Many university academics disagree with the rationale that we should pursue mobile learning because 21st century students are apparently demanding it. We argue that the only defensible rationale for making mobile learning part of pedagogy is because it enhances student learning. This presentation shares results from research with 135 students…

In Denmark, all engineering programmes in HE have practical elements; for instance, at Bachelor's level, an internship is an integrated part of the programme. Furthermore, Denmark has a long-established tradition of problem-based and project-organized learning, and a large part of students' projects, including their final projects, is done in…

This introduction will provide a thematic overview of the major issues raised by Grosse and Voght (1991), "The Evolution of Languages for Specific Purposes in the United States," and the contributions in this Focus Issue that address those issues from a 2011 perspective. It will also explore contemporary (largely praxis-oriented) languages for…

International Trade Practice is a professional basic course for specialty of International Economy and Trade. As the core of International Trade Practice, it is extremely related to foreign affairs and needs much practical experience. This paper puts forward some suggestions on how to improve the performance of teaching in order to educate the…

The Eastern approach has been identified as an alternative approach in Western physical education. The why and how to integrate the Eastern approach in physical education has been addressed in the literature, while the what deserves scholarly attention. The objective of this paper is to present four core concepts and key elements that construct…

I propose that educators construct pedagogical responses to youth in schools in ways that consider classrooms to be the result of and the boardroom for complex global flows. Youth's production of individual and collective identities wherein flows are apprehended, discarded, combined, and recombined, rages against purifying processes of neocolonial…

Successful learning sometimes requires that the learner abandons or rejects one or more prior concepts, beliefs, or intuitive theories. Such "nonmonotonic changes" are widely believed to have a low probability of occurring spontaneously and to be difficult to promote with instruction. A theory of nonmonotonic cognitive change should explain both…

This is the first of four commentaries discussing John Dewey's short essay, "Education as engineering". The essay provides a fascinating model of how the example of engineering could guide the interaction between educational research and practice. It has much in common with Herbart's ideas on how "pedagogical tact" bridges the gap between theory…

Commissioning has been defined as "The process of translating aspirations and need into timely and quality services" (CSCI 2006). This paper describes the development of some practical guidance for people involved in commissioning services for individuals with learning disabilities. A national conference was organised in November 2005 to…

Although formal ethics classes provide a basic foundation in managing ethical dilemmas, professionals often point to their experiences on internship as an important training ground for consolidation of their ethical development. Clinical interns face many personal and professional transitions that can lead to a number of ethical dilemmas.…

These problems and activities have been used to demonstrate the uses of multiple representations as well as provide opportunities for students to practice using multiple representations in solving problems. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.)

Institutions of learning face significant calls for accountability, leading to an increased interest in measuring faculty performance. The purpose of this research is to describe and analyze the process of faculty evaluation in a college of education at a southeastern university. The process is outlined with attention given to the reliability,…

Effective teacher preparation programs in higher education are crucial to the development and retention of future professionals. Therefore, these programs must offer learning experiences that reflect the relationship between theory and practice. This study evaluated the significance of self-esteem as a framework to assess the theory and practice…

The author's doctoral work involved relating abilities in play to the results of a developmental assessment. She found them to be highly correlated, which should have made her happy. Instead she was troubled by the results. The skills that children use in play are important. Given materials that appeal to them and that "pull for" the desired skill…

Education researchers constantly bemoan teachers as resistant to implementing their findings. At the same time, teachers complain that education research is either too esoteric to be of any use in a real classroom or an exercise in proving the obvious. This persistent research-practice chasm is maintained by both the prosaic details of how and…