School science is often very different from "real world" science. One important difference, and possibly the main one, is that in school science the relationships between variables have often been sanitized -- essentially "cleaned up" -- so that there is very little (and often no) variation in the data from the relationship…

Authentic online collaboration focuses upon exploring (often complex) real world problems or practice, and highlights the importance of designing learning experiences that involve interdisciplinary collaboration. Most professions involve some form of teamwork and collaboration across a variety of discipline and cultural boundaries; therefore, this…

In this design case, we describe a multi-year process during which a team of faculty designed a four-year undergraduate major in user experience (UX) design at a large research-intensive institution. We document the program- and course-level design experiences of five faculty members. This multi-year process has culminated in a dual-strand,…

Statistics need data and data need context. Contexts from across the curriculum can be the most powerful in creating interest, reward, and enthusiasm for both teachers and students. The activity described here is based in STEM, employing aspects of each field to create and solve a hypothetical problem of escaping from an erupting volcano (Science)…

This article explores the concept of the post-methods era in language teaching, which advocates for moving beyond rigid, prescriptive methodologies. The author argues that no single method can address the diverse needs of all learners and contexts. Instead, teachers should adopt an eclectic and context-sensitive approach, drawing on a range of…

As schools endeavor to provide all students with access to computational thinking and computer science, the hackathon emerges as a competitive and high-energy event that uses authentic problems to motivate learners to engage in the domain of computing. This article presents the design case of a hackathon for teenagers as enacted over five…

A common challenge for clinical training programs is helping students apply academic knowledge to clinical settings. Authentic assessment using simulation offers a unique approach to bridging this gap. Miller's pyramid provides a framework for competency-based education that integrates formative assessment and feedback at each stage of student…

In an article written by Matthew Randazzo (2017) titled "Students Shouldn't Live in STEM Deserts," he revealed that a limited number of educational opportunities exist for students to gain essential STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills. This need for more STEM minds is bolstered by a widespread economic shift…

This article from Carly Sawatzki and Peter Sullivan encourages schools and teachers to consider ways to embed financial literacy tasks in mathematics lessons more often, and includes an authentic task to try with your students.

When discussing mobile learning (or M-Learning), many educators tend to focus on the affordances of the technology. In this article, the authors feature the M-Learning Framework as a way to view the effective use of mobile devices. The framework includes three key features: (1) authenticity; (2) personalization; and (3) collaboration. These…

High-quality professional learning can build principals' capacity to lead successful schools. This brief summarizes a study about principals' professional learning based on a national survey of elementary school principals. Many surveyed principals reported that they had access to professional development that has been identified as important for…

This article develops a pedagogical approach to increase students' ability to locate and (re-)create publics for the issues about which they care most. By drawing Rhetorical Genre Studies into public sphere theories, this approach blurs the boundaries between widely-dispersed genres (those with large readerships across communities) and…

During the pandemic many museums and galleries pivoted from onsite, in-person delivery to develop a remote offer and to create digital learning resources and activity packs for children and young people. In this article, I draw upon my experience as practitioner researcher on the schools and teachers' programme at the Fitzwilliam Museum to…

This paper offers lessons learned from a partnership between the Texas A&M School of Innovation (I-School) and the Texas A&M Educational Technology program. Taking on the I-School as a "client," online graduate students in an Advanced Instructional Design course spent a semester designing the first of a set of online educational…

This project involves students in a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) as part of the traditional introductory biology laboratory course. Recently, research has shown that student engagement in authentic research has significant positive impacts on students, such as development of science literacy and reasoning skills. Being…