This chapter explores how the high-impact practice of critical, intergroup dialogue connects leadership with the broader learning objectives in the liberal arts. Based on experiences with building partnerships for leadership learning at their own university, the authors offer lessons for fostering cross-unit collaboration.

The article describes a school program addressing the concept of body ideals and aiming for student involvement and reflection. It reveals how the use of clicker technology overcomes the challenge of getting youngsters to discuss a difficult topic. Through anonymous ballots and questions that allow everyone to participate, it is possible to…

Despite the wide use of discussion in online courses, the quality of these exchanges varies. In this article, the authors draw on the community of inquiry (CoI) model to inform the design of what we call "first responder/connector" (FR/C) discussions, which are student-led asynchronous online discussions. The authors propose and describe…

Mathematics classroom interaction has often been described as an important context for involving all students. However, this article shows that teacher-student-interaction is still not really in the focus of teachers' attention. Based on classroom video studies, some authors hypothesize that the implicitness of establishing norms and practices is,…

A little-known type of nuclear reactor called the "molten salt reactor" (MSR), in which nuclear fuel is dissolved in a liquid carrier salt, was proposed in the 1940s and developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s. Recently, the MSR has generated renewed interest as a remedy for the drawbacks associated with conventional…

Online discussion boards are commonplace in higher education courses, intended either to supplement or in certain cases, replace face-to-face conversations. This article considers discussion boards from the perspective of David Kantor and Otto Scharmer's generative conversational models. It goes on to establish a rationale for applying these…

There is a growing concern about discrimination and hate crimes taking place across the country. While incidents of bias can occur anywhere, it is especially troubling when it happens in our schools. Discussing race and discrimination can be difficult for the most seasoned of professionals, however, that discomfort should not prevent important…

This study explores the characteristics of highly active participants, also known as super-posters (Huang, Dasgupta, Ghosh, Manning, & Sanders, 2014), alongside their contributions in a MOOC designed for teaches' professional development. Connectivism is used to characterize super-posters' activities in this MOOC. Results are aligned with the…

The Boston Charter Research Collaborative (BCRC) is a multiyear research-practice partnership (RPP) among six high-performing charter management organizations (CMOs). These organizations combine their expertise to conduct research and improve practice to support the development of students' social-emotional competencies (SEC) and the cognitive…

The classic image of a college classroom often includes a professor standing at the front of a room or hall, often standing near a chalkboard or projector screen, lecturing to a room full of 30 to 100 students diligently taking notes. This model of instruction, often referred to as direct instruction, however, is grounded in somewhat-outdated…

This paper describes the design and outcomes of an educational intervention undertaken to improve the quality of delivery of a fourth-year engineering elective course--Industrial Wastewater and Solid Waste Management at the University of Queensland. The objective was to increase the level of active participation of students in planned…

We completed a qualitative study focusing on our students' use of Discussion Roles in our general and entry level online classes and presented the information at a Brown Bag presentation for University of Phoenix instructors and staff in October 2016. The following contains the results of the study including: (1) ways to use Discussion Roles in…

In 2007, Jake, the author's 14-year-old son, died. Though he had a known heart condition, Jake was vibrant and lived a life with no restrictions. The heart attack that killed him was unexpected. As a teacher, the author was left with the question of how to return to the classroom and what she would share with the students. This article explores…

Given the current interest in organizing teacher education around core instructional practices that help preservice teachers enact ambitious aspects of teaching like leading classroom discussions, this article investigates an example from the experience of a preservice teacher as she works on orienting students to each other's ideas. Resulting…

One purpose of classroom discussions is not to try to change people's views but to better understand why classmates believe whatever they believe. One of the best ways to achieve such deeper understanding is to hear the basis for other people's beliefs. In this light, the author modeled this behavior for students, which required revealing personal…