Currents in Teaching & Learning

Call for Papers

Currents in Teaching and Learning is now inviting submissions for Volume 18, Issue 1. Submissions may take the form of:

• Brief Report: provide a concise but complete account of new teaching methods or materials that will be of broad interest to college and university instructors (1,250-2,500 words)
• Pedagogy in Praxis: medium-length teaching and program reports on classroom/curricular practices (2,500-5,500 words)
• Full Article: longer research or theoretical articles related to current issues in teaching and learning in higher education (5,500-7,500 words)

All submissions must be original, previously unpublished work and, if based in a particular academic discipline, must explicitly consider their relevance and applicability to other disciplines and classroom settings within higher education. The inclusion of specific teaching artifacts and/or a method to evaluate the effectiveness and significance of a particular pedagogical approach greatly enhances the likelihood of a submission being accepted. Co-authored pieces are welcome.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis, though the decision to send a piece out for peer review may not be reached until after the submission deadline has passed. Submissions received after the deadline will also be considered on a rolling basis for the following issue.

To submit a manuscript, email it as a Microsoft Word document to currents@worcester.edu. 

Manuscripts are accepted for consideration with the understanding that they are original material and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Manuscripts can take the form of a brief piece (1,250-2,500 words), a medium-length report (2,500-5,500 words), or a full article (5,500-7,500 words). All suggested lengths are exclusive of references and appendices. Longer submissions will be considered as interest warrants and space permits.

Manuscripts should be prepared following guidelines established in the publication manual of the American Psychological Association.

Articles may include graphics and hyperlinks to online materials, where the latter are indicated and linked using the hyperlink tool provided in Microsoft  Word. Authors should ensure that all links are active at the time of submission. Please ensure that you obtain any necessary permission from copyright holders to reproduce any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations published elsewhere.

Submissions that discuss studies involving human participants, human data, or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript.

If your submission uses data, we encourage you to include a data availability/access statement stating where the research data associated with a paper is available, and under what conditions it can be accessed. 

Currents has adopted the COPE position statement on “Authorship and AI Tools,” which you can read in full here: https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author.

If your manuscript is accepted, you will complete an Author Agreement Form prior to publication. 

Submissions should include:

1. Title page with full title, full name of each author with current affiliation, position held and email, plus short biographical note of about 50 words. If applicable, please include a declaration of conflicting interest, funding statement, ethical approval and informed consent statements, and data availability statement.
2. A second title page should be included without identifying information for peer review.
3. Pages should be numbered consecutively in the upper right hand corner, beginning with the title page.
4. Manuscripts should be double spaced in entirety, with 1-inch margins on all sides.
5. Include an abstract of 100-150 words.
6. List 3-5 keywords and/or phrases beneath the abstract.
7. Text should be clearly organized, with a clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings, and quotations exceeding 40 words displayed, indented, in the text.
8. Abbreviations and acronyms should be spelled out at first mention.
9. Words to be set in italics (contrary to the rules of the style manual) should be set in italics, not underlined; sentence structure should be used to create emphasis.
10. References are cited in the text as follows: (author(s), year of publication).
11. The purpose of tables and figures is to present data to the reader in a clear and unambiguous manner. The author should not describe the data in the text in such detail that tables or figures become redundant.
12. Figures and tables should be keyed to the text. Tables should each be typed on a separate sheet and placed at the end of the manuscript (after the references).
13. Tables and figures should be numbered sequentially (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, and Figure 1, Figure 2) and include descriptive titles.

Overarching criteria that reviewers will be asked to evaluate for each submission:

1. Originality and utility: does the piece present an original intervention into the scholarship of teaching and learning? Does it provide a clear use value for classroom practices and/or discuss a subject of current importance/interest? 
2. Relevance across disciplines: if the piece is written from a particular disciplinary home, does it address explicitly its potential applicability to other disciplines and in other settings? Are the study’s findings too limited to one specific field?
3. Style: quality of writing, clarity, elegance, freedom from jargon, definitions of key terms, attention to the Currents submission guidelines, including APA format.
4. Appropriateness of methodology/theoretical framework: if the submission is a study, comment on the methodology; if an essay, comment on the theoretical framework.
5. Context/sources: evaluate the relevance of the sources/references and determine if they are current.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis, though the decision to send a piece out for peer review may not be reached until after the submission deadline has passed. If the editors determine that the manuscript’s format and content are appropriate for the journal, the manuscript is then sent through a double-anonymized peer-review process. Names of reviewers will not be released to authors, nor will reviewers know the identities of authors whose work they review. The review process will take 3-4 months. Authors will be notified of the recommendations of the review panel and will be provided copies of the reviewers’ comments.