Rural schools, especially smaller ones, offer enormous opportunities for teachers to get to know their students and to cultivate their academic talents. However, students with potential in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) face specific obstacles to having their talents fully realized in rural schools. Joni Lakin, Tamra…

The first-year student experience in college is a crucial time for personal and professional development, especially for students entering science, technology, education, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Unfortunately, it is also the time when students most commonly leave STEM, largely due to disconnection from faculty and peers. The Freshman…

Iowa State University Human Sciences Extension and Outreach (HSEO) provides informal educational opportunities to older adults and their families in rural Iowa within the subject areas of family life, family finance, and nutrition and wellness. The successful implementation of educational opportunities is partially determined by the knowledge of…

The Luther College Concert Band has enjoyed nearly 150 years of success. International tours, regional tours, concerts, service to the college and recording projects aided the success of this small college band that retained its Lutheran, liberal arts identity. Published documents exist about the Luther College band before 1948 but no…

Traditionally seen as a way for institutions to help students alleviate some of the financial demands placed on them, on-campus student employment has several additional benefits institutions can leverage to assist students along their collegiate journey. If designed and operationalized effectively, institutions can use their on-campus student…

The article provides details of the process of starting an actuarial science major at a small, liberal arts college. Some critique of the major is included, as well as some challenges that may be faced by others wanting to start such a major at their institution.

This comprehensive study asks what a group of rather diverse disciplines have in common. It involves a cross-disciplinary examination of an entire college, the College of Design at Iowa State University. This research was intended to provide a sense of direction in developing and assessing possible core content. The reasoning was that material…

The value of experiential learning is widely acknowledged, especially for the development of communication skills, but students are not always aware of their own learning. While we can observe students practicing targeted skills during the experiential activity, the experience can also color their explicit understanding of those skills. Transfer…

This chapter introduces a University of Iowa effort to enhance and support active learning pedagogies in technology-enhanced (TILE) classrooms and three elements that proved essential to the campus-wide adoption of those pedagogies. It then describes the impact of those professional development efforts on the curricula and cultures of three…

Twelve universities and one American Indian (AI) tribal college were selected for the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute's 5-year stipend traineeship program. These tribal traineeships were designed to provide social work child welfare education for tribal and nontribal students. Twenty-two AI students and 58 nontribal students completed a…

Across the United States postsecondary education (PSE) options for young adults with autism and intellectual disabilities (ID) are emerging as a result of parent-professional advocacy group actions and legislation such as the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA). In this article the University of Iowa Realizing Educational and Career…

This paper describes the culture of experiential community based learning at Central College, a rural liberal arts college in Midwestern, USA. Pre-service teachers use experiential community based learning to reflect on their personal growth in understanding the needs of diverse learners. Reflections demonstrate how the program contributes to the…

This report presents the final results for the evaluation of the New Americans Centers (NACs) demonstration project in Arkansas and Iowa. It focuses on program operations and plans for program sustainability, while highlighting services provided through the demonstration projects in Arkansas and Iowa. It also documents outcomes for New Iowan…

This paper compares how two universities, Iowa State University and the University of Saskatchewan, exploit a service-learning and authentic learning approach to instructional design. Both programs emphasize student engagement and responsibility, as well as projects that have social significance. At the same time, the courses offered by the two…

Over the past decade, online courses and entire online degree programs have been made available, serving millions of students in higher education. These online courses largely have been designed and taught using the theoretical concepts and practical strategies of Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN). During 2003-04, approximately two million…