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Why play works: Conceptual PlayWorlds inspiring learning, imagination and creativity in education
Marilyn Fleer; Kelly-Ann Allen; Anne Clerc-Georgy; Leigh Disney · Monash University · 2024
The focus of this textbook is on play and learning through a Conceptual PlayWorld. This evidence informed model helps teachers to plan innovative practices relevant for a range of discipline concepts. The teachers and children after reading/hearing a children’s book or nursery rhyme or fairytale jump into the story as characters from the book/story, go on adventures, meet challenges that they solve and return to the real world enriched, and excited to go back in for another adventure (potentially bringing with them things they have learned to enrich their play). The 5 characteristics of planning for a Conceptual PlayWorld are: 1) Selecting a story, 2) Designing an imaginary play space; 3) Planning an exciting entry and entry into that space; 4) Planning a problem that the characters of the story (children in role) will meet and need to solve using concepts; 5) Planning the role of the adults in the imaginary play. This evidence-informed model forms the foundation of each chapter in the book. Students will learn: ● what is a Conceptual PlayWorld ● the research that underpins a Conceptual PlayWorld ● how to plan and implement a Conceptual PlayWorld ● how to contextualise a Conceptual PlayWorld for specific ages, contexts and discipline content ● how to assess and make learning visible in a Conceptual PlayWorld ● to be leaders and innovators by designing creative and imaginative programs using a Conceptual PlayWorld model of pedagogical practice ● the utility of Conceptual PlayWorlds for creativity, imagination, and wellbeing.
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Teaching Through Rather than About: Analyzing Black Histories and Geographies with Primary Sources
Ken Carano; Amit Kobrowski · Open Oregon Educational Resources · 2025
This book aims to transform how Black histories are taught in the K-12 curriculum by emphasizing instruction through Black voices rather than about them. Using LaGarrett King’s Black Historical Consciousness framework, each chapter provides a structured, inquiry-based lesson plan incorporating primary sources, and some examples of engaging student activities. The book gives educators the tools to challenge biased narratives and create inclusive lessons that help students think critically, build empathy, and better understand Black histories.
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EDUC5272M Module Companion
Chrissi Nerantzi · University of Leeds Open Books · 2025
This module invites people to engage critically with the intersection of digital technologies, learning theories and societal change. Through four thematic units - covering the digital learner and educator, learning frameworks in a digital age, inclusion and accessibility in digital environments, and datafication & generative AI in education - the course fosters reflection, dialogue and creative experimentation in one’s own context. Participants will explore how digital tools shape and are shaped by education, society and development; situate their practice within key debates and theories; and apply these insights to enhance inclusive, thoughtful digital pedagogy. Ultimately, this module supports learners in interrogating, innovating and adapting their digital-educational practices in a rapidly evolving world.
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Meraki: Towards transformative learning in higher education
Chrissi Nerantzi · University of Leeds Open Books · 2025
Meraki is a vibrant addition to the world of open educational resources. Created with creativity, openness, and collaboration at its core, this living book reveals the impact education can have when it’s approached with heart, curiosity, and innovation.Across 13 engaging articles, it offers a personal yet widely relatable exploration of critical and creative teaching. It encourages readers to think differently about learning—both inside and outside the classroom—and how these experiences can be meaningfully connected.What makes Meraki stand out is its blend of reflective writing, practical ideas, and interdisciplinary thinking. Contributions from a wide range of voices—students, educators, and scholars—transform the book into an ongoing conversation about learning, growth, and change.Because it’s openly licensed, anyone can contribute. That means the book continues to grow and evolve as a collaborative project shaped by its readers.Meraki isn’t just a collection of articles—it’s an invitation to reimagine what education can be when we embrace creativity, inclusion, and shared ownership.
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The Role of Equity and Diversity in Early Childhood Education
Krischa Esquivel; Emily Elam; Jennifer Paris; Maricela Tafoya · College of the Canyons · 2020
Guided by cultural beliefs and principles, families select experiences, convey attitudes, and impart knowledge to their children to prepare them for adulthood. Accordingly, it is important for program staff to learn to collaborate effectively with families. To develop a partnership and to tap into the family as a primary resource, early childhood educators must reach out to, learn about, and develop strong partnerships with families. This process requires openness to learning and an effort to understand the individuality of each family and the diversity of the families from which the children come.
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Designing Learning Experiences for Inclusivity and Diversity: Advice for Learning Designers
Keith Heggart; Mais Fatayer; Camille Dickson-Deane; Puvaneswari Arumugam · UTS ePRESS · 2024
Designing Learning Experiences for Inclusivity and Diversity stands out as a crucial guide for educators and learning designers committed to creating equitable learning environments. Grounded in the Australasian higher education experience, this book delves into the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), offering practical strategies to ensure that every student, regardless of their background or abilities, has the opportunity to succeed. This unique edited text offers a blend of theoretical insights and real-world examples. You can select from a wide range of topics including socially just pedagogy, open educational practices, the role of third-space academics and professionals, Indigenous-led learning design, designing for equity and cultural responsiveness, lived experience of disability, and working with students and staff in inclusive learning design. The book also explores the potential of digital tools and platforms to transform the learning experience. Readers will learn how to leverage technology to create interactive and engaging content that enhances learning outcomes for all students. The authors provide practical advice on integrating these technologies into the curriculum, making learning more accessible and enjoyable. Designing Learning Experiences for Inclusivity and Diversity addresses the critical role of assessment in the learning process. The book offers a comprehensive overview of various assessment methods, from formative assessments that provide ongoing feedback to summative assessments that measure overall achievement. By aligning assessment strategies with learning objectives, educators can create a more coherent and effective learning experience. Readers will find a wealth of resources, including case studies, practical tips, and reflective exercises. Whether you are a seasoned learning designer or a newcomer to the field, Designing Learning Experiences for Inclusivity and Diversity provides the knowledge and inspiration needed
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Understanding the Whole Child: Prenatal Development through Adolescence
Jennifer Paris; Antoinette Ricardo; Dawn Rymond · College of the Canyons · 2021
An Open Educational Resources Publication by College of the Canyons
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Strategies for Conducting Literary Research
Barry Mauer; John Venecek · University of Central Florida · 2022
This book, built in PressBooks with financial support from the UCF Digital Learning Course Redesign Initiative, contains 14 chapters, each of which contains two to six pages about the process of literary research. Pages contain learning objectives, infographics, videos, examples, key takeaways, and exercises. The course contains numerous discussion areas and quizzes. It also contains a “Foundational Materials” assignment that provides a platform for student success with whatever research project their instructor assigns. The book is highly flexible and instructors may use all or any part of the book within their own webcourse.
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The STEM Advantage: Career Planning and Internship Strategies for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Postgraduate Students
Ben Archer · James Cook University · 2025
This comprehensive guide bridges the gap between academic learning and professional application, offering a structured framework developed through experiences of students successfully completing their internship programs. Educators and students alike will benefit from practical methodologies that transform theoretical knowledge into workplace readiness, with strategic guidance for creating personalised career trajectories and maximising internship experiences.
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Microlearning: Engaging learning experiences made easy
Chris Kossen · University of Southern Queensland · 2025
This book is a practical ‘how to’ guidebook on how microlearning design and delivery principles and techniques can be applied to your learning materials and teaching based on my application and development of microlearning. In keeping with the practical focus of this book, theory and research literature are kept to a minimum and included where they aid practical understanding.
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Experimental Design and Technical Writing for Engineers
Susan Ely · University of Southern Indiana · 2024
This text is intended for undergraduate engineering students completing a technical writing course. As engineers complete technical writing in conjunction with research activities, this work also includes a basic overview of experimental design and the implications of robust quantitative methodologies. Hallmarks of quantitative research, best practices in presentation of data and a brief description of the use of descriptive statistics in data analysis are also provided. Technical communications for engineers often include industry related documents like memos, executive summaries, case studies, quality and process documents, standard operating procedures and requests for proposals. These documents are discussed, in addition to formal technical reports. The text also includes best practices in engineering oral presentations and the impact of Artificial Intelligence on technical communications. Ethical implications of engineering communications are also discussed from a framework of professional integrity as defined by the National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics. Students using this text should be capable of communicating, in both verbal and written formats, in a way that clearly, concisely and correctly conveys engineering principles, projects and concepts to both technical and nontechnical audiences.
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Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies
Ash Barber; Mais Fatayer; Rani McLennan; Alice Luetchford · Council of Australian University Librarians · 2024
Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies is a curated, peer-reviewed, openly-licensed anthology comprising scholarly contributions from esteemed professionals including librarians, researchers, learning and teaching teams, and engaged open education practitioners across Australia. Future editions will seek to extend this coverage to Aotearoa New Zealand, and the broader Asia-Pacific region. The primary aim of this initiative is to illuminate the pivotal role of open educational practices (OEP) in the advancement of learning and teaching methodologies in the region. By showcasing diverse case studies, our goal is to foster greater awareness and appreciation for open practices, champion inclusivity and equity within educational spheres, and provide practical examples of open educational practices which can be adapted by readers for use in their own contexts.
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Don’t Cheat Yourself: Scenarios to clarify collusion confusion
Katherine Seaton · La Trobe University · 2023
Ensuring academic integrity in mathematical tasks presents a unique challenge, for university students and for their assessors, and one that hitherto has been under-examined. Drawing on her twenty years of experience in mathematics education, the recent academic integrity research literature, and on what students say about why misconduct occurs, the author examines this issue head-on. Don’t Cheat Yourself: Scenarios to clarify collusion confusion facilitates intentional consideration of the nature and purpose of assessment in mathematics, and of how some types of interactions between students undermine that purpose. Pertinent and realistic scenarios are provided as prompts for discussion, through which students in mathematical disciplines can come to a better understanding of what constitutes copying and collusion, identify strategies for finding support, be warned of the short- and long-term consequences of misconduct, and be set up to learn collaboratively and work legitimately.
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A Guide to Writing in Law School
Steven Tudor; Stephanie Falconer · Council of Australian University Librarians · 2024
A Guide to Writing in Law School is intended to help law students to develop their writing skills. Writing clearly and effectively is a vital legal skill. Lawyers use this skill daily. Law graduates need, therefore, to have a solid competency in clear and effective writing. This book aims to help students improve their writing by presenting various pieces of advice, tips, warnings and encouragement. It contains general chapters on planning, clear writing, and acknowledging your sources, as well as dedicated chapters on some of the specific writing tasks that law students undertake: case briefs, legal problem-solving, essays, and law reform submissions. With effort and practice, virtually everyone can improve their writing. A Guide to Writing in Law School is not only for students having particular difficulties. Those who already write well will find ideas here that will help them become even better writers.
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Practical introduction to writing reviews in health research
Dell Horey; Fernanda Buenfil; Joanne Marcucci · Council of Australian University Librarians · 2024
This book is a practical guide to writing about health research, which includes elementary reviews of the research literature and simple research reports. The goal is to teach you how to write about research clearly and with confidence.
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ReStorying Education: Critical Perspectives in Public Education
Thor Gibbins; Ed Beck; Kjersti VanSlyke-Briggs · SUNY Oneonta · 2024
ReStorying Education: Critical Perspectives in Public Education offers a foundational exploration of public education in the United States using different perspectives and critical analysis of education and educational policy. From showcasing how popular media creates narratives about teachers and school to a case study of the education system outside the United States, this text offers multiple viewpoints and purposes of education to give readers studying education a multi-faceted story of the social, political, and personal purposes of public education. Each chapter details a restorying of key aspects of education critical to developing a more nuanced understanding of public education: popular media narratives, historical, curricular, philosophical, and political.
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Leading Assessment for Inclusion
Joanna Tai; Johanna Funk; Lois Harris; Joanne Dargusch · Deakin University · 2024
Assessment should benefit all students’ learning and retention. However, current systems do not take into account the diverse characteristics, backgrounds, and situations of students. Instead, universities rely on accommodations – which are only available to specific groups – to make case-by-case adjustments, rather than proactively improving assessment designs in ways that are socio- culturally, and research informed, for the purposes of inclusion. This resource is an outcome of a project which explored assessment policy and practice across the university sector. It introduces assessment for inclusion concepts, drawing on curated resources and case study examples, to offer introductory considerations for anyone in higher education interested in being a leader in assessment for inclusion, at all levels from the classroom through to institutional decision makers. This focus on the distributed leadership of assessment for inclusion aligns with the idea that more than what individuals can achieve alone, it is also how people can lead, promote, inspire, and support others to do the same. This resource has been created with the intention to raise questions for sharing with colleagues, to facilitate the discussion of problems with inclusion in assessment, and to support the development of context-appropriate strategies around assessment design and implementation. This resource was designed to support students in the Graduate Certificate of Higher Education Learning and Teaching at Deakin University, specifically in the assessment unit, EEE741 “Designing and Implementing Assessment for Learning in Higher Education”.
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Communication Concepts
Erin Hawley · Deakin University · 2024
Communication challenges abound in the 21st century. Communicators everywhere are struggling to connect with diverse, distracted audiences, in both urgent and everyday contexts. In other words, communication has never been more vital, but it’s becoming harder and harder to be heard. In this book, we make sense of communication. From multiple perspectives, we unpack the practices, politics, pleasures, and problems that are activated when meaning is shared across real and virtual spaces. This book will help you use the thinking tools of communication theory to understand why communication matters and how it impacts (and is impacted by) our rapidly changing world.
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Communication and Teamwork Skills to Support Neurodiversity
Teagan Menhenett; Nick Milne; Siva Krishnan · Deakin University · 2025
A significant challenge for neurodivergent students is the transition to studying in a new environment. This book focuses on assisting students with this transition by guiding them through different learning activities and information to support the team-based learning they will engage in during their degree. The resources in this book are designed to be accessible for all students and staff, with the aim of developing an understanding of disability and neurodiversity, teamwork and communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with peers to achieve common goals. The resources shared here can be utilised within individual units to support student skill development in inclusivity, engagement with others and the capacity to contribute towards highly functional teams.
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HyFlex Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Educational Innovation
Lisa Jacka; Julie Lindsay · University of Southern Queensland · 2025
This comprehensive guide explores HyFlex learning - an innovative approach that combines hybrid flexibility to transform teaching and learning experiences. Authors Lisa Jacka and Julie Lindsay expertly demonstrate how HyFlex empowers students through choice, flat learning, and accessibility, creating truly equivalent learning experiences regardless of mode.Perfect for educators, course coordinators, and learning designers, this resource provides practical strategies for implementing digital-first design, overcoming common barriers, and reimagining assessment practices. Through case studies, interactive reflections, and implementation roadmaps, readers will discover how to effectively integrate educational technologies to support transformative pedagogies.Whether you're beginning your HyFlex journey or enhancing existing practices, this book offers a flexible approach to engagement. Read it linearly or explore specific sections based on your needs. Embrace the future of education where learner autonomy, accessibility, and equivalent experiences converge to create meaningful connections in any learning environment.