"Although the description of mentorships can be traced back to ancient Greek history," most of the empirical research on mentorships has been conducted within the past two decades. Such research has tended to focus on the relationship itself--an intense, personal bond that spans a spectrum of activities and time. This article, however,…

Students attending a lecture usually have a wide range of prior knowledge about the topic in question. Rather than seeing this as a problem, lecturers can take advantage of such differences. This article shows how students' misconceptions about old age were used to inform a lecture on the topic. Prior knowledge can thus be used to aid teaching and…

This study examines student perceptions regarding the effectiveness of small-group work in a large lecture class. The article considers and illustrates from students' perspectives the ways in which small-group activities could enhance comprehension of course material, reduce anonymity associated with large lecture classes, and promote student…

The notion of quality in undergraduate mathematics lectures is examined by using theoretical notions and research results from the literature and empirical data from a case study on lecturing on limits of functions. A systemic triangular model is found to catch critical quality aspects of a mathematics lecture, consisting of mathematical…

This study extrapolated from Liberman's (2004) calibration model and Kimball and Metcalfe's (2003) conceptualization in order to evaluate students' judgment of learning (JOL) of material presented in either an expository or a constructivist format. The purpose of this study was to determine if students have differing degrees of JOL based on the…

This study examined students' preferences for lecturers' personalities on three continents. Two-hundred and 35 university students in Malaysia, 347 university students in Britain and 139 university students in the United States provided ratings of 30 desirable and undesirable lecturer trait characteristics, which were coded into an internally…

Will a combination of lecture plus teaching demonstrations produce better learning than when equivalent information is presented through lecture alone? The present field experiment directly addressed this question. (Author)

Author reviewed his feelings about a teacher who was a model of critical dissent and who brought his own unusual stamp of analysis to American literature. (RK)

A presentation on how visuals can be integrated into university lectures. (HB)

As educators, we often take ourselves a bit too seriously, so veteran educator and illustrator Aaron Bacall offers a little perspective with these lighthearted cartoons. Whether used as overheads for meetings or as an individual break in a busy day, this collection of whimsical glimpses at staff development will provide a moment to laugh and add a…

This study compares the subject matter acquisition of a lecture discussion group and a game playing group in a course in personality theory. The game playing performance was at least as good as that lecture discussion group, as well as having a consistently high motivational level. (Author/CG)