Is constructivist teaching still valuable and relevant in an era where standardized testing reigns supreme? If so, how do college students, who have been subject to a considerable amount of testing, respond to constructivist pedagogy that nurtures student autonomy? This QUAN-QUAL study, conducted at a mid-sized university in the United States…

The Economic Actions in Education training module (EAE) teaches how to handle, use and judge external standardized tests in schools. The EAE programme was implemented in teacher training at the University of Kiel, because teachers are increasingly under external scrutiny and are being held accountable for student and school achievements. The EAE…

This essay explores the contingency of music's value, and the significant ways that contingency qualifies (or should qualify) our understandings of the utility of instructional method. More specifically, it raises the possibility that the altruistic pursuit of methodological purity may serve ends dramatically different than those espoused by…

Christine Counsell draws upon her recent work in developing definitions and practice concerning pupils' thinking about historical significance. Here she tries out those ideas in relation to the 19th century campaigner against the Contagious Diseases Acts, Josephine Butler. Counsell explains why she developed her own set of criteria for structuring…

Outlines six instructional approaches to aesthetics and discusses the instructional applications of these approaches. Assesses their feasibility for classroom practice and places them in relation to established educational rationales. Considers multicultural aesthetics, humanist applications, populist applications, studio instruction applications,…