This article considers a pilot research project that examines the successes, failures, and best practice approaches for delivering online performing arts education experiences to young people around Australia. In conversation with 15 teaching artists and 18 youth-based arts organisations nationally, it evaluates the challenges and innovations in…

Across our combined 15 years of experience as methodologists and research methodology instructors, we have found that the concept of 'failure' is only a small portion of methodological literature and is similarly missing from scholarship on teaching and learning social science research methodology. We define failure in terms of our inability as…

This design case is about Emotional Design Theory in application to the design of pandemic face masks. As we know designers rely strongly on theoretical knowledge in making design moves. To understand how students may learn to apply theory, research was conducted to test the effectiveness of an assessment called Design CUE (Conceptual…

Considering the political environments of Australia and the United States, the authors discuss the disconnect between policy and the practical needs of educators for creativity in the classroom.

Our contribution to this issue features a K12 school district + university partnership related to technology integration, and explores the connections between technology, teacher learning, creative risk taking, and failure. Austin Public Schools (APS) and the LT Media Lab (LTML) have been engaged in a research-practice partnership (RPP) for seven…

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…

Recently, there has been a growing interest in learning approaches that combine two phases: an initial problem-solving phase followed by an instruction phase (PS-I). Two often cited examples of instructional approaches following the PS-I scheme include Productive Failure and Invention. Despite the growing interest in PS-I approaches, to the best…

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better" (Samuel Beckett). [Quoted in 'Samuel Beckett Talks About Beckett' by John Gruen, in Vogue, (December 1969), p. 210.]. 'Fail Better' is an approach which supports first-year students' successful transition to higher education academic writing practices. 'Fail Better'…

This article begins with a historical exploration of the U.S.'s implementations and usages of K-12 standardized testing, including efforts at and failures to promote educational equity. Then, centering teachers' voices, the authors use a dialogic narrative format to put two long-time friends and educators in conversation with one another and their…

Despite persistent class and race inequalities in educational attainment and achievement in the U.S., hegemonic cultural ideologies and urban education politics and policies continue to proceed from an insistence that education is the great equalizer. These ideologies do not take into account the ways that normative school culture and pedagogical…

In France, the university has been experiencing a major crisis for several decades in the form of a high rate of student failure, particularly during the "licence," or first cycle of studies. This prolonged crisis has led educational researchers to focus on the predictors of student failure in University. This paper reviews the existing…

As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In "Learning to Improve," the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than "implementing fast and learning slow," they believe…

The Common Core State Standards, released in 2010, were rapidly adopted by more than 40 states. Champions maintained that these rigorous standards would transform American education, but the initiative went on to encounter a bumpy path. A decade on, what are we to make of this ambitious effort? What kind of impact, if any, has it had on the…

Two popular media forms are examined--the documentary film "Waiting for 'Superman'" and the HBO television series, "The Wire"--that present distinct, and at times conflicting, depictions of how to address educational inequity. Qualitative media content analysis was used to analyze the two media documents and to situate them…

Children with limited language expression and comprehension abilities are at risk for academic failure, particularly in literacy acquisition. In addition, these children often have poor social outcomes, including difficulty forming friendships, social exclusion, withdrawal, and victimization. The academic and social difficulties that these…