The Growth of Higher Educators for Social Justice: Collaborative Professional Development in Higher Education

In this article, we investigate what happened when, contrary to the typical isolation of faculty in higher education, a group of higher educators from various disciplines in a graduate school of education met regularly to discuss issues related to our teaching and social justice. More specifically, we explored the following research question: How does collaboration…

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Student Reported Growth: Success Story of a Master of Science in Education Learning Community Program

Quantitative and qualitative data collected from students who have completed a Master of Science in Education Learning Community Program support the effectiveness of the learning community model in facilitating professional growth and transformation. Instructors model constructivist theory. Peer review, collaboration, and reflective analysis of theory and practice are essential components of the model. The program…

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From Lessons Learned the Hard Way to Lessons Learned the Harder Way

My departure from traditional methods of teaching and assessment (i.e., lecture and close-ended exams) was prompted years ago by a “gut feeling” that has morphed into an explicit examination of my teaching practice and students’ reactions to it. The scholarly approach and empirical evidence in “Teachers and Learning” (Hutchings, Huber & Ciccone, 2011, Chapter 2)…

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Negativity in Massive Online Open Courses: Impacts on Learning and Teaching and How Instructional Teams May Be Able to Address It

There are many positive aspects of teaching and learning in Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), for both instructors and students. However, there is also a considerable amount of negativity in MOOCs, emerging from learners on discussion forums and through peer assessment, from disciplinary colleagues and from public discourse around MOOCs. Through mixed-methods case-study research of…

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Collaborative Pedagogy in a Design Thinking Education Course

This article describes a co-taught course that mobilized a Design Thinking approach in the service of creating a prototype for an actual girls’ boarding school in Kenya. The goal of the class was to allow students to engage collaboratively with faculty, with their peers, and with experts “on the ground” to develop the various parts…

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The Strategy Project: An Exploration of Enhancing Self-Regulated Learning in an Introductory Psychology Course

College success requires development of self-regulated learning skills. This study describes a self-regulated learning strategy intervention in a large general education Introductory Psychology course, focusing on the second exam. Students’ reflection responses across five time periods were compared with exam performance. Increased self-regulated learning strategies usage correlated with decreased passive learning strategies usage, increased hours…

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