Various types of visuals are included in social studies textbooks such as pictures, illustrations, maps, and photographs as they are considered powerful learning aids. Therefore, it is important to investigate how visuals in social studies textbooks are perceived by the students. Thus, the first purpose of this paper is to discuss how students…

This practice report highlights changes made to a first-year unit in an Urban and Regional Planning degree, designed to enhance students' levels of cultural competency. We briefly discuss the history of cultural competency highlighting a lack of application in the field of urban planning. We report on a practical case study where six strategies…

This qualitative study presents 27 students' insights about four teachers' implementation of an immersive Native American history curricular unit designed to equip students with digital skills to critically navigate complex, polarizing social issues. The Digital Civic Learning (DCL) curriculum used Google Suite and Google Classroom or Schoology to…

This qualitative study presents 27 students' insights about four teachers' implementation of an immersive Native American history curricular unit designed to equip students with digital skills to critically navigate complex, polarizing social issues. The Digital Civic Learning (DCL) curriculum used Google Suite and Google Classroom or Schoology to…

This study investigated what is remembered about social studies education, how memories can be made useful in current classrooms, and how this knowledge can inform a social studies-to-be imagining future memories. Special attention was paid as well to issues of social justice and how they were engaged in in the past, how they have been taken up in…

This study investigates ideas about the messages of the Holocaust understood by middle school students in Jewish day schools. Findings explore the conceptualizations students have of the Holocaust as a particular Jewish experience, and in what ways they apply its lessons both particularly and universally. Students in two North American Jewish day…

The present study investigates the students' perceptions of applying performance tasks based on the GRASPS framework, exploring and seeking to explain the relationships between these tasks and English language learning. Data was collected over one semester in 14 public secondary schools in Ecuador, and it consisted of a questionnaire applied to…

The current study investigates the impact of using an Instructional Model of Historical Empathy to teach the Holocaust on students' ability to contextualize historical events, recognize perspectives, and affectively connect to victims of the Holocaust. A three-day instructional unit was designed that incorporates primary sources from a variety of…

Girls are less likely than boys to pursue a degree or career in a mathematics-based field. Girls tend to have higher grades and similar test scores when compared with boys. However, girls' affective beliefs, including confidence, fall behind those of their male counterparts. The purpose of this study was to understand how girls perceive the…

Providing greater access to computer science (CS) education for K-12 students in the United States (U.S.) has increased interest in integrating CS concepts within authentic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) contexts. Physical computing is one method that has demonstrated promising results in other countries (e.g. England)…

The ability to engage in informed decision-making about socioscientific issues (SSI) is an important aspect of scientific literacy. Although science knowledge and practice are necessary for developing solutions to SSI, additional skills are also needed to attend to the complex social, political, economic, and ethical concerns of such issues.…

Conceptual approaches to contemporary physics topics pose many learning challenges. One factor influencing knowledge integration is a student's epistemological framing. Epistemic frames provide a context within which a particular situation is perceived, interpreted, and judged. The utility of an epistemic frame is context dependent, and the…

Due to its constructivist nature, interdisciplinary teaching appears ideal for increasing students' interests in subjects (Brassler, 2020; Kramer & Wegner, 2021). Although many argue in favor of a more comprehensive implementation of interdisciplinary teaching in schools, many practical barriers arise during the realization that need to be…

Background: In recent years, scholars and educators have criticized exclusionary language ideologies and policies within international schools. International schools often emphasize proficiency in English as a language of power instead of valuing students' and teachers' dynamic multilingual practices. Focus of Study: Although oppressive language…

Student engagement with evaluation surveys has been declining, reducing the reliability and usability of the data for quality assurance and enhancement. One of the reasons for that, as reported by students, is the perceived low relevance of survey questions to their daily experiences and concerns. Uniform questions, provided by standardised survey…