To support student construction of knowledge during class meetings, there is a growing demand to incorporate active learning practices. However, 'active learning' can range from occasionally voting on a multiple-choice question, to spending all of class time on worksheets. Consequently, the outcomes of active learning course reforms vary widely.…

Science museums conduct presentations for their audiences to attract and educate visitors, yet research on presentations has primarily concentrated on whether individual presentations were effective. This mixed-methods, quasi-experimental study looks at how the presenter's mental and physical engagements within a presentation affects audience…

Digital competence (DC) is a broad set of skills, attitudes, and knowledge for confident, critical, and responsible use of digital technologies in every aspect of life. DC proves essential in the contemporary digital landscape, yet its diffusion is hindered by biases, misunderstandings, and limited awareness. Teaching Informatics in the…

While active learning strategies have been promoted by researchers as practices to increase performance and retention, some practices have been shown to have unintended negative effects on students such as increasing anxiety. Students often report the debilitating effect of test-taking anxiety on their performance. This study investigated the use…

This study examines Bertolt Brecht's theatrical techniques in terms of critical pedagogy and their potential application by critical educators to overcome neoliberalization, neoconservatization, and authoritarization in learning environments. Brecht creates his 'learning plays' in a peculiar form that can be called 'Brechtian dialectics'. Brecht…

In the past a typical performance situation consisted of a proscenium stage, performers on the stage and audience seated somewhere in the front. In today's technological age, audiences are prone to watching performance on their smart devices. This live-disconnect between the audience and performer/performance has affected the industry on multiple…

Background: Seminal reports, based on recommendations by educators, scientists, and in collaboration with students, have called for undergraduate curricula to engage students in some of the same practices as scientists--one of which is communicating science with a general, non-scientific audience (SciComm). Unfortunately, very little research has…

In addition to movies, television programs, and TED Talks presentations, podcasts are an increasingly popular form of media that promotes authentic public discourse for diverse audiences, including university professors and students. However, English language teachers in the English as a second language/English as a foreign language contexts might…

General chemistry is a foundational course that most STEM students are required to take at some point in their academic careers, as such, thousands of students find themselves in a chemistry classroom every year. Students come into the classroom not only from different academic backgrounds but also from a variety of social and emotional…

Courses: Public Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, Persuasion, Political Communication, and Media Communication. Objectives: By the end of this activity, students should be able to: explain the key components of Lloyd Bitzer's rhetorical situation; assess and navigate various conditions affecting various speaking situations; conduct audience analysis…

Notable theorists have argued that theatre and drama play positive roles in the moral education of children and adults, including cultivating their capacity for empathy. Yet other theorists have expressed concerns that plays and educational practices involving improvisation might not lead to positive changes in real life, and might even have…

Christopher Small (1998) famously explored the role of the performance venue in framing the music experiences of audience members. While Small observed how audiences consume music in the classical symphony hall, we might also consider how performance venues frame global music experiences as well. In this article, I suggest that considering the…

In November 2019, the Smithsonian hosted the "Transatlantic Seminar for Museum Curators and Educators: Museums as Spaces for Social Discourse and Learning." The program brought together German and American museum professionals and was co-sponsored by the Leibniz Institution, the Smithsonian Institution, and Fulbright Germany. A keynote…

My thesis work is focused on conceptual and epistemic learning and characterizing the environments in which this learning takes place. Earlier studies conducted by the Stowe group explored how instructional practices, instructional emphasis, and assessment emphasis relate to student outcomes in general and organic chemistry courses. Student…

While writing involves interactions between writers and readers as each considers the other in creating and interpreting texts, research interest in written interaction is a fairly recent development. This paper uses a bibliometric analysis to trace the growing interest in written interaction over the past 30 years from its origins in philosophy,…