This commentary reviews and summarises the strides which neuroscience has made in our present understanding of the development of literacy and numeracy in children. Specifically, it draws attention to key insights from studies which have elucidated the possible neural mechanisms that may account for difficulties in the development of these…

The STEM movement is a recent phenomenon receiving worldwide attention as the darling educational project for school systems and research centres. This interest has no doubt been fuelled by economic rationales of the supposed necessity of STEM for continued material wealth, and the claims that the future will require a different sort of expertise…

The field of learning analytics was founded with the goal to harness vast amounts of data about learning collected by the extensive use of technology. After the early formation, the field has now entered the next phase of maturation with a growing community who has an evident impact on research, practice, policy, and decision-making. Although…

The contemporary education system aides in the development of students' cognitive learning skills to better prepare them for the future; however, education can also prepare students to be more engaged citizens in a democratic society. Civic literacy is a valuable skill for students to learn as it provides a foundation for a better understanding of…

This commentary is a response to those of Hall (2016) and Winebrenner (2016), which in turn were responses to the article the authors wrote on modality preferences and learning styles (Lodge, Hansen, & Cottrell, 2016). There are several key points the authors wish to address in this reply. Most importantly, and aligned with the aims and focus…

A recent study by Lodge, Hansen, and Cottrell (2016) was brought to the attention of the author of this commentary and motivated her to communicate this rebuttal regarding some of the suggested conclusions. The negative results for certain students of changing current classroom practices which have been noticeably successful for them in improving…

The author has been asked to respond to Lodge, Hansen, and Cottrell's recent (2015) paper in this journal and they have done a very thorough and scholarly job of dissecting the weaknesses of modality preference theories. They clearly and carefully analyse the nature of the evidence for modality preference and conclude that there is little if any…