The terms 'authenticity' and 'authentic' have been used increasingly frequently in educational contexts over the past decades. In science education, authenticity is claimed to be a crucial concept, inter alia, for students' motivation and interest in science. However, both terms are used, defined and conceptualised in various and ambiguous ways.…

The author provides a conceptual framework that illustrates the spectrum of authentic writing assignments and operationalizes authenticity, in an effort to guide practitioners toward crafting writing assignments that are meaningful for students by reflecting and replicating the kinds of writing that occur outside of the academic context. The…

Teachers use a variety of strategies to capture students' attention, which is a necessary step for any lesson. Expert-level teachers take this one step farther, making sure that their attention-gathering techniques engage students cognitively, sparking productive curiosity and connecting to key concepts and skills to be learned in a unit or…

As schools endeavor to provide all students with access to computational thinking and computer science, the hackathon emerges as a competitive and high-energy event that uses authentic problems to motivate learners to engage in the domain of computing. This article presents the design case of a hackathon for teenagers as enacted over five…

This article discusses authentic inquiry-based learning in a hybrid graduate course, "Teaching Hidden History," taught in 2015 and 2016. Students in this course created online history learning modules based on their own scholarly research. They defined their intended audience and crafted modules tailored specifically for those learners.…

A primary goal of introductory statistics courses is to develop a student's ability to think statistically. To motivate students to this end, the literature suggests that statistics courses use exercises that are relevant and familiar to students. Work in educational psychology highlights the importance of connecting new concepts to pre-existing…

Over the past 50 years, the number of alternative schools for at-risk students have increased exponentially. However, the research concerning the students that attend these institutions has been, at best, unhurried. Even more wanting is the research regarding the development and critical evaluation of educational interventions that can motivate…

In 2015, language faculty and administrators at the University of Virginia met to evaluate the needs of the more than 20 language programs offered on campus. A priority emerged for language-learning space better equipped to facilitate authentic interaction and communication. The committee conceived of an alternative language-learning space that…

Material development is one of the most important links in the chain of course design. However, it has received limited attention in the academic context of applied translation studies. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to encourage material development in interpreter and translator education at undergraduate levels. It first justifies…

Teaching in Vietnam recently, I had opportunities to work with some amazing students and teachers. Being in such a position lent itself well to cultural exchanges inside and outside the classroom. However, it was clear to me, to my colleagues, and I believe to the majority of students that there was a need to dig deeper--to move beyond the…