Teresa G. Wojcik’s research while affiliated with Villanova University and other places

College professors seek to create intellectual experiences that free students from false perceptions and incomplete truths. This article explores one curricular decision and an accompanying pedagogical approach which, the authors argue, facilitates such a liberating experience. In the online environment of WebCT, students post their reactions to course readings, including a null curriculum consisting of a few examples of a complex body of literature by and about heretofore lost women writers. What we believe emerges from the students’ words is, first, that they feel awakened to their own unconscious complicity in perpetuating and normalising a male-dominated body of literature; second, the female students report experiencing an increased sense of empowerment because they believe that contemporary woman’s self-identity is intimately joined to the experiences and accomplishments of their scholarly female predecessors. The authors argue that the curricular choice to expose students to the women’s works, aided by the pedagogical decision to require online responses to these works, offers benefits for students and professors alike.

Social studies methods textbooks constitute a rich source of data for trends in teaching and learning. This study examined twenty secondary social studies methods texts for the instructional approaches they recommend. The researchers concluded that methods texts published over the past fifty years consistently call for pedagogical variety and offer a surprising multitude of instructional strategies. Revisiting the rich diversity of instructional strategies in methods textbooks provides classroom teachers an opportunity to reflect on their practice and continue to energize their teaching.

Reclamation work denotes the process of uncovering the lost contributions of women to the philosophy of education, analyzing their works, making them accessible to a larger audience, and (re)introducing them to the historical record and canon. Since the 1970s, scholars have been engaged in the reclamation work, thus making available to students, professors, and researchers a rich and varied perspective for tracing the evolution of educational thought. This article shares the responses of undergraduate and graduate students to discussing the reclamation work and canonical formation in their Philosophy of Education course. Two of the benefits most commonly cited by students involve learning a fuller, more accurate picture of history and ameliorating contemporary gender inequity. We assert that the traditional canon and syllabi for Philosophy of Education and Social Foundation courses could be enriched through the inclusion of works that trace the tradition of women's intellectual thought.

To address the signi?cant gap in engineering curricula regarding the teaching and learning of design, accrediting agencies and industry leaders have called for the integration of design experiences throughout engineering coursework. This paper shares the results of a study which examined the process of implementing impromptu design exercises in engineering science classes as one means of infusing design instruction throughout the curriculum. The paper shares both the challenges and bene?ts cited by instructors and students in using impromptu design activities to teach design. The authors conclude that impromptu design exercises hold considerable potential as an approach in design-centric curriculum, a potential not fully realized by their current use as icebreaker or team-building activities.

From the end of World War II to 1989, a Communist regime dictated political and economic policy in Poland as well as educational curricula. Heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology, the official state curriculum sought to build support for the Communist system and to promote acquiescence to the Soviet influence in Poland's internal affairs. Yet, the official curriculum contradicted the perspectives of many Poles who recalled the country's historically democratic traditions and lamented its 18th-century partitioning by the Russian, Prussian, and Austrian empires, which resulted in the disappearance of Poland from the map of Europe for 123 years (1795–1918). The resulting inconsistency between the official curriculum and the goals and knowledge of Polish teachers evidenced itself as they attempted to subvert the ideological indoctrination called for by the state. This qualitative study sought to better understand how teachers and students mediated the official curriculum in the classroom. Examination of official curricular documents and interviews with Polish teachers and students yields a portrait of schooling in Communist Poland that is far more complex than the label “indoctrination” allows.