Quantitative literacy is an essential twenty-first century skill that universities are heavily invested in teaching to students. The social sciences play an important role in these efforts because they attract students who might otherwise avoid data and mathematically oriented courses and because they ground quantitative reasoning in political and…

Institution-Wide Language Programme (IWLP) modules are a popular option for international students at the University of Reading. Student feedback and module results show that some of these students face particular challenges in relation to their peers. In this paper, we describe how a team teaching Beginners French -- Common European Framework of…

Education research provides a range of curricular reform options that can lead to improved student course outcomes. These options can appear easy to implement with the hope of immediate increases in student learning. In 2006 the Ithaca College Physics Department went down this path by moving all of their 100-level courses out of lecture halls and…

This paper attempts to present a model for designing an IT undergraduate program that is based on the recommendations of the Association for Computer Machinery/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers--Information Technology (ACM/IEEE--IT) Curriculum Model. The main intent is to use the ACM/IEEE--IT Curriculum Model's recommendations as a…

Describes an introductory course that is part of one university's efforts to prepare human service workers to function more effectively in an integrated-services environment. According to student reports, the course is beneficial. (MKA)

To introduce college students to the liberal arts, Castleton State College established the Soundings Program in fall 1985. The program was designed as a general education requirement for freshmen that earned one credit in each of the two semesters of the first year for attendance at (1) a limited number of required lectures and (2) eight elective…

The project's purpose was to revise the introductory biology material in a freshman course for biology majors so that it is based on Piagetian learning theory and incorporates the three phases of the learning cycle teaching strategy: (1) exploration; (2) concept formation; and (3) concept application. The approach presented concepts structured so…

Harvard University Law School's redesigned first-year curriculum is organized to convey the tradition of the first year and also to allow for the introduction of alternative ways of knowing, in response to changes in legal reality. Coordinated teaching, "bridge periods," and newly developed materials characterize the changes. (MSE)

The foreign language education program in the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville has worked with the Morgan County School System to develop a foreign language experience (FLEX) program in Spanish for that district. The program has three phases: (1) 1 year of in-service instruction in language and…

Townson State University's 3-year project integrated new scholarship on women into the curriculum, with emphasis on introductory survey courses in eight disciplines: art, biology, business, education, English, history, psychology, and sociology. About 70 faculty met in workshops for five semesters to (1) read and discuss new scholarship on women;…

This paper describes the development of an elementary school program in global culture which uses language as a vehicle for education in global citizenship. The approach to curriculum development focuses primarily on the child's needs, and secondarily on content. The curriculum was designed to be activity-oriented, child-centered, and…

A study investigated the success of a project to create a more student-centered engineering curriculum at a Dutch technical university by assessing how faculty's conceptions of teaching related to their teaching practices. Results indicated that although faculty had strong commitment to student learning, they also had misconceptions about…

A state grant to the Department of Romance Languages of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has allowed development of a proficiency-based curriculum for first- and second-year French and Spanish. Most of the effort to date has been preparation of the syllabus based on specified goals and objectives, or student outcomes, focusing on allowing…

Secondary and college level curriculum development projects that integrated women's history into American survey courses are described, and conclusions are drawn. The college level projects consisted of lecture outlines and bibliographies written and field tested by teachers and an annotated bibliography and six-week curriculum unit developed by…