In this article, the authors explore their motivations for conceiving of and assembling the current issue on comparative religious studies as a viable pedagogical orientation for our troubled times. Situated in both the history of comparison as a method and scholarship on effective pedagogy, it argues that disciplined, scholarly, sound comparative…

This article explores the integration of ChatGPT into instructional design, utilizing a backward planning framework to align learning objectives, assessments, and activities for enhanced educational outcomes. Grounded in the principles of Understanding by Design (UbD) the paper introduces a threestep human-AI hybrid co-design model that enables…

School counselors need to be intentional about implementing a comprehensive school counseling program, which will often include planning and teaching classroom lessons on topics connected to academic skills, career planning, and social/emotional learning. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a scientifically valid framework for providing access…

In this paper, the authors will discuss the application of ADDIE, a five-step instructional design model. ADDIE prescribes the generic, systematic, dynamic, and flexible instructional design process, which offers educators a productive approach to education. The authors will illustrate how to apply the model in a college-level reading lesson.…

There is a healthy research community focused on individual differences to tailor serious games for maximum effect for each person. But there is a comparative lack of research on the scalability of serious games for maximising knowledge saturation in a population. Scalability is critical in many real applications. The authors detail this neglected…

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is a tool that promises efficiency and customization for teachers and students alike but also carries risks of dependency and detachment. This report aims to explore new questions for educators, system leaders, and tool developers such as how much cognitive effort AI should alleviate, how much it should…

The empirical research on dialogue-based pedagogies shows that they improve student outcomes and, thus, teachers should make more use of these methods. However, deeper analyses about whether certain modes of dialogue are better than others is under-researched, resulting in little information about which models best help teachers develop effective…

Personalized education--the systematic adaptation of instruction to individual learners--has been a long-striven goal. We review research on personalized education that has been conducted in the laboratory, in the classroom, and in digital learning environments. Across all learning environments, we find that personalization is most successful when…

Visual scaffolding, a type of scaffolding provided in a visual format, is considered to have potential in web-based learning environments as it naturally includes tacit information, highlights the critical features of tasks and promotes learning through the spatial organization of tasks. However, systematic approaches to visual scaffolding design…

In the teaching of math-fact automaticity, most classroom teachers are unaware of research-based practices such as the use of a controlled response time, the scaffolded teaching of individual math facts, the limiting of exposure to new math facts, the separation of math facts with common operands, and even the definition of automaticity. As a…

This article reports on research done at Brigham Young University on supporting teaching with primary sources. It reviews the literature on primary source literacy and lessons gleaned from interviews with faculty to begin to identify the competencies necessary to teach the skills of primary source literacy. It breaks these competencies down into…

This book supports teaching and learning through online discussion in higher education contexts such as universities, colleges, and polytechnics. It presents an explicit focus on popular asynchronous discussion tools and methods, with attention to disciplinary variety and key principles for successful learning-oriented discussion. It tackles the…

This paper aims to improve the design methods for serious games (games for learning) by identifying a set of well-established pedagogical misconceptions and presenting design guidelines to avoid these. It analyses the pedagogical principles and models that are commonly used in serious game design, and contrasts these with evidence and advances in…

Gamification has been used in a variety of settings, including business, healthcare, and education. Although there are successful gamification examples, many gamification projects fail due to poor design. Despite the importance of thoughtful design of gamification, previous research on gamification in education has not paid sufficient attention to…

Could knowledge work practices become pervasive in formal education? Could knowledge creation pedagogies help us close the gap between graduates' knowledge work competencies and fast changing needs of the knowledge society? In this commentary, I first revisit the most notable contributions of this special issue. Then, I turn to some overarching…