As the institutions of higher education become increasingly…

"Theory? What does this have to do with anything we're doing?" Sound familiar? Students may not always verbalize this, but they often think it, especially in courses where the emphasis is on the development of technical skills and the application of those skills to the building of products. Presenting theory in a way that is relevant and…

Writing proficiencies in the K-12 setting and at the post-secondary level have become stagnant and have decreased in some instances. Several studies indicated using peer review was beneficial for students by increasing student engagement and providing appropriate feedback. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of a peer review workshop…

The objective of the present study was to examine how motivation is related to academic achievement. The "Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire" (MSLQ) was administered to 1,166 students at a polytechnic in Singapore as a measure for motivational beliefs and self-regulated learning strategies. In addition, students' prior…

This exploratory study presents the outcomes of using self-explanation to improve learners' performance in solving basic chemistry problems. The results of the randomized experiment show the existence of a moderation effect between prior knowledge and the level of support self-explanation provides to learners, suggestive of a synergistic effect…

Technology in higher education has exploded within the last decade, as educators become more knowledgeable about its uses and students become more demanding of access and convenience to teaching and learning. This article shares results of an exploratory study that determined graduate students' perceptions of podcasting access and utility in…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is today a well-known academic assistance program that provides help for students in "difficult" courses. SI has repeatedly been shown to decrease the percentage of failures in the course as well as increasing course grades for students who attended SI sessions. Although SI is open for all students, its main objective…

This study focused on training students in skills essential to making oral presentations based on original and independent research work as part of their English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course. As a result of the training, students showed an increase in the successful use of research-related skills and a great improvement in their ability to…

We examine the argument that teaching will be more effective if adapted to individuals--what we call the interaction/adaptation hypothesis. What is likely correct about this hypothesis (but needs more research) is that modality of instruction may need to be adapted to certain types of content (e.g., geometry vs. literature) or to domain of…

The central place of the learning environment and the personal characteristics of the learner in influencing whether students adopt deep or surface approaches to learning is well evidenced in the literature (for example, Marton & Saljo, 1976; Biggs, 1987; Entwhistle, 2001; Ramsden, 2003). For this reason, tertiary educators are constantly…