The author has been teaching Introduction to Sociology for several years, and each semester new students bring their own perspectives to the study of sociology, making the content fresh and new. In order to help students understand sociological concepts in more experiential ways and to give them a glimpse into a culture that may be different from…

After several years of teaching Sociological Thought--an upper division course that focuses on classical, modern, and contemporary sociological theories--the author came across the idea of student portfolios. As a consequence, the course has undergone far-reaching changes. The content remains relatively intact; however, today the theory course…

The purpose of experiential education is to combine experience and learning in ways that transform both. Students have experiences outside the classroom, and these experiences are integrated into the course curriculum, enriching both the experience and the class material. Successful experiential education assignments must first provide students…

In the world of work and in the social lives of many, new technology plays an important role in establishing and maintaining relationships and exchanging information. The school system varies in its response to this new technology and particularly to the popular communication of email and mobile phone users. In schools and classrooms, policies,…

One of the author's first assessment experiences at California State University, Sacramento, began when she was assigned to teach a graduate-level program evaluation research course in the Division of Criminal Justice. The chair of the assessment committee and the division chair approached her with the idea of conducting an assessment of the…

The aim of this study was to show how general models of text production can account for argumentative text planning. It focuses in particular on retrieval process in 11- to 18-year-old children. Various experimental situations were designed to promote different ways of retrieving ideas from long-term memory. Essays written by students were…

Active and experiential learning theory have not dramatically changed collegiate classroom teaching methods, although they have long been included in the pedagogical literature. This article presents an evolved method, reality based learning, that aids professors in including active learning activities with feelings of clarity and confidence. The…

A challenge for many EAP teachers working on pre-sessional programs is to find ways to reconcile the dual aims of preparing students for university study and for the IELTS test. The study described here seeks to provide some guidance on this issue through an analysis of the type of writing required in the two domains. We compared the standard…

This paper examines the concepts of discourse community and writing apprenticeship in the context of undergraduate education students' writing. Drawing on an integrated research methodology using marker feedback on student assignments and interview data, the paper addresses to what extent the concepts of discourse community and apprenticeship can…

When students take their first upper division mathematics course after an introduction to proof course, they are often overwhelmed by the prospect of writing in a mathematics course. In mathematics, unlike other disciplines, students are very seldom asked to respond via writing to a reading assignment, to write an essay about a topic they have…

How does one turn a class of sixth graders who are uncomfortable with writing, unfamiliar with art supplies, but good at fidgeting and bickering, into a community that achieves literary, artistic, and civic success? In the spring of 2003, Kestrel Heights teachers asked the authors to team up and help their sixth grade students create something…

In the 20th century, student work was dominated by paper-print assignments, particularly essays. This was a reflection of the dominant media technology of that century--books, magazines, newspapers, radio, and television. But those days are gone. In the 21st century, the dominant media technology of today's students is the Internet. In addition to…

Purpose: The application of a new technology (YouTube) can help lecturers in solving some of the issues related to workload and shifts support to students by giving them more responsibilities in their assessment. The purpose of this paper is to re-characterize the role of the students in the assessment process. Design/methodology/approach:…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience. This course, Education 590 Culminating…

This lesson plan contains four activities based on the theme of newspapers and journalism. It includes a lesson to familiarize students with newspapers, journalistic writing, interviewing, and creating a class newspaper. The activities can be used as individual lessons or a larger project of creating a class newspaper.