The author was greatly honoured to give the Garth Boomer address in 2020. In the strange year 2020, the author "spoke" at the superbly organised online event. In this article the author restates and reframes the case for literature teaching in English classrooms across the globe by arguing for it from the perspectives of modern…

There already exists a large knowledge base about teaching and learning related to the origins, diversity and history of life on Earth. We know less about teaching and learning related to wider issues pertinent to both religion and science. In our research with 40 students in six secondary schools in England, we looked at wider issues of student…

This mixed methods study explores college biology students' perceptions of the utility of evolution knowledge. In Phase I, 14 college biology students from an upper-level Evolution course were interviewed about their evolution acceptance and perceptions of the utility of evolutionary knowledge. In Phase II, findings from Phase I were used to…

Students possess alternative conceptions of many science topics, and these conceptions can act as obstacles for learning scientific concepts. In the field of biology education, students' alternative conceptions of evolution have been widely investigated. However, there is little research on how teachers diagnose and deal with these alternative…

This study explores the beliefs of non-science majors in an undergraduate biology classroom as part of a larger study on evolution education. Groups of students (n=12) were given fourteen questions, some potentially controversial and some non-controversial, and asked to create categories based on what type of authority students would turn to as a…

The distinct pathway and controversial morphology of cranial nerve XI (spinal accessory nerve) make it unique among the cranial nerves. In the past decade, several anatomical and embryological studies have further elucidated the structure and function of CN XI. In this review, the evolutionary history of CN XI and its phylogenetic relationship to…

Using the comparative approach, researchers draw inferences about the evolution of cognition. Psychologists have postulated several hypotheses to explain why certain species are cognitively more flexible than others, and these hypotheses assume that certain cognitive skills are linked together to create a generally "smart" species.…

The significance of illusion as a positive force in everyday life has been underestimated in both societal discourse and in empirical science. The objective of this study is to provide a synthesis of many academic disciplines' understanding of illusion and reality by proposing a taxonomy of functional and dysfunctional subjective realities as…

Difficulties in understanding evolution are often rooted in early childhood, arising from naïve assumptions and cognitive biases. However, literature reviews mainly focus on school and university students' understanding of evolution, with only limited comprehensive reviews on children in early childhood aged up to 7 years. This systematic review…

Despite his popularity in educational discourses, Lev S. Vygotsky tends to be read mainly as an educational psychologist or learning theorist. His potential contribution to a theory of education remains largely undiscussed. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is often misunderstood as a sort of "educational tool," which severely…

Young children can struggle to learn difficult disciplinary content and important skills for practicing science. Problem-based learning (PBL) may be useful for addressing such difficulties, yet evidence to support its usefulness in elementary school-aged children is limited. We considered the role of a PBL unit in improving students' genetics…

Most of the research on student understanding of evolution by natural selection has focused on undergraduate biology courses for science majors. However, the majority of undergraduates in the United States will not enroll in a biology course for majors. In this study, we identify the extent of natural selection understanding that students acquire…

In 2014, evolution through natural selection was introduced to the primary science National Curriculum in England for year 6 (ages 10-11). As teachers had little prior experience of teaching this concept, it provided a rare opportunity to study the effectiveness of different approaches. A study was developed to investigate the impact of…

Although visual aids are widely considered a valuable source of scaffolding, the nature and active utilization of these aids in current science classrooms are not well understood. This qualitative study explores interaction in the teaching of concepts related to evolution, with a specific focus on a teacher's use of different visual support…

Textbooks provide a rich site within which to investigate how members of a scientific discipline choose to represent their research to general audiences. We used critical contextual empiricism as a framework for interrogating how a scientific community is depicted via images in evolution textbook chapters on sexual selection. Textbooks that…