This study reflects on the development and implementation of mid-term oral examinations in large-scale lecture courses at a large, public research university; specifically, this work examines the implications of oral exams for fostering student engagement and concept-based comprehension in addition to institutional and course commitments to…

The flipped classroom pedagogy offers opportunities for students by having the majority of class time spent on discussions and group work that enable students to take risks and make mistakes while gaining experience in collaboration and expertise in content. This research study explores students' perceptions of whether student collaboration in a…

This study presents a three-year replication and extension of Maurer's (2013) evaluation of a classroom activity to reduce prejudice and discrimination. Students in six sections of an introductory family science course were assigned to one of three conditions and one of two target marginalized groups for a 3x2 design. Results differed…

Over the past eight years we have undertaken iterative cycles of course reform in two introductory biology courses: Biology 111 and Biology 211. Our revisions of these formerly "traditional" lecture courses have included in-class case studies with and without peer facilitators and peer-facilitated small-group workshops. Based on analyses…

The research analyses the new trend of training culturally diverse students in western style business education in Singapore where a substantial number of mainland Chinese students enroll in business courses. Building on ideas by Hosfede (1984), Morey and Frangioso (1998) and Rodrigues (2004), 402 mainland Chinese students who were enrolled in…

This study explores alternative approaches for teaching general education courses burdened with serving extremely large enrollments. It compares the effectiveness of a self-contained course in which each course section is taught by one instructor to a large lecture/small lab format in which all course enrollees attend one large lecture section and…

The decision to employ learner-centered teaching methods, teacher-centered teaching methods, or whether to integrate the two within large lecture halls in higher education continues to be heavily researched and hotly debated. All, in one form or another, have been shown effective at varying levels, throughout a myriad of disciplines and across…

Analyzing 36,000 strings of instructional data from fifteen faculty teaching twenty-eight courses over five semesters, the authors conducted a research study exploring differences in the pedagogical practices of pretenured and tenured faculty teaching innovative courses designed around the principles of the "How People Learn" (HPL)…

Students in three sections of introductory psychology, N = 1051, were asked about the utility of traditional, e.g. instructor, lectures and textbook, and nontraditional, e.g., clickers, podcasts and online lecture slides, teaching tools. Students who felt unprepared for college (25.9%) differed from their peers in their perceived utility of these…

Despite efforts to engage students in the traditional lecture environment, faculty in Georgia Southern University's Physics Department became dissatisfied with lecture as the primary means of instruction. During the fall semester of 2006, our department began adapting the studio model to suit the needs of introductory calculus-based physics…

Classical physics has a long history of using demonstrations and experiments to develop ideas in introductory courses. The purpose of this exploration is to examine the effectiveness of a desk-top activity for helping students develop abstract reasoning. In the pilot exploration, students in three laboratory sections of a single physics course…