Game design offers a unique but often misunderstood pedagogical opportunity. The author draws on learning theory, feminist epistemology, and game studies to analyze a novel genre of games capable of realizing this opportunity by mobilizing knowledge through play--praxis games--founded on the concept of situated praxis. Situated praxis encourages…

The promise of critical pedagogy lies in its capacity to change lives as librarians try new ways of thinking and teaching that challenge systems of power that privilege some and not others. In the last ten years, critical pedagogy has moved from the margins to the center, most clearly in its influence on the new "Framework for Information…

Recently, the possibilities for leveraging "big data" in research and pedagogy have given rise to the growing field of "learning analytics" in online education. While much of this work has focused on quantitative metrics, some have called for critical perspectives that interrogate such data as an interplay between technical…

Drawing on the authors' experiences initiating and directing a community partnership program, this article illustrates how graduate students who lead engagement programs can be caught between forces that pull them toward tactical partnerships unaffiliated with the university and strategic partnerships incorporated into university departments.…

Since the turn of the century, there have been frequent expressions of concern about a perceived lack of creativity in UK schools, in both curriculum content and in teaching. Recently, as the emphasis on mathematics, science and technology has strengthened, serious concerns have also been expressed about the marginalisation of the arts and…

The framework of "plateaus, dips, and leaps" shines light on periods when individuals may be inventing new methods of skilled performance. We begin with a review of the role "performance plateaus" have played in (a) experimental psychology, (b) human-computer interaction, and (c) cognitive science. We then reanalyze two classic…

Research in education draws upon a wide range of epistemological traditions due in part to the wide range of problems that are investigated. While this diversity might be considered a strength of the field, it also makes researchers who work within it vulnerable to being divided into those worth listening to and those who should be ignored by…

This article argues for classical education's trivium--grammar, logic, and rhetoric--and its step-by-step building of knowledge as a heuristic for general education courses. Specifically, courses must intertwine the four rhetorical acts of reading, writing, speaking, and listening to achieve a trivium-based heuristic. Current curricula, however,…

This study explores one teacher's instructional method for teaching life sciences using argumentation and argumentative writing rather than simple templates for writing claims and evidence. The microethnographic discourse analytic case study reported here included the teacher and 26 "advanced" eighth-grade students in a suburban middle…

Because motivations for prosocial actions typically are unclear, sometimes even to actors but especially for observers, it is difficult to study prosocial motivation. This article reviews research that provides evidence regarding children's motives for prosocial behaviors. First, we present a heuristic model to classify motives on the dimension of…

The purpose of this study is to analyze of Eurasianism, which began during the Russian scientific and philosophical emigration and has generated sharp discussion over the last century. Within the framework of Eurasianism, extensive research has been conducted on a wide range of interrelated topics, much of whose theoretical and practical…

Although ecological systems at varying scales involve non-linear interactions, learners insist thinking in a linear fashion when they deal with ecological phenomena. The overall objective of the present contribution was to propose a hypothetical learning progression for developing non-linear reasoning in prey-predator systems and to provide…

For centuries, humans have contemplated the minds of gods. Research on religious cognition is spread across sub-disciplines, making it difficult to gain a complete understanding of how people reason about gods' minds. We integrate approaches from cognitive, developmental, and social psychology and neuroscience to illuminate the origins of…

This paper presents a new heuristic device for the analysis of educational policy. Through an examination of the Evaluative State and the work of Brian Fay, the paper considers the way in which educational policy is subject to rational and linear forms of policy action and implementation. To counter this, positioning theory is deployed to consider…

With a goal of creating conditions wherein college students of adult learning paired with international adult learners form mutual partnerships for educational mentoring, where to begin? How to take into account the contextual factors and priorities of multiple stakeholders in creating academic courses and learning-focused partnerships while…