Effective lesson planning promotes good teaching and the implementation of curriculum policy. Lesson planning enables teachers to determine appropriate lesson objectives, teaching and learning activities, and teaching methods. Effective lesson planning stimulates teachers to evaluate their instructional strategies and to reflect on how to improve…

This article provides and reflects on an original lesson plan for engaging high school, undergraduate, or graduate students in learning fundamental concepts of environmental ethics. Implementation of this lesson plan effectively promoted critical analysis, reflection, and communication of environmental ethics issues in a seminar for second-year…

This article is about designing and implementing PowerPoint-based interactive simulations for use in International Relations (IR) introductory undergraduate classes based on core pedagogical literature, models of human skill acquisition, and previous research on simulations in IR teaching. We argue that simulations can be usefully employed at the…

A literature review on approaches to a final course session reveals a dearth of attention to the issue. Options for last-day activities fall into three categories: professor-centered, activity-focused, and student-driven. Using the criterion that meaningful course closure calls for last-day activities that engage students in reflection not only…

Learning from the practice of teaching teachers is a promising approach for mathematics teacher educators to attain the extensive knowledge and abilities needed for their roles. As mathematics teacher educators ourselves striving to develop across our professional lifespans, we used one such approach, known as a lesson experiment, to investigate…

Pre-service teachers need to develop habits of mind that allow them to grow as new teachers. This article describes an elementary mathematics methods course in which teaching as an experiment was used a framework for pre-service teachers to participate in action research by developing learning goals, observing and analyzing student thinking,…

Curriculum Weaving uses multi-layered goal planning designed to activate the students' prior knowledge, connect the student to student competencies and encourage them to engage in professionally-based, project management activities that will cultivate effective professional in the field classroom teacher. The focus of weaving these elements…

This paper explores the role that technology can play in engaging pre-service teachers with the iterative, "messy" nature of model-based inquiry. Over the course of 5 weeks, 11 pre-service teachers worked in groups to construct models of diffusion using a computational animation and simulation toolkit, and designed lesson plans for the…

Teacher candidates who worked with small groups of children during a semester long pre-student teaching practicum developed four point rubrics for each of the lesson plans they created on a weekly basis. The scope of this practicum is discussed along with an action research project pertaining to the rubric assessments they utilized. Findings…

Followership has been recognized as an essential component of leadership studies as evidenced by growth of research within this area. To keep pace with the growth of this research, it is time to bring followership into the leadership classroom. This paper proposes a case-based exercise with two main learning objectives: (1) to help students…

Students in an undergraduate psychology course on Learning and Cognition used SKO (formerly AutoTutor Lite), an Intelligent Tutoring System, to create interactive lessons in which a pedagogic agent (animated avatar) engages users in a tutorial dialogue. After briefly describing the technology and underlying psychological theory, data from an…

The use of appropriate Educational Simulation systems (software and hardware for learning purposes) may contribute to the application of the "Learning by Doing" (LbD) paradigm in classroom, thus helping the students to assimilate the theoretical concepts of a subject and acquire certain pre-defined competencies in a more didactical way.…

Changes to general education curricula are taking place across the globe. From the Bologna Process in Europe to the Liberal Education and America's Promise initiative in the United States, colleges and universities are reforming what constitutes general education for their students. At the University of Dayton, such reforms took the shape of a…

In a previous study with 130 undergraduate teacher candidates from all licensure levels, data on candidate effectiveness were examined using factor analysis. Four factors were found in effective teaching, those being lesson planning, teacher and student reflection, safe school environment, and teacher professionalism. The present study followed…

In the process of experiential learning, students acquire skills and values as the consequence of a direct experience. Experiential learning draws on senses, emotions, and cognition and appeals to learners' entire being. Such learning, by nature, enables the development of a variety of capabilities, such as planning, teamwork, coping with…