In this dissertation I explore instructors' work with instructional tasks as they plan to introduce various representations of derivatives. Drawing on the notion of "framing" from sociology, I adopt a situative lens to study calculus instructors' planning of instructional tasks. I rely on Herbst and Chazan's (2012) notion of…

This paper explains the design and implementation of a novel didactic strategy based on learning styles for teaching automatic control theory in engineering. Traditional research on engineering education has worked to develop teaching methodologies, educational resources, and assessment tasks without considering the learning styles of the…

This study was undertaken to address an issue of student retention and learning in undergraduate computer science (CS) courses. To improve students' CS learning experience, the goal of this case study was to support five CS faculty's integration of active learning into their teaching, using the Understanding by Design framework. We explored the CS…

Faculty in higher education are challenged to change their instructional approaches in outmoded, stagnant learning spaces to meet the needs of 21st century learners. Traditional learning spaces on most college campuses consist of locked, rowed seating and desks designed to maximize room capacity and accommodate large numbers of students. The…

This article aims to explore the experiences of science instructors who are active participants in the design and enactment of an interdisciplinary science course with student-centered pedagogy in a large-enrollment class. The data were collected through interviews with instructors and analyzed using the inductive thematic approach. Results show…

Online instruction is a trend that has been around for a while within academia. However, the pandemic exposed the notable difference between teaching an online course and doing so effectively. During the 2021-- 2022 academic year, faculty from various colleges and departments across the Winston-Salem State University community participated in the…

Purpose: In response to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, many universities have transitioned to online instruction. With learning promising to be online, at least in part, for the near future, instructors may be thinking of providing online collaborative learning opportunities to their students who are increasingly isolated from their peers because…

This study identifies the best online teaching practices to benefit first-year visual arts students, notably to include instructor-created videos. Such instructor-created videos provide a firm foundation for these students to succeed in their first year of college. The introduction of Web 2.0, focusing on user-generated content, has shown…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] Our investigation of 353 faculty-produced multiple-choice Think-Pair-Share questions leads to key insights into faculty members' ideas about the discipline representations and intellectual tasks that could engage learners on key topics in physics and…

Project-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach that many higher education programmes have incorporated. In PBL, students work in a team or group on a specific project for an extended period of time facilitated by an instructor. Previous studies have identified group work collaboration as a key challenge in PBL. To address this, the authors…

COVID-19 forced universities to engage in rapid improvisation and adoption of online learning and teaching. This paper explores "real-time blended" learning in which online students are taught simultaneously with students who are experiencing proximate learning. Two cliques could develop with those learning online becoming observers…

This design case details a data science summer learning experience designed by University of Memphis faculty for HBCU students (NSF #: 1918751) with recruiting assistance provided by LeMoyne-Owen College. The summer learning experience included elements of didactic and collaborative problem-solving during the first five weeks of the internship,…

Within higher education, the use of blended learning (BL) is exponentially increased in the 21st century, which poses a number of challenges in designing the process of BL for educators. The aim of this design-based research (DBR) study was to assist an inexperienced educator in teaching and designing a BL course in higher education to convert a…

This article describes the process of pedagogical thinking and design behind an advanced undergraduate seminar at a liberal arts college on "the international relations of the Asia-Pacific." From the perspective of the instructor, a former research analyst from Singapore who switched to academia in the United States in mid-career, key…

Students need support to learn the core ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts that make up the field of biology so that they can both be successful as biologists and make informed decisions that require biological understanding. One way instructors can support students in these endeavors is to provide students with specific scaffolds the…