There is now a significant research literature devoted to reconceptualizing scientific activities, such as modeling, explanation, and argumentation, to realize a vision of science-as-practice in classrooms. As yet, however, not all scientific practices have received equal attention. "Planning and Carrying out Investigations" is one of…

Resisting a deep-seated technical perspective of education, I attend to the notion of attunement as a key concept with which to imagine curriculum as a complicated conversation. As fully appreciating the meaning and potential of attunement requires an embodied sense of the word that is deployed by working from within our bodily, social, and…

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are often the center of discussion among faculty in higher education during discourse about curriculum conceptualization, design, planning development, and implementation. This commentary offers a functionally-centered framework that places faculty feasibility, fluidity, freedom, and flexibility around a core…

There's no one-size-fits-all formula for student support systems, but the relationships between the various stakeholders--everyone from classroom teachers and school librarians to families and community members--directly impact on success. So although recognizing "who" plays a part in these systems is important, we also need to focus on…

This Forum article addresses some of the issues raised in the article by Ying-Syuan Huang and Anila Asghar's paper entitled: "Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers' perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan." An attempt is made to highlight the need for a more nuanced approach in considering the Confucian…

At the start of 2019, 7 million U.S. jobs remained unfilled, and American employers consistently cite trouble finding qualified workers. While some liberals insist a "skills gap" doesn't exist, all evidence points to the contrary. These gaps are moreover made worse by a higher education system that ill-equips graduates for the workforce.…

In the fall of 1981, author Peter Ewell, President Emeritus of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), moved to Boulder, Colorado to direct a project funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation entitled "Using Information on Student Outcomes to Improve Program Planning and Decision-Making." Before this point--not…

Alan B. Knox writes in this article that the systemic lens for his practice perspective is focused on five related issues that have animated his previous engagement as a practitioner and scholar, and that shape his views of alternative futures for educators of adults. They are: (1) creative connections: intentions, diversity; (2) sustained…

In response to a paper calling for the re-engagement of agricultural education with the sciences and science education, this essay is supportive but argues to proceed with caution: one that at first does no harm. I offer a supplementary lens and story of change at Cornell University as a cautionary and motivational tale. I concur with the authors…

This commentary is derived from the five empirical articles that appeared in the April 2017 special issue on student engagement (Liem & Chong, 2017). Drawing on others' critiques of engagement theory and research, and with full appreciation for theoretical and disciplinary diversity, I provide a high altitude, inclusive perspective of each…

This is a reflective opinion piece, on our efforts in Australia to achieve alignment between the goals of Indigenous self-determination, Indigenous studies programmes and decolonising theory for an open and critical dialogue in south-south scholarship agendas. In this spirit, extant approaches to Indigenous studies in the Australian higher…

In response to the commentaries to their original article, the authors thank the commentators for their remarks and note that there is some general consensus across the commentaries around some major themes: (1) the lack of articulation between assessment and learning theories, particularly in relation to large-scale testing used for…

Iheoma Iruka is founding director of the Equity Research Action Coalition at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and research professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her work focuses on supporting the optimal development of children from low-wealth and marginalized communities and ensuring excellence…

Author Jane Anna Gordon begins this commentary by saying that early in her academic career she was struck by the dual character of schools as places that can damage and waste the human potential of some on one hand, and that can and should be put in the service of liberation on the other. She writes that this point was driven home to her through…

Franklin Vernon provided an example of how programs viewing themselves as "cultural islands" are in fact embedded within historical capitalist relations, through the discourses of "self" that they promote. In this response, I expand on Vernon's argument to situate the quasi-therapeutic practices he identified in the history of…