Making autoethnography outlines a method for combining the practices of making (sewing and crochet) and interpretive writing to capture the relationality of the self and materials. I discuss how I have developed my fascination with making as a conduit for working through the challenges of writing autoethnography and the personal vulnerabilities…

SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed) are advocated as the gold standard for goal setting. However, goals which are non-specific and exploratory, referred to as 'open goals', may be preferred in specific circumstances. In this pre-registered experiment, we compared SMART goals, compared to do-your-best (DYB), and…

Economic development has encouraged innovation in a range of industries; however, the education industry has been following traditional modes of teaching until recently across the world. This has not only affected the capabilities of the youth but has also led to the problem of unemployment and diminished success rates at the workplace. One of the…

Exploratory learning environments (ELEs) promote a view of learning that encourages students to construct and/or explore models and observe the effects of modifying their parameters. The freedom given to learners in this exploration context leads to a variety of learner approaches for constructing models and makes modelling of learner behavior a…

Some see research as an esoteric, other-worldly, practice only to be completed by those unable to do anything 'real'. Others--including some academics working in universities--see it as 'just another thing to do', a burden on already overworked staff, used as an excuse to set even more performance goals. Within initial teacher education, the…

Rocks and fossils appear in the National Curriculum of England science programmes of study for children in year 3 (ages 7-8). A frequently asked question is "How do you make the classification of rocks engaging?" In response to this request from a school, a set of interactive activities was designed and organised by tutors and students…

There is much current debate about the purpose and usefulness of educational research and the perceived communication gap between teaching professionals and academic researchers. UK government intervention into initial teacher education has in recent decades contributed to this divide by favouring school-based training. The most common route into…

This article argues that SoTL may draw on and inform other scholarships--of discovery, application and integration--by bringing them into a classroom- and community-based scholarship of communal inquiry. In so doing, SoTL will resist teaching being regarded and evaluated as transmission and delivery of knowledge made elsewhere, reasserting the…

In this paper, a novel approach to engaging students in personal inquiry learning is described, whereby they carry out scientific investigations that are personally meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives. The learners are supported by software that guides the inquiry process, extending from the classroom into the school grounds, home, or…

This paper presents findings from a qualitative UK study exploring the social practices of schoolchildren visiting an interactive science discovery centre. It is promoted as a place for "learning through doing", but the multi-modal, ethnographic methods adopted suggest that children were primarily engaged in (1) sensory pleasure-taking…

In this brief retrospective essay, the value of a particular kind of classroom talk is extolled--not the kind of talk that simply feeds back information, but rather talk that has the power to shape knowledge through participant engagement with a range of processes: hypothesising, exploration, debate and synthesis. This kind of talk is the…

This paper reports findings from a study of young children's views about electric circuits. Twenty-eight children aged 5 and 6 years were interviewed. They were shown examples of circuits and asked to predict whether they would work and explain why. They were then invited to try out some of the circuit examples or make circuits of their own…

The project on which this report is based set out to establish how exploring children's musicality might encourage adults to consider their engagement with the musical play and learning of children under the age of five. Through reflection and evaluation the participants became aware that they were challenging their own teaching style in response…

"Pedagogies of partnership: What works?" seeks to identify whether the student learning experience is enhanced or in any way made different through the implementation of teaching and learning that is explicitly intended to foster partnership. The value of student-staff partnerships and student engagement is recognised nationally and in…

While "lasting effects" of outdoor experiences have been suggested, few empirical studies have traced influences more than one year after the experiences. This study examines the written responses of 67 Japanese expedition participants who took part in a British-organized overseas youth expedition 20-23 years ago, to investigate their…