Field trips have been acknowledged as valuable learning experiences in geography. This article uses Kolb's (1984) experiential learning model to discuss how students learn and how field trips can help enhance learning. Using Kolb's experiential learning theory as a guide in the design of field trips helps ensure that field trips contribute to…

Disciplinary literacies in dance and drama are underrepresented in classrooms and in scholarship, especially at the elementary level. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine how preservice teachers constructed meaning of the disciplinary literacies in dance and drama. The theoretical framework guiding this study was drawn from…

Active learning is individual and group participation in effective activities such as in-class observing, writing, experimenting, discussion, solving problems, and talking about to-be-learned topics. Some instructors believe that active learning is impossible, or at least extremely difficult to achieve in large lecture sessions. Nevertheless, the…

In this article, the authors present an example of a project-based course within a studio environment that taught collaborative innovation skills and produced an open-source project management textbook for the field of instructional design and technology. While innovation plays an important role in our economy, and many have studied how to teach…

Many chemistry educators have adopted the process-oriented guided instructional learning (POGIL) pedagogy. However, it is not clear which aspects of POGIL are the most important in terms of actual learning. We compared 354 first-year undergraduate psychology students' learning in physiological psychology using four teaching methods: control,…

Background: The population of Mauritius consists of 52% females and scientific literacy is seen to be of vital importance for all young people if they are to be sufficiently equipped to meet the challenges of a fast changing world. Previous research shows, however, that science is not popular among girls. This paper explores one of many reasons…

Experiments, as we all know, are especially important in science education. However, their impact on improving thinking could be even greater when applied together with the methods of inquiry-based learning (IBL). In this paper we present our observations of a high-school laboratory class where students used computers to carry out and analyse real…

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…

Emphasizing the deficiencies of standardized assessments in measuring what counts for learners, the author highlights the complexity of assessment as well as the significance of the teacher-student relationship in learning.

A first year non-majors biology course, with an enrollment of around 440 students, has been redesigned from a course of traditional content and teaching style to one that emphasizes biological concepts in current global issues and incorporates active learning strategies. We were informed by the education literature incorporating many aspects of…

This study examines changes in teaching habits reported by teachers when they see themselves on video. It is a longitudinal study in which 43 student teachers participated in the first step during their teacher education. When the teachers saw themselves teaching, they were surprised by certain habits and wrote that they wanted to change them. Two…

This article explores pre-service and in-service science teachers' perceptions on active learning, and examines the effectiveness of active learning by pre-service science teachers in the Irish second level classroom through a two-phase study. In the first phase, data on perceptions were gathered from final year pre-service teachers and in-service…

Traditional lectures have come under increasing criticism as research indicates lectures may be less effective in achieving learning outcomes than other teaching methods. Student engagement and success can potentially be improved by changing traditional lectures to instructional methods using active learning techniques. Active learning refers to…

Developing speaking skills constitutes the key stage for language learners. Considering the remarkable differences between ESL and EFL students, the likelihood for language learners in many EFL settings to face the barbed wires placed on the road to speaking proficiency is far greater compared with ESL learners. The primary reason behind this…

In many countries, colleges and universities are where the majority of innovative research is done; in all cases, they are where future scientists receive both their initial training and their initial introduction to the norms of scientific conduct regardless of their eventual career paths. Thus, institutions of higher education are particularly…