Fostering Motivation

Students travel back in time to 19 th-century Japan, assuming the roles of advisors to the Tokugawa shogunate. They must synthesize primary readings on social and political unrest to propose reforms that could prevent the regime from collapsing...

Students familiar with case study analysis construct their own cases to capture a specific ethical question. They then lead their classmates through the case. This case construction gives students the opportunity to try to stump one another with new...

Students analyze musical themes from "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", first as a partnered homework assignment, then during a class discussion, and finally on their own as they passed by in the film. Introduction: This auxiliary unit...

Law students present a case study to their peers, simulating real-world cases young lawyers might face. Introduction: This series of case studies is used to teach Regulation of Financial Institutions. It is designed to give students practical experience...

A novel yearly course introducing observational skills to dermatology residents, using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) Goal: To focus on the nuances of observation with no background knowledge required (texture, color, shape, shadow). To allow each...

Students develop skills in critical paper reading by working through a series of active learning exercises. At different stages of the jigsaw activity, students work together to develop an understanding of one piece of the figure, and then teach and learn...

Using an interactive quiz as a teaching tool, the teaching team works with small groups of students to solve the quiz. Goal : To promote creative thinking; to have students undergo the research process; to communicate concepts and scientific results...

This activity emphasizes to students that each question is valid and worth more discussion by incorporating each question raised during section. Goal : To address all questions that students bring up during lecture, and to encourage students to ask more...

This term long group re-design project emphasizes individual and collaborative learning to improve website designs. Goal : To build skills in accomplishing a redesign task, making use of target tasks as well as objective timings to evaluate their...

This activity embeds research, problem solving, and presentation skills to expand prior knowledge on big data. Goal : To teach students how to brainstorm, how to creatively think about research and how to communicate fundamental computer science concepts...