The purpose of "The State of Computer Science in Illinois High Schools Series" is to analyze the landscape, structures, and pathways of computer science (CS) education in Illinois and to create a baseline by which to measure the expansion of CS education in the coming years. Beginning in the 2023-2024 school year, all districts in the…

COVID-19 forced academics to transition from face-to-face to remote teaching using various online platforms. This article focuses on my experiences of teaching a research module during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The social, cognitive and teaching presences from the Community of Inquiry Framework for a successful higher education experience was…

Forbidden Sounds: The Music of the Holocaust considers the historical events of the Holocaust in the context of music. The honors course explores diverse roles that music played during the years 1933-1945, including the Nazi use of music as a means for censorship and discrimination; music performance and creation in various Jewish ghettos and…

In Chapter 1, I investigate whether the presence of peers from the same country of origin affects the success of international doctoral students. I use unique, administrative data on higher education enrollment and leverage variation in peer composition across cohorts within a program. Results indicate that a 10 percentage point increase in the…

In the American Education system, high school plays an important role. High school education in the country is impacted by several factors such as peer pressure, parental influence and personal characteristics. There are discrepancies in achievements between Black and White students across the United States. Therefore, this paper will aim at…

Research suggests that honors students are more likely to be engaged in some, but not all, aspects of the college experience, although there is less information available from the faculty perspective. This study presents findings from the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE), comparing various engagement-related practices between faculty…

Problem-based learning (PBL) has a history of producing strong educational results in engineering; however, global society is challenged by highly complex environmental, socio-political and technical problems summarised in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This obliges us to explore educational approaches that address complexity. Yet,…

Diagnostic tests for placing students into appropriate courses are commonly used in higher education math and science departments. We found no physics education research examining the validity of such exams, how well they are placing students into appropriate courses, and what guidance these exams can give for better focusing instruction. In this…

In 2014, the Ministry of Education of the Azerbaijan Republic launched an honours programme in several universities to introduce the advanced curriculum and interactive teaching methodology. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the success of the programme via the satisfaction level of the honours students with the delivery of the promised…

Students in The Honors College at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh are required to take a team-taught first-year seminar in their first semester. The seminar is theme-based and taught by two professors from two different disciplines. The theme of the seminar is food, one teacher is a professor of geography and the other a professor of…

University Honors programming in the United States is interdisciplinary and collaborative; from First Year Seminars to capstone research projects for upperclassmen, students embrace multidisciplinary learning and research. This approach, however, does not always translate into an incorporation of diverse perspectives of multiple faculty members in…

Threshold concepts are fundamental to a discipline and, once understood, transform students' understanding and perception of the subject. Despite the value of threshold concepts as a learning "portal" for heuristic purposes, there is limited empirical evidence of threshold crossing or achieving mastery. As a threshold concept, biological…

Temperament and personality traits constitute inherent and learned personal characteristics that are crucial for creative behaviors among high ability students. This study investigated the relationships of temperament dimensions and the Big Five personality traits to creativity among 406 honors college students. First, the associations of…

The commodification of education is an increasing threat to university honors programs. In honors, we seek to unpack this transactional model of education and uncover the inherent joy of learning. Honors professionals can challenge the commodification of education by helping students contextualize their educational experiences and by facilitating…

This study explores the experience of high-achieving students of color in an honors program at a large research university. Qualitative methods involve surveying students (n = 39) and interviewing a select group (n = 5) in attempts to measure both the frequency and severity of racial microaggression as well as subjective experience relating to…