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Using Student Data to Teach Research Methods

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Students' own survey data can provide instructors an engaging, accessible tool for teaching students methods concepts. At the beginning of the semester, students took a survey that asked a variety of mundane and absurd questions. The data from the survey...

Writing the Methods Section

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In her Expos section, Jerusha Achterberg teaches how to clearly describe the methods that will be used in a subsequent paper. This activity was motivated by the fact that students were having trouble writing the methods section in their final paper...

Unobtrusive Experiments

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In Joshua Greene's course, "Social Psychology," students design and run their own original "unobtrusive experiments" as the final project for the class. Students read and conduct background research to get ideas, write a proposal and refine it with the...

Clinical Trials Smackdown

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This activity teaches skills in critical assessment of the peer-reviewed published literature. It focuses on analysis of clinical trials in mental health, but the principles and methods are readily generalizable to other scientific literature. The...

Statistical Sampling Case Study

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To learn about sampling techniques in social science research, students practice tackling a real-world research problem through discussing a hypothetical case. Goals: To enable students to understand the benefits and drawbacks of various sampling...

Crowd Research Activity

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This activity exposes first-time graduate researchers to all stages of the research process through sourcing leads from fellow classmates. Goal: To create a collective research environment –otherwise known as "crowd researching". Background: This activity...

Field Trip At-A-Glance

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A Field Trip is an exciting way to engage students in course material. It allows them to explore and discover new information. Want examples of a Field Trip? Check out the ABLConnect Database Want research supporting the Field Trip method? Click here! Why...

Primitive Navigation Final Project

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The primitive navigation final project will involve researching a topic that requires data gathering and analysis, along with research into the history associated with that topic. The final presentation will take the form of a video that will be posted...

Stanford Physicist Embarks On Mission To Improve Undergraduate Teaching

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Research shows that some teaching methods are a lot better than others. But why aren't more colleges and universities even bothering to measure teaching effectiveness? Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, a Stanford professor, is on a mission to improve...

Expanding Depth and Breadth

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Expanding the depth and breadth of learning has to do with enhancing students’ conceptualizations of the basic course material. Instructors are very familiar with the pressure to cover material (Garland & Kolkmeyer, 2011), but often we want to do more...

Jigsaw

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The jigsaw classroom is a widely used cooperative learning technique originally developed by Elliot Aronson in 1971 at the University of Texas, Austin as a way to promote cooperation in the classroom by making individuals dependent on each other in...

Lecture

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Lectures are oral presentations given by an instructor who stands at the front of the class and delivers information. Lectures are typically characterized by a unidirectional flow of information from instructor to students; hence, they may be best suited...