This paper proposes a framework for designing digital environments and illustrates this framework using the example of a video game (Alchemist). The increasing importance of digital environments for educational systems (e.g. for teaching and assessing twenty-first century skills) makes it necessary to have standards for their quality. These…

The SEL Innovations series aims to help the field imagine new, more expansive and equitable approaches to social and emotional learning (SEL) and wellness to ensure that all children, adolescents, and adults feel safe, supported, and seen so that they can thrive. This is the second report in a series exploring innovations in SEL. The purpose of…

Many educators look to naturalism as a tool to create a new learning environment because they believe that it can produce an innovative and revolutionary method in the educational world. In this paper, I examine an Eastern, Ibn Tufail, and Western, Jean Jacque Rousseau, romantic naturalist philosophy. I find a remarkable similarity between their…

It is widely acknowledged that China is much wealthier than ever before. However, many have witnessed rising cases of moral disorders and the inefficiency of school-based moral education. As one of the most widely known theoretical frameworks in the social sciences, Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological systems theory of human development can provide an…

The "new student activism," as it is often called, is a hot topic in higher education as well as in the popular press and social media. As a college student in the late '60s and early '70s, a long-time student affairs professional, a scholar and practitioner of service-learning, and an academic teaching a course on social change, the…

Hate has always been a part of our lives and world. We have rationalized about it and pretended that it is a personality difference that is not very harmful and hurtful. However, hate continues to be devastating and visible in the forms of discrimination, racism, xenophobia, linguistic superiority, religious bigotry, Messiah Complex, White…

What is important for citizens to know and be able to do? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seeks to answer that question through the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student knowledge and skills. The PISA 2015 Assessment and Analytical Framework presents the conceptual foundations of the…

This article is based on a systematic review of educational research, policy and professional literature relating to creative environments for learning in schools. Despite the search yielding 210 documents, comparatively few empirical studies were published between 2005 and 2011 that addressed the review objectives. Only 18 studies included in the…

The paper covers a diverse range of topics, the areas of interest for this particular paper include (a) knowledge structures and mental models, (b) problem solving processes, (c) metacognition, (d) skill acquisition, (e) individual learning styles, and (f) transfer of learning. The following brief synopsis of the paper serves to illustrate the…

As a well-developed indicator of high-quality teaching in any subject area we use the New South Wales (NSW) Quality Teaching Framework (QTF) in this article to identify what might constitute quality teaching in physical education and to suggest the extent to which Game Sense pedagogy can be seen to meet the expectations of the NSW QTF. We identify…

With science teachers facing comprehensive curriculum reform that will shape science education for decades to come, high school department chairs represent a critical resource for instructional leadership and teacher support. While the historical literature on the department chair indicates that chairs are in prime positions to provide…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method where student learning occurs in the context of solving an authentic problem. PBL was initially developed out of an instructional need to help medical school students learn their basic sciences knowledge in a way that would be more lasting while helping to develop clinical skills…

Many studies of design fixation ask designers to work in controlled laboratory or classroom environments, but innovative design work frequently occurs in dynamic, social environments. The two studies reviewed in this paper investigated how three independent variables likely to be present in many design environments affect design fixation. The…

The purpose of this study was to examine how school psychologists implemented the problem-solving consultation process within a computer-simulated school environment. Four school psychologists were recruited to complete three simulated consultation cases. The school environment was computer generated and all of the teachers and target students…

This booklet is a summary of an extensive review of research and other literature undertaken to guide the development of the Wellbeing@School website self-review process, survey tools and content. This website is being developed by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER). The "Wellbeing@School" website is one component…