Throughout history humans have dreamed of a better life. This concept of utopia can be used as a central focus for thematic and interdisciplinary instruction. This approach has three key advantages. First, students recognize that certain themes are consistent across time and place and that realization can lead students to explore their own dreams…

Background: While inclusive research has become an important stream in research with people with intellectual disabilities, there is a tension between the possibly empowering research process and the strength of the research itself to make social change happen. In this paper, we explore the contribution of two inclusive qualitative research…

The CREATE (Consider Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment) strategy aims to demystify scientific research and scientists while building critical thinking, reading/analytical skills, and improved science attitudes through intensive analysis of primary literature. CREATE was developed and…

This paper endorses Dick Selleck and Geoffrey Sherington's view that public policy-making is characterised by both fluidity and contestability. In April 1988, the report of a Taskforce headed by Brian Picot recommended major reforms in New Zealand's public education system. Even today, however, there is controversy regarding the major…

There is a debate in Political Science concerning how best to teach American Government courses. We investigate whether students learn more effectively with texts from the great tradition or from textbooks and other secondary sources. Which medium better guides students toward becoming better citizens? We examine how teaching "The Great…

In this study, the effects of a disciplinary reading and writing curriculum intervention with professional development are shared. We share our instructional approach and provide writing outcomes for struggling adolescent readers who read at or below basic proficiency levels, as well as writing outcomes for proficient and advanced readers.…

Purpose: Charter schools are unique public schools in part because this type of school can close if it fails to meet objectives set forth by the chartering body that approved it. Thus far, however, little research has been conducted into the causes of charter school closures. In this article, we examine charter school accountability. Research…

The University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) is known for strong programming in the sciences and a teaching faculty at the forefront of science education and reform. Librarians at CU-Boulder, in collaboration with science faculty, are challenged to improve undergraduate science education. Using rare, historic, and artistic works from Special…

Critical thinking is an important outcome of a college education. Assessment techniques that require students to demonstrate their understanding of course concepts are referred to as authentic assessment and promote the development of critical thinking. Little research exists on the types of assessment and grading practices utilized by community…

History Professors and instructors have a lot to do. They are supposed to "cover content," introducing students to the main events in history. They also need to teach skills, such as historical thinking, source evaluation, argument construction, and research techniques. Particular "student learning outcomes" or assessments are…

Although nuclear half-life is vital to physics and physical science, and to sensitive societal issues from nuclear waste to the age of the Earth, a true lab on half-life is almost never done at the college or high school level. Seldom are students able to use radioactivity to actually date when an object came into being, as is done in this…

A reanalysis of colonial education is necessary in order to highlight its multifaceted and hybrid nature in specific colonial contexts. Although in general, colonial education served the socio-political needs of the colonial machinery, the colonial government's hegemonic authority over the school curriculum did not operate as a totalising…

One prevalent practice of multicultural education is enlisting multiple perspectives for teaching. Oftentimes, these perspectives enter classrooms via digital texts, simulations/scenarios, primary documents, and debates. Children's and young adult literature play a critical role in these comparisons. However, these multiple perspectives are…

We analyze our method of teaching with primary historical sources within the context of theoretical frameworks for the role of history in teaching mathematics developed by Barbin, Fried, Jahnke, Jankvist, and Kjeldsen and Blomhøj, and more generally from the perspective of Sfard's theory of learning as communication. We present case studies…

In this paper, I discuss one of the most distinguishing features of Jamshid al-Kashi's pedagogy from his "Key to Arithmetic", a well-known Arabic mathematics textbook from the fifteenth century. This feature is the multiple paths that he includes to find a desired result. In the first section light is shed on al-Kashi's life…