Strong empirical evidence exists indicating language can influence students' beliefs about ability. Professional literature for teachers offers practical advice on how to adjust their classroom-based talk to support student achievement by orienting students toward an incremental theory of ability. Yet, little empirical work has been done to…

In this paper, authors reflect on the implications of the report titled "Bold Beginnings: The Reception Curriculum in a Sample of Good and Outstanding Primary Schools" (Ofsted, 2017). This report is a review of curriculum for four-and five-year-old children in the United Kingdom. The "Bold Beginnings" report argues for teaching…

Cognitive load theory has challenged contemporary approaches to teaching by arguing that they are ineffective because of a neglect of the psychology underpinning learning and, specifically, the high demand placed on working memory. This paper challenges the presuppositions involved not only in arguments for guided instruction by those supporting…

Most current definitions of blended learning refer to a blend of online and face-to-face instruction. It seems that few authors notice the irony that the definition of blended learning does not include the concept of learning at all. The problem with these definitions is that they are devoid of theory and thus lead to trial-and-error research.…

This book is the first of three edited volumes designed to reconceptualize teaching and learning in higher education through a critical lens, with this inaugural publication focusing on the fundamentals behind the experience. Chapter authors explore recent research on the cognitive science behind teaching and learning, dispel myths on the process,…

University instructors' goals for teaching are important for teaching quality. However, studies examining factors that shape instructors' goal adoption are lacking. Using data from 785 instructors, we investigated whether implicit theories (ITs) about the malleability of intelligence constitute one such factor. Following achievement goal theory…

Despite a lack of empirical evidence, learning styles theory (LST) enjoys widespread support in education, leading many researchers to refer to it as a "myth." Although previous research has demonstrated LST's popularity, the impact of exposure to LST on teachers is not yet known. Here original survey data of K-12 teachers (n = 240) was…

How do children learn to communicate, and what do they learn? Traditionally, most theories have taken an associative, compositional approach to these questions, supposing children acquire an inventory of form-meaning associations, and procedures for composing / decomposing them; into / from messages in production and comprehension. This paper…

This article develops a framework for this special issue of "JTE," and assesses the assessment of transformative learning. What and whom are the contributors assessing? For what ends? And how effectively? The call for manuscripts cited two "megatrends" in the transformative learning literature: (1) the importance of deep and…

Despite decades of research related to teaching and learning, the findings have made little impact on classroom teaching and learning. This paper briefly describes the four existing methods to close this gap, with more extensive analyses of the limitations of one of the four methods, which is to consolidate and distill robust laboratory findings…

The role of the school principal continues to increase in its responsibility and complexity. This narrative study centered around two research questions: 1. What stories do principals tell about their memorable professional development and 2. In what ways do the stories align with Knowles' principles of adult learning theory? Eight principals from…

This dissertation presents three studies on learning in children museums. The first study is a literature review of the research that was done on learning in children's museums between 2010 and 2021. In this review, I focused on presenting a current state of the field with insights into what research has been done and where there may be gaps in…

The problem addressed by this study was the commonly held belief that lack of confidence, preparedness, educational neuromyths, and little or no professional development are factors that impede early childhood teachers' implementation of brain-based learning strategies in the daily curriculum design structure. This qualitative narrative inquiry…

The goal in this quantitative, comparative study was to examine differences in students' achievement depending on type of pedagogy--productive failure (PF) versus NPF--and gender (female vs. male) in the final content unit of an undergraduate general education mathematics course taught at a university in the Southwest U.S. The study was based on…

Despite a lack of empirical evidence to support its existence, previous literature has demonstrated that Learning Styles Theory (LST) enjoys widespread popularity in education, leading many researchers to refer to it as a "myth". This study utilized original survey data to determine Kansas K-12 teachers' level of predilection for LST.…