Do your students occasionally seem bored? That's ok, says John Spencer. Doing tedious tasks or spending some time without stimulation can actually be great for creativity, freeing up your brain to make connections it might not otherwise have made. Spencer walks us through why our modern culture is so resistant to boredom and how we can cultivate…

Disagreements about how Christianity should be taught in state-funded school RE have a long history. In this article we take England as a case study and examine the debates that have arisen about the legitimacy of a theologically based pedagogy following the publication of "Understanding Christianity," a resource inspired by recent…

Gifted education teacher training, licensure, certification, and degrees are ubiquitous in the Australia and abroad, and yet whether or not such training results in changes to classroom instructional practices remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to better understand the relationship between professional development in gifted education…

When a theoretical framework (and its components) is not clearly linked to research methods, researchers risk designing flawed studies, wherein the stated research question is inconsistent with the research design. Explicitly identifying one's theoretical orientation can provide an orderly schematic for linking observations from separate…

There is a long history of some students finding that the science instruction they receive in schools fails to address their deeply held concerns about the theory of evolution. Such concerns are principally religious, though there are also students with deeply held religious views who are perfectly comfortable with the theory of evolution. New…

The notion of wild pedagogies entreats teachers to act -- to wild pedagogies -- by acknowledging that more than a singular will characterizes pedagogical situations. Wilding pedagogies requires going beyond ideas of teacher-centred and student-centred pedagogies to encompass nature-centred pedagogies: recognizing the self-will of wider nature. In…

In this response paper to Hoyles' contribution "Transforming the mathematical practices of learners and teachers through digital technology" (EJ1200112) focuses on three points. First, more knowledge is needed on why teaching and learning practices should transform, into what will they transform, and by what or by whom will they be…

The ability of students to problem solve begins with interpreting the problem. When they interpret the problem inaccurately, they will likely use ineffective strategies or fail to solve the problem. Studies reported students are often incapable of identifying and articulating the problem goal, requirements/constraints, and expected output. In…

This essay discusses the author's use of Charles Dickens's "Sketches by Boz" (1836-39) in an undergraduate Victorian literature and film class as a further way of expanding the possibilities for teaching film with literature. The article begins with a general discussion of Dickens's overall value to author Jeffrey Jackson's idea of the…

By embedding narrative theory within the practice of storied forms, there can be pedagogical movement from difficulty to insight. This piece explores scholarly personal narrative as a creative and critical method for attaining academic understanding. The ideas of three narrative scholars (Nash, Fowler, and Luce-Kapler) surface within two writing…

In this article, I highlight the impact that the simple view of reading (SVR) has had on the field of reading over the last 30 years. I argue that the SVR has led to many significant advancements in our understanding of reading comprehension. I also contend that it has contributed to some false impressions concerning comprehension that impact…

Former social studies teacher and teacher educator Mark Kissling describes how he has used the Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the U.S.A." to guide students to think more deeply about the meaning of patriotism and the various ways to understand a single text.

Sequential explanatory mixed method design is the most frequently applied in both health and social sciences literature. It is denoted by 'QUAN [right arrow] qual' which represents the quantitative study occurs first and has greater weight in addressing the study's aims, and the qualitative study follows to explain quantitative results. Despite…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide a tutorial on statistical learning and its role in learning to spell and to discuss the implications of the research for educators. Method: The tutorial begins with a discussion of statistical learning and its characteristics. It then discusses research on how statistical learning plays out in…

Physical literacy continues to gain global momentum, yet the definition and underlying concept of physical literacy remain contested in both research and practice. This lack of clarity has the potential to undermine the operationalization of physical literacy. This paper considers the various definitions of physical literacy that are currently…