Concepts of Mathematics (21-127 at CMU) is a course designed to introduce students to the world of abstract mathematics, guiding them from more calculation-based math (that one learns in high school) to higher mathematics, which focuses more on abstract thinking, problem solving, and writing "proofs." This transition tends to be a shock:…

We present an evaluation of the Writing Pal (W-Pal) intelligent tutoring system (ITS) and the W-Pal automated writing evaluation (AWE) system through the use of computational indices related to text cohesion. Sixty-four students participated in this study. Each student was assigned to either the W-Pal ITS condition or the W-Pal AWE condition. The…

Some students with disabilities who receive special education services need accommodations or modifications to their educational program in order to participate in the general curriculum and to be successful in school. While the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its regulations do not define accommodations or modifications,…

Thirty-three students of fourth semester German at the University of Kansas participated in the study which sought to investigate whether focused written corrective feedback (WCF) promoted the acquisition of the German case morphology over the course of a semester. Participants received teacher WCF on five two-draft essay assignments under three…

In the past decade, systematic studies have indicated a significant regression in scientific literacy in nonscience students and students across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines in higher education. Of particular concern, evaluations of introductory lecture-based undergraduate courses have indicated deficiencies in…

Students are put in the role of a manager who watches inventory levels decrease and must order at the right time and in the right quantity to minimize costs. This interactive game requires the students to race against time and has levels of increasing difficulty. It introduces the students to the concepts of holding cost, ordering cost, backlog…

Teacher education is not only about teaching teachers the art and science of instruction, but it also should encompass a political agenda, helping educators to recognize and address oppressive practices in our schools and in our communities. Through a disability studies framework, teacher candidates can be guided toward social and political action…

Art teachers are always looking for new ways to bring reading opportunities into the classroom--without just reading chapters in a textbook. This assignment helps broaden the knowledge of students in areas that teachers may not have time to explore during art classes. It also gives students something to work on if they have finished their project.…

Parson's programming puzzles are a family of code construction assignments where lines of code are given, and the task is to form the solution by sorting and possibly selecting the correct code lines. We introduce a novel family of Parson's puzzles where the lines of code need to be sorted in two dimensions. The vertical dimension is used to order…

A simple Internet search of "academic dishonesty" reveals a continuing conversation among individuals within the academic community who are asking what academic dishonesty is, who is cheating, why students are cheating, and how we stop them from cheating. This article addresses these questions and provides a model for creating a culture of trust…

This study attends to the possibilities of analyzing students' writings at a lexicogrammatical level in terms of their use of linguistic resources, and the insights afforded by this approach into the challenges students faced when they employed the language of school science related to the phenomenon of expansion. For the purpose of this study,…

People tend to think that inventions must be complex and sophisticated. Yet, some of the most useful inventions have been simple, or elegant, like Velcro, zippers, and Post-it[R] notes. Kitchen utensil drawers are filled with all sorts of great inventions, and in this article, the author discusses a challenge that allows students to develop their…

We describe the modifications to an instrumental analysis course which incorporated the link between science and public policy. This course combines classroom lectures, project based labs, and a writing assignment. The project based labs have a focus on health and environmental issues directly involving the local community, while the writing…

Using Dutch data on pupils in elementary school this paper is the first empirical study to analyze whether assigning homework has a heterogeneous impact on pupil achievement. Addressing potential biases by using a difference-in-difference approach, I find that the test score gap is larger in classes where everybody gets homework than in classes…

Since education reform efforts have long focused on reading and mathematics, the social studies classroom has been a target of remedial services--with children being removed from social studies to gain additional support in reading and math. As a result, many children spend years in school with little to no exposure to the social studies, despite…