The purpose of the conference presentation upon which this paper is inspired was to present an innovative approach to motivate students to write in a second language during a first-year Spanish class. Usually, students comply with writing exercises that convey basic thoughts, due to constrained vocabulary and limited knowledge of grammatical…

Most of the students who are taking the author's sport sociology courses can easily identify the problematic ways in which women's athletic events and bodies are covered within the sports sections of newspapers, magazines, Web sites, and television shows. These students are less able to understand how the heterosexual male sporting experience…

This study was carried out in the context of formative assessment where assessment and learning were integrated to enhance both teaching and learning. The purpose of the study was to: (a) identify pupils' ideas about biological inheritance through the use of a concept cartoon, pupils' drawings and talk, and (b) devise scaffolding structures that…

The goal of this article is to present a description of a professional development program designed to immerse middle and high school teachers in an inquiry-based learning environment using a forensic science context and the consequent impact participating in this program had on teachers' pedagogy. Teachers participated in a year-long program…

This study used qualitative and quantitative approaches to evaluate the effectiveness of self-learning modules (SLMs) developed to facilitate and individualize students' learning of basic medical sciences. Twenty physiology and nineteen microanatomy SLMs were designed with interactive images, animations, narrations, and self-assessments. Of 41…

New Web technology allows for the design of traditionally lecture-centered humanities courses by fostering active learning and engaging students as producers of learning content. The article presents the experiences with a student-generated wiki for a Germanic Mythology course. Evaluations indicated an overwhelmingly positive student experience…

This article reports on issues arising from the external evaluation of a teacher development project--the Active Learning in Primary Science (ALPS) project--undertaken in eight Bristol (UK) primary schools during 2007. The ALPS project aimed to raise pupil attainment in science by developing participating teachers' skills, knowledge and enthusiasm…

Objectives: Students will demonstrate research, decision making, team building, and public speaking skills, while applying issues management and crisis communication concepts in a realistic setting. Courses: Introduction to Public Relations, Public Relations Cases, Crisis Communication.

This paper presents active learning theory and how implementation of dynamic instruction strategies can transform the K-12 classroom. A multi-part study was conducted to determine both the level of active learning knowledge among participants and applicability of newly acquired approaches within the participants' classrooms. First, teachers were…

This paper is based on a workshop of the same name presented at the 2007 American Sociological Association meetings. The purpose of the workshop and this article is to focus attention on teaching methods that require students to actively investigate sociological phenomena. During the workshop, participants practiced constructing inquiry-guided…

Clickers, electronic response systems, are widely popular in college classrooms and proponents have argued clickers can increase student engagement, active learning, and, perhaps most importantly, student comprehension. Determining whether the effectiveness of clickers justified their purchase seemed warranted. A campus-wide project was developed…

Rainbow-like spectra, produced by reflexive diffraction of white light on a CD, offer a spectacular visual effect as well as an excellent classroom opportunity for students to learn how physics works. In this paper we show that building a coherent qualitative explanation can be a challenging task that requires students to combine gained knowledge…

We investigated curricular conditions and educational practices that influenced the development of life-long learning orientations among 405 undergraduate students. Results suggest that growth in life-long learning orientations was facilitated by instruction that included opportunities for reflection, active learning, and perspective-taking and…

This article describes an innovative strategic tools course designed to enhance the problem-solving skills of marketing majors. The course serves as a means of preparing students to capitalize on opportunities afforded by a case-based capstone course and to better meet the needs and expectations of prospective employers. The course format utilizes…

A new teaching method is described for teaching research methods in an Introductory Psychology curriculum with the goals of making the section on research methods more interesting, providing an active learning environment for research methods and to allow students to examine scientifically the claims of pseudoscience. Student groups created and…