In this article, we argue that a key diversity issue to be tackled in the classroom is disparity: Some students are more privileged than others, and their inputs are more valued than others'. Therefore, as educators, we need to devise new ways to rebalance benefits and deficits in our classrooms. Complementing critical work on privilege in…

Real-world design settings can be complex, ill-structured, open and typically uncertain and/or ambiguous about their goals and solution paths. This study contributes to understanding how to work with these types of problems in a course project setting. The main objective of the study is to identify, propose and validate a set of practical…

In this design case, I discuss the design and development of an open educational resource textbook on teaching methods of early literacy, primarily geared toward preservice teachers in Iowa. This design case intends to provide an interdisciplinary example of an accessible, multimodal, interactive, contextually relevant, and culturally inclusive…

This paper builds on a range of traditions in educational research and design to argue, with empirical evidence, that constructing powerful instructional materials and approaches that work at scale requires a grounding in theory and a commitment to engineering practice, including rapid prototyping and multiple development cycles. Specifically, we…

The aim of this article is to challenge heteronormative as well as homonormative practices in English language teaching. In doing so, the paper demonstrates that both complete absence of LGBTQI+ references in ELT materials, as well as recent attempts to provide more inclusive approaches to materials design and classroom practices, can be…

The book presents comparative analyses of five elementary mathematics curriculum programs used in the U.S. from three different perspectives: the mathematical emphasis, the pedagogical approaches, and how authors communicate with teachers. These perspectives comprise a framework for examining what curriculum materials are comprised of, what is…

Over the past few years, several states have begun to explore or pilot different through-year assessments to serve as replacements to the traditional end-of-year summative assessments that are currently the predominant source of information used by states to meet federal accountability requirements. While there are several different assessment…

My first encounter with English for specific purposes (ESP) teaching was in the late 1980s. I was asked to lead a small team of teachers in designing a new English course for university students of art and design. We had just a few weeks to devise a teaching plan and materials. ESP was famously described at that time as 'essentially a materials…

Instructional design deals with the optimization of learning processes. To achieve this, three aspects need to be considered: (1) the learning task itself, (2) the design of the learning material, and (3) the activation of the learner's cognitive processes during learning. Based on Cognitive Load Theory, learners also need to deal with the task…

Interfaces with good usability help their users complete more tasks in less time and with less effort, which gives them greater satisfaction. Given the vast array of options available to users today, usability is an important interface feature that may lead to the commercial success or failure of a software system. Despite its importance, few…

In the digital age, it is increasingly common that classrooms show a significant presence of technological devices that redesign their layout and daily interactions. However, this redesigning is less the result of the direct intervention of designers and architects than the effect of local and usually more silent arrangements that find ways to…

The use of online courses has expanded dramatically at institutions of higher education over the last several decades. Appropriate design of an online course is instrumental in determining the quality of the student experience and the amount of material students retain from the class. However, the instructor has a tremendous amount of freedom when…

Creating teacher-authored materials can be a challenging task for a variety of reasons. While relying on coursebooks to provide a ready-made structure to our classes, we often design our own materials to meet some of the specific needs and interests of our learners. Teachers usually approach the task of materials development through intuition and…

This paper reviews 12 research-based principles for how to design computer-based multimedia instructional materials to promote academic learning, starting with the multimedia principle (yielding a median effect size of d = 1.67 based on five experimental comparisons), which holds that people learn better from computer-based instruction containing…

Ofsted's (2021) Curriculum research review for languages (OCRR) draws conclusion on what 'high-quality language education' may look like. This opinion piece problematises the status of these conclusions as 'features' or recommendations. Before delving into a selection of identified 'features' in more depth, the author highlights the complexity of…