Winston-Salem State University incorporates critical thinking and oral communication into general education learning outcomes and assessment. To teach these critical skills, the authors used active learning techniques in a first-year seminar on animal behavior. Students performed simulation experiments and orally presented their findings. Their…

In fall 2015, a mixed-method study was conducted with 106 early-semester and 89 late-semester undergraduate respondents to examine their use of rubrics and perceptions of their impact on academic success. A significant shift toward rubric use was found over the course of the semester, with most use occurring before assignments were due. Students…

Students in a course on the psychology of language and thought first wrote flash fiction stories and analyzed them using course concepts. As an experiential learning exercise, they subsequently analyzed those stories for a number of psycholinguistic variables using the discourse technology Coh-Metrix. Their assignment was to change a number of…

Evidence suggests that facilitated interventions in study abroad enhance gains in intercultural development, but many recent studies are not generalizable due to small numbers and lack of experimental design. In this study, subjects received individual or small-group interventions online in a course with trained intercultural mentors. The authors…

The flipped classroom, based on constructivist theory, focuses on acquiring strengths within a discipline rather than knowledge transmission. While the process of flipping the classroom has been extensively explored, little discussion has followed concerning how to effectively evaluate student learning in this new teaching paradigm. The authors…

The article presents the learning outcomes of students after walking through a learning trail on academic integrity in a university. With an academic integrity framework and a scoring rubric, students' reflection texts on academic integrity written before and after completing the trail was analyzed by the counting of matching keywords and a…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of captioning on undergraduate students' learning within a typical classroom environment. Based on guidelines associated with Universal Design as well as limitations imposed by classroom acoustics and noise levels, it was hypothesized that captions would increase students' recall and…

Two professors co-taught critical and civic thinking in the same first-semester course for four years. For the first year, they used computerized argument mapping and critical-thinking-for-civic-thinking (CT)[superscript 2] exercises based on open-ended scenarios framed within a civic context. The instructors assessed student skill levels using…

The authors present a model for program-wide assessment of the effectiveness of writing instruction in a chemistry laboratory course. This model, which involves collaboration between faculty from chemistry, the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program, and the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, is based on several theories and…

The authors created a valid and reliable teaching statement scoring rubric to investigate and document the progression of graduate student instructors as scholarly teachers. Using the rubric, they detected significant positive changes between students' draft and final teaching statements, particularly in criteria related to describing teaching…

This purpose of this pre-post, quasi-experimental evaluation was to explore the impact of grading rubric use on student academic performance. Cross-sectional data were derived from 80 undergraduates enrolled in an elective course at a research university during spring and fall 2009. The control group (n = 41), who completed the course's Assignment…

The author describes how the Understanding by Design (backwards planning) lesson plan format was used by his preservice K-12 students to develop service-learning lesson plans. Preservice teachers in a multicultural education course were given an assignment to develop service-learning lesson plans using the Understanding by Design planning process.…

The author describes the programmatic assessment of her medium-sized institution's library instruction program that focuses on the information literacy skills taught in the research component of the required English composition course. A research journal kept by each student serves as the assessment tool, and multiple rubrics are used for data…

Research regarding rubrics in K-12 classrooms and in higher education has focused on teachers' perceptions and use of them. Rubrics have been found to objectify subjective assignments, ensure accountability, and improve student understanding of teacher expectations (Andrade, 2000; Hall & Salmon, 2003; Walvoord & Anderson, 1998). This study focuses…

Building upon a related 2005 panel presentation at the 25th annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, the authors, several tenure-track assistant professors and tenured associate professors who have participated in a Research and Teaching Faculty Learning Community at Bowling Green State University, share their…