Failure is often taken as a given in higher education, as an inevitable part of learning new things. Yet, it remains a part of learning that students tend to fear, and faculty tend to neglect. As faculty, we do not always strategize with or leverage our students' struggles and failures for improved learning. Instead, we hope that students learn…

We analyze the thesis that a fully immersive gamified learning platform benefits students, improving their enjoyment, time management, and performance by engaging them with the subject matter. We assert that an immersive experience centered around a true game produces better results than exercises with just a few gamified elements (e.g., points,…

In the United States, there is a demand for registered nurses. To be admitted into the nursing program, students need to complete prerequisite courses such as human anatomy and physiology. Many students find human anatomy and physiology challenging due to the nature of the content. Poor performance in human anatomy and physiology can preclude a…

A well-run introductory CS1 course is essential for all students within CS education. CS1 is necessary to keep students in the major and important to attract non-majors to the CS field. Unfortunately, there are many well-known issues that most CS1 courses have in common: high drop rates, low retention, high student stress, student struggle,…

Addressing academic integrity in the age of AI is essential to ensure honesty and student success. This Spotlight will help you learn about how educators nationwide are approaching AI in teaching and learning; review data investigating how many students are actually using AI to cheat; examine strategies teachers are using to fight AI cheating;…

Transparency in learning and teaching (TILT) is a framework designed to enhance student engagement, learning, and overall success. The efficacy of TILT has been demonstrated through positive data, making it a promising method for higher education institutions to implement and adapt. In addition to increasing traditional students' mastery of…

Parents want to work with their children's teachers to help them succeed in school. "What Brain Research Says about Student Learning" provides parents and teachers the most recent findings in brain research and learning theory in a very approachable way. The reader will see how the child's brain develops, learns, remembers, and creates…

Online instructors are tasked with creating meaningful learning assignments, but they may struggle with balancing their teaching workloads. This article includes five strategies for creating assignments and activities that promote learning without overwhelming instructional workload, including anticipating student questions when writing…

Both the Common Core Standards for Literacy and the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards underscore the importance of classroom discussion for the development of high-level literacy and subject-matter knowledge. Yet, discussion remains stubbornly absent in social studies classrooms, which tend toward rote…

The digital landscape for teaching and learning increasingly supports the inclusion of multimedia-based instructional strategies. In higher education, a culminating class project or final assignment often requires students to synthesize, analyze, and create content using a variety of communication modalities. Such projects, when closely aligned…

Effective instructor feedback can be used to increase student learning, provided that students read and apply this feedback, which is not always the case. The current study investigates an approach which may encourage students to read and immediately apply instructor-provided feedback. This is done by giving students the opportunity to submit…

While research shows that learners differ in many ways, this work must be translated into actionable strategies to benefit students. We describe the results of our partnership with ReadWorks, a widely-used literacy edtech platform, to help them implement research-based pedagogical features that support learners with diverse needs. In a national…

This article introduces a leadership philosophy exercise where students reflect on their values and prepare a statement of what they intend to do as a leader in their careers. This exercise has the potential to add value to leadership classes or seminars where personal leadership is the focus. By using the leadership philosophy exercise, I argue…

What should activist-scholars teach in the social problems classroom? In this conversation, I challenge the assertion that advancing a sociology of social problems is an overly academic enterprise of little use to students and other publics. I introduce the potential of a pedagogical framework for promoting social problems literacy: a set of…

Peer review is an established strategy for improving the quality of students' writing. This study moves beyond the focus on outcomes to assess the peer-review process. In particular, this study focuses on the timing of the peer review, a highly structured feedback form, and student writers' revisions after engaging in peer review. This study draws…