Social media offers an exciting new area for our discipline to produce research and pedagogy that is in high demand by students, industry constituents, and other disciplines. This article discusses why business communication scholars should focus on social media as an important stream of study and outlines an MBA course in social media strategy…

The Department of Mathematics at Bates College has offered a senior seminar capstone course for over a dozen years. In this article, we discuss the coexistence of seminar and thesis, our other capstone experience. We discuss in detail the goals of our seminar, various ways we structure the seminar to accomplish those goals, and methods of…

The Spiral Curriculum is predicated on cognitive theory advanced by Jerome Bruner (1960), who wrote, "We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development." In other words, even the most complex material, if properly structured and presented, can be understood by…

If students are going to develop reasoning and thinking skills, use their mathematical knowledge, and recognize the relevance of mathematics in their lives, they need to experience mathematics in meaningful ways. Only then will their mathematical skills be transferrable to all other parts of their lives. To promote such flexible mathematical…

Storm disasters are amplified in the coastal environment due to population pressures and the power of the sea. The upper-division/graduate university course "Coastal Storms" was designed to equip future practitioners with the skills necessary to understand, respond to, and mitigate for these natural disasters. To accomplish this, "Coastal Storms"…

This paper describes a course in programmable logic design and computer architecture as it is taught at the University of Newcastle, Australia. The course is designed around a major design project and has two supplemental assessment tasks that are also described. The context of the Computer Engineering degree program within which the course is…

This first written assignment of the semester for the author's undergraduate introductory art history class--an essay where students describe and reflect upon the significance of a family heirloom--is instrumental in meeting class objectives. The author's objectives in this class are for students: (1) to broaden their conception of what art is…

Most instructors desire to create a learning environment conducive to deep learning. However, in courses where grades are based upon the accumulation of points, students may focus on collecting points rather than on learning and achieving the course objectives. We discuss an alternative points-free course design based on the development of clear…

This paper introduces a problem-based learning (PBL) microprocessor application course designed according to the following strategies: 1) hands-on training without having a formal laboratory, and 2) intense student-centered cooperative learning through an ill-structured problem. PBL was adopted as the core educational technique of the course to…

This paper discusses the use of a presentation format known as "Pecha Kucha" (which means "chitchat" in Japanese). The objective of the Pecha Kucha assignment is to facilitate student communication of an argument, including stating and supporting a thesis. Throughout the semester, students become comfortable with the format via…

Guidelines for planning a study abroad course in chemistry start with defining the course objectives and outcomes. These, in turn, guide the choice of course content and format, location, length of travel, activities, and assessment. Budgetary issues include transportation, lodging, admission fees, activities, docents and guides (including audio…

Psychology is one of the most popular elective high school courses. The high school psychology course provides the foundation for students to benefit from psychological perspectives on personal and contemporary issues and learn the rules of evidence and theoretical frameworks of the discipline. The guidelines presented here constitute the second…

This paper describes the process used and experiences gained in developing a social media and marketing course. As the first known paper on this topic appearing in the marketing education literature, the paper provides educators with a framework for developing similar courses. The course was developed using a sound instructional design model, the…

The statistical preparation of in-service teachers, particularly middle school teachers, has been an area of concern for several years. This paper discusses the creation and delivery of an introductory statistics course as part of a master's degree program for in-service mathematics teachers. The initial course development took place before the…

The purpose of this paper is to share the experience gained in, and the efforts made toward, introducing and implementing a new course in the challenging and important area of geophysical signal processing at the Electrical Engineering (EE) Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The new course,…