The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived instructor immediacy and student challenge behavior (i.e., procedural, evaluation, power play, practicality) in the college classroom. Participants were 403 students who listened to and reported on a 15 minute guest lecturer in an introductory communication class. Results…

Digital lecturing systems (computer and projector, often with PowerPoint) offer physics instructors the ability to incorporate graphics and the power to share and reuse materials. But these systems do a poor job of supporting interaction in the classroom. For instance, with digital presentation systems, instructors have limited ability to…

Courses for non-statistics majors (service courses) play an integral role in teaching statistics and pose some unique challenges. In these courses, students are often undermotivated on the one hand while on the other hand the syllabus frequently is overly crowded. In this manuscript we target the issues arising from the latter problem by making…

Lectures are a familiar component in the delivery of mathematical content. Lecturers are often challenged with presenting material in a manner that aligns with the various learning styles and abilities within a large class. Students complain that the old-fashioned lecture style of copying notes from a board hinders the learning process, as they…

For the past 5 years I have been teaching my introductory geology class using a case-based method that promotes student engagement and inquiry. This article presents an explanation of how a case-based curriculum differs from a more traditional approach to the material. It also presents a statistical analysis of several years' worth of student…

Active-learning techniques have been advocated as a means to promote student engagement in lower-division biology courses. In this case study, mini-lectures in combination with active-learning activities were evaluated as strategies to promote a culture of learning and participation in a required botany course. These activities were designed to…

An issue for many mathematics departments is the success rate of precalculus students. In an effort to increase the success rate, this quantitative study investigated how class size and teaching approach influenced student achievement and students' attitudes towards learning mathematics. Students' achievement and their attitudes toward learning…

Many college science educators have moved away from the traditional lecture format and toward learner-centered classroom environments. Yet many of us struggle to cover large content loads, reverting at times to rote memorization. This paper suggests rote memorization simply does not work and students must be actively engaged to learn. (Contains 1…

Through a research approach of emergence applied to a corpus of academic letures, I developed a theory to explicate the referents of a class of frequently used pronouns ("I," "you," and "we"), which I term the Participatory Pronouns. My theory of the Positioning of Participatory Pronouns resolves the main practical…

Just as the tree bridges the worlds of earth and air-light, transforming energies so that there is a flow of nutrients between these two worlds, so too teachers can be seen as bridges or mediators between the world of learners and the world of mathematics. In this speech, the author suggests that one of the principal roles for mathematics…

In 2007, a Virtual Education Center for Biorenewable Resources was initiated (Raman, Brown, Brumm, Anex, Euken, Nokes, Crofcheck, Van Gerpen, and He, 2006). The Center offered three courses through distance education, including Biorenewable Resources and Technology (BRT) 501--Fundamentals of Biorenewable Resources and Technology. The main…

Active learning has been championed in academic circles as the pedagogical fix to boring lectures typically found in introduction to information systems courses. However, the literature on active learning is mixed. In this paper, we critically examine active learning research and discover a misplaced emphasis leading to paradoxical findings in…

This paper investigates whether the selective use of technology can begin to overcome the challenge of large cohort teaching and deliver an enhanced student learning experience. It describes the initial development and evaluation of a campus-based management course taught to 270 third year engineering undergraduates at The University of…

The study examined a new asynchronous model for online teaching, learning and assessment, called OTLA. It is designed for higher-education institutions and is based on LMS (Learning Management System) as well as other relevant IT tools. The new model includes six digital basic components: text, hypertext, text reading, lectures (voice/video),…

This qualitative case study investigated the teaching strategies that improve science learning of African American students. This research study further sought the extent the identified teaching strategies that are used to improve African American science learning reflect culturally responsive teaching. Best teaching strategies and culturally…