Can biology A-levels be trusted to look after the future teaching of high quality ecological science?

‘The primary place in which to work at ecology is necessarily in the field’ Tansley (1952/1987) Most contemporary ecologists could not envisage a world without fieldwork....

The challenge of researching dialogic interactions in digital classroom contexts

Language is the most ubiquitous and flexible of the meaning-making tools. As such, it is a teacher’s main pedagogic tool (Littleton & Mercer, 2013). ‘Classroom dialogue’ can be thought of as...

Supporting early-childhood teachers with integrating a humanoid robot to enhance learning

Anthropomorphic robots are increasingly being used as a technology in early childhood settings, and they have been found to enhance social interaction (Tanaka, Cicourel & Movellan, 2007), support...

Drawing a line in the sand: Reflective practice using ‘sandboxing’ with HE students

The future of educational research in Wales

The ability to reflect in and on practice (Schön, 1983; 1991) is an integral professional skill within the field of education. This metacognitive process develops effective practitioners and...

Action research in the classroom: Applying spacing and retrieval practice

The future of educational research in Wales

I have been a classroom teacher for nearly two decades, but have only recently undertaken action research. In this post I describe my experiences with spacing (Bjork & Bjork, 2014; Cepeda et al,...

Aretaic pedagogy: How we can transform the aesthetics of good teaching?

Aretaic pedagogy is suggested as a refreshing paradigm of good teaching, putting at its centre, instead of a knowledge-based perspective, a virtue-based approach to education. Its origins are in...

Using technology for teaching independent-living skills to children with cognitive disabilities

Independent-living skills training is a core service offered by almost every rehabilitation centre for children with cognitive disabilities. The ulti-mate goal is to help children reach a high...

The battle against being educated

I have been publicly exploring the issue of disruption, violence and students’ challenging behaviour in post-school classrooms since 2000 (Lebor, 2000). Susan Wallace has also carried out...

A new tool to help teachers as digital learning designers

We began with a sense of mission: to support teachers in making effective use of learning technologies. Educational research has done little so far to help teachers into the digital age; policy...

Reflecting on the conference season: Where did your presentations end up as a result of social media dissemination?

As you reflect on the BERA Conference, have you thought about where images of and reflections about your presentations ended up as a result of social media dissemination? Who heard about them, who...

A new approach to observing different learners’ interactive behavior and learning performance in cMOOCs

With the development of web 2.0 technology and social media, learners can share, collect, and edit content with peers or friends to create knowledge. In these social spaces, learning approaches...

Longitudinal qualitative research to look at what works for children with conduct disorders

I was interviewing a teacher in a school for excluded pupils who had been providing one-to-one teaching to a child in a longitudinal study I was conducting. We were talking about the very...