Retrieval practice refers to the act of retrieving information from memory with the intent to promote learning. Although retrieval practice is often operationalized as taking a test, it can occur through many different types of learning activities (e.g., answering a question posed by a teacher, working on a practice problem, writing an essay, using flashcards, having a group discussion). Research on retrieval practice has a long history, but there has been a surge of interest since 2005 in the phenomenon. This large body of research has shown that retrieval practice produces superior long-term retention and transfer of learning to new contexts relative to activities that are predominantly used to study material (e.g., listening to a lecture, reading a textbook, watching a video)—a finding that is commonly referred to as “the testing effect.” Importantly, it is the act of retrieving that causes learning; such direct effects of retrieval practice can be distinguished from its indirect effects on learning. These indirect effects include: providing formative feedback to the learner, incentivizing study, and reducing test anxiety. Research has also identified several factors that moderate the effects of retrieval practice, including experimental design, test format, provision of feedback, and retention interval. In addition, there is ample evidence to support the conclusion that the benefits of retrieval practice are highly generalizable across learner populations, materials and skills, settings, and outcome measures. Given that the mnemonic benefits of retrieval practice are robust and generalize broadly, it is widely recommended as a learning strategy for students and a pedagogical technique for educators.
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Article
The Mnemonic Effects of Retrieval Practice
Cristina D. Zepeda, Emily Een, and Andrew C. Butler
Article
Multiliteracies in Professional Education
Kathryn Hibbert, Mary Ott, Christopher Eaton, and Lin Sun
Multiliteracies theory is part of a growing and evolving body of research tangled up with multiple, intersecting fields: literacies, technologies, pedagogies, socio-materiality, and semiotics, to name a few. It is a theory that has been taken up largely in the professional practice of teacher education but is rapidly emerging as a useful way to think through the complexities of practice in multiple professions such as medical education, or engineering. As learning has come to be understood and framed in ways that acknowledge the temporal, spatial, material, and embodied layers of understanding, practice-based professions are finding ways to investigate and support knowing in practice.
Article
Representing Masculinities in Children’s Literature Series
Troy Potter
Children’s literature operates as discursive social structures that establish young readers’ understanding of gender, including masculinities. Oftentimes, however, children’s literature perpetuates limited or normative constructions of gender. This is particularly the case for two genres that are popular with male readers: fantasy and comedy. Both genres for young readers contribute to the maintenance of a hegemony of masculinity that values independence, action, resourcefulness, and bravery.While some fantasy and comedy series for young readers begin to expand the repertoire of acceptable masculine traits by incorporating empathy and consideration of others, validating more sensitive models of masculinity, they do not necessarily undermine the hierarchy seemingly inherent to masculine dynamics. By understanding the complex and sometimes contradictory messages about masculinity that are presented in books for young people, educators can develop critical ways of reading fiction to engage children in meaningful conversations about gendered identities in order to promote acceptance and understanding of all genders and differences, not just those relating to masculinities.
Article
Social Justice and Equitable Systems in Education
Romina Madrid Miranda and Christopher Chapman
Social Justice is a term that encapsulates many of the problematic issues concerning modern societies. As a reflection of society, the concept has evolved to emphasize different aspects of fairness such as distribution or recognition. One often tacit but central element in this discussion is the articulation of social justice with the development of equitable education systems. In other words, what it means to pursue social justice in educational change and improvement.
To address this question, contemporary ideas of social justice can be brought into the field of educational change and improvement in a more intentional and explicit way to respond to the societal imperatives for justice in education. By tracing the evolution of the key conceptualizations of social justice rooted in political philosophy, it is possible to examine its implications for educational and systemic transformation. Furthermore, from a systems perspective, understanding the ecology of equity can offer important insights into the interplay between schools, education systems, and wider society. The exploration of experiences and approaches in education that aim to disrupt inequities can be used to propose a number of key principles to guide educational change efforts from a social justice perspective, aiming to foster more equitable educational systems.
These principles serve to unpack issues of social justice and move to a more complex and action-oriented perspective that places distribution, recognition, and representation as key to developing more equitable education systems. The six principles are: a focus on learning and teaching; a commitment to collaboration and networking; the use of inquiry, research, and evidence; understanding the contextual nature of justice; investing in support and agency; and
building leadership capacity. The notion of a networked learning system and how this perspective can advance the discourse toward a more explicit agenda for developing socially just approaches in educational research, policymaking, and practice is also helpful. The overarching goal is to stimulate dialogue and action aimed at creating more equitable educational systems that prioritize social justice principles in all facets of education.
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History and Impact of Israeli Siege and Attacks on Education in Gaza, Palestine
Anwar Hussein, Shelley Wong, and Anita Bright
The education system in the Gaza Strip (Palestine) was under the control of the Ottoman Empire (1815–1917) and the British Mandate (1917–1948) and administered by Egypt (1948–1967) and the Israeli government (1967–1993). Since 1993, according to the Oslo Agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the education system has been under the Palestinian Authority (PA). However, the PA has no power over who can enter or exit Gaza by land or by sea. Kindergarten (KG) to Grade 12 education in Gaza faces numerous challenges compounded and exacerbated by the devastating impact of the Israeli blockade and military attacks on Gaza since 2006 when HAMAS was democratically elected. The effect of the Israeli siege and wars on Gaza are manifested in substantial damage in educational facilities, lack of safety for students, teachers, and administrators, and increased emotional and psychological trauma. These factors have led to a drop in students’ motivation and achievement, and an increase in school push-out (dropout) rates. The Israeli blockade resulted in a shortage of educational resources and supplies. Further, the Israeli blockade limited Gazan educators’ ability to participate in international conventions and study visits, and their ability to cooperate and coordinate with the PA Ministry of Education in the West Bank. The K-12 education system in Gaza is composed of two stages: Basic stage (Grades 1–10) and secondary stage (Grades 11–12). There are three types of schools serving students: (a) government public schools, (b) United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools, and (c) private schools. There are external challenges that face education in general; challenges that face the KG sector in particular; and challenges specific to Grades 1–12 education. Some of these challenges include improving the quality of the education system, flexibility and the ability to adapt to change, developing effective teachers’ preparation and training programs, critical shortage of funds to cover education expenditures, the political situation in Palestine and the rift between Gaza and the West Bank ruling authorities, lack of effective coordination between the Gazan Ministry of Education and UNRWA, and overcrowding. KG to Grade 12 education in Gaza faces numerous challenges compounded and exacerbated by the devastating impact of the Israeli blockade and military attacks on Gaza.
Article
Practice Architectures
Christine Edwards-Groves and Peter Grootenboer
The theory of practice architectures has been emerging in common parlance in qualitative research investigating the nature and conduct of education (and other) practices since it was first introduced in 2008. The theory was developed to capitalize on “the practice turn” in social life and organizational activity. Since its inception, the theory of practice architectures has become an influential and widely utilized theory, among the broad family of practice theories focused on the social, cultural, and material world. The theory has been taken up in many countries and in many fields—including education, health, agriculture, environmental science, and business—legitimizing it as a robust way to conceptualize the sociality, situatedness, and happeningness of practices associated with participating in the social world.
As a basic premise, the theory of practice architectures attests that in everyday life- and system-worlds, practices are existentially dynamic, socially constituted, intersubjective activities that are always influenced by practice architectures. Practice architectures are the enabling and constraining conditions that influence what happens among interlocutors as they encounter one another in practices. Understanding practices means attending to ways the intricately interconnected and simultaneously produced sayings, doings, and relatings “hang together” in a project through individual (or subjective) and intersubjective achievements. It is in intersubjective spaces where
• what people can say and think (sayings), in the semantic space shared among interlocutors, is made possible (or difficult or impossible) by the cultural–discursive arrangements found in or brought to a site—that is, by the content and form of shared (or not shared) language and specialist discourses used;
• what people can do (doings), in the physical space-time shared with other embodied beings, is made possible (or not) by the material–economic arrangements—that is, by actions, activities, and work done amid the objects that exist in the site; and
• how people can relate to others and the world (relatings), in the social space shared with other social–political beings, is made possible (or not) by the social–political arrangements—that is, by the relationships of power, agency, and solidarity.
Establishing a deep sense of site is critical for understanding the nature and particularity of practices and practice architectures that shape how education is experienced (produced and reproduced) in the site. The site ontological schematic counters oversimplified or ambiguous perspectives by orienting to the complex linguistic, cultural, interactive, material, temporal, social, and relational constitution of practices as they happen in the local site. By establishing more nuanced site-based understandings, detailed descriptions, and critical explanations about the conditions that prefigure (although do not predetermine) the conduct of practices, transformations to those practices are possible. Consequently, the theory of practice architectures has been described as a transformative resource—because to change education, one must change the practice architectures that enable and constrain its practices. Broadly speaking, therefore, the theory of practice architectures is an integrated theoretical (way of considering), analytical (way of examining), linguistic (way of describing), and transformative (way of changing) resource or frame for studying practices.
Article
Challenging the Nature—Culture Binary Through Urban Environmental Education
Marijke Hecht
Environmental conditions facing our local and global communities in the early 21st-century demand an urgent shift in education toward fostering healthy multispecies communities through stronger relationships between human and more-than-human beings. Environmental education, which has long pushed for interdisciplinary pedagogies that connect people and place, is well positioned to serve this aim. However, for the field to continue to develop and meet the challenges of the 21st century, it needs to address its roots as an outgrowth of science education where entrenched Eurocentric perspectives, such as human exceptionalism and the persistence of a nature–culture binary, are pervasive. These perspectives contribute significantly to the ongoing extraction of natural resources and degradation of habitats, which are tied to pressing environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss. For environmental education to effectively impact learning in ways that lead toward a lasting protection of people and the planet, the field must be more critical of its roots and practices. Urban environmental education, which takes place where the majority of people live globally and in landscapes where humans and more-than-human beings are in close proximity, has the potential to challenge existing practices and continue to grow the field. Rethinking the nature–culture binary and the insistence on human exceptionalism are necessary for transformational improvements to the local landscape and planetary health. Two existing approaches that can support field-level change are critical place-based and Indigenous L/land-based pedagogies, which are drawn from different traditions but both support the transformation of relations between human and more-than-human beings. However, this requires an interrogation of if and/or how non-Indigenous scholars might take up Indigenous philosophies and pedagogies respectfully and ethically.
Article
Critical Perspectives on Positive Youth Development and Environmental Education
Marianne E. Krasny, Tania M. Schusler, Jesse Delia, Anne Katherine Armstrong, and Lilly Briggs
Positive youth development (PYD) assumes that, when given appropriate support, all youth have the capacity to develop the assets that enable them to succeed in life. Such assets include competence, confidence, connection, character, caring, and contribution to community, otherwise known as the six Cs of PYD. Environmental education (EE) programs that focus on youth action and empowerment offer the support needed for youth to develop these assets.
Youth after-school, summer, and residential programs, often serving low-income and minoritized youth, increasingly are using environmental action and learning as a means to achieve PYD outcomes. Yet both PYD and EE have been criticized for not addressing the root causes of poverty and environmental degradation. In response, critical traditions in PYD and EE have emerged, in which youth reflect and act on structural barriers to human and environmental well-being in their communities. As youth and their mentors seek to address systemic inequities impacting themselves and their environment, they develop additional “Critical Positive Youth Development/Environmental Education” assets including critical reflection, efficacy, the ability to take collective action, and community-level empowerment.
Article
Curriculum Development
Dominic Wyse and Yana Manyukhina
The word curriculum refers to the planned activities and experiences that education systems organize for students to help them achieve learning goals that are usually specified at national, school, and classroom levels. Within the realm of the discipline of education, curriculum represents a distinctive field of study in which a key debate has been about the best approaches to curriculum design and delivery. Various kinds of research, such as experimental trials, qualitative research, and comparative analyses, have been employed to analyze and attempt to optimize curricula and associated pedagogies. Philosophical thinking about the purposes of education has also been central to these debates.
An important topic in curriculum study is the extent to which learner-centered approaches, which emphasize the needs and interests of individual learners while addressing broader societal aspirations for education, are appropriate. Learner-centered curricula necessitate pedagogies that allow for differentiated, personalized, and meaningful learning experiences that can accommodate learners’ prior experiences and their interests.
Article
Fostering Indigenous Educational Sovereignty in the Navajo Nation
Jon Reyhner and Joseph Martin
After a long history of U.S. government efforts to take away their independence, culture, and language, since the 1970s the Diné (aka Navajos) have been working through their elected leaders to re-establish their sovereignty and pursuit of self-determination on their terms, including decolonizing the education their children receive in schools. This process has occurred through the strengthening of their elected government, establishing an education division, and adopting educational and accreditation standards that promote the teaching of Diné government, history, and language so that Diné citizens can knowledgeably exercise their democratic rights of self-government. This is important because it has a powerful influence in schools as it defines the important elements of a school and the manner in which Navajo school community members operate. These efforts are part of a global Indigenous movement, leading the United Nations to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 and UNESCO to declare 2022–2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages.
