Background: The last two decades have witnessed an increase in interest in education for citizenship in a number of westernised democracies. In England, citizenship education has been a statutory subject within the secondary National Curriculum since August 2002. As a relatively new subject within the curriculum, practice in citizenship education…

Games are widely recognized for their potential to enhance students' learning. Yet they are only rarely used in classrooms because they cannot be modified to meet the needs of a particular class. This article describes a novel approach to creating educational software that addresses this problem: provide an interface specifically for teachers that…

This paper presents a collaborative educational experiment "The Death of the Dead Sea: A Problem Based Learning" that was applied in two governmental high schools in Ramallah, Palestine in the school year 2006-2007. The students' role was to raise awareness to the phenomenon of the saltiest lake that shrinks towards extinction. In spite…

Active learning has attracted considerable attention in higher education in response to concerns about how and what students are learning. Many pedagogies may be categorized as active learning, although most are classroom-based. The authors propose an alternative to "active learning in the classroom", which they characterize as "active learning…

Active learning has attracted considerable attention in higher education in response to concerns about how and what students are learning. There are many different forms of active learning, yet most of them are classroom based. We propose an alternative to active learning in the classroom through active learning outside of the classroom in the…

John Dewey believed that the education should educate individuals "not as passive recipients of educational content, but as active makers of meaning, capable of exercising independent judgement and of democratic collaboration" (Gregory, 2001, p. 399). With this philosophical viewpoint, the author strongly believes that teachers should engage…

This text offers practical information and vicarious practice for both beginning as well as veteran teachers to become more knowledgeable, skilled, and effective in their work. Through study, application of what has been studied, and the analysis and evaluation of the end result of this application, teachers who care to improve can improve. And,…

This note describes an interdisciplinary project designed to enhance students' knowledge of the basic techniques taught in a multivariable calculus course. The note discusses the four main requirements of the project and then the solutions for each requirement. Concepts covered include differentials, gradients, Lagrange multipliers, constrained…

Information technology (IT)-based components are included as active learning activities in medical curricula that have been shown to be more effective than most passive learning activities. In developing countries, these activities are not popular compared with developed countries. In this study, an IT-based assignment was carried out in…

This article takes as its starting point the ongoing downturn in student interest in, and engagement with, the enabling sciences. We make a case that embedding of creative pedagogies in science education has significant potential to arrest the flight from modern science. Five propositions are explored in order to argue the case: that young people…

As biology teachers, we should embrace the ever-increasing appearance of biology in movies and other media as an opportunity to engage students in active learning and to facilitate critical-thinking and investigative skills in the classroom. In this article, the author provides examples and strategies from his experience using popular movies in…

When students understand content deeply, they recognize main concepts and understand the relationships among ideas. But the typical processes students use to study are generally not designed to generate conceptual understandings. Instead, they tend to become passive learners. In this article, the authors present three commonly used classroom…

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a conceptually difficult technique that embodies many fundamental biological processes. Traditionally, students have struggled to analyze PCR results due to an incomplete understanding of the biological concepts (theory) of DNA replication and strand complementarity. Here we describe the design of a novel…

The advantages of active learning methodologies have been suggested and empirically shown by a number of IS educators. Case studies are one such teaching technique that offers students the ability to think analytically, apply material learned, and solve a real-world problem. This paper presents a case study designed to be used in a database design…

In a world where systems are increasingly larger, where their boundaries are often difficult to identify, and where societal rather than technical issues play increasingly bigger roles, problems cannot be solved by applying a technical solution alone. It thus becomes important for engineers to be skilled not only in terms of their particular…