The field of biology is becoming increasingly fragmented, and this fragmentation spills over into the ways our students think and learn about biology. Biology education policy documents stress the importance of teaching biology in an integrated manner and call for the biology education research community to establish a unifying paradigm for the…

This commentary on the special issue, entitled "Models and Tools for Systems Learning and Instruction," highlights the accomplishments of the papers in this collection. It also points to some avenues for further strengthening research on promoting systems understanding. Collectively, the papers make advances in our understanding of how…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review and provide propositions about survey assessment tools of the key sustainability competencies (KSCs) of education for sustainability. UNESCO points out how education plays an important role in transforming societies towards a sustainable future and achieving the United Nations' sustainable…

With the ubiquity of digital technology in K-12 education, digital competency frameworks for teachers have been published over the past several years that range from local initiatives to international standards. This study aims to understand how teachers' digital competence is envisioned and implemented in an ecosystem of existing frameworks,…

A systems thinking approach to incorporating green chemistry and safety into laboratory culture is vital, as chemists will be at the molecular level of the innovative solutions to our global challenges. Training chemists to have the skills and culture to accomplish this feat in the safest way possible is pivotal to safe working conditions within…

Purpose: Education for Sustainability in Higher Education (ESHE) sits within and across disciplinary settings that share the need for a framework that provides a basis for pedagogy, assessment and learning outcomes (Kalsoom, 2019). ESHE strives to create transformative learning spaces that help students gain the knowledge and skills they need to…

In this paper, we present a novel approach to defining, teaching, and assessing creativity by examining its origins and delineating the processes involved. The rationale for introducing this framework developed from studying existing thinking and questioning the current metrics for measuring creativity, which we posit are unfit for purpose. We…

This article presents how character development practitioners, researchers, and funders might think about evaluation, how evaluation fits into their work, and what needs to happen in order to sustain evaluative practices. A broader view of evaluation is presented whereby evaluation is not just seen as something that is applied at a program level,…

With the new school year now well under way, staff, students and families are still in desperate need of a clear strategic direction and set of tools for promoting equity and excellence in a moment of crisis. Nationally, we see school systems stepping up in new ways to provide this clarity, and seizing the moment afforded by these unusual…

Classroom teaching is a main frontier of the implementation of new curricular ideas in China. The study reported in this article is concerned with the effectiveness of system of classroom teaching (SCT) in chemistry lessons. According to the Systems Science theory, we took a macroscopic view on the SCT, arguing that SCT is a hierarchy of system,…

The purpose of this research was to develop learning tools as well as test the effectiveness of the implementation of anti-corruption education course for Primary School Teacher Education students, who must be able to transfer anti-corruption values to learners. The research method refers to the development of procedural models, which is…

This study was conducted to systematically track and benchmark upper primary school students' ESL reading comprehension ability and subsequently generate data at the micro and macro levels according to individual achievement, school location, gender and ethnicity at the school, district, state and national levels. The main intention of this…

Given the current striving for "sustainability" and the corresponding paradigms shift in science, technology, R&D, environment perception, economy and politics; e.g., from unlimited growth-to-sustainable development, correction-to-prevention and passive consumption of "goods", culture and education--to active participation,…

Portfolios can foster the integration of theory, action, self-reflection, and assessment. Electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) extend this concept by acting as a "content-management system" that facilitates the collecting, considering, sharing, and presenting of learning outcomes with and to others via a digital medium. This article…

The school-aged population continues to diversify, yet the student body at small liberal arts teacher preparation programs generally does not. To help prepare our socioculturally homogeneous students to teach a more diverse student body, we developed a three-tiered approach that includes a diversity model integrated across the curriculum, an…