Many students enter tertiary education unfamiliar with the 'norms and conventions' of their disciplines. Research into academic literacies has shown that in order to succeed in their studies, students are expected to conform to these norms and conventions, which are often unrecognized or seen as "common sense" by lecturers. Students have…

In its 2007 curriculum, New Zealand introduced Key Competencies (KCs) that are intended to ensure students' future participation in the economy, communities, and also to introduce metacognitive and socio-emotional dimensions to learning. The KCs also have important implications for contributing to students' wellbeing and resilience. However, they…

Over 2 years a small group of middle school mathematics teachers' beliefs, attitudes, and practices were investigated in order to transform their practice to an inquiry-based, technology-rich model. Research has suggested that technology and pedagogical innovations should be introduced together, so that teachers learn mathematics in the way their…

The study investigates the relationship between general and context-specific conceptions of the nature of science (NOS). The categorization scheme by Osborne et al. (J Res Sci Teach 40:692-720, "2003") served as the theoretical framework of the study. In the category "nature of scientific knowledge", the certainty, development, simplicity,…

More than ever, students need to engage with mathematics concepts, think quantitatively and analytically, and communicate using mathematics. All these skills are central to a young person's preparedness to tackle problems that arise at work and in life beyond the classroom. But the reality is that many students are not familiar with basic…

A 44-item questionnaire was designed to determine students' views about how useful various "specific" actions might be in helping to reduce global warming, their willingness to undertake these various actions and the extent to which these two might be related. The instrument was administered to students in Grades 6 to 12 (N = 1532) from…

This study examined teachers' attitudes and perceptions toward transition services for students with mild intellectual disability in Saudi Arabia, and also examined the relationship between teachers' attitudes regarding transition services for students with mild intellectual disability and teachers' gender and educational background. Three hundred…

Although not all children may enjoy eating them, it is fairly safe to assume that most students will at least know what ring doughnuts are, and what they look like. Familiarity with these intriguingly-shaped items of patisserie means that students will not immediately be daunted at the thought of doing some mathematics with the relatively…

Shakespeare molded language to meet his needs. Can students learn from his example? In this article, the author suggests studying Shakespeare's creative use of functional shift, spelling, and vocabulary to help students develop greater control of their own writing. The author is advocating that teachers approach Shakespeare as descriptive…

This study was conducted to explore the experiences of Malaysian secondary students with visual impairments in using digital talking textbooks (DTTs) to assist their learning. Data were obtained from individual in-depth interviews. An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used to understand the findings and confirm the emergent…

Media are inseparable from upbringing and education. Different information sources should be a supplement to the basic educational relation between the teacher and students. But, immediate and dialogue based relation between the students and teacher, and between parents and their children, cannot be replaced or suppressed by any type of media…

This study is based on our belief that mathematics should be challenging in any classroom and that mathematical challenge is among the central factors that determine the quality of mathematics lessons. Choosing challenging mathematical problem for the students is central in teachers' work while their conception of mathematical challenge can…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cultural knowledge on improving Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension. To achieve this purpose, out of 300 participants, 120 pre-intermediate language learners were selected based on their scores on a listening comprehension test and were randomly assigned to four groups. Each…

This mixed methods study describes the effects of a "minute contextual experience" on students' ability to solve a realistic assessment problem involving scale drawings and proportional reasoning. Minute contextual experience (MCE) is defined to be a brief encounter with a context in which aspects of the context are explored openly. The…

Some educators see the Common Core State Standards as reason for stress, most recognize the positive possibilities associated with them and are willing to make the professional commitment to implementing them so that academic rigor for all students will increase. But business leaders, parents, and the authors of the Common Core are not the only…