Active learning strategies include a variety of methods, such as inquiry and discovery, in which students are actively engaged in the learning process. This article describes several strategies that can be used in secondary-or college-level world geography courses. The goal of these activities is to foster development of a spatial perspective in…

This paper describes interpretive empirical research with five teachers who: a) articulate their pedagogy as defined by an inquiry-based stance, b) use digital technologies within their teaching, and c) engaged in online and/or face-to-face professional development with the Galileo Educational Network (GENA). Four questions guided the inquiry:…

The third "Every Child, Every Promise" research brief focuses on the large percentage of the children and youth who will enter the workforce over the next two decades are lacking enough of the "soft" or applied skills--such as teamwork, decision-making, and communication--that will help them become effective employees and managers. The report…

This study explores the relationship between the seminar course model and critical thinking development among students through qualitative data collected from four strategically chosen case study institutions. Results of a cross-case analysis suggest that the seminar approach provides fertile ground for the cultivation of critical thinking skills…

The quality of student learning is a subject of considerable attention in higher education institutions around the world. One emerging pedagogy that addresses this issue for both higher education and the professional workplace is action learning. One concern, however, is that the definitions and conceptions of action learning vary widely. The…

This article introduces interactive drama as an alternative to student role-plays. Interactive drama increases student engagement and explores complex issues in management. It features scenes from organizational life being performed live by trained actors before a student audience, stopping at pivotal points so the audience can interact with the…

This article is an extension of a presentation that won "Best Exercise" at the Eastern Academy of Management, 1998. The authors introduce an experiential gourmet approach using "food stories" to stimulate an aura of acceptance and appreciation for human commonalities before delving into human differences. The authors use a semester long…

Project-based learning is not a new idea. It has a solid track record of increasing student motivation and improving students' problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills (Stites, 1998; Thomas, 2000). In the traditional model, students work in teams to investigate open-ended questions and apply their knowledge through culminating products or…

The purpose of this research was to demonstrate an empirical relationship between classroom community and students' achievement goals in higher education, and to offer a possible explanation for differences in this relationship for cooperative and non-cooperative classrooms. Structural equation modeling techniques revealed that students'…

Structured classroom debates (SCDs), whereby teams of students debate a question prepared outside of class, help advance two goals many political science instructors struggle to achieve with their students: classroom participation beyond the "usual suspects" present in every classroom and critical thinking and analysis of political issues. This…

At Oklahoma City Community College, they have developed gel electrophoresis activities that support active learning of many scientific concepts, including: pH, electrolysis, oxidation reduction, electrical currents, potentials, conductivity, molarity, gel electrophoresis, DNA and protein separation, and DNA fingerprinting. This article presents…

A semester-long ethnography study was carried out to investigate project-based learning in a graduate software engineering course through the implementation of an Open-Source Software Development (OSSD) learning environment, which featured authentic projects, learning community, cognitive apprenticeship, and technology affordances. The study…

With the research of the relationship between inter-culture and language teaching development, people are well aware of the necessity of integrating inter-culture into language teaching. While providing the opportunity for the students to improve their intercultural communication competence, here, the research presented on the integration of…

Since the 1980s there has been significant growth in the engagement of higher education with workforce development, with among other things the emergence of a distinct if varied area of provision commonly referred to as work-based learning. Recent examination of practice and literature indicates a growing sophistication in the way that work-based…

Active learning enhances engineering education. This paper presents rationale, curriculum supplements, and an approach to active learning that may be seamlessly incorporated into a traditional lecture-based engineering class. A framework of educational theory that structures the active learning experiences and includes consideration of learning…