Continuing our work from a previous study (Coble et al. 2013), we examine undergraduates' ideas on the composition of the Universe as they progress through a general education astronomy integrated lecture and laboratory course with a focus on active learning. The study was conducted over five semesters at an urban minority-serving institution. The…

A number of studies have reported on the positive impact of social constructivist approaches on learning in introductory chemistry courses. However, the widespread use of such approaches is being hampered to a certain degree by uncertainty as to whether one needs a special type of classroom. In this study, we investigated student learning in two…

Teaching service courses such as the first year composition courses and an introduction to literature is often a primary mission for English departments on campuses in the United States. Sometimes specific departments request specialized additional English classes such as Writing for Business, basic grammar courses, composition courses focused for…

This article explores the experiences of students who participated in a series of seminars that employed active learning methodologies. The study on which the article is based involved two parts. First, students completed a questionnaire after each seminar, resulting in 468 questionnaires. Second, nine students participated in a focus group where…

This quantitative action science research study utilized a causal-comparative experimental research design in order to determine if the use of student response systems (clickers), as an active learning strategy in a community college course, improved student performance in the course. Students in the experimental group (n = 26) used clickers to…

A review of the research on teacher professional development identified an emerging consensus on important contextual and implementation characteristics that can promote or inhibit teachers' use of new knowledge and skills in their classroom practice. Findings suggest that professional development is best viewed as one component in an overall…

Although most business students participate in team-based projects during undergraduate or graduate course work, the team experience does not always teach team skills or capture the team members' potential: Students complete the task at hand but the explicit process of becoming a team is often not learned. Drawing from organizational learning…

The nursing shortage remains of great concern to the nursing profession and to nursing educators. With the projected need for Registered Nurses high and the attrition rate in nursing programs remaining high, a focus on retention of qualified nursing students may be needed. One way to contribute to enhanced retention is using active learning…

The primary research aim of this dissertation is to identify the strategies that best meet the information retrieval needs as expressed in the "e-discovery" scenario. This task calls for a high-recall system that, in response to a request for all available relevant documents to a legal complaint, effectively prioritizes documents from an…

In addition to recommending inquiry as the primary approach to teaching science, developers of recent reform efforts in science education have also strongly suggested that teachers develop a sound understanding of the nature of science. Most studies on teachers' NOS conceptions and inquiry beliefs investigated these concepts of teachers' NOS…

Educating for a sustainable future is the imperative of our time. Creative and individual artistic expression helps us all to inform and share with one another. If we hope to fulfill the vision of sustainability as it pertains to environmental, social and economic realities, we must give our students the fluency and the tools to grow into green…

The correct grading of free text answers to exam questions during an assessment process is time consuming and subject to fluctuations in the application of evaluation criteria, particularly when the number of answers is high (in the hundreds). In consequence of these fluctuations, inherent to human nature, and largely determined by emotional…

This article provides an account of self-managed action learning (SMAL), where it came from and how it has been implemented in practice. Self-managed action learning offers a way of realising action learning without the continuing presence of a set advisor in set meetings to facilitate the process. It enables participants to manage and facilitate…

Cryptology, or cryptography, is the study of writing and deciphering hidden messages in codes, ciphers, and writings. It is almost as old as writing itself. Ciphers are messages in which letters are rearranged or substituted for other letters or numbers. Codes are messages in which letters are replaced by letter groups, syllables, or sentences.…

The author believes that "learning is doing," especially in science. The best way she can describe what she did, and the piece of advice she wants to pass on, is "make it active and mix it up". By describing how she went about teaching this lesson, she hopes she has conveyed how doing one's research (online for a start) and…