This chapter lays out the ways in which Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) influenced the development of the concept of thought experiment. Ernst Mach (1838–1916) is currently more often credited with laying the foundations of contemporary views, and he is sometimes thought to have been little (if at all) influenced by Ørsted. Against these standard accounts, I will show that Ørsted’s and Mach’s descriptions have key features in common. Both thinkers hold that thought experiments: (1) are a method of variation, (2) require the experimenter’s free activity, and (3) are useful in educational contexts for guiding students to arrive at certain conclusions on their own (i.e., to genuinely appropriate new concepts). The process of variation is guided by the search for invariants, some of which do not directly appear in experience. Since it is important that teachers and students be able to bring the same ideal objects to mind, thought experiments play a key role for both Ørsted and Mach in math education. While Ørsted’s emphasis on the role of thought experiments in math has been proposed as a reason why his descriptions are not relevant for contemporary use of thought experiments, I will show how their role in mathematical thinking – stemming from Kant’s descriptions of the method of construction in geometry – are part of a wider account of thought experiments that encompasses their role in the sciences and also philosophy.

Digital technologies influence every facet of our lives – education, health, leisure activities, finances and jobs. You may have heard terms for digital technologies, such as information technology and information and communication technology (ICT). In this chapter, we use digital technology and ICT interchangeably. In the first section, titled ‘Digital technologies and you’, we explore pre-service teachers’ personal and educational experiences with digital technologies and investigate attitudes towards digital technologies in education. A historical overview of technology and associated challenges is presented. The second section, ‘Digital technology in education’, explores the current situation in early childhood, primary and secondary school contexts. It offers some insights into theoretical frameworks, curriculum implications, pedagogical implications and practical considerations for contemporary classrooms. The third section, ‘Using digital technologies in class’, provides numerous suggestions and practical information on how digital technologies can be used for teaching and learning in the classroom.

The terms ‘curriculum’, ‘pedagogy’, ‘assessment’ and ‘reporting’ are often heard. Each of these terms has been interpreted in different ways and, throughout the history of formal education, one or another has been often at the forefront of educational thinking and practice. We consider that these four areas are inextricably interwoven and changes in policy or practice in one area influence each of the others. This chapter introduces some of the literature, research and practice to help develop an understanding of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and reporting. We will discuss the interrelationship and alignment of these four areas, enabling reflection on how changes in each of these areas at a national, system or school level impact the day-to-day work of teachers.

The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), as introduced in Chapter 1, require that teachers not only know the content and how to teach it, but also know their students and how they learn. This chapter introduces the concept of pedagogy and examines the centrality of relationships between teacher, student and content, as a defining feature of pedagogy. Pedagogy is the most outward expression of how a teacher considers that teaching and learning best take place. Teachers should always base their decisions on ‘how’ to teach on their understanding of how the students in their class learn best. This involves a number of considerations, such as their stage of development (physical, cognitive and social), individual interests and preferred ways of learning. A number of different pedagogical frameworks are explored in the chapter, which concludes with a discussion of some of the key elements of exemplary teaching and how these elements are embedded in pedagogy.

The objective of this chapter is to define socio-dramatic play from a cultural-historical perspective and to describe how teachers can become co-players with children in their play. To do this we present case studies from research and a pedagogical toolbox to support children’s participation, learning and development. The chapter begins by outlining children’s socio-dramatic play using a cultural-historical perspective to focus on interactions in shared play. In socio-dramatic play, imagination and creativity are central as children create narratives together. Play creates conditions for children to express and construct meaning with others and to become co-players in a shared imagined world. Adults in early childhood settings traditionally support children’s play by planning, resourcing and observing, although their role as co-player is less understood.

The overabundance of examples in Schoenberg’s textbooks can often be overwhelming. When one solution might have sufficed to illustrate a particular concept, Schoenberg offered many. It was not uncommon for him to compose multiple alternative endings and ossia measures for a single solution, often devoid of aesthetic evaluation, and sometimes of explanatory text altogether. Readers of his texts are familiar with this quirk, but what was the point of such tireless exploration? Schoenberg believed that, through this systematic exploration of possibility, his students would gain the tools necessary to grapple with the unique problems of their own musical ideas. In turn, this emphasis on self-reliance and possibility fostered precisely the stylistic and creative diversity that we find among Schoenberg’s students, from Anton Webern to John Cage. Schoenberg’s emphasis on possibility encouraged a diverse pedagogical legacy that includes film composers, serialists, music theorists and even a composer who late in life saw no contradiction in adding punk rock performance to her résumé.

Writings on hip hop education from hip-hop’s golden age onwards have often concerned themselves with the relationship between educational institutions, pedagogic practices and spaces and the vernacular identities and multicultural literacies of their disadvantaged students. This parallels and is related to the contentious educational debates that erupted during the so-called US culture wars of the 1990s concerning race, cultural identity, relevance and value. Accordingly, the chapter argues that a chief source of hip-hop education’s legitimacy derives from an abiding insistence amongst its practitioners and advocates that the more ostensibly “positive” and “conscious” examples of rap, in keeping with the black cultural continuum, express hip-hop’s inherent didacticism. I describe and examine these issues and their methodological and pedagogic claims – past and present – against a backdrop of moral panic that has long dogged rap music but also supplied it with critical impetus. The final section of the chapter offers a case-study of a recent British hip-hop education programme that seeks to make use of UK drill music to develop the capacities of educationally disaffected school-age young people.

Early childhood teachers in Australia are qualified to teach children from birth to five years of age or birth through to eight years of age depending on their teacher education program and state qualifications. A significant challenge is the need to be knowledgeable about, and comfortable working with, different curriculum framework documents. Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF v2.0) informs practice in early education and care settings for children from birth to age 6, while the Australian Curriculum models the curriculum in the Foundation to Year 10 (hereafter: F–10) formal schooling years. This chapter will provide a contextual foundation for teaching and learning in HASS, beginning with a broad discussion of the Australian Curriculum: HASS in the early years of primary schooling, considered through the lens of the EYLF v2.0. Similarities and differences between the two curriculum documents will then be addressed, as well as how these documents potentially affect children’s learning and how educators teach. Finally, it will be argued that pedagogical practice, specifically inquiry-based learning rather than content-based learning, contributes to effective connections between the foundations for learning developed in the early years settings and transition to the first years of formal schooling.

The introduction by the co-editors both surveys the biography of María Irene Fornés and highlights the significance of Fornés’s work within and beyond the US theatre context. The co-editors also offer a summary overview of the goals of the volume, detailing the thematic and contextual priorities of each of the volume’s four parts (Places and People; Theatre; Culture, Society, and Politics; Legacy). Next, the co-editors offer six potential pathways (Experimentation, Pedagogy, Bilinguality, Networks, Archival Discoveries, "Choose Your Own Adventure") for readers, teachers, and students to follow as they choose "how to use" the volume. Finally, the co-editors conclude with a word of welcome to readers, inviting them to the process of the many as-yet-to-be-told stories of María Irene Fornés in her many contexts.

The previous chapters have explored the teaching methodologies and concepts related to different forms of the Arts, as well as methodologies for integration and organisation. However, in addition to being able to teach the Arts, we need to have in place a system for evaluating the teaching process to ensure the outcomes and goals we wish to achieve are met for the learners. There has been a great deal of research to identify specific teaching practices that can improve children’s outcomes. This chapter does not intend to analyse the validity or otherwise of these outcomes, as these are mandated by the various examination and education boards. In part, this is because it is difficult to isolate any specific technique or learning skill that works for individuals because all children have unique and individual learning styles. For these reasons, the focus of recent research has been to isolate general characteristics. This chapter looks at the application of reflective learning tools to enhance teaching of the Arts, as well as inclusion and diversity in the classroom (specifically disability). Its focus, therefore, is to separate teaching from subjective assessment of teachers.

In Chapter 11, Alan Howe, one of the leading figures in the history of British oracy education, offers a personal history of the implementation of oracy over the last four decades. His essay "From Elocution to Empowerment " starts with Andrew Wilkinson’s 1965 work, before discussing what he calls the five ages of oracy: the Prescriptive Age, Corrective Age, Expressive Age, Participative Age, and Reductive Era. Howe argues that these ages represent shifts in perception and emphasis, from correcting speech to celebrating natural language development and encouraging political engagement. By building carefully on this history, he makes the case that oracy can become a major force for empowerment and social change.

This chapter excavates a conception of autonomy from Olympiodorus’ (495–570) commentary on Plato’s Gorgias. For Olympiodorus, the subject of the dialogue is the ethical principles that lead to constitutional happiness, i.e., the well-being of one who exhibits a proper interior ‘constitution’, psychic arrangement or order. Such a person knows himself insofar as he identifies himself with the rational soul and rules himself accordingly. The principal interlocutors in the dialogue falter and stumble primarily because they do not know themselves, and this self-ignorance renders them heteronomic. The present essay therefore detects in Olympiodorus’ commentary an insistence on self-knowledge as the archaeological ground upon which an autonomous human life is based. By reading the pages of the Gorgias, Olympiodorus aspires to draw forth for his students a notion of freedom that is truly human. This chapter attends to Olympiodorus’ commentary with the hope of accomplishing a similar outcome.

Educators have always harnessed the power of ludic activities for facilitating learning in low-tech teaching contexts, including for the teaching of foreign and second languages (L2s). Most current research on L2 learning with games has focused on informal (naturalistic) learning, has adopted a technology-centric perspective that prioritizes digital games which are ill-suited for most teaching contexts, and, particularly, has neglected the role of teachers. As teacher mediation is critical for enabling student learning, this chapter surveys work that shows how language teachers can leverage the opportunities inherent in games and play with a view to strengthening the naturalistic learning of their students. We spotlight the key role of the teacher in mediating learners’ language and literacy development, before, during, and after L2 activities through and around games. We also consider how the purposeful use of digital technology around games and play supports both learners and teachers in reaching their goals. We illustrate this through exemplary studies that are grounded in various pedagogies, and utilize both analogue and digital games that can be implemented in real classrooms. In doing so, we give equal importance to tools and technology (ludic materials), language learning goals, and pedagogical rigor.

This book has explored a broad variety of ways in which technology can be conceptualized, used, viewed, and researched in the teaching and learning of a second language. This concluding chapter brings together some of the overall trends that the chapters have revealed and explores how technology in second language education can be best capitalized upon for best practice. It also provides insights into how teachers, learners, and administrators can prepare themselves for the advances that are happening in the field, and how these are likely to impact upon research and practice.