Amy Lynch-Biniek begins by introducing popular yet controversial concepts presented in the Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein's "They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing" (NY: Norton & Company, 2006). As stated in the book's introduction, the goal of Graff and Birkenstein's text is "to demystify academic…

A typical writing assignment in upper level required courses is a term paper. However many economics majors, particularly those in business schools, need to develop skill at writing shorter pieces. In this paper I describe numerous examples of shorter writing assignments that I have incorporated into an Intermediate Microeconomic Theory course.…

Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) are realistic, open-ended, client-driven engineering problems designed to foster students' mathematical modeling abilities. Since 2005, the MEAs used in Purdue University's first-year engineering core course have included a double-blind peer review wherein individuals in the course (peers) are randomly assigned a…

This paper examines where students prefer to find information, and then matches survey results with students' assignments. Surveys showed that half the surveyed students used library databases (e.g. ProQuest) as their first preference to locate scientific information; however, of these students, one third did not have any journal articles cited in…

Reading instruction at the secondary level is important, and it is necessary. Students need to be taught how to organize ideas, question authors' conclusions, make predictions, draw inferences, and use and apply the information they learn to a variety of situations. Getting students excited about reading expository text is possible, and it…

Designing constructive digital media is a process of mapping and remapping our physical and conceptual worlds in order to determine their meaning. When readers become composers, when users become designers, they may construct for themselves both a digital "Wunderkammer" of evidence and the potential associative connections available…

Early in the fall of 2007, one of the author's students asked whether she could pass around a petition during class protesting the "moment of silence." The Illinois legislature had recently passed a law requiring all schools to observe a moment of silence at the start of each school day. A number of students who heard the conversation…

Research Findings: The goal of this study was to analyze children's (N = 120) evaluations about parental decisions regarding gender-stereotypic household family activities. Children at 5, 8, and 10 years of age were individually interviewed. Contrary to prevailing findings, the majority of children used stereotypic expectations and…

Day after day, teachers hand out reading assignments; students ignore them; and both groups spend another day at school discouraged, less than enthusiastic, and bored. While principals struggle with stagnant test scores, teachers wonder how they can possibly work more diligently toward instructional outcomes. Getting students excited about reading…

Academic dishonesty is unethical. Exam cheating is viewed as more serious than most other forms (Pincus and Schmelkin 2003). The authors review the general cheating problem, introduce a program to conservatively identify likely cheaters on multiple-choice exams, and offer a procedure for handling likely cheaters. Feedback from students who confess…

Because Dominique (or D-Mon, as he liked to be called) had drill before class, he would sometimes come in late in the author's class, his army boots silently moving across the tile as though he were trying to sneak by a sentry. The army fatigues that he wore were supposed to help him blend into a desert landscape, a tan-and-brown world of sand. In…

This paper describes a successful writing project with generation 1.5 college freshmen enrolled in a writing class. Generation 1.5 students may experience difficulties at universities when, despite being multilingual, the language they bring with them to college is often framed as a deficit. Students engaged in writing life histories experienced…

Global social justice is often portrayed as a project of either developing appropriate dispositions or of amending the rules that govern global interaction. Despite policy pronouncements by many university vice chancellors on the significance of higher education in contributing to learning about global social justice, there is very little…

In this article, the author describes a text preview assignment that she gave to her students. Students completing the text preview assignment use multimodal design, introducing classmates to texts in ways that motivate and inform their reading. She discusses using previews to set the stage for reading and discussion and to deepen personal…

The use of simulation games in business courses is a popular method for providing undergraduate students with experiences similar to those they might encounter in the business world. As such, in 2003 the authors were pleased to find a classroom simulation tool that combined the decision-making and team experiences of a senior management group with…