Consideration of the subtleties in a group of Navajo children's science learning activities provides us with some useful ways of viewing those activities. It also more clearly establishes the elements to consider in valuing or not valuing the use of these kinds of activities that I am calling "games" and other possible kinds of student inquiry…

One of the best ways to understand what it is like to be an English-language learner in a U.S. classroom is to hear the stories of immigrant students. In this article, the authors use these stories to determine what steps teachers can take to help their students triumph over their struggles with a new culture and a new language. This article…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the journey of the scholarship student as he or she becomes a responsible scholar. We present three narratives, each one providing a different lens through which we view the journey of the scholarship student. We use transformative learning (as expounded by Mezirow) as a framework to discuss this transition,…

This article discusses the relation between narrating a story and experiencing a learning process--for both the research subjects and the researcher--as an inherent feature of narrative biographical research. It is argued that in order to do justice to the particularity, the interpretation and the agency of the research subjects and thus to the…

We describe an iteratively designed sequence of activities involving the modelling of one-dimensional collisions between moving objects based on programming in ToonTalk. Students aged 13-14 years in two settings (London and Cyprus) investigated a number of collision situations, classified into six classes based on the relative velocities and…

Assessment criteria are increasingly incorporated into teaching, making it important to clarify the pedagogic status of the qualities to which they refer. We reviewed theory and evidence about the extent to which four core criteria for student writing--critical thinking, use of language, structuring, and argument--refer to the outcomes of three…

Following up on an earlier issue of "The Curriculum Journal" (Vol. 16, No. 1), this article focuses on learning outcomes in the context of video games. Learning outcomes are viewed from two theoretical frameworks: Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation and the CRESST model of learning. These are used to analyse the outcomes claimed in journal articles…

MATLAB is a sophisticated software tool for numerical analysis and visualization. The University of Queensland has adopted Matlab as its official teaching package across large first year mathematics courses. In the past, the package has met severe resistance from students who have not appreciated their computational experience. Several main…

Through interpretive case studies, I report how, in an advanced Japanese literacy course, two Canadian university students from different enthnolinguistic backgrounds engaged in composing in Japanese quite different ways. The multiple sources of data, including the viewpoints they expressed in interviews and questionnaires, were examined…

Recent research on learning in work situations has focused on concepts such as 'productive learning' and 'pedagogy of vocational learning'. In investigating what makes learning productive and what pedagogies enhance this, there is a tendency to take the notion of learning as unproblematic. This paper argues that much writing on workplace learning…

Portfolio work has become recognized as a significant if under-researched form of work emerging in changing work structures. This article presents findings of a qualitative study of nurses and adult educators who function as 'portfolio professionals', in that they contract their services to multiple employers and organizations. Proceeding from…

As work organizations restructure to remain competitive, problem solving is being pushed down to frontline workers, and emphasis is increasingly placed on workplace learning. In this exploratory, qualitative study, we focus on workers' experiences of problems within the context of their work and how these contexts foster their learning and…

Elementary and secondary school teachers certainly know that assessment is like a mirror. What their students learn reflects back on them. However, there is often a disconnect between student and faculty assessment in higher education. While all professors take responsibility for creating and disseminating knowledge, most do not like to be held…

Collecting "bugs" is an authentic, engaging approach for students to learn about various arthropods and their habitat. Students are able to construct knowledge from field notes involving direct observation, drawing, and classification of these animals. This activity has continuously provided successful measurable content outcomes in which students…

The article discusses music learning through aural, visual and kinesthetic strategies. Most general music teachers are aware of the contributions made to the profession by proponents of the Dalcroze, Kodaly, and Orff approaches to music instruction. It was claimed that students used one of the said strategies as their most efficient way to process…