Massive open online courses (MOOCs) hold the promise of democratizing the learning process. However, providing effective feedback has proven hard to offer at scale since most methods require a teacher or tutor. Leveraging big data in MOOCs offers a mechanism to develop predictive models that can inform computer-based pedagogical tutors. We review…

Recommending courses to students is a fundamental and also challenging issue in the traditional university environment. Not exactly like course recommendation in MOOCs, the selection and recommendation for higher education is a non-trivial task as it depends on many factors that students need to consider. Although many studies on this topic have…

Credit recovery (CR) refers to online courses that high school students take after previously failing the course. Many have suggested that CR courses are helping students to graduate from high school without corresponding increases in academic skills. This study analyzes administrative data from the state of North Carolina to evaluate these claims…

Research is typically taught to undergraduates as an analytic activity with a focus on engaging with externalized data. Rarely are undergraduates taught to inquire into settings and situations where they are close to the data and implicated in the setting. "Exploring Organizational Experiences" is a final-year undergraduate business…

Evolution is controversial among students and religiosity, religious affiliation, understanding of evolution, and demographics are predictors of evolution acceptance. However, quantitative research has not explored the unique impact of student perceived conflict between their religion and evolution as a major factor influencing evolution…

Depicting the reason for the mismatch between instructor expectations of students' performance in advanced courses and their actual performance has been a challenging issue for a long time, which raises the question of why such a mismatch exists. An implicit reason for this mismatch is the student's weakness in prerequisite course skills. To solve…

Quantitative literacy is a foundational component of success in STEM disciplines and in life. Quantitative concepts and data-rich activities in undergraduate geoscience courses can strengthen geoscience majors' understanding of geologic phenomena and prepare them for future careers and graduate school, and provide real-world context to apply…

An instructional approach is presented for teaching the mole concept to high school introductory-level chemistry classes. Extensions to the strategy are presented for more advanced classes. The strength of the approach is based upon discovery. Students discover the Avogadro number and the mole concept. The discovery is based upon calculations that…

Researchers in the scholarship of teaching and learning are converging on the need to examine deeper motivational processes. This research addresses the conceptual and methodological issues identified in the learning literature. Using situated learning theory and motivational theory we develop hypotheses related to the perceived relational quality…

Supported by the Learning by Giving Foundation or other philanthropic sources, many college courses are allowing students to give away charitable grants to nonprofit organizations. In this article, the author shares the experience of a Learning by Giving Economics of Altruism class taught at an introductory level. The class is taught using best…

What do grades mean? What purpose do they serve? What role do they play in the learning process? Teachers and scholars have recently begun to re-examine these questions central to our current grading system. As a result, many have started to re-assess how grades are assigned in their classes. In this case study, I examine the effectiveness of…

Educators responsible for creating an introduction to religions course often struggle to design a syllabus that does not reinforce a world religions paradigm (WRP). This article offers an inquiry-driven course model for teaching about religion that guides students through a process for reading, contextualizing, and critiquing WRP-based information…

It has been said that one of the greatest failures in the education system has been a longstanding problem of public and private school educators failing to recognize victims of child abuse and neglect in their classrooms (Jennings, 1989). The maltreatment of children is a prevalent problem as we know that the number of child maltreatment cases…

Topology optimization (TO) has been a useful engineering tool over the last decades. The benefits of this optimization method are several, such as the material and cost savings, the design inspiration, and the robustness of the final products. In addition, there are educational benefits. TO is a combination of mathematics, design, statics, and the…

The literacy classroom is a powerful context for students to learn about their own lives and the lives of others. By integrating lessons on identity and diversity in the literacy classroom, the learning experiences become more relevant and engaging. Not only is this the case for K-12 students, but also for the preservice teachers in teacher…