Background: Many students have incomplete or incorrect perceptions of science and scientists. These simplified images, mediated by media or influential agents of socialisation, result in common stereotypes. Especially for occupational choices it is important to convey an authentic image about science and scientists. Purpose: One manner to convey…

Situated learning theory offers a theoretical modality for promoting a knowledge, skilled, and ethically adept future geoscience workforce. Features of situated learning pedagogies include field-based instruction and situating students within a community of practice. While there is an assumed value of such approaches, there is limited research…

Social science research methods are increasingly central to a rigorous political science curriculum. This reflects a shift in both academia and in government toward an appreciation for quantitative analysis to accompany traditional qualitative analyses. As undergraduate and graduate programs develop and update their methods courses, we can…

Students today spend more time writing on social media than they do in formal classrooms and have developed distinct and complex literacies separate from traditional writing curricula. Although several studies have explored teens' informal literacy practices online, research investigating how these spaces may inform or be effectively utilized in…

The Center for Public Education (CPE) explored data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) and investigated the relationship between students' employment experiences and their achievements. Our findings suggest that employment experience -- appropriate quantity and quality of employee-type jobs -- not only has positive effects on…

National governments are concerned about the disconnection of young people from science, which hampers the development of a scientifically literate society promoting sustainable development, wellbeing, equity, and a green economy. Introduced in 2015 alongside Agenda 2030, the "open schooling" approach aims at enhancing students' science…

Capstone projects provide key learning opportunities for STEM undergraduates to consolidate knowledge gained over the life of their degree. These projects typically reflect lab- or fieldwork-based research, which can exclude students who do not wish to pursue these career avenues. Here we deployed school engagement projects (SEPs) as an…

Authentic learning experiences, including curriculum, are essential for healthy development. For South Dakota students, these experiences include opportunities to foster their connections with local communities, cultures, nature, and lands. This infographic provides teachers with guidance on how to build their understandings and skills, and with…

A major perspective within research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) approaches learning as a cultural practice and considers the implications of this on the way classroom learning environments are designed. Often referred to as authentic learning, many innovative approaches to the design of learning environments come with the…

One promising way to cope with changing requirements from the labor market in the domain of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), but also to keep the field up to date, to start innovations and to advance the STEM domain as such is the use of student labs. In these labs, students work together in small groups imitating…

Schools are the basic environments where learning takes place. The quality of these environments and acquirement of the knowledge and skills expected by societies have caused the disconnection between real life and the school. One of the main subjects of education circles in the 21st century has been what to do in order to ensure the connection…

The SPECTRA program was introduced to Pennant Hills Public School as an extracurricular activity to help support the science and technology discipline, and more broadly STEM connections, for students in Stage 3. There are currently 35 students of mixed ability completing the program. Throughout their involvement in the SPECTRA program, these…

Social studies instructional experts have called for a move from a knowledge-based curriculum to conceptually-driven inquiry, though tools for educators in meeting this challenge are lacking. Simulations are potentially a powerful inquiry tool to transform students' ways of seeing the world through realistic interactions with complex social…

Introductory Psychology courses in Higher Education lack application of knowledge in solving work-based problems. We develop and study mini-games that support a more active and experiential way of learning to increase professional awareness. This paper describes the instructional design and the factors under study: learner control and…

Problem-based learning (PBL) has a history of producing strong educational results in engineering; however, global society is challenged by highly complex environmental, socio-political and technical problems summarised in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This obliges us to explore educational approaches that address complexity. Yet,…