The educational systems in all countries have failed to adequately address the problems of students with learning disabilities. Antisocial behaviour, homelessness, mental health problems and even suicide are a result. This article will explore the reasons for this state of affairs. One of the major reasons is excessive reliance on testing without…

There is no question that students who experience homelessness, like all students, are entitled to be educated. A federal law, known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, requires states to provide homeless children and youth with the same access to free appropriate public education as is available to other students. The Act also requires…

This article explores some of the literature on blended/hybrid learning and identifies recommendations for instructional designers and faculty. Terminology and definitions are discussed first including the debate between the words "blended" and "hybrid." A working definition for the article is discussed but the article does not…

We explored the notion of what constitutes literacy, particularly as it pertains to individuals who are blind or with visual impairments, including those that do not use Braille as their primary way to access and produce text. Four groups of stakeholders participated in the study: a) college students who were blind or with visual impairments, b)…

Beliefs about learning can influence whether or not a student learns course material. However, few studies in higher education have compared student and faculty beliefs about learning. In the current study, students and faculty agreed on many aspects of learning--including the definition of learning, which most hinders learning and where learning…

Personalized learning (PL) is spotlighted as a way to transform K-12 educational systems. PL customizes learning pace, instructional methods, and learning content to individual students. As much as PL sounds promising and complex, little guidance is available to educators and policymakers about how to effectively design PL. Five essential features…

The author defines and describes authentic materials and discusses their benefits--citing the Input Hypothesis and the Output Principle in support of such materials--as well as some challenges of using authentic materials. Five categories of authentic materials are presented, and sources for materials and ways to use them in the EFL classroom are…

In a series of Teaching Exchange (TE) staff development workshops aimed at exploring prospective, bottom-up quality assurance in media studies in the United Kingdom, interdisciplinarity arose as a key topic. This article reflects on teaching staff's views expressed in the TE workshops around interdisciplinarity in relation to their experiences in…

Purpose: This paper explores the concept of peer-to-peer learning (P2PL) in the context of North-European small-scale forest owners. The aim is to develop a framework for initiating new and evaluating already existing forest owners' P2PL communities. Design: Previous studies of peer-learning are used to determine and justify eight dimensions for…

This paper identifies and discusses recent trends in the percentage of students with a disability identified in Australian schools in the 10-year period from 2000 to 2009. In addition, these trends are examined across government and nongovernment schools and considered in the light of the definition of disability used by Australian schools. In…

According to Alasdair MacIntyre's influential account of practices, "teaching itself is not a practice, but a set of skills and habits put to the service of a variety of practices" (MacIntyre and Dunne, 2002, p. 5). Various philosophers of education have responded to and critiqued MacIntyre's position, most notably in a Special Issue of the…

The goal of this paper is to contribute to the revival of Heinz Werner's organismic-developmental theory by considering some of its key claims in relation to contemporary developmental theory and research. The organismic-developmental definition of development in terms of differentiation and integration is first discussed in relation to…

Learning often involves complex cognitive and motorical processes, and while most learners cope adequately with these challenges there are always some that struggle. When new kinds of knowledge are introduced there is a possibility that some learners will find this new knowledge hard to acquire, and thus manifest a dysfunction. Today the new…

Several years ago, the author noticed that her students were having trouble understanding the formal definitions for convergence of sequences, continuity of functions, and uniform convergence of functions. To her students, these definitions were just a bunch of symbols with little to no meaning. She drew diagrams, but students had trouble seeing…

Precise terminology is paramount in sexuality education. Most sexuality research focuses on the dichotomous concepts of sexual intercourse and virginity, yet there are many expressions of sexuality classified as neither. The purpose of this literature review is to identify and examine the various terms and definitions describing sexuality…