Teaching interdisciplinary courses requires instilling interdisciplinary habits of mind by using strategies for active learning and reflective thinking. This publication emerged from discussions and surveys used to evaluate interdisciplinary habits of mind and pedagogies drawn from different disciplines. Prior to face-to-face discussions, surveys…

Students often fail to write effective synthesis essays that compare multiple sources across common intersecting categories. Instead, they compose flawed essays that focus primarily on one source and then add a few ideas from other sources (patchwriting); report ideas from all sources in a disjointed fashion (tag-all writing); or draw from one…

Sustainable development, like climate change, has become the new rave globally, regionally, and nationally. At the University of the South Pacific (USP), where I work, it is in your face when you open its website: "Excellence and sustainability in higher education". It is also assumed that most people in the world today know what the 17…

Three separate baseline decisions are recommended when designing an undergraduate course prior to considering any course content. The "Three S" course design decisions include determining (1) the "setting" (on-campus, online or hybrid), (2) the learning "style" (passive or active), and (3) the learning…

This article demonstrates that the purposeful subject design, incorporating a Model United Nations (MUN), facilitated deep learning and professional skills attainment in the field of International Relations. Deep learning was promoted in subject design by linking learning objectives to Anderson and Krathwohl's (2001) four levels of knowledge or…

What happens when teachers, neuroscientists, and students combine their perspectives in a three-way dialogue about why selected classroom lessons were highly motivating? They discover that the factors that teachers and students believe important to student motivation are solidly aligned with insights from neuroscience. Author Kathleen Cushman…

There is widespread agreement that collaboration, teamwork and intercultural competence, among others, are essential 21st century skills. Higher education teaching and learning initiatives tend to have a significant focus on developing these skills through assessments and other in-class activities, and yet often do not take advantage of…

Given that Latinas/os make up the fastest-growing population group in the U.S., according to the 2000 U.S. Census, classroom teachers increasingly are in need of meaningful resources and learning strategies for students of Latin American heritage. These same resources can also serve to help internationalize/diversify classrooms serving non-Latino…

This article highlights how undergraduate students implemented inquiry-based learning strategies to learn how nonprofit organizations utilize volunteers. In inquiry-based learning, students begin with a problem or question with some degree of focus or structure provided by the professor. The student inquiry showcased in this article was based on a…

The aim of this study was to investigate the use of an educational computer video game in teaching and learning. Cultural-historical activity theory is used heuristically to explore the social and cultural interactions during game play. It is argued that knowledge construction occurs when video games function as a tool to mediate learning rather…

The six editions of this newsletter provide a forum for the sharing of research findings and instructional strategies by faculty of Western Michigan University on issues connected with critical thinking. Topics addressed include alternative program designs for critical thinking instruction, a philosophical exploration of what critical thinking is,…

Danish upper-secondary school is currently undergoing remarkable changes. Comprehensive reforms and restructuring have transformed teacher roles and school organization. However, not all upper-secondary teachers welcome reform: on the one hand, they have to adopt norms, standards and values determined by colleagues, if they want to "fit…

This paper discusses the challenges and difficulties of adopting new "authentic" methods of instruction that help students not only learn but also develop habits that enable them to use their knowledge more effectively. "Authentic" methods of instruction are defined as those that require students to produce (not just reproduce) knowledge relevant…

Continuing dramatic developments in the ability of neuroscientists to peer inside the brain to discover its incredible intricacy places awesome responsibility on all educators to "do the right thing" for their students. Here, the authors offer readers powerful brain-compatible and research-based teaching and learning strategies based on how the…

The six editions of the newsletter provide a forum for the sharing of research findings and instructional strategies by faculty of Western Michigan University. Topics addressed include: active learning; lecture variations; lecture techniques; grading student participation; leading discussions; overcoming silence; discussion challenges; course…