ABSTRACT

Reviewing the current research associated with magazine journalism education immediately raises two major problems. First, magazines represent a small slice of journalism education. Secondly, investigating the literature of fields of study in the contemporary university in the United States leads to mentions of the fierce, ongoing debate stimulated by efforts to measure curricular effectiveness in higher education. As an example of the first challenge, in 2010, David Cuillier and Carole B. Schwalbe published a content analysis of 253 Great Ideas for Teaching Awards (GIFT) presented from 2000 to 2009 by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). 1 From a decade of reports on teaching, the authors culled experiences that reflect the elements of effective pedagogy that foster learning. These peer-reviewed reports contain ideas that spark excitement in either the students, the teachers or both. The factors that Cuillier and Schwalbe identified included incremental learning, motivation, relevance, higher learning, that is, an appeal to creativity and critical thinking, and appropriateness for a range of learners. 2 Theoretically, at least, classroom activities that incorporate those characteristics have a better chance of enabling students to achieve the course learning objectives or minimally be enthusiastic about the learning experience.