The big-picture vision of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) says it is important to foster students' dispositions to learn and to contribute as active members of society. The key competencies directly support this vision. NZC describes them as "capabilities for living and lifelong learning." Key competencies direct attention to students'…

The higher education service-learning literature is rich with case studies, guidelines for service-learning course and program development, and demonstrations of the impact of service-learning on students. Minimal discussion, however, focuses on the "strategic placement" of service-learning in disciplinary curricula, and how curricular…

Because higher education brings members of academic communities in direct contact with students, the reflective higher education student is in an excellent position for developing two important intellectual virtues: confidence and humility. However, academic communities differ as to whether their members reach consensus, and their teaching…

The ability to coherently assess content knowledge throughout an entire undergraduate career represents a significant advantage for programmatic assessment strategies. Chemistry, as a discipline, has an unusual tool in this regard because of the nationally standardized exams from the ACS Exams Institute. These exams are norm-referenced and allow…

The field of biomechanics has grown rapidly in the past 30 years in both size and complexity. As a result, the term might mean different things to different people. This article addresses the issues facing the field in the form of challenges biomechanists face in the future. Because the field is so diverse, strength within the different areas of…

In this article, the author provides a self-portrait of his intellectual life. He states that overall his approach to teaching and researching is about "making sense" where inadequate or incongruous conceptions fall into place or are transformed so they are congruous and adequate. In his teaching the author applies the methods of…

A participant in a conference on interdisciplinary general education at the college level highlights some of the issues addressed there: institutional limitations and opportunities; interdisciplinarity versus the power of deep disciplinary inquiry; cross-disciplinary linkages versus interdisciplinary inquiry; and the role of student development…

Discusses the nature of social studies as a discipline. Defines it as citizenship education for teaching students how to deal with change and conflict in society. Suggests that social studies teachers believe that content should be interdisciplinary, emphasize themes and concepts dealing with social and personal issues, and teach the process of…

This chapter surveys the history and theory of men's studies, a field concerned primarily with masculinity and other aspects of men's experience and identity. It argues that men's studies would be an ideal foundation for our work with college men and offers guidelines for programs for men.