A key educational objective for the twenty-first century is developing students' epistemic agency. Epistemic agency is the active process of choosing when, what, where one learns and how one knows, as well as the capacity to create knowledge in a community. The knowledge-building communities model developed by Scardamalia and Bereiter was used in…

Teachers require specialised assessment knowledge and skills in order to effectively assess student learning. These knowledge and skills develop over time through ongoing teacher learning and experiences. The first part of this paper presents a Summative Assessment Literacy Rubric (SALRubric) constructed to track the development of secondary…

Risk is a complex component of outdoor adventure education (OAE) that can both enhance and diminish meaningful learning experiences. Outdoor professionals are searching for the balance between providing a high level of safety and challenging students through outdoor adventure activities. This case study of Outward Bound New Zealand (OBNZ) utilised…

The article reports on the results of two case studies on the impact of the regular use of puzzles as a pedagogical strategy in the teaching and learning of engineering mathematics. The intention of using puzzles is to engage students' emotions, creativity and curiosity and also to enhance their generic thinking skills and lateral thinking…

Pasifika learners comprise a significant number of students in the New Zealand education system. In terms of educational performance, Pasifika learners generally have lower success rates and academic achievements than other student groups at both secondary and tertiary levels. The aim of this paper was to review current governance, investigate…

In 2013, we undertook research in a New Zealand University to gain insights into students' understandings of informal learning, its connection to formal learning and how they engaged in informal learning using digital and mobile technologies. A total of 765 students (postgraduate, undergraduate and first-year students) completed a questionnaire.…

In an era of rapid geographical data acquisition, interpretations of remote sensing products are an integral part of many undergraduate geography degree schemes but there are fewer opportunities for collection and processing of primary remote sensing data. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide a relatively inexpensive opportunity to introduce…

A supportive online learning environment entails teachers using effective pedagogical practices to meet the needs of their students and developing a positive teacher-student relationship to foster learner motivation and engagement. This paper reports a study investigating how 32 secondary teachers in New Zealand taught their online distance…

This paper explores New Zealand (NZ) physics teachers' and physics educators' views about Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Perspectives of physics teachers nationally indicated that in general, teachers considered themselves not well-prepared in some content areas including electronics, modern physics, and atomic and nuclear physics. This may be…

Internationally, conceptual and procedural understanding, understanding the Nature of Science, and scientific literacy are considered worthy goals of school science education in modern times. The empirical study presented here reports on promising teacher practices that in the students' views afford learning opportunities and support their science…

The nature of learning to read in a second and foreign language (L2) can be more challenging when compared to learning other subjects. Therefore, the influence of instruction given in L2 classrooms cannot be underestimated. A balanced instruction needs to be taken in order to develop learners' reading proficiency and their motivation to read. This…

This article presents a professional development programme which brought an indigenous minority group of tertiary staff together. We describe a peer-mentoring model, piloted in 2009 at The University of Auckland, New Zealand with university staff in order to promote staff advancement. The participants were all Maori, the indigenous people of New…

Fundamental to cooperative education is a philosophical commitment to learning through the experience of work. The workplace can be viewed as a social environment and provides a context for learning that is very different from that provided within a university. The aim of this research was, through an interpretive case study, to explore the…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore academics' perspectives on the quality of appraisal evidence at a Chinese university. Design/methodology/approach: An online survey with both closed items and open-ended questions was distributed among all academics at the university (n = 1,538). A total of 512 responded to the questionnaire. The closed items…

The early childhood education (ECE) sector in New Zealand has long been recognised for the diversity of service types and range of organisations involved in delivering ECE. However, less attention has been paid to diversity within individual ECE services. This article draws on a national survey carried out as part of a larger project, "The…