This article aims to encourage educators and universities to explore interventions and practices that cultivate a growth mindset to reduce inequality in the academic success of students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnic or other minorities, especially in STEM. Universities invest significantly in closing the achievement gap,…

In this article we critique, disrupt and resist the taken for granted use of the term "fun" in learning; specifically as it is used to justify mathematics education apps that purport to portray maths learning as a fun experience. We accomplish this critique through the creation of a digital artwork called "Arithmomania." This…

What is thought, and how can it be taught? Philosophy and literature have often promoted different conceptions although each requires, consciously or not, a mutually inclusive understanding. The question of value, which lurks at the centre of this, was given special salience by the literary critic, and 'anti-philosopher', F. R. Leavis who still…

This article uses a narrative retelling of my journey to academic development to offer a new insight into induction initiatives: alongside a critical commitment to student learning, new academic developers need to build an informed and scholarly 'idea of the university'. As universities renew focus on teaching and learning, student retention, and…

Popular culture aids in the conditioning of U.S. society, assisting in the determination of who is esteemed as literate and who is disgraced with illiteracy. Unfortunately, pop culture depictions of black male literacy often reify the stereotype that black males are less literate than their peers. Although a real issue presents itself in the…

The Ofsted report Bold Beginnings was met with virulent opposition from the early years community. It tried to foreclose, rather than open up, debate about the Reception year; its wording was particularly incendiary. Almost a year on, straws in the wind suggest that the community's reaction was justified and that a battle for the soul of Reception…

This paper explores the 'indigenous' philosophy of education of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, a Malay-Muslim scholar who's theoretical work culminated in the establishment of a counter-colonial higher education institution. Through presenting al-Attas' life and philosophy and by exploring the arguments of his critics, I aim to shed light on the…

For a long time, one of the most important tasks for education in liberal democracies has been to foster the next generation in core democratic values in order to prepare them for future political responsibilities. In spite of this, general trust in the liberal democratic system is in rapid decline. In this paper, the tension between the ambitions…

In her Exemplarist Moral Theory, Linda Zagzebski argues that we can empirically discover the meaning of moral terms like 'virtue' and 'the good life' by direct reference to moral exemplars -- those people we admire as morally exceptional. Her proposal is promising, because (1) moral exemplars play an important motivating role in moral education,…

Gert Biesta astutely criticizes the politics of learning through which learning has been popularized and exalted. He offers a valuable critical diagnostics of this politics, but, I argue, his conclusions about 'going beyond learning' incriminate learning wholesale. Through a close reading of one of Biesta's related articles, I show that he…

During peer review, students often exhibit resistance when asked to respond critically to their peers' writing. Most students tend to offer gentle critiques, especially when they personally know the peers whose writing they are reading. This tendency to be overly kind can be frustrating for instructors, yet there may be logical reasons for…

This article examines spoken quotation in literary study during discussion of novels in junior and senior classrooms. It focusses on teachers' third-turn exposition for literary-critical talk, a space where the modality of texts is transformed from print to oral expression. Teachers' spoken quotation develops students' sensitivity to how literary…

We have the ability to capture data from students' interactions with digital environments as they engage in learning activity. This provides the potential for a reimagining of assessment to one in which assessment become part of our natural education activity and can be used to support learning. These new data allow us to more closely examine the…

This paper considers the sociology of education (SOE) as a modern human science. It suggests that the SOE is mired in a set of unreflexive, redemptive, Enlightment rationalities, and explores the messy relationships of the sociology with education that result from this. It is argues that the sociology of education has consistently failed to…

This article shares analysis regarding quantum mechanics students' metarepresentational competence (MRC) that is expressed as they engaged in solving an expectation value problem, which involves linear algebra concepts. The particular characteristic of MRC that is the focus of this analysis is students' critiquing and comparing the adequacy of…