This book describes recent approaches in advancing STEM education with the use of robotics, innovative methods in integrating robotics in school subjects, engaging and stimulating students with robotics in classroom-based and out-of-school activities, and new ways of using robotics as an educational tool to provide diverse learning experiences. It addresses issues and challenges in generating enthusiasm among students and revamping curricula to provide application focused and hands-on approaches in learning . The book also provides effective strategies and emerging trends in using robotics, designing learning activities and how robotics impacts the students' interests and achievements in STEM related subjects. The frontiers of education are progressing very rapidly. This volume brought together a collection of projects and ideas which help us keep track of where the frontiers are moving. This book ticks lots of contemporary boxes: STEM, robotics, coding, and computational thinking among them. Most educators interested in the STEM phenomena will find many ideas in this book which challenge, provide evidence and suggest solutions related to both pedagogy and content. Regular reference to 21st Century skills, achieved through active collaborative learning in authentic contexts, ensures the enduring usefulness of this volume.John Williams Professor of Education and Director of the STEM Education Research Group Curtin University, Perth, Australia

This work explores and explicates learner motivation in online learning environments. More specifically, it uses a case-study approach to examine undergraduate students' motivation within two formal and separate online learning contexts. In doing so, it recognizes the mutually constitutive relationship of the learner and the learning environment in relation to motivation. This is distinctive from other approaches that tend to focus on designing and creating motivating environments or, alternatively, concentrate on motivation as a stable learner characteristic. In particular, this book identifies a range of factors that can support or undermine learner motivation and discusses each in detail. By unraveling the complexity of learner motivation in such environments, it provides useful guidelines for teachers, instructional designers and academic advisors tasked with building and teaching within online educational contexts.

'This book is Masterful, Evidence-based, Memorable, Operational, Readable, and the best book for You on memory.' Professor John Hattie Teacher Toolkit Guides transform the theory of education into practical ideas for your classroom. From Ross Morrison McGill, bestselling author of Mark. Plan. Teach. 2.0, this book unpicks the research behind how learners retain and recall information. It provides evidence-based strategies for improving memory in the classroom. Cleverly designed with infographics, charts and diagrams, The Teacher Toolkit Guide to Memory provides clear, visual explanations of how memory works, including short-term and long-term memory, working memory, semantic memory and episodic memory. Ross presents a wealth of original ideas for incorporating this theory into day-to-day classroom practice, with proven methods for aiding knowledge retention and testing recall, to boost learning, support revision and motivate pupils. Breaking down the key theories of cognitive load, cognitive apprenticeship and brain plasticity in an easy-to-digest format, this is the perfect guide for teachers looking to understand how to improve memory and how they can maximise their impact in the classroom. Each book in the Teacher Toolkit Guides series explores a key principle of teaching and learning, and offers research-based techniques to transform classroom practice. Every book includes a bespoke version of Ross's renowned Five Minute Lesson Plan, as well as ready-to-use templates and worked examples. Supported by infographics, charts and diagrams, these guides are a must-have for any teacher, in any school, and at any level.

Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education rearticulates understandings of materials-blocks of clay, sheets of paper, brushes and paints-to formulate what happens when we think with materials and apply them to early childhood development and classrooms. The book develops ways of thinking about materials that are more sustainable and insightful than what most children in the Western world experience today through capitalist narratives. Through a series of ethnographic events and engagement with existing ideas of relationality in the visual arts, feminist ethics, science studies, philosophy, and anthropology, Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education highlights how materials can be conceptualized as active participants in early childhood education and generators of human insight. A variety of examples show how educators, young children, and researchers have engaged in thinking with materials in early years classrooms and explore what materials are capable of in their encounters with other materials and with children. Please visit the companion website at www.encounterswithmaterials.com for additional features, including interviews with the authors and the teachers featured in the book, videos and photographs of the classroom narratives described in these pages, and an ongoing blog of the authors' ethnographic notes.

Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education rearticulates understandings of materials-blocks of clay, sheets of paper, brushes and paints-to formulate what happens when we think with materials and apply them to early childhood development and classrooms. The book develops ways of thinking about materials that are more sustainable and insightful than what most children in the Western world experience today through capitalist narratives. Through a series of ethnographic events and engagement with existing ideas of relationality in the visual arts, feminist ethics, science studies, philosophy, and anthropology, Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education highlights how materials can be conceptualized as active participants in early childhood education and generators of human insight. A variety of examples show how educators, young children, and researchers have engaged in thinking with materials in early years classrooms and explore what materials are capable of in their encounters with other materials and with children. Please visit the companion website at www.encounterswithmaterials.com for additional features, including interviews with the authors and the teachers featured in the book, videos and photographs of the classroom narratives described in these pages, and an ongoing blog of the authors' ethnographic notes.

This book describes, problematises and theorises professional practice research in a range of Australian settings to provide evidence of robust, wide-ranging and contemporary approaches to professional experience in initial teacher education. It presents the latest research and evidence from those currently involved in innovative programmes designed to provide alternatives to meet local challenges during professional experience in teacher education. As the professional experience process is framed quite differently across Australian teacher education programmes, these cross-institutional accounts of collaboration, innovation and success make a major contribution to the field, both nationally and internationally. The book was developed from a research workshop funded by an Australian Association for Research in Education grant and organised by the Teacher Education Research and Innovation Special Interest Group.

This practical, "how-to" book on co-operative learning is designed to serve as a resource for faculty members at colleges and universities. It offers an overview of the co-operative learning process, including its rationale, its research base, its value, and its practical implementation. The authors also describe a variety of approaches to co-operative learning drawn from complementary movements such as classroom research, writing across-the-curriculum, computer technology and critical thinking. They begin with a basic structure for implementing a co-operative learning programme, then move progressively through more complex activities. Numerous examples of actual co-operative learning programmes are included which span a wide variety of disciplines. These examples underscore how a successful programme can bolster student achievement, increase self-esteem, and foster the spirit of teamwork. This book should appeal to those new to the cooperative learning process, as well as to established practitioners in the field.

This book is a guide to designing curricular games to suit the needs of students. It makes connections between video games and time-tested pedagogical techniques such as discovery learning and feedback to improve student engagement and learning. It also examines the social nature of gaming such as techniques for driver/navigator partners, small groups, and whole class structures to help make thinking visible; it expands the traditional design process teachers engage in by encouraging use of video game design techniques such as playtesting. The author emphasizes designing curricular games for problem-solving and warns against designing games that are simply "Alex Trebek (host of Jeopardy) wearing a mask". By drawing on multiple fields such as systems thinking, design theory, assessment, and curriculum design, this book relies on theory to generate techniques for practice.

This book explores the theoretical foundations of gamification in learning and education. It has become increasingly difficult to engage and motivate students. Gamification not only makes learning interesting, but also allows game players to solve problems and learn lessons through repeated attempts and failures. This "positive failure" can motivate students to attempt a difficult mission. Chapters in this volume cover topics such as the definition and characteristics of gamification, gamification in learning and education, theories, research on gamification, framework, strategy, and cases.

This accessible and compelling collection of faculty reflections examines the tensions between the arts and academics and offers interdisciplinary alternatives for higher education. With an eye to teacher training, these artist scholars share insights, models, and personal experience that will engage and inspire educators in a range of post-secondary settings. The authors represent a variety of art forms, perspectives, and purposes for arts inclusive learning ranging from studio work to classroom teaching to urban settings in which the subject is equity and social justice. From the struggles of an arts concentrator at an Ivy League college to the challenge of reconciling the dual identities as artists and arts educators, the issues at hand are candid and compelling. The examples of discourse ranging from the broad stage of arts advocacy to an individual course or program give testimony to the power and promise of the arts in higher education.

While there are some books and articles about the importance of understanding in-school learning style and the benefits in achievement and attitude toward learning that accrue from matching learning style to learning environment, this is the first book on homework style. Homework style is the personal preference for doing the tasks assigned by teachers and learning new material outside of the formal school setting.

Learning style and homework style have been found to be related yet empirically distinguishable, indicating the unique situation the home variable plays in forming individual learning styles. This guide will help parents, teachers, and counselors understand homework style and gain an awareness of the relationship between homework style, homework achievement, and school achievement.

Imagine a place where passion for learning, authentic connection with colleagues and community, and strengths-based middle grades education thrive. Imagine places of learning and inspiration for teachers, administrators, teacher educators, and teacher candidates. Imagine a Place: Stories From Middle Grades Educators, a new anthology of teacherwritten narratives, focuses on educators' stories that have the power to offer hope, ignite creativity, and provide practical ideas for middle grades teachers. Imagine a Place is filled with stories of joy, stories of relationships, and stories of finding the treasure in challenging situations that provide powerful insight into the world of teaching young adolescent learners. Along with teacher narratives, the editors of this book provide questions and exercises for thoughtful reflections on the themes and issues raised in each story as well as guidance for the reader to write his or her own account of their middle grades teaching experiences. We invite you to join these teachers in their classrooms as they reflect on their experiences with young adolescents in the place we call school.

This volume addresses innovations in language teacher education, offering a diversity of personal/psychological perspectives and topics in the theory and/or practice in language teacher education. The text deals with innovations in teaching for learning, teacher autonomy, dynamic self-reflection, peace education, professionalism, action research, socio-emotional intelligence, embodiment, professional development, NeuroELT, and more. Organized in three sections, the chapters inspire readers to reflect upon what it means to grow as a teacher as they navigate the intra- to inter-personal continuum. The editors draw the main themes together and discuss them in light of an innovations framework developed by Rogers (including relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability) in order to express, in concrete terms, the ways in which each idea can be considered innovative. Throughout the anthology, the reader will find specific, novel ways in which to work towards good practice in language teacher education.

This book documents those first links that students make between content they learn in their classrooms and their prior experiences. Through six late-elementary school case studies these knowledge construction links are brought to life. The links of the students are often rich in describing who these individuals are, where they are in their learning process, and what is meaningful to them. Many times, these links point to what has been learned, both in and out of school, and the contexts when and where that learning took place. The mind as rhizome metaphor was used to guide the development and interpretation of the studies while the lens of Peircian semiotics provides an interpretation for these initial links. The resulting grounded theory is presented through a rich and extensive presentation of excerpts from classroom observations, student interviews, and a student writing activity and describes the varying types of student links, how the links were prompted, the relationships between what the students were learning and what they already knew, and specific types of in-school links. The narrative includes how these links were supported or inhibited in the classroom drawing on the roles of the teachers in the classrooms and what constituted authority sources of information in those classrooms. Before exploring the students' linking as a process of ongoing semiosis and how this process is part of a dynamic system, a study of the relationship between student knowledge links and achievement is shared. This rich narrative will be of interest to scholars and practitioners alike, and includes an extensive appendix documenting the research methods.

This edited volume brings forth intriguing, novel and innovative research in the field of science education. The chapters in the book deal with a wide variety of topics and research approaches, conducted in various contexts and settings, all adding a strong contribution to knowledge on science teaching and learning. The book is comprised of selected high-quality studies that were presented at the 11th European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) Conference, held in Helsinki, Finland from 31 August to 4 September, 2015. The ESERA science education research community consists of professionals with diverse disciplinary backgrounds from natural sciences to social sciences. This diversity provides a rich understanding of cognitive and affective aspects of science teaching and learning in this volume. The studies in this book will invoke discussion and ignite further interest in finding new ways of doing and researching science education for the future and looking fo r international partners for both science education and science education research. The twenty-five chapters showcase current orientations of research in science education and are of interest to science teachers, teacher educators and science education researchers around the world with a commitment to evidence-based and forward-looking science teaching and learning.

This book presents a novel conceptualisation of universal information processing systems based on studies of environmental interaction in both biological and non-biological systems. This conceptualisation is used to demonstrate how a single overarching framework can be applied to the investigation of human learning and memory by considering matter and energy pathways and their connections. In taking a stance based on everyday interactions, as well as on scientific practices, the conceptualisation is used to consider educational theories and practices, exemplified by the widely cited cognitive load theory. In linking these theories and practices more closely to scientific thinking, the book embraces an holistic approach to informational interactions, not limited to conceptualisations of pattern, signal or meaning. The book offers educational researchers and educators an opportunity to re-think their approach to instruction - to take all facets of student learning environments into account in increasing human knowledge, skills and experiences across society.

The book presents the possibilities and realities of virtual worlds in education through the application of 3D virtual worlds to support authentic learning, creativity, learner engagement and cultural diversity in higher education. It includes a unique variety of cross disciplinary approaches to research, teaching and learning in a virtual world, including analysis of data from the experiences of students in education, law, Chinese language, sustainability, computer architecture, business, health and the Arts. The book provides unique learning experiences that have celebrated the rich media of virtual world environments through the utilisation of affordances such as simulation, bots, synchronous interaction, machinima and games. The perspectives come from Australia and New Zealand higher education academics but transferable to any higher educational institution in the sector, worldwide, and is significant to various disciplines in the higher education field.

Truth and Knowledge in Curriculum Making, addresses issues in curriculum and instruction, such as the lack of Black teachers, minority representation, and mentorship. The book arose from a serial interpretation of five published narrative inquiries that pinpointed complexities lived in a teacher knowledge community at T.P. Yaeger Middle School, a campus located in the fourth largest urban center in America. The inquiry initially resulted in a documentary-style presentation at an educational conference using performance narrative inquiry as an arts-based method to recount the research. In Truth and Knowledge in Curriculum Making, the process of researchers turned actors is unraveled by looking at the lived experiences and identifying the embodied knowledge of teachers in different content areas including Physical Education, Music, Teaching English as a Second Language, Mathematics, and Reading. The authors use parallel stories, counter stories, story constellations, musical narrative inquiry, performance narrative inquiry and other narrative means of sense-making as they examine how they may relate to those stories. Ethical research dilemmas, including the how and why behind each author's choice to burrow into difficult topics such as race, gender and conflict resolution are revealed. By unpacking the hidden curriculum, examining value creation and by revealing isolated relational experiences of participants and researchers, Truth and Knowledge in Curriculum Making instantiates and outlines how truth and knowledge may be formed in educational settings through intertwining narrative inquiry, teacher knowledge and aesthetic ways of knowing.

A multidisciplinary investigation of service-learning. The papers are divided into sections on: dimensions of service-learning research; theoretical perspectives on service-learning; service-learning and the disciplines; the impacts on service-learning participants; and future directions.

This book empirically examines academic conferences in the social sciences, and explores the purpose and value of people interested in the social sciences attending and presenting at national and international academic conferences. Using a highly original structure and style, the book considers the damaging impact of neoliberalism on conferences, and academia more widely, and explores the numerous barriers to conference attendance. It will be of interest to students and researchers who attend conferences in fields spanning the social sciences, as well as those interested in the effects of neoliberalism on academia.

This book makes a contribution to a global conversation about the competencies, challenges, and changes being introduced as a result of digital technologies. This volume consists of four parts, with the first being elaborated from each of the featured panelists at CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) 2014. Part One is an introduction to the global conversation about competencies and challenges for 21st-century teachers and learners. Part Two discusses the changes in learning and instructional paradigms. Part Three is a discussion of assessments and analytics for teachers and decision makers. Lastly, Part Four analyzes the changing tools and learning environments teachers and learners must face. Each of the four parts has six chapters. In addition, the book opens with a paper by the keynote speaker aimed at the broad considerations to take into account with regard to instructional design and learning in the digital age. The volume closes with a reflective piece on the progress towards systemic and sustainable improvements in educational systems in the early part of the 21st century.

This book presents a peer reviewed selection of extended versions of ten original papers that were presented at the 15th International Symposium on Computers in Education (SIIE 2013) held in Viseu, Portugal. The book provide a representative view of current Information and Communications Technology (ICT) educational research approaches in the Ibero-American context as well as internationally. It includes studies that range from elementary to higher education, from traditional to distance learning settings. It considers special needs and other inclusive issues, across a range of disciplines, using multiple and diverse perspectives and technologies to furnish detailed information on the latest trends in ICT and education globally. Design, development and evaluation of educational software; ICT use and evaluation methodologies; social web and collaborative systems; and learning communities are some of the topics covered.

This book examines visual data use with students (PK-16) as well as in pre-service in- service science teacher preparation. Each chapter includes discussion about the current state of the art with respect to science classroom application and utilization of the particular visual data targeted by the author(s), discussion and explanation about the targeted visual data as applied by the author in his/her classroom, use of visual data as a diagnostic tool, its use as an assessment tool, and discussion of implications for science teaching and/or science teacher preparation. Although the body of research and practice in this field is growing, there remains a gap in the literature about clearly explicating the use of visual data in the science classroom. A growing body of literature discusses what visual data are (although this topic is still viewed as being at the beginning of its development in educators' thinking), and there are some scattered examples of studies exploring the use of visual data in science classrooms, although those studies have not necessarily clearly identified their foci as visual data, per se. As interest and attention has become more focused on visual data, a logical progression of questioning has been how visual data are actually applied in the science classroom, whether it be early elementary, college, or somewhere in between. Visual data applications of interest to the science education community include how it is identified, how it can be used with students and how students can generate it themselves, how it can be employed as a diagnostic tool in concept development, and how it can be utilized as an assessment tool. This book explores that, as well as a variety of pragmatic ways to help science educators more effectively utilize visual data and representations in their instruction.

This book is the outcome of a research symposium sponsored by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology [AECT]. Consisting of twenty-four chapters, including an introduction and conclusion, it argues that informational content should not be the main element of education, and that to provide more for learners, it is necessary to go beyond content and address other skills and capabilities. It also discusses the false premise that learning is complete when the information is known, not when learners seek more: their own directions, answers, and ideas. The authors assert that the ability to synthesize, solve problems and generate ideas is not based on specific content, although education often focuses solely on teaching content. Further, they state that content can be separated from the learning process and that instructional design and educational technology must be about the skills, habits, and beliefs to be learned.