The National Academy of Science has published studies showing strong scientific evidence that global warming is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels, yet recent surveys have shown young adults in the U.S. are disengaged or disagree with this fact. Accordingly, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)…

This article explores how college instructors can use William Blake's unique pairing of image and text -- what W.J.T. Mitchell calls "composite art" -- to encourage students to think and write about the dynamic interplay of image and text in modern communications. Opening with an anecdote of teaching Songs of Innocence and of Experience…

Scientific knowledge is growing rapidly, particularly in biochemistry, an interdisciplinary subject in which the courses attract diverse students with varied disciplinary interests and career goals. Thus, there is a need to teach skills and concepts in biochemistry in a way that is both compelling to a variety of learners and also relevant to…

Critical thinking is essential in academia and the workforce. Although writing can be used as a pedagogical tool for fostering deeper subject matter understanding, increased retention, and critical thinking, relatively few science courses are writing based. This writing-based introductory science course provided an opportunity for students to…

This article describes the results of a survey of community college instructors who were asked about the writing they assign in non-English courses. The 171 respondents, representing 140 colleges, identified the kinds of writing they assign and the challenges that come with assigning writing. These challenges included finding time to grade…

This My Favorite Assignment (MFA) article features 11 teaching innovations first presented at the 2023 Association for Business Communication Annual International Conference held Denver, Colorado, USA. These assignments are designed to boost students' writing, persuasion, crisis management skills, and personal and professional development.

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions, which has been found to play a crucial role in academic achievement. However, there is limited research on the impact of EI on writing performance, particularly in the Ethiopian context. Therefore, this study aims to address this gap by examining the…

This semester-long original teaching activity is a scaffolded writing assignment with accompanying rubrics that utilize an adapted academic publishing model (i.e. accept, revise and resubmit with minor revisions, or revise and resubmit with major revisions) to facilitate a growth mindset. This revise-and-resubmit approach to teaching and assessing…

In this article we evaluate the manner in which we at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at the Delft University of Technology encourage the development of the capacity of reflection among our undergraduate students. First we explore the concept of reflection in relation to respectively experiential/reflective learning,…

While many studies have investigated the effect of task complexity on L2 writing, little has been reported on the effects of intended task complexity manipulations on task-generated cognitive demands in L2 writing. This study, therefore, was designed to examine the relative effects of task complexity and cognitive demands on students' L2 writing.…

Epistemic beliefs are one's assumptions about knowledge and knowing. Given the research in educational psychology that established epistemic beliefs as reliable predictors of student success, we devised a pedagogical intervention to improve students' epistemic beliefs. In this study, we examined the effectiveness of the reflective writing task as…

Ageism is highly prevalent, especially among college students. However, efforts to reduce ageism largely take place in helping professions. This activity seeks to promote positive perceptions toward older adults and aging among communication undergraduate students through gerontological education, a positive intergeneration contact experience, a…

Students, especially young children, recognize differences. This guided inquiry positions elementary students to consider the (dis)abilities they see and do not see. This article couples trade books emphasizing diverse perspectives--general, American, people of color, international contexts, fiction, and disparate (dis)abilities--with evocative…

Historical empathy may be enhanced by virtual reality (VR) technologies, which provide varying degrees of immersion into other time periods and places. This study explored the effects of combining semi-immersive and fully immersive VR with a follow-up writing task to promote historical empathy with adult learners. Thirty-six participants were…

Providing feedback on student work is a key part of the teaching process. Ideally, students use the provided feedback to learn and improve future work. In the age of technology-mediated learning, it is essential to study how technology affects the feedback process. This work uses data captured by a Learning Management System (LMS) to measure…