Many young people feel distressed about climate change, and pessimistic about what the future holds. Gaps in education about climate change contribute to limited understanding of opportunities for climate mitigation and adaptation, and to a pervasive “discourse of doom.” Here we describe a “game for change” co-designed by climate and education researchers and young people, that aims to shift narratives about climate changed futures toward an active, adaptation-oriented focus.

The Heat Is On is designed to be played by high school classes. Set in 2050, the game takes place on a fictional island called “Adaptania.” Teams of students play the role of town councillors in communities facing the same challenges that Australian towns are experiencing as the climate heats up, including flooding, heatwaves, bushfires, inequality, health issues and economic challenges. By focussing on decision-making for adaptation and resilience, The Heat Is On enables participants to envision climate-changed futures in which communities can thrive. Students learn how to plan and collaborate to prepare for diverse and cascading impacts of climate hazards. We explore the potential for games in climate education, focussing on The Heat Is On as a case study, and share initial learnings from its development and implementation in schools.

This text accompanies the performance A Foot, A Mouth, A Hundred Billion Stars, which premiered at the Lapworth Museum of Geology in the United Kingdom on 18 March 2023, as part of the Flatpack film festival. It includes both the text and a film version, developed during a residency at the museum. Over 18 months, I had full access to the collection and archives, selecting objects that served as prompts for stories about time and memory. A central theme of the work is slippage – misremembering and misunderstanding – as a generative methodology for exploring the connection between the collection, our past, and possible futures.

A Foot, A Mouth, A Hundred Billion Stars combines analogue media and digital technologies to examine our understanding of remembering and forgetting. I used a live digital feed and two analogue slide projectors to explore the relationships between image and memory. This article does not serve as a guide to the performance but instead reflects on the process and the ideas behind the work. My goal is to share my practice of rethinking memory through direct engagement with materials. In line with the performance’s tangential narrative, this text weaves together diverse references, locations, thoughts, and ideas, offering a deeper look into the conceptual framework of the work.

The prominence and significance of research on specific learning differences (SpLDs) in language learning, teaching, assessment, and teacher education have substantially increased in the past ten years, which justifies the need to review the findings of studies conducted in recent years. The growth of the field also requires that the scope of the review is extended to research in the area of L2 assessment and teacher education. In our paper, we first offer a short discussion of different views of disability and inclusion and a succinct summary of the definitions of SpLDs. We then summarize recent research developments in five main areas: (1) the impact of SpLDs on L2 learning and achievement, (2) the identification of SpLDs in multilingual contexts, (3) teaching techniques and programmes in supporting language learners with SpLDs, (4) assessing the second language competence of test-takers with SpLDs, and (5) raising language teachers’ awareness and knowledge of SpLDs.

In our conclusion, we highlight the implications of recent scholarship in this field for language teaching and testing, teacher education, and suggest further research directions.

This article traces the unique set of factors that allowed mid-nineteenth-century coeducation at a medical college traditionally reserved for men. I argue that in the period 1850-1856, a window of opportunity offered a small group of women the chance to pursue medical education at the traditionally all-male regular Cleveland Medical College, at a time when medical training was inaccessible to women. A unique confluence of factors inspired this development, including a temporary fluidity of standards in medical training and practice, rising prospects for women’s access to higher education, the rapidly changing Cleveland urban environment and its progressive women’s network, and the College’s internal dynamics. The female graduates of the Cleveland Medical College joined a pioneer generation of women physicians in the mid-nineteenth-century US who chipped away at long-standing barriers limiting the role of women in medicine.

Speaking is often challenging for language learners to develop due to factors such as anxiety and limited practice opportunities. Dialogue-based computer-assisted language learning (CALL) systems have the potential to address these challenges. While there is evidence of their usefulness in second language (L2) learning, the effectiveness of these systems on speaking development remains unclear. The present meta-analysis attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the effect of dialogue-based CALL in facilitating L2 speaking development. After an extensive literature search, we identified 16 studies encompassing 89 effect sizes. Through a three-level meta-analysis, we calculated the overall effect size and investigated the potential moderating effect of 13 variables spanning study context, study design and treatment, and measures. Results indicated a moderate overall effect size (g = .61) of dialogue systems on L2 learners’ speaking development. Notably, three moderators were found to have significant effects: type of system, system meaning constraint, and system modality. No significant moderating effect was identified for education stage, L2 proficiency, learning location, corrective feedback, length of intervention, type of interaction, measure, and key assessment component. These findings suggest directions for future research, including the role of corrective feedback in dialogue-based CALL, the effectiveness of such systems across proficiency levels, and their potential in diverse learning contexts with the integration of generative artificial intelligence.