Researchers have long cast grades as an unreliable proxy for student learning despite their enduring use in higher education. Grounding assessment instruments in student learning outcomes (SLOs) provides an accurate and accessible means of evaluating student performance and guiding instructional practice. Using a SLO-guided pretest/posttest…

With the growing number of students at colleges and universities who are considered nontraditional, creating an equitable classroom characterized by Universal Design for Learning has become increasingly important in higher education. In this mixed-methods exploratory study, we assess the impact of implementing flexible deadline policies into our…

In response to ongoing expansion of neoliberal ideology in democratic education, this essay details a classroom experiment that attempts to "redo," or "recraft" democracy. Recrafting democracy, in this context, takes shape in active efforts to compose an agonistic public sphere through a specific kind of "lettering a…

Many developmental writing courses in colleges focus on teaching students isolated skills, with little emphasis on how such skills are applicable to the actual process of writing. This article focuses on capturing the perspectives of students enrolled in a developmental writing course designed around an explicit process-oriented pedagogy. The…

Assessing student learning outcomes and determining achievement of the Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPCEP) Core Competency of Values/Ethics in a generic pre-professional Bachelor of Science in Health Science (BSHS) program is challenging. A course level Student Learning Outcome (SLO) is: "….articulate the impact of personal…

Best practices research on plagiarism in the University classroom shows that modifying assignments and classroom environment can have a positive effect on lowering a student's desire to cheat. James Lang suggests four features of a learning environment that can be fostered to ameliorate a student's desire to cheat: mastery of the material for its…

Student plagiarism in higher education is widespread and presents a growing concern for faculty and administrators who are intent on upholding academic integrity. However, a myopic view of plagiarism as a purely ethical issue is misguided. It is not always simply a deliberate attempt to deceive. Through the involvement of students in an…

This article evaluates a writing assignment in which students read a non-fiction book that they chose from a list provided by their instructor, identified examples of social psychological phenomena, and fully explained how those examples fit social psychology concepts. This novel twist on a traditional assignment yielded surprisingly robust…

Service learning is a well established pedagogy within higher education. Specifically, service learning allows students to engage in "real world" activities to practice skills and reflect upon their own competence. To enhance the effectiveness of service learning, instructors need to consider a multitude of learning influences. This…

Using data collected in spring 2009 from students at a southern research university enrolled in either of 2 sections of a general education course that fulfilled a social/behavioral sciences graduation requirement, the present study examined whether participating in online assignments enhanced students' satisfaction with those assignments and with…