The authors, working from a "new literacies studies" perspective, suggest that educators can better teach their students if they develop their own knowledge of the purposes, types, and language conventions students use in their informal out-of-school literacy practices. The purpose of this study was to identify the literacy practices…

Introduction: Flow has recently been the focus of research with students in regard to its relation to diverse academic and motivational variables in different educational settings. This brings out the need of more and better tools for evaluation of this construct for the Spanish speaking population. The goal of this study was to validate a Spanish…

Considering the impact of textbooks on learning, this study set out to assess representations of the nature of scientific knowledge in Turkish 9th grade biology textbooks. To this end, the ten most commonly used 9th grade biology textbooks were analyzed. A qualitative research approach was utilized and the textbooks were analyzed using…

This article examines how a group of Latino youth living in the Southeast experienced, adapted to, and resisted oppressive social structures within their community through their involvement with youth media. Through the content analysis of a teen radio show produced by and for Latino youth, in conjunction with semistructured interviews and…

Similar to the other developing countries, undergraduate psychology programs in Turkish universities have rapidly grown in the last two decades. Although this sharp increment signifies the need for psychologists, it has also caused a number of challenges for effective teaching of psychology. The department chairs (N = 42) were interviewed with an…

There is widespread consensus on the need for assessment for learning (AfL) in both university courses and school programmes. Given the prevalence of traditional practices in school physical education where assessment is basic or non-existent, we might ask whether AfL is present in physical education teacher education (PETE) courses. Where it is,…

This paper explores the controls and influences over geography teachers' curriculum making. A tension is identified between the teacher's agency to "make" a geography curriculum and a controlling social-economic climate of accountability, performance pressure and technological change which limits the teacher's agency. The paper argues…

The aim in the study is to analyze how work with fiction is organized in six textbooks for senior high school in Sweden after the school reform 2011. Research into Swedish teaching materials has been neglected in recent years and there is a knowledge gap about how the work with fictions is affected by the reform in 2011. In the study quantitative…

In 2012, Taiwan implemented a dual-track quality assurance system comprising accreditation and self-accreditation in higher education institutions. Self-accrediting institutions can accredit their programs without requiring approval from external quality assurance agencies. In contrast to other countries, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan…

This article explores the potential for aspects of abstract algebra to be influential for the teaching of school algebra (and early algebra). Using national standards for analysis, four primary areas common in school mathematics--and their progression across elementary, middle, and secondary mathematics--where teaching may be transformed by…

Academic development is one means of reorientating education within higher education (HE) to include sustainability principles. This paper identifies the requirements of academic development programmes that will provide educators with the skills to engage students in the ideas of sustainability and sustainable development. In order to determine…

The transformation of technology in the 21st century has produced children who are technology savvy and exposed to the internet and social networking at a very young age. These children are already in our school system. Thus teachers too need to use technology and transform the learning environment to meet the requirements of these children. This…

This article contributes to the literature on connectivism, connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) and rhizomatic learning by examining participant interactions, community formation and nomadic learner behavior in a particular cMOOC, #rhizo15, facilitated for 6 weeks by Dave Cormier. It further focuses on what we can learn by observing Twitter interactions…

The aim of this study was to understand the way in which students experienced the support services offered by the University of Namibia's distance education unit--the Centre for External Studies. The study explored students' experiences and their perceptions of the administrative, social and academic support services provided by the University of…

This study adopts phenomenology approach as the research design method to investigate pre-service teachers' experiences and perceptions on using practical tools for content development. The participants are twenty-four pre-service teachers who were taking Computer II course during 2013-2014 spring semester at a public university in Turkey. During…