Norwegian early childhood education policy seems to have begun to shift from emphasising playing and the development of the whole child to preparing children for school. This shift has been highlighted by the Norwegian early childhood sector as undesirable "schoolification." However, mathematics education is rarely mentioned in these…

Research into the psychology of language learning has grown exponentially in the last decade, yet, teacher perspectives on the field have been surprisingly absent from this body of research. The present study was designed to address this gap. Drawing on a survey with 311 foreign language teachers working at different school levels in 3 European…

Numerous studies have examined the use of active learning methods in undergraduate courses, suggesting that these methods increase learning and retention as well as student engagement. In order to investigate the benefits of particular active learning assignments involving presentations of 3-dimensional simulations in an introductory biology…

We used problem-based or experiential learning in our undergraduate Health Policy course to examine food deserts via a health impact assessment (HIA) assignment. An HIA evaluates potential effects on population health before a policy/program is implemented, to improve health and reduce adverse outcomes. We investigated if the HIA assignment…

Primary pre-service teachers (PSTs) in Australia often have low confidence and negative experiences in relation to science and teaching science. This paper reports on pre-post survey data produced by four institutions involved in a multi-institutional project exploring the use of university-school partnerships for primary science teacher…

Children often learn information in a context that is vastly different to the one in which they are asked to recall or use that information. Despite this, little is known about the effect of context change on children's recall of educational information. Here, 197 5- and 6-year-olds were taught the same interactive lesson in their classroom or on…

Lecturer-researchers, because of the duality of their profession, can introduce students directly to their research. Stimulating student interest through practical research topics enables students to see the relevance of the teaching/learning process and thereby enhance their motivation. As a major societal issue, research on renewable energies is…

Since its beginning, the education of deaf and hard of hearing individuals has been steeped in a debate around language, as professionals have clashed in a debate on whether signed or spoken language should be used as the primary language of instruction and communication with deaf and hard of hearing individuals. This has created a condition in…

Competition is reported in the general education literature as having a largely detrimental impact upon student engagement and long-term motivation, yet competition has long been an accepted part of the music education ensemble landscape. Adjudicated ensemble competitions and competition-festivals are commonplace in most Australian states, as…

Although research has explored teacher competencies in K-12 blended and online learning, it has not specified which competencies are appropriate to an online or digital medium, which refer to blending in-person with online experiences, or which are generic--applicable in any teaching modality. This article explores selected K-12 online and blended…

Open online courses provide a unique opportunity to examine learner preferences in an environment that removes several pressures associated with traditional learning. This mixed methods study sought to examine the pathways that learners will create for themselves when given the choice between an instructor-directed modality and learner-directed…

Background: Health education (HE) courses in schools are vital paths for improving teenagers' health literacy. HE and physical education (PE) teachers lead HE courses, and their teaching intentions and competency influence the effectiveness of the courses and the ability to promote students' health literacy. This study attempted to understand HE…

The inspection of mistakes can play a powerful role in an individual's learning process (Boaler 2015). The purpose of this article is to support the reader in selecting mistakes that can be leveraged to benefit the learning of all students. Specifically, the authors focus on "which" and "why": "which" mistakes to…

The benefits of in-class discussion, a form of active learning, are well-documented; in particular, discussions allow students the opportunity to learn from their peers. Yet students often treat discussions as 'down' or 'free' time. If students are not taking notes during discussion and reviewing those notes later on, they may not be learning much…

A number of recent studies have revealed that taking part in a sail-training-based Adventure Education Programme elevates youths' self-esteem. Across two studies, we sought to examine the extent to which youths' sense of belonging contributed to this increase in self-esteem. Study 1 revealed that participants who completed the voyage showed an…