We transformed our first-year curriculum in biology with a new course, Biological Inquiry, in which greater than 50% of all incoming, first-year students enroll. The course replaced a traditional, content-driven course that relied on outdated approaches to teaching and learning. We diversified pedagogical practices by adopting guided inquiry in…

Art museums and other institutions of informal learning can promote multicultural understanding by collaborating with community ethnic groups and designing exhibitions that richly characterize the cultures they represent. Through the lens of educational programming for the exhibition "30 Americans," this article describes how both the Corcoran…

Vivisection (live animal experimentation) is a controversial issue for many people. The purpose of this case study is to examine the attitudes of prospective teachers toward vivisection in education and research, to determine if gender has an influence on these attitudes, and to discuss the implications of these attitudes with regard to teaching…

Hard skills are the technical expertise and knowledge needed for a job. Soft skills are interpersonal qualities, also known as people skills, and personal attributes that one possesses. Business executives consider soft skills a very important attribute in job applicants. Employers want new employees to have strong soft skills, as well as hard…

This article reports the outcomes of the first 3 years of an ongoing participatory action research (PAR) project that brought together literacy and content-area teacher educators. The purpose of our collaboration was two-fold: (a) to develop shared understandings or theories related to literacy and the place of literacy instruction in content-area…

The Critical Issues Investigation combines experiential education philosophy with service-learning methods to situate a section of a course in both personal and professional development utilizing active and engaged citizenship for college age students. Through the use of the National Issues Forum materials, critical issues facing a variety of…

Although Western cultures tend to view dolphins as friendly and benevolent, in Japanese fishing communities, "iruka" (dolphins) are often viewed as food or pests. These perspectives have led to intense conflicts between Japanese fishermen and activists from the west. This article presents an exercise that simulates intercultural conflict by asking…

Dispute about professional doctoral programs in education has increased, with much hinging on the design of educational doctorate (EdD) programs. In this study, the first cohort of graduates responded to a new, innovative EdD program designed to develop them as leaders, scholars, and practitioners. Twenty graduates completed an exit survey, and a…

Despite the dramatic shift in demographics occurring within public schools, there is still a dismal amount of research connecting issues of diversity and race with the curricula guiding educational leadership preparation programs. In the field of leadership preparation, little information has been offered as to how professors facilitate social…

Computer games are purported to be effective instructional tools that enhance motivation and improve engagement. The aim of this study was to investigate how tertiary student experiences change when instruction was computer game based compared to lecture based, and whether experiences differed between high and low achieving students. Participants…

Three of the most emotionally charged terms in this era are "race," "racism," and "White privilege." Definitions for these terms vary by individual experiences, beliefs, opinions, and perceptions. K-20 students are rarely exposed to a detailed coverage and critical analysis of the part of U.S. history that includes genocide, territorial…

There is an emerging consensus that to teach something as controversial is to present it as a matter on which different views are or could be held and to expound those different views as impartially as possible. This raises an important normative question that has yet to receive the attention it deserves from educational theorists: how are we to…

Presented at the Annual Meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in San Diego, CA in April 2009. This presentation describes the methodology that was used with subject-matter experts (SMEs) to articulate the content and skills important in the domain, and then the iterative processes that were used to articulate the claims…

Through an instructional approach, this article offers a template for a classroom-based geography capstone course grounded in pedagogical elements of synthesis and reflection, as based on exploration of ten key geographic ideas. It provides insights into course goals, structure, and components for instructors who may wish to implement it in…

Despite the profound commitment of social work toward people living in poverty, the social work profession has failed to develop practice based on awareness of poverty. This article shows the ways in which poverty became a marginal issue in social work practice, reviews the literature on teaching poverty in international context, and then…