In this paper, we explore second-level students' understanding of the concept of creativity and the implications for their engagement in class-based assessments. We propose that creativity represents an important outcome of education, particularly at second level. We use a single case study, with data presented from a series of semi-structured…

It is important that children obtain not only academic knowledge but also skills to express emotion and sustain relationships. Fostering school communities that embody and teach compassion is increasingly recognized as an important component of many social and emotional learning (SEL) approaches. To generate SEL programs that are inclusive of…

Big ideas, sometimes referred to as key, core, fundamental or threshold concepts, are widely applicable concepts at the heart of disciplines that are or have been central and influential for their fields. Attention here is particularly directed to meta-concepts common to sister disciplines in the sciences. "Learning thresholds",…

The research on students who do not graduate from high school has traditionally focused on students who drop out before their expected graduation date. This ignores the experiences of "persisters" or "persisting students"--those who remain enrolled in high school on or beyond their expected graduation date, but have yet to earn…

Dispositions for inclusive pre-service teachers are recommended by numerous professional organizations and are currently being assessed within teacher preparation programs. Leading professional organizations and agencies have published standards and guiding documents related to essential dispositions for inclusive pre-service and in-service…

Function is a multifaceted and essential concept in mathematics that includes various complex ideas such as mapping, relations between variables, algebra, input-output, and rule. Pre-service mathematics teachers' (PMTs) should have a rich understanding of these ideas for their future teaching practices. However, research showed that PMTs had a…

Policies and programs designed to serve children and families are sometimes misaligned with developmental science research. Broad child neglect reporting laws, first adopted by the United States in 1974, have led to families being prosecuted by child protection authorities for allowing children to participate in everyday age-appropriate activities…

Purpose: This article aims to illuminate the process and results of an international consortium project that considered terms and diagnostic criteria used in the identification of children with language problems. Method: The process by which the consortium worked to arrive at its recommendations is considered. The wider implications of accepting…

The purpose of the present article is to investigate the definition of matrix multiplication as a central issue in linear algebra courses. Applying both historical and pedagogical approaches, it focuses on the philosophy of generating the usual matrix multiplication, as a special binary operation, with its partly unexpected form compared with the…

Infrastructures support and shape our social world, but they do so in often invisible ways. In few cases is that truer than with various documents that serve infrastructural functions. This article takes one type of those documents--technical standards--and uses analysis of one specific standard to develop theory related to the infrastructural…

While a mutually agreed-upon definition of STEM education remains elusive, there is no doubt that instructional models and ideas put forward with the STEM label have had a tremendous impact on thinking, debate, and practice in schools worldwide. At issue is the degree to which some or all the STEM disciplines must be taught in a concurrent or…

Participants learned the meaning of novel objects by listening to two complementary definitions while watching videos of the new object, in a single-language context (all in Spanish) or a mixed-language context (one definition in Basque, one in Spanish). Then, participants were asked to assess the degree of functional relatedness between novel and…

In this opinion piece I reflect on an inspiring 2019 Advance HE STEM conference in Birmingham. In doing so I identify the term pedagogy as one aspect which ran contrary to the noble aspirations of the conference. I outline my own perspective as both an insider and outsider in my role of a Teacher-Practitioner. I use this vantage point to outline…

Even though research exists on interdisciplinary education and interdisciplinary skills, the term "interdisciplinary" is ambiguous. Currently, studies on how different internal stakeholders in an education setting define and conceptualise interdisciplinarity are lacking. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to define and…

Michael Young has written extensively about "powerful knowledge" as the type of knowledge that should be central in education: knowledge that is -- among many other things -- reliable and potentially testable, that helps us understand the natural and social world, and offers us a language to engage meaningfully in moral and political…