Purpose: The study analyzes how equity-focused knowledge brokers, working at different levels of the US education system, understand and discuss capacity building in education systems, such as schools, districts, state and local education agencies, to answer this research question: How do equity-focused knowledge brokers support capacity building…

Small group tutorials are an educational strategy that is growing in popularity in medical education. This is indicative of the movement from a traditional teacher centred approach to more student-centred learning, which is characterised by active participation and autonomous learning (Hedge et al, 2011). However, small group teaching is one of…

The adoption of active learning instructional practices in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses has been shown to result in improvements in student learning, contribute to increased retention rates, and reduce the achievement gap among different student populations. Descriptions of active learning strategies…

This article presents a recipe for making attractive, informative tutorials that can be sent to students and parents via e-mail or posted on a school website. Although tutorials are often included with software, many are either too complex or too rudimentary to directly address music educators’ unique needs. The recipe focuses on the following…

In this feature, the author has compiled a collection of links to developmental education best practices, literature reviews, publications, research reports, teaching strategies, and related tutorials. The author hopes that one will find this collection of developmental education resources useful.

Florida International University has undergone a reform in the introductory physics classes by focusing on the laboratory component of these classes. We present results from the secondary implementation of two research-based instructional strategies: the implementation of the Learning Assistant model as developed by the University of Colorado at…

The learning of solving multi-step problems is a relevant aim in chemical education for engineering students. In these questions, after analyzing initial data, a complex reasoning and an elaborated mathematical procedure is needed to achieve the correct numerical answer. However, many students are able to effectively use algorithms even with a…

The aim of this study is to evaluate a teaching strategy designed to teach first-year undergraduate life sciences students at a research university how to learn to read authentic research articles. Our approach--based on the work done in the field of genre analysis and argumentation theory--means that we teach students to read research articles by…

The ubiquitousness of images in the digital era highlights the importance of individuals' visual communication skills in the 21st Century. We conducted a literature review of visual literacy initiatives in academic institutions to illustrate best practices for imparting these skills in students. The literature review identified five categories of…

The researchers engaged in cooperative inquiry in order to explore screencasts as online instructional tools. In total, each researcher analyzed 37 screencasts, which provided over two hours of instruction. The content area of these screencasts concentrated on teaching specific computing procedures (e.g., how to install web server software or how…

Today's marketing instructors are faced with the challenge of improving their students' soft skills to prepare them for today's business environment. Numerous authors have noted that client-based/-sponsored projects help students improve the soft skills they need to succeed in the business community. This article provides detailed guidelines on…

This paper describes a development project aimed at reducing the large number of dropouts in online degree project courses. The idea was that the introduction of group tutorials in virtual seminars, combined with extensive support materials, would reduce dropout rates. Among the students who participated, the dropout rate was reduced by 50%…

In this paper, we share two blended learning approaches used at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. We have been using these two approaches in the last twelve years in many courses ranging from the diploma to graduate programs. For the first blended learning approach, we integrated one asynchronous communication tool with face to…

Perkins, a professor of Education at Harvard University, promoted the use of constructivism in conjunction with information processing technologies to facilitate students' understanding and active use of knowledge and skills. He identified five facets of a learning environment including: information banks, symbol pads, construction kits,…

In this article, the author introduces a series of practical strategies to support the development of an innovative and technology-rich curriculum. The author begins with the importance of understanding what possibilities for innovation exist given the relationship between curriculum, equity issues, and education reform. The author then discusses…