Pedagogical Practices of Teaching Assistants in Polysynchronous Classrooms: The Role of Professional Autonomy

Polysynchronous learning involves the use of educational technologies to enable remote and face-to-face students to simultaneously participate in live classes. This article uses teaching observation and focus group data to explore the perspectives and instructional practices employed by teaching assistants tasked with facilitating polysynchronous classes. This study’s findings suggest that without a sufficient knowledge base,…

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How Age, Gender, and Class Format Relate to Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Effective Course Assessments

Students’ perceptions of assessment used within the learning environment greatly influence their approach to learning. Therefore, this study aims to explore whether various student or course characteristics (age, gender, course format) impact perceptions regarding effectiveness of assessment type (e.g., exam, participation, presentation) and question format. As faculty develop their courses they may wish to consider…

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Mentoring International Teaching Assistants: A Case Study of Improving Teaching Practices

While there exists a considerable body of research focusing on international teaching assistants’ (ITAs’) linguistic, sociocultural, and instructional challenges, less is known about the successful developmental trajectories of this group of international educators of American students. This research aims to fulfill this research gap using a case study approach (Yin, 2003). The study involved ITAs…

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Making Better Tests with the Rasch Measurement Model

This study had two aims. The first was to explain the process of using the Rasch measurement model to validate tests in an easy-to-understand way for those unfamiliar with the Rasch measurement model. The second was to validate two final exams with several shared items. The exams were given to two groups of students with…

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A Process and Outcome Evaluation of a One-Semester Faculty Learning Community: How Universities Can Help Faculty Implement High Impact Practices

This process and outcome qualitative study describes and critically assesses the experiences of the faculty who participated in the one-semester FLC addressing CLTs through a content analysis of individual narratives completed at the end and ten months after the FLC ended. The existence and contributions of four prerequisites for successful collaboration (Einbinder, Robertson, Garcia, Vuckovic…

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Social Learning via Improved Daily Writing Assignments, Implementation of Study Groups, and Well-Structured Daily Class Discussions

As recent scholarship emphasizes the value of social learning, this article describes a course redesign that sought to encourage such social learning. This multi-year course redesign includes altering a daily writing assignment to make it more specific and to make it a contribution to the learning of a study group. Data was collected and evaluated…

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How Faculty Create Learning Environments for Diversity and Inclusion

The demographics of college campuses are changing and necessitate faculty provide a safe and inclusive environment for learning. The purpose of this study was to examine how faculty establish a sense of belonging in their classrooms, using focus group methodology to explore issues of power, privilege, and access at the postsecondary level. Faculty (N =…

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