Diverse student populations with varying learning skills and linguistic barriers exist throughout elementary and higher education settings. Poorer learning outcomes are observed when students are not engaged or motivated to learn. This study aimed to determine techniques used in the classroom such as discussion and debate, research and inquiry or…

Learner-Centered Teaching (LCT), as opposed to teacher-centered practices, actively engages students in the learning process. In this paper, we discuss the importance of adopting LCT strategies in family science courses to improve student learning outcomes. Family science is particularly apt for LCT because of the interpersonal focus of the…

Recently, universities and colleges have gradually shifted from face-to-face teaching to small private online course-based teaching, which integrates massive open online courses with physical classroom teaching. However, learners often experience adjustment problems within this relatively new environment. This survey-based study evaluated the…

Background: The introduction of Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction at Higher Vocational Colleges (HVCs) signifies a shift in education. Understanding the factors that affect deep learning in this SPOC context is crucial for improving educational outcomes. Objectives: By employing grounded…

Centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) have increasingly been attending to diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and access (DEIJA), offering myriad programs for instructors to learn how to make their teaching more welcoming and effective for all students. Yet considerations of disability continue to lag behind in higher education, and…

Course: Small Group Communication. Objectives: Students will identify their personality traits; synthesize the relationship between personality, small-group interdependence, and grouphate; and apply collaborative skills and knowledge of individual personality differences in building small-group success.

Asking students questions is a ubiquitous but often underestimated aspect of teaching within higher education. Questions can be used to engage students in discussion, to check their understanding, and to encourage participation or sharing of ideas. However, while it is a useful strategy to prepare a few key questions before class, many questions…

Through the creation and analysis of Small Group Learning Communities (SGLC) at a predominantly White university in the U.S. South, this study investigated how SGLCs operationalize intersectional Black feminist praxis via dialogue, liberation, and ethic of caring. The racialized and gendered organizational dynamics that govern institutions of…

This paper provides a critical examination of inclusion as a pedagogic principle through a practice-based interrogation of contemporary 'good practice' strategies for encouraging inclusion in small-group teaching. The analysis emerges from our experiences of delivering four classroom exercises that are frequently proposed as strategies for…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a well-known academic support model to address retention and student performance in higher education. However, in studies reporting the effect of SI, the number of attendees at SI sessions are seldom mentioned or reflected upon. This study investigates whether there is a lower, optimal, and upper number of SI…

This article contributes to the debate on employability skills in UK higher education. It starts by discussing the concept of employability and places the debate in the context of mega-trends affecting UK higher education and the broader UK labour market. It distinguishes between different types of employability skills, as identified by employers'…

Online learning continues to grow at unprecedented rates. K-12 had more than 275,000 students enrolled in full-time virtual schools in 2011--2012 and over 2 million participating in at least one online course. Despite this growth, there is little research on model formation and model validation for online learning. Two research-based models were…

The majority of my students are either out of state or international students who live on campus during the regular academic year and return home during the summer months. Thus, most students cannot attend face-to-face summer classes held on campus. In 2015, I developed a flipped, completely online human physiology course to meet the needs of…

Service-learning literature regularly recommends small group activities as a learning tool but rarely examines the use of a broader application of a small group dynamics framework into a service-learning course. In this research, we explore the integration of small group dynamics frameworks into a service-learning classroom; this pedagogical…

Purpose: Innovation is imperative to address a wide array of challenges in higher education. The term "microclass" is coined by the researcher to describe the division of a large class into smaller classes, which are handled by student facilitators who have undergone microteaching and performed similar teacher tasks to facilitate…