This personal reflection describes events at the Appalachian State University that celebrated the Darwin Bicentennial throughout the 2008-2009 academic year. Prominent speakers and writers joined with a film series, theatre productions, and art exhibits to focus on Darwin and his scientific discoveries. The Darwin Bicentennial provided the members…

The voices of students can make a significant contribution to understanding what constitutes accomplished teaching (Flutter, 2007). Young people give cogent and significant views about their learning, providing important insights for improving teaching (Rudduck, McIntyre, & ESRC Teaching and Learning Programme., 2007). Using a qualitative…

Contextualized teaching and learning (CTL), or the concept of relating subject matter content to meaningful situations that are relevant to students' lives, offers one promising approach to helping students learn more effectively. This brief offers instructors, college leaders, policy makers and funders a high-level summary of the CTL…

Helplessness, a belief that the world is not subject to behavioral control, has long been central to our understanding of depression, and has influenced cognitive theories, animal models and behavioral treatments. However, despite its importance, there is no fully accepted definition of helplessness or behavioral control in psychology or…

Storytellers have always known that there is more to a story than "just a good yarn". It is through stories that individuals construct and reconstruct their sense of self as they learn "to be" in the world. Learning through stories is common across a number of professional contexts. However, storied approaches are…

Competence-based vocational education is based on a constructivist learning paradigm, where the development of students' personal professional knowledge is emphasised. However, there is a lack of insight into how students construct their own professional knowledge and what the content and nature of personal professional knowledge is. This article…

Designing constructive digital media is a process of mapping and remapping our physical and conceptual worlds in order to determine their meaning. When readers become composers, when users become designers, they may construct for themselves both a digital "Wunderkammer" of evidence and the potential associative connections available…

Lots of learning takes place in gymnasiums. A teacher's job is to direct that learning and funnel it toward what the profession deems important. This requires teachers to have a sound understanding of what constitutes learning and how learning is observable beyond the movement product. This article aims to make research-based best practices…

Seemingly small situational problems with understanding and changes in the environment can constitute critical aspects in learning a task. I will describe and discuss through a detailed analysis of correction practices in interaction how learning in a situation influences a learner's ability to distinguish and handle continuity and change in…

This study examines students' reactions to the virtual biosciences laboratory developed in Second Life[R] (SL) at the University of East London. Final year undergraduates and masters students studying biotechnology took part in a trial of a virtual Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) experiment in Second Life and evaluated their experience by…

The hypothesis that aspects of current mother-infant interactions predict an infant's response to maternal infant-directed speech (IDS) was tested. Relative to infants of nondepressed mothers, those of depressed mothers acquired weaker voice-face associations in response to their own mothers' IDS in a conditioned-attention paradigm, although this…

Advocates have difficulty convincing colleagues Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a worthwhile use of time and resources. This article highlights problems impeding SoTL. First, scholarship of teaching gets used as a synonym for other activities. Second, Boyer's definition was conceptually confused. Third, SoTL is difficult to…

A podcast is an audio file published to the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers; the meaning of the term has expanded to include video files, or "enhanced podcasts" as well. Many students are already engaged with digital technologies when they first step into early childhood classrooms. Children as young as…

The article identifies some key findings in pedagogical research over recent decades, placing them within a framework of logical curriculum development and current practice in quality assurance and enhancement. Throughout, the ideas and comments are related to the practice of teaching classics in university. (Contains 1 figure and 3 notes.)

Why does the city of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy feature one of the best public systems of early education in the world? This book documents the comprehensive and innovative approach that utilizes the "hundred languages of children" to support their well-being and foster their intellectual development. Reggio Emilia is a fast-growing…