Concerns have been raised that colleges are not adequately developing the broad-based transferable skills students need to succeed in a globally competitive workforce (Arum & Roksa, 2011;Davidson, 2017) . Surveys of college administrators and business leaders indicate a considerableThis document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Despite support for active learning, little research has directly compared active techniques to determine which are most beneficial for student learning and motivation. The current study compared the active-learning techniques of cooperative learning (CL) and writing-to-learn (WTL) while also varying the modality of presentation (textual or multimedia) of lessons on key concepts and classic experiments in child development. Undergraduates (N = 165) in 4 sections of a developmental psychology course completed lesson modules, quizzes, and the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) in each of 4 active-learning conditions: text-based WTL (definitional writing), text-based CL, multimedia CL, and multimedia WTL (evaluative writing). Multimedia WTL (evaluative writing) was found to be most effective for overall learning. Multimedia CL was most effective for lower-level factual learning, and showed a trend toward enhancing student motivation. In sum, integrating multimedia presentation of lesson material with active-learning techniques enhanced educational benefits. Implications for pedagogical practice are considered.

An online survey of graduate-student instructors of undergraduate courses (N ϭ 156) explored their teaching values, teaching approaches, teaching practices, career teaching expectations, and experience of receiving support as teachers. Our aim was to uncover what graduate students value as important for teaching excellence and whether those values are expressed in their teaching practices. Participants most valued ethics and diversity and higher-order thinking skills in their teaching along with instructor expertise. Of these 3 domains, the first 2 aligned with endorsements of a conceptual-change, student-focused approach to teaching (r ϭ .36 and r ϭ .28, respectively). Despite this, most participants reported making use of non-student-centered teaching practices, such as lecturing (93.6%) or assigning textbook readings (84.0%), rather than studentfocused practices, like using small-group discussions (48.0%). However, when some student-centered practices were adopted, there were links to endorsements of studentfocused values: Assigning popular press articles (19.2%) correlated with valuing ethics and diversity (r ϭ .29), whereas structuring writing assignments to be collaborative (28.8%) correlated with valuing higher-order thinking skills (r ϭ .27). Regarding career teaching expectations and perceptions of teaching support, two thirds of participants expected teaching to be part of their career responsibilities, but fewer than half believed they received as much support as needed. The findings indicate further need for training and support to better ensure that graduate-student instructors adopt evidence-based teaching practices that align with their student-focused teaching values and approaches.

In two studies, we demonstrate an engaging classroom activity that facilitates student learning about Kohlberg’s theory of moral development by using digital resources to foster active, experiential learning. In addition to hearing a standard lecture about moral development, students watched a video of a morally provocative incident, then worked in small groups to classify user comments posted in response to the video according to Kohlberg’s six stages. Students in both studies found the activity enjoyable and useful. Moreover, students’ scores on a moral development quiz improved after completing the activity (Study 1), and students who completed the activity in addition to receiving a lecture performed better on the quiz than students who received lecture alone (Study 2).

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