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…

The course "Materials in Electrical Engineering" is a core course in the Mechatronics curriculum at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. In the past, this course was comprehensive and mainly theory-based. Teaching methods used in this course had not been changed for many years, and were mainly based on a…

Self-reflective political scientists have extensively reviewed the history of the discipline and argued over its future, but to date there has been little effort to systematically survey undergraduate scope and methods courses (for an exception see Thies and Hogan 2005). This lack of data leaves the discipline unable to assess how much we are…

This article defines the elements of Access Services, explains the importance of those aspects in the library, and proposes a course centered on Access Services for library schools. The areas of circulation, interlibrary loan, course reserves, collection maintenance, and public relations are core components of Access Services. Each of those…

This article discusses attempts to revive gender in the context of the geography curriculum at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The reluctance of Dutch geography/-ers to embrace gender geography is related to the way in which the discipline has been understood and practised in the past and by whom as well as to the neglect of gender…

Attention to scale, use of space and connections between places and regions are general, yet distinctive, geographical concepts that may be employed in introductory level human-environment geography courses to distinguish them from other environmental studies offerings. This article demonstrates how attention to the aforementioned concepts…

Students connect to science in multiple ways. For some students, learning how real people have developed and defended their scientific ideas makes science relevant and interesting. Tracking the changes in scientific thought over time can be fascinating for students as they see how scientists based their growing understanding on empirical data that…

Students bring an intact, if unarticulated, epistemological perspective into the classroom that influences how they receive and process new information. In this study, students who explored a wider range of perspectives had significantly improved learning outcomes as measured in 3 domains: retention of specific content, retention of general…

Middle-level sports programs can be defined as intramural, interscholastic, or a combination of both. The trend toward middle-level interscholastic sports programs has been accompanied by recurring and sometimes controversial issues for principals. For example, which age groups and grade levels should be allowed to participate? Which sports should…

The role of the administrator has evolved over the past 30 years from manager to instructional leader. As instructional leaders, administrators are now responsible for student achievement on high-stakes state-mandated assessments. Therefore, it is imperative principal preparation programs provide the necessary training instructional leaders need…