This special issue introduces recent research on mathematics in interdisciplinary STEM education. STEM education is widely promoted by governments around the world as a way of boosting students' interest and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and preparing STEM-qualified workers for twenty-first century careers.…

In the Republic of Ireland, school leadership policy adopts a distributed leadership model nationally. Given that this is a relatively recent policy development, research conducted on distributed leadership to date has highlighted that there are particular challenges for school leaders in enacting this model in practice and, more significantly,…

The Ministry of General Education (Zambia) introduced subject specialisation at primary school. However, researchers have not yet sufficiently interrogated the concepts and modalities of subject specialisation at the primary school level to build a basis for an informed position and implementation. The paper aimed to review the literature and…

Micro-credentials research, which includes digital badges, is a relatively new field of study that seeks to inform the implementation, portability and sustainability of the ecology of meaningful delivery. This paper reviews literature relevant to understanding connections between universities' intent to offer micro-credentials and the environment…

This paper explores recent advancements and implications of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, with a specific focus on Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT 3.5, within the realm of higher education. Through a comprehensive review of the academic literature, this paper highlights the unprecedented growth of these models and their…

Chinese kindergartens' over 110 years of adaptation of foreign models is a vivid example of how globalization comes into direct contact with Chinese culture and creates cultural hybridities. Learning Stories as a narrative assessment tool to children's development from New Zealand, has swept China with the endorsement from the professional…

This paper outlines new educational policy initiatives that have been recently introduced to Australian schooling contexts and describes the challenges of providing rich and empowering professional development opportunities for classroom teachers and educational leaders in an era of heightened accountability and change. A framework for large-scale…

This paper seeks to clarify and spells out the responsibilities of policy makers to create the conditions for an effective accountability system that produces substantial improvements in student learning, strengthens the teaching profession, and provides transparency of results to the public. The authors point out that U.S. policy makers will need…

A Health in All Policies approach engages cross-sector stakeholders to collaboratively improve systems that drive population health. We, the members of the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP)'s Health in All Policies Action Team, propose that adopting a Health in All Policies approach within the national Cooperative Extension…

Training school leaders in the key areas of policy and state laws, basic statistical literacy, assessment types and purposes, and value-added models is particularly important because ideas shaping teacher performance evaluation are being considered at the national, state, and local levels. The authors argue that providing school leaders with this…

The relevance of the investigated problem is conditioned by absence of the single approach to the common criteria and mechanisms of a pedagogical educational establishment's assessment; the current assessment principles of planning and management are out-of-date. The aim of this article is to analyze theoretical approaches and concepts of…

Recent reviews of vocational qualifications in England have noted problems with their restricted nature. However, the underlying issue of how to conceptualise professional agency in curriculum design has not been properly addressed, either by the Richard or the Whitehead reviews. Drawing on comparative work in England and Europe it is argued that…

This resource is part of a series of reports about challenges facing statewide science assessments and innovative solutions states are enacting to meet those challenges. Deciding to implement a system of assessments is a critical step toward ensuring that all students are getting the high-quality science education they need--but it is also…

Technology has changed the way that we live our lives. Interaction across continents has become a forefront of everyday engagement. With ongoing enhancements of technology, people are now able to communicate and learn in a virtual environment similar to that of the real world interaction. These improvements are shared in the field of education,…

Standards-based reform of education is a dominant political discourse in many nations. In this paper we argue that the type of standards-based reform that is enacted has important implications for teacher agency and teacher professional development. Teacher professional development and identity is explored through theories of the teacher's role in…