In this interview Craig Calhoun talks about universities, the Humanities and his own research. Universities reinvent themselves in the face of societal and technological change. In the midst of this change, however, universities are charged with maintaining old ideals, with informing the public and creating opportunities for human development. The…

Many educators in adult, community and higher education contexts are concerned with fostering reflective learning amongst their students. This paper explores the concept of critical reflection and considers how engaging with fiction may be an innovative pedagogical approach to support critical learning opportunities. Drawing upon interviews with…

Based in an ethnographic project involving three Episcopal Church-affiliated high schools, this article considers how reflective and relational pedagogy influenced students' personal growth in religious education classes. Students became self-responsible for their spiritual development in the school settings where the practice of…

This article is based on qualitative field research carried out in Ha Noi, Viet Nam, in 2013 for an MA dissertation in Education and International Development at the UCL Institute of Education. It analyses interpretations of education for sustainable development (ESD) in Viet Nam, relating these to key debates around instrumental and democratic…

Recently the adoption of mindfulness or contemplative based approaches has escalated across many sectors, including in education. Proponents argue that mindfulness based teaching programs improve students' life skills, provide emotional balance, reduce stress and enhance classroom climate. To date though there is little evaluation or knowledge of…

Student development has connections to important academic purposes in higher education (King, Baxter Magolda, Barber, Kendall Brown & Lindsay, 2009). In particular, a growing body of work on self-authorship, a social-constructive theory of development, has demonstrated relevance to the purposes of higher education (Baxter Magolda, 2001; King…

Using artifacts of teachers' practices, classroom observations, and teacher interviews, we explore the development and enactment of 2 novices' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching history. We identify and track 4 components of PCK that are relevant to teaching history: representing history, transforming history, attending to students'…

Research has demonstrated the importance of emotions in learning, and academic service-learning (AS-L) has become an increasingly popular pedagogy. However, few studies have investigated emotional experiences specific to AS-L. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine students' emotions related to their AS-L class. Results from the…

The goals of this study were to design and implement an experiential learning assignment in an undergraduate developmental psychology and aging course and to explore students' perceptions of it. One hundred and forty-three first-year students enrolled in an introductory course on developmental psychology across the life span recorded, transcribed,…

There are many challenges for educators in using distance and online education to adequately prepare students for their future professions. These challenges are accentuated in disciplines that prepare people for relational professions, which require people skills and a certain maturity of character. Educators in many disciplines, including…

Students learn best when teachers get out of the way. Unfortunately, university classrooms continue to be intensely teacher-centric, are driven by the teacher's agenda and calendar, and embrace simple models rather than complex alternatives. These simple types of learning environments frustrate students' development of the risk-­taking and choice…

Teachers' efficacy beliefs are critical to improving student learning, but we have yet to fully understand how these beliefs develop. The prevailing model of teachers' efficacy development emerges from cognitive theories, but sociocultural theories may add insights to modeling the impact of teachers' school contexts. This case study takes a…

Our current knowledge society does not only have an impact on labour market demands, but its citizens also have to cope with increasing social demands. A growing number of vulnerable adults lack basic competences and therefore risk social exclusion. In this respect, The European Commission as well as the OECD agree that adult education can play a…

In light of nationally mandated educational changes in Qatar, this study investigates in-service teachers' perceptions of professional development (PD). The aims are to identify challenges facing teachers' PD. The respondents were 40 in-service teachers from two schools in Doha, Qatar, who had received PD connected with national educational…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine student experiences reading nonfiction literature in a social studies classroom. It examined the transactions that took place between the readers and the nonfiction literature in a social studies setting at Fullerton High School, a suburban school in Northeast, Ohio. Reader responses, including…