This chapter discusses three important pedagogical strategies: integrating students' funds of knowledge throughout the learning process; exposing students to dominant and critical disciplinary knowledge; and envisioning academic content as a tool supporting students' self-growth, contributions to community/society, and potential contributions to…

This article focuses on curriculum-based learning communities (LCs). In these LCs, manipulation of the curriculum is intentional and often innovative, with the overarching goals of developing meaningful connections among students, between students and faculty, and between students and their coursework. The variety of curriculum-based models…

Observation of 401 college teachers indicates that teachers of different academic disciplines (arts/humanities, social sciences, natural sciences/mathematics) differ in the frequency of specific classroom teaching behaviors, but that what makes an effective teacher, in the perception of students, is consistent regardless of discipline.…

As a result of forces both in society and in their professions, college faculty find it difficult to raise the question of moral judgment with students. However, it is the disciplines themselves that offer the method and substance for values education. (Author/MSE)

Research support for the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education is substantial, both from earlier, complex, longitudinal, and multi-institutional studies and from recent, more narrowly focused research. However, the findings raise a number of questions about variability across disciplines, methods, learning styles, and…

Differences in the kinds of knowledge validation processes, truth criteria, and other factors associated with knowledge production are presented for five disciplines (physics, engineering, psychology, education, and English literature), and implications for improving instruction are examined. It is concluded that faculty must understand the…

Drawing on a number of studies of college student learning, this review concludes that students in different disciplines develop characteristic ways of learning based on their perceptions of what is required in their academic work. Within a discipline, effective learning involves an interplay between the characteristics of the student and the…

A study investigated whether Biglan clusters of academic disciplines (hard/soft, pure/applied, life/nonlife) could be used to explain disciplinary differences in college student ratings of instruction. It was found that Biglan clusters do not explain the differences, many disciplines still emphasize knowledge acquisition over higher-order skills,…

Two lessons from comparable undergraduate courses in physics and engineering are analyzed to identify content, issues emphasized, and concepts used. Differences reflecting the pure nature of one field (physics) in contrast to the applied nature of the other are identified. Implications for classroom instruction and for research on college teaching…

One college professor finds that while supplemental instruction (SI) sessions in the humanities resemble those in social, physical, and biological sciences, there are also qualitative differences that derive from discipline-specific expectations. These are rooted in the epistemology and axiology of the humanities, the expansive nature of…

In a study using student rating data from over 8,000 course sections in a large university, disciplinary differences and the value students placed on the time they spent preparing for class are correlated with students' evaluations of teaching. Implications for faculty promotion and tenure policy, instructional improvement, and further research…

A study of the role of subject matter in shaping high school teachers' beliefs, curricular concerns, and instructional practices complements studies of the disciplines in higher education. Factors discussed include the "hard/soft" distinction between disciplines, curriculum sequencing, range of classroom techniques, breadth of course content, and…

College students bring a variety of perceptions to the classroom about what it takes to succeed in a discipline. Attributional retraining, a therapeutic technique for modifying maladaptive perceptions into more adaptive ones, can enhance student motivation and academic achievement. The technique is most effective with students who are at high risk…

Empirical research on aspects of teaching role performance in which disciplinary differences have been observed (teaching goals, teaching practices, course examination questions, and the relationship between teaching and research) is summarized, and implications for faculty and development, academic affairs administration, and improvement of…

A survey of 4,072 college faculty examined institutional and disciplinary differences in faculty opinions of desired outcomes of undergraduate education. Significant differences by both institution type and discipline were found in emphasis on knowledge acquisition versus knowledge application and integration. It is suggested that reform of…