Misinformation around scientific issues is rampant on social media platforms, raising concerns among educators and science communicators. A variety of approaches have been explored to confront this growing threat to science literacy. For example, refutations have been used both proactively as warning labels and in attempts to inoculate against…

The research study explored online language learners' self-directed language learning (SDLL) experiences, benefits, motivations, and challenges when employing educational tools like Duolingo in an out of classroom context. To gain insights into SDLL, in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 10 Duolingo users were conducted. Study results…

This study pursues a twofold objective: first, to assess Physical Science teachers' knowledge in teaching at science centers, and second, to investigate their perceptions of their roles in facilitating teaching within these centers. Employing a qualitative case study method with interviews and observations, eight teachers voluntarily participated.…

Despite being recognised as complementary to formal learning, informal learning is not yet well understood. Using a qualitative synthesis approach, we systematically reviewed how students' informal learning interactions are represented in health professions education research. Thirty-five articles were identified. Our three-stage analysis…

In this conceptual paper, we argue that many episodes of the so-called culture wars of the 1990s in the U.S. can be better understood as attacks on Blackness, a contention that critical race theory illuminates. To substantiate this claim, we recast key societal episodes through a Black perspective that unfolded in both formal and informal…

The purpose of this study was to conceptualize a pedagogical content knowledge framework for informal science educators (ISE-PCK). An initial, hypothetical framework was created grounded in the literature in informal science education (ISE) as analogous to PCK models in formal science education. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods research…

Moving education to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and the many alternatives during the COVID-19-pandemic raised the question of pedagogical form. In a sense, pandemic education in its two-dimensionality was a frictionless, sanitized reduction of education to pure form; it offered a more efficient transfer of knowledge and was marked by a heightened…

This study examines creative uses of emerging image-based social media for informal language learning. Adopting the ecological concept of affordances, it investigates new technological features on Instagram and TikTok and how they are utilised as resources for language learning. Using public data of Instagram photo/video and TikTok video posts,…

Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the international history of community culture and culture-based adult learning through showing the initiatives of a Post-Socialist country through introducing some initiatives from 1950, without claim for completeness. Additions to the History of Community Culture and Culture-based Adult…

The professional learning of academics working in UK higher education (HE) can be a complex enterprise occurring across a multitude of (in)formal learning encounters, challenging academics to negotiate and prioritise their time and the opportunities available to them. This study investigates the professional learning of academics in UK HE,…

Within citizenship education, literacy is often promoted in a narrow functional sense of skills for civic engagement or is used synonymously with "knowledge" to refer to an awareness-raising process around rights. Through an analysis of evolving models of citizenship, this article moves beyond literacy "for" citizenship to…

Educators working in museums, zoos, and botanic gardens are increasingly required to demonstrate impact. These requirements position 'performative evaluation' as the dominant model, one which also acts as a political, non-neutral, and managerial form of accountability. In contrast, 'practice evaluation' is intended to be democratic, dialogic, and…

According to decades of research in educational psychology, learning is a social process that is enhanced when it happens in contexts that are familiar and relevant. But because of the skyrocketing popularity of data science, today we often work with students coming from an abundance of academic concentrations, professional, and personal…

Purpose: Relatively few studies have examined the perspectives of informal learning facilitators who play key roles in cultivating an equitable learning environment for nondominant youth and families in making and tinkering spaces. This study aims to foreground the perspectives of facilitators and highlight the complexities and tensions that…

Literacy is the foundation of education and supporting young children's early literacy opportunities prepares them for a variety of learning experiences, both in traditional and non-traditional settings. Reading to shelter dogs in non-traditional settings may offer a space that is judgement-free and inviting for the development of motivation and…