Classic experiments and novel ideas in the history of science are often mentioned in passing in contemporary college-level science curricula. This study indicates that the detailed and creative recapitulation of a few well-chosen and famous, if well-known, results and ideas has the potential to increase students' understanding and appreciation of…

The author offers innovative approaches to 3 topics that are typically only briefly mentioned (if at all) in money and banking courses. The first topic is a Treasury bill auction experiment in which students have an opportunity to participate directly. The results from a class of 14 money and banking students are used to explain how an instructor…

This article is a report of the impact of an innovative assignment within an upper-division gerontology course in a public university. Although designed to enhance the understanding of important aging concepts for students in a Family Studies program, analysis of student writings revealed an increased understanding of the actual subject…

The use of technology to capture the audio and visual elements of lectures, to engage students in course concepts, and to provide feedback to assignments has become a mainstream practice in higher education through podcasting and lecture capturing mechanisms. Instructors can create short podcasts or videos to produce "nuggets" of information for…

A systematic assessment of media-based coverage of geoscience topics relative to those found in textbooks is presented here. The specific question addressed is to what extent fully indexed media and print news sources can provide a useful model for course development. Whereas the improvement of students' scientific literacy cannot be achieved…

The work of Students Informing Now (S.I.N.), an immigrant student organization at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is described in this column. The authors argue that S.I.N.'s diverse activities and textual products construct a counternarrative that challenges and reframes the debate on undocumented students and immigration. Focusing on…

The purpose of this study was to investigate The Content Enhancement Model in the field of college algebra in a mid-western community college. The Content Enhancement Model is a teaching technique that teachers use to help students acquire the content information by helping them identify, organize, comprehend, and memorize material. This study…

Standardised testing has received a lot of political and public attention recently in Australia. This paper describes the sense-making of Year 3 students as they interpret items from the 2008 NAPLAN. Results show that student performance changed dramatically when the terminology of an item was modified and subsequently were not a true indication…

Using a combined quantitative, qualitative approach, this study explores the teaching practices of outstanding faculty at a private, liberal arts institutions by posing questions that revolve around learner-centered teaching practices, characteristics of outstanding teachers, effective teaching, and pressures on the professoriate related to the…

Recent scholarship in rhetoric and composition has come to identify the English teaching assistant preparation seminar as a polemic site. In general, the seminar exists for the purpose of preparing graduate students to teach first-year composition. The fuel igniting this research lies with the teaching assistants and their educators who have…

Teachers the world over are discovering the importance and benefits of incorporating popular culture into the music classroom. The cultural prevalence and the students' familiarity with recorded music, videos, games, and other increasingly accessible multimedia materials help enliven course content and foster interactive learning and…

The purpose of this research was to determine whether secondary social studies teachers' opinions impact the way they teach and how that impacts the students' learning. Neutrality is important within a classroom, but passion is rarely neutral and can spark interest and motivation in some students but it is also possible it can have a negative…

School psychology training programs are required to provide multicultural training to preservice school psychologists; however, trainers have had difficulty adequately including multicultural content into the curriculum. Thus, there is a gap between the requirements and the training that many school psychologists receive. Training programs have…

The authors describe a pedagogical exercise that conveys the multilayered properties of gender to undergraduate students. They propose a simulation that demonstrates the social constructiveness of gender, maintaining that gender should be conceptualized and portrayed as a process, system of stratification, and social structure. The authors begin…

Recent developments in the global business environment have led to important changes in accounting/auditing regulations, and have implications for the business school curriculum. While many of these issues are covered in advanced accounting courses, generally taken only by majors, the issues are sufficiently important that nonaccounting majors, at…