This article describes the use of peer review in a writing project involving upper-level chemistry students in a chemical literature course, with the goal of improving student performance in meeting information literacy outcomes. Students were asked to find articles on a topic of their choice over the course of a semester and assemble the results…

This article examines preservice teachers' understandings and beliefs about literacy in the 21st century specifically at the beginning of their teacher education program. In particular, the authors explored preservice teachers' responses to the first assignment of their foundations literacy course for evidence of their emerging beliefs and…

This action research project sought to investigate the role of explicit citation vocabulary instruction in the learning of citation style guidelines for an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course at an English-medium university in Northern Thailand. The participants consisted of 120 undergraduate students enrolled in the EAP writing…

This paper examines the potential to foster "grit" and "growth mindset" in an undergraduate curriculum through the use of high-impact practices. [Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Northern Rocky Mountain Educational Research Association (NRMERA) (34th, 2016).]

A study was conducted to assess veterinary students' and faculty perceptions of a variety of academic and classroom behaviors, and the degree to which these are acceptable or not. Two instruments were developed for this purpose: 1) The Exams and Assignments Scale (EAS), consisted of 23 items measuring the extent to which a variety of examination…

An important topic in writing research has been the use of cohesive features. Much of this research has focused on local and text cohesion. The few studies that have studied global cohesion have been restricted to first language writing. This study investigates the development of local, global, and text cohesion in the writing of 57 language (L2)…

This qualitative research study, applying aspects of van Manen's framework for hermeneutic phenomenological research, was conducted to investigate the narratives of relationally aggressive girls of color. The study focused on nine adolescent girls of color who were ages 14-17 years old and exhibited aggressive/bullying behaviors representing the…

This project allows students to better understand the scope and pace of climate change by conducting their own analyses. Using data readily available from NASA and NOAA, students can apply their knowledge of regression models (or of the modeling of rates of change). The results lend themselves to a writing assignment in which students demonstrate…

To apply several principles of memory covered in a first-year university memory course, I developed a series of one-page self-reflection papers on memory that require students to engage with the material in a meaningful way. These short papers cover topics related to memory, and the assignment itself applies these same principles, reinforcing…

This study describes a personal science story podcasting assignment that was developed to help preservice teachers reflect on their use of everyday and academic vocabulary in the context of science, as well as how to communicate effectively with their students. Podcasting assignments were collected from 16 elementary education candidates and nine…

This research was conducted to explore whether students enrolled in graduate level courses found some Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies useful and if they actually used them. The strategies we investigated were presenting course information in alternative formats including PowerPoints with voiceover, screencasts, and videos as an…

How can teachers integrate rap and technology strategies to teach students with learning disabilities the art of persuasive argument writing? This teacher research study presents creative new approaches for teaching argument writing. Strategies used in the study helped college freshmen with learning disabilities (LD) succeed in developing…

This article presents the Critical Reading Topics approach, a pedagogical method employed to promote deep thinking in a variety of politics courses. Derived from principles articulated in active learning, critical thinking, backward design, and flipped classroom literature, this method utilizes Bloom's Taxonomy as the scaffolding for students to…

Helping struggling readers to learn history content in middle school can be difficult due to heavy reading demands. In this study, researchers taught poor readers with and without disabilities in eighth grade to generate main idea statements; create, compare, and contrast paragraphs; and identify cause and effect relations, along with relevant…

This article describes the development, implementation, and assessment of a social media assignment using Pinterest as a tool for student engagement and professional development in two undergraduate social work courses. Twenty-one undergraduate students enrolled in Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE) courses completed the assignment…