Like a spirited idea exchange among experienced professors, "Teaching Tips: Innovations in Undergraduate Science Instruction" brings the best thinking from campuses nationwide about how to engage undergraduate science students. Published to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Society for College Science Teachers (SCST), "Tips"…

This study uses two national data sets to explore the relationship between faculty practices and student engagement. Our findings suggest that students report higher levels of engagement and learning at institutions where faculty members use active and collaborative learning techniques, engage students in experiences, emphasize higher-order…

The committee charged with reforming the current Core Curriculum of Harvard University has instead recommended a minimum distribution requirement for undergraduates: three courses in each of three fields. The Core Curriculum was adopted by Harvard in the 1970s with a view to ensuring that undergraduates be broadly educated in seven approaches to…

Learning is an active, constructive and collaborative process, where people construct knowledge from their experiences in the world. People construct new knowledge with particular effectiveness when they engage in constructing personally meaningful products, that is meaningful to themselves or to others around them. The construction of knowledge…

An English teacher at a rural high school discusses how she taught a literature class by having students stage a mock trial involving the characters Beowulf and Grendel. As a result, students gained knowledge not only about the literature but also about the legal system. Includes guidelines for using role-playing activities in the classroom. (LP)

Tells stories of children in their first year of school (mostly age five) who were using calculators for the first time. Implications are that children's thinking moves from a rough to a more thorough and refined grasp of the whole. Learning mathematics with calculators is more like the learning of language than traditional classroom mathematics.…

An English-as-second-language teacher feels that everyone has creativity and imagination, and the teacher's role is to nurture those qualities. Drawing on the Foxfire core practices, she acknowledges and reinforces those moments when learners reveal their own unique insights into learning, and she facilitates exploratory and innovative thinking…

Addresses two issues confronting teachers who use theme immersion in their classrooms: integration of content through theme, and inquiry-based curriculum. Discusses the challenge and justification for each issue. Notes that inquiry teaching means constantly searching for better ways to support children' s own inquiry processes. (BAC)

Active learning strategies help teachers grab students' attention and keep it. Three suggested learning strategies include the think, share, and learn method; the practice, instruct, and review method; or the whip around and pass method. The article offers resources for further information on active learning. (SM)

Answers the what, why, how, and for whom questions concerning a collaborative-learning-lab component of the introductory economics course at Occidental College (California). Reports on the program's effectiveness based on a student questionnaire: they overwhelmingly report that the lab is worthwhile and that group work is both enjoyable and…

Discusses the use of student-based focus groups as one component of university course evaluations. Steps in planning and conducting focus groups are detailed and applied to the evaluation of a freshman-level general health course. Finds that participants wanted to retain the health content but add more of a teaching emphasis to the course.…

K-W-L, a strategy for active reading appropriate for secondary education, models the thinking needed when reading expository texts in all content areas. Using a chart, students recall what they know (K), decide what they want to learn (W), and identify what they have learned (L). Steps in teacher preparation, classroom presentation, and class…

Describes Learning Choices, an orientation course developed by the author and offered at Northern Virginia Community College. States that the course was designed to give students control over what they learn, how they learn it, and how the learning outcome is measured. Suggests that new teaching strategies, such as distance learning, make…

Describes an exercise for a lecture class that breaks the monotony of note taking and requires active student thought and participation. Helps students grasp the idea of geologic time as it relates to the erosion of a prominent local landmark, Massanutten Mountain. (Author/SAH)

Discusses the impact of computer-supported cooperative work tools in the creation of educational environments and the facilities such tools bring to teaching methods, and examines the relationship between new techniques and the learner-centered, active learning approach in higher education. The importance of collaborative learning in this context…